How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (28 page)

Hang up! Regret my angry tone! Hate myself! Cry. Talk to myself out loud.

“I wish I had had sex with him…”

That’s not the wish that transports me back to a time where all this misery could be avoided, and I didn’t do the act that I needed to perform to make the wish that does transport me back, but a girl can still wish, right?

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Oh, no.

“Who is it?”

“I’m worried that if I tell you, you won’t let me in,” he says through the door.

“John?”

I’m shocked. I didn’t really expect to hear from him again, no less have him show up at my door. Did I just flashback to some time or event I don’t remember? I run to the mirror.

Nope. I still look like shit.

I’d better do something about that! I quickly wipe away my tears, run a brush through my hair. Give up on that, and put my hair in a messy bun. Trust me, it’s an improvement. I splash some water on my face, throw off my dirty pajamas, throw on the closest casual dress I can reach from the pile of laundry on the floor, and go to the door.

“Are you okay?” he still says, as he notices my appearance. I did what I could, but obviously, I need a good hour or two to make any significant improvements.

I nod, with lingering tears in my eyes, and to my stupefaction, he pulls me in for a tender hug.

“Come here,” he says, sweetly rubbing my back and taking responsibility for my despair, “I never should’ve broken up with you. I’m sorry.”

“Really?” I am genuinely surprised, “I mean, why? What I told you was so crazy.”

“I know,” he agrees, “but I believe you.”

Well there’s an interesting turn of events!

“You do?” He nods.

“Not too long ago, I had a similarly weird experience, where I thought I got in a car accident, and I saw my life flash before my eyes, just like they say it will. And there were a couple of parts in there, that weren’t entirely familiar. And they involved having sex… with you. Three times. Once on the night we met at K-Bar, and once in the woods, and once—I think it was the first time I came over here for dinner or something like that. It was definitely here.” My face drops to the ground, and I think he can see that I know what he’s talking about.

Reassured, he goes on, “Then I saw the white light, and I floated toward it, for a long, long time, and I came into an open space where I recognized the spirits of people and dogs that I’d loved, but were dead. And then I suddenly got sucked away from them, and—I sound crazy, don’t I?” I shake my head no. “Because after that, we were still just camping, and I figured that I had hallucinated the whole thing, like some elaborate déjà-vu—even though you were hugging me and kissing me like I’d just come back from the dead.”

I can’t even speak right now, I’m so amazed this is happening. So I just nod, like a mute.

“So, I guess that’s why I thought that maybe there was some small chance that you weren’t lying and we really did have sex.” I nod, and he continues, “In which case, I want another chance to give you what you want.”

He wants to give me another chance. I am loving this side of him. He is open-minded. He is accepting of my faults and mistakes.

He finishes his thought, “Everyone deserves a second chance, right?”

“And sometimes a third, and a fourth, or a fifth,” I concur, still nodding and smiling stupidly at my new found happiness, not to mention my new found ability to exercise my vocal chords.

He hugs me, and kisses me, and hugs me some more. He is so happy that I’m agreeing to this. He knows we’ve had sex, and he really wants to be with me anyway! He loves me. For real!

He opens the front door and grabs something he’s left outside by it, “Here, I got you something to wear for this. It’s something I think would look nice on you.” He hands me a box.

Inside it is a beautiful dress. He really does know what would look nice on me.

“Put it on,” he says enthusiastically, “I want to take you somewhere special and do this right this time.”

His perpetual smile is back, and so is mine.

Chapter 32

“Somewhere special” turns out to be the same salsa club we’ve gone to on our multiple salsa dancing dates. I guess it’s special enough. I mean, we have had a lot of dates here, and we even talked about it on the first night we met. That said, this place must somehow have more meaning for him than it does for me.

“It’s our club,” I point out, as I get out of the car, looking hot in my new dress.

John takes my hand and leads me inside, “Yes, but it’s more special than you think.” Good, so it wasn’t just me being skeptical of our relationship to this place. “You haven’t seen the rooftop, yet!”

He walks me through the club, past all the expert dancers twirling and shaking, to a back door I’m not sure we’re allowed to exit through in case of a non-emergency.

Behind the club, there is a ladder, leading to the roof. I’m not exactly dressed for scaling walls, but John seems so excited to show me this rooftop, that I produce my best Spiderman impression anyway. He goes up ahead of me, and as I get to the top, he lends me his hand.

“It’s the most romantic place I’ve ever been,” he exclaims, accidentally demonstrating that he’s been here with someone besides me.

That said, he’s not wrong. It is very romantic. It’s got 360 views of the City, the Bay, the Pacific Ocean, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s got little green shrubs surrounding the protective railing, interspersed with ivy, bougainvillea, and large pots of roses along the perimeter. The greenery is laced with classy white Christmas lights. The kind you can leave up year round. There’s a couch and a love seat surrounding a small table, with a candle burning brightly, as if it were expecting us. And in the far corner, across from the ladder’s edge, there is a beautiful, old-fashioned canopy bed. It’s like a million dollar loft apartment that’s all glass windows and no roof. The other thing that makes it special is that only those in the know can enjoy it.

“How did you find this place?” I have to ask.

“Someone who worked here showed it to me, and I’ve always thought it would’ve been the perfect place to do this,” John gets on one knee, and opens the ring box. “Samantha Harper, will you marry me, in a proper wedding ceremony, surrounded by all our friends and family?”

After all that we’ve been through, something tells me I should think about this, but I don’t.

“Yes! Yes! I would love to!”

He puts the ring on my finger. Oh my God, I have a ring on my finger. And it’s from John, the man I’ve been chasing all year! And it’s big! And beautiful! And perfect! Lacey can have Marty! Marty can take Lacey away from me. I don’t care. I’ve got John Hollister!

I lower myself to my knees to meet John where he is, and I kiss him. It’s romantic and enchanting. It’s that moment you read about in fairy tales. And it’s mine.

The salsa music seeps through the walls, setting a tone of sexiness and making us feel like our movie moment has its very own soundtrack. It thumps through the ceiling below us. It thumps through my heart. It thumps through our kiss. And then there is a loud thump.

Another kissing couple has become so caught up in their own lustful feelings, that they haven’t noticed us kneeling in their path, and they’ve tripped right over John, landing on the ground next to us. We hear them yelp from the hit, and then burst out laughing together.

For a moment, John and I are confused. But then John says the most pivotal thing he’s ever said in front of me.

“Colette?”

The woman in the couple looks up at him, and with her French accent says, “John?”

“Colette?” I repeat, wondering if I’ve just met John’s ex-wife.

“John?” Colette’s companion asks, apparently having a revelation similar to mine.

Colette is striking looking. But more pertinent than that is how much she looks like me. Not that I’m striking. If anything, I’d say that I’m the poor-man’s version of her, and not vice-versa. Her hair is cut like mine. The dress John gave me to wear tonight has the same shape and style as hers. I’m even starting to think that he probably bought it at Colette’s favorite boutique. How else would he know where to get something like this?

Colette’s new guy also looks back and forth between us as if he’s seeing double. In fact, from the way Colette is looking at me, it’s starting to appear as if John is the only one here who hasn’t noticed our resemblance.

“What are you doing here?” John asks Colette.

“Here at this club? I work here. You know this.” Wait, Colette is the “someone who worked here who showed John this place”? Why would he propose to me at her place of work? Is he mental?

“Why am I here on this rooftop?” Colette continues, “I was going to make love to my fiancé, but it seems to be a queue.” God, her little French accent is annoyingly cute! I do not like this at all.

John all but ignores the bizarreness of the situation he’s created for me, and decides to get to know his ex-wife a little better.

“Yeah, I had heard you might be engaged already… Congratulations.”

I see him trying to be cool about it, but he is not cool about it. Is this what his proposal to me was all about? Is he just competing with her, because he heard that she got engaged? Considering how they’re acting around each other, it’s becoming all too clear to me that she’s the one who did the breaking up. What if this proposal didn’t have anything to do with whether or not I had sex with him?

Colette notices my ring, and with completely non-jealous sincerity says, “Congratulations to you, too.”

John laughs awkwardly. But he’s not the only one feeling that way. We all do. Colette and her fiancé may be thinking about how to remove themselves from this uncomfortable situation, but all I can think is:

“She looks exactly like me.”

Colette giggles knowingly, “It would seem John has a ‘type’.”

“Yeah,” I agree, “and it’s you.”

Okay, so maybe I just took a weird situation and made it weirder, but I don’t care. I’m finally putting it all together. Almost everything he’s ever said to me has been about her. The salsa, the backpacking, the world music, like Les Nubians, the French food, Alamo Square Park, this dress—this proposal! Even the deep sense of comfort he seemed to derive from the sound of my peeing in his doorless bathroom now seems like nothing more than a half-sleeping imagining that she had returned to him, or perhaps, never left.

“When you described your perfect relationship to me,” I inquire, “have you been looking forward to what you could have with me, or have you just been trying to recreate what you lost with her?”

John seems confused by the directness of my question. Colette and her guy can no longer afford to pussy-foot around figuring out how to get out of here.

“Perhaps we should come back later,” Colette suggests, in her cute little sexy French accent, before guiding her fiancé back to the ladder from whence they came.

John looks supremely embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Funny thing is, I’m not even mad. What I feel is relieved. It finally all makes sense. It finally all adds up. All the breakups! This is why he freaks out after sex. It’s like Marty said, “The man goes back to his pre-arousal state of mind—logical and clear-headed.” And that’s when he suddenly realizes that I’m not her. And I’m never going to be…

“It’s not me… it’s you!” I don’t know if it’s wrong that I expressed those words with elation, but I did, because that’s what I finally feel.

John is vulnerable. He doesn’t know what to say. So I do the talking.

“I saw that I wasn’t the person you wanted me to be,” I offer consolingly, “I guess I thought I could fix it. I thought I could fix anything. But you can’t fix love. You can only find someone that you don’t have to fix.”

My mind is suddenly clear and at peace, as I remove the ring from my finger and give it back to him.

“You were right,” I explain, “you’re not ready.”

I kiss him on the cheek, and leave him alone with his thoughts, on the rooftop. I can take a cab home from here.

~

I get home, and as luck would have it, the moment I throw away the man who was finally willing to be there to unzip my dress, I can’t unzip my dress. It feels like it has cooties, as I struggle to get it off me. Everything about it represents what’s been wrong with the 31st year of my life.

I try to ride it up. I try to flex my shoulders around. I get on my back and flip my legs over my head, but none of my old standards are working. Why did I let John put this dress on me?

I know! The Apartment Sevens always walk by when I’m in compromising positions, so why don’t I try to get the dress off over my head, and then once my skivvies are showing, step out my front door. They’re not the most charitable people, but I’m sure they’ll help me get this zipper down. As stupid as the idea sounds, I do it anyway.

“Help!” I cry, hoping they’ll come by. Of course, for the first time ever, they aren’t around.

You know what? This is a job for Lacey. I don’t care what she says, or that she doesn’t want to talk to me. She’s my friend, and friends don’t let friends get stuck in dresses that ex-boyfriends put them in, to dress them up as their ex-wives!

I pull my dress back down, grab my keys, purse, whatever, and storm over to Lacey’s house. She is going to talk to me, whether she likes it or not. She’s also unzipping this nightmare.

First thing Lacey does when she sees me is slam the door in my face.

“Lacey,” I yell through the door, “I need your help. I can’t get this zipper undone.”

It sounds like she’s already gone back upstairs.

I decide to climb the fire escape. Ever since the 1906 earthquake, when half the city burned down, San Francisco houses are required to have ugly fire escapes blocking their windows. Normally, the visual pollution of it gets on my nerves. Today, I’m a fan. Plus, I’ve already climbed one ladder in this dress, so why not make it a ritual?

At the top, I let myself into her house through an open window. She could call the police and have me removed, but she won’t.

“Aaah!” she screams, startled by my uninvited entrance.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” I confront her with.