Life As I Blow It (10 page)

Pause. “Oh, okay. You understand …?”

“Look, it's obvious we should just be friends; that's what we are. Don't worry about it and let's not ever discuss it again!” I screamed.

“Okay. You sure it's all right? I feel kind of …”

“Like an asshole?”

Silence.

“I'm joking! You're not an asshole. I have to go to class, then I have a date later, so let's talk next week!”

“A date …?”

“Yes. Why … are you jealous?”

“I don't know, I …”

“I'm kidding. But I do have to get to class!” I slammed down the phone.
That went really well
, I lied to myself.
Totally normal
.

Luckily the volume of my voice alerted all of my roommates to the situation and I didn't have to come out and
retell my sob story. Instead they were just in the living room waiting to give me a big group hug. Thank God I lived with the sorority girls, because the theater girls usually smelled like patchouli. That hug at least smelled like a nice Yankee Candle.

I spent the next several weeks getting really intoxicated, even more than normal. I was trying to remember if I had ever felt that kind of pain before. I thought about Bucky. I thought about Rhonda Lewis and the hickey. I decided that this felt worse. I decided that when all of that happened I was a foolish kid. Now I was a nineteen-year-old woman and I could feel
real
feelings. I was feeling very dramatic. Thank God I was a drama major.

H
aving my heart broken by Andy proved to be amazing for my sex life. In the theater department, the whole “dating the co-stars” thing isn't exaggerated. It's like what you hear about movie stars, but on a much more pathetic level. There was one exception: I was in a show called
The House of Bernarda Alba
, and I didn't hook up with anybody during that time. It was an all-female cast and I wasn't one of those “experimental” theater girls. If you've never heard of that show, it's a Spanish tragedy. It never occurred to any of us that it was ridiculous for eight girls with Southern accents to be wandering around whining about our lost love, Pepe el Romano.

Since I wasn't taking men seriously anymore, I developed
a crush on a guy named Steven. He was younger than me, eighteen to my twenty. I usually dated guys at least a couple of years older than me, so I was feeling good about how much I was branching out. Steven was really, really cute and really, really interested in me. He was also a virgin. I became very interested in what it would be like to date someone who didn't have a sexual connection to anybody else but me. It seemed like that would make me really important.

Steven and I started hanging out after rehearsals for a show that we were in called
The American Clock
. He played a young guy and I played an aunt. It made making out a little creepy but I worked through it. There was something very empowering about being a couple of years older than him. I felt as if I were this wise older woman who came into his life to teach him the ways of the world. It was really helping me with my role, too. He, on the other hand, was just ready to ditch his virginity.

The sex itself wasn't so bad, but then again my standards were still low. It was at least better than with Andy. In college, sex is very rushed and things are pushed and twisted and you wake up wondering if your nipples will ever be the same.
Let's take this slow and find out what feels good
doesn't really start to happen until your late twenties. And that's only if you figure out that it's okay to ask for it. The bigger problem that I encountered with taking Steven's virginity was the overwhelming feeling of responsibility that followed.

Guys don't have that feeling of responsibility after sex; at least Bucky didn't. He was only interested in high-fiving the other morons in the locker room. That was not the case
for me with Steven. The second we were finished, which was about two seconds after we started, I felt the weight of the world on my chest. Lying next to him, I started to panic.

What am I supposed to do now? He probably wants to marry me. I'm not prepared for that kind of commitment. I'm moving to California the second I graduate. Successful actresses don't date guys who have only fucked one girl. This is a disaster
.

I quickly called it quits. I couldn't end things while we were still in the show, because I didn't want his performance to suffer. So the day after it closed, I asked him to meet me in the park. He rode up on his bike wearing a silly-looking newsboy cap. We sat on a bench and talked for a couple of hours. Within the first five minutes, I told him we could no longer date. He said it was okay, then I cried and rambled on for the next hour and fifty-five minutes while he patiently comforted me for breaking up with him.

“It's okay, Sarah, I understand. We can still be friends.”

“Friends? Oh my God, you're so young and innocent! You can't be friends with someone that you're in love with! Believe me, I know.”

“If you're in love with me, why are you breaking up with me?”

“
No
, you're in love with
me
.”

“Um, I just kind of thought—”

“I'm sorry, but this is the way it has to be,” I interrupted. “I have to go.” I walked away dramatically.

I usually find that if I end a relationship, I'm more devastated than if the other person ends it. If I make the decision not to be with someone, I'm closing the door on a future with them, but it's my choice. So if it's the wrong choice, that's on me. If
they
break things off with
me
then I
don't have to feel responsible, and I don't have to question whether I just walked away from the perfect guy, since I wasn't the one doing the walking. Don't get me wrong; it still hurts but it's somehow more reassuring. I
had
broken up with Steven, but in this case I knew I wouldn't have any regrets.

The next play I was in was called
Bus Riley's Back in Town
. It's a play about a guy named Bus Riley who is back in town. My co-star was a guy named Nick. Nick liked to drink whiskey.

Nick lived with his girlfriend but he was miserable with her. Really everything made him miserable, but he covered it up with moments of what seemed like joy. I assumed that I could make him happy. I can't say for sure that he was manic-depressive, but I
can
say for sure that he reminded me a lot of my Uncle John, who was manic-depressive. John was someone who when I was younger I thought was one of the happiest people that I'd ever met. I later found out that my parents just didn't let me around him when he was having an “episode.” When they did finally decide that I was old enough to be told that he was sick, I insisted on seeing him. My dad made arrangements and we paid Uncle John a visit in Sacramento. I was about thirteen and we met him at a diner. It felt like he didn't want us to see where he lived, which turned out to be the case because he didn't have a home. My grandma was secretly harboring him even though she'd been told over and over that she was enabling him; everyone else kept him at a distance since he refused to stay on his medication and get the help he so desperately needed. She didn't care. A woman that will take the bus cross-country to see her grandkids has a lot of dedication in her. And she was his mother.

John was really nervous when we all sat down in the big red booth; my dad had told him that my sister and I now knew about his condition. He tried to overcompensate with humor. When I asked him how he was doing, he said, “Just trying to stay away from the chain saws,” and laughed.

I was, and still am, terrified of chain saws. I won't even set foot in a haunted house because I'm convinced that the person holding the chain saw is an actual serial killer using Halloween as their excuse to go nuts. All year they wait for the night they get to dress up and act like it's all fun and games, then when the moment is right people who just thought they were out for a good scare will get their heads sliced off. The movie
Halloween
really fucked me up. Uncle John's joke made my head spin.

The most attractive thing about Nick was that he was a complete mess
and
an adult. He started classes then dropped them. He wanted to be an actor but felt like he was too smart for it and should probably teach English. All of his noncommittal bullshit made me really horny.

After Andy, I didn't think I would ever fall in love again, but it was happening. Nick made me feel incredibly safe and incredibly insecure at the same time. There isn't anything more tempting than that combination. It's like someone offering you a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich right after you start a diet.

Nick flirted with me, but I couldn't decide if it was real flirting or if he was just researching his role of Bus Riley. He seemed to be taking his acting seriously during those few weeks, and I liked it. I was starting to find guys in my classes hotter than the guys from the fraternity houses. Frat guys were fun for a night, but brooding actor guys had me really interested, and Nick was an amazing brooder. It wasn't until
my late twenties that I figured out the guys I had been labeling as brooding were probably just alcoholics.

One night after a long, emotional rehearsal where my character agonized over the return of Bus Riley, Nick and I decided to go for a drink. We were physically exhausted from what our characters were going through. We decided that a pitcher of beer at Fuzzy's was the perfect way to unwind. As a bonus, Max was working that night. He was too dumb to figure out that since I never returned any of his calls he should start charging me for drinks.

One free pitcher led to another, and the next thing I knew Nick and I were in my shitty Mustang on our way to the same place Andy and I had gone the night we decided to give “us” a try. I guess my car just knew that when it was time for me to break the make-out ice with someone, it should head to the park. We pulled over, parked discreetly underneath a giant lamppost, and shoved our tongues into each other's mouths.

It didn't take long for a cop to pound on the window. I put my shirt back on and asked him what I could do for him.

“You can get out your ID and step out of the car, that's what you can do for me.”

I obliged, but in the back of my mind I was trying to figure out how the hell I could keep from getting arrested.

Luckily I was an actress; the tears immediately started streaming down my face. I began telling the cop all about the huge fight Nick and I had just had.

“We've been together since I was fifteen!” I told the cop. “A few months ago I found out that he cheated on me and we broke up. He felt so bad. You know, like when you screw up and then you realize that person was the best thing that
has ever happened to you? Like that song ‘Don't Know What You've Got (Till It's Gone)' by Cinderella. That's what happened with us. So now we're making up. Do you think I'm making a mistake?”

“I don't know. I mean, sometimes guys screw up, you have to consider—wait, what are you two doing at the park this late?”

“This is our spot! It's where we first kissed. He wanted to come here to make up, like a fresh start. Isn't that romantic?” The tears were flowing. I was so excited that I could cry on cue that I almost forgot to focus on my lie.

The cop let us go home with a warning. He told me to get home safe and “be careful with my heart.” I was in college. I didn't listen to cops.

Nick and I kept seeing each other for a while. He and his girlfriend eventually broke up, most likely because I dropped him off at 4
A.M.
several nights a week. At the time I was sure that hearts had to be followed—no matter the circumstances. That's what the girl who walked down the aisle throwing rose petals at her dad's wedding only months after her family fell apart believed. That was just the way things worked. The other side of me, the grown-up girl who believes in commitment, now knows that during that time I was a selfish asshole and so was Nick.

Nick decided that I was now his girlfriend and we continued to be really fond of each other during play rehearsals. My feelings for him intensified my character's joy that Bus Riley was back in town. People started saying that I was a really good actress. Co-star dating was great for my career.

When Nick and I would go out, we'd get drunk. He liked to drink whiskey and smoke cigarettes. I was already on board with the whiskey, so I just needed to take up smoking
again. I had smoked a little in high school, which traced back to Austin Cooper. Austin had ridiculous dimples and looked amazing in a pair of Wranglers. I don't care what you say, the Arkansas girl in me will always find that look attractive. With him I had discovered that if you were talking to a guy and he wanted a cigarette, the best way to get some one-on-one time with him was to also want a cigarette. This can even apply to female friends, but the payoff isn't as rewarding. Nick actually reminded me a lot of Austin, without the Southern accent. Nick was from Virginia and liked to read Jack Kerouac. Austin was from Prairie Grove and couldn't read. Austin smoked Marlboro Reds, so my throat suffered more than my heart did when he broke it. He's been arrested a few times in the past couple of years for something to do with meth. Just like Garth Brooks said, sometimes it's good when things don't work out with somebody you think you love.

While Nick and I were dating, my roommates graduated and I had to find a new place to live. I moved in with these girls Amanda and Heather from my acting classes. Amanda was a big lesbian. Lesbians loved me in college. Flattering at the time, but in retrospect that was probably less about me and more about my haircut.

Amanda and Heather had been friends for years and I really liked them. I was excited that my new roommate situation would be as fun as my previous one. Heather and Nick were also close, maybe a little too close. I can't say for sure if anything ever happened between them, but it seemed like something had happened between them. At first I attributed their bond to their similar moodiness. Heather used to lock herself in her room, light candles, and cry, while Amanda and I sat in the living room playing the drinking
game Quarters. Heather also wandered into the kitchen at night and would guzzle an entire carton of milk. Then she'd claim that she didn't remember doing it, blaming it on “sleepwalking.” I'm sure she has incredibly strong bones now, but the whole time I lived with her I had to eat dry Cocoa Puffs.