Misery Loves Cabernet (35 page)

“Not really. If I’m talking to a woman at three in the morning, I’m probably trying to convince her to check out some of my other nocturnal skills.”

Liam gives me a mischievous smile.

I make a show of rolling my eyes at his hubris, but truthfully, I’m intrigued.

Liam is my date tonight. There’s an open bar, free food, and a beautiful, romantic setting. If I don’t have a shot here, I might as well pack my arrows and quiver, and go home.

We park the car, and head into the hotel. We walk into one of the smaller banquet rooms, where Kate and Will are receiving guests at a table toward the front of the room. Kate looks like a forties movie star in a silver lamé floor-length gown, and Will looks positively elegant in a navy blue suit.

The room is decorated in light and dark green: the colors of Kate’s wedding. There are white flowers of all sorts everywhere. The center of the room has been transformed into a dance floor, where I see Dawn dancing with a man I’m sure is yet another stud from her stable.

Liam and I each take a glass of champagne from a wandering waiter, just as Dawn finishes her dance, gives a hug to her partner, and walks over to us. “How’s it going so far?” I ask her.

“Jack’s here,” Dawn says, nodding her head toward a table where Jack sits in an ill-fitting suit by his lonesome.

“Good God,” I say. Then I look at Liam. “You’re a guy, you tell me: What on earth would possess a man to show up at his ex-girlfriend’s engagement party?”

“Never underestimate the power of the out-on-a-limb gesture,” Liam answers.

He looks over at Jack. “Frankly, I hope he wins. That’s a gold medalist, right there.”

“You told him your silver medalist analogy?” Dawn asks me.

“Yeah, but I think I explained it wrong,” I say to her. “Liam, a silver medalist is the one who tries and tries, and never quite gets what they’re working for. No offense.”

“None taken,” Liam says, smiling.

“Why would you take offense?” Dawn asks Liam.

“He actually has an Olympic silver medal,” I tell her.

Dawn shakes her head. “Girl, you really do have the worst luck with what comes out of your mouth around good-looking men.”

“Anyway,” I say, glaring at Dawn while I talk to Liam, “a gold medalist is what you want to be. And, frankly, as much as I love Jack, Will is the gold medalist. Not Jack.”

Liam smiles at me. “Darling, I adore you. But I’m going to have to disagree. You’re missing the point of the silver medal. Yes, I would have loved winning a gold medal in track. But I love running. I do it every day, because it makes me happy. So, it doesn’t really matter if things didn’t turn out exactly as I thought they would in my head. I went after the thing I really wanted, and I got it. Just in a different form than I thought I would.”

Liam looks at Will for a moment. “Fear of failure is an insidious thing. Leads people to pretend they never wanted a medal in the first place.”

I look over at Will, than back at Liam. “Huh?”

Liam gestures with his champagne glass toward Will. “That guy is a lawyer, right?”

I nod.

“He’s not doing what he really wants to do in his life. But it’s a safe choice,” Liam asserts. “And he’s marrying a woman he knew in high school, who he had the nerve to break up with ten years ago, when he still had the energy to go after what he really wanted in life. But now he’s afraid of failing. He’s lost his nerve in life, he’s lost his way in the world, and he’s not happy. Don’t let the expensive suit, the polished shoes, the money or the charm fool you: that guy doesn’t even have a medal. Whereas Jack”—Liam points to Jack—“that guy knows what makes him happy in his life. And he’s balls out about getting it.”

Kate and Will walk up to us, hand in hand. “How is everyone enjoying the party?” Kate asks, beaming.

“It’s wonderful,” I say nervously. I motion toward Jack. “I see Jack is here.”

Kate gets a nervous look on her face. “Yeah, I invited him. He seemed kind of lonely.”

“What a loser!” Will says, laughing. He turns to Liam. “Can you believe a guy who would come to the engagement party of the woman who never wanted to marry him? What kind of a masochist is that?”

Liam smiles at Will. “Positively Olympian,” he tells him, while giving me a “private joke” look.

“Uh . . . yeah,” Will says, not knowing quite what Liam’s statement means. “Hey, did Kate tell you for our honeymoon we’re going trekking in Mongolia?”

I made the mistake of taking a sip of my champagne while he said that. Which means I choked on my champagne, while trying to suppress a spit take.

“Now see, that’s comedy,” Dawn says to Will, laughing. “You should really think about doing stand-up.”

“Actually, the tour we’re going on looks amazing,” Kate insists to us. “It’s not all camping out and hiking. We’re going horseback riding for two weeks.”

Dawn crosses her arms. “I forget. Is ‘equinophobia’ spelled with one ‘I’ or two?”

“There’s no such word,” Kate says, glaring at Dawn.

“If there isn’t, there should be,” Dawn says, glaring back.

Kate grabs Dawn by the arm, and forces a smile at Will. “Can you guys excuse us for one moment?”

Kate drags Dawn away from Liam and Will, and over to another part of the room. Naturally, I follow them, and try to diffuse the situation.

“Kate, calm down. She was only kidding,” I begin.

“What the hell is your problem?!” Kate snaps at Dawn.

“
My
problem?” Dawn says. “What the fuck is
your
problem? You’re not having the wedding you always wanted, you’re not wearing the engagement ring you always wanted, you’re quitting your job and moving out of the city you love, and now you’ll be spending your honeymoon on a horse. Even though you have a deathly fear of horses.”

“It’s more of a hesitation than a fear,” Kate barks back.

“Oh please. It would be like Charlie spending her honeymoon in a room full of commitment-phobes and snakes. And I’ve had it. I’m not standing by anymore to watch you make the biggest mistake of your life just because I’m afraid you’ll be mad at me. You are not this person, and the man you love is sitting in a corner by himself. Deal with it, before we have a wedding where Jack is screaming your name through a plate-glass window at the church.”

Kate looks like she’s about to burst into tears. I try to alleviate the tension. “Look,” I begin gently. “Dawn’s not really saying it’s going to come to that. She’s just trying to make a point. But I think we’re both wondering, if you’re spending all night talking to Jack, if you still want to sleep with Jack, and if you want him here now . . . why don’t you love Jack?”

Kate doesn’t answer me for a moment. “I do love him,” she squeaks out. “Very much.” Her eyes start to glisten with tears. “But I don’t like who I am when I’m with him.”

“Why?” Dawn asks, rubbing Kate’s arm gently. “What is so bad about you when you’re around him?”

“What’s so bad is that I’m me when I’m around him. I’m awful. I sleep until noon when I can, I eat too many Cheetos, I don’t exercise, and I’m constantly worried about how I’m going to pay my rent. I don’t want to be that person. I want to be the other person. I want to be the girl who wakes up early and goes jogging, and isn’t an artist, and who makes lots of money. A girl who loves lavish weddings, loves Chicago, and can’t wait to go horseback riding in Mongolia. I want to be the girl who deserves to be loved by Will.”

My face must have shown how much pain I was in just listening to her pain. This wedding was just so wrong. And it wasn’t even anyone’s fault. Will wasn’t a bad guy, he just wasn’t the man for Kate. The man for Kate was a graphic artist who took too long to paint his living room, who didn’t know the first thing about clothing, who also slept until noon, and who lived from paycheck to paycheck. Kate never wanted to marry him not because she didn’t love him, but because he wasn’t Will. She had spent nine years breaking up with him every week because he wasn’t perfect: he was a silver medalist, just like her.

I wish I could say that I gave her the perfect speech about self-acceptance. About how the guy that you dream about at fifteen isn’t the same guy you dream about at thirty. About how eventually your boyfriends—when you’re lucky—become family. And, take it from me, every family is fucked up.

But, in the end, nothing I could have said mattered. Because a moment later, a not-so-perfect guy walked up to Kate wearing an ill-fitting suit and the wrong color tie. And he pulled out a small velvet box, and flipped it open to reveal a tiny Assher cut diamond ring.

And Jack said the one thing Kate needed to hear.

“Come home.”

You reap what you sow. This applies to your career, your relationships, your financial life, everything. Some days it may not feel like it. But whatever you put out there eventually comes back—so be careful what you put out there
.

A little while later, Liam and I have parked his car at my house and taken a cab to Tiki Ti, a dive bar in Silverlake known for its crazy rum drinks and for still permitting its patrons to smoke. (Side note: now that I haven’t been smoking for a while, the smell of smoke is getting kind of gross.)

Anyway, although I was very happy for Kate, I was disappointed that my plans to intoxicate Liam with both my charm and her booze at the party had not materialized. Within the hour, Jack had disappeared, Kate had said she needed to talk to Will, and the party had petered out.

However, this was my last night with Liam until Thanksgiving, and I was determined that tonight was the night.

I wasn’t pussyfooting around. We each ordered a rum drink, and then I suggested a drinking contest. Liam agreed. Instead of Truth or Dare, we would play Truth or Drink.

I am such an idiot.

Never play Truth or Drink with a man.

I won’t get into the “why” with my teenage great-granddaughter, but I really should have thought this through. Obviously, Liam, being a guy, wasn’t going to ask questions like, “Who was your first kiss?” or “Have you ever fired a gun?” He was going to ask sex questions. And my truthful answers either made me sound too innocent, or like a total slut. Either way, I was drinking, not answering.

Now, one would think a sip of a rum drink wouldn’t be as bad as a shot. You can kind of cheat by lifting the bottom of your glass up high, keeping your lips almost closed, and pretending to drink more than you do. That can buy you some time.

But when the question is the fourth incarnation of, “How many men have you slept with?” in effect you are drinking four times to not answer the same question.

Which can lead a girl to do bad things.

Three massive rum drinks later, I was rather drunk. Okay, I was drunk out of my mind.

And here’s where everything turned. Liam was just taking a sip of his drink after not answering my question, “How many women have you slept with?” when I looked him in the eye. And he looked back. And all I could think about was leaning over and kissing him.

I turn away nervously. “Wow, I never get to do that,” I slur at him.

Liam looks mildly amused. “Do what?”

I lean over, almost falling into his lap. “Look you right in the eye.” I start waving my finger around, trying to make a point, but my index finger sort of spins around in an imaginary circle, never quite landing anywhere. “Okay, if I stare at that smile anymore, I might climax, so I better look away.”

Liam narrows his eyes at me and tilts his head, smirking. “I’m not sure how to take that. Thank you?”

“De nada,” I say, waving him off.

Then I lean in closer to look at his beautiful smile. “You have very nice teeth. Very white. I’ll bet you’ve never smoked.”

“Uh . . . not really. Are you okay? Maybe we should get you home.”

“No,” I say definitively, smiling back at him. “Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend?” I ask Liam.

Liam thinks a moment, then takes a sip of his drink.

“Oh, come on!” I challenge. “I answered the question that really embarrassed me.”

“Which question that embarrassed you?”

I open my eyes wide. “You know . . . ,” I say under my breath. “Question number three.”

Liam laughs. “But you answered no.”

“Yeah, but I still can’t even believe you asked me that,” I say, my eyes still wide from the shock of his question. “Come on,” I say seriously. “I’ve heard all these rumors. Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend?”

“Hm,” Liam says, giving it some thought. “Well, I suppose there are women out there who would say I have, but I didn’t think they were girlfriends at the time, so I’m not sure what answer to give.”

“Good,” I slur. “Because Andy says you’re a slut. Which is bad. But Jamie says all men are sluts. Which is good.” I look up at the ceiling. “Well, not good, exactly. Can I have a hug?” I blurt out, then I fall into him.

Liam gently hugs me, letting me lay in his arms. My God, that feels good. I could be in these arms all night.

“You smell good,” I mumble into his chest.

“What?” Liam asks, pulling away from me slightly so he can hear me.

“No, don’t do that,” I say, pulling him back to me. I lean up to him, trying to give my best “kiss me” face. “I said you smell good,” I repeat. “What is that? Chanel for Men? Lavender soap?”

“Right Guard Deodorant.”

Is it that men
try
to be dense, or does it just come naturally?

“Well, it is nice deodorant,” I say, still trying to hint for a kiss. I look up at him, doe-eyed. “So, if you had met me ten years ago, would I be your married crush?”

“Um . . . you’re not married,” Liam points out.

“Right!” I say a little too loudly, then point at him. “Men. Are. Dense.”

Liam motions for the tab, and the bartender throws down a piece of paper. Liam puts cash onto the bar without looking at the bill. “Thanks,” he says to the bartender. “And can you call us a cab?”

“Right outside,” the bartender tells us, taking the cash, then thanking Liam for the generous tip.

“Oooh,” I say. “He’s picking up the tab. He’s buying me drinks. Maybe he’ll ask to take me home. And since his car is in front of my house, maybe he’d like to stay the night.”