Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir (6 page)

Gabe never told his parents the new wedding date—he’d lied to me. His parents had phoned, throwing around the words
grapevine
and
disappointed
on our answering machine.

“What the fuck, Gabe! Why wouldn’t you tell them?” I was pacing and cutting the air with my hands. “I mean, what were you thinking?” I felt sick.

“Stephanie, I was going to, really. I just didn’t want to hear it. I knew they’d be pissed, and I just thought if I waited until the right time. I don’t know.” Gabe was really good at “I don’t know.”

“What are you afraid of?” I turned quiet.

“I’m not afraid.” He took my hands. “I just have studying to do, and I really don’t need to hear it from them. You know how they are. It has nothing to do with my feelings for you, sweetheart.” I wasn’t so sure. I wanted to believe it, to believe he wasn’t afraid of us but of them and what they thought of us.

“Is this something you even want to do?”

“Yes. I’m going to fix this, baby.”

“No, I mean, getting married. Is this something you even want anymore?” I held my breath as I waited for his answer.

He pulled away. “Jesus, would you stop with your Psych 101? I’m not talking about this with you anymore.”

“What, that’s it? You’ve said your piece, and now you’re done?”

“You really want to know what I think?” Whenever anyone begins a sentence like this, I look for something to hold. “Fine. You are fucking retarded! That’s what I think. I swear to God, Stephanie, you’re fucking Rainman! All you do is repeat yourself. You must work with a bunch of morons because you talk to me like I’m a fucking idiot.”

“Stop screaming at me!”

“Oh, that’s choice. Now you’re going to fucking cry, like the retard baby that you are. Wah! Wah!” He was screaming so close to my face, I thought our noses would touch. “You sure you can make time to cry? You’re not too busy repeating things or talking with your magic hands?” I cried harder as he mimicked the way I spoke with my hands. “Jesus, you make me sick. Don’t run away from me. I had to listen to your whining, so now you’re going to listen.”

“I’m not talking to you when you speak to me like that,” I managed to scream, knowing I’d have been more effective if I’d said it softly. I ran into the bedroom, locked the door, and threw myself onto our bed and cried until it hurt to swallow.

I thought it was a fight, something couples do. I thought it was normal. I trembled as I wrote in my diary:

The second to worst bit of that entry was:
but I love him
. I can’t think of a worse phrase. He belittles me in front of his friends,
but I love him
. He screams so close to my face I can feel his spit,
but I love him
. He tells me I’m not pretty, that really, it’s only my red curly hair that makes me special, and without it, I’m nothing,
but I love him
. When the fuck did love excuse horrible? Yeah, and that was only the second to worst bit. The absolute worst part of that entry is what followed on the next page of my diary, dated only a month later:
“Gabe and I got married today!”

I went from “he makes me hate myself” to “wife” in the flip of a journal page, and I know exactly what I was thinking. “Love trumps all.” I thought as long as there was love and we were willing to work at it, everything would be okay. But loving someone is easy. That’s the part that happens without thought. It takes more than love for a relationship to work. It takes admitting when you’re wrong, compromising, swallowing pride. I thought it took tears. I didn’t know love shouldn’t make you feel bad.

In my mind, it was all very chicken/egg. Had he shared with his parents what he’d told me, how in love he was, how I made his life better, how he wanted children with me, perhaps they’d have supported his decision. Instead, he sensed his parents’ disapproval and went mute. Except when he was with me. With me, mute became mean because he was frustrated. That’s what I thought it was. That’s all I saw. I also knew I was marrying an adolescent, not a man, but I’d invested so much time and love into us. So, I thought, okay, he’ll grow up eventually. We’ll grow together.

I hate when people ask me if I think I got married too young. Too young always buddies up beside naïve, and I don’t think I was either. When people ask me that question they’re really asking one of two things: “Was being married more important than who you were marrying?” or “Were you so young that you didn’t really know what love was?” I hate that question because my answer isn’t a yes or no. I was in love with Gabe, bathroom floor, middle of the night, unconditional love. But I was also in love with the idea of having a husband, someone to take care of, a home with magnets on the refrigerator with his and her to-do lists. I wanted to become each other’s memory. I thought I’d found that in the man I loved. It’s why I endured his temper. He’d grow up one day, I assumed. One day, this will fit the way I want it to. In the meanwhile, there might be some tears, but mostly there will be laughs and memories, and that’s exactly how it was. Until it wasn’t.

So, no, I don’t think I married too young. I think I married the wrong person. Yes, there were signs warning me, but I was in love and ready to face our fears together, supporting each other. I was certain if we both wanted it enough, we could make it through anything, even a nightmare of a motherin-law. You can’t, however, want it enough for two people.

I look back now at the pages of my life, and I’m embarrassed. I mean
embarrassed
. I cannot believe I settled for what he gave. I didn’t know I deserved a William up there at the altar, a man ecstatic to be marrying me. I’m humiliated that he made me hate myself, that I let myself feel small. My marriage didn’t fail—I failed myself. All that talk of facing fears should have been directed my way too. Because on some level, I allowed myself to be in an emotionally abusive relationship because I was frightened I wasn’t worth enough without him. I believed I mattered more because he wanted me. I gave that authority away, to another person, which is just flat-out appalling, and far too common.

So many women do it. Smart woman. Stupid choices. I would know as an educated woman who read the books they told me to. I knew from working hard until I succeeded. I thought relationships worked the same way. The more I cried and worked through our fights, the harder I was working to endure. I was fighting
for
something, to keep something I wanted. He’d finally enter the bedroom, rub my back, and say in a small voice, “You’re right. I’m sorry. This is my issue, and I will work on my temper. Thank you for being patient with me. We’re an us, Stephanie, and we’ll work it through. I want that, always.” I did too, so I let myself believe that all the fighting and making up was training. It would make us stronger. I thought it was perseverance, not psychosis. I was certain it would work out between us, if only Gabe would pull his weight and learn to either speak up to me or speak up to his parents.

He finally spoke up in January. “We can’t get married in January or February because that’s when I have my hardest rotation.” I feared he was stalling and grew impatient. Great, the first of March! “No.” The ides of March. Screw the soothsayer! “No.” Someone always had a reason why it couldn’t happen. So once we marched into May without a date, I put my patent leather-loafer-wearing foot down. I didn’t care anymore about the damn location or which colors best suited me. Instead of sending guests home with fresh strawberries and scones lined in a wooden berry basket to enjoy the morning after our wedding, how about no guests to send home at all? Fuck the goddamn guests. Fuck the flowers that are in season this month. Talk of linens and pin-spot lighting, duties and charts, thank-you notes, and don’t forgets made me forget it was ever about marriage.

We agreed to have a small ceremony, with immediate family only, in May, before he took his third-year medical boards in June. We’d honeymoon in Italy after his exam, and then we’d have a wedding reception to celebrate with everyone else. Gabe asked his father to pick a date that worked with his May conference schedule. It was decided. May 28. Gabe booked the rabbi at Temple Sinai, a synagogue in a town near where we’d grown up. It was his way of assuring me this is what he wanted too. Then, we began to tell people to save the date. I would qualify, “Yeah, it’s May 28, but I’d write it in pencil if I were you.”

I made sure Gabe told his parents first. This time I heard him say it, right there in front of me. I was certain they’d heard it because two hours later, Gabe’s older sister Jolene phoned, screaming into our machine. That was the proof. She heard the date from “Mommy and Daddy.” It was the evidence, right there in her temper tantrum. “Clearly,” she screamed, “you don’t care if I can even be there because I can’t get off work.” Right. As soon as she heard the news, she called us, not her employer. We knew she could attend. She was acting out, as she was prone to do. In August, she’d refused to be part of the wedding party. Her mother Rome confided in Smelly one afternoon while we shopped for bridesmaid gowns, “Ugh, Jolene is just so fat. She’ll look horrible in anything. I hope one day when she gets married she only has thin friends, for the pictures.” We knew, in the end, Jolene would do whatever her parents told her to do. It ran in the family.

Gabe’s aunt, a school teacher with an infectious laugh, phoned a week later to congratulate us on setting the date. At least someone was happy for us. She invited us to her home for a family barbecue with the other cousins. Her home and family were warm and easy to be around. I was relieved Gabe’s parents were at their Atherton home that weekend. It meant I could actually eat and enjoy myself. Whenever they were present, I lost my appetite and became anxious. In their absence, I devoured ribs and ate chicken off the bone. Corn on the cob.

His grandmother—an elegant upmarket woman who, upon seeing me, always asked, “So is my grandson treating you well, Stephanie?”—wanted to know what I’d be wearing on our wedding day. Then she squeezed me into a hug and patted my face. I liked spending time with her. Where would we be doing it, and who would marry us? “I’m just so happy for you both,” she said hugging us together, a knot of three. It felt good knowing his family was behind our decision, made me think they knew how happy I made Gabe. Finally, everything would be okay.

That night, we arrived home to a blinking answering machine. I hit Play, not realizing the button I’d pressed was actually the vomit trigger.

I wanted to vomit. On Marvin. I was certain they knew about the 28th. Maybe they didn’t think it was finalized, but to pretend it was the first they were hearing of it was absurd. God, I was even finally excited again, looking through wedding magazines, telling my family, booking plane reservations for my mother, and now this.

“I’m just not doing this anymore, Gabe. I can’t. There’s always some excuse. Your family, your work schedule. I’m just not doing this to myself anymore. Look at these!” I pointed to the stacks of wedding magazines I’d collected over the years of our engagement, the scrapbook I’d started, photos of hairstyles, photos of me from different makeup trial appointments. “I’ve just fucking had enough!” I screamed, and my voice cracked into a sob. “I just can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll do whatever you want, Stephanie. It’s ridiculous at this point.”

“I just can’t take it anymore. They always have an excuse.” Snot was hanging from my nose.

“Baby, I agree with you. I’m on your side.” He handed me a towel.

“You told them, right? I mean, I heard you.”

“Yes, Stephanie.”

“Right, so I’m not going crazy here, but they’re saying we didn’t tell them now. It’s an excuse because, in their eyes, I’ll never be good enough for you. I will always be—I don’t know. Am I that horrible? I mean, don’t I love you? Don’t I make you happy?”

“Yes, baby. Of course you do.” He wiped the tears from my face and hugged me.

“Gabe, I just don’t understand. I love you. You love me. Why can’t they just be happy for us?” The I love you, you love me bit was a bit Barney of me. I was in despair and couldn’t see beyond me.

“Sweetheart, what if we just got married and didn’t tell anyone? That way, they can pick whatever the hell date they want, and it won’t matter anymore because we’ll already be married. So then, we’ll have the reception and ceremony all on one day, without any pressure.”

“Fine. When?” It was all I could manage at that point. I didn’t really believe him.

“The next three weeks are a nightmare for me, but I’m not making excuses. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I’m free the weekend of May twentieth. That way, we can go to a hotel or something for the weekend, and it gives us time to find a rabbi. Okay, sweetheart?” He gently lifted my head by my chin, bringing my eyes to his. I nodded okay and cried in his arms.

He rubbed my back and whispered that it would all be okay. “You’ll see. I promise. I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you, sweetheart.” To this day, when I hear the word
sweetheart
, I look for the nearest bathroom. Somehow my body communicates bullshit through diarrhea.
Sweetheart
gives me the runs. I only wish that time, I had run away instead of toward him.