The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman (10 page)

“I found ways not to come home. For a while I was chief of medicine at one hospital and there were all kinds of meetings I had to go to. If there was something you could volunteer for, I volunteered.”

I try to imagine what he did that was so wrong. He seemed normal to me, but then I wear Daffy Duck pajamas and Tweedy Bird tee shirts.

“From the outside I appeared real easy going, ‘you want to go shopping today? Fine. Take the whole day. I’ll find something else to do.’ I was never demanding of her, because I didn’t care what she did.”

Dr. Bob withers in the manner of a marionette whose strings have been cut. “How do you take the first steps toward divorce? You marry the wrong person.”

Here’s a guy whose career balances on the edge of the consequences of his actions and he made a major miscalculation.

“I met my former wife when I was on the rebound. I had been left by someone I really cared about and I was hurt.”

How often are we walking band aids for someone else?

“There was my ex, she was fun, wasn’t bad looking and we could go places together. I was leaving my residency and I said why don’t you come with me? She said the only way she would come was if we were married. I said okay, if that’s what it takes. She fit what I needed at the time.”

Women are guilty of inserting themselves into the man-puzzle when it suits their agenda.

He shakes his head. “I walked into the services and I said to myself, I made a big mistake. On our honeymoon I looked at her and said, ‘you know what? I don’t really want to be married to you.’ Well, that didn’t go over too well. It was the last time I said it, but honestly I never stopped feeling it. You make the best of it and I did that.”

He smiles, trying to look satisfied. “At the end of my marriage I had an affair out of desperation. I needed to somehow feel like I was normal.”

“Did you love her ... your affair?”

“No. I just needed somebody to look at me and say ‘you’re not crazy.’ If I made the same mistake in surgery my patient would be dead. I didn’t trust my judgment anymore.”

We set aside another afternoon for a bit more physician soul-searching as we were getting to some good stuff. The day before, his office manager calls to cancel our appointment.

Dr. Bob was riding his Harley into the office that morning. He zigged when he should have zagged. With his career balanced on the edge of the consequences of his actions, he made a miscalculation. A metal plate now holds his brain together. He’ll never practice medicine again.

The following weekend my daughter has her dream wedding at the Disney resort. She looks radiant and yet slightly sad. Did I miss something?

I watch as the groom parades into the banquet room, my daughter racing to keep up. He waves his arms as if he’s accomplished some great feat. I guess his showing up is important in his mind.

People toast and chow down and I wonder if all this work has any meaning. The odds are against success but I pretend to believe. We blow environmentally safe bubbles on the wedding couple as they leave the reception. The iridescent globes paint a picture of what the future might hold as they rise in the air and then pop.

I really need to quit the interviewing – I’ve lost my happy edge.

“Nobody owes it to anybody to get married.”

~ Doug, 53, divorced

460 / Doug

I’m in Tallahassee, a place best left to people with a thirst for humidity and politics.

Doug, conscripted by a mutual friend, is sitting with me in “Chez-something,” a mucky little French restaurant that specializes in nuked seafood. The red plush carpet is as soggy as the salad. This latest contestant bears a strong resemblance to a chimpanzee with short bowed legs and long droopy jaw.

I feel him assessing me. Men do that. It’s a “trying on for size” thing – an imaginary game they play out of habit and hormones. Women have their own version. I’ve been guilty of it more than once.

The skeleton staff falls over themselves trying to avoid us. Doug and I are hung up in that dead zone between lunch and dinner. After some grumbling, a server grudgingly lays down place settings and a container of
Equal
packs as our authorization to sit.

Doug cocks his charm and aims. He soon has a scotch and water sitting before him. I have a flat Coke.

“Tell me about your book and what you’re looking for.”

“I want to hear the guys’ side of love. What’s it like for a man to be in love today?”

Doug swells up to his full sitting height. “You want to know about my love life? Like ALL the details? You’re not gonna directly quote me, are you? I mean ... I don’t want to start my social life all over at my age.”

“I’m on a quest to discover the existence of true love.”

“You’re asking me?”

“Just talk. Say whatever ... free association. You’ll surprise yourself. Okay?”

“Long term relationships are ninety-five-percent luck. Get it?” Doug doesn’t wait for my response. He’s one of those men who perform for his own amusement.

Now that I have his attention, I open with my best shot. “You’ve been divorced for eight years, why haven’t you remarried ? Do you have a problem with commitment?”

A knuckle punch to the stomach would have produced the same look on Doug’s face.

“You’re a pretty fast worker.” He squirms in his seat. “I don’t think there’s any magic secret like communication. That’s all bullshit. It might be important, but it’s all mostly luck. The luck comes in the fact that as I’m growing and changing so is the woman. The luck comes in the fact that you both happen to be changing in the same way during the same period of time.

“What happens is that at twenty-three or twenty-four years old you make decisions in life that are supposedly binding on you for the rest of your life. What you’re going to do and who you’re going to live with. You have no more mental capacity to do that at twenty-four than you do at thirty-five or forty. So I believe it’s all luck.”

Doug holds a mouthful of the scotch, letting his cheeks fill out till he looks like an ape working up a wad of spit. “I know a lot of married people, but only five who’re truly happy. I think it’s luck because if it were a skill, it could be acquired. And if it could be acquired there would be so many more people in long-term relationships. I’m not sure I’m that lucky.”

I’m pained to admit he makes some sense. I’m not who I was at twenty-five. But does that mean my first love wouldn’t fit me, today?

The first drops of tepid Tallahassee rain begin as I make my way to the car. I feel as cold and wet as a frog’s belly. “Delusional,” the voice says. “A fool’s errand.” I slip behind the wheel, trying to muster enough enthusiasm for the drive back to South Florida.

Mark slips in and out of my thoughts. I try to imagine what he’s like now. Is he carrying bruises like Doug or is he still that guy with the laughing eyes and sparkly smile? Would he care enough to put me first? Would I trust him with my heart?

“A man will rarely leave a woman unless and until he’s already found another one to take him in. It’s their nature.”

~ Mike, 48, married

Case 466 / Dennis

I’m at a real estate convention near my home in Florida. Between lectures, I sit in the lobby of the Convention Center Hilton, chatting with business friends. Men have shared with me for five years and I’m sure I now know too much.

Feeling very sensible, very normal, I am suddenly aware of being watched.
Paranoid
I tell myself and continue my conversation. Being watched is a weird thing, eventually you have to return the stare if only to rest your curiosity.

The starer lounges on a nearby sofa, looking as if he’s just stepped out of a luxury car ad. He flashes a smile, takes out a business card, and slides it across the lobby-sized coffee table that separates us. It feels like all eyes are on me for my reaction. The stranger sits there with the goo of awkwardness smeared over his face.

Taking pity on him, I decide to rescue him from his numb-nuts attempt at cool. The ball’s in my court. I pick up his card and return my business card via the same coffee table path. He seems relieved. Not a word is exchanged.

It takes two days for the slider Dennis to call me. “I made a jerk of myself, didn’t I?” he asks. No other line would have worked.

“Major jerk.” I laugh.

“I just didn’t know how to get your attention. You were listening to that guy sitting next to you.”

Boys never really leave the playground, do they?

We discover we share a few real estate contacts. Dennis suggests a business lunch. We agree to meet at an upscale out-of-the-way restaurant.

He slides in minutes after I arrive, dressed to take advantage of his dark copper hair and green eyes. He’s a vision in fall tones. We share a table by the window overlooking the garden. It’s perfect from the crisp white wine to the creamy Alfredo sauce sinfully beckoning from the plate before me.

Dennis and I seem to have a lot in common. He gets my off-kilter sense of humor and my taste for the outdoors. I’m no Twinkie, so I get suspicious when a guy shares
all
my interests. And I’m funny, but not
that
funny. I suspect I’m dealing with an Emotional Chameleon.

“Dinner tomorrow?” He asks. I hesitate. How fast is too fast? I study his bedroom eyes, his well maintained teeth. He’s been available two nights in a row. Curiouser and curiouser.

I have not yet mentioned the interviewing to Dennis.

The second evening, Dennis ups the ante. We’re at a five-star restaurant seated in a dark corner. The lobster is not the only thing getting buttered. I pretend to eat it all but eat only the succulent seafood. I spit the compliments into my mental napkin.

“You’re much too intelligent for me.” His eyes reflect the candlelight. “I’m not used to smart women.”

“Uh huh.” I dip another morsel into the yellow sauce.

“I’m thrilled that you share my interests. I mean I love to kayak, I love to backpack. This is amazing,” he gushes.

His hands show no sign of outdoor games. I poke the lie. “Where do you usually kayak?”

“All over. Do you like Chinese?”

“Sure.”

“How about I bring take-out and a video to your house tomorrow?”

When he sees the expression on my face, he eases back to
our
interests. “We can share our kayaking adventures over egg rolls. How about it?”

Two dates in one week, plus lunch, can mean only one thing, despite his claims of being unattached, there is a woman in Dennis’ life. I guess his woman to be out of town. Dennis has to cover as much ground as he can before she returns.

The following evening, Dennis stands on my doorstep, carrying two bags of Chinese take-out and a bottle of wine. As I unpack the food, Dennis takes off his necktie and slides out of his shoes. He wiggles the toes on his left foot. You know... you have pearls in your carpet. He pulls two white beads from the bottom of his sock. Long after I’ve left the planet this carpet will be yielding its treasure of wedding gown litter.

Ignoring his comment, I settle into my big leather chair facing the sofa and begin to share the tale of my interviews. Now that he’s trapped himself in my lair, I offer him the opportunity of a life time ... to be interviewed by me.

An expression of gastric distress cramps Dennis’ face. “You want to interview me?”

“I’d like to – just for the fun of it.”

The food goes untouched. I excuse myself to collect my tape recorder and notes. When I return Dennis has slipped his shoes back on.

“Let’s start with your last relationship.” I say in my interviewer’s voice. “What broke it up?”

“Well ...” he hesitates. “She doesn’t know it’s over, she keeps coming back. She won’t leave me alone.”

I consider getting one of those knee-thumping mallets doctors use. I could just reach over and pop a guy like Dennis on the head – right now.

“You live together, don’t you?”

His face falls, melting into a pile of unappealing wrinkles.

“You think you’re so smart,” he says. He leaves without saying good night.

I eat an egg roll and wrap up the rest for another day. There’s always another day

“Passive women tend to have quiet violence going on.”

~ Jackie, 42, divorced

Case 469 / Jackie

Sheila’s my long time friend and a fierce civil rights litigator in South Carolina. She calls with an interesting proposal. “How’d you like to interview a transsexual? Would that fit into your man-investigations?”

“Is this person a man or a woman?” I’m immediately caught up in the possibilities.

“Does it matter? I’ve just taken on a case against the county sheriff. My client is a guy who’s now a woman. Jackie was pulled over on a routine traffic stop. She was mid-way into her transformation dressed like a woman but carrying a man’s driver’s license. The deputies beat the punk out of her. The case has been tossed around in the courts like a greased Frisbee. Now it’s mine.”