The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir (13 page)

It's past time to move on.

I separated the boxes; his on the left wall of the garage, mine on the right.

Josh opened the walkthrough door leading into the house and peered into the garage. “I thought I heard noises. What are you doing?”

“I'm packing up the rest of Kevin's stuff, so it's ready for him whenever he comes to get it.”

Josh leaned against the doorframe and looked at me. “You should throw it all away.” His tone was a blend of bitterness and hostility.

“I can't do that. It wouldn't be right to—”

“Yeah, whatever.” Josh rolled his body off the doorframe and closed the door.

I thought about following him inside, but decided against pushing the confrontation. We both felt it: the house had become nothing more than Kevin's overpriced storage unit.

When I turned back to the task, I came across a worn, heavy box in the back corner of the garage. It was sealed and labeled
Marriage in a Box
in Kevin's handwriting. His tangible memories of ten years with Joanne.

I stood staring at the box.

Then I reached for a new cardboard box and taped the bottom closed. The creased flaps of the top formed a gaping mouth. I pulled a sheet of packing paper into my hand and wadded it into a ball. One piece at a time, I filled the empty box.

The tape skipped on the roll as I pulled it across the final closing seam. At the end, the serrated edge of the roller bit through the sticky ribbon.

I pulled the cap off a Sharpie pen. The black marker squeaked out each letter as I scrawled
Girlfriend in a Box
on the side.

Now Kevin can have two boxes.

part two

the

dating

pool

hello mrs. robinson!

Saturday, March 9

I grew up in Fontana: home of the Kaiser Steel Mill, the Ku Klux Klan, the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, and the Valley Boulevard trailer parks—a place very much like where
Deliverance
was filmed. Not exactly an enchanted forest brimming with charming princes.

In high school, my best friend, Chelle teased me about dating a freshman when I was a senior. I always went for the younger guys. There was just something about the sexiness of a baby face and the sense of fun that attracted me. Or maybe it was the fact that they were too young to be on parole yet.

As a gag gift for my eighteenth birthday, Chelle bought a license plate frame for my convertible '74 Volkswagen Thing that read:
Want Some Candy, Little Boy?

I finally had to remove it. The playful message attracted too many men in pickup trucks making vulgar V-fingered hand gestures with their sloppy tongues poking through.

But enough with the skip down banjo road.

I wouldn't have brought it up, but tonight I met this really cute young guy at the club.

Totally adorable. Tousled blonde hair that fell over one eye. And he was tall, so tall he could've used the top of my head for a place to set his beer. Just looking at him conjured up visions of my very own Statue of David—built to scale.

When I first saw him, he stood in a group of four guys gathered around the pool table, drinking beer and sneaking peeks at the private dance area. Of course, I couldn't let that go on without saying something.

“So, which one of you boys is planning to bust open the piggy bank and spring for a private dance? Because I know you didn't come in here for the cheap beer.” I posed against the pool table in a way that put my bare abs and legs on display.

The short, stocky guy patted the front pockets of his jeans and lifted his hands in mock surrender. “I'm tapped out,” he said.

I looked at the others.

The two guys holding the pool cues simultaneously pointed at each other. “He will,” they said in unison.

This was going nowhere.

The tall blonde dug his right hand into the depths of his front pocket and pulled out a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill. “This is all I have,” he said.

Young guys were rarely worth the effort to spend working them for a private dance. But if I felt playful and the night wasn't too busy, I'd flirt for a little while. It never failed; the next time they came in, they always bought at least one dance from me, and then they were hooked.

“Okay, big spender, what's your story?” I asked.

His name was Garrett. And he was a freshman running back for the Florida State University Seminoles. Unfortunately, he blew out his knee at practice, so he didn't know if he'd to be able to play again.

We had an easy conversation and there was obvious chemistry. I'm sure it didn't hurt that I couldn't stop picturing him naked.

Hotel room. Horizontal rodeo.

The get-to-know-you conversation progressed. He asked my age and I told him thirty-five.

True, I had a little less than three months until my birthday, but I tried to get used to it, so I wouldn't freak out when it actually arrived.

“Wow!” Garrett looked completely surprised, but he quickly changed his expression, trying to recover. “You don't look that old, I mean, not that that's old or anything.”

“So how old are you?” I plied him with my sexiest smile.

“Can you keep a secret?” Garrett pulled his driver's license out of his wallet and handed it to me.

“1985!” He was born the year I graduated from high school. “That makes you…” I dusted off my mental subtraction flashcards.

“Eighteen,” he said.

“How the hell did you get in here?” I looked at the beer bottle in his hand. I figured he was a bit younger—maybe twenty-five, but my brain hadn't managed to do the math.

“I'm six-seven. Nobody ever cards me.”

I could almost hear the ratchet of the handcuffs, feel the scarlet letter
P
stamped on my forehead, and see the gavel slamming down, declaring me a pedophile and a menace to the virtue of extremely tall prepubescent boys.

For a minute, I still considered the rodeo option—there was something to be said about the fantasy of green-breaking a young colt…

My conscience adopted a falsetto voice and scolded me like Garrett's mother would for even thinking about molesting her little boy. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a high school English teacher or I'd be on the eleven o'clock news.

In the end, I went home alone and masturbated. Junior was only in my head, but he did a good job anyway.

for love or money?

Wednesday, March 20

Is it a bad thing that my dating pool is a strip club? And does that mean I'm swimming in the shallow end?

Some women swear against dating men they meet at work. For me, it's like a buffet. Where else could I find so many eligible guys all in one place? And it certainly cut out the awkward conversation that always came up when it was time to tell a guy I was interested in dating that I worked part-time as a topless dancer. That little bit of useless trivia had a tendency to send them packing. If the revelation of my single motherhood didn't already do it, the combination was usually relationship suicide.

Although it was the goal of some girls I worked with, finding a sugar daddy wasn't my nature. Put me in a room full of rich men and one poor guy—and I'd fall in love with the poor guy every time. It had always been that way. In finishing school, I must've missed Gold-Digging 101. Actually, to the discerning reader, I'm sure it's pretty obvious I missed finishing school completely.

So, I met a guy. Yes, another one at the club. But this one was visiting from Texas. He made me laugh when he told me stories from his childhood on “the spread” he called it. He grew up playing polo. Then he let slip that his family had more money than God and a vacation house in the Cayman Islands.

His gaze was direct. “I want to take care of you,” he said.

Now that sounded tempting. I'd never been faced with it as a serious offer, so I wasn't sure how to respond.

“I'll have to think about it,” I said.

I couldn't even fathom what it would be like to have someone else take over. No worries. No financial concerns. I could finally focus on my writing and maybe even take a vacation.

Just the thought of reclining on a beach in the Caribbean, reading a dog-eared bestseller, with Josh swimming in the turquoise ocean, while back home a maid cleaned my obscenely large house—pinch me. It sounded like a dream.

But then there was the moral dilemma: could I look at myself in the mirror every morning, knowing I got together with this guy just for security and luxury?

Women do it every day…

I know I'm in justification mode, but look at that busty blonde with the IQ of a pencil. She ended up with her own reality show and a big weight-loss endorsement deal. All that, and she started out as a stripper. Now, tell me again she really married that old geezer for his big, juicy wiener. Um…highly doubt it.

I thought I deserved a little luxury in my life. I'd like to be able to give Josh that kind of life; he deserved it too.

I don't know if I could do it though. What about love? And Prince Charming? The white horse? The sunset and happily-ever-after?

Can you get all that if you sell out?

bdsm, the new pink-collar job

Tuesday, March 26

I leaned back in my chair and contemplated my most recent journal entry. Selling out. That moral gray area. Can making serious life decisions based on the monetary outcome still result in ultimate happiness?

W.W.J.D.? What Would Jung Do?

The trill of an Instant Message notification reminded me that I was still logged online. I pulled up the AOL program from the task bar and saw a dialogue box had popped onto my screen.

I often deleted random IMs without bothering to reply. Occasionally, if I were feeling particularly feisty, I'd respond to the age/sex/location query by typing an off-putting description of myself: I'm a SWF, 53 yrs. old, 4’11”, 350 lbs., with black frizzy hair, freckles, buck teeth, and a limp. That little visual usually made the IM intruder look for cybersex elsewhere.

I read the dialogue box on my screen.

What could I do? Of course I had to respond. I've always been a sucker for blue eyes and multilevel marketing scams. So I typed back.

I couldn't help myself. Bored with my self-analysis, I decided to toy with the guy for some juvenile amusement.

Okay, now I was seriously curious. What job could possibly pay that well, not involve sex, and be marketed on the Internet through random, unsolicited IMs?

I just had to know.

His response came back quickly; he must've already had it typed in.

A giggle bubbled up from my chest. It was a huge career opportunity with flexible hours and great money, where I could meet interesting people, tie them up, and spank the living shit out of them? My laughter echoed through the room. I couldn't believe the guy was trying to soft sell a totally freaky job as a bondage babe.

His response came back in all caps—the online equivalent of a shout.

Now he was playing a dominant role and I was supposed to be submissive? This just had too much comic potential to pass up.

I grabbed the phone and called Valerie at work. “Check this out—” I coughed into the phone, choking on my laughter. “This guy sent me an Instant Message…”

I read the volley of IMs to her. I heard her ten-key clattering in the background and could picture rolls of adding machine tape engulfing her entire desk. When I got to the dominatrix part, her tapping nails stopped.

“What?” Valerie's single word sounded like tires screeching to a halt. “He
trains
people to do that?” She lowered her voice. “That guy is a wack job.”

I mulled it over. The thought of making $200-$400 an hour was tempting.

“Val, go with me on this for a minute.”

She'd been my personal investment diva for a decade, knew the pathetic condition of my financial portfolio—and was used to indulging my flights of fancy.

“Okay, if I actually decide to do this, I mean, it's a lot of money,” I said. “And how hard could it really be? I tell some rich, fat, balding, corporate weasel that he's a worthless slob, and whack him on the ass with a riding crop. Then I make him promise to give his sexually harassed receptionist a huge bonus or I won't let him come back to see me for another can of whoop-ass.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“I saw
Exit to Eden
with Rosie O'Donnell. It didn't look like such a big deal,” I said. “But what would I write on my taxes?”

“I don't think the IRS has a category for someone who spanks people for a living,” she said.

Another dialogue box popped onto my screen.