When the Messenger Is Hot (11 page)

I didn't bother explaining the whole story to the jeweler but I gave them an extra hundred bucks to put in a new stone while I waited. I told them it had to be exactly like the other one or I'd take my business elsewhere. They replaced the stone. It looked good.

I waited again.

I got a phone call from my aunt. She said,
Hi, this is Aunt Marni
. She seemed cheerful. She seemed to have moved on.

I said,
Hi Aunt Marni
.

She said,
Hold on, there's someone who wants to talk to you
.

I held on.

Then again she said,
Hi, this is Aunt Marni
.

I said,
Aunt Marni, I thought you were going to put someone on the phone
.

She said,
I did, I put myself on the phone
.

Aunt Marni was trying to make a point.

I was missing it. I said so. She explained.

I duplicated Aunt Marni.

She asked if I knew anything about it.

I told her I thought I might but I sure as hell didn't know how to fix it.

She said,
Fix it? This is the best thing that ever happened to me! No more sex with Uncle Edgar! Ha!

I hung up the phone.

I flew to North Dakota. I rented a car and drove to every bus station south of Minot and showed people pictures of my mom and no one claimed to have seen her although one said she looked a lot like a Junior Miss Muscatine County she once knew. I was pretty close to giving it up just out of exhaustion. Finally I found a guy who said there had been someone there who looked like her, and I ended up explaining the entire situation, from the depot to the aunt duplication, and it seemed like maybe I was going to get the earnest head-tilt again, but instead I got a long pause and a lip-purse. I thought he wasn't going to say anything at all, the pause was so long, but he finally said,
That's a sad story. I'm sorry that happened to you
. And it was hard to tell whether he really believed me or not but he could obviously tell that I needed someone to believe me, and I'm grateful to him for that. It gave me just the motivation I needed to keep going. I drove all the way to New Jersey to look around the neighborhood for her one more time. No luck.

Aunt Marni and Aunt Marni are still living it up. Mom hasn't come back again. Yet.

But at least I got the dog back.

L
ATELY
, I have been dating guys named Dave.

Probably, I should just write: The End right here. It hasn't escaped me that the Dave name has certain implications, multiples thereof notwithstanding. That if I were to write instead, “Lately, I have been dating
a
guy named Dave,” you'd probably still picture some sort of slacking/short-sleeve-shirt-wearing/senior-year-backpacking-in-Europe scenario. Whereas if I had said, “Lately I have been dating a guy named David,” you would maybe say, “Hm, I wonder what this story is going to be about,” you might even edit in your head, you might go, “Perhaps the word
man
in place of the word
guy
would have been a better choice.” Before you even read the rest of the David story, you would just know that any complications that ensued would be sophisticated and adult in nature, as a result of David the corporate lawyer who lavishes expensive gifts on me being maybe inherently uptight and having, like, dry-cleaned socks or underwear or something.

As opposed to:

Me:

Almost forty-one. Preschool teacher. Nonsmoker.
Ink-free. Large drawer devoted entirely to underwear.

Ways in Which Dave #1 Succeeded on Date #1:

1. Lack of car/residency at a remote distance.

2. Three roommates, one female.

3. Unwillingness to relinquish belief that Valentine's Day is the product of a vast conspiracy between Hallmark and the federal government.

4. Re: “Ways in Which Dave #1 Succeeded on Date #1,” point #2 and the word
seemed
, Dave #1 eventually mentioned the age difference as potentially being a problem

which

a) I knew

and

b) I hadn't mentioned since it seemed obvious and unnecessary

but

c) he likes to
talk about it
, which arguably is both very

i) yin on his part and somewhat appreciated

but also

ii) sometimes talk is overrated.

And then there's also his

5. Tendency toward impulsive behavior such as

a) striking up conversations with strangers

which is endearing until he

b) casually mentions some detail from our sex life

although sometimes

c) he brings ice cream and raspberries after a fight, which is kind of sweet.

Reasons Why Dave
#2
Is Still
in the Picture but Some Others
Indicating Maybe He Shouldn't Be:

1. Always pays, in spite of the fact that we haven't kissed yet and it's been a while.

2. Writes long, funny e-mails.

3. Says I'm “empirically beautiful” and that I smell good.

4. Has job.

5. Tendency toward unlicensed, uncontracted psychotherapy.

6. Watched
Tomb Raider
on first date (downloaded from Internet).

1. Showed me his bed.

2. At the movies,

a) after a failed attempt to position himself on line so that I'd reach the ticket window first

b) paid only for his own ticket

and although I'm sure it was not his intention to make me feel both uncared-for and elderly, when he paid with

c) his student discount

that was the result.

3. Took me to 7-Eleven after the movie for a Slurpee

which

a) was fine with me, I like Slurpees

but

b) he didn't pay for that either

and

c) a Slurpee costs like, 99 cents

and

i) I have enforced, after much experimentation and consideration, a “whoever asks, pays” rule

and frankly

ii) though my quasi-feminist leanings cause me a little trouble on this front, it's just nice when they pay

4. Took me on “romantic” walk in rodent-infested park

at which point it was pretty much over.

I decide to date someone without the Dave name.

This turns out to be something of a problem.

I go to a bar with my girlfriend.

Nothing but Daves.

I'm not speaking metaphorically.

After the fourth or fifth Dave I start to suspect some joke, but my girlfriend denies it, so I ask just about every guy in the bar what his name is. “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.” “Dave.”

We go to another bar. More Daves.

We go to a gay bar. Daves there.

I ask her what she thinks about this. She says, Well, they kind of are all the same.

No, I'm not one of those women. I'm not one of those women who thinks all guys are the same. I am
open-minded
.

No you're not, says my friend.

I didn't say that out loud, I say.

She shrugs.

I look at a newspaper. The headline: “Dave Clinton Moves into Harlem Office.”

People
magazine: “Dave Clooney Is the Sexiest Man Alive,” again.

At the bookstore: titles by Dave Updike, Dave Mailer, Dave Rushdie.

Don't you find this weird? I ask my friend.

She says, It doesn't really bother me. She says, Maybe you should just relax. There are some nice Daves out there.

I didn't say there weren't.

All right, look, she says. I do know this one guy named Steve…

Steve? Is that better than Dave?

He doesn't smoke. No cats. Centrally located.

Aw, that's just a well-disguised Dave.

I hear he's especially skilled in certain areas.

Where do you hear these things? Really?

My friend Jennifer used to date him.

Steve it is.

Ways in Which Steve Didn't Seem That Much
Different from a Dave at First:

1. First date free concert in the park which would have been fine

except that

2. It rained

and

3. It was Dave Matthews

and Dave Matthews is okay but of course this gets into the whole Dave weirdness again and I guess

4. People who really like Dave Matthews also like the Dave Matthews rain experience

and of course, more often than not

5. Wear sandals.

And then

Some Weird Things Happened While
Dave Matthews Was Singing “Crazy”

1. Steve called me Jennifer.

To which I said

2. My name isn't Jennifer.

And Steve laughed like I was joking and so again I said, My name isn't Jennifer, and he said

3. Everyone's name is Jennifer, what are you talking about?

And I said one more time, My name isn't Jennifer. And some girl next to me said something like, Well goody for you, at which point I asked her name and of course she said,
Jennifer
, in italics like that, like
what else?

And it was then that

The Clouds Parted

(literally/figuratively)

And I said, Steve, what are you doing tomorrow night? Do you want to go to a movie? My treat? And he said, You just called me Steve. To which I said, I know, and he said, But my name is Dave.

And I said, So what do you say?

The End

I
KNOW WHAT HE'S THINKING. And he knows that I know what he's thinking most of the time because after all these years we have a way of communicating silently with our eyes and right now I know he's thinking I'm still thinking about him and that I'll never stop thinking about him and maybe that's true and maybe it isn't. Maybe I will always be thinking that he's really in love with me. That there's an
in
in the sentence. I don't know. He thinks if he says I love you and means it as a friend which I know he does, he thinks if he says this that there will be interpretation, that I will hear the
in
in the sentence whether it's there or not but I'm not stupid. I may go ahead and think that he is really in love with me but I will never again think that he's going to be with me. I know that we will go on with our lives and become involved with many or several or with any luck just two other people (one per), people with whom we will be awake at the same time and when we meet parents he will not refer to me as his
friend
and we will be happy and he will tell me he loves me and there will always be an
in
in the sentence and maybe there will even be beautiful babies but I will know that we had that thing even though he thinks he thinks that we didn't have that thing, even though he thinks he thinks that it was never a full-on thing, that it was another thing, a thing that had something to do with us being in the right place at the right time for this particular greater purpose, that god may have been involved even, but not for the other thing, not for love. (And I know why he thinks that and I get it, I do, it's just that I don't think the possible god thing is exclusive of the other thing, the love.) But I know what he really thinks because I see the way he looks at me, even when I'm looking at someone else I know he's looking at me, and I know he doesn't have a jealous bone in his body which can be annoying at times, but still, I know that he looks at me looking at these other people and he just keeps looking at me that way, and he thinks he thinks that this is just him being happy for me, happy that I'm moving on and looking at other people, but on some other level, a level he won't admit to, not even to himself, I think he thinks that it should be him, and I think it should be him and I think it should be me, but what we both know is that it won't. It won't be him and it won't be me. We have many things in common and many things not in common and I know that the not-in-common things are more heavily considered on his part than they are on mine. I think we can
work things out
. He thinks we cannot. I think the things we have in common are more sort of profound worldview things and the things we don't have in common are lifestyle things, although now that I think about it there may be some overlap, there may be some little bits of his profound worldview where I drift off (tendency toward spontaneous public nakedness as expression of comfort in world [and/or humor]/smoking is cool) but nevertheless when I see him with these other people, these wrong people, I think that he should be with me. And I think he knows this on a level he won't admit to I can see it when he looks at me.

M
Y
APARTMENT IS HAUNTED by the ghost of a baby named Christina. I had been living here for a couple of years already when I first saw her, right around the time Joe and I decided to take a break. I think after a year of hearing him plead,
Christina, Christina
, she couldn't take it anymore and finally said,
What?
as he was on his way out the door. Christina is my name, too.