20 Getting to Know Me

20

getting to know me

Danielle

It’s been two months since we got the apartment. Things have been getting better every day with Alex and the boys. It’s not uncomfortable doing the swap or seeing him at the kids’ functions. He’s been respectful, leaving the apartment clean and organized. I trust that he’s no longer using it as a bachelor pad, so we stopped insisting the sheets be washed every five minutes.

I threw myself into work. Now I go into the offices nearly every moment I’m not with the boys. Lars declined my offer to write for the show this season, but he promised he’ll come on board for the second season. He said he had too much on his plate, planning his wedding and honeymoon. I don’t buy it. I think he’s cowering out of guilt for not putting all the rumors to rest.

He did finally come out to me over the phone in a very nonchalant way, sort of implying that he thought I always knew. I wish I had known. It could have extinguished many of the fires in our house, with both Alex and with my mother. I know it was just one catalyst, but had it not all been for Lars, the rumor, Beth…would Alex and I be divorced?

I’ve seen Jacob for the last several Sundays. I go to the Westside and stay at his condo with him. It’s easy and familiar. He’s energetic…happy. We cook dinners or swim in the ocean, paddleboard, go for bike rides. It’s freeing to be with someone who doesn’t talk to me about finances, or college funds, parent duties, household chores, or neglected needs.

At first, I was nervous about being vulnerable and physically close with Jacob, but then I remembered what sex had felt like with him when we were young. I could tell he remembered me too. I hadn’t felt sexy in a long time, almost like that part of me had gone dormant. Now it’s alive and my skin looks better, my hair is thicker and healthier, and I’ve lost the flab around my stomach, which I thought would never go away.

I haven’t told anyone about Jacob, but I think Alicia has suspicions because she’s basically clairvoyant when it comes to me.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but things feel good right now. I’m finding our stride. Eli fast-tracked the show. They’ve already started shooting the pilot episode. The cast and crew are amazing, everything I could have dreamed for and more.

When we were married, Alex and I had a rhythm. As a team, we were effective, especially in the beginning. He was building his career; I was building mine. We shared all of the household responsibilities. When we had the boys, it felt like I was shouldering more as far as domestic and parenting duties, but Alex had the consistent income that offset the monetary fluctuation of my volatile profession. So it still never felt unequal.

We prided ourselves on how productive we were together, but when things started going downhill, all of that energy was transferred to fighting. Each of our focus was on winning the argument, no matter what it was about. And my mother dying in the other room only exacerbated the turbulence.

Now I feel that camaraderie coming back, but in a different form. Alex and I are compromising. We’re communicating, “You do this, I’ll do that. Okay, great! Let’s get it done.” It’s not a competition and it’s not adversarial. The house and apartment are running smoothly, the boys are happy and no one is fighting. All of this had felt impossible before the divorce.

It’s Sunday morning and I’ve just gotten to the apartment. I haven’t made concrete plans with Jacob tonight, but I’ve been seeing him on Sundays, so I assume we’ll get in touch later today.

Flipping through my records, I come across another one of Alex’s Bruce Springsteen albums, Devils the crisp, delicious wind was rushing through the car. Alex looked youthful. He was so transparent then…in the best way possible. I could tell he was happy and at peace.

At one point during the song, he looked at me. I had taken my shirt off and was wearing a bikini top, shorts, hair up in a chaotic topknot, and that kind of serene smile that would take effort to turn to a frown.

“You’re so beautiful, Dani,” he had said.

“Oh yeah? Like this? All disheveled?”

“Especially like that.” He put his eyes back on the road and said, “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m married to you. I look at you and think, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe I get to spend the rest of my life with a hot, funny, smart wife. I’m so lucky.’?”

I started to get choked-up then. “Thank you,” I said, voice trembling.

“I mean, Dani, you have to know, you’re a grand piano in a room with a bunch of toy pianos.”

I laughed and cried simultaneously. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything; just know I know how lucky I am.”

“I’m lucky too,” I whispered.

Naturally, we spent the next two days mostly naked. We were making the ultimate commitment, starting a family. It felt more permanent than saying “I do.”

I turn the record player off and look at my phone. I’m obsessively checking it, waiting for Jacob to text me. Instead there’s a text from Alicia asking me to call her.

“Hello,” I say when she picks up.

“Hey, I’ve been working so much, I need to get out. Let’s go to dinner and get drinks tonight?”

“Um— ”

“Are you gonna tell me that you’re busy sitting in the apartment alone?”

“Well, I was writing…” It wasn’t a total lie, I wrote a little bit, first thing in the morning when I was still at the house, before I came to the apartment.

“You have to write all night long? What’s going on with the show, by the way?”

“It’s going superfast. They’re shooting the pilot episode.”

“That’s amazing! But I know you, you need a break. Let’s go out.”

“Alicia…

“Oh my god, you’re about to tell me something. You’re seeing someone?”

“Yeah, I knew you would know. Not just seeing him, we’re, like, getting serious.”

“Oh no, Dani.” She sounds disappointed.

“What?”

“Getting serious? You just —”

It’s irking me that she’s not happy for me.

“Don’t, Alicia!”

“How did you meet him?”

Very quietly I say, “It’s Jacob.”

“What?” She literally hangs up the phone, then immediately texts me.

Alicia: I’m coming over. Be prepared.

Me: No, I have plans. We’ll talk later.

Alicia: Whatever.

Still no text from Jacob. I text him…

Me: Hey, what’s on the agenda ?

No response. An hour later…

Me: Hello?

An hour after that…

Me: Everything okay, Jacob?

No response. I sit on the couch and wait for what feels like forever.

It’s getting dark and I’m frustrated, but I’m also getting worried about Jacob. I can’t help it; I open up Instagram and look at his profile. There’s a picture from twenty minutes ago.

It’s a beach. It looks different than here. It looks tropical. The caption says: Nosara, Costa Rica, never lets us down. This perfection all day.

He went to Costa Rica and didn’t even tell me? He obviously has cell service and he’s not responding to my texts. I text again…

Me: Now I’m getting really worried, Jacob. Why aren’t you responding?

Three profiles are tagged in his beachscape photo. I click on the first one; it looks like a surf buddy. I thoroughly sleuth and put together that the guy is married. The second profile is another guy, same thing, married with kids. The third profile is a woman. She’s younger, very athletic looking. Most of her first photos are of what I’m assuming is Costa Rica. Then I come across one where she’s sitting on Jacob’s lap. It’s from a year ago. My stomach drops. They look like they’re sitting at a beach bar in some exotic location. There are other people sitting at the table with them. She and Jacob are both laughing, seemingly unaware that a picture is being taken. He’s shirtless, she’s in a bikini, and his hand is on her thigh. One minute later, I get a text…

Jacob: Hey, sorry, just saw this. Let’s catch up sometime.

What?

Me: Catch up? Sometime?

Jacob: I’ll be in town next weekend. Drinks Friday?

Me: You know I can’t. I have my kids on Fridays.

No response. I wait. I know I told him which days I would be at the apartment. I’m so confused. I hesitate over Alicia’s number but I don’t call her; instead, I drag my feet into the kitchen, feeling bewildered and a bit unhinged.

Is this what being single is like? You go out with someone multiple times, think you have a connection, spend several consecutives Sundays with that person playing house, and then they disappear and behave as though you don’t exist? In this moment I feel expendable…easily replaced. Casual dating is only a temporary reprieve from our feelings of low self-worth. When reality sets in and the commitment is nowhere to be found, our self-worth plumets to an even darker depth of misery than before.

I fish a full bottle of chardonnay out of the refrigerator, then reach for a glass and an opener. After popping the cork, I fill the glass only halfway, as if I’m holding on to some attempt at decorum.

Who am I kidding? I take the dignified glass in one hand and the bottle in the other and head for the bedroom…alone. This feels sort of like being married to Alex, but worse.

—

It’s been a week. Thankfully, I was busy with the kids and work. I actually didn’t see Alex at all. We were ships passing in the night…as it should be. Alicia has been hassling me about getting together. I know she’s going to grill me about Jacob, who did finally text on Tuesday, like it was no big deal. I asked him to meet me for dinner tonight, told him that I needed to talk to him. I fully plan to give him a little piece of my mind for what the kids call “ghosting” me last weekend. But first…I needed to deal with Alicia.

I’m headed to meet her for brunch at a little rooftop restaurant in Santa Monica. She was irritated that I asked her to drive across town, but I had packed a bag and figured I’d end up staying at Jacob’s, so I headed out to the Westside early. I’m sitting at a table waiting, sipping a mimosa, when I see her come in and chat with the hostess. Alicia is usually all business, but today her blonde hair is down in soft curls on her shoulders and she’s wearing a Boho-chic, light floral jumper. She looks relaxed and I’m relieved. I’m also dressed casually, beachy in a sundress and hat.

“Hi,” I say. I stand and reach out to hug her.

“I love driving one hour to go twelve miles on a Sunday morning.”

“It’s noon,” I say matter-of-factly.

“It was the morning when I left,” she says as she sits.

The waiter comes over and Alicia orders a mimosa. We’re looking at the brunch menu in silence and it’s making me uncomfortable .

“I’m sorry it’s LA. What was Mark doing today?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

She looks up and shrugs. “I don’t know, like going mountain biking or something.” She squints. “Why?”

“I’m just wondering. Making conversation. Are you mad at me, Alicia?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize how childish I sound.

“Mad? No. But I know why we’re down here. I know why I just drove an hour and paid forty dollars to park. I know it wasn’t for the view.” She gestures toward the semi-obstructed ocean view we have across the totally concrete parking lot below. “I know where Jacob’s apartment is, we employ him occasionally.”

“All right, let’s talk about the elephant.”

“This is like a woolly mammoth, Dani…tusks…extinct…the whole bit.”

“Funny,” I say.

“Do you remember the last time you thought things were getting serious with Jacob? Because I sure do.”

“That’s different. We were young,” I say.

“He’s not different though,” she says.

I gesture for the server. “Can I get another mimosa?”

“Just bring a bottle,” Alicia says.

“I don’t want to get drunk.”

I feel a pit in my stomach like I’ve been caught sneaking out of the house by my parents.

“We’re not going to be drunk after splitting one bottle of champagne,” she sneers. “But for the record, I know why you’re even trying to stay sober right now.”

“Because my car is here,” I lie.

“Okay.” She rolls her eyes.

“Alicia, the last three years of my life have been terrible. I’ve been horribly lonely and depressed. I’m finally feeling good— ”

“You definitely look good, but that’s not really the point. I’m worried about you getting hurt, that’s all.”

“He, like, really likes me.”

“He, like, really likes cheeseburgers and puppies and sunshine. The guy likes everything . He’s a happy-go-lucky, noncommittal man-child. You are a relationship addict and this was easy because you knew him. He’s not looking at this the way you are.”

“I think he is. I’m having dinner with him tonight.” Even though I know there is a small truth to what Alicia is saying, I’m not listening. Jacob is into me. When we’re together he seems enamored by me. He tells me I’m beautiful and successful and he makes me feel like a person, not a wife, not a mother. I’m getting tipsy. I’m having an early dinner with Jacob at five, so I feel like I need to rein it in and calm down. “Let’s get some food,” I say.

“Fine.”

We order, talk about the overpriced menu, and then the conversation shifts back to dating.

“Why don’t you date around? Instead of hanging out with an old flame?” she says.

“I don’t think you understand, Alicia. All of my friends, except for you, are mommy friends. Either from baseball, elementary school…the freakin’ church I went to that one time…”

“Yeah, that was weird when you did that.” She laughs through her nose.

“It was for the boys,” I say. “The fact is, I don’t have people to go out with. You’re married not only to Mark but to your job…and all those other women, I have nothing in common with them, other than the fact that we all have kids.”

“I meant go on a dating app. Date a whole bunch of different people. That’s what I would do.”

“That’s what every married person says. ”

“Now you’re an expert on being single?”

I attempt to pour champagne out of the empty bottle. Three drops go in my glass. “That was fast.”

“We’ll take another,” Alicia says to our passing server.

He arches his eyebrows. “Erm…okay.”

“No, Alicia.”

I reach out, waving him off. She swats at my hand. “Who cares, it’s Sunday brunch.”

The server is already on the mission. “How are you gonna get home?” I ask.

“I booked a massage and room at Shutters. I need the massage and peace and quiet to go through a deposition. What about you? How are you gonna get home?” she says in her snarky lawyer voice.

Shutters is a fancy hotel on the beach in Santa Monica. It’s expensive and the spa is even more over-the-top. But Alicia can afford to drop hundreds of dollars on peace and quiet for one night.

“I don’t know. I’ll Uber,” I say absentmindedly as the waiter fills my glass.

“So what’s it like? Sleeping with him?”

“Jacob?”

“No, the pope.”

“It’s good, I guess. Let’s not talk about it anymore.” I’m bummed she’s not being supportive.

She’s exasperated. She takes a deep breath in and out. “I’m sorry I’m being a jerk. I’m seriously curious, though, I want to know what it’s like.”

“Dating him, or just the sex?”

“All of it. I’ll keep my opinions about the situation to myself.”

“Finally,” I say. “It takes an entire bottle of champagne to get you off my back. ”

“Tell me everything.” She’s inhaling a plate of eggs Benedict. I’ve pushed mine around, annihilating the twenty-five-dollar eggs and hollandaise.

“It’s fun…We do stuff…It’s nice.”

She stops chewing and looks up at me. “You are an Emmy Award–winning writer and that’s the description I get?”

“Okay, fine. In bed, he’s boring,” I say, like it’s a confession I’ve been holding on to for decades.

“Boring? Jacob?”

“Yes, he’s robotic, like he’s running on a treadmill or something. Just in and out, you know?”

“Really?” She’s genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, and…” I lower my voice. “Like, missionary only.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Well, what are you like?” she says.

“I don’t want to tell him what to do.”

“You have to.”

“No, I don’t,” I say. “I like spending time with him. Going to the beach, yoga, riding bikes…”

“So, like, no foreplay?”

“I don’t think he knows where the clitoris is,” I whisper. I feel almost evil saying it out loud. “It doesn’t matter, that’s not why I’m with him.”

“Well, that’s why he’s with you!” she blurts out.

“Shh, quit yelling.”

“I have a theory,” she says.

“What?”

“If you’ve never been in a committed relationship, your sexual partners—which you barely know—aren’t going to tell you what they like. They’re not going to say, ‘Right here, it’s right here! I know it’s not where you thought it was, but it’s true, it’s RIGHT…HERE!’?” She points to her crotch and continues. “?‘Look, honey, I can bend over in front of you and it still works,’ or like, ‘You can put your mouth on that!’?” She’s laughing almost to tears now and I am too. We’re officially drunk.

“I know. He needs GPS directions. I mean, the last time we were together I tried to turn around, but he flipped me over onto my back and just started the old heave-ho. I think he knows, he just doesn’t care. It’s like going to the gym for him.”

She’s still giggling. “That sounds amazing,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I guess I took some things for granted.”

“Like what?”

I’m not thinking before I speak. I’m really out of it. We’re not even adding a splash of juice now. “Like the fact that in four minutes Alex could make me—” I stop myself.

Her smile turns from humorous to sympathetic. “You taught him well.”

“Somebody else is probably enjoying the fruits of my labor as we speak,” I say with one last little laugh. “A kid-cancer doctor, angel, model, perfect specimen…”

“Don’t think about that,” she says. “Everyone’s different anyway. Alex is probably fumbling his way through uncomfortable experiences too.”

“No, he’s not,” I say with a seriousness that is giving me a stomachache. “He was always good at it.”

After about three hours of laughing, drinking, and then trying to sober up, we ask for the check.

“My massage appointment is at five and I want to check in first. I better get going. What are you gonna do for an hour?” she asks.

“Go walk on the beach…think about things.”

We stand and start to head out of the restaurant, when Alicia turns to me and says, “You’re divorced, Dani. You’re single and you don’t have to be a mom…now is the time for cocaine and threesomes.”

“One never stops being a mom.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’ll be fine. I know he likes me. I am a relationship person. I don’t want that other stuff.”

We hug. She pulls away and says, “It’s not so much about you not wanting it, it’s about the way the world is. The world you haven’t been a part of for more than two decades has changed.”

“Okay, Lish. I hear you!” I give her a kiss on the cheek, say goodbye, and head for the boardwalk.

Before I know it, it’s almost five and I’m walking into the restaurant to meet Jacob. I feel a bit windblown and disheveled, so I pop into the ladies’ room first and clean myself up. Perfume, breath mint, and five Advils later, I head out to the front of the tiny seafood spot where I see Jacob standing against a pillar. Before he sees me, I take a moment to take him in. It’s the first time I’ve really looked at him from a distance.

I wonder, if I didn’t know him, would I be attracted to him? He’s in great shape, but he kind of has one of those faces that’s easy to forget.

He looks up, sees me, and smiles instantly. His eyes light up as he walks toward me. He likes me. I repeat the words over and over in my head.

“Hi, lovely.” He leans down and kisses me on the cheek.

“Hi.” I know there are things I want to say, but I’m holding my tongue for the moment. “You look like you got some sun.”

“Yeah, a lot of sun,” he says with a laugh. “Table’s this way. Shall we?”

I’m reading into his response. Why did he laugh? It’s irking me. I need to get it off my chest .

As soon as we sit down, I start in. “So, Costa Rica?”

“Yeah. You ever been?”

Does he not understand that I’m mad? “No, I’ve never been.”

“You should go. I go a couple times a year…at least. Really consistent surf and just totally untouched land. It’s gorgeous.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Huh? Um…”

I’m glaring at him.

“You said I should go. Are you inviting me?”

The nonplussed expression on his face is already getting old. “Well, Dani, I just got back.”

I glance around the room and make it obvious that I’m irritated. A deep breath in and out and then I say, “I don’t understand, Jacob. What is going on with us? I mean, you didn’t even tell me you were leaving the country.”

He jerks his back. Now he’s clearly looking surprised. “I don’t understand.”

The waiter comes, pours us each a glass of wine, and leaves. The tension is palpable. I take two large gulps of wine.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Costa Rica?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Are you serious?”

“Dani, I don’t know what you think, but I’m sorry if you were under the wrong impression.”

My chest is hot, my hands are twitching, and I’m positive my face looks like a tomato. “My impressions can’t be wrong. They’re mine and they’re subjective. But let me explain something to you…when you are in a relationship, you tell the other person you are leaving the country.”

His confused eyes widen piteously. His voice is low when he says, “We’re not in a relationship, Dani. We hung out a few times.”

“We slept together. ”

He arches his eyebrows. “Yes, we did. It was very nice. I really like you…”

“But?” I say. I’m fully prepared for him to dump me right now.

“But I’m not really the commitment…the, um…” He’s fumbling his words, looking for the right thing to say.

“What, the marriage type? I don’t want to marry you,” I say before emptying my glass of wine down my throat.

“No, what I mean is, the monogamous type.”

Something in my mind shifts. It’s like I opened the blinds. He dates many women.

“Am I the Sunday night girl?” I say.

“No, it’s not like that at all. I’m just…I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

“Is the girl you tagged in the Costa Rica picture your girlfriend?”

He’s searching his mind. He doesn’t know what I’m referring to. “Ohhh, Milena? No. I don’t have a girlfriend, Dani. Milena surfs.”

I’m not his girlfriend. It stings a little. Of course I’m not. I know I’m being ridiculous. It’s humiliating. Still, I can’t stop. “But do you sleep together, is what I’m asking.”

There are four awkward beats of silence. I already know the answer. “Yeah, we do,” he says.

“I don’t mean sleep together. I mean, do you have sex with her?” I am pouring salt in my own wounds now.

He’s finally losing his patience. “Yes, Dani, I have sex with her and with other women too. Not just you.”

Tears flood my eyes. I stand up, feeling idiotic and confused. I want to go home. I want to go to my house, not the stupid apartment. I want to go to the house I made a home. I want to hug my children and remember what it feels like to be loved .

“Don’t leave, Dani, please.” I sit, but I’m still clutching my purse. “I thought you just wanted to have some fun. I thought you knew I wasn’t really that type?”

“That type?” I say. “Have some fun? Sounds cheap.”

“No, it’s not cheap at all.”

I’m having déjà vu. This is basically how it ended when we were in college. I stand up again. “You’re just avoiding expectations.”

“I’m intentionally avoiding them, because I can. I’m single and I like to do what I want, when I want.”

“That’s selfish,” I say.

“No, it’s not selfish, it’s honest. You can call it whatever you want. It’s normal to me and to a lot of other people. I’m sorry you got the wrong idea.”

“Goodbye,” I say as I finally leave.

I walk a mile and a half to Shutters and call Alicia. I get to her room, plop on the bed and cry into a pillow. I tell her I don’t want to talk, and then fall asleep without another word.

—

It’s Monday morning, my head is pounding. Alicia is already gone. She left orange juice and a bagel next to the bed and a little note.

Dani,

I’m sorry. I know it was for the best though. Give yourself some time.

Love you!—Lish

Back at the apartment, I spend all day writing and on work calls. Around eight, I finally drag myself into the kitchen. I heat up chicken soup and look for a record to play. Devils & Dust is still on the record player, so I put it on while I look for something else.

I’m back in the Cape Cod memory with Alex. We were lying in bed at the B&B. He rolled over to face me. He was propped up on his side. “What should we do today?”

“Do you want to rent bikes again?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” he said as he brushed a strand of my hair back.

“Even though the hot girl that works at the counter was ogling you for ten straight minutes?” I said with a laugh.

The clerk at the bike rental place was a very pretty young woman who definitely made it obvious that she liked Alex.

“I didn’t notice.”

“How could you not?”

“I really didn’t, Dani, I swear.”

I believed him.

“Well, she was,” I said.

“You’re the only woman I want to be with. I love everything about you. I don’t even see anyone else. And as far as looks, you blow them all out of the water anyway,” he had said.

I feel myself getting emotional at the memory. The song is over, so I take the record cover and pull the blank sleeve out. I know Alex doesn’t look at any of these, so I take a pen and scribble I MISS YOU on it before slipping the record and sleeve back into the cardboard.

It’s true. It might be the first time I’ve been willing to admit it to myself, but I do miss him. Alex would have never treated sex as something so trivial and arbitrary, the way Jacob did. When we were happy, Alex could say things to me that would convince me that I had something special…that I was unique. Tonight I just feel like a typical aging divorcée.