I’m inspired.
I’ve finally worked my way up to the man who broke my heart, the lover I had to debate about when making the list. He gave me everything, but then he took it away. Still, time alters perception, and what I remember most about him today is the loving. I remember Nick B., Boston… he came to me one day like a bolt of lightning. He tied me up-it’s what I do with all the girls, he told me, it’s what turns me on-he taught me to love the feel of hem prope against my bare skin,
he showed me a different kind of dance, he could control my every move, and he could change the way I breathe. The fact that he did this with way more than one woman at a time more ofte n tha n no t wa s disappointing, bu t doesn’ t change those midnight hours when I was wrapped up by him and permanently marked with his brand of love.
I stil l know Nick B., i n that awful ex-lover/friend / acquaintance way, when you don’t really know a damned thing about each other anymore but pretend that it still matters that you chat occasionally when you’re in town. So I wait, and I call him three months after the check i s cashed. He’ s doing great, he tells me, he’ s finall y finishe d hi s novel, he has a new inspire d state. I as k him if he’s in love, after telling him about my new love, Jackson. “No,” he says, “I decided about four months ago to become celibate for a year and to really think about my history, and what it is that I need to be doing… why are you calling me, by the way, what’s up?” I tell him I do volunteer work for a non-profit business now, and just need a stateside referral in Boston from him.
He laughs. “You were always a do-gooder, Emily.”
And then it occurs to me, he has no idea how much good I can do. There is more to this story. I am thinking to o small, to o personally, focuse d onl y o n m y ow n memories. There are a million lovers out there and more than half of them are bad. I’m watching Jackson sneak in books like From Porn to Poetry, Herotica, 1000 Ways to Tongue Your Lover, and God knows he gets sexier all the time even when I think he can’t get any better, but those books aren’t being read by lousy lovers. This will neve r do. Jackso n ofte n say s i n hi s lawyerl y wa y tha t “money changes everything,” and maybe he’s right.
I can change the world. Fuck locally, award globally. Life is short. Towers fall down, young people die, still, rudeness is everywhere and lover s continue to thoughtlessly cause pain.
I can change this.
This is my calling in life, to rid the world of bad lovers. There are so many women I know, and they’ll share. The y remember. We can expand; we can rais e funds; we can sneak it to the press; we can i nspire lovers everywhere, and the question on everyone’s mind will be-what would someone remember about me? If I wor k a t thi s lon g an d har d an d cleverl y enough, b y the time we get to post-third-or-fourth-wave-feminist — entrepreneurarial-sex-goddes s girl s wh o wil l stil l probabl y have tattoos on their breasts and condoms tucked inside thei r stockings, the y wil l remembe r differently, an d perhaps all of their dreams will come true.
Chapter 6 — B acon, Lola amp; Tomato
The first time Lola found out that Keith had cheated on her, she gained ten pounds almost overnight. I love you and I will wait for you, my sweet tomato, his email note had said when she 'accidentally' read it on his computer, which was cute, except that he certainly never referred to her as any kind of fruit or vegetable. 'It's nobody,' he offered with a guilty shrug as she sat slurping her second bowl of ramen noodles, 'just a way to waste time online and avoid working on my novel.'
' I am not a tomato,' Lola Maria Estonia pointed out to him, just in case he had forgotten. She flipped her long black hair in the way that made men crazy and wrapped it around his wrists as though she could hold him that way. 'But you do always wait for me.'
They laughed; she forgave him; they made love; she got up afterwards while he slept and made herself a big bowl of Apple Jacks with raisins and four teaspoons of sugar.
The day Lola found his cell phone bill she discovered the joy of a box of Krispy Kremes, fresh and warm off the rack, half of them eaten directly while she was still in the bakery, the rest of the dozen melting in her mouth on the drive home. It appeared that the sweet tomato lived just one area code away and received almost daily calls ranging from ten minutes to two hours.
' I love you, Lola Maria,' Keith swore that night when they crawled into their four-poster bed, the same bed they had shared for one year, two months, and twenty-three days. ' You are the heart of my dream,' he whispered as he slid inside of her and gave the extra soft flesh on her bottom a spank. ' You are the voluptuous overflowing lush root of every desire any man has ever had.'
This was why she had moved in with him in the first place, because he had the words that could change the way she breathed. But now his words seemed to be adapting to her new body — he used to only call her my fragile princess, my little girl.
' I'm sorry I've hurt you,' he whispered as they laid in bed with their legs entangled afterwards. 'Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?'
She hated to think of fighting with him, or worse, to hear him lie again. ' I'm hungry,' she finally answered, sure that more carbohydrates would make her vision of telephone bills disappear into sated bliss. So Keith got up and made her his special omelet with sausage and potatoes, no tomatoes, and for once she ate every single bite on her plate.
Lola Maria Estonia was up to a size 14 from her former size 8 when she finally went to visit the mysterious tomato. The sun was growing hotter and hotter as she stood on the sidewalk across the street from the address she had tracked down from the phone number. Lola was so fascinated that she took up more space in the world than she used to, even in the middle of the sidewalk, that she only smiled as the warmth grew under her red leather jacket, newly purchased from the Coldwell Collection in a comfy size for the 'plus' woman. She had thrown out all of her old skinny jeans, although Keith had suggested that perhaps she should keep them because she would need them again soon. Lola had just smiled and gone shopping.
It didn't seem that Keith spent much face-to-face time with the tomato, because he was usually at home at his computer, or at his part-time job at the bookstore, or out with Lola. She wasn't about to ask Keith any more questions — she just monitored his email and phone calls, as though she was a detective. She also checked up on his novel that he said he was almost done with, and realized he hadn't written much of anything in a long time. Why is it that I live with this man? she wondered on her bad days, but then she remembered all the words, and how he made love to her with such passion, and how she was almost sure he was her soulmate, not to mention a good cook.
The tomato came out the front door of her small house and walked directly toward a Lincoln Town Car that was parked just beyond Lola. 'Nice jacket,' she said to Lola as she passed by.
'Would you like to have it?' Lola asked in an awkward gesture of friendliness that she hoped covered her desperation to find out more about this tomato. She had heard that people did this in some other places — Japan, maybe? — and suddenly it seemed like offering another woman her red leather jacket on a hot summer day was a normal thing to do.
The tomato stopped, turned, and laughed, taking Lola in fully from head to toe for the first time. Lola wore a long black cotton skirt, a white shirt with her black lace bra peeking out, and heavy silver jewelry. 'Would I like it?' The tomato moved closer and stroked Lola's arm, checking the fabric, checking Lola, deciding. 'Sure. It looks like a good fit.'
'Thank you,' whispered Lola in her smallest voice, though she knew she was the one who was supposed to say 'you're welcome.' But she could not keep her eyes off the tomato — she had long curly red hair down to her waist, large breasts, great cleavage in a tight black tank top, and black jeans that looked to Lola like they were just about a size 14, maybe even 16. She was almost, Lola realized, identical in body to Lola's new look, and if Lola dyed her black hair red, she thought she could almost be her twin.
'My friends call me Cherry,' said the tomato, slipping on the red jacket. 'And you are…?'
'Lola Maria Estonia. Can I come with you?' Odd words were flowing out of her mouth, like someone else was writing them — better dialogue, she thought with a sharp twist of spite, than anything she had ever read in Keith's agonized attempts at novel writing.
'Do you know where I'm going?'
