“So, how come I’m not pathetic?”
Max looked at Dr. Rosen and said, “I have to do all the work around here.” Then he sighed and turned to me. “You’re this brilliant attorney who’s working at one of the most high-powered firms in the city. You’ve graduated to this advanced group. You’re working hard to figure out how you’re fucked up and what you should do about it. You’re not pathetic—you’re pissed that you haven’t gotten all the things you’re working hard for, which is better than this ‘poor me’ thing you do.” He paused for a beat, and I held my breath, thinking he’d saved a zinger for his closing salvo. “Don’t fucking do that.”
I knew I was supposed to keep looking at Max and breathe, but I couldn’t. Who would I be if I saw myself the way that Max did?
One March afternoon, I sat at my desk eating a box of raisins—still working on that constipation—when my work e-mail dinged. Would you like to go for drinks? It was from Alex, who lived four floors above me. I’d chatted with him in the elevator a few mornings earlier when we were both on the way to the gym and learned that, like me, he was a junior associate at a huge law firm. He’d chosen a treadmill close to mine. In the mirror, I watched his lean legs turn round and round. Zero body fat, perfect form, easy breathing despite his six-minute-mile pace. His physical beauty was so distracting I had to move to the bikes.
I covered my mouth with my hands to conceal my joy at this invitation, this potentially Big Thing.
26
We met at an Irish pub on Clark Street the following Monday after work. And even better: I was no longer constipated. Less than an hour after receiving Alex’s e-mail, my bowels cranked back to life.
Alex and I compared notes on our budding legal careers—“so much document review”—and split the shepherd’s pie for dinner. I hesitated for only a millisecond when the dish arrived covered in a layer of browned mashed potatoes with mystery brown lumps floating underneath. I could do this: I could eat stew from another country with this beautiful man.
From the bathroom, I called Rory to tell her I was on a date with a neighbor who looked like Brad Pitt, only cleaner and taller.
“Gay?” she asked.
“Possibly.” He was raised by a single mom and had two sisters, so it made some sense he was not bursting with machismo. What hidden thing in this physically beautiful man’s heart could hurt me later?
Alex and I e-mailed throughout the week, and I put my best Christie forward. Witty responses. Jokes about law firm life and pop culture. I waited a few hours before responding to his e-mails, even though I prepared my responses within seconds. I curated a Christie I imagined would appeal to him. My best guess about what a man as beautiful and put together as Alex might like: Lighthearted humor. Intelligence and ambition. Independence. And based on his BMI, a commitment to physical fitness. I had all of those things, and I shined them up for Alex and served them in balanced doses in each missive. As for all my emotional ups and downs, I sequestered those in group.
Two days after our first date, he asked me out for a second: Italian food and then live jazz.
The darkened club was packed with couples who looked at least a decade older than we were. Alex and I sat against a far wall beneath a picture of a young Billie Holiday. A round-top table big enough for only our two drinks separated us from the aisle, where harried waiters brought mixed drinks to the tables crammed all around us. As a trio played a set, Alex held my hand, his thumb tapping to the beat against my palm.
When the band took a break between sets, he asked follow-up questions to the getting-to-know-you ones he’d asked at our first dinner.
“You think you’d ever move back to Texas?”
“No way.” When he asked why, I paused. There were multiple answers. I could tell him that I didn’t like the heat or the conservative politics. Or that I felt like I had to make it on my own in the city I’d adopted and that moving back home would smack of defeat. Or that I’d failed to secure any attachments to any of my friends who still lived in Texas, so I wasn’t itching to return. Those were true, but when I looked at the curve of his lips and his perfect jawline, I felt emboldened to give him the real reason. “I’m pretty attached to my therapist.” And once I trotted out Dr. Rosen, I decided to go all the way. “And I do group therapy, so I’m attached to all of my group mates too.” No need to tell him it was two groups and three sessions a week. I stared at the image of Billie Holiday singing into an old-fashioned silver microphone. Oh God, what have I done? Was I subconsciously trying to scare Alex away by hinting I was crazy?
“That’s cool,” Alex said. He smiled in a curious way. Like he was surprised that I’d revealed something so vulnerable. He inched closer. “Would you like me to join you out on that limb?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
“I told you my parents got divorced, right?” I nodded. “What I didn’t mention is that after their divorce, they remarried. Each other. And then divorced again.” He shifted his gaze to the vacant stage. Then he turned back to me. “So, that’s complicated.”
“Sounds like it.”
What I wanted to say was “thank you.” Thank you for understanding vulnerability. For meeting me on the limb. For showing me it wasn’t disastrous to mention therapy on our second date.
As the band shuffled back on the stage, Alex scooted his chair closer to mine. In the darkened club, we sat hand in hand, knees touching, letting the
