“That’s pathetic,” I couldn’t help but say. “If you’re cheating on your girlfriend, it’s probably not a good idea to let her hold your purse.”
“Hey---this is my apartment,” was his counter-thrust.
Touché.
As we climbed the stairs, I had a thought; one that I expressed as soon as we got inside the apartment.
“Wait a minute. What about your little twit downstairs? Tanya? Why don’t you stay with her?”
“She broke up with me. I don’t know where she is. I think she’s out downtown drinking with her friends or something. She was pretty messed-up.”
As I resigned myself to spending my birthday night with The Doubtful Guest, I pulled out the spare pillows and a blanket and started to make up the couch.
“I can’t believe they both broke up with me on the same day. It’s like you can’t depend on anything nowadays” he said pitifully as he polished off the flask.
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t have a whole lot of empathy for you right now.”
“Whatever,” he picked up the remote and flipped on the TV. “You got any liquor around here?”
While Alex scoured my kitchen cabinets for the half bottle of cooking sherry, I put on the least revealing pair of pajamas I owned and did a quick search for the cat, who was nowhere to be found. With Alex there, she wouldn’t come out all night.
This was no way for my cat to live.
12
The next morning, Alex sobered up and pointed out the obvious.
“You know your coffeemaker’s broken?”
“Yeah,” I replied as I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink.
“Hey, this rent check for December,” he said as he handed me the check I’d given him the night before, “you think you could give me cash?”
Just then, the morning mariachi session began on the roof and a hunk of plaster hit the floor.
“They really need to fix that,” Obvious Man commented as he grabbed his coat and looked at the bedding he’d left on the couch.
“Oh---don’t worry about making my bed. I’ll be back tonight. These the spares?” he said as he grabbed a set of keys off a nail. “Yup. I can tell. Okay, got my keys, got my phone, got my game face… Oh----can I get like twenty bucks? I need a toothbrush and lunch. Oh, and coffee. Can you make it twenty-five?”
I gave him my withering stare, which is extra withering before I’ve had my morning coffee.
“What? If you had a working coffeemaker, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Over the next few days, I tried several times to call Celia, but she wasn’t answering her phone. I left a message that Alex was staying with me, but tried not to make it sound as horrible as it was. She had her own problems. The fact that one of them was sleeping on my couch was minor, in comparison.
“He’s still there?” Dr. Prince practically jumped off her folding chair. Thank god, I finally wasn’t boring my therapist.
“Yes! I’m exhausted. He snores so loud I can’t sleep. Then he wakes up before the sun comes up and turns on the early morning stock report or something. I’m so tired.”
“If she has his wallet, where is he getting his money?”
“I gave him the rent in cash. And then he comes home and spreads his work stuff out on the sofa and turns on the TV. I haven’t seen my cat in days. She must eat and pee while we’re at work. And then there’s the guys repairing the roof… It’s awful. I mean, I know it’s not suicide or divorce or the firm belief that I’m a 1970s pop star, but…”
“No, it’s bad. Trust me, I’ve had houseguests before. I feel your pain.”
“So, what do I do?”
“What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know. I was waiting to talk to you.”
Somewhere along the way, fishnets had reeled me in.
“Well, this is a new development in our relationship,” she sat back in her folding chair with a satisfied look on her face. “Look, he’s got to leave sometime. What is he doing for clothes?”
“He had a few extra suits at the office. But he’s using my toothpaste. My shampoo. He even took one of my razors. I gave him cash! Why can’t he buy a plastic razor?”
“Ay tacaño!”
“Yes! He is cheap!” I happily recognized a Spanish word. “He doesn’t seem in too much of a hurry to leave, either.”
“Meera, he feels comfortable there. It’s his old place. And, frankly, he’s just waiting for her to take him back. He figures that if he lays low for a few days, she’ll cool off and forgive him. And she probably will, so watch what you say about him. He might seem like a loser to you, but this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Those feelings don’t just die overnight. But I have a big question to ask you---who’s the cutie-pie I saw you leaving with?”
“Oh---that’s the building manager.”
“No! That’s him! Oh, he seems nice, mami. Are you working it? I mean, don’t be a slut, but you need to work that shit.”
“There’s no way it’s going to work out. It never works out for me.”
With twenty minutes left to go in our session, I started to tell her the story of Jeff.
Jeff Michaels was my ex-boyfriend back in Milwaukee. We’d broken up about a year before I left for New York. In fact, he was one of the reasons I finally made the decision to move to The Big Apple.
We’d dated for six and a half years. He’d been in grad school seemingly forever. Botany. Why I put all my hopes and dreams into a man who was perpetually
