Starting from Square Two Read online

  It was like Hallie and Erika—especially these days. They got crazy over every aspect of the dating process, worrying it to death. Hallie was still as good a listener as she had been back in school—but only when Erika wasn’t around. When Erika was there, Hallie seemed more concerned with trying to impress her glamorous friend. Gert suspected it went back to high school, when beautiful Erika was exceedingly popular and Hallie was grateful to tag along.

  Gert thought that maybe, just as Hallie wanted to help Gert get back into society, she could help Hallie not be so focused on winning everyone else’s approval—that of Erika and every man she met. Hallie used to be a lot of fun. But more and more, she acted desperate. Strained.

  The three women finally agreed on a bar called Art’s. It had a dual meaning that Gert liked. She didn’t see a guy named Art, though; just a female bartender with overalls and cropped blond hair. A female Eminem.

  There were four stools open at the mahogany counter. Hallie and Erika jockeyed to be at either end, rather than in the middle. If you were in the middle there was no chance of someone sitting next to you. Hallie had done that in lecture halls throughout college, too—always sat just one seat in, so a guy could sit on the end without effort. Nowadays, Hallie also chose the middle seat on airplanes, meaning that seats would be left on either side of her, guaranteed to be taken by people traveling alone. It was Hallie’s Law of Maximum Exposure, almost as airtight as the Great Male Statistic: Leave as much surface area as possible so you will come into contact with an exponentially greater number of single people.

  Of course, 99.9 percent of the time, the plan failed. On airplanes, Hallie often ended up flanked by someone’s grandpa and a woman who looked like Pamela Anderson.

  At Art’s, a David Bowie song was playing, which made Gert think immediately of Marc, because he’d been a big Bowie fan. There she was, thinking about him again. Whenever she did that, everything else lost focus. She sometimes lingered in such a netherworld for four to five minutes and then popped back into reality and wondered what had just happened. People would be staring at her, wondering why she looked so spacey. But there was comfort in the netherworld.

  She tried to figure out which Bowie song it was. Marc would have known. He was a rock ’n’ roll encyclopedia. She could count on him for that. It was just one of the many small things she could count on. Whenever they were in the car together, she would test him just to tease him, asking which singer was on, and if he didn’t know, he would get all frustrated, and the moment they got home he’d dash up the stairs to look up the song in the Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits.

  Strains of Bowie were soon replaced by “5:15” by The Who, which also had a memory attached. They’d gone to see the movie Quadrophenia together. Gert was unimpressed with the movie, but loved the music. Marc was constantly trying to get Gert, and everyone else, into his favorite bands. It was adorable.

  Gert hadn’t realized until he was gone just how many different things she had liked about him, nor how much his very existence had become part of her constitution. She wasn’t the type to constantly blather on about her boyfriend or husband, but she had always had Marc in the back of her mind, no matter where she was. Now, whenever something reminded her of him, she’d remember what happened and her stomach would drop. She wondered if people who were part of a couple had any idea what a privilege it was to get to spend their lives with the person they loved. Of course, they knew on one level, but did they really know?

  Erika whined about wanting to sit on an end stool, so Hallie reluctantly offered her one. But instantly, the seat on the other side got taken—by a girl who’d just come in with her boyfriend. What nerve. At least the girl wouldn’t be competing with them for the guys hanging out by the dartboard.

  Gert picked up the drink menu and looked at it. Wine was eight dollars a glass. It seemed ridiculous for her to spend that much money. Especially now that she was living on a single income.

  She looked around the bar and felt sick. Was this the world she’d been left to—squandering money on booze, dressing half-naked, shouting over music, strategizing about where to sit?

  Gert felt angry. Angry about everything that had happened. Angry at herself.

  Gert knew that thinking about this at the bar didn’t make her look very approachable. But she couldn’t help it. Obviously she wasn’t ready to go out yet. Her initial instincts had been right: a year and a half wasn’t long enough. She was too tired, too angry, too sad. Maybe next year.

  Then she thought of something.

  She could pretend she was back in college, hanging out with friends just like freshman year. She didn’t have to be worrying about who was by the dartboard. She could sing along with Roger Daltrey. She could make fun of Erika’s ponytail. She didn’t have to be looking for a man like her friends were. She didn’t want one, anyway.

  No worrying, plotting or planning.

  Gert craned her neck over the bar and forced a smile. “So,” she said to Hallie, “did you fire that girl at work?”

  “No.” Hallie shook her head. “I will, though.”

  Hallie was the office manager at a management consulting firm, and her twenty-three-year-old assistant spent half the day calling guys, Instant Messaging guys, checking to see if she had e-mail from guys, and scribbling ratings on the posters of guys she kept on her cubicle wall. On Brad Pitt’s arm, the girl had written, “HOT.” On Ben Affleck, she’d written, “yumie” (and yes, spelled it wrong). On Josh Hartnett, she’d written, “Cute!!!” Then, on Robert Downey, Jr., she’d written a simple “OK.”

  “You can’t fire her,” Erika said. “She makes you feel better about your own life.”

  “I know,” Hallie said. “I may be twenty-nine and single, but at least I’ve never put Tiger Beat posters on my walls. And now she keeps disappearing every day between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m., and she thinks we don’t notice. I don’t know where she goes.”

  “Do you have any idea?” Gert asked.

  “No,” Hallie said. “My boss is going to have me follow her.”

  Gert sensed someone sitting next to her. She felt the brush against her shoulder before she even looked. Two men were sitting down. They weren’t looking her way, though. They were talking to each other. She snuck a peek. They were both wearing leather bomber jackets. They were average-looking and clean-cut.

  “Fresh meat at three o’clock,” Erika said.

  Hallie took a quick look at the guys, then went back to Erika. “They’re short, though,” she reported.

  “Did I ever tell you that Ben’s bitch wife is an inch taller than he is?” Erika said. “I can’t imagine what happens when she wears heels. The two of them must look like a circus act.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t wear heels,” Gert said.

  “Don’t be funny,” Erika said.

  Gert heard the guy to her right say to the bartender, “Just a cranberry juice.” The bartender looked at him strangely before going to get the juice.

  The guy noticed Gert looking at him. “I’m all for girly drinks,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh,” Gert said. “This may shock you, but so am I.”

  “What kind?”

  “All kinds, as long as there’s citrus fruit involved.”

  “It prevents scurvy,” the guy’s friend said.

  “Health is always important when ordering alcoholic beverages,” Gert said.

  “So I should order one for you, then,” the first guy said.

  Gert said, “You could.”

  Erika whispered to Hallie, “Hook-up at stage right.” Gert ignored her. The guys both seemed nice.

  “Cranberry juice is…” Gert started, but then she stopped. What she’d thought of was that it was good for urinary tract infections. But that was not appropriate dating conversation. Damn—she was going to have to start thinking like that now. With Marc, of course, she could have said anything. She could have gone to the bathroom in front of him, although she preferred not to.

  It was back
to square one on everything. Well, at least she was older now. Square two, then.

  “Cranberry juice is…good for you,” Gert finished.

  “It’s good for urinary infections,” the first guy said.

  Erika leaned over Gert’s seat and said to him, “Are you a doctor?”

  The guy looked at her for a second.

  “No,” he said, laughing. Erika shrugged and went back to her drink.

  “Anyway, there’s a reason I can’t drink,” the guy added.

  “What is it?” Gert asked.

  “He’s on the extra board,” his friend said.

  Gert looked at them blankly.

  “That means I’m on call for work,” the first guy said. “But even when I’m not on call, I’m never allowed to drink.”

  “Are you a cop?”

  “Nope.”

  “Guess what he does,” the guy’s friend said. “Guess. No one can ever guess it.”

  “Gert,” Hallie called from two stools down. “Do you want a drink?”

  Hallie had drained two cosmos in ten minutes. She was giving Gert a look like she wanted to know if Gert needed to be rescued. Gert didn’t know why. All they were doing was talking. “No, thanks,” Gert said. “I’m okay.”

  “Gert!” Erika said. “Hallie and I are going to the girls’ room!”

  “Fine,” Gert said. “See you.”

  “Gert!” Erika called. “Let us know if you want a drink.”

  Gert nodded.

  “Your friends are loud,” the guy’s friend said in a low voice.

  “They’re really nice people,” Gert said.

  “You must be nice to defend them,” the first guy said.

  “It’s the least you should expect someone to do,” Gert said, “defend their friends.”

  “Anyone who has a rule like that,” the first guy said, “I’m all for.” He smiled. He had a small scar on the bridge of his nose. It looked cute.

  “Todd defends me, right, Todd?” the second guy asked.

  “Yeah, I do,” Todd said in an authoritative voice. “Two more guesses.”

  “You’re a treasury officer,” Gert said.

  “Hey, is that an Untouchables reference?”

  “Yes,” Gert said.

  “That’s like my favorite movie. How’d you know?”

  Gert said, “I just knew.”

  “Brian, isn’t that like my favorite movie?”

  “It’s like his favorite movie,” Brian said.

  Erika and Hallie hadn’t gone to the bathroom as promised. They were staring at Gert.

  Hallie elbowed her.

  “Why don’t you introduce us?” she asked.

  “Oh,” Gert said. “Todd and Brian, this is Hallie and Erika.”

  “Hiiii!” Hallie said, pulling her stool around so that she could see them better. “What do both of you do?”

  “I was just trying to guess that,” Gert said.

  “I’m a stockbroker,” Brian said. “But Todd’s the one with the interesting job.”

  “I think stockbrokers are very interesting,” Erika purred.

  “Well, Todd’s job is more interesting,” Brian insisted.

  “He can’t drink,” Gert added. “So I guessed that he’s an officer of the treasury.”

  Hallie and Erika looked clueless.

  “The Untouchables. They went after alcohol during Prohibition….”

  “That movie rocks,” Brian said.

  “Oh, right!” Erika said. “Wasn’t Kevin Bacon in that?”

  “Costner,” Brian said.

  “Yeah,” Erika said. “My ex-boyfriend was into that movie. He married a girl who keeps a Web log.”

  “How many more guesses you want?” Brian asked Gert.

  “One more,” Gert said.

  Todd pursed his mouth. He had dark hair, a little curly behind his ears.

  “Truck driver,” Gert guessed finally.

  “Close,” Todd said.

  “Oh…I give up.”

  “I work for Norfolk Southern,” Todd said. “I’m a conductor on a train, and we get twelve hours on and twelve hours off….”

  “Those are freight trains, right?”

  “Yeah, and you have a couple of guys on each run, one driving and one making sure everything’s okay. It’s too dangerous to be drinking off-duty, because they could call you all of a sudden to come in. So they don’t let you drink at all, ever.”

  “That’s too bad,” Gert said. “I mean, if you think it is.”

  “Nah.” Todd shrugged. “I did enough of that in college. It’s okay.”

  “So, Brian, how long have you been a stockbroker?” Erika asked.

  “Since college,” Brian said. He looked at his watch and nudged Todd. “I think we’d better get going.”

  “Yeah, we’re meeting friends,” Todd said. “It was nice to meet you, though.”

  Gert didn’t know if he meant all of them.

  “So…” Todd said “…if you have a number, I mean, would you mind if maybe I gave you a call sometime?”

  Gert thought about it. There couldn’t be much harm. Besides, the practice would do her good. She searched in her purse for something to write on—it had been a while since she’d done this—and finally came up with an inky business card. She scribbled her home number on the back.

  Hallie and Erika looked on, concerned.

  Then, the men were gone.

  “The only person to even talk to a normal guy was Gert,” Erika whined in the subway in the wee hours.

  “Neither of you would have even talked to Todd,” Gert said. “You didn’t like that he’s a train conductor.”

  “Well, I did like Brian,” Erika said.

  “Based on what?”

  “I don’t know. He was cute. So thanks for not helping. You were like, ‘I’m taking Todd and that’s it.’”

  Gert sighed. “I wasn’t taking him. He just seemed like a nice guy, so I talked to him.”

  “Why didn’t Brian like me?” Erika wailed.

  “Maybe Todd only wanted my number so he could call me to get yours,” Gert said.

  “Well, if he calls, don’t give it to him,” Erika said. “They were short.”

  Now Gert knew the truth: Hallie and Erika were single because they were crazy.

  “How did you know to mention his favorite movie?” Hallie asked.

  “Oh,” Gert said. “There’s a canon where guys are concerned. Marc was always quoting lines from that movie. If you quote certain things, you can slide right into their conversation.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  The canon for guys in their twenties and thirties

  The Simpsons

  This is Spinal Tap

  Star Wars

  Monty Python

  Star Trek

  The Princess Bride

  The Untouchables

  The Hobbit

  The Matrix

  Office Space

  “Excuse me,” Erika said. “Don’t you mean, ‘The canon for nerds’?”

  “No. There are cool guys who like those things.”

  “Hey,” Hallie said. “Maybe we should get together at my place this weekend and rent these flicks.”

  So they put it on their schedule.

  When Gert got home, she was exhausted. Her bed felt soft and wonderful.

  She’d spent the last five hours trying to put something out of her mind that she hadn’t really wanted to put out of her mind. She’d been in an environment where everyone was supposed to appear carefree and happy, but her feelings had veered between torture and just getting a mild drubbing. Even if the bar scene hadn’t been as horrible as Hallie and Erika made it sound, there was a real harshness to it. It was unsettling. It wasn’t at all like what she would have done that night if Marc had been there.

  If he had been there, they probably would have gone out to dinner, and then taken
a walk through Manhattan. Or maybe they would have snuggled on the couch and watched a movie. Even cleaning the house with him would have been better than going to the bar. Playing a rousing round of that silly plastic foosball game he’d insisted on keeping in the living room would have been better. It was too hard to fall in love with someone, learn all of their quirks and passions, assume you’d spend the rest of your life with them, and then suddenly have them snatched away forever.

  Slowly, in bed, Gert spread out her bare arms. Sleeping barearmed, feeling the sheets against her skin, was the closest she got to a caress these days.

  She knew she had to stop thinking about what she could have done if Marc had been there. This was the new reality. He never would be.

  But did she have it in her to start fighting her way through leather-jacketed and miniskirted crowds in search of a second miracle?

  It didn’t seem worth it.

  Erika brought two bowls overflowing with popcorn into Hallie’s living room. It was Friday night. The room had one wide window that was being pelted by the rain. Hallie popped the tops of three Diet Coke cans and a no-frills carbonated fruit punch and let them fizz on the coffee table.

  Gert and Erika, sitting on the couch, reached for the diet sodas.

  They left one for Hallie’s often-absentee roommate, Cat, who was rumored to be making a rare appearance within the hour. Although with meek Cat, who spent weekends with her family on Long Island, it was always hard to be sure.

  Why, Gert thought, does it seem wrong for us to be having a slumber party for twenty-nine-year-olds?

  Because this is not what you expected. You don’t have a sleepover party with your twenty-nine-year-old girlfriends. You and your husband have kids, and THEY have sleepovers, and the two of you stand in the doorway beaming, pleased to see the kids so excited, remembering what it was like back then—and thrilled to have your own best friend to sleep with.

  “You know what would be great?” Hallie asked, lying on her stomach on the floor and painting her nails. “If the rain turned to snow, and it piled up, and we were stuck here for three days.”