More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I didn’t know any guys who liked anything done by a woman as much as they liked something done by a man. I was always arguing for them to even consider a woman.
Right before turning thirty, I’d felt acutely aware that I’d reached the end of something. Not just my twenties, but also that feeling that life was completely fresh, newly unfolding.
There was a queasy unease to treading new waters, building the compass as you sailed, every choice a guess. Except it was worse now. Because it was expected at eighteen, or even twenty-five, but at thirty, it was embarrassing.
“So you’re breaking up with me because you might form a band?” “When you say it like that it makes me sound like a dick.”
Things were things until the thing meant something and then it was invaluable.
“Jeanette, men and women can be friends, you know? Nora Ephron proved that in the eighties.” Now it was Jeanette’s turn to fold her arms. “I’m not talking about men and women, I’m talking about exes. And have you seen that movie? They fuck and then they get married.”
There is something about a city that isn’t yours. Perhaps better than a beach vacation is the trip to a new city, the luxury of walking leisurely through a busy metropolis, observing a hustle that does not require your participation.
But it turned out I had organized my own religion, one that relied on what I now saw as the seemingly romantic, but ultimately cruel, philosophy that Everything Happens For A Reason. Without this private logic, I was vulnerable; it was a crisis of faith.
Desperation wasn’t in fashion. It was embarrassing to pine after someone who didn’t want you as much as you wanted him. Only Dolly Parton had the courage to say otherwise.
Where other women fought, I fawned. I’ve sensed some aggression, let me see how I can make you like me.
The more was the friendship. The more was knowing we would have each other even as the people we dated passed through our lives. We were lucky the way we were. In other words, it would have been perfect if it snowed that night. But it didn’t and it was perfect anyway.
I pointed at the red leaves climbing along the building. “Do you know what this is called?” “Virginia creeper.” “Sounds like how a tabloid newspaper would describe some philandering senator.”
I said to Elizabeth now, “It just didn’t work out.” I mean, when did it ever?
Kyle whispered as if he were giving me some much-needed advice, like there was food stuck between my teeth or toilet paper on my shoe, “It throws off the rhythm of the night. You can just sit quietly.” I said, “I’ll sit quietly in the car. Right now.”
I glanced at the burnt rose petals, then at the roses on the bar, the selection of Julia’s Rose now seeming less a gesture of hospitality and more like nefarious manipulation, a kind of bait and switch.
I shook my head again and said the worst possible thing. The credo of liars. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I loved you,” he said. “But I didn’t want to have to think about anyone else.”
Afterward—I would gag if someone else told me this, but it’s true—we stayed outside and looked at the stars. In our defense, we both spent our time in cities. With all the light pollution, we didn’t normally see stars. And yes, we were high on ourselves and reveling in the romance of it all.
I felt bad for lying to him, so I kissed him.
“No, I’m just super uncomfortable here,” I said, launching into that thing where you make an honest joke about an awkwardness but then, because of that real awkwardness, everyone desperately wants to relieve the tension, so they overcompensate by doubling down on the laughter, like you’ve just said the funniest thing in the world, and meanwhile the point you were hoping would be made ends up completely ignored. You never know, sometimes people catch on, it’s a way to get out of a situation. But not in this case.