Our place is a treasure trove for Kevin’s romantic past. An encyclopedia. He’s got Doreen’s pictures in the closet, the book he borrowed from Mindy (and never returned) under the bed, and Ruth’s sweatshirt from Brandeis in the laundry. “They’re nice things,” he says. “It’s not like I’ve got pictures of them out on the coffee table. They’re just pieces from the past. I can’t clear my cache just because we’re together now.”
He’s a disc jockey. He only talks like a software engineer, emoting in that deep-throated way of radio stations. And he’s a good guy, which makes it difficult for me to put the smackdown on him at times like these.
We’re both 36, old enough to know better about many things. He minimizes the contact with the ex-girlfriends, though Paula calls a bit too frequently for my comfort, and for my part, I’ve learned what to blow up into a fight and what to let drift off into the breeze.
And, like everything else in this tumultous world, it’s rarely that simple.
“She’s calling again,” I say during dinner one night, checking Caller ID and handing him the phone. I hand it to him, I swear. It’s not like I throw it, though he cringes as if it were a quickly moving projectile. He ignores the call and sets the phone down on the counter. “Answer it,” I say.
He just stuffs another ear of corn in his yap and grins around it. I won’t laugh. I won’t.
“See?” he says. “You think it’s funny.”
Shit. It kind of is.
Truth is, Paula calls maybe once a month or so. But it’s too much, damn it. It’s too much. If he won’t clear his cache, why won’t he at least parse it out a bit? “That’s why we ended it,” he says. “Three years ago. She’s clingy. But she’s a good friend.”
I look at web sites and discussion boards, trying to figure out what we can’t seem to reach in our own conversations. Turns out plenty of people have the want-to-stay-friends-with-the-ex-itis. But no one seems to know the cure.
I post anonymously. The responses come: Dump him, show him who’s boss, talk to him, reason with him, withhold sex, fuck the shit out of him, baby come over here I’ll show you how it’s done no exes here to worry about just me and you if you hurry.
Okay. Screw the internet.
We hit a relaxed spell. Paula stops calling. For now. He claims he hasn’t called her back. I check his phone records – technology, you know, get with it – and he’s right. I’m proven wrong. Well, okay.
“It’s not about Paula,” I say. We’re out in the backyard. He’s barbecuing. I’m sitting on the comfortable wicker rocking chair that I love and Kevin hates.
“So what’s the issue?”
“Stop acting like you’re trying to diagnose my Dell.”
“It really could use some work.”
“Shut up.”
He’s making turkey burgers. They smell good. I’m getting drunk on Red Hook, tossing the little bottles into our recycling can. And then I say it: “You don’t love me.”
Shit. I feel like such a goddamned girl. It’s the thing I pride myself on, you know, not being such a girl. Being a creature with a vulva and clit but also with a personality, and that’s lacking in many girls. Many traditional girls.
And before you get angry, think about it. It’s actually true.
“You want onions?” He doesn’t turn around. He’s poking at the flame. And – would you believe it? – he’s whistling.
The fucker thinks I’m funny. So I repeat my theory. And this time he does turn around. “Here,” he says. “It looks pretty good to me.”
So we eat our dinner, not touching what I’d said. And then we get started on more beer, and as always, when that happens, things get a little out of line.
“We live together,” he says, radio voice high with anger, tech talk forgotten. “How the fuck can you say that?”
“That’s why you keep all your reminders?”
“They’re not reminders,” he says, “They’re the past. And I’m not getting rid of them.”
The same thing happens that always happens at these times: I get horny.
“But,” I say. “We’re doing it differently this time.”
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