Let’s get personal, yes?
So my ex calls me a year, one month and four days after I was dumped for a blonde bombshell who paints toe nails for a living. Hey, darling, I know what you’re saying, “How could that be, E.J.?! What fool would leave you for a toe chick?!” Hey, what can I say, pollution is destroying brain cells in record numbers.
Okay, so my back pocket vibrates and I answer my cell without checking the caller ID. “Hey, >>insert my first name here<<...” ...pregnant pause... “Saw your game in a store up here.” “Up here” being Vancouver, B.C., where Exie is shooting a show (don’t you dare be impressed). “It’s counterfeit,” I growl. “Play testers sold the tester cards.” Laughter. “Sneaky >>insert vulgar adjective<<...” ...mouth breathing... “So, who’re seeing?”
Let’s stop here and rewind two years. Two year ago is now present tense. I meet Exie through a friend. Exie is thirteen years my senior (which is about my usual dating range) and is an employed sushi chef / unemployed actor. Exie has a thirteen year old daughter from a previous relationship (the biological mother died in a motorcycle accident ten years ago) and a crummy little house that’s literally falling apart (the front porch is wrapped in yellow caution tape). This is a dream come true for me. A ready-made family that needs me. I can cook, clean, and be a prime bread winner. Yeah, painting and gaming don’t pay a ton but I have a real knack for keeping my finances in order. Not only that but I’m a great tutor for pretty much any jr. high or high school subject and I *love* kids. I’d have twelve of my very own if I could just found a guy who could keep up with my reproductive libido (hey, that’s a joke, no emails!).
We start dating. I start cooking, cleaning, and bread winning. Daughter’s grades go up. Porch gets torn down and rebuilt. Ant and roach problem get zapped into oblivion. Many candle light dinners ensue. Much bliss as I begin to think that This Is It.
Then Exie gets cast in a TV show. Reoccurring character. Full season commitment. Most likely more. Sushi chef job goes bye-bye and so does Exie who flies home on the weekends. I hadn’t moved in but I do now because I don’t want daughter to be a latch-key kid. After a month, then two, I decide maybe we should stop renting and buy a place. Safer neighborhood. Little bit bigger. Exie agrees. I search and I buy. My earnest money and the loan in my name. Daughter and I move.
Exie starts to skip coming home on weekends. Exie starts to call Daughter but not me. Hm.
Exie comes home. It has been two weeks. Smiles. Knock out smile. Kisses me. Knock out kiss. Then says, “We need to talk about what you’ve been eating.” Snorts and walks into the kitchen to get a beer.
Okay.
Exie comes home. Candles are lit. Chicken marsala with capers. Garden vegetables. Rice and mushrooms. I’ve been prepping and cooking for three hours. Even bought a bottle of excellent red wine (though I don’t drink). Daughter is thrilled with helping and all the wonderful smells filling the house. Chocolate mousse for dessert. Exie says, “Good God, what’s that smell? Come on, Daughter, let’s go grab a burger.” Loyal daughter runs to Exie’s side and before I can move, standing in the middle of the dining room like an idiot, I hear Exie’s car roar to life and off they go.
Fine.
Exie comes home. I’ve been kinda stressed about the relationship. Raising a teen-ager alone is hard. Looking me up and down over the rim of a RedBull, Exie comments, “You know, if you keep dropping weight the first thing to go will be your t*** and a**, and that would be a God d*** shame.”
Done. These, of course, are only the *publishable* stories. And yet I felt devastated and betrayed when I was dumped. Why is it that American girls allow ourselves to be beaten up like that? What is that *about?!*
Fast forward and resume playing the phone call.
“You have some gall calling me,” I find myself saying with an incredibly steady and very angry voice. “After everything you’ve said to me, all the ugly, hateful, misogynistic things you’ve done, I’m stunned you could even *fantasize* that it’s okay to call me. I don’t harbor a single kind or forgiving thought toward you – maybe, like, twenty years in the future, when I’m laying next to some gorgeous creature and our kids are curled up with us, maybe then I’ll be able to wish you weren’t tied to a concrete block and dropped into the sea! But that’s not now. It’s not even near now. Now is when I’m still feeling that you have a serious social apathy thing going on where you think it’s a-o-k to get close to someone, find out all their little hidden insecurity buttons and then push every one of them just to watch someone break. I don’t feel sorry for you but I feel sorry for anyone with you, including your daughter, and I feel sorry that I allowed myself to be blind to your nature for so long!” I pause and remember to breathe. Exie sighs. I scream, “Are you still there?! What kind of idiot would stay on the phone through all that?!”
“Look,” Exie sighs again. “Besty and I aren’t getting along so well and I was just wondering, you know, if you were available.”
For a moment I am utterly and completely and unbelievably speechless. Then, “No. I’m not available. I’m sleeping with my publisher.”
And I hang up.
LOL. Forgive me, Jennifer, I just had to do it.
E.J.
