vegasmike433's Xanga Site

December 19, 2004

MODERN LOVE

Two Beds in Motel Natchitoches

By KATHERINE TANNEY

ACK says I’m behaving like Deirdre. We are facing each other on opposite beds in a motel room in Louisiana. It is after 3 a.m. and all he’s wearing are white briefs with upbeat multicolored stripes. This is no Calvin Klein advertisement. This is a baggy pair of cheap underwear on a 34-year-old with a belly. Ten days ago, I would have called him the love of my life.

Deirdre is not someone I wish to be compared to. For Jack and me she has come to represent the intersection of hopelessness and obsession. Quite simply, she would like our friend Nick to marry her, even though their four-year relationship technically ended more than a year ago. She recently bought a house around the corner from his and, as “friends,” they continue to eat, shop and exercise together. When the four of us went to see “Fahrenheit 9/11,” I noticed his hand on her knee, their fingers entwined.

“Are you and Nick back together?” I asked later.

“We’re still in love,” she said, “but we can’t be together.”

While Jack gets himself a glass of water from the bathroom I try to contain my distress at being likened, by my boyfriend, to a woman who lost hers and can’t accept it.

“If I’m like Deirdre,” I say, “doesn’t that have to make you Nick?” (Mr. Mixed Message; Mr. Indecision.)

“No,” Jack insists.

“Yes,” I say.

“No way.”

My metaphor for Deirdre and Nick is the shishi-odoshi, a Japanese fountain originally designed to scare away deer. In such fountains, a bamboo cup collects water until the weight causes it to empty back into the basin, accompanied by a gentle clack. Nick keeps explaining to Deirdre that he isn’t going to marry her, after which Deirdre, breaking her vow to keep away from him, slowly resumes their friendship, inevitably leading to another round of filling and emptying. A brochure for the shishi-odoshi comments, “The clack of bamboo penetrates the garden and fades. We are reminded that time is moving on.”

IT is early October. Two mornings ago Jack and I drove seven hours to Natchitoches from Austin for a wedding, and for what I assumed would be a romantic weekend. The spring and summer had been studded with weddings, but the only one I really wanted to come to was here, in Louisiana, which I associate with a good time. The Web site for the wedding promised a Cajun band and dancing lessons.

Now the weekend is nearly over. Several hours ago, a bunch of the guests decided to meet at a bar for an after-wedding party. Jack wanted to go and I didn’t.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “Have a good time.” And I meant it. It was only 11 o’clock. I figured he’d be back in a couple of hours. Then my evening of Champagne and dancing caught up to me and I succumbed to happy, carefree slumber. Two hours later I was sober and awake again, ready for Jack’s return. Another couple of hours went by.

Not long before this wedding rolled around I came to the conclusion that I no longer enjoy watching couples, even those I love, tie the knot. Perhaps it started when two of the weddings I attended this year were merely for show; bride and bridegroom had been husband and wife for months when they arrived in their finery to recite their vows, like lip-syncing pop stars. The ceremonies were as perfunctory as the Pledge of Allegiance.

At a more sincere wedding in August, an affair at a fancy Houston hotel, I sat beside Jack, the two of us putting away plates of tortellini and prime rib, and wondered — while looking at the bride, a single mother about my age, mid-40′s, in a gown that revealed muscles toned at the gym, her hair loose around visible laugh lines — if marrying Jack would make me any happier than I already was.

The answer came quickly and it surprised me: I am content with things just as they are, our own houses, separate finances, waking up by myself several days a week, surrounded by my own thoughts.

I don’t know what was in the wine, but for the first time since my early teens I saw how frantically we fear that a good thing is not complete, is not quite real, until it is sealed, celebrated and state-sanctioned. I flashed upon Deirdre’s terrible longing and silently blessed the rare absence of my own.

For the record, I have been married. I liked it very much: liked coming home to someone and the feeling of having him in the house, liked the power of two incomes and never having to worry about the holidays. But none of that protected my marriage from ruin.

Jack, on the other hand, has never even lived with a woman. His longest relationship before ours lasted six months. Which may explain why, almost from the beginning of our giddy, sexually charged relationship, he let fly one reference after another to a shared future.

He said: “If we get married, I want it to be a big party. Forget the boring hotel.”

And: “I can just see us 30 years from now.”

And: “If we live together, we can rent out your house and you can move in with me.”

For the longest time I said nothing in response. His reckless, premature comments struck me as the out-loud musings of a nutty, romantic relationship novice. Which was what I liked about Jack. I couldn’t afford to get too serious, having finally recovered from a three-year relationship with an older man that left me feeling stranded and unable to experience joy for many months.

Jack has been something else entirely. His lack of depression is refreshing, his disinterest in drinking or doing drugs a minor miracle. There are no children, no ex-wife, no S.T.D.’s to worry about. He doesn’t require Viagra, doesn’t have a stressful, time-consuming job. We share friends in common, a religion, a love of cooking, swimming and play acting. He makes me laugh, reaches for my hand in public, calls me several times a day.

THE thing is, if you stand long enough in a drizzle you eventually get wet; the things he said, his attitude started me thinking about the future, too.

He said: “Maybe we’ll live in San Francisco for a few years.”

And: “Even if we get married and Larry is my brother-in-law, I’m not sure he and I will ever be good friends.”

And: “Wait until I’m 40 before you stop coloring your hair.”

Is the idea of marriage like some eternal spring at the core of each of us? If so, Jack was no longer dipping into it to tantalize himself alone. I began wanting him to propose; began thinking of him not as a force of nature that would soon be done with me, — the way I’d thought of him for so long — but as the natural partner I would be spending the next chapter of my life with. There were moments when I thought I recognized the look in his eyes, a perhaps life-changing question hovering on the tip of his tongue. One night I accidentally referred to his truck as “ours” and noticed he didn’t mind.

And then, 10 days ago, I said something. Asked one measly question to his multitude of suggestive remarks: “Do you think about our future a lot?”

It was painful watching Jack backpedal and squirm. We were at the pool, had been dangling our feet in the water, shoulders touching. Suddenly he was stuttering in his haste to put distance between himself and the implications of his previous comments.

He wouldn’t look at me as he declared, conclusively, that a period of at least five years was necessary before he could consider living with anyone. He spoke in generalities, never saying a word about us. I was confused as much by my own deep disappointment as by his stunning retreat. Duped was how I felt. Interfered with. He said he was sorry if hearing the truth made me sad. I told him it was O.K. and privately hoped I could readjust and go back to living in the moment.

At this wedding in Louisiana, Jack and I have been the couple to watch, dancing close and slow both nights, our eyes locked in dreamy appreciation. We have laughed ourselves silly, milling about together, entertaining each other, then mingling with the crowd. The bride even mentioned our wedding, the way people do, as though it was assured.

But in our motel room, the scene has been very different. There, the same high-action blockbuster has been playing for most of the weekend on HBO, even though we saw it when it came out and Jack knows the TV annoys me. We have not visited each other’s bed, not once, for more than a momentary chat or half-hearted hug. And now, just hours before we have to drive home, we are finally alone together, face to face, fighting over why he has stayed out all night.

We know we are nothing like Deirdre and Nick, and that this snippy repartee is simply the best we can do in the face of our inevitable breakup. I am furious at Jack’s briefs, which now remind me of diapers and seem to offer final confirmation that I was wrong. Again. He will not be the one to rescue me from serial monogamy. He will take his tacky underwear and get in line with the rest of my exes, many of whom, though I hate to admit it, were also going to be the last boyfriend I would ever need.

“Well, get ready,” I say, fixing Jack in my sights, “because I’m about to end this pathetic relationship.”

He lowers his head — is that relief on his face? — and nods. “Yeah, I guess it’s time.”

The words strike with an unexpected clack. He is on his bed, looking squarely at me, and I am on mine, no longer angry or puffed up. It is all denouement from here. I take a deep breath and begin to feel both better and worse as the realization sinks in just how badly I wanted it this time, and what a surprise that is, and how relieved I am once again to be done with it for a while.

Katherine Tanney is a writer who lives in Austin, Tex. She is the author of the novel “Carousel of Progress.”

| | | | | | |

← Previous Post