“I guess that could be rough,” she says uncertainly. “But at least you can talk about interesting things with them, like literature and art. All my sister wants to talk about is diapers and these crazy, mean dogs she and her husband breed. Anyway, I bet you’re as brilliant as they are. You’re just insecure.”
“No, I’m not.…Brilliant, I mean. I admit to the insecure.” I drain my wineglass. “I want another. You want another?”
“I do, but I can’t afford it.”
“This one’s on me.”
“I feel bad making you pay.”
“Don’t. I want to. This is fun. I don’t go out very often without Tom.”
“How long have you guys been together?”
“Coming up on ten years.”
“No—really.”
“Ten years,” I repeat. “Seriously.”
She looks perplexed. “Wait—how old were you when you met?”
“Hold on,” I say. “Let’s get some more wine. And then I’ll tell you our whole epic love story.”
* * *
It’s not really such a great story: we didn’t meet cute or overcome any hardships that would make even a halfway decent movie.
It was the week of my fifteenth birthday. At that time, my one goal in life was just to fit in, but I lived in a weird, big house and had parents who didn’t speak much to each other, a father who didn’t speak much to his kids, a younger brother who didn’t speak much to anyone, and an older sister who I barely knew because she’d gone off to college so young, but whose overshadowing brilliance was a continual reproach to my deficits even in her absence.
I escaped my family as often as I could, going out with friends on the weekends and after school, usually bumming rides from other people’s parents, who tended to be more accommodating (and less nutty) than my own.
One day my friend Molly’s mother dropped us off at the Chestnut Hill Cinema on her way to a silk-screening class. Molly had invited along another friend, a girl named Anna she knew from their country club. We all saw a movie together and then walked over to a bagel place to grab a bite to eat.
Anna offered to give us a ride home. “My older brother’s picking me up,” she said. “He doesn’t mind driving people around—he doesn’t have all that much else to do. He’s in college, but he always comes home on the weekends.”
“Why?” asked Molly.
“God, I don’t know,” Anna said. “He’s a loser, I guess. When I go to college, I am never coming home again.” We all agreed that as soon as we were able to escape our homes, we wouldn’t return except to pick up our Christmas presents.
Anna’s brother was a couple of minutes later than he’d said, and when he did pull up, she yelled at him and called him a moron. I was struck by how unperturbed her brother was by her show of temper: he just apologized for being late and told her he’d tried her cell but she hadn’t picked up.
“I had it turned off for the movie,” she snapped.
“Well, I tried,” he said calmly.
She had bought a magazine with a quiz in it that she and Molly wanted to do together, so she told me to sit up front. The other girls retreated to the backseat with their magazine while I buckled myself in and snuck a few peeks at Anna’s college-aged brother who was really, really cute. Big shoulders, thick hair cut short, a nicely chiseled face. His thighs were muscular inside his jeans—you could tell if you looked. I looked.
He was far too grown-up and hot for me to get up the courage to actually talk to him so I didn’t say anything after my initial hi.
But after a few minutes of silence, he glanced over at me and said, “I’m Tom by the way.”
“I’m Keats.”
“Keith?” he said with a confused furrow of his brow. I explained my name, and then he laughed and said, “I really thought you said Keith,” and then I started giggling, and we laughed for a while longer, and then it was like we could talk now, so I asked him about college, and he told me it was okay but he had a psycho roommate and so came home whenever he could, and I told him that I had a psycho family so I was very sympathetic, except I couldn’t escape—yet—and I told him some stories about my dad, like how he was so crazily absentminded that once he actually started to leave the house wearing only his boxers. I had discovered about a year earlier that the things that most embarrassed me about my parents could be turned into amusing anecdotes if told with the right sort of dry detachment, and sure enough, Anna’s big brother seemed fascinated.
He assumed I was Anna’s age, but she was actually a year older than me. Even if I had been sixteen like her, the age gap between Tom and me would still have been huge.
I left the car excited and pink cheeked from having hit it off with a guy who was that tall and mature. While the two (silly little) girls in the backseat chortled over their “Are You a Princess, a Grunge Artist, a Hippie, or a Fashion Star?” quiz, Tom and I had really talked, like peers. “See you,” he said when I closed the door, and our eyes met in brief recognition that Something Had Happened.
* * *
But my buzz quickly gave way to a more realistic pessimism: I would never see Anna’s brother Tom again. No college student was going to ask out a fifteen-year-old (or even a sixteen-year-old, which he thought I was). And I wasn’t even friends with his sister, so it wasn’t like it’d be easy to run into him.
But back at school, when I looked around at the boys my age, they seemed so stupid, so pimply faced and scrawny, so unappealing compared to Tom Wells that I knew I had to try. I had to.
It took me a while to get up the courage to call Molly and suggest we invite Anna to see another movie with us the following weekend. “She’s really nice,” I said.
“Yeah, she’s okay,” Molly said indifferently. “I’ll conference her in.” She dialed Anna, and a low male voice answered and said he’d get her. A thrill passed through my entire body at the sound of Tom’s voice, and I squeezed my thighs together tightly, all curled up on the edge of my bed since I’d brought the phone in there for privacy.
While we were making plans, I said as casually as I could, “Hey, Anna, why don’t you ask your brother to come see the movie with us? That way he could drive us both ways.”
“Okay,” said Anna. “He’s such a loser he’ll probably say yes.”
Months later, Tom told me that he asked his sister which friends were going, and when she mentioned the redheaded girl with the weird name, he immediately said he’d drive. He was already planning to sit next to me in the movie theater. “I knew even then,” he said. “You and I had a connection. And it didn’t matter that you were so much younger. It just felt right.”
Of course, at the time he didn’t know how much younger. That came out later. And it did scare him off for a while, but he came back because we both knew we were meant to be together.
Our relationship grew up with us. At first, we moved slowly. Tom didn’t rush me into anything I wasn’t ready for. He was patient and gentle and careful. For over a year, we did things like go miniature golfing and bowling and to the movies, and he always got me home early, and we didn’t do any more than kiss.
I was glad about that, but I was also scared I’d lose him because of it.
He did have a few one-night stands over the next couple of years, which he confessed to me afterward, sobbing, wracked with guilt and terrified I’d leave him because of it. I didn’t like it, but I forgave him. Maybe there was some relief for me in it: I wasn’t ready for sex yet, and he found a way to have it and still always come back to me.
He loved me. That was the thing that got us through all those early bumps and the awkward age difference. The moment I hopped into the passenger seat in his car, Tom Wells fell in love with me and knew I was the right girl for him forever. And if that meant he had to wait a little while for us to sleep together, he’d wait. He was in it for the long haul.
And so was I, despite my mother’s frequently voiced predictions that I would lose interest in Tom as I got older and mo
re sophisticated. I finally had someone in my life who was always there for me, who could take me away from the insane asylum I called home, who told me I was smart and beautiful, who truly believed I was smart and beautiful, not just some disappointing post-Hopkins letdown. He was kind, adoring, handsome, loyal, constant, a safe haven whenever I needed it, a home that I could curl up on.
Most girls don’t find their Prince Charming when they’re only fifteen. I guess what I lack in brilliance, I make up for in luck.
6.
When I finish telling Cathy the story, she says, “That’s incredible.” She’s scarfed down two entire plates of grilled cheeses: six small sandwiches altogether. I guess it’s a nice break from those ramen noodles. “Were your parents okay with the age difference?”
“They didn’t love it, but they’re not the kind of parents to tell me I couldn’t see him or anything. I do remember my father working the words statutory rape into a conversation with Tom years ago as a joke, which gives you some insight into his sense of humor. But they let me do what I wanted.”
“I don’t know why it surprises me so much: my parents were like eighteen when they got married. But here on the East Coast it feels different—people are just so much older when they settle down. You two live together, right?”
“Yeah, ever since I graduated. But even before then, I used to spend all my weekends with him. His first apartment was kind of gross, but after I graduated, we got a nicer place. I mean, legally it’s his place, but we picked it out together.”
Cathy shakes her head. Wisps of reddish hair fly around her forehead. She cut it recently, and it’s a little short for someone her height, makes her head look too small for her body. She has beautiful eyes, though, big, green, and thoughtful. “The longest relationship I’ve had was with my college boyfriend, and that didn’t even last two years.” She munches on a crust of grilled cheese. “I haven’t had a date in ages. I just don’t meet anyone new.”
“I’ve only ever had one boyfriend, though. I’ve never even dated anyone else.”
“Have you wanted to?”
“Not really. Dating seems so awkward to me—having to make conversation with a stranger, trying to figure out what you have in common—” I interrupt myself, leaning forward abruptly. “You know what’s really weird?”
“What?”
“My mother is dating now.”
“Your mother? Wait, what do you mean? I thought she was still married to your father.”
“She is technically. But they’re getting divorced and he’s moved out.” Mentioning my dad’s apartment makes me think of Jacob—and all of a sudden I have a brilliant idea.
I stop in the middle of a sentence and think for a moment.
Yeah, it’s brilliant.
“You okay?” Cathy says.
“I’m great. Just wondering…How would you feel about being fixed up with a guy?”
“Depends on the fixer-upper. If it’s my grandmother, I would run in the opposite direction. But if it’s you…Do you have someone in mind?”
“Yeah, this great guy who works for my dad and—” I’m interrupted by the bartender who’s come over with two more glasses of wine. “We didn’t order these,” I say.
The bartender nods down toward the other end of the bar. “They’re from those two guys. They said to tell you that they’ve never seen two beautiful redheads out together before and the least they could do is buy you both a drink.”
Cathy’s mouth opens up wide in a combination of surprise and amusement. “Where? Those guys? At the end?” She peeks. They’re watching us. She quickly ducks her head, her pale skin reddening. “Tell them we say thank you.”
The bartender nods and walks away. He’s a real Bostonian, big and tough, with a raspy voice and a nails-on-chalkboard accent. We watch surreptitiously as he gives them the message, and then the guys smile right at us and move in our direction. “Oh god,” Cathy says. “I think they’re going to come over! Did you know they’d do that?”
I shake my head. I don’t have any experience with flirting in bars since I’ve never been single. Cathy clearly hasn’t had much, either. “Maybe by sending a message back through the bartender, you kind of invited them to come over?” I say.
“We can talk for a minute, right?” she whispers just before they reach us. “It would be rude not to?”
But then she goes all flushed and silent when they start chatting us up, so I’m forced to make all the small talk—yeah, it is funny we’re both redheads, but we’re not related; we’re just friends, and they’re pretty different shades anyway, and no, that wasn’t what brought us together; actually we sort of work together at the community college, and what do they do?
They work at a big insurance company, running analyses and crunching numbers, which they cheerfully admit is boring, but hey, it’s a steady job in this economy so they’re not complaining, not a bit.
There’s some talk about where we’re all from originally, and the taller one expresses a lot of interest in the fact that Cathy’s from the Midwest and kind of moves over to talk to her more about that, because even though he grew up in Stoughton, just thirty minutes away, he visited his relatives in Michigan a lot when he was growing up, so that makes him an honorary midwesterner, right?
The shorter guy inserts his body between me and Cathy, smoothly turning the general conversation into two separate, private ones. He’s reasonably cute, and while we chat about good neighborhood bars, I wonder what it would be like to go out with someone who isn’t almost a foot taller than me. I’ve always liked Tom’s size. When we hug, my head presses against his chest, and it feels safe and cozy there, but it does mean I have to put my head back to look him in the eyes, and during sex, we’re not exactly face-to-face. It’s a silly thing to complain about, and I’m not actually complaining. But that’s the thing about only ever being with one guy: you wonder what it would be like if things were different, not because you want them to be different, but because you’re a little curious.
For a while, I politely make conversation with Shorter Guy while Cathy blushes and stammers at Taller Guy (the girl’s got to get out more), but after a few minutes of this, I’m done. I mean, I want to help Cathy out, and maybe she and T.G. have a future together, but this particular game’s boring when you’re not actually on the prowl. I lean sideways so I can signal to Cathy around S.G.’s torso.
“I really should head home soon,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. But you should stay.”
“Wait,” Shorter Guy says. “You’re leaving? Why? You have to go wash that red hair of yours or something?” He winks jovially.
“Yeah,” I say, sliding off the stool. “That’s exactly what I have to do.”
“I better go, too,” Cathy says, also standing up.
“Aw, come on,” Taller Guy says to her. “Don’t let her drag you out of here. Let me get you another drink.”
Cathy looks vaguely terrified. She’s a smart girl and a well-respected teacher at the school, and one day she’ll probably be a high school principal, but right now she looks like a five-year-old who doesn’t know where her mommy is. “I think I should go,” she says nervously.
“At least give us your phone numbers,” says T.G.
“You give us yours,” I say, and I think that’s when they know they’ve wasted their ten bucks on our drinks. Their voices are curt as they rattle off their phone numbers. I only pretend to enter them in my phone.
Once we’re outside, Cathy says, “That was kind of fun, wasn’t it? No one’s ever sent me a drink before. But I don’t go out to bars much.”
“That could definitely be a contributing factor. You know, you could text that guy and see how he responds. If he seems nice, you could—”
But she’s already shaking her head. “Too weird.”
We say good night, and it isn’t until I’m back in my car that I realize we never finished our conversation about fixing her up with Jacob. It still feels like a good idea to me. They’re both g
raduate students. They’re smart and academically inclined. Neither of them is originally from the East Coast. They’re both mildly attractive in a nerdy way. Neither seems to go on many dates.
There is, admittedly, a less than ideal height difference—she’d probably tower over him—but I know couples like that and it’s no big deal. It’s kind of endearing actually. I do wish Cathy had a little more…spirit I guess is the best word—she’s so self-effacing sometimes—but it’s not like Jacob is Mr. Dynamism. He’s funnier than she is and maybe a little quicker and more interesting to talk to…but overall, it’s a good fit.
The only thing is, I feel funny telling Jacob I’m fixing him up with someone. He’s never mentioned his love life to me or to anyone else in my hearing, so it feels weird to suddenly just say, “Here’s the number of a girl I think you’d like.” But it seems even more awkward to have Cathy cold-call him and say, “Hey, there! I’m a friend of Keats!”
I’m parking in our building’s large, well-lit garage when the solution hits me: I’ll have them both over for dinner and invite a couple of other people so that the fix-up will feel a little less obvious.
I like this idea and not just because it gets those two together. Making dinner sounds like fun. Tom and I don’t entertain that often: it always feels easier to just go out with friends than to have them over. And neither of us is a particularly good cook. But I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who throws casual dinner parties, and this is a good excuse for one.
I’m walking toward the elevator, thinking about what I’ll serve my guests, when I hear someone calling my name. I turn. Tom waves at me as he pulls his car into the space next to mine. He joins me just as the elevator arrives. “Where were you?” he asks as we step inside. “I assumed you were home hours ago.”
“I grabbed a bite to eat with one of the grad students from school—Cathy Miller.”
He leans over and sniffs at my mouth. “You smell like alcohol.”