straighten out my husband’s desk and dust his keyboard and mouse. Can any woman have been a bigger fool? While I was dusting Evan’s pencil box, he was dusting Diane’s.) But she was always so nice to me when I called the office. So nice that Evan would come home from work and I’d be complimenting Diane: “You’re so lucky to have her.”
Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly.
To amp up the cheesy quotient, when I was emptying my dresser drawers and tossing shirts and skirts into my suitcase, bellowing, “Your secretary? Your secretary? What could be triter!”—he had the nerve to correct me and tell me she preferred to be called administrative assistant. Like the real problem was that I’d demoted her. Bags in tow, I grabbed a taxi to Penn Station and a train out to my parents’ house in Roslyn.
At night I’d read suicidal poems by Anne Sexton. Suicidal poems by Sylvia Plath. And cynical poems by Dorothy Parker. I’d pity myself. I’d berate myself. I’d pity myself. Back and forth in my head like a crazy woman, and when I was done with that routine, I’d cry into my pillow on the convertible couch in my former childhood bedroom that was now my mother’s arts-and-crafts room, and then I’d get mad at myself for crying because crying gives you wrinkles and someday I might want to start dating again. Although not any day soon. Maybe never.
How is it some people get their hearts trampled and they bounce right back and fall in love again, no questions asked. Is it because they don’t ask questions? I could no more easily figure out love than I could figure out the insides of a toaster. I longed to believe in romance and excitement and possibility. But deep-down love,deep-in-the-ventricles-of-your-heart love, was something that happened to other people, make-believe people in fairy tales and movies.
I’d walk past the romance sections in bookstores gazing over all those covers of women faint with lust in the armsof bare-chested pirates and sweaty slave masters, their eyes gleaming with passion. Hey, ladies, have fun while you can.
I imagined their six-month talks:
DAMSEL : Well, Sinbad, you’ve been ripping my bodice for half a year now and I was wondering just where this relationship is heading.
SINBAD : Huh? I’m a pirate. Where the hell do you think it’s heading? I’m on the next ship outta town, baby.
My entire marriage lasted twelve days short of three years. It would have been our leather anniversary. I looked it up. To celebrate, I went out and bought myself a new wallet.
The divorce itself took four months to finalize, which in the State of New York with its archaic laws at the time (no no-fault, just fault fault) constituted some kind of legal miracle. (Unless, of course, a too-big-for-his-britches and often-not-in-his-britches lawyer pays off a few judges. Not that I’m insinuating anything.) To unload his guilty conscience along with his wife, Evan covered the security deposit and two years’ rent on a one-bedroom for me. My new apartment was only a block away from the puddle-laden street where we first met. I had a better view than from my pre-Evan apartment—but a more jaundiced view of love.
1
When Deirdre Dolson left a note on my desk requesting my presence in her office at 2:00 sharp, my first thought was What did I do wrong? My second thought was Hey, maybe I’m getting a raise! But that thought didn’t last as long as the first one.
You may have read about Deirdre in the gossip columns—she employs a personal publicist to make sure you read about her. Good for business, she likes to say, but really, it’s just good for Deirdre. She’s the editor in chief of the online newsmagazine EyeSpy . Gossip! News! Pop Culture and Reviews! And the reason I have dental and a 401(k).
The note was written in Deirdre’s signature purple ink. Her other signature is her headache-inducing perfume. She wears it by the gallon. I couldn’t tell if Deirdre personally deposited the message on my
Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly.
To amp up the cheesy quotient, when I was emptying my dresser drawers and tossing shirts and skirts into my suitcase, bellowing, “Your secretary? Your secretary? What could be triter!”—he had the nerve to correct me and tell me she preferred to be called administrative assistant. Like the real problem was that I’d demoted her. Bags in tow, I grabbed a taxi to Penn Station and a train out to my parents’ house in Roslyn.
At night I’d read suicidal poems by Anne Sexton. Suicidal poems by Sylvia Plath. And cynical poems by Dorothy Parker. I’d pity myself. I’d berate myself. I’d pity myself. Back and forth in my head like a crazy woman, and when I was done with that routine, I’d cry into my pillow on the convertible couch in my former childhood bedroom that was now my mother’s arts-and-crafts room, and then I’d get mad at myself for crying because crying gives you wrinkles and someday I might want to start dating again. Although not any day soon. Maybe never.
How is it some people get their hearts trampled and they bounce right back and fall in love again, no questions asked. Is it because they don’t ask questions? I could no more easily figure out love than I could figure out the insides of a toaster. I longed to believe in romance and excitement and possibility. But deep-down love,deep-in-the-ventricles-of-your-heart love, was something that happened to other people, make-believe people in fairy tales and movies.
I’d walk past the romance sections in bookstores gazing over all those covers of women faint with lust in the armsof bare-chested pirates and sweaty slave masters, their eyes gleaming with passion. Hey, ladies, have fun while you can.
I imagined their six-month talks:
DAMSEL : Well, Sinbad, you’ve been ripping my bodice for half a year now and I was wondering just where this relationship is heading.
SINBAD : Huh? I’m a pirate. Where the hell do you think it’s heading? I’m on the next ship outta town, baby.
My entire marriage lasted twelve days short of three years. It would have been our leather anniversary. I looked it up. To celebrate, I went out and bought myself a new wallet.
The divorce itself took four months to finalize, which in the State of New York with its archaic laws at the time (no no-fault, just fault fault) constituted some kind of legal miracle. (Unless, of course, a too-big-for-his-britches and often-not-in-his-britches lawyer pays off a few judges. Not that I’m insinuating anything.) To unload his guilty conscience along with his wife, Evan covered the security deposit and two years’ rent on a one-bedroom for me. My new apartment was only a block away from the puddle-laden street where we first met. I had a better view than from my pre-Evan apartment—but a more jaundiced view of love.
1
When Deirdre Dolson left a note on my desk requesting my presence in her office at 2:00 sharp, my first thought was What did I do wrong? My second thought was Hey, maybe I’m getting a raise! But that thought didn’t last as long as the first one.
You may have read about Deirdre in the gossip columns—she employs a personal publicist to make sure you read about her. Good for business, she likes to say, but really, it’s just good for Deirdre. She’s the editor in chief of the online newsmagazine EyeSpy . Gossip! News! Pop Culture and Reviews! And the reason I have dental and a 401(k).
The note was written in Deirdre’s signature purple ink. Her other signature is her headache-inducing perfume. She wears it by the gallon. I couldn’t tell if Deirdre personally deposited the message on my
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