Song of Spaghettios
“Hey, Marcy, it's Alfred, the stranger from Barnes & Noble. Anyway, it's about 10:30 on Tuesday; just giving you a call, hope you're doing well. Hoping you'll maybe give me a call back. Still reading Sense and Sensibility? I always thought it was a little underwhelming, but I could be wrong. Anyway, if you'd like to meet up, give me a call. You should have my number. Oh, I just got back from karaoke with my friends, it was a blast. I sang Don't Go Breaking My Heart. So don't you go breaking mine, you hear? That's just a little joke. But give me a call, all right? Talk to you later, Marcy.”
There was no karaoke, unless you count mimicking American Idol contestants under my breath over a can of Spaghettios. I spent this weekend alone in my grey New York apartment watching flies and reality TV. Like last weekend.
I have the Marcy Date Outfit all picked out: the green striped shirt with the tie from eBay. It's only been two days since we met. She has to call. If she didn't want me to get in touch with her, she'd have just given me a fake number or something. Her machine clearly says, “Hey, you've reached Marcy, leave a message.” I'm allowed to leave messages. She said so.
According to the leather-bound notebook where I keep appointments, my upcoming date with Marcy will be Date #67 since Cassandra left me. Lucky #67. Fate drew me to Marcy just like it drew me to Cassandra. I was riding the subway home to my East Village apartment from my too-nice office building on popcorn kernel-colored subway seats. Get out at the next stop and walk home, my mind told me. I got out at 72nd street and noticed how little dog crap there was on the sidewalk. Instead, the streets just sort of glittered with these shiny flecks of mica. In the village, the streets might glisten with fresh urine or vomit, but here it was different. Here, I felt like I could finally take a deep breath. And there was Marcy, her skirt stretched tight like saran wrap. She and that skirt swished into the Barnes and Noble on 69th. I couldn't ignore a sign of fate.
I followed her up three flights of stairs and breathlessly asked if she liked Chinese food. “No,” she answered, but she didn't walk away.
“Do you like Japanese?” I asked. I could feel my forehead beginning to sweat.
“I guess so,” she giggled.
I got her phone number and promised her the best chicken teriyaki she'd ever eaten. She shrugged and went back to Sense and Sensibility.
Date #66 and 65 were from JDate. I saw a billboard advertising the new dating service in Times Square and decided to give it a shot. Who knew the J stood for “Jewish”? I'm not religious, and I certainly don't prefer JDates over RegularDates. I met a sweet girl named Cindy and a moron named Evelyn. Cindy was too good for me. She was in real estate and got her hair done at Aveda. She was poised and pretty, but she said I reminded her of her father. Evelyn was a bitch.
I had been waiting for twenty minutes when Evelyn finally arrived. She clonked into Blue 52 Bar and Grill with knobby knees wrapped in orange pantyhose. She clonked right past me. I recognized her from the .jpeg on her profile, but her hair was a great deal browner and her nose was a great deal more three-dimensional than in the picture. “Evelyn?” I chirped. Cassandra once told me I have a voice like a radio announcer. Instead, I sounded like a pre-pubescent boy. Evelyn turned around, probably expecting to help a lost twelve-year-old find his mother. “Over here, Evelyn, “ I waved.
“Yes?” She seemed startled.
“It's Alfred.”
“Oh!” She seemed shocked.
I tried to be as dishonest as possible in my JDate profile. “S.W.M. (that part was true) looking for an attractive female companion to spend my life with. I am a thirty-year-old (untrue), handsome (untrue) and athletic (entirely untrue) Wall Street Type (true) who loves chick flicks (untrue), baseball (untrue) and menorahs (untrue, but I was afraid they might kick me off JDate if I didn't put something Jewish on there).” My profile picture is of Cassandra and me at the beach twenty years ago. My hair was thicker then. Tan, beautiful Cassandra was always my finest feature.
I figured the J-Girls could get to know my personality first, then get to know my physical appearance, like easing into a frigid swimming pool. But when Evelyn turned around, her big nostrils flared like she was drowning. It might have been my hair. But it was most likely my lack of hair.
She approached my table with her knobby knees and sat down tentatively. “Look at how skinny you are,” she laughed. “Look at those little legs!” I guess I didn't look so skinny in the photo. I immediately signaled for the waiter, which I thought would make me seem more masculine; I took care of things. It wasn't until we both ordered gin and tonics that Evelyn's face finally began to soften. And it wasn't until her face began to soften that I first noticed her mustache.
It was just a small shadow teasing her upper lip. I couldn't even see any individual hairs. Evelyn wasn't grotesque; she would probably even be considered the Upper Middle Class of Attractive, The Midtown of Attractive, complete with screeching cabs. I could definitely date her. But not with that mustache.
“So, Alfred, where do you work?” Evelyn screeched. I choked; I think the gin and tonic was too limey. Or maybe it was the mustache. For a few seconds, I couldn't answer, so she started talking for me. Maybe she was nervous and trying to fill the empty space. Or she could have thought she was saying something witty and it went terribly wrong. I think she was just trying to be a huge bitch. “Well, I'm pretty sure you don't work for Rogaine, anyway.”
I didn't flinch. I didn't even get up from the table, or throw my drink in her face, or respond with a snappy comment: Ever heard of a pair of tweezers, Moustache Lady? Well, I'm pretty sure you don't work for Nair. I said nothing.
I even paid for dinner. I even followed her back to her Upper West Side apartment. I thrusted against her on wrinkled sheets with my eyes clamped shut. Who was I to deny a Midtown of Attractive, mustache or not? I could feel Evelyn judging my every move. Cassandra never judged me. Never once.
The day of the photo, years ago, Cassandra and I had just returned from a day at her father's beach house. Cassandra's arms were wrapped around my stomach as I drove the rental car back into the city. I hoped she would spend the night with me. She stayed at my apartment once the week before, and the next day I started finding her long blonde hairs all over the place – on my bathroom mirror, on the carpet, in my food. I hoped I would find a few on the front of my t-shirt the next morning. She laid her head against my shoulder as we drove.
“I could stay like this forever, Alfred.” Cassandra's breath smelled like strawberries. I breathed in hard to capture the smell inside my lungs. Should I say it? I wasn't even sure my mouth could form the words. We had only been dating a few weeks, but maybe it was time. She really wants to be with me forever? My beautiful Cassandra. I had to say it. For the first time in my life, I had to take a risk.
“I love you, Cassandra.”
“What?” Her head popped up from my shoulder.
“I love you.”
“That's not what I meant at all. I just meant I like being around you, Alfred. Like a friend. It's just an expression.” She laughed, like she had never even considered me. Love with me had never even crossed her mind. Her arms floated back to her own seat and we drove home in silence. I think she fell asleep. I've called her 1,634 times since that night. Maybe her number got disconnected. Maybe she hit her head and developed amnesia. I'm not quite sure what happened to her.
Halfway through a third can of Spaghettios, my cell phone vibrated across the coffee table. Call from: Marcy Cell Phone. I couldn't answer, not with a mouth full of canned children's pasta. Maybe I'll try to go to the gym and call her tomorrow. My voice always sounds better after a good run on the treadmill. Or maybe Thursday. Well, Friday would really be best. I pressed Ignore on my phone and turned up the volume on the TV.
– Lindsay Champion's writing has been featured in Time Out New York, The New York Press, McSweeney's, Fray Quarterly, Common Ties, SMITH Magazine, and in It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, published by Harper Perennial. Lindsay writes a memoir column at book-review website http://bibliobuffet.com. She lives in Los Angeles with an albino goldfish named Betty White. http://newyorkwords.net
