Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 217

You guys,

I met John while on molly, a terrible drug for a first impression. 

It was May of 2015 when he walked into the bar and I immediately thought, No. He wore a button-down shirt and a chain around his neck. His shoulders slumped forward and he seemed to hide beneath his baseball hat. Then the drugs kicked in and we made eyes at each other from across the booth. I found out he was a middle child, like me. When “Shut Up And Dance” by Walk The Moon started to play and I gasped, he announced that he loved this song. “Me too!!” I said.

For our first date he took me to a fancy restaurant on the water and it felt exactly like how I thought a first date would feel. I was too nervous to eat and didn’t know what to say. He came back to my place afterwards and we talked about our past relationships. We even showed each other pictures of our exes. He said he was still friends with all of them. 

On our second date he told me we were going to get married. I found this charming rather than alarming.

On our third date we went out for burgers and beers and then went back to his place. We made out for a bit, then he went down on me and took off all my clothes. He kept his on. When I got on top of him to have sex he sighed. “What?” I asked. “Well, I went down on you so…” he said. “I just thought you would… never mind… you’re already here.” 

An old friend from high school came to visit me. Valerie was disliked by pretty much all my other high school friends. She said exactly what she thought which was often a judgment or critique, like, “Your arms look fat in that shirt,” or “Please don’t wear that hat ever again,” or “You look really desperate right now.” 

She was also selfish. Years later I would invite her to my wedding in Puerto Rico and she’d tell me she wasn’t coming because she’d already been to Puerto Rico once and she would much rather I got married someplace else like Costa Rica. When I texted recently to ask what she remembered about John she sent a picture of herself in a bathing suit on the beach and wrote, “I know you won’t give me any feedback but whatever, am I so skinny?!” then bragged about some new pill she was taking. Everything was (and still is) in the name of weighing 114 pounds, which made her one of the few people I could speak to about my own issues with weight in a way that made me feel less alone. 

Valerie also made me laugh—though usually at the expense of someone else—and was secretly thoughtful and generous. When I moved to Los Angeles she sent me a pair of Tiffany’s sunglasses with a simple note attached: “I heard it gets pretty sunny out there.” 

While everyone else who met John and knew John described him as “the nicest guy ever,” Valerie hated him. First because he drove a Kia Soul, second because he wore rings, and third because he was controlling. In their first meeting he corrected me twice during the conversation. Later that night we got drunk while he was bartending. After his shift he told me, in front of Valerie, that he was disappointed in me. 

Towards the end of Valerie’s three-day stay she and I argued. I told her I was going to marry John. She said I would marry John over her cold, dead body. I told her she knew nothing about him or our relationship and that I was the happiest I’d ever been. “Charlie,” she said. “You are not happy.” I probably called her a bitch. 

After she left I picked up take-out from an expensive restaurant and brought it to John’s apartment. He told me it was about time I paid for something. “Is she gone?” he said. 

“Yes,” I said. 

“Good,” John said. “And she’s not coming to our wedding.” 

I moved into a new place—a renovated garage in Santa Monica. A husband and wife and their two little kids lived in the house. The husband, Bob, was a regular at The Masonry where I worked. He came in often during the week at lunchtime and sat at Table 51 and drank iced tea and wrote screenplays. We’d become friends and I would be his first tenant. There was an old desk that was a family heirloom that sat in the middle of the space. It was heavy and huge but beautiful. 

John came over and told me I should move the desk to the corner so it faced the wall. I disagreed. I wanted the desk right where it was, facing the big glass door. He pushed back, explained that a desk should be pushed against a wall. Most of the time I deferred to him, figured he was right about everything, but this felt so completely obvious to me, and I had no intention of moving the desk, anyway. Bob and his wife had just put a new floor in and they said to be careful if I moved anything because it could scratch the floor. The desk would stay put. 

One afternoon I was at work when John skipped in with a big smile on his face and showed me his phone. He had taken a video of my place and everything had been rearranged. The old desk was in the corner. “Oh, wow,” I said. 

“I did that for you,” he said. 

“Who helped you move everything?” I asked. 

“No one, I did it myself,” he said. “Aren’t I the best boyfriend ever?” 

When I got home I saw the scratch marks all over the floor. I apologized to Bob, explained that John was trying to do something nice for me. Bob tried to rub the scratches out but the entire floor was damaged. 

For months after John told me I was paying too much rent. “You need to tell them you’re going to pay $200 less,” he said. 

I loved my place. I thought $1,100 was fair. But John wouldn’t let it go. He kept asking me when I was going to do something about it. Was I being a pushover? Should I ask to pay lower rent? Maybe he was right. 

One day I approached Bob’s wife. I don’t remember what I said but I know I practiced. It was uncomfortable. She agreed to take $100 off. 

After seven months with John I thought our relationship was great—I actually described it to friends as perfect—except for the sex. We barely had it and when we did he wouldn’t look at me. I tried to talk to him about it but he refused. One day I wrote him a letter. We were in his bedroom and I asked him to read it. I left the room and waited for him to come out. I waited and waited. He had to be finished reading it by now. Finally he emerged. 

“Why are you just sitting there?” he said. 

“Did you read my letter?” I said. 

“Yea,” he said, then grabbed his keys. “Ready?”

A few weeks later I wrote another letter. I wrote that I was very sure I wanted to be with him. I wrote that every time he pointed out something wrong with me it made me a better person, and I loved him for that. At the end I wrote, “I want you to read this letter and think about what you want. Then write me back. Take a day or take a week. I’ll be patiently waiting.”

For two weeks I waited in breakup purgatory, though at the time I was certain we would stay together. I still thought I was going to marry him. 

In the end, he broke up with me over the phone by telling me we had already broken up. He said he still wanted to be friends. He said he didn’t want it to be weird when he came into the bar where I worked. 

A week later I went to get my things from his apartment. When I told friends I was going there they asked if I thought we’d have breakup sex. No, I had not thought of breakup sex. My only thought was of him throwing me over his third floor apartment balcony. I was desperate for someone to come with me but didn’t want anyone to know I was scared because why would you be scared of the person you very recently thought you were going to marry? So when the meeting time didn’t work with anyone’s schedule, I went alone.  

I circled his block a few times. Even though we had agreed on a time I could come over when he was at work I had a sinking feeling he was watching me from the bushes. 

I sprinted up and down three floors three times to collect all my things—which he’d left piled on his kitchen table—as if I was being timed. I drove away, panting, my eyes darting to either side of the road, still sure I’d find him lurking. This sensation would follow me for years, even after I moved to the other side of the country, even after I got married, even after I had two kids.

—

Until next week,

Charlie