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Anyway, for five weeks I went to bed crying because even though nine times ten and nine times eleven were no-brainers (“Multiplication isn’t your foe, times it by ten and add an O. Don’t let math give you trouble, times it by eleven and you’re seeing double!”—Mom made those up for me), I would either forget nine times eight (seventy-two!) or nine times nine (eighty-one!), and for some inexplicable reason answered sixty-five to both. Anyway, I had been on the ninth table for five weeks now, and the test was in the morning. I knew that one (maybe two) more days of practice would really be helpful, and then poof, the next morning there was a flood. There’s never been a flood in my part of the city in its entire history. How weird was that? Needless to say, the schools were closed, since no one could get to them unless they had a boat or Jet Ski. Totally bizarre. And when I took the test (on Tuesday) I passed.
See? It happens.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.
I brush my teeth, throw on jean shorts, a tank top and sandals. I grab my purse and head out the door.
Mission not accomplished. Work—good. Well, not good as in fulfilling good. How can telemarketing be fulfilling? Although, I raise money for the Ontario University Alumni Fund so it’s actually telefundraising, which isn’t as immoral or annoying as telemarketing. And I did raise over five hundred bucks today, which is pretty good. Anyway. Cappuccino—also good. Meeting taller friends so they can fix the eeeeeeeeeeeep—bad.
But what’s this? Silence? I look up at the offender on the wall in the living room next to the kitchen’s entranceway. Has the sour-milk-sipping noise come to an end?
No sound except passing traffic. I leave the windows open because it is a breath-hampering, fluid-draining ninety-seven degrees outside. And I can’t afford an air conditioner. I once had a fan, but like everything else that gave me joy, it is now in Vancouver.
Quiet. See? I told you it could happen. Sometimes when you wish for something hard enough—
Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Damn.
Hmm. There’s a pharmacy next door to Starbucks. Why didn’t I think to buy batteries? Wouldn’t that have made more sense than to assume that the obviously dying batteries would self-heal while I was getting caffeinated?
I roll the computer chair from my bedroom into the living room and place it beneath the smoke detector. This is a bad plan. A very bad plan. My computer chair is one of those $15.99 You-Put-It-Together! chairs whose wheels are about as sturdy as legs in high heels after three glasses of zinfandel. Unfortunately, my other chairs, which are metal, sturdier, more appropriate for this situation (and which used to be arranged around a glass kitchen table which had to be placed beside the kitchen instead of inside it due to space limitations) are gone. With the glass table. In Vancouver.
I pump the computer chair as high as it can go. And now, the moment of suspense. It’s just me, an eeeeeeeeeeeeeping smoke alarm, and a rolling computer chair in a couchless, coffeemaker-free apartment.
Steady. Stea-dy. Lift right arm to smoke detector. Lift left hand to mouth. Insert pinky nail between lips. Excellent nail over-growth. Mmm. Missions accomplished. Superfluous nail piece is freely rolling around my tongue. And both hands are placed squarely on the smoke detector.
Now what?
Press button?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP. Whoops. Remove batteries? Why can’t I remove batteries? Chair! Swerving! Seconds from head injury! Need both hands to balance! Steady! Stea-dy.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Stop. That. Now. Remove smoke detector? Crunch. Smoke detector removed. Three-minute wait. Beeping stopped.
Tee-hee.
I think I broke it. I guess I should put it back on the wall. I can’t just leave it on the table. What table? (Do milk crates covered in a tablecloth count as a table?) Okay, smoke detector is now back on ceiling.
I carefully crouch into a sitting position and insert another finger into my mouth. I wait three minutes.
No eeeeeeeeeeeeep. Not even one tiny eee.
Now, isn’t that better?
2
JODINE DOESN’T WANT TO TALK
JODINE
August 27—Agenda:
1 Call car to bring me to airport.√
2 Call mother to remind her to pick me up at airport.√
3 Purge fridge of remaining food.√
4 Sweep.√
5 Throw out garbage.√
6 Close windows.√
7 Return apartment key to superintendent.√
8 Save car receipt to airport (firm has agreed to reimburse).√
9 Verify frequent-flyer points credited to account.√
10 Bring suits to dry cleaner.
11 Call Happy Movers to confirm truck rental for move to new apartment.
“Hello,” the annoying businessman sitting in the window seat beside me says as he removes his suit jacket. “How are you doing on this fine day?”
Terrific. Shouldn’t the fact that I’m in the middle of reviewing something be a sign that I’m not interested in pursuing a conversation? “Fine, thanks.”
He squashes his arm on the seat rest. “I’m doing well, too.”
I pull out the New York Times. People are usually less likely to intrude on one’s personal time when one appears to be engaged, especially if the engagement happens to be reading the Times. It’s not a comic book, or worse, a fashion magazine. It spells serious all over it.
“What are you reading, little lady?”
It takes me another moment to get over the traumatizing shock of being called a little lady. Is he blind? “The paper,” I answer in yet another dismissive attempt. Maybe now he will set sail the notion of small talk? Float away, annoying man! Float away!
“So what do you do?”
“I’m a student.” Now vanish. Enough.
“Oh, that’s nice,” he says in a pat-me-on-the-head voice. Notice he does not think to ask the obvious question, What are you studying? Not that I care. I do not wish to engage in a conversation with this man. I’m not sure why people believe being seated next to someone implies an ensuing conversation.
He puffs himself up like a blown-up life jacket. “I run an international appliance sales force. It’s one of the largest in the world.”
I don’t remember asking, but now that you’ve opened the field up for discussion, let me ask, is that why you’re sitting in 23D in the economy section, next to me? Because you’re so rich and powerful? “That’s nice,” I say instead. It’s not that I’m a coward; why should I be rude?
I slip my Discman headphones out of my carry-on and over my ears. Unfortunately, my CD player is broken. I realized this while waiting to board. But the important thing is, he doesn’t realize this. Maybe if I nod my head and shake it side to side as if I’m in the swing, I’ll be able to pull it off.
Forty-five minutes until landing.
My mother had better be on time to pick me up. In her last attempt to pick me up at the Toronto airport, when I flew back from a law conference in Calgary, she was fifty-five minutes late. Apparently she was under the false impression that my arrival time was at five, despite the photocopied version of my itinerary taped prominently to the refrigerator, which clearly stated that my flight was landing at four. When she drove up at four-fifty-five, she was congratulating herself for arriving five minutes early. My primary question, ignoring the more obvious why-didn’t-she-pay-attention-to-the-time-on-the-fridge query, was why didn’t she call the airport to verify the arrival time? Why, why, why, would one drive to the airport, a forty-five-minute trek in Toronto, without first confirming the accurate arrival time? The possibility of my flight being delayed was more than likely. It was December; a snowstorm was practically guaranteed. It made no sense.
This time, I specifically instructed her to call the airport. I even gave her the number. I should have insisted, however, on taking a cab. Sigh. Her inability to make it here for the assigned time is now beyond my control.
Dear, sweet Mom. In the last year, at least four times that I can remember, she’s left her keys in the car while it was running and had to call my father to bring her the spare. Not that my dad is much better. Once when my mom—“But it slammed shut so fast! Before I could catch it!”—locked herself out, smack in the middle of downtown Queen Street, my dad trekked all the way to meet her, only to realize he’d left the spare keys back at the house, on the—“But I could have sworn I’d put them in my pocket”—kitchen table. They called me to rescue them. And when I got there, after two hours of subway-hell, they were having a giggly submarine picnic lunch on the hood of the car. How frustrating is that? Fine, I admit they can be a tiny bit adorable. They thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to them.
One week of living with my parents. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. That’s all I have left. Seven days of explaining to my mother how to work that “intercourse machine” so that she can go “to the line” (“Internet, Mom. Online, Mom”). Seven days of picking up my father’s seemingly strategically discarded socks on the kitchen floor. Why would one take off his socks in the kitchen? There is no carpet, just cold tiles.
They will be fine without me around to take care of them, won’t they?
I should get a cell phone to make sure I can be reached at all times.
Besides enabling me to live in New York for the summer, my summer job allowed me to save up enough money to afford my own place here in Toronto. If I had to make the one-hour subway trek to school from my parents’ house in nosebleed land for one more year, I think I might have dropped out of school and taken a job at the corner coffee shop. Yeah, right.
Last year, I had to walk fifteen minutes just to get to the bus stop that would take me to the subway that would take me to school. My new apartment is a five-minute walk from school. Five minutes!
My brother, Adam, forwarded me an e-mail about this apartment. The younger sister of one of his friends was looking for renters. It’s a three-bedroom, bottom floor apartment of a duplex, and her two roommates were moving back to British Columbia. But the best part is that she’s lived in the apartment since before rent control—it’s therefore only $500 a month per renter. My ridiculously high-paying $2,000-a-week summer law job has provided me with the funds to cover at least one year. Then, in May, I’m off to New York again, for a full-time job. The requisite being, of course, that I keep my grade point average above a B, which I can do without batting an un-mascaraed eye.
Not that I’m a regular eye-batter. I’m actually more of an eye-rubber. This annoying eye-massaging fetish I somehow picked up usually follows fits of exhaustion in the library. And then I leave the building looking as if I’ve been elbowed in the bridge of my nose. There is an abundance of library time in my schedule. I’m there every morning from nine to ten, in school from ten to three, and then back in the library until ten at night, with only quarter-hour breaks for a fat-free cheese sandwich lunch and a low-carb dinner.
But the best part about living five minutes away from school is the close proximity of Ontario University’s gym. My day’s newfound one hour and fifty minutes of saved travel time will facilitate my additional working-out time. For the past two years, I’ve had to work out at the Y near my house after putting in time at the school library, which on a regular, day-to-day basis, resulted in a complete emotional and physical breakdown.
My lack of spare time may also have been partly responsible for the demise of my relationship with Manny. Or, unless apathy is considered an emotion, the demise might have been caused by my lack of any feeling toward him. I won’t deny that he’s a good guy—he is. He ranks number one in our class, and has sat with me for hours whenever I had a case I couldn’t wrap my brain around.
But here’s the thing: he has to pee all the time.
This might sound insignificant and possibly irrelevant or even discriminatory, but isn’t the woman normally the one with the smaller bladder? I find it extremely irritating to constantly have to wait for him by the bathroom. For example, we’re on our way from class to the library, and he says, “Hold on one second, Jodine, I have to pee.” Or “Tell me what I miss of the movie, I just have to run to the bathroom, excuse me, excuse me…”
It makes no sense. Can’t he hold it in?
Annoying-Lying-Businessman in the seat next to me appears to be asleep. His eyes are closed and a thin river of drool is leaking out of the corner of his opened mouth. It’s only two o’clock. Who falls asleep at two o’clock? The person sitting next to him refuses to entertain him for a lousy one-hour flight and he can’t muster enough stimuli for staying conscious? At least he’s leaning toward the window, not toward his seat divider, the supposedly adequate buffer between us.
Little lady. Hah.
I hate being patronized. My mother’s favorite story of me is when she took me, a scared-but-trying-not-to-show-it six-year-old, to the pediatrician for my annual TB test. It’s the one where they insert three little dots into your arm, and you hope these dots won’t blow up into explosive pimples, because then they have to amputate or something. Anyway, when I asked the doctor if I was going to get a needle, he shook his head dramatically, insisting on drawing a happy face with a red marker on my arm while emphatically declaring, “No, needle, only a nose!” Then he stuck a three-pronged needle between the haphazardly drawn eyes and leering grin. I remember thinking, Why, oh why, is this silly, patronizing man speaking to me as if I were a child?
My mother thinks the story is hysterical. She tells it at family gatherings. She’s been calling me a thirty-year-old stuck in a little girl’s body for as long as I can remember. So what does that make me now? Fifty?
I remove my headphones and close my eyes. I always request the row behind the emergency exit. I like to be as close as possible to an escape while still having the ability to lean back. Annoying-Lying-Drooling-Businessman is now snoring. How can any one person make so much noise? His emissions are even drowning out the screeching baby in the row behind me. Yet another peeve of mine. Parents should be required by law to drive any offspring under the age of three to long-distance destinations. Young children, babies in particular, obviously don’t like to fly, so why must we all suffer?
Apparently I must suffer because I forgot to ensure that my Discman was intact. A moronic oversight for which I must (sigh) accept responsibility. If one doesn’t think and carefully plan ahead, one loses the right to complain about unpleasant outcomes.
Case Study Number One, regarding planning ahead: if one does not order a vegetarian meal beforehand, even though one is not, in fact, a vegetarian, then one has no choice except to eat the heap of brown plasticine offered at mealtime. One must not try to dwell on that lovely mushroom omelette and fruit salad the woman across the aisle is eating, or else one might go crazy.
Case Study Number Two, regarding planning ahead: Benjamin, an I-bank associate in New York. At first he seemed relatively normal. Always called after a date to say thank you. Never did anything annoying like send flowers to the office or send embarrassing e-mails. Great smile, great date, great kisser. An A minus in bed. All a perfectly gloss-coated experience until last week when he started blubbering about how much he loved me, couldn’t handle me leaving, wanted to transfer to Toronto and move in with me. Transfer to Toronto? We were only dating five weeks! Does that make sense? How could he move in with me? First of all, I already signed a lease. Second, I wasn’t sure he was the person I wanted to spend my life with, never mind an entire semester. Allowing him to pick up and move to a foreign country was somewhat implying that I was considering him as a potential life mate, right?
I reach into the small space that Annoying-Lying-Drooling-Snoring-Businessman has left at my feet and pull out my “List of Benjamin’s Flaws” from my carry-on.
1. He has a feminine laugh.
I don’t think I need to elaborate on this. What woman wants a man with a feminine laugh?
2. He constantly wants to go dancing.
I hate dancing, mostly because I can’t dance. I wish I could, but I can’t. So I don’t. To most men, this is not a big concern, since most normal men do not start squirming in their chairs when “Sexual Healing” comes on.
3. He is too impulsive.
If he’s supposed to be so much in love, why can’t he wait nine more months for me—in New York? I could visit him. My Christmas vacation plans aren’t finalized yet. The New Year’s reservations are booked but not confirmed. Kidding. I’m not that anal. Really.
4. He is too sentimental.
He said he loved me. I started laughing.
5. He called me cold.
Now that’s insulting. I am not cold. He said I am just like that Simon and Garfunkel song. A rock that does not feel. I am realistic, but I repeat, not cold. So I am not like most women. I don’t appreciate when men who have only known me for five weeks tell me they love me. I don’t sit around with my other girlfriends, wondering what shades I should use to highlight my hair so that men will send me flowers. I can buy my own flowers, thank you very much. I am not afraid of never having a man fall in love with me. I have already had men fall in love with me. This summer, Benjamin. Last year, Manny. In college, Jonah. High school, Will. All three told me they loved me—and meant it. They called it making love when we slept together. They all wanted me to meet their mothers.
Dilemma Number One: I did not want to meet their mothers. I already have one of my own, thank you very much.
Dilemma Number Two: I call it “having sex.”
Dilemma Number Three: I said, “You love me? That’s sweet.”
I put down the list and reflect on something my mother once told me: “There’s a lid for every pot.” No. I dismiss her attempts at motherly wisdom. People are not household appliances. Everyone is born alone and dies alone. You are not created to fit with anything else. Of course I would like to find the person who is most likely to make me happy in life. The person who fits me best. But I refuse to adjust so that I can fit to someone else’s jagged shape.
“You’re a real piece of work,” Benjamin said, his voice cracking, before slamming my apartment door.
I pull my hair out of its usual low ponytail, shake it out and then tie it back again.
Fine, I admit it. Hurting him made me feel a little shitty. A lot shitty. I’m not out to crush men’s feelings. It’s a nonpremeditated causal effect.
Is there something chemically wrong with me? Everyone else seems to fall in love all over the place. When will I feel like belting out, “And I…I…I…will always love you-ou-ou-ou…?” and cherishing those other sweet Whitney memories? And how will I lose that loving feeling if I’ve never even found it? What if there is some sort of gross abnormality in my DNA? What if I am a rock? AN EMOTIONLESS, DEAD-INSIDE ROCK?
Or maybe unlike most people, I’m not willing to brainwash myself into believing I’m in love.
Meaning behind Case Study Number Two, otherwise known as the Benjamin Experience: One mustn’t allow someone else to derail her carefully laid out plans. If one isn’t cautious, a carefree fling might snowball into a messy relationship.
Thirty minutes until landing.
A perfect opportunity for leg lifts.
Lift left knee. Hold to ten. Release left knee.
Lift right knee. Hold to ten. Release right knee.
