Meternity Read online

  “So no date number two?”

  “Uh, yeah, ya think?” she says, smiling. “It’s okay. The right one is out there, I know. I just have to clear a few more blockages in my love corner.”

  I consider keeping my crush on Ryan under wraps. Once it’s out there, I know my friends will pick apart every detail, or “pinball” it. Brie and I’ve coined the term denoting the way in which your well-meaning friends can inadvertently send a nascent relationship straight into the gutter by commenting on each individual interaction and text too soon, before the blastocyst has fully implanted. One psychologically projected comment from Add or Brie, and I know I’ll be swayed to start thinking the worst about the whole Ryan situation.

  “So remember the guy I worked with on the mega-multiples story? Ryan Murphy? I went out with him last night. Well, it wasn’t a date really. More of a work thing.” My face warms as I say it out loud, even though I’d just decided not to.

  “The cute Gap Jeans Guy from karaoke?” My two friends stop staring around the room. I’ve now got their full attention. “Wait, you didn’t even text me?” says Brie.

  “Yeah, way to bury the lede,” shoots Addison.

  “It kinda happened last minute. I couldn’t have him come to the office, so he asked me to go to drinks instead.”

  “And?” pushes Addison.

  “It was fun. I don’t know if it was a date per se. Well, maybe it was—I think he was flirting with me.” I timidly tell them about the back-and-forth banter. “He wants to produce an environmental documentary and I think he’s pretty legit about it.” I look down for some reason, shy to reveal these details. “It’s actually kind of awesome.” I feel nervous all of a sudden. “Do you guys want another round?”

  “I’m technically on a cleanse,” says Brie, “I probably shouldn’t. Well, okay.”

  “So did he make a move?” demands Addison.

  “No. Right at the end he got a text, and he said he had to go suddenly.” Both girls take a second to think about it.

  “He probably just had a work thing. I’m sure it’s no big deal,” says Brie. “This is exciting.”

  I look over at Addison, whom I can typically count on to be more of a realist. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s fine,” she says with a look of reassurance. “Anyway, even if it is another girl, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t be totally into you, hot stuff.”

  I cringe a little at the compliment, which feels slightly untrue. “Well, even though it was super fun, I’m sure he’s still in Peter Pan phase. I mean, he’s thirty-seven, hot, works at a television network and lives in the East Village—that’s basically like twenty-one in Manhattan guy years,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.

  “Liz, you can’t think like that,” says Addison. Brie waits carefully.

  “Like what?” I’m a little peeved.

  “Defeated.”

  “What? I’m just realistic. There are no real men in this city—only man-children who want mother-wives to be by their side and cook dinner for them. All I’m saying is that the chances are slim someone who is such a catch would be into me.” I take a large sip of my drink.

  “Enough!” says Addison. “I am not buying in to this internalized powerlessness. We’re quality catches. Any guy would be thrilled to have us.”

  “It’s not us. It’s them.” I wave over to the “brahs” who are now flinging chicken wing bones at one another, three-point-field-goal-style. “Things have changed so much in the past four years. Texting and Tinder culture has made life too easy for them. They think they can just Amazon.com a model girlfriend.”

  “Seriously,” Brie says. “The only one with the power is the owner of those three evil black dots!”

  “Liz, it’s all about taking back the power and portraying confidence,” says Addison. “Watch me.”

  Addison squares her shoulders, runs a hand through her curls, then walks right over to the boys in the corner, who, to her credit, light up as she starts talking to them. The next thing we know she’s brought them over.

  “I just asked these nice gentlemen if they could settle an argument we were having about what guys are really looking for in a woman.” The guys look at Addison stupidly with their hands in their pockets like she’s a cut of prime rib.

  “When you’re looking at girls online, what’s the most important thing? Hotness or confidence?” The guys look at one another as if there’s a right answer and a real answer. Still, Addison pushes.

  “Confidence—she has to look like she doesn’t give a shit,” ventures one.

  Addison beams. “See!” she says. “These guys get it.”

  “Like she’s too good for you,” adds the other.

  “Exactly,” confirms Addison. “A girl who knows her value.”

  “Like she knows how to take care of herself,” interjects the first. “Hot.”

  “You guys get it,” says Addison, resolute. “A girl who puts herself first.”

  “And tits out to here,” interjects a third, now more relaxed. Addison crooks her brow.

  “Like Kate Upton,” says the second, slapping the first guy five.

  “Yeah, and Jennifer Lawrence.”

  “Mixed with Mila Kunis.”

  “Exactly—total MILF, but young!” They look like wolves, salivating at the thought of prime MILF flesh.

  “Thank you, boys, that will be enough.”

  They turn on their heels just as they start launching into another brotastic tirade. Not wanting to continue the conversation any further, I turn to the bar to gather a new round of drinks. “Two vodka sodas, splash of cran, and um, one rusty nail,” I tell the barman, not sure what makes me do it.

  As I wait for the drink order to come up, I think about my friends’ theories. I know the real reason why we each haven’t found our own PH—one who is smart, successful, kind and ready for a commitment. It’s not because we live in a city where there are too many smart, single, professional women to men. Or don’t practice enough “self-love.”

  It’s that as we’ve followed our hearts, our passions and career prospects, guys have shrunk back, intimidated, and the power balance has shifted. Ever since the economic recession hit in 2008, all my friends have gotten really serious about their careers. When I look around at all my married friends, the wives have all become the breadwinners. The husbands, many of whom were handed pink slips, are the new lost boys.

  Maybe it also has something to do with social media, I think, as Brie and Addison now stare into their phones like the great white light is calling them home. It’s like the new fertile crescent—where all powerful ideas are exchanged—the Mediterranean of the Crusade times. Every woman I know is on it every single day, exchanging information—every single moment really.

  “This is how you use apple cider vinegar nine ways.”

  “This is how you make Chia pudding in a mason jar.”

  “This is why the mommy wars are still raging.”

  “This is why we can’t put up with fat shaming any longer.”

  “This is what’s happening to young sex slaves in Mumbai.”

  “This is the real reason you can’t lose those last ten pounds.”

  Thanks to our Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram passwords, women now hold the keys to all the information, while men play “Grand Theft Auto.” It’s changed everything, I think, and relationships haven’t caught up. No wonder Brady wanted a twenty-two-year-old—she’s probably his intellectual equal. All of a sudden thirty-six-year-old Amal Alamuddin going for fifty-two-year-old George Clooney adds up.

  “Liz, you know what the problem is. It’s you,” Brie says. “You’ve always been holding out until something perfect arrives. Waiting for a unicorn—they don’t exist.”

  “That’s not true. JR was no unicorn, trust me. But why should we be
putting up with these douche bags with hoofs above their beds, or telling us to our faces that we’re not twenty-two-year-olds, or leaving without reason after a perfectly nice night out? Why do we have to settle for that?

  “You can make affirmations or target your prey all you want, but I’m facing facts. There are no more smart, successful, interesting men in this city. Only narcissist-psychopath finance guys who mentally give us their ‘valuation’ based on the sum of our body parts. Or developmentally arrested geeky tech guys who play video games all day, who lunge at you mad-eyed for a kiss on your awkward, conversationally challenged second date. Or, second-wave hipsters with dirty beards and ‘I am a chef and a musician’ tattoos who are looking for twenties twee bar-maidens. That’s it. I’m not looking for a unicorn. There are no unicorns. We need to face it. We’ve missed the boat by being stuck in the wrong long-term relationships in our twenties. All the relatively stable types with short, nonimpulsive alleles have already married off with basic-bitch-type college girlfriends and live in Westport and are on to leading their gapster lives, sipping craft beer and pumpkin spiced lattes while they take pictures of their babies at the apple-picking orchard.

  “All that’s left are an emotionally stunted crop of underemployed, scruffy, pasty boy-men who are following the Don Draper path of transactional fucking, or are angrily divorced, or might have plans to commit to their bourbon collections—but not us—ever. The most we can expect is some last-minute, late-night outside-of-the-spoon cuddling. Definitely no PHs.

  “If we’re lucky, we’ll meet transient drunken Australians who still have some masculine qualities left. That’s our only hope...” I trail off, hit hard by the rusty nail that has snuck up on me. My friends look around, shell-shocked and hoping no one’s heard.

  “Hmm. Thaaaat’s interesting.”

  All of a sudden, I twirl around to find this supremely hot, sandy-haired man—who has an Aussie accent. “Hello, I’m Gavin, from Melbourne. And you, my lady with the extremely acid tongue are...”

  “Liz. Liz Buckley.”

  “Good to meet you, Liz. Love those theories. You’re completely wrong about them, though. I can help you with that. Here’s my number. Give me a call up sometime.” With that, he knocks back what’s left of his red wine, drops it on the bar and takes off toward the door as he gives me a wink.

  I stand, red-faced, eating my words, holding his card, which says, “Gavin Bettencourt, executive importer/exporter. Barossa Distribution Co.”

  “It’s the vortex. Works every time,” says Addison.

  “Every time.” Brie nods.

  At that, we’re done for the night. I tell the girls I’ll meet them for brunch that weekend, making sure they get in a cab. I hail one of my own, riding up Eighth Avenue toward midtown, noticing offhandedly all the restaurants lining the blocks, the same ones I’ve seen the past ten years.

  I pull out my phone and casually scroll through the addresses, whiskey coursing through my veins in a way that doesn’t make me feel drunk—more like high. I pop Gavin’s number into my contacts—you never know—and then Ryan Murphy pops up at R.

  Good 2 c u last night. I had fun. Let’s do it again soon! I type out. For two seconds I question the second part, but part of me thinks we’ve gotten to that place in our friendship; the other part—the sober part—tells me it would be safer not to send this. But what the hell, Addison is right—why am I being so low-self-esteemy these days? I’m not. The old Liz wouldn’t have cared. My finger hovers over the send key. Click.

  The next morning at 11:14 a.m., with a dull ache in my left temple, I realize I’m late to my friend’s baby shower in Westchester after the auto-reminder appears on my phone. I can’t tell what I’m most queasy about—last night’s pub outing or texting Ryan at 2:03 a.m. on a Friday night. Total rookie move.

  Sitting on the train from Grand Central Station and looking out at the beautiful presummer blossoming of the trees along the Hudson River, my thinking softens toward what the girls were telling me last night. Even if Ryan is in his prime Peter Pan years, still, he’s turning older and could change his agenda if the right girl came along.

  When I get to my friend Katie’s house, I have to admit, it’s adorable. My old friend from high school must have gotten some help from her parents on the down payment. The three-bedroom Tudor-style home is on a quiet street in the same town the Clintons live, and orange marigolds are peeking their heads out from the ground in front of perfectly landscaped shrubbery. Taken altogether it feels, unlike me, very grown-up. Then again, my wants are more simple. I’d be really happy if I could find my soul mate and a life that didn’t involve a long daily commute to the Bird Cage. I don’t need West Elm, a grown-up couch or a Vitamix.

  As I walk in, all of Katie’s suburban friends are doing the “sit around a circle opening gifts, oohing and ahhing.” I wonder if they know that to a trained baby-specialist like me, they look as though they are just going through the motions, or whether they are actually getting some joy out of staring at the same Baby Boppy they’ve seen at every other baby shower they’ve been to. Even the clothes from Baby Gap are starting to all look the same.

  I amble in, and in one quick motion, Katie’s sisters take my gift and hand me a mimosa. Everyone’s staring at the mom-to-be as one of Katie’s blonde sorority friends whispers a comment to her cohort decked out in Lilly Pulitzer. They look just about my age, but seem older, or at least more mature than I, and they size me up and down. My black stretchy material dress, whose empire waist gives me room for my post-night-out bloat, is probably not so baby-shower appropriate, but still very comfy.

  As I look for an empty seat, I say a silent prayer that the women in the room with babies will not ask me to hold them. When I pick up one of my friend’s babies my first thought is never, Isn’t she adorable? It’s usually, How long do I have to hold her and smile before I pass her on to the next friend? Not because I don’t love babies—I do. It’s because I find myself going into a thought sequence of the worst possible scenario—not holding her head correctly so her neck falls back, turning her into a paraplegic for life.

  Thankfully there are no longing-to-be-held babies in sight, so I take a seat in the back to watch the gift opening. I realize the women are gossiping about my lateness when one says, “She probably got her the baby bib—women without kids always get clothes.”

  Ha! Wrong! I turn and stare at them with a self-satisfied grin. They don’t realize I work at Paddy Cakes and may have been, oh, an hour late, but have stealthily arrived with the best gift ever: the Breast-a-nator 2000, the ultimate antimicrobial milking machine that’s like a lactating spa in a box, and makes breastfeeding easy and comfortable.

  Katie’s just about opened every gift piled sky-high in her family room—which I am envying, especially the cool velveteen sectional from Crate and Barrel, when I see her sisters handing her mine. I start to smile with pride.

  “Oh, my God! This is, like, two hundred dollars! Thank you so, so much, Liz. I didn’t even register for it because I heard they were back-ordered in the States!” Katie exclaims, as she rips off the fancy embossed wrapping paper from my office’s crafts closet.

  “I had my press contact call in the newest model from Denmark,” I say, beaming.

  “How’d she know about that?” asks the blonde.

  “I don’t know,” responds Lilly, “I didn’t even hear about it until last summer, when one of my nipples was about to come off.”

  I decide to let everyone in the room in on my secret: “It won Paddy Cakes’ Top 10 Best of Babies last year. It stimulates milk while simultaneously applying a blend of aloe vera, vitamin E and shea butter to the affected area. The suction is centrifugal, mimicking conditions in space, so the areola gets darker and more supple,” I intone.

  All Katie’s friends are in shock and don’t say another word. Her sisters just shoot over a good-for-you
look.

  “So, are you married?” says the blonde, turning to me while Katie and her sisters are putting away gifts. Darn, I think, I almost got out of here scot-free.

  “Nope,” I reply calmly. I’ve learned the best tactic to take in these situations is to play it cautiously optimistic.

  “It’s okay. You’re what, twenty-nine? You still have plenty of time,” says Lilly P. Wannabe.

  “I’m thirty-one, actually,” I say, “But it’s okay, I’m not worried.”

  “Sure,” she says, looking aghast and making no attempt to hide it. I know exactly what she’s thinking from hearing it from all my friends who’ve made the exodus out of Manhattan. In suburban years, thirty-one is practically thirty-seven. “You’ll be fine. You’re cute, and I’m sure you get invited to all the fanciest magazine parties.” I can tell her reassurance is fake.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. At this point I’m just waiting for the right guy to come along,” I say. Then things start to turn in a way I’m not expecting.

  “You shouldn’t be in such a rush,” says Blondie, now softening in an almost creepy, conspiratorial way. “I mean, I love my Madison, but sometimes I wish I’d waited a few years. And even now, I find myself looking at the sippy cup, wondering if anyone would know if I spiked it with a little of my Chardonnay to get her to go nappy for the afternoon.”

  “Yeah, I mean, my doctor’s like, ‘Whoa, hold up with the Xanax prescriptions for like a month,’ heh,” says Lilly, tittering nervously.

  As the designated no-right-to-judge single girl, I feel like I’ve just been shanghaied into some strange mommy confessional. They’re both looking at me pleadingly as if I have the answers for their postpartum ennui. At this point I need an exit strategy ASAP.

  “Okay, well, I’m so hungover I could really use some McDonald’s. Nice talking to you, ladies! Byeee!” I quickly say my goodbyes to Katie and her family and walk as fast as I can to the train station.