Unwifeable(4)

Jonathan and I exchanged various emails, with him keeping me up-to-date on why he probably couldn’t meet up. Meanwhile, my short trip to New York already felt like a small personal victory in some minuscule way. I had arrived—at JFK International, almost divorced. I turned on my phone and saw that Scott with the Yacht had already called to say he missed me.

I settled into my college roommate’s art deco apartment in Park Slope, where I was staying, introduced myself to her two cats, which I would be minding while she was away, and began frantically reaching out to all manner of old friends and acquaintances. “I’m in New York!” “What are you doing?” “I’m getting divorced!”

The next morning, the day of Siobhan’s nuptials, I got Jonathan’s hypnotically lowercased invite: “going to a late party tonight in manhattan, but if you can’t sleep, maybe when i’m coming back from the party i’ll call you and we could meet for a late drink or something.”

I blasted the Strokes from my iPod, put on my cleavage-baring black thrift-store slip dress, and blissfully attended Siobhan’s vows at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Little Italy, snapping pictures of everything. The centuries-old weathered red bricks, stretched ten feet high and permanently leaning, seemed to offer stark comfort to my own teetering state of late. It wasn’t long before I was partying into the night at the Prince George Ballroom, twirling around the dance floor, drunk on sauvignon blanc. I checked my messages. One new voicemail from Scott with the Yacht. “Hope you’re having fun in New York!” I sure was. Now I just needed a date to prove to myself I belonged here.

I grinned and texted Jonathan Ames. “Want to meet up?”

He did. I fell into a cab and instructed the driver to take me to the Tea Lounge in Park Slope, chatting him up as he drove.

“Hey, do you know what my friends say about me?” I gushed to the weather-beaten, old cabdriver, who had to suffer through all my intoxicated rambling. “I’m the ultimate slumber party girl. It’s really true, you know. I know how to create fun. Wherever I go, that’s what I do. Ultimate slumber party girl . . .”

“Ultimate slumber party girl, huh?” he asked, glancing back.

“Yep,” I said. “That’s me.”

I waited at the Tea Lounge and in walked Jonathan, hesitant and sullen. I ordered a Ketel One and soda and he drank a tea. I leaned in close, spilling all about my friend’s ornate wedding along with the long-shot meeting I had coming up the next day and how weird it was to be getting divorced.

“And right now,” I confided, “I’m dating this guy Scott who’s so different than my husband, and I like how he makes me feel.”

I paused, shrugged my shoulders, and added, “I’m dating a lot of guys right now.”

Jonathan took my promiscuity show-and-tell cue and began stroking my hand.

“You are?” he asked.

“Do you want to go back to my roommate’s place?” I asked.

He did.

We dropped onto the spare bed I was staying in and began kissing. He held my wrists and slapped me gently on the face, and I said I liked it.

“I’ve never really done that kind of thing before,” I said.

“Really?” he asked. “That’s surprising.”

“It’s hot,” I said enthusiastically.

He slapped me once more. This time I changed the subject. “I’m meeting with an editor from the New York Post tomorrow.”

“That’s impressive.”

“I’m a little nervous,” I confessed, and then stopped myself.

This level of vulnerability always felt a little too real for me. I didn’t want men to actually be able to see me. So instead, I slipped into a persona I discovered appeals to pretty much every man: The Whore.

“Lately, it’s fun to play these different characters,” I said. “Like, I could call you . . . No I don’t want to do it. I’d feel stupid.”

“Do it,” he said.

I couldn’t bring myself to say “daddy,” so I went in a different direction.

“Do you think I’m a dirty little slut?” I asked.

He looked down at my face and said with the gravity of a judge, “Yes. You stupid fucking cunt.”

“Whoa!” I said. “Hey!”

I shot up and immediately turned our light-kink sexual encounter into a college admissions exam. I told him how I got a 5 on the calculus AP when I was fifteen and even started rattling off my SAT scores.

“It’s just bedroom talk,” he said. “I was trying to please you by amping it up.”

“No, I know,” I said. “Just . . . wow. New York is really intense, huh?”

We didn’t have sex, but stopped before.

A few hours later, as he grabbed his cap and bag to go, I still felt intoxicated with bluster and pulled out my Girl Scout–green American Apparel dress to ask him if he thought I should wear that to my meeting with the editor from the Post.

He looked at the microscopic outfit I was holding before him.

“That’s a shirt,” he said.

He left my friend’s apartment, and I’m sure never expected to see or hear from me again.

After a few hours of restless sleep, I met Steve at a little Mexican place near where I was staying. My face flushed, I ordered a mango orange margarita and told him about the night’s adventure.