Triceratops’s tail. Everything was on the floor. Our drinks. The LED candle. The table itself.
Ryder took me aside. “We have to get her home.”
“We? Just call her a cab.”
“No. She’ll just get home and go back out again. I have to put her to bed.”
I put both Daisy and Ryder in my car and drove them to his/her/their apartment building. I felt like I should be driving them to school. I called to my adopted alcoholic daughter in the backseat. “Honey? If you’re going to throw up can you try to aim it in that Trader Joe’s recyclable grocery bag?”
I pulled up in front of my potential lover’s apartment that he shared with his ex-girlfriend. Ryder and Daisy walked inside their home-slash-hell and stayed inside there so long it was quite possible that they had made up, gotten back together, had make-up sex, conceived a baby, birthed it with a bathroom doula, had it baptized, watched it graduate high school, college, and eventually welcomed it back home for Christmas with a baby of its own, delighting in what a long and happy life they’d had together. I looked at my watch. I had to work in the morning and the morning was no longer a next-day concept. It was seven hours until I had to be awake and eight until I had to be at my desk writing jokes about celebrities who forgot to wear underwear when exiting a car and politicians who didn’t know that their invitation to a college girl to see their penis was not a private message on Twitter.
I thought, I’m a grown woman. I should drive away and let Ryder know that I don’t put up with this nonsense . But the other part of me thought, Yeah, but he can’t come back after me. His truck is broken down at the venue and I am not waiting one night longer to see what it’s like to kiss another man. I felt the same as an angst-ridden teen writing in her diary. “I’m so ready! When am I going to kiss a man???”
Finally, Ryder bounded out of the front door and down his steps, looking back as though a monster might be chasing him. Driving home with Ryder in my front seat, I realized he was the first man—er, boy-man—who had been in my car since my separation. Every single thing I was doing became “the first XYZ with a man since my separation.” I would have to stop counting because there were many, many firsts that night. (No, I’m not talking about anal.) (Wait, that sounded like I meant that I totally do anal all of the time. No. No. I mean, I’ve never done it and don’t plan to.)
I suddenly felt slightly disheartened that this was how I was spending my night. I had been a responsible, normal adult. Technically, legally I still had a mother-in-law and here I had waited for someone sixteen years younger than me to put his live-in ex-girlfriend to bed before he could come over. I was immediately re-heartened when I started to unlock the door to my apartment and felt Ryder’s arm around my waist. I think he was about to try to kiss me but I didn’t want my neighbors to see. They didn’t know that Matt had moved out and I didn’t want them to think I was having an affair. I rushed Ryder inside and one look at an adult living room temporarily threw him off of his kiss game. “Wow. This place is dope!” He was particularly taken with my china cabinet.
“This must have been really expensive.”
“Oh, not at all. It’s, like, a thousand bucks.”
I forgot to account for twentysomething inflation. A thousand dollars in my years was like ten thousand in his. I explained that it was a wedding gift. But still the sight of a piece of furniture that cost the same as the rent that he and his girlfriend were paying was leaving him speechless. I wanted to say, “Listen. At some point people have a thousand dollars. It doesn’t mean we’re rich. You’ll find out when you’re older.” But I didn’t want to remind him of my age.
Ryder poked around my living room, admiring my Sassy magazine with Kurt and Courtney on the cover. “Oh my God. Where.
Ryder took me aside. “We have to get her home.”
“We? Just call her a cab.”
“No. She’ll just get home and go back out again. I have to put her to bed.”
I put both Daisy and Ryder in my car and drove them to his/her/their apartment building. I felt like I should be driving them to school. I called to my adopted alcoholic daughter in the backseat. “Honey? If you’re going to throw up can you try to aim it in that Trader Joe’s recyclable grocery bag?”
I pulled up in front of my potential lover’s apartment that he shared with his ex-girlfriend. Ryder and Daisy walked inside their home-slash-hell and stayed inside there so long it was quite possible that they had made up, gotten back together, had make-up sex, conceived a baby, birthed it with a bathroom doula, had it baptized, watched it graduate high school, college, and eventually welcomed it back home for Christmas with a baby of its own, delighting in what a long and happy life they’d had together. I looked at my watch. I had to work in the morning and the morning was no longer a next-day concept. It was seven hours until I had to be awake and eight until I had to be at my desk writing jokes about celebrities who forgot to wear underwear when exiting a car and politicians who didn’t know that their invitation to a college girl to see their penis was not a private message on Twitter.
I thought, I’m a grown woman. I should drive away and let Ryder know that I don’t put up with this nonsense . But the other part of me thought, Yeah, but he can’t come back after me. His truck is broken down at the venue and I am not waiting one night longer to see what it’s like to kiss another man. I felt the same as an angst-ridden teen writing in her diary. “I’m so ready! When am I going to kiss a man???”
Finally, Ryder bounded out of the front door and down his steps, looking back as though a monster might be chasing him. Driving home with Ryder in my front seat, I realized he was the first man—er, boy-man—who had been in my car since my separation. Every single thing I was doing became “the first XYZ with a man since my separation.” I would have to stop counting because there were many, many firsts that night. (No, I’m not talking about anal.) (Wait, that sounded like I meant that I totally do anal all of the time. No. No. I mean, I’ve never done it and don’t plan to.)
I suddenly felt slightly disheartened that this was how I was spending my night. I had been a responsible, normal adult. Technically, legally I still had a mother-in-law and here I had waited for someone sixteen years younger than me to put his live-in ex-girlfriend to bed before he could come over. I was immediately re-heartened when I started to unlock the door to my apartment and felt Ryder’s arm around my waist. I think he was about to try to kiss me but I didn’t want my neighbors to see. They didn’t know that Matt had moved out and I didn’t want them to think I was having an affair. I rushed Ryder inside and one look at an adult living room temporarily threw him off of his kiss game. “Wow. This place is dope!” He was particularly taken with my china cabinet.
“This must have been really expensive.”
“Oh, not at all. It’s, like, a thousand bucks.”
I forgot to account for twentysomething inflation. A thousand dollars in my years was like ten thousand in his. I explained that it was a wedding gift. But still the sight of a piece of furniture that cost the same as the rent that he and his girlfriend were paying was leaving him speechless. I wanted to say, “Listen. At some point people have a thousand dollars. It doesn’t mean we’re rich. You’ll find out when you’re older.” But I didn’t want to remind him of my age.
Ryder poked around my living room, admiring my Sassy magazine with Kurt and Courtney on the cover. “Oh my God. Where.
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