blissful Ivy League future.
“The Math-Quest team is raising money to go to nationals again this spring,” Teddy informs me. Of course, when Teddy’s Math-Quest team goes to nationals, he will be over at Alcatraz Elementary, learning to make a plastic spork into a shiv.
Lisa finally meets my eye, her fork in mid-air. She doesn’t grimace or shake her head, she does something far worse: she smiles sympathetically, her eyes drooping at the corners, as if to say, Don’t worry, Matt. We’ll figure this out. It’s okay.
And her reaction pisses me off because it would be so much easier to lose my wife if she were an asshole, but she has consistently refused to cooperate in this way. Even when I was single and my buddies were required by law to hate my girlfriend, she was unfailingly easy to be around and they grudgingly paid her the highest buddy-compliment: “Nah, man, Lisa’s cool….” I was twenty-four when we met, my first year at the newspaper. And she was cool, twenty-one, a marketing intern at a hospital I covered. I first saw her at a press conference for the hospital’s new outreach program for addicted teens. I only went because I was working on an enterprise story about the hospital’s pending labor trouble and when the spokesman whined that “you never do anything positive about us,” I wanted to point to the two paragraphs about that outreach program buried deep in the business section. I walked into the conference room and immediately saw this girl—bemused eyes, broad lips, toned legs in a just-above-the-knee skirt, and, like a beacon: a pair of expensive-looking, out-of-place, fur-lined boots. It was one of those inane “press conferences” where there’s only one actual member of the press—me. I sat in one of the fifteen chairs they’d put out “for the media” as the hospital spokesman stood at a podium and read me—word for word—the same stupid press release I held in my hand. Then he asked “Anyone have questions,” and being the only anyone, I asked, “How many teens will this serve?” and the stumped spokesman directed me to fur boots—“Lisa McDermott is facilitating this program, she has those specifics”—and I know it sounds corny, but in my mind I thought, Lisa Prior, as she strode over with a brochure for the program, which had some ridiculous, concocted acronym—N.O.D.O.P.E. or G.O.C.L.E.A.N., and I said, “Nice name,” and fur boots said, “Yeah I know, right?” and—her back to the spokesman—she made a little fist and gave the universal sign for jacking off.
And that was it for me: love.
There were early signs of trouble, of course. Lisa was one of those people you don’t ever feel like you’ve reached the center of; not that she withheld herself, there was just always another, deeper layer that I didn’t have access to, boxes inside boxes…. And there was the money thing, always the money thing. Like most guys, relationships progressed physically for me (I kissed her…we made out…we had sex). Like a lot of women, Lisa’s progressions were more financial, security-based steps (he bought dinner…he took me to Napa for the weekend…he wants me to move in). But at least Lisa was always up-front about it; her father had died when she was twelve and she and her mother were dirt-poor for a few years. “I have to warn you, I can sometimes mistake being spoiled for being loved,” she told me on our fourth date, and then she smiled perfectly as she took a bite of her $65 entrée, winked knowingly and said, through a mouthful of seared-scallops-in-truffle-butter: “But I’m working on that.”
No, even Lisa’s quirky nature was alluring to me, partly because she was so open and cool about it. Even when she was suffering in the unfriendly job market, she was cool. Even during her online shopping binge—cool. She felt awful, apologized until I couldn’t take it anymore, volunteered to see a counselor. Hell, even now, when she’s possibly thinking
“The Math-Quest team is raising money to go to nationals again this spring,” Teddy informs me. Of course, when Teddy’s Math-Quest team goes to nationals, he will be over at Alcatraz Elementary, learning to make a plastic spork into a shiv.
Lisa finally meets my eye, her fork in mid-air. She doesn’t grimace or shake her head, she does something far worse: she smiles sympathetically, her eyes drooping at the corners, as if to say, Don’t worry, Matt. We’ll figure this out. It’s okay.
And her reaction pisses me off because it would be so much easier to lose my wife if she were an asshole, but she has consistently refused to cooperate in this way. Even when I was single and my buddies were required by law to hate my girlfriend, she was unfailingly easy to be around and they grudgingly paid her the highest buddy-compliment: “Nah, man, Lisa’s cool….” I was twenty-four when we met, my first year at the newspaper. And she was cool, twenty-one, a marketing intern at a hospital I covered. I first saw her at a press conference for the hospital’s new outreach program for addicted teens. I only went because I was working on an enterprise story about the hospital’s pending labor trouble and when the spokesman whined that “you never do anything positive about us,” I wanted to point to the two paragraphs about that outreach program buried deep in the business section. I walked into the conference room and immediately saw this girl—bemused eyes, broad lips, toned legs in a just-above-the-knee skirt, and, like a beacon: a pair of expensive-looking, out-of-place, fur-lined boots. It was one of those inane “press conferences” where there’s only one actual member of the press—me. I sat in one of the fifteen chairs they’d put out “for the media” as the hospital spokesman stood at a podium and read me—word for word—the same stupid press release I held in my hand. Then he asked “Anyone have questions,” and being the only anyone, I asked, “How many teens will this serve?” and the stumped spokesman directed me to fur boots—“Lisa McDermott is facilitating this program, she has those specifics”—and I know it sounds corny, but in my mind I thought, Lisa Prior, as she strode over with a brochure for the program, which had some ridiculous, concocted acronym—N.O.D.O.P.E. or G.O.C.L.E.A.N., and I said, “Nice name,” and fur boots said, “Yeah I know, right?” and—her back to the spokesman—she made a little fist and gave the universal sign for jacking off.
And that was it for me: love.
There were early signs of trouble, of course. Lisa was one of those people you don’t ever feel like you’ve reached the center of; not that she withheld herself, there was just always another, deeper layer that I didn’t have access to, boxes inside boxes…. And there was the money thing, always the money thing. Like most guys, relationships progressed physically for me (I kissed her…we made out…we had sex). Like a lot of women, Lisa’s progressions were more financial, security-based steps (he bought dinner…he took me to Napa for the weekend…he wants me to move in). But at least Lisa was always up-front about it; her father had died when she was twelve and she and her mother were dirt-poor for a few years. “I have to warn you, I can sometimes mistake being spoiled for being loved,” she told me on our fourth date, and then she smiled perfectly as she took a bite of her $65 entrée, winked knowingly and said, through a mouthful of seared-scallops-in-truffle-butter: “But I’m working on that.”
No, even Lisa’s quirky nature was alluring to me, partly because she was so open and cool about it. Even when she was suffering in the unfriendly job market, she was cool. Even during her online shopping binge—cool. She felt awful, apologized until I couldn’t take it anymore, volunteered to see a counselor. Hell, even now, when she’s possibly thinking
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