After Randall was Paul. Ugh, Paul. That, I will admit, was completely my fault. I had zero foresight with him. Helen and I were working at this massage place called Dharma. She was the receptionist and I was trying to build a clientele there. You know what they don’t tell you in massage school? They don’t tell you that bad things are happening in some of the nicest massage establishments. They don’t tell you that no matter where you work, you will occasionally get that random guy who thinks you’ll give him a happy ending for an extra twenty. Helen jokingly called Dharma the best little whorehouse not in Texas.
Paul came in one day and seemed like an absolute gentleman. Good-looking, too. I gave him a massage and then he asked if he could take me out. We started dating pretty seriously . . . or so I thought. Every once in a while he’d come into Dharma on his lunch break and we’d have a quiet little romp while listening to the trickling sounds of some Zen meditation soundtrack shit they’d pump through the place on a loop.
One day, when I was late and Helen was home sick, the back-up receptionist told me that Amy, another therapist who we called Airbag Amy because of her enormous fake breasts (and because we hated her), was using my room for a client. “Why?” I had said.
“The client said the bed was better.”
Something made me walk through that door, some force I couldn’t fight. It was truly divine intervention that led me to Airbag Amy riding Paul, reverse cowgirl style, on my massage table, her giant tits bouncing like vulcanized rubber. I quit the little whorehouse that day and never saw Paul again. Bullet dodged.
I hadn’t won any awards for picking men, so a part of me was just waiting for the other shoe to drop with Adam.
We arrived at Donut King, located in a short building among tall ones. It looked like an afterthought of a building. There was no door, just a window and a line halfway down the block.
“I didn’t even know this place existed.”
“It comes to life at night,” Adam said.
“You bring all your dates here?”
He shook his head.
“There are a lot of paintings of women in your loft,” I remarked.
“They’re just women I see on the street and stuff.”
“So you don’t date them?”
“I don’t think I would make a very good boyfriend, small fry.”
Uh-oh. Do I want to know why? Wait, did he already forget my name? Is that why he keeps calling me all these weird nicknames?
“Why do you say that, Adam?”
“I’m a little forgetful, in case you haven’t noticed. Not good with anniversaries, birthdays, in-laws, parking tickets. You know the deal.”
“Were you always forgetful?”
He didn’t answer me. I stood there awkwardly.
“I was dating a runner when I worked at the firm. Her name was Keri, and every weekend we’d get up early and go for a run. We ran by this place at seven in the morning once and there was a line wrapped around the building. As we passed by, Keri looked at the line, rolled her eyes at me, and said something about them being gluttonous pigs. I remember just really wanting a donut.” He looked down at me and smiled. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
“What happened to Keri?”
He stared past me down the street, looking wounded. “She left me about a year ago, right after I quit the firm.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. Her loss.” He smirked. “Honestly, I could have been better to her.”
We were getting close to the order window when he slipped a hand behind my neck, leaned in, and kissed me. The lady behind him bumped hard into his backpack, which forced Adam to stumble into me. He reached one hand out to the wall behind my head and the other snaked around my waist so I wouldn’t get crushed against the brick wall. It was a somewhat athletic move. I felt completely safe and cocooned by him.
His eyes were wide open. He looked furious.
The lady leaned around him and said, “Sorry about that.”
His body relaxed. He let go of me, turned toward the woman, and smiled. “No worries.”
I was in awe of his self-control.
I could not figure Adam out. All I knew was that I liked him. One minute he’d be totally focused, and the next he’d be onto another subject. I couldn’t tell if he was truly free-spirited or working toward it. He seemed like a typical guy his age, but I suspected he was grappling with something from his past.
We ordered two maple bars and headed back to Adam’s loft. At the top of the stairs was a woman standing near his door, holding a cat. “Oh shit,” Adam said.
My stomach sank. I thought for sure it was his girlfriend, or a disgruntled ex. “Hi, Adam. Foxy was out on the ledge meowing for the last half an hour.”
He ran up the stairs toward the woman. “Come here.” He took the fluffy black cat from the woman’s arms. “Awh, I’m sorry, Foxy,” he told the cat.
I stood a few steps below Adam. The woman was wearing a thin robe. She leaned around him and waved. “I’m Stacy, his neighbor.”
“Oh, hi, I’m Charlotte. His friend.”
“It’s late. I’m sorry we woke you, Stacy,” Adam said.
“You can’t forget to close the bathroom window, Adam. Foxy can jump out here.” She pulled a Post-it from her robe pocket. “I wrote you a note to put in the bathroom.”
“Thanks.” He took the note from her and gestured for me to come up. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
I hadn’t noticed before because of all the clutter, but once I was back in his apartment, I realized there were little Post-its on various items throughout his apartment, reminding him to do random things like eat, buy food, and shower. When my grandmother got dementia and we’d go see her in the convalescent home, she would always call me by my mother’s name because she remembered my mom from thirty years ago, but couldn’t remember what she ate for breakfast. We had to put Post-its on pictures around her room to remind her of everyone’s names. She still forgot.
Adam set Foxy down. “I better close the window before I forget.” I picked up the cat. She purred. Adam called back, “That’s Foxy Cleopatra! Get to know each other.”
He had a cat. I always went for guys with dogs. I always thought dog people were more normal, but they’re not. In fact, they’re less normal. One time, George (the panty man) asked me to take his Labrador, Lucy, to the groomer while he was at work. When I picked her up, she was wearing a pink bandana with cherries on it. The groomer told me that Lucy had a fungal infection in her ears and recommended sixty-dollar eardrops and a cup of plain Yoplait with each meal. “You gotta be kidding me! Yogurt, for a dog?” I had said.
“It’s a yeast infection. Like what women get, but in her ears.”
“I’m sure it will run its course,” I had said.
Her smile faded. “Is that what you do when you have a yeast infection? Let it run its course?”
“She’s a dog.”
I unleashed the puppy police with that statement. “How could you be so heartless? That poor animal is relying on you to take care of her.”
I was about to tell the woman it wasn’t even my dog, but I thought she’d probably try to have me arrested for dog-napping. “I don’t have sixty bucks.”
“We take Visa and MasterCard.”