curious jordan
Dirk had called again. After experiencing a heaping helping of the new, indifferent, and significantly less slavish Jordan, he’d called again with a swagger in his voice and I’m sure a glimmer in his eye. I couldn’t be positive, though, since the initial contact had been a message on the phone (so delicious hearing him say, “Dirk? Remember? Dirk?”). He wanted to see me, and I believe that bears out the truest lesson about romance—at least when one of the parties is a brick head: Desire is directly proportional to disinterest. If you want him to come, tell him to go away.
But I had a mission, as I’ve earlier revealed. The secret part of my mission was that I was only wearing a mask of forgetfulness. The not-so-secret part of my mission was shoving aside anyone who had stood in my way before with an innocent shrug and forlorn smile. Fake ignorance was bliss.
So I agreed to get together for what I’m sure he imagined would become a torrid sexual get-reacquainted session. (“Unbelievable, dude!” he’d say. “It was like fucking Jordan and a total stranger all at once!”) I had other plans. One last hurrah before I’d say good-bye for good. I’d agreed to meet him at Houston’s, one of his firm’s favorite restaurant bars. It wasn’t high on ambience, but they had a great artichoke dip that I could always get into. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do to humiliate Dirk, but I figured he would give me plenty of opportunities to figure it out.
I got there about ten minutes late. Prior to that moment I was always on time or early for him. Punctuality was always a big factor in my life, and I’d spent the better part of my relationship with Dirk waiting for him to show up somewhere. Thinking about being late made me remember Lydia’s inspired mangling of the Gandhi lateness-violence theory, and I laughed as I walked in. I’d incorrectly assumed he’d have a table for us, but he was seated at the bar, surrounded by people, his eyes glued to the television.
I called his name a couple times to no avail—then resorted to snapping my fingers in his face.
“Hey, you,” he said, mouth full of some indeterminate snack food, fumbled, no doubt, through handfuls of fingers on the way into his trap.
“Hey, yourself,” I said, smiling pleasantly to remind him I’d basically forgotten who he was. Dirk had already gone through one beer and ordered a second. His eyes were on me now, but the football game was a powerful temptress, and he succumbed over and over again to the urge to cast a look in her direction. He’d earnestly nod at me, say “yeah!” enthusiastically about nothing at all, stroke my forearm awkwardly—but you’d think the TV was about to attack him any moment, the way he kept eyeing it. Watching Dirk watch TV in a bar had definitely lost its appeal.
“Hi, there,” I said again, more forcibly. He turned in his seat to face me.
“Remember anything yet?”
“Nope. Nothing,” I said, but before I got through the “ing” in nothing, he’d already turned to watch the game again. “Although getting ignored in favor of a football game seems like something I’d remember. Or maybe I’m blocking it out on purpose.”
“I was just watching that one play.”
“So this isn’t a usual thing with us?” I asked, counting up in my head the dozens of games I’d suffered through—not to mention how many times his team lost, which would result in an immediate depression and no victory sex. The converse being, his team would win and we’d have crazy energetic sex that made me wonder if he wasn’t secretly picturing Derek Jeter or Tom Brady.
“Course not, baby,” he said as he casually popped another nut in his mouth. Liar. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“Well, it’s something you and I had been talking about a lot before you caught amnesia.”
Caught amnesia? Okay. You could call it that. I was pretty curious about what he was getting at. Considering we rarely talked about anything anymore, let alone talked a lot about something. “What is it?” I asked, all kinds of curious.
He leaned toward me, and it was all I could do to keep from recoiling. And then he looked side to side and got that mischievous half-mouth smile on his face. The one that had struck me as such an adorable, impish little grin before and that now only made me want to strike him.
“Women.”
“Pardon?”
“Other women,” he said. I was floored. Was he actually going to fess up to cheating on me? That I hadn’t prepared myself for. It would be totally out of character—and why now, since he didn’t think I had any recollection of catching him . . . Could he have developed a conscience? Was he sorry?
“What other women?” I asked.
“You were getting bi-curious,” he answered.
Oh. No. He. Didn’t.
“Pardon?” I coughed. “Did you just say ‘bi-curious’?”
“Yeah. Believe me, I was as surprised as you are probably—but you were serious.”
I nearly did a spit take. “You don’t say.”
“I do. Say. You had mentioned that things were great with us, but it was, like, the level of crazy that we were having was making you, like, hungry for even more. Like, you were thinking, whatever, like a three-way.”
Like. “Wow. How adventurous of me!”
“Yeah.” He took another swig of his beer. “So I was thinking that not tonight—tonight we’ll just do normal crazy—but sometime soon, that . . . we could do that.”
“Wow, soon?”
“Sure, why not?” he said. “You . . . me . . . and someone new . . .”
“Just us three?”
“Definitely,” Dirk said, clearly getting excited just thinking about the possibilities. “Yeah, mix it up a little bit, you know? Throw a different ingredient, something else into the mix. But not”—and here, he sat up very straight and craned his neck way back, the picture of moral rectitude—“not trashy. Not anything to come between us.”
“Huh,” I said. Actually, I was sure he’d be flexible on the coming-between-us part if I agreed to go along with the plan.
“I mean, I was always happy with just you and me,” he said, pouring it on even thicker. “At first I tried to talk you out of it because I didn’t know if it would change things between us once it was all said and done, but . . . I just want you to be happy.”
“Tell you what,” I said, “make that third party a guy? And I’ll think about it.”
He made a face, trying to laugh but choked by instinctive fear of the subject. “Ho. Whoa. What am I? Some kind of fag?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“Ha, no! God no. Fuck no! You know I’m not.” If Dirk were a cartoon, steam would have been coming out of his ears. “Just forget I said anything.”
“Are you sure?” I looked around, pointed at a good-looking guy in a flannel shirt. “What about that guy?”
“Right.”
“I’m serious,” I went on. “The two of you, going at me. It’ll be different. It’ll be fun. Someone else in the mix. I see what you mean . . .”
“Are you out of your mind? Did you lose some brain cells along with your memory?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. And then with my eyes locked on Dirk, and a new kind of smile dancing across my lips, I got up from my chair and walked over to the guy I’d pointed at.
“Hi,” I said to the stranger in flannel. “I’m Jordan.”
“Hello, Jordan. Mike,” he said.
“Hey, Mike. This is going to sound weird but . . . would you let me kiss you? It’s for a thing. Like a bet . . . kind of.”
He looked, well . . . he looked like any man who’d just been asked for a kiss by a young and reasonably attractive woman in a bar. The preening was precious. “Who’d you bet?”
“Nobody. Actually, myself. I bet myself that I wouldn’t go through with it.”
“What do you get if you win the bet? And what happens if you lose?”
“If I win I get a kiss, some self-esteem back, and the pleasure of making someone pay for trying to take advantage of someone else’s misfortune. And if I lose . . .”
He cut me off with a kiss. A good kiss too. Not like I saw fireworks, but it was pleasant enough, and it certainly caught Dirk’s attention. He was halfway to where we were standing when I came out of it. I whispered to Mike to just play along.
“Hey, Dirk,” I said. “This is Mike.”
“Hey, Dirk,” Mike said with a finger-trigger point.
“Mike’s totally cool with everything . . .” I said to Dirk. “So how do you want to play it?”
“Jordan!” Dirk hissed. “Fuckin’ forget about it, all right?”
“Fuckin’ forgotten,” I said as I held back a major laughing fit. “I guess, never mind, Mike,” I said to my new friend. “But I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
That? Was awesome.
* * * * *
After Dirk and I parted ways, I met Todd and Cat at the twenty-four-hour diner where we’d clocked so many hours together that they’d given us our own reserved table. Almost. Whenever we came, the owner or night manager would cast a weary glance at us and jerk his head toward our booth. If someone was there, the quandary set us back for minutes at a time. Once we stared a group of giggling teenaged girls right out of the place.
I was late—ditching Dirk had taken longer than expected. Still, to keep up the ruse, I called Todd on his cell phone and he pretended to give me directions so I’d know where I was going. I hadn’t seen Cat in ages. I’d avoided her more than I’d have liked since my rebirth and I was feeling sixteen shades of guilty.
“Greetings,” I said as Cat got up and hugged me tightly.
“I’ve missed you,” she said. Make that seventeen shades of guilty. “I wonder—” Cat broke in, then stopped.
“Out with it,” Todd said.
She arched her brows. “What it’s like being in there. It’s unbelievable that you can’t . . . remember.”
Unbelievable? Implausible, sure . . . but beyond belief? I hoped not.
“It’s like . . . ” I looked up for effect. “Like the first day of school, every day. I know I’ll be okay. I know it’s generally fine—I’m supposed to be there, I’ll be able to handle the homework, do the math, fire up the Bunsen burner. But everyone is new. I don’t know a soul. But”—I smiled hopefully—“I look forward to meeting everyone and making new friends.”
“But what about when you got your arm stuck in that trellis in your backyard and Sam kept hitting you with her shoe? The baking cupboard surprise we used to make with the vinegar and mustard and cinnamon and chocolate morsels?” She scoured her own memory. “What, what, what about the bird . . . that flew into the car when you were driving? And you went up on the curb and took out the mailbox and blamed it on—” She caught herself. We’d blamed it on Todd and his minibike—and we hadn’t yet found the perfect opportunity to tell him.
My body had a mind of its own, and it remembered every glorious moment with her, and it started to reach to slap her arm, and my eyes and mouth were about to go along with it in the hilarity of the moment, until Todd calmly interceded by horse-kicking me under the table.
“That’s wild stuff, wild!” he said. “Hooo! Good times. And we can only hope that one day, God willing, she’ll find her way back to us. For now, I think we have to tread lightly,” and he used his fingers to tiptoe around the table.
So I swallowed hard and picked up again. “I’ve just been getting acclimated at work and trying to figure out who I was and who I’m going to be and how I used to live and if that’s still gonna fly.”
“And what about Dirk?” she asked. “Did you have a nice time with him tonight? You know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news—”
“You live to be the bearer of bad news,” Todd interjected.
Ignoring him, she continued. “You weren’t very happy with him before this happened to you.”
“I know,” I said.
“You remember what a dick he is?” Cat looked hopeful, as if I were having a breakthrough. I got nervous.
“I filled her in,” said Todd. Always quick with the cover. God, I loved Todd.
“I’m surprised he didn’t make you go home with him tonight,” she said.
“Yeah, well . . . he did try to suggest we work some ‘experimenting’ into our sex life.”
“Typical,” Cat said. “Revolting.”
“He’s got some stuff to work out.” I nodded.
“I’d think his idea of working something out would involve a couple thrusts, immediately followed by copious snoring,” Cat added.
“Was that my idea of a good time?” I said. “I don’t think that’s going to get him anywhere these days.”
“Good,” she said. “Make him suffer. Make him beg! Conjure your inner diva.”
I raised my glass. “To my newfound inner diva!”
“Hear, hear,” Cat yelped. “I gotta pee so bad I think my bladder is going to explode all over this table.”
“How ’bout you spare us the charming imagery and just go to the bathroom?” Todd said.
“Wow . . . hadn’t thought of that.” Cat got up and left, so Todd and I could have a mini powwow.
“You would not believe the shit Dirk was trying to pull.”
“Oh, no,” he said, “I would.”
“Complete one-eighty from the other night with Travis.”
“Who?”
“Travis.”
“What’s a Travis?” Todd asked, face contorted, shoulders inching toward his ears.
“The guy . . . whose car . . . you know . . .”
“Oh, the florist?” This was Todd’s way of flexing his muscles. Any mention of any other men, and immediately his feathers started ruffling.
“Not exactly his occupation, but, yes, the guy who sent me all the flowers. Anyway, I’ve seen him a couple times and he’s really sweet.”
“Sweet, like how? Like a sweet old man? Sweet like a basket of puppies? A sweet three-year-old covering you with finger paint?”
“No, he’s not a puppy. Or old. Or three. He’s around our age, I guess. You know, I can’t tell how old anyone is anymore.” Cat came back in time to catch the last part of my sentence.
“I can’t either,” said Cat. “I swear everybody between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five looks the same to me.” We all nodded in agreement. I wondered when that happened. I used to have a fairly good grasp of people’s ages. I could tell more or less how old someone was by what they wore, the music they liked—that sort of thing. Now all the teenagers were dressing like twenty-somethings; and all the thirty-somethings were trying desperately to still look like twenty-somethings; and then the actual twenty-somethings, well, they looked their age, I guess. It made for some confusion though. “What did I miss when I peed?”
“Hopefully not the toilet,” Todd said. “Jordan has a not-so-secret admirer.”
“Really? Who?”
“The guy who ran her over,” Todd answered.
“He didn’t run me over,” I clarified. “We collided. It was an accident. That’s why they’re called accidents and not on purposes.”
“Porpoises?” Todd said. “I love porpoises! Is it porpoises? What’s the plural of porpoise?”
“Could you be more annoying?” I asked.
“You know he can,” said Cat. “Don’t egg him on.”
“Por-pie?” he murmured.
“Anyway, I wouldn’t call him an admirer,” I said, although I hoped it wasn’t true. “He was just being nice. He felt bad about what happened.”
“As well he should,” said an indignant Todd. Then piling it on he added, “Causing our Jordan to concuss and lose all her precious memories.”
“I probably won’t even hear from him again,” I said, but immediately said a little silent prayer, Please God, don’t let that be true.
“I’m sure,” Todd said with a knowing grimace.
“What about you, Cat? Tell us about you,” I said.
“Is this where we start men bashing?” Todd asked sarcastically. “I love this part.”
“No,” Cat said. “Because I am a happily married woman with a baby on the way.”
* * * * *
As I walked down my hallway—something was different. It didn’t hit me until I turned the key in my front door. Silence. Total silence. Sneevil wasn’t making a peep.
I quickly entered my apartment and ran to his cage—which was empty. I looked around, panicked, but didn’t see him anywhere. My heart started racing, and then I heard a tap. I looked up toward the noise, and there at my window was Sneevil, nestled in a surrogate nest that he’d built on my windowsill. And on the other side of the window—a pigeon. Not just any pigeon—a pigeon who was looking longingly, desperately at Sneevil. And Sneevil was returning his gaze. Her gaze? Sneevil was so enamored with this pigeon that he’d moved house. And was that part of my new orange sweater amid the nest? Make yourself comfortable, Sneevil.
The pigeon tapped at the window again and Sneevil cooed and started singing. It was an avian Romeo and Juliet, but as I thought avian, immediately I got to thinking about the bird flu we’ve been hearing so much about and wondered, What if that pigeon was a flu-carrying carrier? I panicked and shooed him away. Or I tried to. He wasn’t budging. He didn’t even notice me. He only had eyes for Sneevil. And Sneevil returned his yearning gaze, inching forward, singing to it, leaning forward as far as he could—if it weren’t for the glass partition they’d be out together dancing beak to beak.
I was pacing, trying to figure out what to do about the budding romance, listening to the messages on my answering machine. The first message was from Citibank. Shocker. They were relentless. You’d think they want you to pay them every month or something. They’d call at all hours, too. I’d received calls at 6 A.M. from the heathens.
My second message, though . . . that canceled out Citibank’s annoyance.
“Hey, Jordan. Thought I’d put this number to use. Oh, it’s Travis. The guy from the car. And Thanksgiving. And . . . shabu-shabu. Um . . . calling to see what your plans are for tomorrow night. Still feeling awful about the smell and the retainer and the late notice . . . This probably sounds like a really weird message. Anyway, I was hoping I could make it up to you. In a place where everybody has to keep their shoes on. Maybe you don’t even remember the incident. I’m not sure which side of the amnesia that falls under. So if you don’t remember, then great! If you do, then sorry . . . again. Give me a call. It’s Travis. I said that already.” Beep.
Could he have been more cute? He totally had that stammering-over-his-words Hugh Grant thing going on. But not annoying. Not that Hugh Grant is annoying, but we’ve seen him stammer through the awkward moment enough already. Travis, however . . . this was new territory. Move over, Hugh! This was the movie of my life and it had a new leading man. Cue the soundtrack.
Then my phone rang. And the only thing that could take me out of my blissful state of It’s All About Travis more than Citibank would be my mother—which is who it was.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jordan. It’s your mother.” This wasn’t just her acknowledgment of the amnesia: She always identified herself to me like I wasn’t going to recognize her voice after knowing her for my entire life.
“Hi, Mom. How are you?” Automatically I walked over to my freezer and took out a pint of ice cream. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I guess it was self-defense in the form of comfort food.
“I want you to set up some appointments for physical therapy,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’s going to be better for our case.”
“What case?” I asked.
“Against the driver of that car, dear. He’s going to pay big for what he did to you. And my attorney, and Dirk, said that the more bills we rack up, well, it makes the case stronger.”
“No, Mom. I’m not going to physical therapy and I’m not suing him. I actually met him and he’s really, really nice.” And totally hot and going to have ten kids with me, so back the fuck up. And, P.S., why are you talking to Dirk?
“He can be nice while he runs half of New York over. It doesn’t change what he did.”
“Yes, it does. It was an accident!” Suddenly, I found myself saying the exact same thing to her that I’d told Todd just hours earlier. “That’s why it’s called an accident, not an on purpose.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said and then paused. “Are you eating?” I was. I stopped. How did she hear that? It was fucking ice cream. That’s probably why she called in the first place. Her radar went off. Somewhere in Manhattan, Jordan’s about to stuff her face and it must stop. She’ll get skinny like the rest of her family come hell or high water.
“I’m just having a snack.”
“Ice cream?” she shot back.
Dammit. “No.”
“Good. It’s late to be eating anything at all, you know. You should try not to eat after seven.”
“Okay, Mom, thanks.”
“I’ll set up an appointment for physical therapy tomorrow. Good night, Jordan,” she said and then added, “Enjoy your Rocky Road or Chocolate Chunk. Which?”
I waited. “Chunk.”
“Yes,” she said. Click.