Dylan fed me a line. “You’re quite special,” he said. “Sexy, too.”
And from that point I focused on what I believed he’d want to hear. In doing that, I ignored or simply covered up parts of myself. And like water under oil, what was on the bottom had no chance to surface.
When Dylan returns to the table, he says, “Sorry about that.”
Peter squints, extending his arms as he holds his menu.
“What’s the matter, Peter? Need longer arms?” Dylan asks.
“This is ludicrous. Look how small the print is. Who could see this?”
“I can see it fine, honey,” Dana says, leaning forward, her black turtleneck sweater accentuating her Ivory-girl skin. “Maybe it’s time for you to get those glasses?”
“No way,” Peter glares at the menu. “I can see.” He leans over to me and, pointing, whispers, “What does this say?”
The waitress returns. “What can I get you?” Her confidence is captivating. I stare at her as if by observing closely I could inhabit that sureness.
“Well, I think I’d like the cod,” Marisa says as she looks up at her. “Is it good?”
“Yes. It’s very good.”
“But can I get it without the sauce?” She tilts her head.
The waitress smiles and says, “You want it plain?”
“Yes. Can I have it grilled?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Do you think I can get spinach instead of eggplant?”
The waitress looks behind her as if needing to be rescued, then says, “I’ll have to ask the chef about that.”
Marisa doesn’t care that she’s annoying the waitress. She feels entitled to what she wants, and she never stops until she gets it. Calculating the end, she justifies the means. Like the time at Disney World when she paid a man at the front of the admission line to switch spots with her. She wasn’t about to wait an hour on line just to pay, but she didn’t want to disappoint her kids. In her mind, all was fair, and she was proud of what she considered a clever idea. She rationalized that she didn’t cut the line, the man she’d switched places with was happy with his extra fifty bucks, and her kids didn’t have to wait. Something about it rubbed me the wrong way. Something about it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Oh, and can I get a salad instead of mashed potatoes?” Marisa says.
Eric winks at the waitress and says, “Judy, she’ll have an Absolut martini but instead of olives, can she get the salmon appetizer?”
“Very funny,” Marisa says, throwing Eric a look.
“I’ll work it out,” the waitress says.
When I told my friend, Willow, how we call ourselves the Sixers, she laughed, reinforcing the idea that we should have our own television series. I played into this and told her about the time we took a boat out for the day and named ourselves after the characters on Gilligan’s Island. It was easy. I was Mary Ann, of course. Down-to-earth, brown hair, and sneakers. Dana was Ginger, and she loved that. Glamorous and famous. Dana and I snickered, thinking Marisa wouldn’t want to be Mrs. Howell, old and fussy, but she surprised us both, thrilled with the idea of being her, yearning to be doted over and determined to be filthy rich. Eric now calls her “Lovey,” and she has taken this persona to a whole new level. Initially craving caviar and diamonds, she now claims to identify with the French. She has gone from being a New York housewife to a European princess. There is irony in the fact that we have relegated ourselves to being nothing more than characters in a sitcom.
Dylan asks Dana, “How’s your salad?”
“It’s great.” She moves the goat cheese to the far corners of her plate.
I eat spaghetti with a mushroom cream sauce, each bite filling me like earth in a giant hole. I look up and see Dylan watching me.
“Do you think it matters if your spouse puts on some weight?” I ask. “Peter, are you more attracted to Dana because she’s thin?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’d love her either way. But you know, when we’re in bed,” he pierces a tomato with his fork, “I like to be able to flip her around a bit. Couldn’t do that with extra weight aboard.”
“Men are pigs,” Marisa says.
I twist spaghetti around my fork. “It’s our own fault. We buy into it.”
Dylan is looking at me. He raises one finger to his mouth and gives me the signal we came up with years ago, a warning that there is something in my teeth. I work at the space between my two front teeth, and he indicates I should move to the left.
Dana leans in and speaks in her usual soft-spoken, almost hushed manner. “I know a woman who sets her alarm for six o’clock every morning so she can put on a full face of makeup before her husband wakes up. And at night, she waits for him to fall asleep before she takes it off.”
“Sounds like my kind of woman,” Dylan says.
“Recently Dylan told me that when I lie down, my breasts are messy. Can you please explain that? What does that mean?” I wipe cream sauce from my mouth as if it were just as easy to wipe away the hurt. I’m not embarrassed to repeat this. I like my breasts, and in revealing what Dylan said to me, I’m attempting to expose him for the jerk he can be. I look around the table searching for a reaction, but this statement comes off as matter-offactly as if I were reporting the weather.
“It means he wants you to get implants,” Marisa says. “Then they’ll be hard and unmoving, never messy or out of place.”
Sometimes, I must admit, I love how Marisa articulates what’s on her mind, remarks on how things are, whether we like it or not.
“I told Peter,” Dana says, “that I love him the way he is, and that even though he is miserable about losing his hair, I think he shouldn’t do a thing. He wants to have a hair transplant.”
“If you want hair, of course you should have a transplant,” Dylan says, placing a forkful of tuna appetizer into his mouth.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Peter snorts, knocking on the table. “Your head is like wood. You have no feeling.”
We all laugh. Dylan leans over and whispers something to Marisa.
“What are you two whispering about? Are you talking about me?” Dana asks.
“You are unbelievable,” Peter says. “You always think everything’s about you.”
This statement shoots across the table like a dart, landing in Dana’s heart, and I can see pain on her face. I figured it out recently. A spouse blurts close to twenty of these comments each day. Simple things, really. Questions like, “You’re wearing that?” Or “Why’d you buy the big one?” But they add up. They accumulate, and twenty comments a day equals one hundred and forty darts each week, five hundred and sixty per month.
A busboy comes to clear the table, and he gathers our plates, stacking them like the mozzarella, eggplant, and red pepper tower Eric ate.
“He is the smallest person I’ve ever seen,” Dylan says. “I wonder if they pay him by the inch.”
I glance around the table. Everyone is laughing. I don’t think it’s funny at all. I think it’s mean.