LITMIR.BIZ

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jaw drops. I try to explain myself to her. “I keep trying to figure out what I could have done differently to make Fred not cheat on me. Maybe if I had gone to the gym more. I’m a runner, but I never lift weights. Or maybe if I had had that nose job— he always teased me about my nose. Or if I had just stayed on a diet—”

      Scott interrupts my thoughts. “Jesus— do you realize how ridiculous you sound? You have a smoking body . . .” He turns to Seema. “Wait, I’m allowed to say that, right?”

      Seema and I look at each other. “Um . . .” Seema debates. “Can he say that?”

      Duh. I nod my head yes.

      Scott continues, “Don’t be sad. Get angry!” He walks out of the living room and into Seema’s office, where he yells, “Sweetheart, where do you keep your note pads?”

      “Top right drawer,” Seema yells back. Then she looks at me. “Can I get you something? Something with sugar in it? Something with booze in it?”

      “Actually,” I say, “I would kill for a peach Bellini the size of a small horse.”

      Seema pats me on the knee, then heads to her kitchen as Scott walks out of her office carrying a legal pad. “Here’s what I want you to do,” he says, handing me the pad. “I want you to write down one hundred things that you hate most about him.”

      Seema emerges with a champagne flute just as Scott clarifies his assignment to me. “Not things that are going to make you blame yourself. You can write, ‘Number one, he won’t marry me.’ But only if you realize that that’s his fault— not yours. Only if the statement means, ‘He’s an asshole!’ Not, ‘What could have I have changed about myself?’ Personally, I would start with ‘He likes Nagel.’ And not as an ironic or a kitschy eighties thing; he actually likes him.” Scott stops talking as he notices Seema carefully pouring peach puree into the flute. “What the Hell are you doing?”

      She looks up at him. “I’m making Mel a drink.”

      “Are you out of your mind, woman? You’re going to give her a bridal shower drink on the day she finds out her boyfriend cheated on her? My God, it’s amazing we ever breed with you people. You make no sense.”

      Scott walks out of the room and into her kitchen. I lean in to Seema. “Where’s he going?”

      She shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she sighs. “But I’m sure he’s making some testosterone point.” She then whispers to me, “Why do I like this guy? He’s a total freak.”

      Scott reappears with a bottle of Gentleman Jack and a shot glass. He opens the bottle, pours a shot, and hands it to me. “Here. Drink this.”

      I hate whiskey. I look at Scott. “I’m not really a . . .”

      “Drink it,” he says, in a low, commanding voice.

      What the hell?— I drink the shot.

      “Well?” Scott asks.

      “It’s dreadful,” I sputter. “Like drinking broken glass.”

      “For the next hour, if you want a drink, promise me you won’t drink overly sweet girlie drinks that will get you drunk, make you cry, and make you long for weddings, true love, or Fred. Drink a man’s drink— a hideous drink, if you will. Use it to get angry.”

      He scribbles Why Fred is a Chode on the top of the note pad, then underlines it. “Okay, what’s your number one?”

      I suddenly feel put on the spot. I have spent the last six years cultivating an image of Fred for all of the world to see. A happy image. A loving image.

      An image that might not necessarily have been completely 100 percent true.

      I mean, it was true when we met. Fred really was amazing. He was still in law school, and I had just started teaching, and we were both wildly in love, and absolutely sure about what we wanted in life.

      Then, somehow, life got in the way.

      It wasn’t just his high salary and seventy-hour workweeks crashing against my small salary and wanting to keep my summers off. Although certainly not agreeing on how much money and free time you can live with is big. It was sex that slowly got routine, and less and less frequent. And not being able to agree on a place to live together for so long that I finally had to move into his place, which I hated every day. Or not agreeing on a place to go on vacation, which led to not going on vacation together at all.

      Sometimes, a relationship withers, and by the time you realize how close it is to death, you don’t know what to do to save it.

      I desperately want the guy who brought silver roses to me on our second date back. I miss the man who lay in bed with me all day every Sunday, equipped with a Sunday Times, a few rented Blu-rays, and breakfast delivered to our door. I want my buddy back who watched BBC America with me every Thursday night.

      I miss him, and I know he’s still lurking somewhere inside the too-sleek yuppie who crawls into bed with me every night. I know he’s still there.

      Or, at least until tonight, I thought he was still there.

      As I stare at the blank sheet of lined paper, I am at a total loss as to what to write.

      1. Nagel.

      Scott reads my number one upside down. “That’s cheating,” he says. “I totally served that one up for you. Show some originality.”

      “But I can’t stand Nagel,” I point out.

      “And I don’t like wet socks. Who does? Movin’ on to number two.”

      I’m not really comfortable telling my friends the real reasons my relationship isn’t working. So I start by writing down some of my minor grievances:

      2. Works too much.

      Scott smiles. “Good.”

      3. Cannot see a dish in the sink to save his life.

      4. Will not shop for Christmas presents until December 24th.

      Seema reads that one. “Hmmm . . . so basically number four just makes him male.”

      Scott turns to Seema. “You loved your gift card.” Then he turns to me, “Keep going, sweetheart.”

      5. Blares U2 at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday morning while getting ready for his softball game.

      6. Accidentally deletes my DVRed Monday-night sitcoms every time a game is on that night.

      Then I brace myself, take a deep breath, and write down the really painful ones.

      The ones that sometimes do make me hate him.

      7. Wouldn’t let me move in.

      Seema’s eyes widen. I never let on to anyone that he didn’t want me to move in. Never admitted to her (back when she, Nic, and I were roommates) that I gave him an ultimatum one night: let me move in, or we’re over. He did— eventually. But he kept all of his furniture exactly where it was. All of my stuff went into storage. So I always felt like a guest in my own home.

      8. Wasted six years of my life.

      I scribble angrily.

      “Great start,” Scott says. Then he puts out his hand. “House keys.”

      I am confused for a moment. “I’m sorry?”

      “You’re moving out,” Scott says matter-of-factly. “What do you need most between now and Monday?”

      Seema sighs again, then says to Scott, “Um . . . honey? With all due respect, you’re pushing too hard here—”

      “No, no,” I interrupt quickly, giving him my keys. “I either need a pair of Banana Republic blue jeans or the ones I bought from Target. My fat jeans, not my thin ones. And my flat Steve Maddens, my gray Ann Taylor long-sleeve T-shirt, a long T-shirt to

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