LITMIR.BIZ

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progeny? The funny thing was, Kate had married a guy named Kenneth, and their new baby’s name was—guess what?—Kimberly. I wondered now if the other sister had managed to line up a K-man with this new boyfriend. Hey, wait a second. New boyfriend? Kayla’s new boyfriend was there?

      “Um…how long has your sister been seeing this guy?” I asked, hoping “new” boyfriend meant new to Kirk but practically married to Kayla. After all, that was the only reason I could drum up why Karl, Kasper, Kirby, or whatever the hell his name was, had been invited and I hadn’t.

      “I dunno. Couple of months?”

      Couple of months? Remain cool, remain calm.

      “Seems like a nice enough guy, but who knows? Kayla goes through guys like they’re going out of style.”

      Remain cool, remain calm. Get the facts. “So, um, does anyone ever ask about your girlfriend, sweetie?” I knew it sounded like I was fishing, but there was no other way to do this. I had to know.

      “Oh, yeah. My mother’s always harping on that subject, ever since Susan and I broke up. She always liked Susan….”

      Liked Susan…

      “But I learned my lesson that time around. Telling my family about stuff like that is like feeding hungry piranhas. They don’t let up.”

      “Stuff like what?”

      “You know, who I’m dating, whatever.”

      Whatever. “Kirk, do you mean to tell me that after almost two years, your parents don’t know I exist?”

      “Oh, they know I’m dating someone. But that’s all their getting outta me. Besides, they know I’m intent on getting my business off the ground….”

      “Excuse me, Kirk. Someone? You’re dating someone?”

      Silence on the other end. The dumb lug probably just realized he’d stepped on a land mine with his blithe comments.

      Finally he said, “You know what I mean, Ange. Didn’t you tell me the less your mother knew about your daily life, the better?”

      “I was talking about stuff like what I ate, how late I stayed out. Not the person I’m contemplating marrying!”

      A new silence descended, this one a bit more harrowing. But no worse than the sigh that finally emerged, the words that followed. “Ange, you know how I feel about that….”

      I did?

      “My whole focus now is on building my business. I thought you understood. I thought…”

      But I was no longer listening. I was tired of what he thought. It was just so…unromantic. I wanted to be caught up in a passion. I wanted a man to want me so badly it hurt to imagine life without me. And I wanted it with Kirk. Was that so much to ask for?

      That’s how it happened. I suddenly found myself putting step one of Michelle’s engagement scheme into action. I don’t know why I succumbed. Maybe it was the fact of my absence (both literal and figurative) from Kirk’s big family weekend. Maybe it was the blasé tone Kirk used when he said before hanging up, “Hey, when you come over tomorrow night, could you bring my U2 CD?”

      See? This is where we’re at. We don’t even ask each other out anymore. It’s all assumed.

      Naturally, I had to start shaking up some of those assumptions. “Uh…actually, tomorrow night I’m meeting up with Grace.” There! Take that!

      “Oh. Okay. Where’re you going?”

      Wouldn’t you like to know, I thought, feeling a tad triumphant. Until I remembered I didn’t know where I was going with Grace, who didn’t yet know we were going anywhere. “Shopping.”

      “Have fun,” he said, as if I’d said I was having my body dipped in hot wax. Kirk was not a shopper, unless we were in say, CompUSA. “You could come by after, if you felt like it….” he offered.

      “Oh, well, I’ll probably be too tired. You know shopping wears me out.”

      “Okay. I guess it’s just as well. I’ve got a lot of catch-up to do with work—I could stand to put in a little overtime. In fact, I’m gonna hit the sack now. I got a big day ahead of me tomorrow.”

      “Yeah, me, too,” I said and, after a muttered goodbye, I hung up the phone, dissatisfied. This lid might need the rubber glove treatment. Or maybe even a sledgehammer.

      “Just sit tight,” Michelle advised at work the following Tuesday, when I informed her that I had put step one of her plan in action. “Give it a few days.”

      “A few days?” I didn’t think I’d last that long. As it turned out, Grace had had plans with Drew last night and couldn’t be lured to Bloomingdale’s even to make an honest woman out of me. And since tonight she was attending some work-related cocktail party, I was faced with going straight home from Lee and Laurie to another fun evening at home.

      So I sat tight. After all, I had plenty of couches to choose from.

      Thank God for our large-screen TV, a hand-me-down from Justin’s friend C.J., who had married his long-time girlfriend, Danielle, and moved on to Westchester and a forty-two-inch. The only thing on, of course, was Friends, and, somehow, tonight I just couldn’t deal with it.

      Deprivation was going to be a lot harder on me than on Kirk, I could tell.

      Because the truth of the matter was, I had done that shameful thing that most women do when they get too cozy in a relationship. I had thrown over my own life for the sake of our life together. Take an average week in my life:

      Monday: Rise and Shine, which I only get through at six o’clock on a Monday morning by telling myself that I am going to buy Backstage this week and begin to search for that great film or TV role I plan to land now that I have TV experience on my résumé and union cards from both AFTRA (for TV—see what a few leaps in front of a camera can get you?) and the Screen Actor’s Guild. But what usually happens is, I bypass the newsstand on the way home from the studio and pay a surprise visit to Kirk at his home office, where we eat bagels and lox until Kirk realizes he has too much work to do to sit around all day eating bagels and lox and sends me on my way.

      Tuesday: Rise and Shine. Maybe breakfast with Colin. Maybe I buy Backstage today, but usually just go home to watch a movie (we have a hell of collection, mostly due to Justin) or read the complete plays of August Strindberg (if I really want to depress myself) until I realize it’s 2:10 and I’m never going to make it to Lee and Laurie on time for my three-to-ten shift. Rush to shower and change, arrive at Lee and Laurie at three-fifteen. Leave work at ten, take the crosstown bus to Kirk’s (thus securing myself sex and saving myself a transfer to the Second Avenue bus, which never comes every ten minutes like it says it will on the schedule posted at the bus stop).

      Wednesday: Rise and Shine. Sometimes Rena wants to have a planning meeting, and then Colin and I have to sit and listen to her drone on and on about her dream plans for Rise and Shine. Go to lunch with Colin, complain about Rena (whom Colin defends), until it’s time for Lee and Laurie. Get off at ten, go to Kirk’s.

      Thursday: Rise and Shine. Maybe breakfast with Colin, after which I decide that that the edition of Backstage on the stands is too old and not worth spending the cash on. Sometimes I go home to clean my apartment (a fruitless endeavor with Justin as a roommate, but I can’t seem to stop myself), or sometimes I find myself lured in to some treacherous sample sale, where I spend the afternoon trying to convince myself of the utter necessity of owning yet another stretchy black shirt. If I’ve dawdled in midtown long enough, I usually just go straight to Lee and Laurie. Sometimes I’m even on time! And guess where I head afterward? Kirk’s, of course.

      Friday: Rise and Shine. And since I have no shift at Lee and Laurie and no desire to start any self-actualizing project, I find some way to waste the entire day. Like renting the complete movies of Bette Davis. Or giving myself a pedicure. Until Kirk and I go out for dinner, or simply sit around the

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