Page 91 of Perfect Mess

Gary’s nod was the only response that I got. Then he went right back to drying the plate. I told you how Gary made me open up about my feelings. Made me feel safe to talk to him about anything. Apparently, I did not have that same effect on him. Because after that, he didn’t say another word about Ann. It must have been one hell of a divorce.

“So what makes you loathe poor Justin so much?” Gary asked, quickly changing the subject.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “It’s complicated. He used to be one of my favorites.” I handed Gary another plate.

“Go on.” Gary grabbed a fresh towel from the drawer.

“You know that song,As Long as You Love Me?The one he did with Big Sean?”

“I know it.” Gary hummed a verse to prove his point.

“As Long as You Love Mewas our song.”

“Our song?” For a moment, I thought Gary was going to drop the plate he was drying.

“His name was Greg. For a few weeks there, we were even engaged.” Once again, it was a sore subject I never planned to discuss. Gary’s face looked like I had told him I was an alien from outer space here to conquer the planet. “Don’t look so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “It’s just, I don’t know. I figured you were the kind of person who wasn’t interested in settling down.”

“Oh really,” I teased. “So you picture me as some lonely old troll. Living in a cave under a bridge. Preying on passing billy goats.”

“No, of course not,” Gary stopped drying and rubbed at his chin. “I figured you would end up living in a gingerbread house in the middle of the forest, luring small children that you could bake into pies.”

“I think you’re mixing up your nursery rhymes.”

“Technically, I think they’re considered fables.” Somehow, we had ended up right next to each other again. I could smell his mint and jasper cologne again, this time commingling with the sea-breeze scent of the dish soap.Eyes like whirlpools in the ocean.

Gary fixed those whirlpool eyes right on me. I couldn’t help but notice his dimple was out again. “So what happened to Greg?” It was a simple question with a complicated answer. Or was it? Maybe when it came down to it, it wasn’t so complicated at all.I never loved him.

“He bought me a blender,” was the answer I gave Gary.

“You broke up because he bought you a blender?”

“It was our one-year anniversary. Just a couple of weeks after he proposed. I wanted him to buy me flowers and take me out to dinner. Get me a nice card.” There went my mouth again, talking about things I hadn’t even thought about in years. “But really, it was all the little things. Added up together, it was just too much.”

Gary had his Freud face on again. “Little things? Like what?”

“Well, like we never watched T.V. together.”

“So blenders and T.V.?” Gary and his Freud face didn’t look so sure. He must have thought I was an idiot for throwing away my love life for something so petty and so small. Or maybe he was just trying to wrap his head around my claim that I was capable of loving someone. Or maybe, probably, he just couldn’t understand why anyone would love me.

I tried my best to explain it. “We liked different shows so we would watch T.V. in different rooms. And when we went out to dinner, we could never agree on what we wanted to eat, so we’d end up ordering takeout from different places and then just bringing it home.” I started to get emotional. Not because of Greg, of course. No way. On that topic, I never second guessed my decision once. It was because talking about Greg and thinking about everything that had happened was making me confront and acknowledge how sad and pathetic my life had become. I was almost forty years old. Single. Alone. Not a single prospect in sight.

Somehow, I pulled myself out of my sorry spiral. “The bottom line was, we just didn’t belong together. We both knew it, but we kept going anyway. Kept trying. Hammering the round pegs into the square holes. The truth was, we never should have been together from the start.”

Gary finished drying the last dish, then hung the towel over the sink. “Well, just so you know, I would never buy you a blender.” He quickly added, “If it was our painting your house anniversary or something, I mean. Assuming we were still hanging out a year from now. Which, of course, we probably won’t. Since I’m just painting your aunt’s house. And you’re actively working to set me up with your best friend. Even though you’re not doing an outstanding job of it.”

I punched him in the arm.

“Ouch.” Gary smiled when he said it.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll play along. If it were our painting my aunt’s house anniversary, and by some miracle, I reluctantly agreed to meet you somewhere, for the sole purpose of you giving me an anniversary present, what would you get me?”

Gary thought for a moment, rubbing reflectively at his chin. “It would be a toaster.”

“A toaster?” I may have inadvertently snorted.

“Then the next year would be an air fryer. Then, if you played your cards right, someday you might even get a microwave.”

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