8: The perfect boyfriend
Originally emailed on Dec. 30, 1997
The boys have gone to their grandparents' for a week--Sam drove them down to his parents' a couple of days after Christmas, and they'll be back Saturday to get ready for school on Monday. I considered doing all kinds of exciting things in my week alone, from working extra hours and getting ahead on some of January's bills to talking Harriet into an impromptu trip to Chicago to raise my Visa balance at some decent restaurants and museum gift shops.
Alas, I have instead come down with the classic end-of-semester cold, and have spent the last few days shuffling feebly around my house in sweat pants and bedroom slippers, sucking on sore throat lozenges and drinking so many cups of hot tea with ginger that I'm afraid I'll overload my system and suffer renal failure. I've been trying to finish some chores I'd let slide during the semester, like defrosting my refrigerator and cleaning out my linen closet, but only a few minutes on my feet or a minor exertion sends me careening back to the couch. So far, I've always made it to a piece of furniture before collapsing.
Harriet has been bringing me videos and calling to make sure I'm eating. Her grandma Miriam hasn't been able to come by because she had a bad flu a couple of weeks ago and her doctor doesn't want her around any sick people until she is completely recovered, but she also calls, and we commiserate with each other. She feels fine, even when she's up and doing things, and is suffering under her doctor's restrictions to take it easy. She (the doctor) wants her (Miriam) in bed, sleeping if possible, ten hours a day, and doing nothing more strenuous than reading or watching TV another four. Miriam--and Flopsy as well--is going stir-crazy, and, according to Harriet, is also a little scared. She turned 77 this year and is afraid any short-term slow-down will turn permanent. When the flu was at its worst and Harriet was talking about taking Miriam to the hospital, Miriam apparently kept saying, "I don't want to go to the hospital, I want to die at home." Harriet pooh-poohed her, but Miriam's doctor says flu bugs do kill old folks, every year, and apparently Miriam was more sick than Harriet was willing to admit to herself.
Well, Miriam came through it and is very much on the mend, except for being exceedingly cranky. I snarled at Harriet today when she came by, and she just laughed at me. "Your feeble attempts are nothing to me," she said, "who has a hide toughened by two weeks of daily contact with The Evil Grandmother. Do your worst!"
Ed, on the other hand, is not so immune to my poison. He was here yesterday evening trying to medicate, feed, and amuse me. "I brought several cold medicines," he said. "This one has an antihistamine, a cough suppressant, and a pain reliever. This one also has an expectorant, so you can get that phlegm out of your chest. And this one doesn't have an antihistamine, so if you're not ready to go to sleep you might want to take it now, and then you could take the antihistamine one at bedtime. Which do you think is best?"
I said, "Are they all liquids? I don't want any liquids. They all taste vile. I like capsules."
"I didn't know that," Ed said. "Would you like me to run out and get some capsules?"
"You should have gotten capsules to begin with," I said.
"I like liquids better," Ed said, "because they work faster and I don't like swallowing pills. But if you prefer capsules, I can get you some."
"No," I said, ever so graciously, "I guess I might as well take the liquid since it's here." Ed held the bottles out to me, and I pointed to a radioactive orange-colored medicine that promised to relieve all my symptoms. He poured a dose, and I took it, gagging and gasping for water to wash the horrible taste out of my mouth. "God," I said, after I'd sucked down a glassful of tap water, "that's awful. I can still taste it. Did it coat the whole inside of my mouth?" I stuck my tongue out. It was orange. "Do I need a solvent to remove it from my teeth?" Ed laughed, but cut it off sharp when he realized I wasn't joking, but bitching.
"You'll feel better soon," he assured me.
"I don't see why. I've felt crappy for days."
"Have you had a shower today?" he asked me.
"Why, do I smell?" I said.
"No, it's just that I've often found I feel better when I've had a shower. I know it's a lot of effort when you're sick, but I think it's worth it. You could shower, and by the time the medicine starts working, you'll be clean and in fresh clothes and ready for a little something to eat."
"I just want to lie here," I said.
"Don't you think you'd feel better if you showered?" he said.
"Probably, but I just want to lie here. Will you stop nagging me about the shower? Jesus. Get off my back."
"OK," Ed said, "I'll go heat up some soup." He headed for the kitchen.
"Ed!" I called. He came back. "I need to know something." He looked at me encouragingly. "If we're still seeing each other, oh, a year from now, are you still going to be this easygoing? I've been crabby as hell and you haven't snapped at me once."
"I try to be nice," he said, "and I know you're sick, so I don't take your crabbiness too seriously. I hope I'll always be good to you."
"Well, cut it out," I said. "You're driving me nuts with all this patience-of-a-saint stuff."
He said, "Does it make you feel guilty when I'm nice because you're cranky? It shouldn't. It's perfectly natural to be cranky when you're sick."
"No!" I said. "Jesus, this isn't about me being cranky, it's about you being Mr. Sweetness and Light, which I can tell you gets old pretty fast. And it hasn't been just since I've been sick! Do you know why I haven't slept with you yet? Because you're too damn perfect, with your thoughtful gestures and gentle ways! I'm attracted to you, but I just can't bring myself to sleep with the Platonic ideal of Sensitive Manhood!"
Ed looked stung. "You'd rather I fight with you when you're sick?"
"I'd rather you were human. You're so together you make me feel like garbage. My house is a mess, I'm not at all sure about my program at school or whether I can stand to work in Packaging the rest of my life, and a year ago I was so depressed my very best friends almost took my kids away from me. You, on the other hand, manage to keep your house tidy, turn in your assignments on time, wear a pressed shirt every day, and have time to nurse me when I'm sick! It's revolting! Don't you ever slip up? Have you ever made a mistake?"
Ed pulled a footstool over and sat next to me. "Louella, I had no idea you felt like this. I don't mean to make you feel bad, and if I seem perfect it's because you're choosing to see me that way, not because I really am. I've made mistakes even bigger than yours, and with no such good excuse as a clinical depression."
"What mistakes?" I said.
Ed said, "Things I'm trying to put behind me and don't want to talk about. I'd rather not tell you, but I will tell you that being here in Lansing, going to school, and dating you are all part of a recovery process for me, trying to get my life back on track."
I was burning with curiosity. "Are you sure you won't tell me?"
"I'll tell you if you decide you need me to, if it's the only way you can be with me. But not otherwise."
"You're being perfect again," I said. "'I'll tell you if you need me to. I'll make this great sacrifice for the sake of our togetherness.'"
He took my hand and looked at me doe-eyed. "I would, Louella."
I looked at him suspiciously. "Ed," I said, "are you in love with me?"
"That's a very forward question," he said. "I don't want to answer it just now. In fact, if you think you can manage on your own, I'd like to go home and think about everything you've said." He looked very sad.
"I can manage," I said. After he was gone, I took a shower, heated some soup, drank a can of ginger ale and read a chapter of a bad Heinlein novel he had checked out of the library for me. "At least," I thought, "he doesn't have perfect taste in books," and that made me feel a little more kindly disposed towards him. I called him. "I took a shower," I said. "You were right. I feel better."
"I'm glad," he said.
"I'm sorry I drove you away," I said.
"You didn't. I just needed to think."
"Are you still thinking?" I said.
"I'm talking to you right now," he said.
I said, "But if you weren't talking to me, would you still be thinking?"
"No," he said. "I have no existence independent of you. If you hadn't called, I'd be sitting here with all my neural functions shut down to conserve my battery power."
I laughed. "You've forgiven me," I said. "That's good. I've been thinking, too, and you don't need to tell me anything you don't want to."
"Well, OK," he said, "but does having a mysterious past make me imperfect enough to sleep with? Because if it doesn't, I'll lay out the whole sordid story of my failures and mistakes, starting with being held back a year in Kindergarten. I'm getting a little impatient, you know, but only because the expiration date on the box of condoms I bought for our first date is fast approaching."
I said, "You bought condoms for our first date?"
"Just in case," he said.
"But you haven't been pushy about sex at all, " I said.
"Because I heard low-pressure techniques and a sensitive facade practically guaranteed a girl would go to bed with me. But I was beginning to figure out that I needed to take a new tack with you."
"You're a pig!" I said.
"That's my new technique," he said. "How's it working?"
"I'm too sick to know."
"When will you be able to tell me for sure?" he asked.
I laughed. "I took some of the green medicine and now I'm sleepy. I'm going to bed."
He said, "Rub it in."
I said, "I can't tell whether your new technique is sexier than your old one, but it's definitely more obnoxious. I'm sorry I was mean. Are we OK?"
He said, "We're OK."
I felt better then. Must have been the green medicine.
© Copyright 1997-2001 Su Penn. Design by David Dierauer.
