Gone Girl(11)
My parents circulate the room hand in hand—their love story is always part of the Amazing Amy story: husband and wife in mutual creative labor for a quarter century. Soul mates. They really call themselves that, which makes sense, because I guess they are. I can vouch for it, having studied them, little lonely only child, for many years. They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish—expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other’s spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing. People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges.
Naturally, I have to sit on some velvety banquette in the corner of the room, out of the noise, so I can give a few interviews to a sad handful of kid interns who’ve gotten stuck with the “grab a quote” assignment from their editors.
How does it feel to see Amy finally married to Andy? Because you’re not married, right?
Question asked by:
a) a sheepish, bug-eyed kid balancing a notebook on top of his messenger bag
b) an overdressed, sleek-haired young thing with fuck-me stilettos
c) an eager, tattooed rockabilly girl who seemed way more interested in Amy than one would guess a tattooed rockabilly girl would be
d) all of the above
Answer: D
Me: “Oh, I’m thrilled for Amy and Andy, I wish them the best. Ha, ha.”
My answers to all the other questions, in no particular order:
“Some parts of Amy are inspired by me, and some are just fiction.”
“I’m happily single right now, no Able Andy in my life!”
“No, I don’t think Amy oversimplifies the male-female dynamic.”
“No, I wouldn’t say Amy is dated; I think the series is a classic.”
“Yes, I am single. No Able Andy in my life right now.”
“Why is Amy amazing and Andy’s just able? Well, don’t you know a lot of powerful, fabulous women who settle for regular guys, Average Joes and Able Andys? No, just kidding, don’t write that.”
“Yes, I am single.”
“Yes, my parents are definitely soul mates.”
“Yes, I would like that for myself one day.”
“Yep, single, motherfucker.”
Same questions over and over, and me trying to pretend they’re thought-provoking. And them trying to pretend they’re thought-provoking. Thank God for the open bar.
Then no one else wants to talk to me—that fast—and the PR girl pretends it’s a good thing: Now you can get back to your party! I wriggle back into the (small) crowd, where my parents are in full hosting mode, their faces flushed—Rand with his toothy prehistoric-monster-fish smile, Marybeth with her chickeny, cheerful head bobs, their hands intertwined, making each other laugh, enjoying each other, thrilled with each other—and I think, I am so fucking lonely.
I go home and cry for a while. I am almost thirty-two. That’s not old, especially not in New York, but fact is, it’s been years since I even really liked someone. So how likely is it I’ll meet someone I love, much less someone I love enough to marry? I’m tired of not knowing who I’ll be with, or if I’ll be with anyone.
I have many friends who are married—not many who are happily married, but many married friends. The few happy ones are like my parents: They’re baffled by my singleness. A smart, pretty, nice girl like me, a girl with so many interests and enthusiasms, a cool job, a loving family. And let’s say it: money. They knit their eyebrows and pretend to think of men they can set me up with, but we all know there’s no one left, no one good left, and I know that they secretly think there’s something wrong with me, something hidden away that makes me unsatisfiable, unsatisfying.
The ones who are not soul-mated—the ones who have settled—are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say—they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation—yes, honey, okay, honey—is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and “playfully” scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only … and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes.