There was a pause. “So what about your plans for this weekend? Hanging out with Josh again?” she asked.
I bit my lip. “Nope,” I said, aware of how brittle I sounded. “Probably just some shopping and checking out the farmer’s market. I still have a few weeks before the show comes back on the air.”
“What happened?”
“We take a break every summer,” I explained. “Some of the producers are traveling and looking for new talent, so we use the pre-recorded episodes and then I’ll do a big special episode at the end of August. I think for that one, I’m going to talk about how current dress codes in a lot of schools can be sexist and harmful to healthy sexual development in high school girls.”
Lizzy let out a long sigh. “Not that,” she said. “I mean, what happened to Josh? Why aren’t you seeing him?”
“Um…”
While I tried to think of a decent enough reply, Lizzy kept going. “You’ve only been together about a month,” she observed slyly. “I thought you were still pretty excited about him.”
I frowned. As usual, my baby sister had a perfect knack for digging far into my life.
I sighed. “We broke up,” I said. “He wanted something more, and I wasn’t really willing to give that when he started really pushing for it.”
“Is that why you’re so depressed?”
I winced. In addition to being frightfully quick, Lizzy was always the first to nose her way into a situation.
“I’m not depressed,” I said. “I just feel kind of weird about the whole thing. I mean, we work together. And I didn’t exactly expect things to work out to the point where we’d get married and be together forever, but I didn’t really think I’d have any problems with him, either.”
“What kind of problems? Do I need to come home and kick his ass?”
I laughed. “No, but you could do it in about five seconds,” I said, quite honestly.
Josh was one of the younger producers on my show, and we’d dated casually for a couple of months. From the beginning, I’d been really clear about what I was expecting: absolutely nothing for the time being. I preferred to get to know people well before committing to too much, rather than jump in feet first and risk having my heart broken. Josh seemed to understand my need to take things slow at first, but then he’d quickly started getting clingier and clingier. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him—because I did, at least when we were together—but I felt intimidated by all of the pressure he’d been putting on me, and I was also very put off by his lack of respect for my need to take things slow. That disrespect didn’t bode well for the future.
“So what’s the problem?”
I sighed. “He just…he won’t leave me alone, honestly. And it was okay at first, but since we have to work together, it’s frustrating. He just doesn’t seem to get it that I’m not interested in falling in love with him. Not since he disrespected my boundaries so much.”
“Men are so arrogant,” Lizzy said with the practiced air of someone who had dealt with similar. I had to laugh; even though she was five years younger than me, she was clearly the more experienced of our pair. I’d always wanted a serious boyfriend, but honestly, finding time to date was hard. And ever since my show started getting more popular, I was suspicious that men just wanted to use me for fame. I was sick of getting dates with supposedly perfect men only to have them spend the entirety of our time together talking about themselves and hinting at how I could get them a job in TV, or telling me how I could improve my show...with public credit to them, of course. It was enough to turn me off dating altogether.
“They can be,” I said. “I think I just need a break from men altogether, to be honest.”
“Hey, why don’t you fly out here?” Lizzy’s voice perked up and I could practically hear the gears spinning in her head. “I’ve got an apartment to myself and it’s pretty quiet around here, at least compared to New York. I think you’d love it.”
My first instinct was to refuse, but suddenly I couldn’t believe how much I actually wanted to go. I didn’t exactly have a reason to stay, and I hadn’t taken a real vacation in a few years. I looked out the window, and I could see a plane in the distant night sky, heading east. Maybe it was a sign.
“You know what? That’s a great idea,” I said. “I’ll book a flight in the morning.”
Lizzy squealed into the receiver and I practically dropped my cell into my lap. “This is so great!” she gushed. “I can’t believe you actually said yes!”