The first time I woke up was 2:22 in the morning. It almost always happens like this. I get catapulted out of a dream, a full-on expulsion from sleep, and when I look at the clock, I discover that it’s either 1:11 or 2:22 or 3:33 or 4:44. The numbers 2:22 were green and glowing, piercing through the darkness of my childhood bedroom. I watched the clock and waited for a new sequence of numbers to appear. At 2:23, I realized I couldn’t move my arms. Sammy Ronstein had snuck in while I was sleeping and tied me up. At 2:24, I realized it was the blanket that had wrapped itself around me. I was swaddled like a 48-year-old baby. By 2:30, I managed to unroll myself from the blanket and I rolled off the bed. It hurt like hell. I don’t know when I drifted off again, but at 4:44, I woke up gasping for breath. Sammy Ronstein was standing over me. His big face was breathing into mine. “Don’t breathe at me,” I said. “I’m giving you oxygen. You’ll die if you don’t have oxygen,” he replied. Maybe it was a dream. It’s 5:55 now.
I am awake. I don’t want to be awake today.
Yesterday, Mom’s doctor confirmed that her memory lapses are due to cognitive decline, which he said may have been triggered by a series of Transient Ishmael Attacks. No, not Ishmael. Ishmael is Moby Dick. I wrote it down like a hundred times so I wouldn’t forget. They are mini-strokes, appetizers before the main course. Ischemic. That’s it. Call me Ischemic! Transient Ischemic Attacks.
I am grateful for her Harrison Ford look-alike doctor. He wants to start her on a drug called…oh damn…what was it? Aricept. Yes, Aricept. He says it might help slow down the memory loss she is experiencing. I should have been paying more attention to what was going on. All her calls, and I just wanted to get her off the phone. The signs were there. She’s been asking the same questions over and over. She suddenly wanted to know about Dad. Why was she so interested in Dad? She hates him. I’m a playwright. I understand dramatic foreshadowing. I saw the signs, but for some reason I can never spot the foreshadowing in my actual life. Chekhov’s gun may be prominently displayed on a wall, but I won’t notice it, or if I do notice it, I don’t stop to think, Look, there’s a gun, it must be there for a reason, I bet someone is going to get shot. No, I glide by the gun, thinking: Nice gun, what should I eat for lunch?
Like with Elliot. I should have noticed that Elliot had stopped asking questions. When I met him, he was an asker. Not a lot of men are askers, and I loved that Elliot asked questions. Sure, some of his questions were things like, “What do you use your toaster oven for?” But he also asked other questions, like, “What have you seen that’s interesting lately?” and “What’s the play you’re writing about?”
On our first date, he asked me what my favorite color was when I was a kid.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I want to know about you,” he said.
“Fuchsia,” I told him.
“Bold and cheery. I like that,” he said and smiled, revealing the dimples. “What’s your favorite band? Do you like eggplant? Have you ever spent the night on a sailboat? Will you spend the night on a boat with me?” He asked questions and he smiled. And flirted with his dimples.
I can’t remember if the questions stopped suddenly or if they dripped dry. He was surely getting curious about Midge, asking her about her favorite color, the bands she liked, and whether she preferred a classic GE range or a JennAir? Even now, it’s painful to think about the questions he must have asked her. I’d actually rather think about them having sex. Midge stole my fucking questions and I want them back.
No, I don’t. I really don’t. I think I’m just so stuck in the habit of thinking I do. I don’t actually miss him. I think I’m mostly missing the thought of him. The thought of him is much better than the reality of him. Everything about him would be better if he didn’t have to be a part of it. His success story is a great story, until he shows up and ruins it. Elliot is a visionary entrepreneur, a self-made man, who created a business that matched people with their perfect appliances, because Lord knows before Elliot, people were hooking up with disastrous dishwashers and toasters from hell. Elliot Sherman, founder of the Appliance Alliance App, enticed millions of Americans to connect with their perfect appliance by taking an Appliance Alliance Quiz, so people can move forward in a confusing world of mass appliances, confident that they have the right appliance just for them. The Appliance Alliance was a niche that didn’t need to be filled, yet Elliot had a hunch that people wanted to have a deeper and more meaningful relationship with their appliances, so he created a way for people to pick appliances that best matched their personalities and suburban America was hooked. Everyone needed new appliances. It seemed utterly amazing that so many people had survived for so long with appliances they were fundamentally incompatible with. Thank God Elliot came along and saved the day. He embraced his success with a knowing entitled smugness and his damn dimples.
I know how a marriage ends, mine did, but I can’t seem to figure out how a relationship ends. Maya’s right, I am still in a relationship with Elliot—problem is we’re divorced and he’s living with another woman.