Comforters

When my relationship with Jay ended, it was sudden, like a fault line exposing a crevice in the middle of rush-hour traffic. We found ourselves on either side of the crack, and though we tried to put it back together, it became clear that it was made up of a thousand tiny cracks that had accumulated over time. We wanted to be together but the earth had moved. I was surprised by how quickly and completely I, too, cracked wide open. I try not to cry in front of friends, because it feels unnecessary and I’m nothing if not prudent, but I couldn’t help it. I was crying in front of everyone. I was making new friends just so I could cry in front of them. I would literally scroll through my phone and ask myself, Who haven’t I cried at yet?

I went over to my best friend Jake’s house one night and, in the middle of an unrelated conversation, burst into tears and actually ironically uttered the phrase “Who…who gon’ love me?” I then realized I’d quoted the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, and started maniacally laughing. It was a lot to process. This is why you shouldn’t cry in front of friends.

Jake was a massively successful dater. I was…a work in progress. There’s that OkCupid question, “What’s the most private thing you’re willing to admit here?” Sane people would write the same kinds of boilerplate answers: “I’m not telling you, LOL” (extremely common) or “If I drop a piece of pizza on the floor, I sometimes still eat it.” Whatever, something normal. Safe. I will tell you my answer to that question. (This is 100 percent the truth. Because it’s Christmas and at Christmas you have to tell the truth.) (I am writing this in April.) Anyway, my answer to the question “What’s the most private thing you’re willing to admit here?”: “I am actually getting pretty serious about being on the New York Times Weddings and Celebrations page and I’d like you to be on board with that.”

Massively unpopular. (Spoiler: My husband, David, and I did end up on the Weddings and Celebrations page. And he lets me lecture him on Clue whenever I want. So I guess the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice.) But in the moment, there were a lot of attempts, a lot of loneliness, and a lot of unanswered missives about mid-eighties comedies. And very little cuddling.

Jake used to herald the descending temperatures by declaring it Boo Weather, as in the perfect temperature to get boo’d up and hunker down under a duvet with a warm body. And this is true. It is nice to cuddle in the late fall and winter. (Please do not touch or look me directly in the eye in the summer.) I was always 100 percent here for Boo Weather when I was single. But I rarely had a boo, and I never owned a duvet.

As Boo Weather approached, my tear ducts had dried up, but the question remained: “Who…who?” I tried to make myself get out there, boo up, etc. But to no avail. And when you’re unboo’d and still sort of sad, the winter feels like dying.

It’s easy, I guess, to look back now and say that everything turned out okay and Jay has moved on and I’m married and we all lived happily ever after, as if none of the sadness left a mark, as if winter never came, as if now is all that matters. But that place in me that compulsively cried to everyone who would listen is still in me; the bad times don’t go away just because times are good. We say these things build character; they make us who we are. And that’s true. But that doesn’t mean they don’t suck. It doesn’t mean winter isn’t cold.

I think the worst thing about winter is that I always think it won’t be that bad, and it always tricks me. It’s all gently descending temperatures and entreaties of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and then BOOM! There’s a foot of dirty snow on the ground and you’re locked inside a ship en route to the Island of Lost Boys.

Here are the stages of winter. Please print this out and warn your loved ones.

1. Ooh! Scarves and cardigans! Cuddle weather!

2. Yes! Kids in Halloween costumes! Cuteness overload!

3. Aw, changing leaves! Smells of cider! Let’s go hiking like Caucasians!

4. Really, Christmas carols this early? Where do I store my gloves? Why don’t I have a better system of organization in my own damn house? Do I own gloves? What is my life even?

5. GIVE ME ALL THE TURKEY! Give it to me! GIVE IT TO MEEEEE!

6. Christmas carols! Yay! Am I enjoying this? I am! I am enjoying this.

7. Christmas carols? Still? Oh, look, Love, Actually is on.

All right, enough with the Christmas carols! You know, Love, Actually is kind of sad. Laura Linney can’t have sex with the hottest man on the planet and actually, now that I think about it, every single person in this movie is a different, new kind of asshole, and it’s infuriating.

8. Oh. Now it’s just cold and dark. Forever.

There is not a moment of my day when I am not irate about Love, Actually. It’s the most nihilist romcom ever made. Every single person is making terrible choices except Emma Thompson, and she’s so rightfully sad. That movie makes me so angry, and yet every time I watch it (once a week from October through May), I’m like, “This is so me. This is so true.”

It’s because of winter! It gets in your mind. It short-circuits you! It makes you think that Colin Firth isn’t just creating a hostile work environment because he’s lonely. I get it. But we have to tell the truth.

There’s that moment in the late fall when you think you may have dodged a bullet, when the air is balmy but crisp and all you need is a jacket. Every year I think that maybe it will stay like this.* It was on one of those perfect balmy days, right at the beginning of Boo Season, that I went on a second date with a nurse named Franco. He was the first person I’d gone on a date with after Jay; it had been months, but Jake encouraged me to give it a shot. Franco was nice enough; he talked fast. I like fast talkers. Sometimes. Sometimes I’m like, “Yo, this isn’t a pig auction in Tuscaloosa. Can I get a word in edgewise? That word would be ‘some pig.’ ”

We went back to his place and made out a little. In retrospect, it was kind of a meh experience. But I was so beguiled by the mis-en-scène that I mistook it for romance. His place was so nice! The air smelled good, the furniture looked nice, the paintings on the wall were so pretty. And he had this gorgeous white comforter, so fluffy and pristine. At that time, on my bed, I had the blue checkered number I’d gotten when I moved to college. It was, admittedly, a little worse for wear—its synthetic stuffing was creeping out of a tear in one side and its colors had faded. And it was full-size; at that point I had had a queen-size bed for years. But all throughout my move into adulthood, in my three apartments and during my relationship with Jay, I had kept warm under that thinning, blue checkered sheath from the 1998 Sears Campus Essentials collection.

Franco did not have anything from 1998 in his apartment. Everything was pristine, chic even. (I admit now that I have developed better taste in the years since, and much of what he had was your standard-issue IKEA bachelor nonsense. But I am always here for nonsense, regardless.) That comforter, though, I couldn’t get over. It rested on his bed like a low-lying cumulus system, at once weightless and cumbersome. The (IKEA) lamp light bounced off its rolling surface; it seemed to illuminate the whole room. As he gave me a tour of the apartment, I lingered in the doorway of his bedroom, staring hungrily at the comforter. He may have thought that my amorous looks were more focused on what happens under the comforter, because he started making out with me again. This was fine.

We quickly realized that we were boring to each other. Does that happen to everyone? It happened to me a lot. I’d be kissing, or worse, talking, when the thought would just walk into my head, This is dumb. Franco was nice but he talked too fast and his apartment was freezing. Why did he have the air conditioner going full blast in November? Didn’t he appreciate a perfect day? This was not cuddle weather. And besides, I didn’t want to cuddle with him. Just his blanket.

I excused myself to the bathroom. He had a peach candle burning in there that smelled just like an actual peach. It was stunning! It wasn’t one of those candles that smells like a peach Jolly Rancher or peach body lotion. It smelled like biting into that perfect peach you get on that first truly warm day after a long, hard winter. The peach that reminds you, as juices run down your hand, that being alive is generally a good and pleasant thing and you should keep doing it.

I tried to find a label on the candle but it had none. So chic! I sniffed the air and realized the peach was mingling with another smell. Was it just clean in there or did he have an air freshener? Or was it the expensive basil soap he had by the sink? I was so overwhelmed by this olfactory experience that I forgot to snoop through his cabinet.

I finished washing my hands and decided that I was not leaving this apartment without getting what I came for: the names of all his products. I licked my lips like a movie heroine who is trying to project her steely determination. I realized that even my lips smelled good. What flavor Burt’s Bees was he using? This was like a gay Wonka Factory. I stepped out. Try to be casual, keep it chill, Eric. Don’t frighten him; he’s a nurse, so he probably has access to sedatives.

I strolled into the living room and ran my hand along the arm of the sofa. “Nice apartment you have here…” My mind immediately filled in Be a shame if someone trashed it! because I am apparently possessed by a stereotypical movie mob thug. I shook my head; threats were probably not a good look.

“Say, what flavor of lip balm do you use?”

He looked at me quizzically as if it’s weird to just know that information. I maintain that that is not weird information to carry around in your head. I will not defend this point.

He fished into his pocket and took the tube out. “Pomegranate?”

Why is there a question mark? I wondered. Can you read? This is going to take all night.

“Cool,” I replied. “Nice. Good.” Yup, keep it to one syllable, my friend. Lure him in. I grabbed my coat. “I should be going. Oh! Say! That’s a nice candle. I want to buy one for my…girlfriend? No. Sorry, for myself. Masculinity is a prison, amiright? What flavor is it?”

He cocked his head. “Peach?” I was probably going to resort to violence.

“Nice. Cool. Do you know where you got it?”

“Yankee Candle?” Was everything in this room a surprise to him?

“And, haha, this is weird, but is there another air freshener you have going? It just smells really good. Also, where did you get that shirt? Also, that comforter, is it a duvet cover or just a comforter? What’s the brand? Do you mind if I take a photo of the tag so I can remember? I’m just going to go take a photo.”

It wasn’t pretty but I got it all out of him. And I marched off into the perfect evening with a shopping list and a spring in my step. That weekend, I went out to IKEA and to Bed Bath & Beyond and to Target and bought it all—from the air freshener to the body spray to the Burt’s Bees lip balm that made his lips seem less like a stranger’s. Everything. Everything but the comforter. The comforter I couldn’t find. You’ve heard of spring cleaning? This was fall hoarding.

When Jay moved out, he, naturally, took all his stuff with him. And the empty spaces, where his artwork or his favorite chair used to be, haunted me. For months after he left, I would wake up every morning and refuse to get out of bed until I’d managed to convince myself not to get the lyrics to “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” tattooed on my body that day. Like, I was sad in so many creative ways.

BRAIN: Okay, what are we not going to do today?

ME: Eat healthily.

BRAIN: What else?

ME: Go to a tattoo parlor…

BRAIN: That’s right.

ME: But—

BRAIN: No.

ME: But the lyrics are so evocative!

BRAIN: You’re going to regret it in, like, a week.

ME: You don’t know my life.

BRAIN: Girl, I am serious right now. You can’t get that song tattooed on your body.

ME: Yo, but what if I get it tattooed in Chinese so nobody knows?

BRAIN: Listen, you are Batman villain crazy right now and I’m going to need you to sit on your hands. Just for today.

ME: But I’m sad!

BRAIN: You’ll get over it.

ME: What if I don’t?

BRAIN: Then you can get the tattoo.

ME: So, like, tomorrow?

BRAIN: Boy, you testing my last nerve! Get out of this bed!

ME: Who you think you yelling at? You better take that bass out your voice when you talking to me! I brought you into this world and I will take you right out!

One morning, I felt the pull of inking my entire body with Whitney lyrics a little too strongly. I rolled over and grabbed my phone, intending to look up tattoo parlors. Instead I logged on to Amazon.com and started clicking. If I couldn’t get my comforter in reality, maybe I could find it online. And unlike love, fluffy, cloud-like, expensive blankets were available in abundance online. And they all wanted to go home with me. I added a couple of options to my wish list, decided all were too expensive, then realized I felt a little better and got out of bed.

A few days later I logged back on and bought some more of Franco’s air fresheners. My room should smell nice, I thought. Like a hotel lobby! I felt better and got out of bed.

A few days later I went on a candle binge. If I’m going to get over this breakup, I’m going to need fire. Preferably peach scented. It turns out there are many accurate fruit smells that a room can have. I bought them all. And I felt better and got out of bed.

Then I bought a new set of pots and pans, bright red ones with smooth white insides. Franco, the nurse, hadn’t had pots as far as I could see. But they came up on my Amazon page and I liked them. I decided I’d hang them from the rack in the kitchen and told myself one day I’d start cooking again. And I felt better and got out of bed.

Then I decided that the reason it was so hard to get out of bed sometimes was because my bed was old and saggy and sad. So I went to brunch one day and on my way back popped into a mattress store. I rolled around on beds in an empty warehouse while a teenage sales associate looked on dispassionately and flurries whipped around the window. I flipped onto my side on a Tempur-Pedic and muttered, “But what will really make me happy?” Then I bought a double-sided pillow top, paid for delivery, and got out of bed.

Finally, I decided to revisit the comforters, the impetus behind this spending spree. I weighed the attributes of a couple different brands; I read every insane online review; I called my friend Jake, crying. And then I hit “Buy.” And that was that. It came in a couple of days; I spread it across my new bed on an early winter morning just as the temperatures started to threaten that cold was indeed going to come again this year.

I went on one or two dates a week that winter. I always came home by myself. To that apartment full of stuff: Brené Brown books, cardigans, IKEA tables, cleaning tchotchkes, pots that seemed expensive to me then, wall art I knew was cheap, every good-smelling thing, a DVD copy of Love, Actually, and a CD of Whitney Houston’s greatest hits. The apartment that Jay and I picked out together. Our apartment that felt half empty and echoed after he left. My apartment that I slowly filled back up, with new stuff: a painting over the spot where a picture once hung of me throwing my head back, guffawing at something he’d said; a set of colorful bowls in the bare cupboard shelf; boots on the unbalanced shoe rack; a new comforter on the empty bed.

I still have the comforter. It’s fine but I don’t think I ever really liked it, actually. It looked good but it was lumpy where it should’ve been fluffy; it didn’t look as pristine in the light as I remembered. But I kept it and, for a while, pretended I did like it. Because it cost me $150 at a time when I was kind of broke and kind of broken. I kept it because I thought money could buy me happiness and for a while I was right. I kept it because it made me feel warm.