French Kiss, page 6
And the drama of a breakup seemed worse than the nondrama of a perfunctory relationship. So for the time being, I hung in.
My relationship with Jordan corresponded with new interest from Maddox, who got in the habit of calling me late at night when he knew I was sleeping at the hospital. We’d talk long into the night, phones cupped to our ears, finally freed from the day’s stresses and open to conversations about philosophical subjects and our futures.
“Does it scare you to think about going into the world to practice medicine for real?” he asked, his voice gravelly and soft.
“It’s not the medicine that scares me, but I do feel like I’ve been taken care of so far by other people. I guess it’s time to be pushed out of the nest.”
“I have no doubt you’ll fly, little sparrow.”
“How about you? Are you scared to be done?” He never struck me as someone who was scared of anything, so it surprised me when he answered.
“I’m scared of everything. What if I’ve been kidding everyone so far, just getting by because people like having me around?”
“People don’t like having you around that much. You’re good at what you do,” I said.
“That means a lot, coming from you,” he said. “I’ve always respected you. I hope you know that.”
“Thanks, Mad.”
“I kinda wish I was on call tonight. We could share a bed in the on-call room.” He spoke quietly, his voice a deep rumble.
“Very funny,” I said, because it was the right thing to say. But my heart was beating fast, thinking about him curled up next to me in the twin bed. He had to know what effect his words had on me and he wasn’t playing fair. I knew I should end the call and probably call Jordan, but I didn’t want to hang up. I liked hearing Maddox’s scratchy tired voice in my ear.
It was almost like lovers sharing a blanket under the stars, only I was be lying on a cot in the on-call room while he was presumably wrapped in the comfort of his own down bedding.
“These talks you and I have, do you have these conversations with Jordan?” Maddox asked.
“No. We cook dinner together and have sex. Like normal people.”
“I’m glad you save these conversations for me.”
“I don’t save them for you. You just constantly call me.”
“You know this relationship isn’t going anywhere,” he said, like it was a fact..
“You’re a broken record. This is getting ridiculous. Why do you care?”
“Because you’re my friend. When are you going to listen?”
“I’m never going to break up with a guy because you tell me to. So stop it,” I said. But I actually didn’t mind that much. It felt like Maddox was using my relationship with Jordan as a way into a conversation with me. And I felt like it was bringing us closer.
I should have been bonding with my boyfriend instead, but Maddox was the one engaging me in interesting conversation late into the night. He was the one making me feel things I swore I didn’t want to feel when it came to him.
“Have you ever been to the opera?” Maddox asked.
“No. Never felt compelled. But one night, I was flipping channels and came across one streaming La Bohème, and honestly, I couldn’t stop watching. It was all in Italian, obviously, but I completely understood what was happening. Just emotion.”
“Totally. My mom dragged me to the opera once. I was not a happy camper, being a teenage boy who didn’t really relish spending alone time with my mom on a Friday night, let alone going to the opera.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
“But I’m not exaggerating when I say it changed my life. There’s something about it. Those voices.”
“I know,” I said. Then we sat silently, and I gripped my cell phone, like I could get closer to him by pressing the phone against my ear.
We talked about microgreens, black holes, homemade granola, the impossible grace of ballet dancers, and I started to believe that Maddox was more than the shallow exterior he projected. Not many people would sit and talk with me about the plight of California farmers in drought conditions for as long as I wanted. He didn’t show this side to most people.
But he showed it to me.
A couple weeks later, Jordan and I did break up, not because of anything Maddox had to say about him or his suitability but because I couldn’t give Jordan any more than I was already giving. It took effort to make a relationship succeed during residency, and I saw how hard Heidi and Karim worked to accommodate each other. I didn’t have that kind of motivation, so it didn’t surprise me when Jordan finally threw in the towel.
“I like you and all,” he’d said one morning after spending the night, “but you’re either pre call, on call, or post call, and two out of the three of those, you’re catatonic.”
“I know it sucks, but I need to sleep sometime.”
“I get it. I just want a girlfriend I can see more than every third night.”
And that was the end. I didn’t really feel sad about it. Jordan had made me happy during the times I could see him, but I hadn’t wanted to see him more than every third night, and maybe that said something. In hindsight, I could see why any normal guy might have desired more.
I didn’t want to want more. At least not from him.
So we’d parted ways, no hard feelings. I kept my gym membership, but I started working out in the early mornings, when I knew he wouldn’t be there. He’d given me the gift of not totally neglecting my fitness during the dog days of my residency program, so I would always owe him that.
The day Jordan and I broke up, Maddox grew distant.
I’d almost expected him to step in and fill the void, since he’d implied that I deserved someone better than Jordan—someone like him. Instead, Maddox grew vague when I asked what his plans were, as if freaked out that I’d made good on his advice and was suddenly available. If he saw me coming down a hallway at the hospital, he’d either strike up a conversation with whomever was nearby, or he’d feign an urgent errand and dart off in another direction.
I was about to call him on it when he came in for rounds one morning, all smiles, humor, and friendliness, as though I’d only imagined that he’d been ignoring me.
Later, I found out he was dating someone new. Lucy or Lindsay or Lisette. I couldn’t keep them straight anymore. I figured that if she hung around long enough, I’d meet her and learn her name. In the meantime, Maddox had started subtly flirting with me again, protected from ever having to do anything about it.
9
Winning
Year Three - April
San Francisco
On the last Friday of the month, under a full moon and by some crazy stroke of luck, our Ultimate team finally won.
Maybe the other team was having an off night. After running up the score in the first half of the game, Maddox all but phoned it in during the second half, running fast but not fast enough to make amazing saves and catches. For our part, we just played the same lackadaisical way we always did, but I didn’t trip and fall, and I managed to run between a couple of the players on the other team instead of running into them. So I scored the point that tied our score.
Josh and Heidi ran up and high-fived me before pointing and trash-talking with the other team.
“Maddox, the breakfast of champions is not a cereal. It’s the opposing team,” Josh said.
Maddox just shook his head as though certain our glory would be short-lived. But a few minutes into the second half, we took the lead thanks to Josh’s long legs and a brilliant throw by Heidi.
As she watched the Frisbee soar, she yelled, “That went fucking far,” right before Josh caught it and ran over the goal line.
As we headed back to Cole Valley, the feeling in the air was different, as though our win had destroyed the order of the universe. For the first time, Maddox said he had plans that night with a new girlfriend, Sheryl… Sherry… someone. Heidi was post call and exhausted. Jeremiah was heading straight from the game to the airport and flying home for the weekend to visit his family. Our Friday night get-together never materialized.
Instead, Josh and I stopped at the grocery store and loaded up on ingredients to cook Mexican food. We got to the checkout lane and watched the parade of tomatoes, onions, peppers, tortillas, beans and chips ride the conveyor belt while we got our money out. “Do you have a shopper’s rewards card?” I asked.
“I do, but I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“You’ll see.” He watched the screen adding item after item to our bill. When the cashier was done, Josh triumphantly entered his rewards number into the machine. “Behold,” he said, pointing to the screen where the machine began pinging and the total began dropping as the rewards credits kicked in. “I love that!” He was positively giddy watching the tally go lower and lower until it stopped. It helped that he’d bought twenty-four cans of cat food and each one was discounted by ten cents.
“It’s the small pleasures, I guess,” I said.
“It’s one of my favorite things, ever. It’s like Vegas, only with cat food.” I’d never seen a person so excited to be a rewards member.
No question, he was one of a kind.
An hour later, I sat in the kitchen of the apartment that Josh and Maddox shared and chomped on the dregs of a box of cheese crackers, which tasted like a brown box.
“These are trying to masquerade as Cheez-Its, and in no way do they cut it,” I said.
“I know, they’re crap,” Josh said, not looking over from the cutting board, where he’d julienned two large tomatoes then turned them to cut crosswise into tiny squares. He dumped them into a blue bowl. “I didn’t buy them, but I appreciate you inhaling them so I don’t have to look at the box in the cupboard anymore.”
“Why would Maddox buy these? Has he eaten them? They’re dry and awful.”
“Maddox fell for the Whole Foods lie that if it’s the healthy version of something, he can eat as much of it as he wants.”
“But that doesn’t make them taste any better. Now he’s just given himself permission to eat a whole lot of something terrible,” I said, throwing the remains of the box into the trash without finishing the last of the crackers. “Here, I’m doing both of us a favor.”
Josh fished around in the bottom cupboard behind some pots and pulled out a pair of ski goggles, which he put on. “Excuse the fashion statement.” He proceeded to dice a large white onion and dump the pieces into the bowl with the tomatoes. I grabbed a napkin because my eyes were burning from the onion fumes. Josh took off the goggles and wrapped them around my eyes, immediately shielding them from the tear-jerking fumes.
“Sorry. I ought to have a second pair around here for guests. I usually cut my onions alone.”
“That sounds like a line from a country song.”
“A sad song,” he said.
“Most country songs are.”
After a few minutes with the window open, we were no longer at risk of crying, and the goggles were stored back in the cupboard. He gave me the job of squeezing limes while he chopped cilantro for the pico de gallo salsa. We worked in silence, and I thought about broaching the subject of Maddox and my growing obsession with him. Josh and I had never talked about the possibility of Maddox and I hooking up or about my dating life at all, so I wasn’t sure if it would be awkward. As it turned out, it was.
“Can I ask you something?” I began.
“Sure… well, you can ask, but I won’t promise I’ll answer. Shoot.”
“Why do you think Maddox dates women for a couple months tops? Is it just immaturity, that he’s not able to be in a long-term relationship?”
“I think he dates them because he can.”
“So why don’t you date a long string of women because you can?”
“Nice of you to assume I can,” he said, smiling his shy Josh smile that added to his boy-next-door appeal. He looked down and started chopping the cilantro, carefully pushing the stems aside and dicing the leaves more methodically than necessary.
“Well, I’m pretty sure you’re the same guy who had a girlfriend for the first two years of our program.”
“Exactly. One girlfriend. Not a long string.”
“So you’re a monogamist. That doesn’t make you any less able to attract women.”
Josh laughed. “I love that you believe that. I should hire you as my relationship publicist.”
I opened the bag of tortilla chips I’d brought, unable to wait for Josh to finish making his salsa. “I would take that job. It could be my side hustle when I’m not practicing family medicine.”
“Impressive that you’re already finding moonlighting opportunities before you’ve even started,” Josh said, washing the remains of the onions off his hands and carefully removing the seeds from the jalapeños.
I wasn’t done with my questions. I wanted a guy’s insight into Maddox, and I was tempted to confide that Maddox had been flirting with me mercilessly, but I wondered if it would make Josh uncomfortable. I didn’t ever want him to feel like I was pumping him for information about another guy, even though he probably wouldn’t mind.
Or maybe I just didn’t want him to know how much time I spent wondering about Maddox lately. He’d think less of me. But he kept the conversation going.
“So you want to understand why guys like Maddox do what they do? I mean, I’m probably not the best guy to ask. I’m kind of over the whole revolving-door-of-dating question. I like deeper relationships.”
“He doesn’t, I guess.”
“Sounds like you just answered your question.”
“But Maddox can have depth. We talk about deep things. Doesn’t he talk to you about real stuff?”
“Sure, but that’s because he’s not trying to impress us.”
Josh stopped chopping and wiped his hands. He paused, then returned to the sink and washed them with soap and dried them on a yellow dish towel. He ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture I only saw him do when he was stressed. I wondered if this conversation was stressful to him.
“Look, you’re asking something I think we both know the answer to. Maddox gets real when he’s comfortable. He gets insecure when he thinks women are after him for his looks and his brain and whatever else women see in him. He’s not sure he measures up. So to keep these women from finding out, he impresses them early, and as soon as something bordering on a relationship starts to develop, he sends them packing. He leaves them in the dust while they’re still infatuated with him, before they find out he’s not all that.”
“You really think that’s true? It’s sad if it is.”
“You think I’m wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. I’ve never really understood it.”
“Come on, Hannah. You’re smart. You understand it.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I’d never really thought of Maddox as insecure, maybe because he was so good at masking that trait with his big personality. “Has he ever articulated it like that to you?”
“What do you think? He’s probably not fully aware of it himself. It’s been his pattern for so long that he just goes on autopilot.”
That made sense. Since I’d known him, Maddox had followed a pattern. He’d date, he’d break up, and he’d date again. Lately, he’d worked flirting with me into the equation. So he’d date, he’d flirt, he’d break up, then he’d ignore me. I wondered if he was even aware he’d become that predictable.
I was so busy thinking about Maddox, I didn’t notice that Josh had finished making his salsa and was waiting for me to taste it. Finally, he cleared his throat, exaggerating the phlegm. I looked over and he handed me a chip, loaded with perfect pico de gallo.
“Oh my God, this is crazy good,” I said.
Josh smiled. “I’m glad you like it.” He turned and started cleaning up, and suddenly felt bad, like I was taking advantage of his good nature by trying to turn the conversation to Maddox. He didn’t complain, but he rarely did.
“Hey, sorry for all the questions,” I said.
“No worries. Is there a reason you’re suddenly interested in the ways of Maddox?”
A part of me wanted to tell him about the late night conversations in the on-call room and the flirtatious things Maddox was always saying to me. Instead, I said nothing. I knew Maddox was wrong for me. He was no different than the guys I used to date in college, and none of those relationships ended well.
Wrong. For. Me.
“No reason. Just a thought that popped into my head.”
I figured, why not lie to even more people?
10
Right?
Year Three - May
San Francisco
We’d gone back to losing at Ultimate Frisbee. Order had been restored to the universe. Our Friday night gatherings, however, hadn’t picked up their former steam. Everyone seemed acutely aware that we’d be going our separate ways in a month and that hanging out like a pile of kittens felt more sad than fun. We’d broken into smaller groups of two and three, Heidi and Karim practically disappearing when they weren’t at the hospital or playing Ultimate.
Maddox was over the moon for a woman he’d met at a poke restaurant. She worked there three nights a week and saw him the other four. He called it the perfect amount of commitment without commitment. And that meant he was flirting with me again.
He’d taken his girlfriend—Rea, Rosie, Rhetta?—out for sushi after her poke shift, which seemed like overkill to me, but I didn’t want a lecture about the subtle differences in Asian cuisines, so I kept my mouth shut. Josh and I had made another round of pico de gallo. He mainly chopped and cooked, and I mainly talked and snacked.
Maddox walked in and shoved the leftovers from his dinner into the fridge. “What’d you guys cook?”
“Chips and guac and pico,” I said.
