“So this guy went out of his way not to talk to you?” he said. “That’s sad.”

Yes it is, isn’t it?

You would think that after all that puking, I would at least have a flat stomach. Usually after that much illness, I walk around for at least a day thinking, “So, this is how the skinny-half lives.”

But no. After all that, it’s not even flat.

There is some sort of major injustice going on here.

And probably a little bit of a body image problem.

“Do you think he’s in love with me?”

“Of course he is, I mean, how could he not be?”

“Right. But how can you tell?”

This is a tricky question seeing as she has never met him in her entire life.

“Because he hung out with you for so long. Dudes don’t do that unless they are in love with you.”

“Ok, but I acted retard* all night, so how could he be in love me?”

“What? You were so not retard, nothing you told me was retard.”

Yes, but I only gave her the highlights that made me look genius. I refrained from telling her how I chatted him up about my purse being too big. That, my friends, was retard.

“He said he had a good time with you at the end of the night,” she said. “You are the only person I know who can take that and turn it into ‘I was retard’.”

Not true. She could do it in a heartbeat.

“Ok, but what is our strategy, because I can never see him again,” I said.

“What? I thought you wanted to see him again, why can you never see him again?”

“Because I can’t. I have to hide behind a pillar and pretend I’m not there.”

“Ohhhhh, I see. You do that thing that I do where you can’t talk to boys you like.”

“Exactly.”

“We can overcome that. We can design a training program that will prepare you.”

“But who is going to be the technical expert? I feel like we’re not qualified.”

I feel like we’re not qualified, said the retired sex columnist. There’s one more sign that proves Armageddon is coming like a nightmare.

“I think we can do this. Between the two of us, I feel like we can design a quality program.”

“What if we do the Cyrano de Bergerac thing, and I wear an earpiece and November has the other end and he tells me what to say?”

“I don’t know, is November good at hitting on boys?”

“He probably knows what boys want to hear. Wait, scratch that, he’ll probably tell me to flash him my tits and say, ’something, something, do it in the butt.’ That’s not a good plan.”

“No, we’ll have to scratch that. When are you going to see him again?”

Silence.

“Wait, does he have your number?”

“No.”

“Right.”

Retard (pronouned ruh-TARD) is a special word to us, although we try to avoid using it in mixed company, as it is quite offensive. We use it in honor of one of our fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, to commemorate the time she was trying very hard to yell at a man, in French, and tell him that he was late for their appointment, or “Vous etes en retard (ray-TAR).” Instead, she told him “Vous etes retard (ruh-TARD)”, which translates into absolutely nothing. God bless her. He probably thought she a little bit retard.

There’s this girl I know, and I secretly hate her, but only part of the time.

There’s no way to escape her; she’s a permanent fixture in my life right now and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It took me a while to realize that I secretly hate her, because she was very covert in her expressions of animosity towards me. Plus, other times she’s really normal to me, so that’s why I only hate her part of the time.

It wasn’t until she started saying things like, “So, do you like that hair color on you?” that I realized she was doing her very best to make me feel small.

Prior to that, we would have discussions ranging from Prince’s home state to the appropriate names for yoga poses, and each time, she would come back to me hours later, sometimes days, and say something like, “I looked it up, and I was right.” And I would always have to be reminded what the hell she was right about, and then I would think, “Huh. I didn’t realize it mattered.”

That’s when I realized that I bother her.

My therapist pointed out to me that I bother her because she’s jealous of me. For whatever reasons she has deemed to be deserving of jealousy. Hence, there is the constant need to prove me wrong and insult my appearance and my accomplishments.

Ooooooo. Someone’s jealous of me.

How empowering.

I have power over her. I can make her feel bad by just walking in the room. The angel on my right hand whispered to me that this was not a compliment. The devil on my left hand agreed, yet still felt disgustingly smug about the whole thing. The hybrid in my head went, “Really? What the hell is she jealous for?”

The question answered itself.

“I wear bigger earrings when I’m around her now,” I told my therapist. “I laugh a little more and tell all my stories, even the ones that are only borderline interesting. I make myself sound really exciting, I do my best imitation of a ‘40s movie star.”

Because those are the things that bother her. So I embrace them, and exaggerate them, and pin all the things that make me Me onto my sleeve.

That topic segued nicely into a discussion about my niece.

“Everyone says my niece is so much like me,” I said. “They say she’s taking after her Auntie Mel, because she dances whenever she hears music, and she’s always singing; she just does that little baby jibberish talk, but she sings all the words. And every time they say that, I think, ‘Please little girl, don’t turn out like me. I hope you turn out to be a shy, conservative little girl with a stable office job and a lovely husband. Whatever you do, don’t turn out like me.’”

My therapist did that thing where she just stares at me, so I kept talking.

“When she turns 30, who do you think they want her to be like?” I asked. “Her Auntie Mel, who is loud and boisterous and a crazy artist, or her mom, who is happy and creative and lovely and refined and has a happy, stable life. Nobody in their right mind would choose me. They would be so sad if she turned out like me.”

My therapist kept staring, but I know how to stare her down when I want an answer, so she finally said, “When you talk about those traits in reference to the Jealous Girl, you talk about them with such pride, but with your neice, you talk about them with such shame.”

Well, yes. I suppose I do.

There’s this girl I know, and I secretly hate her, but only part of the time.

Do you want to know what I did yesterday?

Yesterday, at the end of the work day, while I was doing 65 down a five-lane freeway, I put on a full face of make-up, using the rear view mirror and my finely-tuned make-up application skills, which have taken 20 years to perfect, but required that I steer with my knee as my hands were occupied, so that I could go and pick up my cell phone from a boy, who is not my boyfriend, or a boyfriend-interest, in the parking lot of an old folks’ home, because that’s the only place that’s between his work and my work.

And then I came home and went, Shit. Now I have to wash off this goddamn mascara, which is something I hate more than anything in the universe. I will clean my apartment, pluck my eyebrows into oblivion and tweeze out every single leg hair individually just to procrastinate washing off my mascara.

But well worth the application.

I’m sure they loved me at the old folks’ home.

“I’m going to Wendy’s; do you want me to pick you up anything?”

It’s almost 2 p.m. and we’re finally getting around to eating. My office doesn’t have any windows, so time is usually not a determing factor in when I eat, as I am usually oblivious to any sort of time passing, seasons changing or general variations in weather patterns.

“Do I want anything,” I repeated. “No. Wait. Yes, yes I do. I do want something. I’m concentrating on eating; it’s my new thing. Eating.”

She stared at me.

“Eating is your new thing?”

“Yeah, just trust me on this one, I’m really concentrating on eating regularly.”

When she mentioned Wendy’s, all my anorexic alarms went off, even though they have been out of commission for almost 20 years. They haven’t gathered a shred of rust, and their sound and tonal quality are still perfectly tuned. Fast food is a particular offender. It’s like those car alarms that go off when you merely look mischieviously at the hood ornament. Regular food sets them off too. It makes things like basic nutrition really difficult.

That was supposed to be funny. I think it probably wasn’t.

At any rate, I’m concentrating on eating.

“Ok, but here’s the thing,” I said. “I walked out of the house today without my purse, so I have to pay you back tomorrow, is that ok?”

She stared at me.

“You walked out of the house without your purse?”

“Yes, I walked out of the house without my purse and I’m concetrating on eating; I have a shrink to work me through these things, no worries,” I said.

She stared at me.

Such is the way of things when you walk around in see-through skin, and don’t know enough to shut your mouth about your therapy, or your various neuroses. The staring responses usually shake me a bit- I firmly believe that everyone suffers from various neuroses, but the staring response leads me to believe that maybe they don’t. Maybe I really am a head case.

She stared.

“You seemed a lot more together before those two statements.”

We laughed, because we thought that was funny. It really was funny; it didn’t have any malicious intent or overtones or undertones or whatever to it. It was a way to diffuse a somewhat uncomfortable moment. Mental health is always uncomfortable. Not necessarily for the mental health-ee, but for the people around them. Anyways, you probably had to be there, but it was supposed to be funny.

I think it probably wasn’t.

She said, “Are you going to e-mail him?”

“Oh, I don’t know, how about NO,” I said. “First of all, you’re insane, and second of all, there no way in the good Lord’s world that he would remember me.”

“How do you know?”

“One, because I’m a genius, and two, because when I went back to visit the summer before fifth grade, me and my first-grade best friend called him and she basically had to beat him over the head with every memory in the universe to get him to remember me,” I said.

And three, because it’s not about wanting to talk with him or reconnect with him or ask him about his kids and his wife. I don’t care about any of the above. I really don’t care about how he’s doing all. I think I’m supposed to.

But I don’t.

It’s not about that.

It’s about looking at pictures of a Stepford, storybook life and thinking that if the road had forked differently, I would be the one standing next to him in the pictures with two little munchkins at my feet and a mom haircut and a little house and a husband and all the things that I learned make a girl worth something.

It’s about thinking that the lack of all those things in my life isn’t my fault. It’s about proving that a fork in the road was my downfall, and that the boy who was destined to validate my dollar value grew up somewhere else, and that is why I ended up without all the things that determine worth. It’s because of a fork in the road. Not because I am inherently flawed.

It’s about finding hard proof that I could have been worth something.

It’s about finding hard proof that maybe I’m worthy of love.

“Do you know who Daunte Culpepper is?” I asked.

I’m trying do a super-secret hide-the-phone move while I’m driving, because I forgot my wireless ear-thingy. It’s illegal to drive and talk in DC without the wireless ear-thingy. As a result, I look like I’m trying to dodge bullets in the front seat of my own car.

“Yeah, he plays for…Minnesota, right?” she said.

The Great and Powerful Best Friend knows everything about football. I knew she could support me here.

“Well, my first-grade boyfriend played second-string quarterback to him in college,” I said. “You know what that means? It means I pretty much dated a first-string division one quarterback. Because if you play second-string to a dude who was drafted into the NFL, that means you were really first string in real-people terms.”

“Well, yes,” she said. “Yes it does.”

“I’m glad we can agree on this. (Dodge imaginary bullet with cell phone as police car drives by) Plus, it was a totally for serious relationship. We were together for two years. Kindergarten and first grade. He even stole costume jewelry out of his mom’s jewelry box to give me. That how for serious it was.”

“Well, he was willing to steal for you. From his own mother.”

“This is what I’m saying,” I said. “I was on the road to being his hot cheerleader girlfriend-turned-wife. We never would have broken up, you know.”

“No, absolutely not,” she said.

You know that one song by Train? The one that goes ”…something something homefried deepfried chicken, you’re best friend always stickin’ for you…even when I know you’re wrong..” You know that song? It’s that song that talks about falling for a shooting star and traveling around the Milky Way or some shit. Anways, that’s basically what’s going on here.

“But do you want to know what else?” I asked.

(Bullet dodge)

“Of course.”

“I read this article about him online, and in it, his coach said that he would read Bible verses to the team before games.”

“Ohhhhh,” she said. “They haaaaaated him.”

“Totally. Completely and totally. And when they quoted him in the article, he said God at least twice in every sentence, and it’s not because he was saying Goddamnit.”

(trying to parallel park on the corner of sketchy and ghetto)

“Oh yeah,” she said. “They tooooootally hated him.”

“For serious,” I said. “But you know what? Lately I’ve been dreaming about how perfect everything would have been if we had never moved away from Florida. It’s my perfect idyllic fantasy.”

This is a loaded statement. If we had never moved, she wouldn’t be in my life. That is, arguably, a very hurtful thing for me to say.

“It’s always good to dream,” she said. Always stickin’ up for me, even when she knows I’m wrong.

“I’m working through it with my shrink right now,” I said.

“Lanie,” she said. That’s what she calls me. Lanie. I don’t think she even knows my first name. “Lanie, are you serious? You’ve really been thinking about this?”

“Well, yeah.” I paused. “Doesn’t everybody do that? Fantasize about how it could have been different? I’m just focusing all that energy on him.”

“Lanie,” she said. “Stop.”

Admittedly, I’ve been google-stalking my first-grade boyfriend.

He was a hottie. Bona-fide, board-certified seven-year-old hottie.

We were together for two years, both kindgergarten and first grade. It was pretty serious. We never went all the way or anything, but it was pretty serious.

He was pretty crazy about me. He gave me a fake diamond ring out of his mother’s jewelry box. It was in the little felt box and everything. I’m pretty sure he was just trying to get me in bed, but whatever. It was really sweet at the time.

My family moved after first grade, to the other side of the country pretty much, so we had to break up. We didn’t want to do the long distance thing. You know how it is.

So lately, I’ve been Google-stalking him. I even got really desperate and Dogpile-stalked him. Dogpile is much more effective than Google. I don’t know why they don’t do a better job of advertising the fact that they are better than Google. If I were better than Google, I’d tattoo it straight onto my ass and walk around all day with no pants on, just to make sure the whole world knew about it.

He’s done pretty well for himself in the 25 or so years, my ex-boyfriend. He played Quarterback for a Division 1 school in college. He played second string, but the first stringer was drafted straight into the NFL, so you’ve gotta give the kid a little slack.

Ha. How do you like that. I could have been a quarterback’s girlfriend (because we never would have broken up; that’s how the fantasy works in my head). Instead, I was the chubby awkward girl with glasses, and you all know how the nerd stigma works. You can never shake it, even if you’re an underwear model by high school. The nerd stigma is always with you. It’s like Herpes.

I could have been the quarterback’s girlfriend, which of course means I would have been thin and lovely and everyone would have wanted to be me. And I would have been a cheerleader, too. Because those are the rules. Quarterback’s girlfriend = skinny, lovely cheerleader.

I would have grown to be a prima ballerina, because I never would have quit ballet. There would have been no mother-daughter dischord, there would have been no depression, mine or hers, and there would have been no competition for my father. I would have been a skinny, lovely cheerleader, and none of those things would have happened.

None of those things would have happened, because I would have been a skinny, lovely cheerleader, and that is how love is earned. By being skinny and lovely.

So I’ve been Dogpile-stalking my first-grade boyfriend, to see if I can find a link to him, so I can use him as the reference point for everything that could-have-been, and so I can read about his wife and his children, who are skinny and lovely and loved, and are all the things I’m not. When I find it, the link will probably read something like “How You Could Have Been Happy, What if, what if, what if; What If you hadn’t grown up to be worthless.” I will click on it and there will be his quarterback self with his blonde wife and his blonde children standing where I am not. Because those aren’t the types of things that are reserved for the ugly and the wretched, and yes, I really do believe that. and yes, I have a shrink.

What if, what if, what if.

The link proves that I’m right- there’s his quarterback self with his blonde wife and his blonde children and he says “God” at least twice per sentence, and it’s not because he’s saying “Goddamnit Goddamn Muthafuckah,” it’s because he’s talking about how he would read Bible verses to his teammates before each game.

Jesus. Mother. Lord. (Exactly)

He’s a right-winger.

I could have been (because remember, we don’t break up in the fantasy) the wife and mother to a right-wing Christian family; I could have been married a week out of college just like her, and I could have a house and a family and a batch of blonde highlights to show off at church on Sundays.

What hell, hell, hell it does sound like.

But I have to pause and take a moment to think, what would I prefer? Because in the above scenario, I am loved, I am worthy, I have gained approval and passed all of the tests; I am skinny and lovely and I don’t swear and I wear Ann Taylor dresses and I bake casseroles and cupcakes.

Because that’s the way love is earned. By being everything I’m not.

So I have to take pause and think, what would I prefer?

I’ve been Dogpile-stalking my first-grade boyfriend, to wallow in my own self-hate, to see what I could have been, had I proven to be worthy of love.

And yes, I really do feel that way. And yes, i have a shrink.