The Scarlet Petticoat — by Zoewright
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Based on a true story...
Prologue
Superstition must inevitably flow from a day that almost magically appears on the calendar every four years: Leap Day. Even during the Middles Ages, a radical tradition allowed the most forward of British women to propose marriage, while donning a scarlet petticoat to warn her prey of her intentions and provide her with a bit of luck along the way.
Now fast forward 700 or so years to my lucky leap year, when I put on my own scarlet petticoat, of sorts, to give fate a helping hand. But I’m leaping ahead of myself, if you’ll pardon the pun.
My story actually begins seven years earlier, on a non-Leap Day, in a non-leap year, right after the break-up from my first love, Jim Hampton, and during a bad bout of PMS: I broke a mirror. The jury’s still out on whether or not I broke it intentionally.
They say breaking a mirror will cause you seven years of bad luck. It turns out: They were right.
Unlike the medieval British women, I am not particularly superstitious, but I do believe that everyone gets their own fair share of bad luck – the same way some people don’t believe in heaven or hell but rather their own personal heavens or hells here on Earth. My personal hell just happened to come in the form of seven tortuous years of dating, stretching from my first year of law school to my fourth year of working as an attorney.
Short guys. Tall guys. Bald guys. Hot guys. Skinny guys. Fat guys. Sports guys. Gay guys. Old guys. Young guys. Catholic guys. Jewish guys. Irish guys. Italian guys. Irish-Italian guys. German guys. French guys. Divorced Guys. Vegan guys. Unemployed guys. Doctors. Lawyers. CEOs. Engineers. Freelance writers. Retailers. Baristas. Waiters. Bartenders. Ex-heroine addicts. Strippers. Okay, I’m kidding about the last one. But you could pretty much name it, and, over the course of seven years, I dated it.
This is my story.
Part One: The Seven Year Glitch
Year One: Zoe Wright and the Seven Mikes
Valentine’s Day 1993
To My Darling Future Husband To Be:
Where art thou tonight, my knight in shining armor, as you stare at the same moon as I? What do you dream of tonight? What do you wonder? Do you dream of me?
I wait longingly for you, my love.
And when we do meet, I will always be...
Your Zoe
That was me at 15. A hopeless romantic, drawing my inspiration for her cheesy lines from L.M. Montgomery. I imagined my soul mate in the form of Gilbert Blythe from “Anne of Green Gables.” It would be fair to say I had a crush on a fictional character. I spent high school mooning over the fact that I didn’t have my own Gilbert fawning over me, but I remained optimistic he would come.
I studied the fine arts. I read Emily Post for teenagers. I wrote in a diary. I had my girlfriends over for teas. I grew up without television or a VCR for years. I only listened to the oldies station on the radio. I was raised in the 1950s and came of age in the 60s, while my peers grew up in the 1980s and came of age in the 90s. I was an innocent, shy outsider.
In college, my Gilbert came in the form of Jim Hampton, an exceedingly talented musician who was also in medical school. We sang duets together while he played the piano. He wrote me love songs that I memorized and kept in a keepsake box. We went on wholesome 1950s dates to the local drive-through cinema. He told me he loved me and that he wanted to marry me. I could hardly wait. “Mrs. Jim Hampton” I would scrawl over and over again on my school notebooks, practicing my perfect cursive.
Like my mother and her mother before her, I wanted to be a young bride and a young mother. I imagined myself like Donna Reed in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” volunteering for the Red Cross and raising four babies, while my successful doctor husband went to work each day to bring home the bacon. Sure, I would go to law school, but only as a back-up plan.
Jim and I were an item for three sublime, carefree years until the fateful day I realized he wasn’t kissing me correctly.
“What’s going on?” I pulled away and looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know?’”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, call me when you figure it out,” I pecked him on the cheek and tried to act brave as I walked back to the sorority house. Turning around at the door, I waved goodbye only to watch him drive off, back to medical school an hour away, without even a nod. Confused and worried, I entered the house and went straight upstairs to my bedroom where my best friend, Jessica, was studying pre-med.
“Jim’s acting weird,” I told her.
“Weird, how?” She sat up, pushed her glasses down to the tip of her nose to be silly, grabbed a licorice, and peered over her glasses at me, munching.
“I dunno. But weird,” I grabbed a licorice, too. “He was just…vacant…or something when he was kissing me goodbye just now. Something’s going on. I can feel it,” and I jabbed at my stomach with my fist.
“It’s probably just med school. I’m sure it’s not easy,” she changed positions to lay on her stomach. I stretched out next to her and rested my black bob in my arms.
“Yea. You’re right. That’s probably it,” I mumbled.
Jessica returned to her microbiology.
“You know what?” bouncing up and trying to act cheerful, “I’m not going to worry about it! I’m sure it’ll all be fine. I’ll be right back.”
I ran downstairs to grab a diet pop and ran right back up to join her in studying. But in the back of my mind lingered one cold, hard fact: Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day, and Jim had not mentioned it, nor told me his plans.
The next morning, I got exactly one phone call. It was my mom, a Valentine’s Day aficionado for life, calling long distance to wish me all things loving and motherly.
“Thanks, Mom,” I sounded bland.
“You don’t sound too happy,” she questioned. “Isn’t Jim taking you out on a date tonight?”
“Actually. I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything… And he hasn’t called me, yet, today.”
“Maybe he’s planning to surprise you!” my mother, always the optimist, gushed.
“Yea, maybe,” but I hardly believed it.
My instincts were right. That afternoon while trying to study, vibrating from too much coffee and too many cigarettes, Jim showed up at my door unannounced, flowerless, chocolate-less, present-less, and sheepish.
“Hi, Zoe,” he mumbled looking away from me.
“Hi, Jim,” I searched his face.
“Zoe, you’re a great girl. You’re pretty, you’re smart, you’re fun, you’re talented, but…”
“Don’t say it!” the tears started to well up in my eyes.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“Okay, then…” I whispered and started to shut the door.
“Zoe, I’m sorry, it’s just that I met…”
Before letting him say another word, I slammed the door in his face, ran up the stairs, ran past the gazes of questioning sisters, and ran into my room, all the while holding back the tears until I reached the safety of my bed. Jessica was still in class. I cried muffled sobs into my pillow alone.
So it was, exactly seven years to the day after writing romantic love notes to my imaginary Gilbert Blythe, that my first non-fictional love broke my heart and shattered all my dreamy-eyed, quixotic visions of Happily Ever After. Little did I know, in that instant: a cynic was born.
Still wiping away silent tears at 2:00 in the morning, I crept downstairs, picked up the hallway phone and dialed.
“Hello!” a panic stricken voice answered the phone.
“M-M-M-M-Mom?” I hyperventilated, as soon as I began speaking. The tears began streaming down my face again.
“Zoe! What’s wrong!”
“I...I...I’m s-s-s-sorry,” I cried into the phone. “I c-c-c-couldn’t sl-sl-sl-sleep,” I managed to tell her between breaths.
“Honey? What happened?”
“J-J-J-Jim broke...” but I couldn’t get it out. I started wailing again.
“Did Jim break up with you?”
Wail. Howl. Sob.
“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.”
“He-he-he-he said he didn’t....didn’t l-la-la-love m-m-meeee....”
Mid-sentence, my jaw suddenly froze, locking itself in place. With my mouth hanging open, I couldn’t speak.
“Oh honey. I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry! But it’s going to be okay – it’s going to be okay, honey. These things happen. It takes time, but it will --”
“Aaaaah,” my jaw was set in place. I kept trying to move it to no avail.
“Zoe?”
“Aaaaah.”
“Zoe?”
“Aaaaah”
“Zoe? Honey? What’s the matter?”
“Aaaaaah.”
“Zoe? Are you there?”
I shook my jaw loose with my free hand, and it finally unlocked.
“S-s-sorry. My j-j-jaw l-l-locked.”
“Oh my God. Honey, maybe you should go see a doctor.”
“N-n-no. I-I-I-I ju-just...I just c-c-c-can’t s-st-stop crying. It’s b-b-been hours.”
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I c-c-c-couldn’t t-t-talk before.”
I think I heard a faint, muffled chuckle on the other end of the phone.
“Oh Zoe, I’m so sorry. I wish I was there to hug you. It really is going to be okay, darling. It’s his loss. Mark my words, he’ll regret this.” My mother started gaining some volume in her speech. “Oooooh! I am so mad at him! I hate him!...I hate him!...I HATE him!”
“You d-d-on’t have to hay-hay-hate hi-h-i-im, M-m-m-om...”
“Well, I do. He’s a creep.”
I wanted to m-m-marry him, Mother!” I blubbered.
“I know you did. But he obviously wasn’t right. He’s not worth it. He was really immature....”
“I-I-I-I think he la-la-la-la-la-la-la-loves someone el-el-se.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you learned that sooner rather than later!”
“I know,” sniff, sniff, “But it doesn’t make it b-b-better.”
“I know. I know. I’m so sorry, honey.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I whispered, as the tears continued to roll down my cheeks.
After I finally fell asleep around 4:00 in the morning, I pretty much slept for three days straight. Jessica started to worry about me.
“Zoe, I think you might be depressed.”
“I know I’m depressed. My life is ruined.”
For the next few months, I stopped eating, went to class, did my homework, and slept 13 to 14 hours a night. I wandered the campus like a love-starved zombie, feeling nothing but the empty, throbbing ache of my heart. I wrote bad poetry. I listened to sappy, depressing music. I drank. Somehow I graduated.
I moved home for the summer before starting law school. I clerked for a law firm and spent three months listening to Lara Fabian’s “Broken Vow” and The Backstreet Boys’ “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” on repeat. I also fantasized about Jim coming back to me on all fours, mewing like one of his stupid cats I’d always hated:
“Zoe. I made a terrible mistake. I love you. You are the woman of my dreams. Please, please, please take me back. I want to marry you. I want to marry you tomorrow. Please, Zoe, pleeeasse…..” as he buried his hands in his face and sobbed like George Bailey pleading with his guardian angel, Clarence, that he wanted to live again.
In real life, fantasies never materialize, and this time was no exception.
One melancholic fall afternoon, after starting law school, I got a much-needed slap in the face from Jessica: “Get over it, already!” she yelled at me.
“Don’t you get it? I was already married to him in my heart! It’s like I’ve been through a divorce!” I tried to rebuke, starting to cry again.
“He was a total DORK, Zoe! You are so much cooler that he is! I don’t even know what you saw in him, truthfully, but I never said anything, because you were so happy. But you can do so much better than him!”
“Really? I’m cool?” I sniffled.
“Well…Kinda cool when you’re not listening to this shit,” she threw my Backstreet Boys CD into the garbage can. “Besides, I hate to tell you this…but he’s seeing someone else now. Remember that big-nosed slut in his pre-med class? You need to start dating again. You’re wasting the best-looking years of your life being a mope.”
I knew Jessica was right. So, I dated. I dated to get over Jim. I dated to feel good about myself again. I dated for the sheer sake of dating. After the first few dates, an interesting pattern developed – one which sort of felt like the cosmos were trying to screw with me: All of my dates were named Mike. All of them. After the first few Mikes, I think I started dating anyone named Mike the same way some men will date anything with the right anatomy.
He breathes. He talks. His name is Mike.
But, truthfully, it was just weird. I had a friend who dated three guys named Martin. What do you think the odds of that are? Zilch. I think the Mikes were just meant to be a part of my story.
Mike the First was a tall, fun-loving law student who was my first kiss after Jim. He would have been perfect, but for two minor flaws. Make that two major ones. The first I realized after about one month of dating, when he used a racial slur.
You did NOT just say that, did you?
I wish I could tell you that I dumped him immediately after I heard that, but I’m afraid I cannot. I can tell you that I dumped him immediately after he laughed upon passing audible gas.
Shortly after Halloween, Mike the Second, also a law student, asked me out for a sushi dinner. When I heard through the grapevine that he complained I had been an expensive date, I sent him a check.
Mike the Third and I met at the gym. He was a medical student who told me on our first date that I was drinking my cosmopolitans too quickly and that I should stop smoking. That was also our last date.
To help me keep the Mikes I’d dated straight, I started keeping a mental tally of their most memorable qualities, which also worked as a sort-of checklist for the kind of men I’d tried dating thus far…and didn’t want to date again:
Racist and puerile, or cheap and gossipy, law students. Check.
Rude and critical, (or immature and disloyal – Jim!) med students. Check.
Mike the Fourth was a vegan I met at a health-food diner near the law school. Persuaded by his personal crusade against the cruelty of animals, I became a vegetarian myself for two months…until I gained ten pounds from my new high-carb, high-dairy diet. Mike came home with me over winter break and didn’t make a good impression.
“Mike, would you like some steak?” my mom asked cheerfully.
“No, thank you. I don’t believe in murdering animals.”
Whoops. Maybe a little pre-holiday coaching – both Mom and Mike – would have been in order.
To this day, my dad refers to him as “that anorexic guy.”
He kissed me like a chicken pecking at seed. And he didn’t wear deodorant.
Smelly vegans. Check.
Mike the Fifth and I met at a house party. He made me feel better about my smoking habit when he told me: “It was harder for me to quit smoking than to give up heroine.”
Ex-heroine addicts. Check.
Mike the Sixth was fabulously wealthy. We met at a club and spent our first meeting making-out inappropriately on the dance floor. Jessica, who never made-out with men inappropriately on the dance floor, tapped me on the shoulder: “Get a room!”
I managed to break away from my “he-must-be-the-one-because-he-kisses-me-so-well” daze in order to regain my composure, give Mike the Sixth my digits, and respectfully go home in a cab with Jessica. On our first date, Mike the Sixth dazzled me with the most delicious and expensive bottles of wine a young, poor law student could not otherwise have tried. Unfortunately, he never called again. I suspect, because I enjoyed the wine a little too much. I never have remembered what the name of that damn Red Zinfandel was.
Drink too much around eligible rich men. Check. Wait a minute…
Last, but not least, there was Mike the Seventh, a sensitive, baby-faced, evangelical. We met during spring break in Florida, when he eyed my bikini clad body on the beach and asked if I knew Jesus. It wasn’t a pick up line, but he looked so good while Bible beating, that I decided to flirt with him anyway. Maybe most women would have been turned off by his devoutness. But a man who could commit to God, I thought, could also likely commit to a serious relationship.
Unfortunately, Mike also had an irrational fear of being jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. I suppose some people do get imprisoned for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but to dream up wild, unlikely scenarios and actually spend time fearing them is just plain crazy. I wish I could say that being crazy was the deal breaker for me, but unfortunately, I cannot. Rather, it took his refusal to try a tiny morsel of cookie I was offering him – “I’m too full!” – for me to throw in the towel. Any man who ate less than I did would never do. No, not at all.
Scrawny, delusional, evangelicals. Check.
After the last Mike, I started writing my “You Should’ve Known” poem. I was known for a writing a bit of bad poetry when I wasn’t busy blowing off my legal studies. The poem was intended to be comical, as well as a bit therapeutic:
You should’ve known it was over when he used a racial slur,
But you knew it was over when he laughed upon passing gas.
You should’ve known it was over when he smelled like B.O.;
But you knew it was over when he kissed you like a chicken pecking at seed.
You should’ve known it was over with his fear of being wrongfully imprisoned;
But you knew it was over when he wouldn’t eat a cookie sample.
Like Scrooge’s chain forged “link by link, and yard by yard,” my poem lengthened year by year and guy by guy....Ah, ‘tis a ponderous ode. But the next six years are less like a carol and more like a primer: “Dating for Dummies.” And so, we do but turn another page….
Year Two:
Lessons One through Three:
1. Bitter May be the New Black, but It’s Uglier
2. Divorced Is Not a Deal Breaker
3. Forget Your Heart: Listen to Your Stomach
“That Southern tart at our table just told me I’m not married, because I smoke,” I growled at Jessica as I casually blew smoke into the air, aiming carefully away from anyone in my vicinity – a difficult task since we were at a crowded bar that was packed with long narrow tables.
“She’s a bitch,” Jessica fiercely put out her own cigarette and nodded.
“Total bitch.”
“And if her marriage is so fucking great, where’s her husband anyway?”
“Screwing his secretary.”
“Exactly.”
I lit up another cigarette and nodded, smug in my self-professed, enlightened knowledge of philandering men...which, as far as I was concerned, was just descriptive redundancy.
That was me at the ripe old age of twenty-three: Two years after the break-up with Jim, almost a year since my last date, and already spewing forth bitter venom of the Miranda Hobbes variety. Jessica and I were out on the town with a few friends, busy not celebrating Valentine’s Day. We wore black in honor of the occasion and our moods. She had recently broken up with a schmuck whose most endearing characteristic was his beer gut, and there were no prospects in sight for either of us.
Until two strangers were brave enough to approach us.
“Excuse me, mind if we sit here?” asked a tall, nice-looking 30-something fellow.
He was talking to Jessica.
Jessica looked at me. I shrugged.
“What’s your name?”
The question was directed at me this time, from a gawky, pimply, 20-something.
“Sarah,” I lied.
“Well, Sarah, mind if my friend and I here join you.”
Oh, what the hell.
“Sure,” I waved at the table.
The tall, 30-year old was named Chris. The gawky, pimply one, Mike. Go figure. Chris was clearly interested in Jessica. I was stuck with Mike. Or rather, he was stuck with me. Mike tried to make conversation while I blew him off, getting more annoyed by the minute that Jessica was actually interested in Chris who had selfishly taken away my only interesting companion for the evening.
“Can I tell you a joke?” Mike asked me.
“If you want to,” I replied, thinking about how much I didn’t want to be there.
“How is a woman like a condom?”
Blank stare.
“Both spend more time in your wallet than on your dick.”
I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my drink, turning my back to him.
“C’mon! You didn’t even laugh!” he slapped me on the back.
I turned around to face him and gave him a withering glare.
“That’s because your joke isn’t funny,” I hissed. “I wouldn’t laugh at your joke in a million years,” my voice was getting louder. “Even if the sun disappeared from the sky, I still wouldn’t laugh at your stupid joke!” I was practically yelling now.
He held up his hands and backed away.
“Ok-ay bee-otch. I get it. You’re a dyke,” and he walked away.
“Jerk,” I muttered and lit a cigarette.
Jessica gave me a look of disgust.
“Have fun with your date,” I leaned over and whispered to her, putting out my cigarette. “I’m leaving now.”
I went home, opened a bottle of wine, put “Broken Vow,” by Lara Fabian on repeat, and chain smoked. I was a walking cliché of pathetic. And I was bitter. Bitter about Jim. Bitter that I hated law school. Bitter that Miss Alabama and her perfect tan were married and I wasn’t. Bitter that Jessica got the cute one. Bitter that I hadn’t had a good date in over a year.
While listening to my favorite depressing lyrics, I started going through the stack of mail that’d been piling up on my desk. Of interest, there was a Harvard Business Review article that’d recently been mailed to me by a former college friend attending business school at MIT. With my wine and cigarette in hand, I sat down to read it.
The article in a nutshell: If you are a man over 40, making six or more figures a year, rest assured, you will be married. Probably to your second wife, who is younger than your first. She’s a waitress or your secretary and has had a boob job. Your first wife takes care of your four children whom you never see. Oh, and you’re fat. (Who said the bitter years ever have to end?)
If you’re a woman over 40, making six or more figures a year? Your tombstone shall read: “Spinster. Childless. Left all her money to her cats.”
And I was allergic to cats.
Epilogue
Whether it was seven years of bad luck or seven years of bad choices that lead me down such a memorable dating path, one thing is for certain: without a scarlet petticoat beneath my skirt suit when I took the plunge and wrote David for the first time, my dating ode would probably still be lengthening. I had to take the initiative to meet David, or he would never have written me:
“I had seen your profile. I didn’t want to date a lawyer,” he affirmed to me during our honeymoon.
The power of the A-bomb!
“Am I really married to you?”
“I know, it’s not fair. But you lived up to your profile in the way you described yourself, and I was wrong.”
Ladies, find yourself a man who can say that!
Sure, I had to take the initiative again after our first date. Good men can also be stubborn…and bad at reading signals.
So, there was a bit of luck along the way, too, that the scarlet petticoat provided: if I had written that second email to him a day later, David’s Lovematch account would have been closed, and Caroline would not be racing around our house now as a joyous, effervescent four year-old, who just celebrated her first Leap Day birthday. And some day, before she goes off to college and starts ruining her life, I will tell her:
“Your birthdate is like an invisible shield, a magic talisman, a lucky charm…a scarlet petticoat. Please wear it. It will protect you from the dating disasters I went through. Be bold. Be brave. But most importantly…be yourself.”
Zoe Wright's Dating Ode
You should’ve known it was over when he used a racial slur;
But you knew it was over when he laughed upon passing gas.
You should’ve known it was over when he smelled like B.O.;
But you knew it was over when he kissed you like a chicken pecking at seed.
You should’ve known it was over with his fear of being wrongfully imprisoned;
But you knew it was over when he wouldn’t eat a cookie sample.
You should’ve known it was over before it started;
But you knew it was over when your dates made you sick.
You should’ve known it was over when he grabbed your ass in front of your professor;
But you knew it was over when he shoved salad onto his fork with his fingers.
You should’ve known it was over when he needed Viagra during his sexual prime;
But you knew it was over when he slandered you in an elevator.
You should’ve known it was over when he was technically still married;
But you knew it was over when he tried to crush your spirit.
You should’ve known it was over, because he was a bad kisser;
But you knew it was over when you realized that his cell phone was a sixth appendage.
You should’ve known it was over when he talked to his stuffed animals;
But you knew it was over when he turned into a scary, obsessive, stalker.
You should’ve known it was over when he was 42, had two teenage children, and acquainted with men who cheated on their wives;
But you knew it was over when he played you for a fool.
You should’ve known it was over when he was a high school drop-out;
But you knew it was over when he left you for another man.
You should have known it was over when all he could do was talk football;
But you knew it was over when you pretended to be someone you’re not.
You couldn’t believe it wasn’t over when he caught you smelling your feet, passing gas, snoring, drunk-dialing, and being certifiably crazy;
But you knew it was forever when he asked you to marry him and have his baby.
And They Lived Happily Ever After.
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