Jennifer Weiner - Good in Bed

For about five seconds I stood stock-still and prayed that they wouldn’t see me. I tried to edge off to the side of the lounge, to skirt the entire area, thinking that there had to be some way to duck onto the escalator, grab my bags, and escape. But then Bruce’s eyes locked on mine, and I knew it was too late.

He bent down, whispering something to the girl, who turned her head away before I could get a good look. Then he crossed the concourse, walking right toward me, wearing a red T-shirt that I’d snuggled up against a hundred times and blue shorts that I remembered seeing him put on, and pull off, just as often. I sent up a quick prayer of thanks for Garth’s haircut, for my tan, for my diamond earrings, and endured a sudden spasm of misery that I wasn’t still wearing that grand and gaudy diamond ring. It was completely superficial, I knew, but I hoped I looked good. As good as somebody seven and a half months pregnant could look after a six-hour plane trip, at least.

And then Bruce was right in front of me, looking pale and solemn.

“Hey, Cannie,” he said. His eyes fell to my midsection as if it were magnetized. “So you…”

“That’s right,” I said coolly. “I’m pregnant.” I stood up straight and tightened my grip on Nifkin’s case. Nifkin, of course, had smelled Bruce and was in the midst of trying to leap out and greet him. I could hear his tail thumping as he whined.

Bruce raised his eyes to the computerized board over the doorway I’d just passed through. “You’re coming from L.A.?” he asked, showing that his reading abilities had not diminished during our time apart.

I gave another curt nod, hoping he couldn’t tell how badly my knees were shaking. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Vacation,” he said. “We’re going to Florida for the weekend.”

We, I thought bitterly, staring at him. He looked just the same. A little thinner, maybe, with a few more strands of gray in his ponytail, but still, same old Bruce, right down to his smell, to his smile, and the half-laced doodled-on basketball sneakers. “How nice for you,” I said.

Bruce didn’t take the bait. “So were you in L.A. for work?”

“I had some meetings on the coast,” I said. I have always wanted to say that to someone.

“The Examiner sent you to California?” he asked.

“No, I had meetings about my screenplay,” I said.

“You sold your screenplay?” He seemed genuinely happy for me. “Cannie, that’s great!”

I said nothing, glaring at him. Of all the things I needed from him – love, support, money, the bare acknowledgment that I existed, that our baby existed, and that any of it mattered to him, his congratulations felt exceedingly paltry.

“I… I’m sorry,” he finally managed. And with that I was furious. How rotten of him, I thought, showing up at an airport to take Little Miss Pageboy on vacation, mouthing his pathetic apology, as if it could undo the months of silence, the worry I’d gone through, the anguish of missing him and figuring out how to provide for a baby on my own. And I was furious, too, for his complacency. He didn’t care – not about me, not about the baby. He’d never called, never asked, never cared. Just left me – left us – all alone. Who did this remind me of?

I knew, at that moment, that my anger wasn’t really for him. It was for my father, of course, the Original Abandoner, the author of all of my insecurities and fears. But my father was three thousand miles away from me, with his back eternally turned. If I could only step back and look at it clearly, I’d see that Bruce was just some guy, like a thousand other guys, right down to the pot and the ponytail and the half-intended slipshod lazy life, right down to the dissertation he’d never finish, the bookshelves he’d never build, and the bathtub he’d never clean. Guys like Bruce were as common as white cotton socks sold in six-packs at the Wal-Mart, if not as clean, and all I’d have to do to acquire another one would be to show up at a Phish concert and smile.

But Bruce, as opposed to my father, was right here… and he was far from innocent. After all, hadn’t he left me, too?

I set Nifkin down and turned to face Bruce, feeling all of my fury – years of it – curl in my chest and rise to my throat. “You’re sorry?” I spat.

He took a step backward. “I am sorry,” he said, and his voice was so sad it sounded like he was being ripped open from the inside. “I know I should have called you, but… I just…”

I narrowed my eyes. He dropped his hands. “It was just too much,” he whispered. “With my father and all.”

I rolled my eyes to show what I thought of that excuse, and to make it clear that he and I would not be exchanging tender reminiscences of Bernard Guberman, or anything else, anytime soon.

“I know how strong you are,” he told me. “I knew you’d be okay.”

“Well, I have to be, don’t I, Bruce? You didn’t leave me much of a choice.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said again, looking even more wretched. “I… I hope you’ll be happy.”

“I can feel those good wishes radiating right off you,” I retorted. “Oh, wait. My mistake. That’s just pot smoke.” It felt as if a part of me had detached from my body, floated up to the ceiling, and was watching this scene unfold in terror… and in great sadness. Cannie, oh, Cannie, a little voice mourned, this isn’t who you’re angry at.

“And you know what?” I asked him. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a man. You, you’re nothing but a boy with big feet and facial hair. And you’re never going to be anything else. You’ll never be more than a third-rate writer at a second-rate magazine, and God help you when you can’t peddle any more memories of what we had together.”

The girlfriend sidled up to his side and laced her fingers through his. I just kept talking. “You’ll never be as good as me, and you’re always going to know that I was the best you ever had.”

The girlfriend attempted to say something, but I wasn’t going to stop.

“You’re always going to be some big goofy guy with a bunch of tapes in cardboard shoeboxes. The guy with the rolling papers. The guy with the Grateful Dead bootleg. Good old Bruce. Except that shtick gets tired after sophomore year. It gets old, the same way that you’re getting old. It’s unimproved, just like your writing. And you know what else?” I stepped right up to him, so we were practically toe to toe. “You’re never going to finish that dissertation. And you’re always going to live in New Jersey.”

Bruce stood there, stunned. His mouth was literally gaping open. It wasn’t a good look, emphasizing as it did his weak chin, and the network of wrinkles around his eyes.

The girlfriend looked up at me.

“Leave us alone,” she said in a little squeaky voice. My new Manolo Blahnik slides gave me an extra three inches and I felt Amazonian, powerful, untroubled by this little wisp of a thing who barely cleared my shoulders. I gave her my very best shut-up-and-let-the-‌smart-people-talk look, the one I’d perfected over the years on my siblings. I wondered if she’d ever heard of tweezers. Sure, she could probably be looking at me and wondering whether I’d ever heard of Slim-Fast… or of birth control, for that matter. I found that I didn’t much care.

“I don’t think I was actually saying anything to you,” I said, and dredged up a line from the Take Back the Night March, circa 1989. “I don’t believe in blaming the victim.”

That snapped Bruce back to reality. He tightened his grip on her hand. “Leave her alone,” he said.

“Oh, Jesus.” I sighed. “Like I’m the one doing anything to either one of you. For your information,” I told the girlfriend, “I wrote him exactly one letter when I found out I was pregnant. One letter. And I won’t do it again. I’ve got plenty of money, and a better job than he does, in case he neglected to mention that when he gave you our history, and I’m going to do just fine. I hope the two of you are very happy together.” I picked up Nifkin, tossed my great hair, and breezed past a security guard. “I’d search his luggage,” I said, loud enough for Bruce to hear, “he’s probably holding.”