The Awl

'Managed Expectations': The Bitter End, The Final Chapter

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:31:41 +0000

This summer's serial novel by Marisa Meltzer has followed our heroine Nicole from the wilds of Park Slope-well, let's be honest, Prospect Heights-to the terrors of Portland, Oregon, from yoga to therapy, from the grasping arms of men on bad first dates to a terrible two-timer to, whoops!, the bed of her now-engaged ex-lover Jared. It culminates in the sudden wedding of her best friend. All this, during the short, not-so-hot and totally wedding-full summer of 2009, complete with major pregnancy scare. (Like your summer was any less dramatic or terrible?) And now, as they say on T.V., the stunning conclusion...

The unofficial theme to Darshan's wedding was Bollywood meets Bolinas. Luckily the ne plus ultra of hippie weddings was to have a Hindu ceremony, so the two themes coexisted fairly peacefully: sitars, garlands of marigolds, and chapattis were equally beloved by Brooklyn vegans and bankers from Mumbai.

As a bridesmaid, Nicole wore a sari made of tie-dyed silk with a wreath made of moss and wildflowers that made her forehead itch. The ceremony was long and she tuned out soon after the priest, of some unspecified weird lesser non-religion, and who addressed the crowd as "fellow beings," beseeched everyone to "come reaffirm with us our belief that in life, it's the journey that counts, not the goal."

Since everyone was seated, it was hard to pick out anyone she knew in the crowd. She heard from Darshan that both Jared and Elias had sent in RSVPs, but she couldn't make them out. After 15 minutes of chanting in Sanskrit, the vows and bows were completed and everyone could begin drinking.

And Nicole drank: one glass of Puligny-Montrachet for the groom's parents' toast, a second for their yoga guru's toast, a third when Darshan got up to thank everyone and make an announcement about her intention to become certified as a barefoot hiking instructor, and a fourth for when the girls from Darsh's consciousness-raising group did a toast that quoted heavily from both Sappho and Valerie Solanas.

By the time Darsh's former nanny stood up to talk about her charge's open heart and capacity for love, Nicole was well on her way to trashed belligerence.

Through much of the speech-making, Nicole stayed busy texting with Miranda, who was seated a few tables away. They were giving odds that Darshan's marriage would last more than ten years-it was 87-1, they decided-when the evil Eva made her way to the microphone. Ugh, Nicole thought, experiencing a fresh, alcohol-enhanced ripple of anger over Eva's clumsy blackmail job, after Eva had spotted Nicole buying a home pregnancy test.

"I just want to say how proud I am of Darshan for pursuing her interest in barefoot hiking," she said. "I just wish it had been midwifery."

People were still talking at their tables. "Do you have something to tell us?" someone shouted from the back.

"No," Eva said. "But I hear the maid of honor might." She was staring at Nicole, a sick smile plastered across her face.

Nicole put down her phone and stood up suddenly, rattling the table and knocking over her nearly empty wine glass. She took a deep breath, unsure what she was going to watch herself do next. Now the room got quiet.

It turned out that Nicole realized that she was extremely pissed off, and also that her ability to self-censor was severely impaired. "You fucking bitch!" Nicole screamed. "I'm going to kill you!"

She ripped off her wreath and threw it, frisbee-style, at Eva. Nicole had always had a poor aim; the wreath whizzed by Eva and bounced sadly off the wall.

Eva smirked at Nicole. "I think our girl here has had a pretty busy summer-both with Elias and my fiancÃƒÂ©."

The priest, seated nearby, was already en route. He snatched the mic from Eva. "Ladies, please! This is a sacred event."

But it was too late. Nicole found her iPhone and flung it across the room at Eva's head, this time connecting with her brow. Jared bolted from his table and ran to her, shouting for ice. He made a pathetic attempt at treating the wound with a napkin, even though the phone hadn't even left a mark.

A few people were laughing; most were staring at their plates in silence. Jared and Eva hugged and kissed and hugged again. "I'm so glad you're safe," he whispered.

Why had she even considered putting up with him again? "Jared, joint dog custody is so over," Nicole said. And with that, she turned on her heel and made her way, with as much determination as her drunken self could, out through the room.

She passed Elias, who was sitting near the back with a willowy blonde. "I am so glad they have a videographer here, Nicole, because I am so putting a video of this on my Tumblr," he said. He tried to give her a high five but Nicole flipped him off and kept walking.

Outside it was cool, suddenly autumnal. She got as far as Grand Army Plaza when Darshan, leaving behind her own wedding, caught up with her. "Dude," she said, all out of breath. "What the fuck was that?"

Nicole's stopped walking, and her lower lip started to tremble. "I'm sorry I sort of ruined your wedding," she said. They sat down on the pavement under the arch. She grabbed Darshan's hand. "Do you hate me?"

"My parents probably hate you, but I think they always have," she said. "But you know 'The Graduate' is my favorite movie, so I'm going to think of it as an homage."

They sat in silence for thirty seconds. Nicole sighed. "You know, the biggest regret of my summer was-"

"Having an affair with your ex? Trying to kill his fiancÃƒÂ©e before I cut the cake?"

"I wasn't trying to kill her, just maybe harm her a little," Nicole bit her lip and looked at her friend from the corner of her eye. Darshan smiled. "I was going to say it was that I never got the address of the dumpster pool near the Gowanus Canal."

"Oh God, you're right. I hope they have one next summer."

"Yeah, but I might leave Brooklyn by then."

"Really?" Darshan asked. "But who could live anywhere else? I went to this stoop sale last weekend for these old college friends and there were copies of books that aren't even coming out until 2010, plus they were selling brown faux rice krispie treats and had made a limited-edition conceptual zine around the theme of sales to be sold exclusively at the sale. Like, how could you leave that?"

Nicole rested her head on her left hand. "I need to live somewhere out of my comfort zone, away from Elias and Jared and Flatbush Avenue. I need to have some time to figure out what I want, like, from life."

"Babe, I'm going to miss you." She hugged Nicole. "So where are you going to move?"

Nicole sat up, folded her hands in her lap, and smiled. "Manhattan," she said.

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.

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Managed Expectations, Part 13 of 14: Ambivalence at the Milk Bar

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:00:05 +0000

Another 50-Minute Hour – The Problem With Jared (The Second Time Around) – Watching a Couple – Pros and Cons – Well, the Dog is Happy? – An Unexpected Merger and an Invitation!

Single men who were also straight weren't easy to come by in Brooklyn. Not to mention: beyond their Saturn Return, employed, responsible enough for part-time animal ownership, and capable of reading a book every three months.

Ruby made loud throat-clearing noises. "Ahem, ahem AHEM, Nicole," her therapist said. "You're fudging a really important detail here."

"What is that?" Nicole wondered how old Ruby was and whether she had any kids. She interrupted her so often she suspected she had mild ADD or at least lacked the kind of patience most parents seemed to develop.

"Jared is not single, exactly."

"Shouldn't you be happy that I'm telling you the truth? That I'm, like, being open and honest about my faults?" Nicole asked, pouting.

Ruby raised her eyebrows. "Have you forgotten the brunch fight?" In the twilight of Nicole and Jared's relationship, there had been a fight that had begun as an argument over whether to go to Rose Water or Miriam for brunch but had grown to cover all the problems with their relationship, until it grew dark and Nicole, after losing two rounds of rock-paper-scissors, was forced to sleep on the couch. "Are you going to take him back?"

"I keep thinking that maybe this is what you do," she said, and then, thinking about her therapist's asexual vibe, quickly corrected herself. "I mean, maybe this is what one does. You know? All those married people on Facebook who write status updates about date night?"

Ruby cocked her head to the side and crossed her fingers. "That's what you want?"

"I," Nicole stared at the ceiling. "Um..."

Her time was up. Ruby encouraged her to think about her answer and promised that they'd pick up right where they left off at next week's session.

She took the subway back to Prospect Heights to work on her book at Milk Bar. But instead of writing, Nicole felt distracted. She sat looking out the window, drinking iced coffee and eating avocado on toast, flipping through Thursday Styles.

She got out her iPhone and started making a list of Jared's pros and cons. To the "Pro" list she added everything she had covered in therapy, plus "wears clean underwear" and "always texts me back."

To the "Con" list, she wrote that he still favored Sun Ra as his post-coital soundtrack.

On Pros she added that he laughed at her jokes, even the one about swine flu with the punchline about male chauvinist piggism. And that Toussaint looked happier and had stopped licking his paws so obsessively.

She thought of going to bed with him every night: the ratty Adidas track pants and stained Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt-was it ironic? She had long ago decided she didn't care enough to ask-the Air Portugal sleep shade, and the socks he slept in year-round due to, he claimed, poor circulation. She wrote about the party they had once thrown together where, as she was arranging the brown rice sushi and pouring saketinis and kissing his coworkers hello, he sat in the corner reading back issues of Grand Royal he had recently purchased on eBay.

All that went on the Con list.

She looked up from her phone long enough to watch a couple at another table. They were both reading paperbacks, which seemed nice until their sandwiches arrived, after which they commenced eating and continued reading their books without saying a word to each other.

Just then, a text arrived from Jared. It read: "I miss you. Can we meet up at yr place tonight ;)"

To the Pro list she wrote: "Uses 'yr' even though it's not the '90s." To the Con list: "Use of emoticons makes me cringe, plus I've told him I hate them a million times and he doesn't remember."

Nicole was disappointed in herself. She had always been bad at knowing what she wanted-she had been one of those overly fragile kids who would get so overwhelmed at ice cream shops that she'd cry because she couldn't decide between rainbow sherbet or rocky road. Now she was in her thirties and just as tortured about her ambivalence as ever.

She felt her phone vibrating. She hated being the person to talk in a cafÃƒÂ©, but she hated her navel-gazing even more. It was Darshan. "Darsh," Nicole said, dragging her name out into four syllables. "Put me out of my misery. My self-obsession is driving me crazy." The reading couple turned to give Nicole twin dirty looks; she walked outside to continue the conversation without their shaming.

"Are you doing volunteer work?" Darshan asked. "Because you know those poor girls in India who sell their hair to pay for, like, food and shelter or whatever? There's this nonprofit my mom and I are working with that makes wigs for those girls to help restore their dignity."

"But I think short hair is really chic."

"Why are you so bummed?"

"Guess."

"Jared? Still? Well, whatever, I have some news for you." Darshan paused for dramatic effect. "Are you ready?" She said it with enough command that Nicole wondered if she had been a cheerleader in high school. "Okay. Sit down. I'm getting married."

"What? Who?"

"My third cousin! Or maybe he's my first cousin, thrice removed? Anyway, I met him in Vermont! He's a craniosacral masseur!"

"Wow." Under normal circumstances, Nicole would try to reason with her friend or tell her to get to know him better, but she figured Darshan was the kind of person who would be married three, maybe four times. This sounded like an appropriate first husband.

"I'm doing a super-low key ceremony on Labor Day at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden," Darsh said. "Will you be my maid of honor?"

For the first time in days Nicole wasn't thinking about Jared. "Of course."

This is the penultimate episode! Behind? Catch up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.

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Managed Expectations, Part 12 of 14: A Potentially Bad Decision

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:11:06 +0000

A Bad Dream – A Place to Stay – The Obvious Dog-Sitter – Who's a Bitch Now? – Playing 'Remember When'? – What Ex-Boyfriends Are For

At around six am on a Tuesday morning, Nicole awakened to what sounded like a small waterfall flowing through her kitchen. She had been in the middle of a recurring dream she'd been having for at least the last decade. In it, she was always at a large high school that looked nothing like her own leafy alma mater. Even though she was enrolled there, she was lost, looking for a class she had neglected to attend all year-some nights it was science, other nights it was math, once it had been a ceramics class-and she had to show up and get a perfect score on the final in order to graduate. Nicole was still trying to figure out how best to describe the anxiety it caused her for her dream journal when she opened her kitchen door to find a pipe had burst and the ceiling had caved in.

She shut the door, blocking the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door with a few towels, and started making the necessary phone calls. Debbie, her landlady, had offered to put her up at hotel in downtown Brooklyn while her apartment was being fixed, but Nicole found Marriotts depressing. Plus, Darshan was going to her family's house in Vermont for two weeks and offered up her loft.

"You're going to love it," she said. "I made this insane indoor yurt for the living room. It's perfect for meditation or making out." After her loft had been shot for The Selby, Darshan had decided that she felt "really exposed" by so many people seeing her bed and couch and had devoted much of August to redecoration.

But first, Nicole had to drop off Toussaint at Jared's because Darshan didn't want dog hair on her Kazakh blankets. She had been avoiding Jared ever since Eva had attempted blackmail at the Tea Lounge. She told Eva that she didn't really care if Jared knew about the pregnancy scare. This was sort of true, but, at the same time, Jared was the child of therapists and had a penchant for processing one's feelings. At least Eva would be at work.

"I'm on the phone, come on up," Jared said when she buzzed. She stood in the living room feeling distracted. Seeing her old apartment with the furniture in a different arrangement, photos of the happy couple on the wall, and a "For Like Ever" poster that was no doubt Eva's doing was never something she would get used to.

"This day already sucks," Jared announced as he walked in from the kitchen.

"I know," Nicole said. "My apartment is two inches deep in water right now."

"I'm sorry," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "It sounds like you're having a hard week."

"Eva told you," Nicole moaned. "God, she's such a bitch. Why are you even with her?"

"I like that about her." Jared sounded chipper. "I liked that about you."

"I am not a bitch!"

"Remember that time you wouldn't even pretend to eat the chicken at my mom's birthday because it wasn't free range?"

Toussaint darted down the hall and she and Jared followed the dog as he ran into Jared's room. He jumped up on the bed, rolled on his back, and stuck his feet in the air, which indicated that he wanted to be petted. Nicole sat down and started petting Toussie's belly.

She noticed that Jared was wearing a Spiritualized t-shirt that was over ten years old. "Remember when we saw them play in San Francisco? And we ended up sleeping in your car on the way home?"

"We had fun," he said.

"We did." She could feel herself blushing.

Jared cleared his throat. "You know, Nicole, sometimes I miss you."

"You do?"

"Don't you?"

"Well," she tried to answer but instead looked around at the dog, the ex, the former bedroom. "I don't really know if we should be having this conversation."

"Then why are you sitting on my bed?" he asked. And with that, Nicole raised her leg toward Jared, who began to unlace her shoes.

OMG, just two more installments! Are you behind? Catch up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 11 of 14: A Trip to Little California

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:10:39 +0000

The Test – Pretty in Bed – Little California – The Problem with the Coop – Oh No, Eva! – A Hideous Proposal

Nicole and Darshan sat facing each other on the blue and white tile floor of Nicole's bathroom with the pregnancy test between them.

"How do you feel?" Darsh asked.

"I feel," Nicole started to rub her eyes, "pretty weird."

"Shouldn't you be relieved?" The test had revealed just one pink line: not pregnant.

"Yeah, but I guess I thought that having a baby or even just having an abortion would give my life some direction."

"But, sweetie, I'm going to be as tactful as possible when I say this: you don't have health insurance. You use your AmEx to buy Metrocards. I've seen you cry over the pain of a stubbed toe. Not to mention the fact that Elias is seeing, like, three girls right now."

"He is?"

"I think you should be happy. You dodged a bullet."

"I am," Nicole said quietly. She sighed, looked at the floor, and massaged her temples.

"Do you want to go to BAM and see (500) Days of Summer and complain loudly through the whole thing?"

"No, I think I want to be alone. But did you see Zooey Deschanel and her sad indie dream girl eating disorder on Top Chef?"

"You know, it kind of made me want to give up soy, too," Darshan said, looking more contemplative than usual. She hugged Nicole goodbye and left.

Nicole got up off the floor, poured herself a vodka soda, enabled Gmail Goggles, got out a post-it note, on which she wrote, "DO NOT CALL OR TEXT ELIAS!!!!!!" and affixed it to her iPhone. Then she got in bed with her drink and her laptop. She clapped to get Toussaint to hop up. Then she and the dog watched Pretty in Pink in memory of John Hughes.

The next day, she woke up feeling triumphant and hungover and in need of caffeine. She walked to Little California, the strip of Union Avenue between 6th and 7th Avenues. When Nicole moved to New York after college, her mother had expressed concern about her welfare on the east coast to her Feldenkrais teacher Samantha, a native of the Upper West Side. Samantha asked which neighborhood Nicole was moving to, and when she heard it was Park Slope, she said, "Park Slope is sort of like not leaving California."

The strip on Union had Union Market, the kind of fancy, kind of healthy grocery store that bore too much of a resemblance to all the mediocre gourmet shops in Manhattan that Nicole hated. This was where she was forced to shop since she had become a member in bad standing at the Park Slope Food Coop, for failing to show up to a number of food processing work shifts. After hearing that Adrian Grenier was also a member, she had tried to make some kind of plea bargain to get back in the Coop's good graces. Nicole had even called her father, a criminal lawyer, for advice on how best to make her case. "Never admit your guilt," he had advised. The Coop had not been amenable to a compromise.

There was also a yoga studio and a pilates studio and a bike shop and an organic dry cleaner and a place to get frozen yogurt. Nicole went into Tea Lounge for a chai and was so relieved to find that there was no childrens' concert or Park Slope Mommy Meet-Up going on that she decided to sit down. And then she saw Jared's fiancÃƒÂ©e Eva on the sofa facing her and tried to hunch over her phone so she wouldn't be seen.

She wasn't successful. "Hi Nicole," Eva said.

"Oh hi Eva! How are you?"

"Great! Jared and I just bought tickets to visit Dad's family in Africa." Eva's dad was some kind of ancillary member of the royal family in Ghana and she was fond of bringing it up as frequently as possible. "He said it was such a shame that the two of you hardly got to travel all those years you were together. I guess seeing the world isn't a priority for everyone."

"Eva, I have a conference call I need to get on pretty soon, so-"

"I had actually been meaning to talk to you about something. It'll just take a sec." Nicole nodded for her to continue. "I was at Duane Reade yesterday," Eva said brightly. "And I saw you and Darsh standing in front of the pregnancy tests."

"Okay," Nicole said, narrowing her eyes.

"And I bet you probably wouldn't want Jared to know about that."

"What do you want, Eva?" Nicole wanted to hit her but thought that fisticuffs would not go over well at the Tea Lounge.

"I've been trying to convince Jared to get a King Charles spaniel, but he won't because he's so devoted to the big, dumb, furry dog of yours," Eva said. "So I thought of a compromise! What if you decide to have full custody of Toussie and I decide to forget I saw you buying a First Response?"

Nicole blinked several times. "Um, are you trying to blackmail me?"

Behind? Catch on up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 10 of 14: The Moon Cycle

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:30:50 +0000

Nicole Returns to New York City – 12 Days Late! – A Xanax? – What to Expect? – This is Not a Movie – Preparing for the Moment of Truth

The full moon in August is called the Red Moon in India and it's infamous for bringing chaos and destruction. At least, that's what Celeste, Nicole's anusara yoga teacher, said at the beginning of class.

"I don't know about you, but this full moon is really shaking things up. This morning, I told my girlfriend that I was tired of going out to her place in Cherry Grove," Celeste said. "And then I felt so bad, I ate gluten for the first time in six months. But then I realized"-she opened her eyes really big and smiled beatifically-"that sometimes we need to shake things up before we can find our balance again. So let's keep that in mind during our practice this evening. Now let's close our eyes and please join me for three rounds of om."

Nicole chanted along halfheartedly, as she was preoccupied with another kind of moon cycle: her period was now twelve days late. In Portland, Rusty had offered to drive her to a Plaid Pantry to buy a home test, but she refused with the excuse that this was the kind of problem she needed to deal with at home.

At the airport, she was killing time before her flight at Powell's and saw a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and felt the lightheadedness and faux heart palpitations of an anxiety attack coming on. As she instinctively got out a bottle of Xanax from her bag, Nicole then realized that she might actually be pregnant and was in her thirties, so she might never get pregnant again, so there was the possibility she would keep the baby, and then couldn't take benzodiazepines for the next nine months, maybe longer if she was breast feeding. She wondered if What to Expect When You're Expecting had a chapter on how much Ambien you could take or scotch you could drink, realistically, while pregnant or nursing without doing irreparable damage to the baby. She guessed it probably didn't.

By the time she was seated on the plane, her eyes were so swollen from crying that her flight attendant asked, "Did you just say goodbye to somebody special, honey?" She drank a ginger ale and spent $5 to watch Obsessed.

Back in Brooklyn for the last two days, she had been fruitlessly trying to induce her period, drinking pennyroyal tea and, in a fit of magical thinking, wearing white pants with no underwear, daring it to come.

After yoga was over, Nicole met Darshan for drinks at Washington Commons. Darsh was sitting in the back garden by the time she arrived. "I got you a drink," she said.

"I don't know if I can drink, Darsh."

"Are you on antibiotics or something? Do you have a UTI? Oh my God-wait! Did you sleep with that guy you went to high school with?"

"No, Darsh, stop. Jay ended up sending me an email telling me how much he was into The Basic and I lied and told him I was getting back together with an ex," Nicole sighed.

"I love that excuse. I just used it on some guy I met on dharmaMatch who tried to get me to go to Burning Man with him."

Nicole cleared her throat. "So back to my not drinking." While telling her story, Nicole noticed for the first time that Darshan was a really active listener and would gasp or tilt her head and make sympathy noises. Nicole ended with a summary of the night before, in which she spent watching the adoption episode of 16 and Pregnant and rereading select passages from the book Cunt.

"Do I need to call Elias?" Nicole asked. "Because I'm pretty sure that's going to be an awkward conversation."

"Whoa, dude, slow down. You're not even officially pregnant yet."

"But what if I am?"

"Well, this friend of a friend of my aunt has this totally soignÃƒÂ©e gyno practice on Park Avenue and I hear she's the abortionist to all the socialites and private school girls," Darshan said. "Or we could just move to a commune and name your kid Saraswati and learn to love washing our hair with Dr. Bronner's."

Darsh put her arm around Nicole and led her out of the bar and down the street and right into Duane Reade's selection of pregnancy tests.

"Should we get a bunch?"

"No," Nicole said, rolling her eyes. "This isn't a movie. We aren't living Knocked Up."

"You kind of are," Darshan giggled. "I mean, Elias is great and all, but he doesn't exactly exhibit career direction."

"Career direction? How's that vegan food cart business going, Darsh?"

"Are those pregnancy hormones that are making you such a bitch?"

"I'm sorry, I'm-well, you know," Nicole said, and took a deep breath. "Let's go home and see if I'm pregnant."

Are you behind? Catch up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 9 of 14: Keeping Cool in a Heat Wave

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:30:49 +0000

The West Coast Adventure Takes a Turn – An Unsought Date – Some Spiritual Guidance, in the Form of Books – Liplocked! – In the Buff – Locavore Etiquette – The Worst Thing Happens

Less than twenty-four hours after they ran into each other, Jay called Nicole to ask her out on a date. That was the word he used-"date." She tried to remember the last time a guy had said such a thing to her, and couldn't.

When she showed up at Lovely Hula Hands, Jay was already there, waiting out front, with a bouquet of peonies in his hand. Flowers: another first. But the problem with the peonies was that there was nowhere to put them, and staring at the flowers made her feel like they gave the evening more gravitas than she would have liked.

Nicole's anxieties mounted as she found out more about Jay. He seemed like a nice person, if he were a neighbor or a coworker, but not someone who would understand her any better than he had back in school in Physics lab. She tried to explain her career confusion and her life in New York and how she didn't know what she was doing with her life, let alone where to live; Jay recommended the work of Deepak Chopra, Malcolm Gladwell, and Andy Samberg to help sort things out.

After the risotto and the sorbet, Jay walked her back to her temporary home. On the way they watched a Merce Cunningham memorial bike parade ride by. Nicole took a photo of it to send to Darshan.

At the door, Jay put his hand on the side of Nicole's face and said, "I had a really nice time tonight." She closed her eyes and he kissed her. Afterward, she just smiled and waved and tried to look mysterious as she unlocked the door.

"Oh my God," she screamed. Rusty looked startled. He was smoking pot, singing along with Grace Slick to "White Rabbit," and playing solitaire. "Jay just kissed me and it was awful."

"Awful in what way?"

"You know those pedicures from Asia where you put you feet in an aquarium and fish eat the dead skin off?"

"No. Wait, wait! This is the best part." He paused to sing the song's "keep your head" ending. When the song was over, he continued his thought. "Metrosexuals are so 2003, Nicole."

"Whatever, Russie, once I had to get one for work. Anyway, my point is that kissing Jay felt like a fish sucking dead skin off my feet."

"Unacceptable."

"Yeah."

The next day, Nicole woke up to a heat wave. Portland was hot, with a high of 106, and no one had or even believed in air conditioning. Rusty said he felt the need for "some rays on the old bod" and Nicole wanted to think about something other than her shambolic love life, so they got in his car, blasting The Last Waltz soundtrack, and headed for the nude beach at Sauvie Island.

There they peeled off their denim cut-offs and wife beaters and shared a six-pack of Fat Tire and a joint, totally naked. But instead of feeling French or even just really free, as they had thought befitting of a nude beach, they felt disappointed by their fellow beachgoers: middle-aged women with saggy, sunburned breasts; guys who looked like Jesus.

"This is like going swimming in the Ozarks," Rusty said.

A minute later. "I'm sorry," he said. "That was really classist of me."

Another minute later. "Let's bounce," he said.

On the ride home, they stopped at a farm stand to buy ingredients for a dish they were to bring to a potluck garden party.

In the kitchen, Rusty chopped while Nicole emulsified a vinaigrette. "Hey Nic, are toothpicks acceptable for the locavore beet salad if they are made from bamboo? I get so confused since bamboo is good but also evil, right?"

"Why does everything have to be so virtuous in Portland?" Nicole held her whisk aloft. "Someone was guilt tripping me at New Seasons the other day for forgetting to bring my own Sigg bottle. Can't I just drink my liter of Fiji water in peace?"

"Dude." Rusty put down the box of toothpicks and put his hands on her shoulders. "Are you PMSing really bad right now? You can tell me. I have older sisters."

"I'm not. Hmmm, wait...." She started counting on her fingers. Then she frowned, and opened up the iMensies app on her iPhone. "Fuck," she said.

"What?"

"Russ, stop being such a boy. I'm late." She stuck the tip of her thumbnail in her mouth and bit it. "My period is late."

Are you behind-just like our heroine??? Catch up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 8 of 14: Staying Positive in Portland

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:39:38 +0000

A Trip to the West Coast – A Dress Returns – The Jobless Masses – What Kind of Stripper Would You Be? – A Chance Encounter!

Portland was, if possible, even better than all those stories from the Times about how everyone rides their bikes and hangs out at bookstores and listens to The Shins. It was a paradise where food carts served waffle sandwiches, guys with Crass tattoos made their own yogurt, and no one ever asked what you did for a living.

She knew she would like it when, at her first party, the opening of a vegan tattoo parlor, Nicole wore a gold bubble dress that had been out of style for at least four seasons in New York. In Portland, no one knew or cared how uncool her dress was and she got a steady stream of compliments on it.

After ten days in Portland, Nicole didn't find herself thinking of New York hardly at all, except when Jared would text her photos of Toussaint. The poor dog!

She suspected that no one in the city, besides the people who worked at the numerous coffee shops and strip clubs, even had jobs. Nicole had taken up residence on a couch in her friend Rusty's odd loft-y place. Rusty had moved to Portland from New York three years prior, lured by a copywriting job at Nike. But he had been laid off four months ago and appeared to spend his days mastering Rock Band and nights courting Suicide Girls. He too had no plans to return to Brooklyn.

"So what are you going to do when your unemployment runs out?" Nicole asked while they were out at breakfast one morning. Breakfast, even when eaten at noon, was never called "brunch" in Portland.

"You're such a New Yorker. You're so plan-oriented." Rusty rolled his eyes. "Mellow out." He pondered the relative merits of the four different tofu scrambles on the menu. "What are you ordering?"

"The sourdough pancakes with marionberries." Nicole put her menu down and stared at her chipped fluorescent pink manicure. "But Russ, if I, like, stayed here, what would I do?"

"Like for work? I don't know, the same shit you do in New York. Write that book for that Disney kid."

"Do you think I could be a stripper? I mean, I would be a subversive one because I would only dance to, like, Belle and Sebastian and Bikini Kill and I would probably try to organize a union." Nicole stopped the waitress and asked for agave for her yerba mate. "And then I could write about it, like Diablo Cody or that Miranda July story that was in the New Yorker."

"I stopped reading the New Yorker when I moved here. No one ever talks to you about magazine articles out here."

"Is that a good thing?"

Rusty took a bite of his curry scramble. "I don't know."

Later that day, Nicole went to the farmer's market. She was trying to eat a popsicle and text Darshan about how she bought duck eggs and a first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves at Powell's when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Nicole? Wow! Hey! I thought that was you."

"Whoa. Hi...."

"-Jay. What has it been, since junior year?"

In high school, Jay and Nicole had been assigned as each other's lab partners in Physics. She would recap episodes of My So-Called Life to him, but the nuances of the Angela-Jordan relationship were lost on him. He, in turn, would tell her how the school's various sports teams were performing, even though she would tell him that she would rather die than be seen chanting, "Go Pirates!" He was cute and tall and half-Swiss, half-Filipino, but too nice and normal to ever be her type. He still wasn't. At the farmer's market that evening, Nicole noted that he was wearing cargo pants, a blue button-down shirt, and some kind of abominable leather dress shoe with a rubber sole.

He offered her a ride home in his Prius, where he shared his vital statistics: environmental lawyer, divorced, no kids, house with a view of Mount Tabor, and a passion for kayaking.

"So I guess I'm kind of a weekend warrior," Jay said as he pulled up to Rusty's loft. Nicole couldn't tell if he was joking. "Are these legally zoned for live-work?

"I doubt it," she said.

"You always were a rebel."

"Hardly." She got out of the car and started collecting her tote bags stuffed with kohlrabi and plums. She thought she saw a polar fleece vest folded on the backseat. "Well, it's been fun catching up. We should do this in another fourteen years." She smiled and waved and started to shut the passenger side door.

"Wait, Nicole." Jay leaned over the seats. "Can I see you again? How long are you here for?"

Are you behind? Catch up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 7: Coping in Park Slope

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:49:46 +0000

Taken to Bed – A Picnic, of Sorts – Some Advice – Confrontation! – Sick of It – Emergency Action

Even on her happiest days, Nicole hated the jarring sound of her buzzer. The only reason why she ever bothered to answer the door was because she was always hoping UPS would come bearing a check from her agency. Today, there was no money, just Miranda, fresh from her honeymoon in Bora Bora. Someone happy and in love was the last person she wanted to see.

"I can't talk," Nicole said. "I have swine flu."

"You're such a bad liar," Nicole heard, through crackling. "Darsh told me everything. Buzz me in."

She hit the "door" button on her intercom, unlocked the front door to her apartment, and crawled back into bed. She had been bedridden for three days since she had seen Elias kiss another girl. Three days of pouting, listening alternately to "Little Green" and "You Oughta Know." Three days of watching "16 and Pregnant" marathons and wearing Elias' I HELLA [HEART] OAKLAND t-shirt.

Miranda kissed Nicole's cheek and proceeded to lay containers of food from Bklyn Larder on her bed: marcona almonds, a beet greens and ricotta sandwich, rhubarb sorbet, and some kind of goat cheese from Portugal. "We're going to have a picnic," she said, all aggressively cheerful, "Also, I spent like $80 on this, so you have to eat."

"I might as well wear Quacker Factory sweaters and have three kids and live in Iowa," Nicole said.

"Sweetie," Miranda said, "I think you're a little caught up in the moment."

"I want to be one of those people who is totally fine with someone they're sleeping with seeing other people, but I'm not."

"I hear you," Miranda said. "Really, I hear you. But you know what I think? Now I think you need to get out of the house."

Nicole refused to go further than across the street, so they sat in the backyard of Flatbush Farm and split two bottles of Tempranillo. Miranda showed her photos of the glass-bottomed bungalow she honeymooned in and told her about seeing Nicole Kidman at the resort and described in great detail just how bad she looked without makeup.

"Do you want to know my fail-safe method for getting over anyone?" Nicole nodded. "The first priority is to get out of town. Even just for a couple days. Then, while you're out of town, you need to make out with the first guy who doesn't totally repulse you. It can't be with someone you like because that's too complicated." She paused to eat an olive. "Then, when you get home, you need to get involved in some kind of project."

"Great." Nicole had no intention of doing any of this.

"It works, too. Remember that guy who I dumped because he said I wasn't angry enough about the 2004 election?"

"The guy with the Lhaso Apso?"

"Now he's on Twitter but it's written in the voice of the dog."

"Oh my God."

"See? Totally over him. Works every time."

Nicole got away as soon as she good. Then, she decided she was drunk enough to call Elias. He seemed to have no idea that her lack of contact for the past three days was symptomatic of any kind of issue on her end. He answered ("Hey, you!") and seemed happy to hear from her.

"Wow, this is so heavy," he said. After she told him she knew he was seeing other people, her voice started to crack. "I mean, I never promised anything. I'm sorry if you got the wrong impression but it's not my fault. It's terrible, the way that girls, like, exploit me. I told my buddy Pinky on Gchat the other day, I can't help it if I'm, like, magnetic. You know?"

Nicole was speechless and mad at herself for caring about him in the first place.

"So now that we've talked, do you want to come over later?" Elias asked.

"I think I'm good."

"I don't see why you have to ruin this," he said.

She hung up and started thinking about Miranda's advice. Maybe she should get out of town? She was sick of Brooklyn, with her stupid love life and her stupid job, and the cupcake bakeries, weekends upstate, spelt break, craft fairs, indoor composting, pork belly, holistic health counselors, biodynamic wine.

She got the emergency AmEx out of her wallet, walked over to her laptop, went to the website for JetBlue, and bought a one-way ticket leaving the next morning.

She hoped Portland was far enough away from her problems.

Behind? Catch up!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 6: Guilt Trips In Midtown

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:00:25 +0000

Into Manhattan – The Sexless Therapist – A Great Week! – A Romance Questioned – Who Needs a Hug? – An Awful Shock

If Nicole planned well enough, she could ration her visits to Manhattan to about once a week, revolving around her standing weekly therapy appointment. Brooklyn had a Trader Joe's and a Steven Alan but, for some reason, it still didn't have any decent mental health professionals. So she took an N or a Q to Midtown every week to visit Ruby, her psychoanalytic psychotherapist.

The office was on the 40th floor of a building that supposedly once housed an infamous high-end brothel but was now populated almost solely by therapists. Today was no different from any of the sessions of the past five years: Nicole rode up the elevator with the same patients, of other therapists, that she had never spoken to, browsed all the requisite reading material (New York, the New Yorker, Psychology Today), and, when it was the hour, went inside and lay down on the couch.

This session was going to be hard. For one thing, she was feeling great, on par with the month she gave up gluten and refined sugar, except this time it was a week spent with Elias. They had weathered a particularly brutal post-Saragossa Manuscript Q&A together, kissed, and then spent almost every night after at some variation of one of the ubiquitous rustic locavore restaurants in Brooklyn with Farm or Barn or Garden or Commons in the name. They had been walking around the Gowanus Canal and had popped into Union Market to buy groceries when they heard about the death of Michael Jackson. Nicole considered that a solidifying moment in their relationship.

Ruby started making dismissive noises. "Relationship? What relationship? You two have basically been eating strawberries in bed together for a week."

Nicole was certain Ruby was not having sex. That must have been her that one time, spied from behind, at the Toys in Babeland on Bergen Street.

"Why aren't you happy for me?"

"I think you're high on oxytocin."

"Oh, so you're Patti Stanger now?"

"Okay." Ruby tried another approach. "What do you two talk about?"

What did Nicole and Elias talk about? Everything: mixtapes they made in high school, The Wall Street Baths versus The Russian and Turkish Baths, their shared passion for laser shows at the planetarium.

"Once we talked about how it's fun to use the word 'autumnal' in a sentence and then we decided we should we were both going to start a Scandinavian crime novel book club for just the two of us," she said.

Ruby sighed. "I think you need to remind yourself that you don't know this young man very well." She cleared her throat. "Our time's up for this week, but let's keep talking about this next week."

Nicole wrote out a check for $200, rode the elevator down, and walked toward the Manhattan Center, where she was supposed to meet Darshan. Amma was in town, hugging strangers for three days straight, and everyone at Kripalu had been telling her how, in these uncertain times, the only really authentic thing was human contact. Darsh, always on the lookout for new age cachet, felt it was completely necessary to get a hug from the Indian saint. Even if it meant waiting for five hours to do it.

Nicole made her way past the bumper stickers that read, "One World, One Spirit, One Love," the t-shirts that had "mother of bliss" printed in faux Devanagari script, and the blonde with dreadlocks telling a woman in a sari, "I swear I was Indian in a previous life."

"Your dress is too short," Darsh said to Nicole, who was wearing a new APC minidress. "It's disrespectful. India is a totally conservative country."

"Please don't start. Ruby just lectured me about how I'm too swept up in Elias."

"Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah. But honestly, what else do I have? There's only so much time I can spend transcribing interviews with Corbin Bleu and pretending like I'm too busy to go to dinner at Jared and Eva's."

"I heard Eva lives on Lean Cuisines."

"Ew!" Nicole laughed so hard that a couple sitting next to them wearing matching buffalo plaid turned to stare. Darsh's number was called and Nicole hugged Darshan goodbye-"Go get some inner peace!"-and got on the subway.

Back in Brooklyn, leaving the Atlantic/Pacific stop, Niole decided to make an unscheduled appearance. Elias lived just a few blocks away and she hadn't spoken to him in almost sixteen hours.

As she walked toward his garden apartment, she thought she saw someone at the door. She stopped and fished her glasses out of her tote bag, which had a map of Berlin on it. A tall brunette girl stood waiting at the doorstep. The girl rang the buzzer again. Elias opened the door. He kissed the girl hello. On the mouth.

Are you behind? Catch up on parts 1 through 5!

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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Managed Expectations, Part 5: Flummoxed at the Flea

Marisa Meltzer — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:59:43 +0000

When Mindy Became Melinda – A "Birth Story" – Oh, Miss Havisham – A Trip to Fort Greene – A Line for Huaraches – An Ex with Some New Accoutrement – A Much-Desired Encounter! -

The only email Nicole received on Friday night was from Melinda.

Subject: here's our girl!

Winnie Charlotte Saville
Born Friday, June 12 at 3:40 a.m.
7 lbs 9 oz
19 1/4 inches

Melinda, Nicole's best friend from high school, had once been known as Mindy. She and Nicole used to smoke cloves after field hockey practice and shared crushes on the one guy in their grade who wore a Primus t-shirt to class. Mindy had been so distraught over the death of River Phoenix that the 15-year-old had gotten a tattoo in his likeness on her lower back. It had turned out poorly, since the only tattoo artist who had neglected to card her wasn't very talented. In her grown-up life, she had covered up the tattoo with a slightly more tasteful chrysanthemum and only answered to Melinda. She had gotten married a couple of years ago (Brooklyn Botanic Garden; $800 Lhuillier bridesmaid dresses; ice cream sundae bar; changed her last name) to a British guy, a notable food stylist. They owned a brownstone on Sterling Avenue.

Early on in her pregnancy, after Netflixing The Business of Being Born, Melinda had decided she absolutely had to have a home birth, which Nicole thought was slightly out of character, considering she had taken a Percocet before she would even let the tattoo needle touch her skin.

The bulk of this email described what Mindy called her "birth story," which seemed to involve a pool, multiple massages, and fond memories of the risotto her doula had served post-birth. "I gave birth to the little angel without any pain medication and no tearing. I have never felt so proud of anything I've done in my life, and now I have Winnie to remind me of that every day."

Nicole sent Darshan a text: "Another home birth. I have to go buy a onesie at the flea tomorrow. Will you come with me?"

Darshan texted back fast. "Of course. Did Elias call????"

"I feel like Miss Havisham," she typed.

Elias hadn't called. There had been texts back and forth for a day after Darshan's party, regarding daydreaming and missing each other, but then finally it had been his turn to respond and he hadn't.

At least, Nicole thought, at the Fort Greene flea market she would be guaranteed to run into a couple guys she had made out with. Within fifteen minutes of entering the flea, she spotted Jared and Eva standing in line for huaraches. Jared asked how Toussaint was doing (she had to admit, the acupuncture was really helping the dog's stress level) and then Nicole excused herself to go find her friend.

Darshan was simultaneously eating a tofu hot dog topped with kim chee and nori and trying on Guatemalan sandals. "Should I buy these to wear on my shamanic meditation retreat?"

"Yeah, they'll be perfect," she said. Out of the corner of her eye, Nicole spotted Caleb, another former boyfriend, who had dumped her five years ago so he could move to Tacoma and study glassblowing. He was wearing a wedding ring-and a baby in a sling. Nicole was so depressed by everyone's reproductive activity that she made Darshan hide with her at a poster vendor so she didn't have to deal.

Nicole held up a vintage anatomical drawing of the female reproductive system. "If I buy this and hang it in my bedroom, is it good karma for my love life, or bad?"

"Babe, I think you're interpreting karma wrong. Here in the west, we tend to-"

"Come on! I just want to know if this poster will freak guys out. Oh shit," she gasped. "Darsh, look." There was Elias. He was standing at the plant booth, holding up a piece of driftwood and asking if it was for sale. He was alone.

Darsh kissed her goodbye. "I have to go pack for Kripalu." And she pushed Nicole in Elias's direction.

Nicole took a hit from her inhaler and walked up behind Elias, who appeared to be talking about how he once bonded with driftwood after taking mushrooms on the Oregon coast. "And then," he told a bored-looking girl, "I saw the soul in the wood, you know?"

"Elias, hey."

"Hey, you. What'd you buy?" He nodded toward a paper bag.

"A onesie with a Union Jack on it. A friend had a home birth." She wrinkled her nose. "Because it's not like I'm pregnant." She laughed, rolled her eyes, and cleared her throat.

"I'm probably gonna get out of here." Elias yawned and stretched his arms over his head. She could see two inches of his stomach.

Nicole took a deep breath. "So there's this movie at BAM in an hour? The Saragossa Manuscript?" When she was anxious, she reverted to the valley girl speech patterns of her youth.

"Jerry Garcia's favorite movie." He smiled. "I've never seen it."

Nicole battled for more air, and asked: "You wanna go?"

Behind? Here are Parts 1 Through 4.

Marisa Meltzer lives in Brooklyn. Her next book, "Girl Power," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February.
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