A Woman's Survival Guide to Difficult Men: Playing with Fire
Chapter 9: Playing with Fire
NOTE: This story jumps back and forth in time. If you’re just tuning in, you may want to start with Chapter 7 for the full New York arc.
I’m in bed in my small white bedroom in Santa Monica, legs tucked under a colorful embroidered duvet with my computer on my lap. I’m trying to write this book, but my mind keeps wandering.
Fuck it. I click open a new window and Google Liam. Facebook, I’ll look there.
I remember his name for some reason even though we met only once, seventeen years ago. Liam Eason, like the actor, Liam Neeson. Eason? Measton? I search variations on the name, adding a comma and “Australia” next to it. A “Liam Easton” pops up. We have a mutual friend. I flip through his page.
Australian, check. About five years younger than me, yes, that sounds about right. I didn’t learn much else about him – at least that I remember – except that he had a six-month-old baby when we met. I scroll through his photos and his feed, full-on stalker style. Boom. He has a kid, approximately 17 years old. No apparent baby mama in the pictures, although plenty of pretty ladies – never more than one picture of each. A couple friends tag him in posts like “still waiting for Liam to show up” with an eye roll emoji. He has a guitar in several pictures. Tan complexion, full head of dark hair, rakish good looks. I squint to imagine what he might have looked like 17 years ago. I guess it could be him. He lives in San Diego now.
Screw it. I hit the friend request button just to see if he’ll accept. He does.
The next day, I log back onto Facebook, and something takes me over. An insatiable curiosity. I send him a message.
“By any chance, did you spend time in New York summer of 2001?”
A few minutes go by. I hear Dean come into the house. My phone pings.
It’s a reply from Liam. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
Dean walks into the room and I talk to him for a minute before he leaves to use the restroom.
“Ping!” goes my phone. Facebook Messenger again. I haven’t answered yet and Liam writes, “Should I be checking if you have any familiar looking 16 yo kids in your photos? Lol”
Dean walks back into the room and lies down beside me. We haven’t seen each other all day and he’s touching base. My heart is pounding. Is this considered cheating? I feel guilty. Why do I feel guilty? Dean and I had a particularly nice night last night and he’s feeling lovey. I am, too, only now I’m totally distracted.
“I’m going to finish writing this, and then we can go to dinner,” I say.
“That’s cool,” he says. “I gotta stop watching porn on the road. Some troll just tried to blackmail me, says he hacked my computer and got my password so I need to go change all my passwords now.”
“Good luck with that,” I say. “Close the door on your way out.”
Quickly, I open Facebook again. “Ha!” I write. “No, I have an eight-year-old who looks exactly like her father.”
“OK, good,” he replies. Then, “Have we met?”
“I don’t know,” I respond. “I met a Liam Eason, Australian, with a guitar who told me he had a six-month-old baby.”
“That sounds like me.”
“We met in Central Park, you played your guitar, improvised a song and I definitely took you home that night.”
“Huh. I wonder if I remember that.”
We chat back and forth for a while until he informs me that he has to leave for work. “Let’s continue this exploration into the past later.”
I should just say “OK,” but I drop a few more details and say, “I hope I didn’t spook you. The memory is a good one.” I kick myself for saying too much, suddenly a stupid girl bumbling and second-guessing my words, my actions. Why do I care, anyway?
This casts a tiny shadow over my dinner with Dean. There’s no way I will tell him about this exchange. We’ve had some hard times but we’ve also had good times. The tough ones have widened the cracks in our foundation, and occasionally I have allowed myself to imagine a life without him.
But why do I feel the need to revisit the past or contact this Liam person? What is my intention anyway? I feel something familiar in my chest when he writes “catch you later.” Like rejection.
Seventeen years ago, I was a train wreck. Just out of a bad breakup and looking for validation. There it is. Am I still looking for that? Is that why I contacted Liam? I’m looking for confirmation that I can still be an object of desire. My husband is loving, sexy and attentive. He makes me feel wanted, but maybe I need that validation from outside my marriage. Especially now that my looks are changing. I’m getting older. I don’t recognize the woman in the mirror sometimes. Am I still desirable?
This is what it would feel like if you left Dean, I tell myself. Back in the quagmire of self-doubt and mixed signals. Dating has a way of devolving grown women to schoolgirl levels of anxiety and doubt. Analyzing every word and text. Did I say the right thing? Too much? Not enough? Maybe because society teaches us to let the man lead and appear only at his behest. While I do believe in the psychology of a man’s need for “the hunt,” it often feels like it robs us of our self-worth and dignity. My mischievous Picasso side can’t resist keeping the flirtation in play. It probably sounds strange for a woman to attract a misogynist muse, but Picasso’s been popping up for me for years. A Lothario who loved the adventure and inspiration of taking new lovers, he whispers encouragement in my ear, “Go sailing over those speed bumps, Pam, fuck up the shocks. You’ll get another car. But you won’t get another life.”
The next day, “Ping!” goes my phone. Another message from Liam: “I’m still a little cloudy on details. Perhaps you could describe what happened at your place!!! Lol”
I’m titillated by this throughout the day, thinking of witty retorts and flirty refrains, while juggling excitement and temptation with a dash of guilt. Sometimes it’s fun to play with fire, even when you have no intention of setting your life ablaze. It’s a ride with twists and turns and mirrors distorting reality for a moment. Just as a show or a movie can distract you from reality for a short time, my journey down memory lane turned into a tunnel of possibility, excitement but more likely doom and regret. He was already the instrument of feelings I never wish to have again – feelings of not being worthy or beautiful, questioning every word, thought and action. For a thrilling moment, the rollercoaster crested and I thought of putting my hands up and seeing where the ride would take me, allowing my heart and stomach to summit to my chest as my hair blew back and I screamed. Wooooooo!!!!
Then what? The ride is over. You maybe spilled your popcorn. The baby is crying and you still need to do the laundry. Life resumes. It was a temporary distraction, a fun ride, but what did it offer you really?
Remember in New York, I tell myself, you never heard from him again and that was OK. It was a diversion, like all the rest.
I send my final message:
“Perhaps the fact that I remember and you don’t points to the frequency of this kind of rendezvous on my part versus yours. Ah well, it was fun to take a trip down memory lane for a moment. At the risk of sounding more stalkerish than I do already, I looked you up and listened to some of your music. It’s beautiful. I wish you the best of luck with that and hope our paths cross again someday.”
Wait, I left the door open. Shut it, I tell myself. Shut it completely. For your own dignity, for once – shut the door.
I delete “and hope our paths cross again someday.” There.
I close my computer. And five minutes later, I resist the urge to check for his reply.
*This is a work of fiction loosely based on true events. Names and details have been changed.