Within a week of our agreement to abide by the tips of the Gottmans in their Love Prescription book, Henry slaps the yellow paperback against the ottoman and yells,
“You aren’t responding to my bids for connection!”
The Gottmans want us to behave the way we did when we first met, when I couldn’t hear enough about his beloved niece, his simultaneously charmed and abusive childhood, his time drinking, smoking, and managing punk bands. We didn’t have to gamify our relationship when we were genuinely interested in each other. Now he repeats the slapping of the Gottman’s book against the ottoman.
I feel like I’m not supposed to view it as a tantrum, like I’m supposed to get curious about why I got him in such a state. I think maybe I’m not meant to be a person in a romantic partnership because I want to laugh. I want to stand up and march out the door, and I want the house to turn on its side and shake until he drops out a window. God, no I don’t want him to injure himself. He can dust off his pants and walk into the sunset. Forget about me and all of this. I don’t feel sympathy or empathy or anything but contempt which is one of the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse, which according to the Gottmans will be the death of this union. I look into my partner’s mad-hatter eyes and rigid posture, primed for the fight.
Let the horsemen come. Let them carry moments like this away and restore peace to my life.
…
On Halloween, I make a cherry shrub. I’m experimenting with these sugar, fruit and vinegar based concoctions as an alternative beverage to alcohol. Drinking water at a cocktail party is fine and healthy, and I’m not ashamed of it, but I don’t want the sight of someone’s fun-looking alcoholic beverage to ignite the tiniest spark of regret in my choice not to drink. I put the thick red syrup in a capped glass bottle and label it “NOT BLOOD.”
Trish is going as the corpse bride. She converted the room that used to be Karli’s into her make-up room, and we spend the day in there painting our faces. She blocks out her eyebrows, draws giant orbs for her eyes, and turns her face and arms periwinkle by mixing a blue tube of pigment with foundation. We overuse the Arrested Development joke about how she blue herself. I layer white on white on my skin and red eyeshadow around my eyes. It’s the one day of the year when we can present ourselves as art. It’s the first time in five years that I’ve gone to a Halloween party even though it’s my favorite holiday.
Henry is on a Netflix binge. He turned down my invitation to go to the party and behaves like the shadow that darkens the couch. I try to stay upbeat. Parties are hard for him. It’s something he learned when we went sober to Lauren and Dustin’s wedding. He can’t wrap his head around socializing without booze.
I wear a deep-plunging crimson velvet dress with a long black wig. I spend 20 minutes installing my teeth. The kit comes with two sizes of fangs and a bag of tiny white waxy plastic balls that melt when you heat them up. You shove them into the socket of the fake tooth and then affix the tooth to your own, pressing it firmly as the plastic hardens. I chose them as opposed to the cheap full-mouth vampire teeth that I would have to take on and off throughout the night. I remember the strings of saliva when they’re pulled out. That’s not the kind of scary I’m going for.
When I’m on the way out the door to Lauren and Dustin’s, Henry says, “Maybe Dustin invited a friend for you to meet.”