Who You Know by Theresa Alan Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t know exactly when it happened, if there was one exact moment or a gradual decline, but at some point, when I tried to talk to him about my work, my dreams, my day, he would look so bored and uninterested that I would cut my story short. After a while, I rarely talked at all. How had I managed to marry such a stranger?
    In the first few dates you have all your stories to share, all your jokes to tell. You see movies you don’t want to see and laugh at jokes that aren’t funny. Then, a few dates down the road, you have sex, and it’s good, and you wonder if this could be love. The next dates have a lot of sex and not so much talking, so you don’t notice that it’s because you don’t particularly have much to say to each other. You’re grateful someone finds you attractive and wants to spend time with you. You mistake your gratitude for love.
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    M aybe Gideon was right. Did we ever truly love each other? Did we ever really like each other? Or were we so eager to be a part of a “we,” to have a companion for Saturday nights and occasions like holidays and office parties that we ignored the fact that we didn’t really get each other? Gideon was good-looking, he was intelligent, he was sweet and caring and the kind of guy I couldn’t wait to introduce to my friends and family. I really thought I loved him. It had been easy for me not to notice that we didn’t get each other’s jokes and that we didn’t really have anything to talk about. I was so enthralled with the idea of him, of the person I made him out to be in my imagination.
    I even made myself believe it was a good thing that we were so different. I’d never read a fashion magazine in my life, and he wanted nothing more than to make it as a model. He read every men’s magazine and knew the names of every designer. He always dressed better than I did. He even wore designer pajamas to bed. I liked wearing sweats and a T-shirt at night, but he liked me in silk negligees. Some nights I’d placate him, but the silk was too expensive to clean and I never slept well in it. I felt like an actress, someone pretending to be stylish. Why, I would ask, does it matter what I’m wearing when I’m asleep? He would argue something about the clothes making the man. He exhausted me with his dedication to style, to every little detail. One time when we were going to the clubs, I was wearing a black outfit, and I didn’t feel like putting my stuff from the brown purse I brought to work every day into my black purse. When we were getting ready to go, Gideon looked at me. “You’re not going to bring your black purse? Your brown purse doesn’t match.”
    I dutifully changed purses, all the while thinking, weren’t guys supposed to be oblivious to things like whether your purse matched your outfit?
    It wasn’t that we didn’t have fun together. We got that part right. We went dancing all the time. After a couple of drinks, in the darkly lit clubs, I would watch him dance and be enthralled with him, with the way he carried himself, the way he smiled and moved. His easy confidence was enticing. We would go home and make love hungrily; then in the morning we’d make love again, slowly this time. It took a long time for me to realize what was missing from our relationship. In Gideon, I had a lover and a companion, but I didn’t really have a friend. Gideon never really got who I was.
    I hadn’t realized how unhappy I was until Gideon told me. We had gone to see some mind-numbing movie and went to Wendy’s for dinner afterward. We sat across from each other with our plastic forks in hand. I looked at my salad and strained to think of something to talk about.
    â€œAvery, you’re a good person . . .” he began.
    I let out a little laugh. I knew what he was going to say. I’d known the end was coming without knowing I knew. I couldn’t look at