Killing Me Softly

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

We were walking to the glass store on Pico where we’ve been too many times already—this time, my son had broken his window with a nicely testosteroned 15-year-old’s injudicious slam, and my nice landlady was going to reinstall it for us once I’d bought the new pane—when my boyfriend said, out of nowhere, “Nobody loves me.”

“Shut the fuck up, Dummy!” I didn’t say to him. I didn’t even raise an eyebrow in surprise, nor did I insist that in fact someone did—most likely, the person walking next to him who had just been curled up in his arms for a late-morning cuddle and oxytocin bath. In response, I pointed out a particularly interesting shrub.

photo by Lisa Wines

He’s the one who groaned “Why me?” yesterday when I mentioned my birthday is two weeks away. (No, I explained to him sweetly, as to a retarded child, you’re supposed to be happy I was born.) He’s the one who moaned “Can we talk about this later?” when I asked what he wanted to do for Valentine’s Day. If anybody got to kvell and bitch about being unloved, it was I, not this much-petted and –stroked and –face-kissed big baby. And you don’t see me kvelling about it, because as stupid as that stupid manbaby is? He was walking with me to the glass shop, and holding Lilo’s leash, and just a few minutes earlier he’d had his nose buried contentedly in my armpit, and I do not smell “good.” He doesn’t have to tell me he loves me—and he doesn’t (tell me)(ever)(except when I ask him, which is every day)(and then he frowns and squeezes his eyes shut and jerks his head once for yes and says “yes” like he is mad at me)—for me to know he does. Shut the fuck up, Dummy! I tell him in my heart, which loves him.

I am 37 years old this month. I have Humphrey Bogart wrinkles in my forehead and a teenage son whose advanced years no longer elicit surprise from strangers that one so young as I could have such a growed-up child. I wear mom clothes. It’s pretty gross. I have never married, and I may never marry, and that has always made me sad. But I’m not sad now. We are walking to the glass store, and my handsome boyfriend is holding Lilo’s leash.

Very few years have I had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day—usually, I reserve the evening to watch Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats and throw things at the television and feel, really, very sorry for me. The one I have now is emphatically not a romantic—but I’ve had grand romantic boyfriends before, and they were terrible, unkind and even frightening men. This one bitches, and mopes, and only buys me flowers if I’ve already pointed out they’re the type I especially hate. He pointedly refuses to write me so much as a love e-mail, but he sends me pictures of myself photoshopped onto billboards or in a Catwoman suit, and that’s like a love e—mail, I think? In a year he’s never said an unkind or even critical word to me, and when we bicker, or even really fight, he sticks to the argument at hand (and sticks to it, and sticks to it ...) instead of pointing out that I’m a middle-aged harpy with bacne. He offers without pouting to go grocery shopping with me, and like a man he carries all the bags, while I stroll unencumbered next to him and let people assume I’m a delicate flower/entitled dick. He calls to see if I’d like a visit and I look out the window and there he is, like a proper stalker, just like I like them. He cackles: he got me, slouched unbecomingly over the computer, hair and teeth unbrushed, and not pretty even the littlest bit. Ho ho ho, joke’s on me!

This middle-aged love is comforting—we soothe each other, and we like each other—but his pupils don’t dilate and his breath doesn’t catch when he looks at me. So every once in a while, to keep him on his toes, I yell at him to get the fuck out of my house, and I break up with him, and we don’t talk for several days or even a week. Then, despite the fact that he wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend, and I roped him in unwillingly, he texts to ask if I’m up for a visit, and out my window he’s got the proper look on his face: cowed and scared and missing me. And I kiss him softly all over his face.

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