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: : : AND THEN A COUPLE OF days go by where Julius doesn't return her phone calls or respond to her e-mails. By the third day she has a pretty firm sense that she's been dumped, even though she keeps telling herself don't overreact, even though she keeps telling herself there are other possible explanations. Still. Even in her charitable interpretations he comes off as pretty careless. If you sleep with a girl and you want to sleep with her again it's probably a good idea to give her a call within the next forty-eight hours, no matter what the extenuating circumstances are. Surely guys know at least that much.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving she finds a pretext to go down to the Legal Department so that she can corner him in his cubicle and force an interaction of some sort. But he's not there. The departmental receptionist tells her that he took some extra time off this week, extending his holiday break. Maybe that's it, Lydia thinks. He's off with his family or something; maybe he hasn't even gotten my messages. But even then—you'd think that someone you're fucking would at least mention it if they were going to be out of touch for a week.
For Thanksgiving, she goes out to Detroit, and the whole time she's out there she resists the urge to check her e-mail on her dad's computer. She checks her voicemail, though, probably about once every six hours. Throughout the course of the whole weekend she gets exactly two messages: one from Paul and one that's an offer for sattelite TV hookup.
She finally comes across the message she's waiting for on Monday morning, when she's deleting her way through the drifts of junk that have collected in her e-mail Inbox over the weekend. There's a message there from Julius. The subject is sorry.
The key sentence in sorry is this one: I have to be honest with you and tell you that this isn't really what I'm looking for.
Crap, Lydia thinks, and she taps her pen against her teeth.
Later that night she's on the phone with Paul. —I wasn't even that into him, she says. She makes a fist and presses it against her forehead. —At best, I mean at absolute best, I was half into him, you know? The whole time we were going out I was like half-ready to dump him? So why does it hurt so fucking bad that he dumped me?
—It's always tough to be rejected, Paul says.
—Yeah, says Lydia, with a note of dissatisfaction. —I mean, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I think I wouldn't feel so bad about it if it didn't happen right after we'd had sex. I mean, a relationship just gets started and the person dumps you, that's, you know, that's whatever. There could be a million reasons for that. But somebody dumps you right after you have sex? That's like—that's like a message. That's like saying sorry, you're just not good in bed.
—Well, maybe—
—And it's not even like he was that good! So I don't know where he's coming from, implying that I'm no good. I mean, he got off, right? If the guy gets off it must mean that you're good enough, right?
—I guess, Paul says.
—And to dump somebody through e-mail, Lydia says. —Through e-mail! When you work in the same building with the person? I mean, that's just—that's just fucking tacky. If you can't fucking walk up two fucking flights of stairs to break up with someone to their face?
—Well—
—Forget it, Lydia says. —Let's just—let's just forget it. Forget him, forget the whole fucking thing. Talk to me about something else. Tell me how your thing is going. Give me some good news.
—Good news, Paul says.
—Yeah, Lydia says. —Cause, you know, one of us needs to be having some kind of luck.
—I don't know if I have much good news, Paul says.
—No? Lydia says. —But I thought things with Scott were going well.
—Well, we never did go to see Matrix Reloaded.
—Why not? Lydia says.
—I don't know, Paul says. —We were originally going to go with Marvin, but then Marvin started to be all like not wanting to go, because the reviews have been so bad—
—Paul, Lydia says.
—What?
—Why don't you and Scott just go by yourselves?
—Oh, Paul says. —I don't know. I mean, that's like—that's like an actual date. Like a date-type date.
—Right, Lydia says. —It is a date-type date. That's the whole point.
—Yeah, Paul says. —But I don't know. I mean—I don't want to scare him off or anything.
—Paul, Lydia says.
—Yeah.
—You asked him to go to the movies with you, right?
—Right.
—And he said yes, right?
—Right.
—Then just go to the movies with him. It's not going to scare him off. If you asked him and he said yes that means that he wants to go.
—I guess, says Paul.
—Guess nothing, says Lydia.
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