My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands | Page 8

to do something she wouldn't be good at anyway.

Marty called the next day to apologize, for what I don't know. This happened with all of her

boyfriends. They would somehow convince themselves overnight that they were the ones

who were wrong. It was too late, though. Once Ivory made her mind up about a guy there was

no turning back. She never whined or complained after a breakup; she just moved forward.

She had just come back from her morning jog where she met her new boyfriend, deciding we

were done with the whole “blue-collar” thing. I was fine with that because I was getting tired of

hearing myself scream the name Turtle in bed.

“We're moving on to Latin America,” she told me.

“Salud,” I said, holding up a glass of Slim-Fast. “Finally, we can get back to your roots.”

Her new boyfriend, Jorge, didn't speak a word of English, and luckily enough, he had a

friend who didn't either. Beautiful Latin boys. They were our sophisticated Latin lovers, who

would cook for us at my parents' house for the next two weeks. They introduced us to salsa,

sangria, and communication via the ojos.

My guy's name was Hector, which he pronounced “Heeeeector.” We couldn't really com-

municate, but he seemed nice, and he was a good swimmer. We would make out for hours at

a time, but that's as far as it went. The one time he tried to initiate sex, we were in the shower.

I was on the edge of the tub where there's a little area to sit, and he grabbed my hands to

bring me closer to him. As I got up, my feet slipped out from underneath me and I went flying

through his legs, landing on my back and hitting my head. The last thing I had tried to grab

onto for balance was his penis. After that, we decided to keep things more casual.

Jorge, on the other hand, really fell for Ivory and actually proposed marriage to her. She

had this thing where guys would propose to her all the time, which I never understood. Every

guy she dated was absolutely in love with her. I mean, Ivory was very attractive and funny,

but men acted like her vagina had some sort of potpourri shooting out of it.

Anyway, Jorge proposed and Ivory accepted like she always did until she sobered up and

realized Jorge probably just wanted his visa.

The next day we received a phone call from the Martha's Vineyard Police Department

wanting to know if we had any idea of the whereabouts of a Mr. Jorge Menendez, who was

wanted for grand theft auto. No wonder they were cooking for us at home.

I told the police my parents weren't home and our gardener's name was Alejandro. Other

than that, I didn't know anyone of Spanish descent.

I explained to Ivory that our summer of love was over and we needed to vacate the

premises. We packed our bags, called home, and told our parents that we were homesick.

That's slang for “on the run.”

We discussed our future and decided since we were both twenty and hated college as

well as New Jersey, it was time to broaden our horizons.

“How does California sound to you?” Ivory asked. “You could be an actress and I'll get a

real job.”

“Finally,” I moaned. “Now you're starting to make sense.”

And off we went.

My Horizontal Life

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

GUESS WHO'S LEAVING THROUGH THE WINDOW?

“SHVARTZER” is the term my father uses to refer to black people. It is a Yiddish slang

word that basically means “black,” “colored,” or “Negro.” My father will argue with you until the

sun comes up that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body, one of his favorite defenses be-

ing, “Are you kidding? I love the blacks, they make great employees. Plus, they can run like

bell.” This is the same man who went to a cocktail party in the late eighties with my mother

and upon seeing the only black couple there, approached the woman and asked her if she

would be interested in cleaning our house.

I met my first black boyfriend at the local community college. Tyrone and I sat next to each

other in Russian history class. Our professor was a thick-accented Russian who talked more

about his childhood than he did about Russia's history. On our midterms we were asked actu-

al questions about his personal life—in what city he was born, how old was he when he

learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Tyrone and I would laugh at the absurdity of

Professor Beregova's self-importance, but everyone else there seemed to think this was per-

fectly normal lesson planning.

“This can't be happening at real colleges,” Tyrone said to me one day after class. “Why

doesn't anyone else in class think this is strange?”

“I know,” I said. “And this is supposed to be one of the top-ten community colleges in the

country.”

When I brought Tyrone home for dinner,