The Discount Life: Step Four - Awknowledge a State of Processing

At the end of class I checked my phone. It had happened. Jack had proposed. A text message from Mel, followed by a lengthy voicemail detailing the goings on, confirmed that he had, indeed, done a perfect job on his proposal. She even used the phrase All The Way to describe his perfection. The ring she detailed, a one carat diamond off set by swirls of tiny sapphires and diamond baguettes, was set in platinum, old as Alabama and just the kind of piece she’d have picked herself, a fact of which I assured Jack would be true after having viewed the picture he sent to my camera phone. She was happy and as luck would have it, so was I.


“My best friend just got engaged,” I said to Christian as we left through the double doors to the building. There was a coffee shop across the street. I pointed to it and we headed there.

“Awesome,” he said. “Congrats to her.” Our legs fell into stride, the cold air shrinking us into ourselves.

“Actually its two of my friends. Jack told me he was proposing tonight. That’s why Mel didn’t come to class. We consulted about it and I’ve kind of been waiting to hear how he did it.”

“How did he do it?” he opened the door and put a hand to the small of my back, ushering me in to an engulfing smell of warm espresso and chocolate.

“Perfectly,” I said, “no discounts.” His response was non-verbal, a quizzical scrunch of the face.

“Hold that thought,’ he said, turning to the cashier. “I’ll have a drip coffee. Black, please. Chloe?”

“I’ll have a non-fat latte please, no whip.”

“Aww, you’re taking all the fun out of it,” Christian said.

“I’m saving my thighs is what I’m doing.”

“Your thighs look good to me.” I blushed and to cover for myself, rolled my eyes at him for the second time that evening. In truth, he was always making me blush, even when it didn’t show. Around him there was a constant heat. If I could’ve unbuttoned my shirt again I would have but to do so would mean risking indecent exposure. I hid my face into task and started digging in my purse for some money. He stopped me, his hand touching my elbow; a disarmament.

“My treat,” he said, “you buy next time. And by the way, I know what you’re doing.” He turned his body mid way between myself and the cashier and paid the man with cash.

“What?”

“You’re rolling your eyes so you don’t have to accept my compliment.” He smirked and it said that I needn’t bother explaining myself. He knew he was correct.

“False compliments shouldn’t be taken,” I said.

“I don’t speak in riddles. I mean what I say. And I wanted to compliment you, so you should let me.” Why was this guy single again? Where was the flaw? He made me feel naked, exposed. Like he’d gained access to the little leather couch inside my head where I frequently sent myself for council. Like any second he would pull back the curtain and I’d have no place to hide. “You have nice thighs,” he said.

I responded, apathetically, with, “I’m going to get my coffee,” and walked to the pickup counter.

The tables were cozy, a scene for couples and snuggling. They were tiny and so close together our legs touched just by sitting. I wanted to let my knee rest on his knee all night but prudence suggested I’d have no shot at retaining his respect if I did. I shifted myself as far to the side as possible and hoped he couldn’t tell I wanted him to touch me. Something told me, he knew anyway.

“So, no discounts? What’s that mean? How did your friend propose?” I was hesitant to tell him about the Discount Life. It hadn’t gone over so well with Stanley. Or should I say that it seemed to represent something so small to Stanley, that given its epic stature in my world, his reaction to it as trivial deflated me. I wasn’t sure I could handle deflation from Christian. His role, thus far, had only made me feel more self assured. But the open earnestness on his face alleviated my fears. Falsehood or no falsehood, I was lured by his honesty.

“No discounts is a thing Mel and I have been talking a lot about lately. We’re kind of working on this project…” and I continued until I had unraveled the whole of the DL theory, including the park bench and its meeting of quasi degenerates. When I finished, the uneasy feeling that I’d disclosed too much of myself left me feeling susceptible. I started to fidget. He leaned in over the table, his shoulders rounding toward me, a stance I registered as interest and said, “I think it’s a brilliant idea. I mean, we’ve all done that in some way or another. It’s very – human.”

I smiled. Human. That’s what I had called it. “Well, so Jack called me and was terrified that his proposal wasn’t going to cut it after all that discount life talk. I gave him some pointers and he did great.” He’d asked her to meet him at her favorite book store, a place in the east end where the books were always two dollars more than Barnes & Noble but one that Mel thought had character. He’d feigned urgency and she’d called to cancel class with me. When she arrived, a sales woman approached her with a letter that read “I think you’re favorite author is trying to tell you something. Check the fiction section – Jack”. When she found Oates, Joyce Carol, in the fiction section she was met with several Post-It notes sticking out from the pages of her books. The first said, I love that you love to read more than you love anything else. Even me. The second said, I love that you never leave the bathroom without folding the toilet paper into a triangle in case a guest comes over.

I love that you can’t have anything on your plate touch before you eat it.
I love that you think you love Jim Beam but really its Jack Daniels. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell you – you never remember.
I love that you have to hit the snooze button exactly three times before you’ll get up in the morning.
I love that when my mother was in the hospital, you drove up with me in the middle of the night and didn’t ask me to talk.
I love that you steal the covers at night – actually I hate that but its you
I love the expression on your face when you find a pair of shoes you have to have even though you have a million pairs
I love that because of that expression I have no room in our closet – when we buy a house I want my own walk in
I love that every day and every night for the past three years, I have come home to a woman that has every piece of my heart.
I would love if you would be that woman for as long as we both shall live….

“The last one said, ‘I think you should open this book’ and inside he’d carved out space for the ring, so when she opened it, it was waiting for her. And then he came around the corner and said will you marry me?”

“Wow. He really did do a good job. I’m impressed. You didn’t tell him to do all that?”

“Nope. I just told him to think hard about the little things and he listened,” I sipped my coffee. “Glad to hear someone did,” I laughed. “Guess we’ll have a wedding to plan now. That’s exciting.”

“Is it?” he asked. “Do you wish it was yours?” The question startled me. Poignant questions usually warranted months, if not years, of friendship before they reached that level of introspection. His forthright speculation unarmed the standard of my evasive charm.

“No,” I said too quickly. “I’m not ready to be married.” Half truth.

“You’re not ready to be married or not you’re not ready to be married to him?” How does he do that?

“Both, I guess. If I’m not ready to be married to him, there’s no one else waiting in line. So I guess I’m not ready to be married.”

He looked me directly in the eye for several seconds before saying, “Aww, I don’t think it will take long for guys to line up for the job.” Sweet talk – to which my initial reaction was elation, followed quickly by distrust. It’s rare to find a man in life whose sweet talk didn’t fall short the second it required action. Perhaps that explains my current situation. If you set the bar low enough, disappointment is easier to stave off. But, as my presence at the coffee shop proved, not entirely. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to look into his eyes and let myself melt. Instead I said, “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me,” deflection, “It’s about Mel and Jack…”

He cut me off, “Let’s make it about you,” redirection,”Do you want to get married? Have kids?”

“Yes,” I answered too quickly for comfort.

“So what’s keeping you?”

“I don’t know. It’s just…” my hesitation provoked waves of guilt. Incrimination by omission. Christian raised his eyebrows questioningly. Almost mockingly. “There’s something missing I guess.”

He shook his head in concurrence. “So you’re here with me instead?” I opened my mouth to defend myself but nothing came out. The pregnant lull that followed was brutal. He stroked the rim of his coffee mug and with the demeanor of a scared school boy asked, “We have something here, huh?”

My heart jumped. “What?” I said, hating the sound of my affectation. “We’re just having coffee. Friends have coffee.”

“You’re doing it again,” he said wagging a finger at me and smiling broadly. I attemtped my defense and he put up his palm as if to say stop. He was right. I was lying to myself. I cast my eyes down. “So you like to cook,” deflection, “what else do you do?”

“I’m an office administrator for the Philadelphia Orchestra.”

“I meant, in your spare time you like to….?”

“Well, lately, I run and I play the violin and...,” I paused,” I have a goals list and I’m trying to focus on them.”

“Trying?”

“Well okay, Doctor Christian, what about you? Its your turn.”

“Me? I’m a schmuck.” Perhaps but a perfect schmuck. “I’m in marketing – online marketing for colleges and universities.” He went quiet and sipped his coffee.

“You can’t think that’s enough after all the questioning you put me through.”

“What else do you want to know?” Everything. Where are from? Where have you traveled? What’s your favorite cereal? But what popped out absent mindedly was, “What happened with Sophia?”

“Sophia, Sophia. God she was beautiful.” Ugh. Spare me. “And smart and funny too.”

“So then?”

“She was ready to grow up and I wasn’t. I mean, I’m grown up but she wanted to grow old ….we were together maybe 8 months? I knew from about month four that I wasn’t going to marry her but I stayed anyway. She was awesome and gorgeous.” If I had to hear how gorgeous she was one more time I was going to vomit in his cup. “But you know, I’ve seen it fall apart enough. And you don’t really know how it happens. Its just one day it’s a fairytale and the next its a nightmare.” Half truth. If you’re being honest with yourself you see it coming but most of us aren’t, so…. “I just didn’t feel like she got me on that level.”

“What level?”

“That level of feeling so low you don’t want to move and looking at your partner’s face and feeling like you want to claw your way back because the sad look in her eyes is unbearable. I guess, I just knew that I wouldn’t fight for her and deep down, she knew it too.”

“But why? She was beautiful and smart and apparently loads of fun…” he smiled at my sarcasm and shrugged.

“Because some people make you feel happy and totally yourself. And some people just make you feel happy. It’s not..all the way if its not both. She just made me happy, you know?” I did know. We stared at our coffees in silence. Mine was almost emptied and I thought to myself, this coffee that was clearly just coffee is clearly not just coffee and I was clearly out of my mind. “I think I should go,” I said.

“Yeah, my coffee’s gone too.” We stood and put our coats on, my heart thumping so loudly I could hear its pulsing in my ears. We walked to the double doors in silence. “It was nice talking to you Chloe. You make me think. I like that.”

“Thanks”. He leaned in for a hug just as I offered my hand for a shake.

“Oh,” he said, and pulled back.

“Sorry I...”

“No, no,” he said and put out his hand. “See you next week?”

“See you next week.” He held on a second too long to make the handshake friendly. I squeezed his fingers before I let go.

“Bye Chloe.” They might have been the saddest two words I’d ever experienced.


When I opened the door, Stanley was watching his usual line up. He didn’t move from the couch but looked up smiling and asked, “How was class?”

“It was great,” I said. “We made Eggplant Veloute and Roasted pork.”

“Sounds good.” He turned back to the television while he spoke. I hung my coat on the rack and said, “I went for coffee with a friend afterwards.” He was nodding his head in affirmation but did not turn to actually look at me. “That’s good. Was it fun?”

“I guess so. It was awkward,“ I admitted.

“Well new people can be like that.”

“Yeah. But it was fun anyway. It was nice to have someone to talk to.” He glanced at me quickly and smiled his patient smile, before looking back at the flashing images on the screen. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he should ask me who my friend was, or furthermore, that I should offer that he was male. But his complete lack of concern felt vacant, like I could’ve been out with George Clooney and he wouldn’t have been bothered. Nothing seemed to bother Stanley.

“I’m going to make myself a bath,” I said. “I brought you the left overs from class. Do you want them now or should I put them in the fridge for later?”

“Now would be great, thanks.” He stood up to take them from me and opened the lid to check the contents. “Looks delicious.” I watched him go to the kitchen and pull out some silverware. It pained me slightly, to see him exert the energy of standing up for the leftovers but not my entrance. It was the most emotion I’d seen from him since I arrived. This time, I did not try to tell myself to let it go. I no longer had the energy to maintain that all important cheer. “I’m heading upstairs.”

“Enjoy your bath,” he said and he plopped down on the couch to eat.

When the warm water of the bath engulfed my skin and the whole of the world had been blocked out by the pounding of water on water, the only voice I couldn’t shake was Christian’s. Sometimes people make you feel happy and totally yourself and sometimes people just make you feel happy…And sometimes people stop doing both only they don’t care. What then? What of the years of memories and entangled life arrangements? Do you just throw those all away? Every photo album, every framed image – means nothing? I couldn’t accept that since those pictures represented my life. Me. But if I was honest with myself, that was a half truth. Those pictures were still frames that, combined, illustrated a very happy loving world. Divide and explain them, you’d find a very different illustration. You’d see me saying Come on, smile. It’s a picture, and him saying we already have a bunch of pictures in front of trees. You’d see me saying this would be a great photo for our Christmas card and him saying Alright but don’t send too many out. We hardly speak to most of those people anyway. In fact, if you sized up most of the photos in our two story town house what you’d see is the world I had so carefully and painstakingly created. Which is not the same as the world that is. Get Some Manners said to practice non resistance to what is which is a professional way of saying stop fooling yourself and accept reality - not fiction. But fooling yourself wasn’t usually a practice you realized you preached. It was like a cake, layered upon layered until it was so high you couldn’t just go back and pick one piece from the middle and say this layer..this piece here is why. It was all the layers combined that made the cake topple over. All the small things.

But sitting in the bath acknowledging what is, was still only half way. I realized, as I got out of the bath dripping in suds, wiping them away with the towel, that I could never fully live the demands of the DLA as long as I was still resisting what is. The Discount Life dictated that I process my new knowledge and follow through. So I walked into my room and started to pack a bag. As I gathered my clothing, I saw my baby puke yellow cashmere sweater lying on the floor of my closet. I picked it up and rubbed its softness against my face. “No more discounts,” I said out loud, and I put the sweater neatly at the bottom of the bag.