Check-In

I hung out with my ex recently. We got a bite to eat and took the time to catch up. I hadn't talked to her in four months. My ex has become a symbol for my life. At the same time I broke up with her, I resigned from teaching, with hopes of pursuing my goal of becoming a writer (for the screen and not). The last few times that we've gone out, I have found that it's a form of checking-in. She asks what I've been up to and I tell her where I'm at. After asking what she's been up to, I get stories. Long enough for me to smile at times, nod at others, and look concerned. I laugh too. But I wonder if it's sincere.

She has finally started using her boyfriend's (more like man-friend's) name when updating me on her life. Unfortunately, it's the same name as my older brother. And for some reason that irks me. After all, my brother is a good guy, not goofy looking, not overly arrogant, who would never hit on a high school girl when he's in his late twenties at a Hawaiian wedding. Plus, my brother would definitely be one of my lifelines if I were to ever go on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

So I found the opportunity to use my special lady friend's name on numerous occasions. At one point I was wondering if we had started in on one-upsmanship. She says his name twice in a sentence. I say the Counselor's name to unnecessarily clarify my pronouns.

My ex told me quite a bit. She seemed almost eager to share how well she was doing—teaching honors classes, coaching cross-country, incorporating writing more into her science classes, and telling me lengthy, detailed stories of her trip to Scandinavia with her man-friend.

I went in not knowing how much information I'd give. I decided not to tell her about grad school applications, the primary reason being that I'm afraid of failure, and I don't want to have to tell her later on that I didn't get in, if I don't (which won't matter because I will). She asked about my writing. My response was hidden. I'm writing. Got a blog. I didn't tell her I was writing a screenplay about my experiences since my breakup with her. I did tell her I took the GRE. I told her about my Verbal and Writing scores. I even told her how I didn't do very well on the math section. I figured I'd go for honesty on that one.

There was a pause in her updates as I sucked down a chocolate shake. I noticed a cut over her eye. I asked her about it.

She smiled and told me how she had to go to the dermatologist to treat a small cyst that she had. It was just healing over, but a scar was still there. Then she went into another update. She told me how she asked the dermatologist about electrolysis for hair removal. I believe I nodded at this point, wanting to hear more. The dermatologist thought she had asked in regards to her eyebrows, and she beamed as she waved her hands at the table. "No, not that!"

She looked at me and said, "I wanted to see if he could do it on my bikini line."

I froze. My eyes must have been wide. I wasn't sure what I just heard, so I unfortunately said, "What?"

"You know," she started, "my bikini line. Remember how I would get ingrowns and it would get all irritated?" She moved her hand in the air in a diagonal motion, demonstrating for me in the air how a bikini line is angled.

I'm glad I got that visual.

"I asked him if he could clean that area up for me," she said.

I couldn't understand why she would discuss this with me. The one-upsmanship in me considered telling her about newly discovered positions that involved a counter, a mirror, a chair, and tall boots. But for some reason, I held this information back. At that moment I unfroze my face and looked away and picked up a french fry.

"I'm going in this Friday to get it done."

Now I know.

The Friday had come and gone, and my ex is in her classroom, pondering where she'd travel to next, teaching her well-behaved honors kids, and all the while, less chafed and as clean as a whistle.