I Know What I'm Doing by Jen Kirkman Page B

said, “You didn’t have to wave and yell. I could tell exactly what you wanted.” Why couldn’t I? I thought.
    I got home to find my husband sprawled out on the bed. I climbed under his arm and managed to sleep for about an hour before waking up with a racing heart. Two drags of a cigarette and a few sugary alcoholic drinks and my aging, agitated liver lectured me.
    “Hey. Lady. That kid was right. You’re aggressive. I had to wake you up to let you know what you put me through tonight. I can’t even begin to process all of this before morning.”
    “I used to be able to smoke half a pack of Camel Lights every night and drink way more than this.”
    “Yeah. It wasn’t fun then either but at least I had the strength to get it done. What you just did tonight is the equivalent of me putting stacks of to-do files on someone’s desk at five p.m. just as they are going for their car keys.”
    “I’m sorry. I know. This hurts me too. It’s not like I do this all of the time.”
    “At your age, you better do it none of the time. Treat me right and we can have a pleasant albeit less fun rest of your life together.”
    I tiptoed out and headed to my laptop in our home office. I returned e-mails and then just happened to wander over to Facebook. I put in a friend request to Ryder. I don’t know what I wanted from that. I pictured him and Daisy holding each other under what I assumed were very low-thread-count sheets. I went to the bathroom to pee. I apologized to my kidneys for what they had to filter. I returned to the computer and Ryder had already accepted my friend request and sent me a private message. “Nice meeting you tonight. Come see my band sometime. You’re funny.” I wrote back, “I will definitely come and see your band sometime. Thanks for liking my comedy.” That was it. We never wrote each other again until ten months later.
    THE BEAT GOES ON—RYDER PART II
    It was May 2011. Matt and I had split up a week earlier and we agreed we could see other people. I had lost so much weight in the past year—most of it from stress, nerves, and adrenaline. I have no weight-loss secrets for anyone. You know those people who we all hate who say, “I just forgot to eat,” and you ask yourself, How the hell do you forget about cheese plates and pumpkin-stuffed ravioli and ice cream and fun-sized Snickers and organic cacao-flavored “healthy” cereal that instantly becomes unhealthy when you eat the entire box in one sitting? I know. I know. But when you’re going through a divorce you actually do forget to eat. For some reason the biological mechanism in our bodies that is supposed to signal hunger shuts down. Perhaps it’s nature’s way of saying, “You may lose a lot of money getting unmarried, so, just like a contestant on Survivor , you might want to learn how to live on less.”
    Walking through the door of my place on this first Friday as a separated woman, I didn’t know what to do with myself—which was weird because Friday night used to be my “alone” night until my then husband got home from work. I would get in my pajamas, order in, and usually indulge in some classic DVDs of Maude —a divorcée heroine. But now—knowing that nobody was coming home—it suddenly didn’t feel that decadent to have an alone night. (This is an attitude that would take a few months to go away . . . but eventually I settled back into a routine of making Friday nights my recovery night because I’m a grown-ass woman and I do what I want.) Maude’s “God will get you for that, Walter” wasn’t keeping me company. Sharon sent me a text. “Remember that guy Ryder? I saw him and his gang tonight at a party. His band is playing next Tuesday night.”
    “That’s a school night. I work early Wednesday mornings.”
    “Jen, you should come. Don’t just stay home all the time like you’re married.”
    I walked into my home office to get my laptop. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored closets I