The Lover’s Dictionary: A Love Story in 185 Definitions

Will it ever get better? It better.

Will it ever get better? It better.

beware, v.

“My worse date ever?” I asked. “I don’t know. I’m always amazed when the other person doesn’t ask you anything about yourself. This one date — once the autobiography started, it wouldn’t stop. I actually sat there, thinking, Wow, you’re not going to ask me a single question, are you? And sure enough. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Only one subject. And it wasn’t me.”

“So, what did you do?” you asked.

“I just started counting. Like sheep. And when the waiter asked if we wanted to have dessert, my date started to order, and I interrupted and said I had promised a friend to walk his dog. What about you?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Tell me!”

“Okay. It was a set-up. And the minute I saw him, I was like — the attraction level was in the deep negatives. Like, I’ve seen sexier tree stumps. But of course you can’t say that. I tried to be a better person. Then he opened his mouth and I was completely repulsed. Not only did he talk about himself all night, but he also kept cutting me off whenever I had an opinion about anything. The worst part was: I could see he was enjoying himself! So — God, I’m not proud of this. In fact, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You promise you won’t think I’m a freak?”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. So there’d been this fly hovering over our table. I kept trying to shoo it with my hand. After awhile I was focusing on the fly more than the guy. He was getting annoyed. So the next time it came close to my face I just . . . stuck out my tongue.”

“Like you were a frog?”

You nodded. “Like I was a frog.”

“And you caught the fly.”

“Yup. Swallowed it down. It was worth it to see the look on his face. Dessert wasn’t an option after that. And I was so relieved. With all due respect to the fly and its right to live, it was completely worth it.”

At that point the waiter came over and asked if we needed anything else.

And you said, “I think we’re going to get another round of dessert.”

blemish, n.

The slight acne scars. The penny-sized, penny-shaped birth-mark right above your knee. The dot below your shoulder that must have been from when you had chicken pox in third grade. The scratch on your neck — did I do that?

This brief transcript of moments, written on the body, is so deeply satisfying to read.

bolster, v.

I am very careful whenever I know you’re on the phone with your father. I know you’ll come to me eventually, and we’ll talk you through it. But I have to wait — you need your time. In the meantime, I’m careful what songs I play. I try to speak to you with my selections.

brash, adj.

“I want you to spend the night,” you said. And it was definitely your phrasing that ensured it. If you had said, “Let’s have sex,” or “Let’s go to my place,” or even “I really want you,” I’m not sure we would have gone quite as far as we did. But I loved the notion that the night was mine to spend, and I immediately decided to spend it on you.

breach, n.

I didn’t want to know who he was, or what you did, or that it didn’t mean anything.

breathing, n.

You had asthma as a child, had to carry around an inhaler. But when you grew older, it went away. You could run for miles and it was fine.

Sometimes I worry that this is happening to me in reverse. The older I get, the more I lose my ability to breathe.

breathtaking, adj.

Those mornings when we kiss and surrender for an hour before we say a single word.

broker, n. and v.

You knew I was lazy, so you’d be the one to find the apartment. And I played along, partly because I didn’t know how you’d react if I called one afternoon and said, “You won’t believe the place I’ve found.” You wanted to be the finder, so I became the second opinion.

The brokers nearly broke you. I thought it was sweet and almost sad how desperately you clung to the hope of finding civility — even enthusiasm — in the New York City real estate market. But leave it to you, ten days into the soul-draining hunt, to find not only a decent apartment but a broker we’d end up becoming friends with. By the time I got there, you’d already decided. And I quickly decided to let you decide. You were already seeing the rooms as ours, and that was enough for me.

Well, that and a dishwasher.

buffoonery, n.

You were drunk, and I made the mistake of mentioning Show-girls in a near-empty subway car. The pole had no idea what it was about to endure.

C

cache, n.

I decided to clean my desk. I had thought you were busy in the kitchen. But then I heard you behind me, heard you ask:

“What’s in the folder?”

I’m sure I blushed when I told you they were printouts of your emails, with letters and notes from you pressed between them, like flowers in a dictionary.

You didn’t say anything more, and I was grateful.

cadence, n.

I have never lived anywhere but New York or New England, but there are times when I’m talking to you and I hit a Southern vowel, or a word gets caught in a Southern truncation, and I know it’s because I’m swimming in your cadences, that you permeate my very language.

cajole, v.

I didn’t understand how someone from a completely land-locked state could be so terrified of sharks. Even in the aquarium, I had to do everything to get you to come close to the tank. Then, in the Natural History Museum, I couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

“It’s not alive,” I said. “It can’t hurt you.”

But you held back, and I was compelled to push you into the glass.

What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything?