Dear Pretend Girlfriend:

This letter is about the time we have sex in the middle of the day at Macy’s, mostly because we’re both frightened of the other one thinking we’ve become boring in bed.

By this point, we’ve been dating a long while, maybe nine or so months, which is the usual time that we both tend to get bored in relationships, pack up, and move to a newer and bigger city. Except this time, there’s nowhere else to go unless we want to move to China; New York is the biggest we’ve got.

Anyway, we’re both out to prove to ourselves and each other that we’re still Crazy Young Things, so when I mention that I need to shop for a pair of khaki pants and you say that you can come meet me on my lunch break to do just that, the plan begins to form in both our minds.

You’re much better than I am at shopping. I can’t stand going out to a store unless I have something in mind that I need, a mission. You’re very good at browsing and finding things that maybe you don’t need, but that you really, really like. That’s how you found your favorite lilac shirt, which is my favorite as well. And it’s how you found my newest pair of kicks, which are so bitchin’ I can’t stand it.

We shop for the khakis for maybe fifteen minutes. My theory is that I can just buy the first size 7 I find, but you insist on leafing through a rack for at least three different kinds to try on.

I don’t want to try anything on at first. I hate almost-undressing in the middle of the day. You know how I am; I like to toss off my Big Girl Clothes as soon as I get home, and taking off just a few items and then putting them back on is such torture to me. I whine about this pitifully. And then you give me your sexy look, which is kind of similar to that look you get when a really awful commercial is playing on TV, like you’re not sure whether to laugh or not. (It’s still pretty sexy, though.)

I hadn’t wanted to bring it up, because I didn’t think it would be classy, but heck. If you’re good for it, I’m not going to argue.

We must look like the most conspicuous people in the whole world, going into that dressing room. At the last minute, you realize you need clothes to “try on” too, so you grab some sweaters just outside the ladies’ dressing area. We’ll laugh about it later: they’re maternity sweaters, you dink.

We both accept our little plastic number cards from the middle-aged attendent lady, my red three, your yellow two. We crane our necks to peer over our shoulders as we shuffle into the maze of dressing rooms. The attendent isn’t watching us, although she might if we stare any harder. Then, like a pair of spastic monkeys, we leap into an empty changing room and slam the little bathroom-esque lock into place.

“Don’t changing rooms have cameras?” you ask suddenly. “To make sure people don’t steal?”

“No. They couldn’t do that, right?” I’m unsure all of a sudden. “That would be an invasion of privacy. Right?”

“I thought I remembered a story from the news a long time ago,” you whisper, “about female security guards who have to watch the cameras for the women’s dressing rooms in stores like this.”

“Seriously?”

You think about it for a moment. “Well, maybe I just imagined it. I’m not sure.”

We both get like this sometimes; we can’t remember what’s real and what we’ve dreamt of. We’ve talked about it before, how scary it can get when we can’t distinguish a true memory from something we once read in a book. I, for instance, can never remember if I really pulled a girl’s pigtail in preschool while playing Duck Duck Goose and got in huge trouble, or if it was just a passage from some Judy Blume book that I began to believe had really happened to me, or if they were both real and it was just a coincidence.

I shake my head. It’s time I was the practical one.

“Okay, what’s the worst that can happen? They throw us out? Ban us for life?”

You look at me incredulously. Like you don’t get why that’s not a good reason to not have sex in the dressing room.

I shrug and explain, “I don’t even like Macy’s.”

You quirk your mouth, considering this. “Yeah,” you finally say, “their shoes suck.”

Decision reached.

The tiny little MDF shelf that serves as a sort of bench isn’t big enough to hold both of us, so it’s got to be one of us sitting, one of us kneeling. I suggest we flip a coin. You suggest it’s first come, first served and steal the seat right out from under my nose with a fake dodge to the left before you dash right.

I let you win, you dink.

I’m fine with remaining dressed (because at least then I won’t have the agony of putting clothes back on) while you shimmy out of your clothes. I would tell you to leave your shirt on in case we do need to leave in a hurry, but you and I agree: everyone looks stupid wearing a shirt and no pants, so it’s just as well to get completely down to nothing.

Pretend Girlfriend, I don’t tell you this enough, but having sex with you is awesome. It’s not a big damn deal like some girls make it out to be, and it’s not a stupid production. It’s fun because I know you like it. A lot of the girls I’ve dated in the past have treated sex like this terrible chore that had to be plotted out to the nth degree. For a long time I thought something was wrong with me because I seemed to want sex on a regular basis, and I thought maybe other girls just didn’t. Thanks for proving me wrong, Pretend Girlfriend.

I don’t even care if the tri-angled mirrors show lots of flaws in your skin, or if the weird Macy’s lighting makes you look a bit washed out. I don’t even care that the detritus of the changing room is digging into my kneecaps: discarded buttons, tags, those little pastic things that hold prices onto clothes. I don’t even care that your socks are still on, which makes you look so retarded, but I can wait till later to make fun of you for that. I could be down here all day.

Dressing rooms tend to echo, so you’ll have to be quiet. I give you a warning pinch on your thigh when you make a loud noise. You’re probably doing it on purpose just to freak me out, you saucy thing, you. I bet you can feel me grinning like an idiot.

Well, it’s not comfortable, and it’s not exactly the most joyous experience of lovemaking ever, and it does seem to take much longer than usual because we’re both nervous about being caught, but we manage to finish before anyone tries to throw us out. I can’t believe how terrible we’ve been, in the middle of the day. I’m going to have to go back to the office, and now how the hell am I supposed to get any work done?

This is what I’m thinking about as you nuzzle my hair in thanks.

Dear Pretend Girlfriend:

When you see me lose my temper for the first time, we are both very embarrassed about it. You know I pride myself on being a very calm and easy-going person. If we’re out with a group of friends and we can’t get a table at a certain restaurant, or the movie we wanted to see was sold out, I’m always the first person to cheerfully suggest another place to eat or another movie to see.

You like this about me, I think, though sometimes I worry that you think I’m very simple-minded and I just like keeping people happy. You’re probably right, but I won’t ever let you know you’re right, just like I’ll never let you know you’re right about beets. (I know they’re supposed to be good for you, but they really do taste horrible. That won’t stop me from roasting them and putting them in fancy salads when we have dinner guests, and pretending that I like eating them.)

Anyway, the day you see me lose my temper, I mean really lose it, we’re riding the subway and it’s pretty packed because it’s a weekend and you insisted we go downtown to see something artsy that just opened. I usually like going to see artsy things with you (truly, not like the beet thing) but today I’m tired and cranky. I’m hungry and we don’t have time to stop for a slice of pizza before we meet your friends. I’ve been having issues at work too; I’m never, ever going to get a raise, and you make so much more money than I do. (Which is fine, I guess, but I’d like to make at least almost as much.)

I get all quiet when I’m cranky, and you know this already because you’ve seen me sick with the flu, when I told you to go away and never come back until I could breathe out of both nostrils. But you didn’t, because even then you could tell when I was just in a bad mood, and you put in a Buffy DVD for me and got me a bottle of ginger ale from the bodega on the corner.

(I probably haven’t ever said how nice it was that you did that.)

So on the packed subway, where we aren’t even close enough to a pole or rail to hold on for balance, I am getting very quiet and very irritated, and you notice. But there’s nothing that can help me when I get like this, so you get quiet too, and I feel guilty for spoiling your day already. But I resolve to be perky and friendly once we meet your friends at the gallery.

I also am getting a headache.

And when the train finally gets to our stop, I move towards the door because I’m closest and I can forge a path for you like a good girlfriend. But when the doors open, there are people RIGHT outside the doors, standing on the platform, blocking our way and trying to get into the train before we have a chance to get out. I’ve told you before how much this annoys me. Why can’t everyone just wait until people get out of the train before getting on!? I always move off to the side and give everyone else a chance to exit when I’m the one on the platform. GOD.

Normally we’d exchange glances, or eye rolls, or screwed-up faces of disgust as we try to shuffle passed these interlopers and out of the train. I even feel you tug on my sleeve; maybe you have a wry joke to share re: these anti-cooperation mass transit users. But I’m so angry and so tired and this day has been so shitty that I (who am not a large person in any way) physically check the nearest offender with the hard edge of my shoulder, sending him reeling backwards, before I steam my way onto the platform.

I have less than half a second of pure vindictive satisfaction at the look of surprise on that douchebag’s face. Then you catch up with me, and you ask me what the hell that was all about. And I suddenly feel like an even bigger dick than people who crowd into subway cars prematurely. I’ve lost my cool, and I’ve done it in front of you, and I’m so very sorry.

I tell you it was an accident.

You suggest we get a slice of pizza before going to the art gallery, even though it means we’re going to be late.

It takes me two slices with extra cheese and red pepper before I can manage to tell you that I owe you one, and the next time you feel like flying off the handle for no good reason, you’ll have a freebie card on me.

Dear Pretend Girlfriend:

This letter is about the day I started writing to you before we even met. It just so happens to be today, actually, and I think this might be the only instance in this blog’s lifetime that my letter’s topic will be a real event.

All the other events I’m going to write to you about are going to be all in my head. I know they probably won’t ever happen, not in real life anyway. But they’ll start telling a story, Pretend Girlfriend, of what we’ll be like once we’re together.

Though I know that probably won’t happen, either.

I guess I should start by apologizing to you, Pretend Girlfriend, for spending so much time thinking and writing about what you’ll be like instead of going out there and finding you for myself. Well, once you get to know me a little better, you’ll see that I’m just that sort of gal. Maybe I am meditating on this a bit too much; maybe I should be a Lady of Action when it comes to you. But I think my biggest problem is, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for when I look for you. Hopefully this series of letters to you will help with that.

I guess we’ll find out if it works sometime in the future, which is where you’ll be when, or if, I do find you.

Thanks for being patient with me, Pretend Girlfriend. I promise I’ll make it up to you.