Ana had once called him a maximizer. He couldn’t recall if this was before or after the breakup, but he was pretty sure it was after he’d left the city, during one of those emotional back and forths that they each used in search of some closure. When she called him that, part of him couldn’t help but agree. What was wrong with looking for the best possible outcome, for striving for the best possible life, for not settling for the perceived comfort in lying to yourself about what you truly want and need? If there’s a chance that there might be a parking spot farther up, why not do a loop and make sure? Maybe she thought of him that way to console herself, to try to explain why he’d so rashly packed up and left the life they were building together. 

She claimed that she never forced him or even suggested that he should pursue restaurant management, or quit music and focus on a real career, but she failed to recognize how her lack of support for his creative endeavors, or dropping lines like, “you don’t want to be a server your whole life,” had affected him. At the music gigs that she did show up to, she often looked bored, like she was just waiting for it to be over, basically looking at her watch, or checking her phone while drops of sweat dripped from his forehead onto his bass as he tried his best to force some eye contact with her. Maybe he was taking things too personally at that point, and remembering things incorrectly in an attempt to justify his actions. Maybe he was just unwilling to recognize the value of the passion and devotion that she had deep down for him, and was unable to reciprocate that feeling fully.

Maybe he really thought he could do better, be happier with someone else. Maybe the nagging distaste for monogamy wasn’t just due to his typical, frustrated male libido and fleeting, superficial attractions. He couldn’t deny that sleeping with another woman, only once, while his mom lay in critical condition in a Hawaiian intensive care unit, was enough to convince him that he had in fact been lying to himself for years. His wavering guilt and the stupid, shit-eating grin slapped on his face as he drove his rental back to the hospital the next morning only reinforced that he needed to escape his city life before he found her a ring she actually liked and they set a date for their wedding. 

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was a maximizer, one that was lacking the perfectionist aspect that defines most of them. Maybe he’d been too impulsive and hasty, and maybe he had been going through some sort of mental meltdown, some crisis of identity in facing death after his mother’s paragliding accident. Maybe he’d grow to regret it once he was forty and still alone, directionless, and even he was too embarrassed to be the bassist in some struggling, no-name pop punk band. While he knew there was no use in regretting his decision, (regret, coincidentally being another key characteristic of a true maximizer) he couldn’t help but consider that he could have gone about things a little bit differently, landed a softer blow, given her more of a chance without so violently ripping the newly installed floorboards from under her feet.

He told her that one of the reasons he was leaving was that he was tired of doing everything, making every choice, in an attempt to please other people. He should have been more specific and instead of blaming this ubiquitous group of others, likely interpreted as peers, coworkers, bosses, parents and strangers, he could have admitted that every decision he was making, every concession and “yes dear” that leaked bitterly out of his mouth, was for and because of her. And for good reason. She was smart and beautiful, kind and ambitious. That was why he’d spent months pursuing her, even after being rejected numerous times, the last being a harsh and seemingly sincere, “honestly, I think I’m going to be busy all the time,” which left him dejected, rejected, and convinced that she should kindly go fuck herself. 

Still, he refused to give up for some reason. Maybe it was the maximizer in him. It didn’t take too much manipulation for her to change her mind. Taking just one date to the restaurant on a night when he knew she’d be hostessing, opting for a table in the lounge where she would be in direct eye-line of his cocktail sipping and laughing and subtle touches. Everything short of an explicit makeout session. Then, responding to her prewritten, employee handbook, “Thank you for joining us, we hope you enjoyed your meals,” with a friendly, yet overly casual eye raise as he left hand in hand with his cute, tipsy, exploited decoy in her skimpy dress, hoping to torture Ana’s thoughts for at least the rest of the night.

He couldn’t deny how effective his simple tampering with her emotions had been, and even though he had to start ignoring the decoy’s calls for a couple of weeks, eventually admitting that he was seeing someone else, he felt like he’d pulled off a one in a million maneuver. Maybe Ana was just playing up her unattainability as an ego boost. Our sad human narcissism, obscured and stigmatized as it may be, makes it a lot easier to want something once we know we can’t have it. 

It didn’t take long for seven years to pass, ending in Ricky coming home after a twelve hour management shift, walking down Lexington Avenue, past rows of solid hundred-year-old houses filled with history and families, both happy and miserable, wealthy and poor, and him sneaking a look past the oak tree in front of their recent purchase. He’d be checking their top-level bedroom window (the bottom two levels were occupied by their tenants), hoping the light was off so he wouldn’t have to talk to his fiancé about their days, or how he was, or whatever article she’d read that he could care less about, when all he wanted to do was quietly smoke a bowl, sip on a glass of whiskey, and watch mind-quieting television for a couple of hours. Sometimes there’d be leftovers she had made. Some quacky recipe she’d tried for the first time, butternut squash stuffed with underseasoned beets and barley, or a very ambitious attempt at pad thai, this time overseasoned, with inedible lemongrass stalks mixed in, when all he wanted was a quesadilla or a steak, or some macaroni with fake powdered cheese. The note that came along with her loving meal often came with a reminder of some project or task or chore that Ricky needed to remember to take care of the next morning while she was at work. Often it was a list, always stamped with a little heart and signed in her aesthetically pleasing script.