Five Realizations That Never Came To Sally Harper
1. it's not always about your love
In retrospect, they must have all known about the ring. Patrick must have told Steve, who must have told Susan, because right before leaving, Susan yelled out, "Don't blow this." Had Sally not been having a nervous breakdown at the moment, she would have slapped Susan. Little Miss Happy Trotty Elf, taking the time out of her imminent childbirth to give Sally relationship advice, to warn Sally against messing up yet another chance at being as happy as Susan.
Sally would have called her a condescending bitch, but she was too busy flinging videotapes at Patrick to notice her leaving.
2. and all you're gonna feel is undone
She ended up accepting Patrick's proposal in the most ungracious manner possible, and that night became yet another ruined fantasy in a relationship full of moments that refused to turn out right. Had Sally been a less desperate woman, she would have recognized this as a sign that their relationship would never work, but she was Sally Harper, and he was Pole Vaulter Donkey Man, and there was no way she was telling pregnant, glowing, happy Susan that she couldn't keep a man, yet again.
It would have been the last straw; it would have driven Sally to the edge.
3. do not ask me to stay
She feels a small sense of superiority whenever she sees Susan's bare left hand, but that feeling quickly fades when, in her more honest moments, Sally admits to herself that being engaged to Patrick isn't really all that different from not being engaged to Patrick.
He finds new and inventive ways of not spending the night with her. When she asks him what he thinks is going to happen once they're married, he finishes buttoning his shirt and gives her that blank stare of his, like he doesn't understand, and she ends up throwing him out of her flat anyway.
4. I'll fascinate you for a while
She waits for the day he'll give her that same blank stare as she explains to him the concept of monogamy, when the novelty of being in a relationship wears off for him. He won't understand what she's talking about, and because he doesn't like complicated things, he'll leave her -- for someone simpler, slimmer, younger. She'll be into threesomes and do things for Patrick that Sally never did -- like forgive him. Forgive him for making her love someone as disgusting as him. For never living up to any one of her fantasies. For always having one foot out the door.
5. why do we always collide, stuck onto different sides?
Susan said, "Don't blow this."
She hurls videotapes at him, throws him out of her flat, makes snide comments about Jane and Susan for having had Patrick before her.
In her more honest moments, Sally can't say that Patrick's foot has always been out the door, that she wasn't the one to put it there by slowly pushing him out. She wonders how far she would have to go to get him completely on the other side and what it would take to close that door behind him. She wonders what's more frightening -- dying an old maid, or being left.