“It’s hard to find people who will love you no matter what. I was lucky enough to find three of them.”

— Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City, Season 3, Episode 12

We said Sunday dinner was about cooking, but it was about friendship.

Better known as “Sex and the City Night,” the evening focused on our quartet, just as “Sex and the City” focused on its own. We ate dinner then gathered ’round the TV.

As single women in our thirties, Sex and the City validated our lifestyle like no other show had. After years of explaining away why we weren’t married, Sex and the City said we no longer had to. The show didn’t just make it OK to be single in your thirties. It celebrated it. Suddenly, we realized: Our worth would never be tethered to a wedding ring, whether we had one or not.

“OK, so tell us,” Lynne was saying.

We were sitting in Sally’s dining room. Salmon salad with blue cheese and walnuts. It was her turn to cook.

“You guys, it was awful,” Sally said. 

Lynne’s ears perked up. The only thing Lynne liked more than a good date story was a bad date story.

“We get to the movie, next in line to pay, and he starts patting his pockets. Then he’s like, ‘Would you mind paying? I forgot my wallet.'”

“So … you paid for both of you?” Sue asked.

“What else could I do?”

“That is so wrong,” Lynne said. “He asked you out.

“Do you think he really forgot his wallet?”

“He works in finance, for crying out loud.”

“Did you kiss him?”

Lynne always asked this question.

“No, I didn’t kiss him.”

“What if he’s a good kisser?”

This is why Lynne’s love life was thriving while ours were not. In “Sex and the City” speak, Lynne was our Charlotte and our Samantha. We lived vicariously through her. Guys went gaga over Lynne’s adorable looks, perky personality and easy laugh. Naturally flirtatious, she had long brown hair, wispy bangs, and a magnetic spark. 

As a speech therapist in the school system, Lynne had a traditionally female job that didn’t threaten anyone’s masculinity. That’s just how guys liked it. Sally, meanwhile, worked as a financial advisor. She’d never need a man to take care of her. That was great for her bank account, not her prospects. In the Sex and the City era, financial independence was a dating liability. One look at Miranda’s love life could tell you that. Sue was financially solvent as well, becoming more so with each passing year. 

As for me, the Metromix gig offered a “Carrie Bradshaw” lifestyle, complete with grand openings, wine dinners, and skip-the-line privileges. The only thing missing were the Manolos. Couldn’t pay rent, but getting on the guest list wasn’t a problem.

By our early thirties, friends had tied the knot, moved to the suburbs and settled down. As the marriage trend grew, being single  became a situation to be navigated. What is life in your thirties if you’re not married? We were making it up on the fly. With no shortage of things to do, we did them all. 

When our twenties came and went with no proposal, we put our hopes into the next decade. That was the wrong approach. As Sex and the City showed, our time was better spent choosing ourselves than hunting for a man. But in choosing ourselves were we accepting failure? Can you choose yourself and a man at the same time? It was a question for Carrie Bradshaw. But we didn’t need Carrie to answer it. With or without a man, we chose ourselves.

The list of deadbeat dates grew longer by the year. We approached it with humor and kept things moving. Sue was connecting with a guy who liked to chat about indie rock. He’d message her endlessly over email, then never take the next step. Things were going well between Sue and another guy. Then it came out he worked as a DJ. The relationship died on the dance floor. 

Back then, I was too enamored with Dennis to entertain guys in Chicago. With the exception of Brian at the gym, the ones who asked me out were losers anyway. Dated one guy who shaved his chest. It was so prickly, I couldn’t stand it.

There was an incredulity to our Sunday chats, as if we knew the punchline before the story even started. Fortunately, it was nothing a graham cracker crust and dollop of Cool-Whip couldn’t fix. Lynne baked the goods every week. The rest of us took turns cooking.

Looking through old cookbooks, the Sunday dinner recipes are easy to spot, their pages stained with red wine, soy sauce, mashed avocado. They’re the remnants of French onion soup gratinee, Thai crab spring rolls,  California burgers. Eyeing the Thanksgiving dinner recipe from The Barefoot Contessa, recall the first turkey I ever made. Preparing it in Sally’s kitchen was a group effort, and that made it worthwhile. 

Cooking is giving. Even when you think you don’t have anything to give, you do. Sex and the City gave, too. It accepted us as we accepted each other. Exactly as we were. The show gave us something else, you know. Something I’m not sure we would have given ourselves. Time together, week after week.

Oh sure, there would have been the occasional brunch. Birthday dinners, walks along the lake. But nothing as regular as this. Sunday dinner added another dimension to our friendship. Meals shared, and moments. In our single, thirtyish, Chicago lives, Sunday dinner was the glue that held us together.

True friends are hard to find. I was lucky enough to find three of them.

When I lost the prescription plan, life got harder. Can’t remember why I lost it. Did I switch insurance or did they switch me? I think they switched me. 

One day I had it, the next I didn’t. It was so messed up. Was in the new place by then. The one in Boystown, a block from Sue. It happened at the Walgreens. That’s how Chicagoans say it. You gotta have “the,” otherwise it’s not Chicago. So it was at “the Walgreens,” where Maurine with an “i” worked. Showed up at the window like always, except this time the pharmacist said, “That’ll be thirteen hundred dollars.”

Maurine with an “i” could take the sting out of anything. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I walked up front to see her. She ran the checkout, had to hear what she’d say. Didn’t always need the product, but I always needed her. Ringing up the Raisin Bran, she hits me with “Two scoops, two scoops.” She knew every slogan under the sun. Never failed to recite it either.

“Don’t squeeze the Charmin, Mr. Whipple.” That one made me howl. I was on a Twix kick the summer that Sue was into Kit Kats. We’d debate whose slogan made for a better checkout experience. “It’s a cookie and a candy,” that’s what I got. Saying it, Maurine didn’t look up. Otherwise she would have seen me smiling.

After the insurance was snatched, I bought pills out of pocket. Ponying up 100 bucks every three days threw a wrench in life. Wonder what Maurine would have said about that. I know what she would have said. She had that look when ladies would buy tampons, swapping the slogan for a side-long glance. The register was her stage. With the smile cracking more in her eyes than on her lips, she’d glance at the box then back at you. The box, you, until all the embarrassment was gone. That’s what Maurine did, she took the shame out of things. I needed her at the pharmacy.

Don’t remember the details. I know I had to choose. You know, between medicine and food. There was so much shame in it. ­Why couldn’t Maurine work the pharmacy?

I keep returning to the moment in Dr. Sullivan’s office where I’m breaking down in tears and he’s shouting, “Don’t be such a baby.” That’s how our divorce unfolded. I remember it like a film reel, to create distance I suppose, make it hurt less. 

There was an intolerance to Dr. Sullivan that made him unrecognizable that day. With my legs dangling from the exam table, I cried inconsolably. Unwell and unheard. Dr. Sullivan wanted me to shut up and be fine, but I was far from fine, and no amount of shouting would change that.

Noted the arms, taut as a slingshot across his chest. That’s when I realized. He blames me for this. The accusatory stance made me cry. Not the spasms. Well, the spasms too, but mostly I was crying because of him. 

“Don’t be such a baby.” He practically spat it. Acted like I was deceiving him, making him confront/an aspect of himself/he refused to accept. Was I? Funny, this condition was the version of myself I refused to accept. That’s why I was there. 

My eyes had that bloodshot feeling where you just know they’re red as fuck. Tears clung to my cheeks like a dryer sheet, nose running. It was an ugly cry, almost hiccup-level, in early May. No sleeve, of course, to wipe with. 

I’ll admit I was hysterical. Before the vanity a week earlier, I’d watched in horror as the spasms rippled in waves, from right to left and back again. There were the eyes, pulsating, clenching, clamping shut. The tongue writhing wildly in the mouth. It snaked in twists and turns that no human could replicate. Suspecting all of this was permanent, I sobbed. 

In Dr. Sullivan’s office seven days later, the madness continued. Fiery tingling beneath the skin, the kind of burning that could char your insides. “It’s just a nuisance,” Doctor Sullivan was saying. As if I were the nuisance.

“A fly on the shoulder is a nuisance. This is frightening.” 

The respectful tone I’d long been accustomed to had a toxic edge now, like the rest of me. Felt myself glaring and very much the object of someone’s shame. Was it mine or his?  “You’re fine, Marybeth,” the doctor insisted.

Desperate for an out, my gaze locked on the far corner of the ceiling. It was the look of a woman being silenced by her doctor. Not just any doctor. One I’d had, one I’d relied on, since forever ago. Sitting in Dr. Sullivan’s office, age 36, I’d been his patient for half my life. He should have known me, I thought he did. How could he not? In the tear-stained seconds spent eyeing the ceiling, something detached from my being. Felt like upheaval, probably looked like it too. An iceberg breaking loose in Arctic waters. 

I came to Dr. Sullivan one summer, when a man stood before the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Communism was falling in Eastern Europe, car bombs exploding in Belfast. The world was rising up. Tapering off medicine at 18, I felt the pull of change as much as anyone. Given one more chance at a drug-free life, I took it. 

When the seizure came, it was in the style of a teenager — at a music festival out in some pasture. Crossing the field with Kelly when the lights appeared. With the pressure coming on, I placed the cigarette on the grass and lay myself at the feet of strangers. The mud had dried, but not completely. The chill of rainwater seeped into my side, ice cold. Kelly crouched beside me, saying something I couldn’t hear, and the world faded into oblivion.  It’s a lonely experience having a seizure among thousands. Even with a friend by your side.

Dr. Sullivan had the warmth of a woolen cardigan. I liked him from the start. It takes a special person to make you laugh after a seizure, and he could do it. Got me in for an appointment, put me back on pills. Writing out the script, he sensed my dejection. “It’s just for now, Marybeth.” The words made the decision easier to accept.

Dr. Sullivan didn’t rush me through like other doctors. Never in 18 years did he rush me through. You know how rare that is? Instead, he worked the room with the precision of a surgeon. Sharp, efficient, masterful. “Follow the flashlight with your eyes.” “Walk across the room, balance beam.” “Touch your nose, touch my finger. Nose to finger, nose to finger.”

He started every appointment by washing his hands. Working up the lather, the harsh scent of medical soap filled the room. With the suds growing upon his palms, I imagined how funny it would be if he clapped his hands together with a flourish, sent the suds spraying. Wished he’d do it, just once.

Went to Dr. Sullivan by default, too old for the pediatric neurologist. Dad picked him, so I went. Dad didn’t pick just anyone, you know. I viewed Dad’s choice as an endorsement, treated it as such. Over the course of 18 years, I trusted the doctor blindly. He was the best, and he knew best which decisions were right for my health. 

Coming up as a child through the healthcare system, I spent my youngest days being terrified by doctors. In the earliest record on hand, age 3, my fear is documented in the chart. Over time, fear gave way to trust. It was an innocent trust with no agenda. I believed in the good of doctors because I believed in the good of Dad. 

After a while, there was no distinguishing the doctor’s office from my own genetics. Going to the neurologist wasn’t simply a business transaction, it was a community. Lollipops and smiles and hugs, you know? Dr. Sullivan was the adult version of the community for the adult version of me. No more lollipops, just the relief of a laugh when I needed it most.

Now here I was at 36, begging for an out. Was it the brightness of the lights or the nausea in my gut that made it so apparent we couldn’t continue? The doctor-patient relationship had changed because we had changed, and the tension between us grew too fraught to ignore. Where had the tension even come from? It looked like the death of a relationship. Chalk it up to a loss of faith in each other.

“Go downstairs and get an EMG, then come back and see me,” he said. 

Given the damage done in the 15 minutes prior, it’s strange to know these were the words that led to our demise. Even before the EMG, I knew it was the last appointment with Dr. Sullivan. Knew it shuffling past the people in the waiting room. Pushing the down arrow for the elevator. And dabbing away the dejection that had dried on my face. Still, it was the EMG, in all its innocuity, that slammed the door shut.