chapter three

Where do I begin?

-Shirley Bassey, Love Story Remix

P: Hey baby.

S: Good morning.

Miss me?

P: Yes like a kidney

S: A kidney? Wait a minute. You can live your
Whole life with only one kidney.
So, do you mean like kidneyS?

P: My last functioning kidney?

S: That’s better.

In a heartbeat P became her constant companion. She’d send him an early morning email so he’d have something waiting from her as soon as he woke up. They’d swap messages as he was in and out of meetings. She upgraded her Blackberry, and happily carried him in her pocket as she ran her errands.

But her favorite was always the morning, having his complete attention on his way into work. She fell in love with him in the mornings.

S: What are you doing right now? Set the scene.

P: On a platform waiting for train doors to open.

Right by the engine so it’s loud. Listening to
run dmc louder

S: Run DMC? Man, you make my heart go pitter pat.

P: lol king of rock

S: You just threw me back to eighth grade.
Big hair and too much eyeshadow. Nice.

P: Hot

S: Oh yes. Had the whole rebellious attitude to boot.
Quite the package.

P: Lol ready to make bad decisions? Daddy issues.
Scrumptious

S: It’s like you were there

It was easy to draw him out in the morning. Riding the train, he’d be thoughtful and wordy and attentive. They could meander through their conversation and just be. Together.

P: The doors are on now

People are strange

S: Oh yes. Smoked lots of dope listening
to The Doors. It was my post-black eyeliner
turned fake retro-hippie phase. It eventually evolved
into not shaving my legs, wearing lots of bracelets that
jingled, and spending a summer touring with the Dead.

P: Nice.

S: I did all these ridiculous things like selling peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches for whippit money and saying things
like Peace, Brother. All the while I had daddy’s Platinum
AMEX in my wallet for hotel rooms, gas, and fancy restaurants.
I was really not a very good deadhead.

P: Too funny
I can’t wait until my kids pull shit like that

S: It will be fun watching them

P: and I have to bite my tongue and pretend

S: think they invented it.

P: it’s original

S: We were saying the same thing at the same time.

It was the time they got to make all those discoveries one makes about somebody when a relationship is new. The ones that seem superficial at first, but really you’re finding out about who they are on the inside. How you might fit together.

P: Elvis now

S: What?

P: Every day I write the book

S: When I was recovering from a boy I almost married, but didn’t

I met a pilot
We had a 21 day love affair in when he was in
town training on a new aircraft
The way he wooed me was with his Elvis impression
It was very good
The bar we hung out in had a karaoke night
and he sang an Elvis song to me
It worked
He got lucky
Very lucky

P: Lol not presley!

S: Started typing the story before I read the song.
But, it’s my only Elvis story so I went with it

P: And slut!

S: Not slut! I was just getting back in the game
Though he just thought I was a slut probably

P: lol I’m sure he still thinks about you

S: Oh. I doubt that. But it was a fun 21 days

P: You don’t understand how deep you burrow

She didn’t understand that, as deeply affected as her days now were, she was in P’s head, too. He told her from the start he’d never love her, so she just ignored the feeling. Left it unnamed. She ignored the flutters in her stomach that jumped around when she’d hear his chime on her phone, signaling a message from him. When her distraction became so great that she’d bump into things, or try to leave to go somewhere but have to keep running back into the house for a myriad of forgotten items, or read the same sentence of her book five or six times and still not know what it said, she wouldn’t admit even to herself what was happening.

P: Moving right through your sex past.

S: Yup.

Lots of stories from back when I was young and fearless.

P: And now?
Fearful?

S: No. Fearful isn’t quite right. Just older.
Not as spontaneous.
More guarded.
Don’t bounce back quite the way I used to.

P: I know what you mean

S: Of course you do.

She believed him when he spelled out his rules, so when they’d bump up against one with some wistful comment or double entendre, she was quick to say so, not so much because she was opposed to breaking it, but to communicate to him that she remembered they were there. Trying to prove that she wasn’t a novice who was going to turn this into a big mess. That she could play the game, too.

P: Dude, love the Blue Note

S: I do, too. Spent many formative evenings there

Trying to grow up too fast.
Love to go there as an adult

P: Wow
Come out
I will buy the drinks
And the hotel

S: That’s nice to think about.
But I believe that would be a boundary.

But she was already thinking it. Because, for her, it had always been impossible to have a sexual connection without an emotional one. She was never one of those people who could have friends with benefits, even though she tried, because she was always mixing up the sex with the love. She thought it would be different with P, because of their circumstance, because they were supposed to be just pretend. But it wasn’t different. It was becoming impossible for her not to fall in love with him, too.

S: How do you do that?

P: Do what exactly?

S: Make me so nuts. Make me chase my tail. Forget to eat.

Bump into things. Hang on your every word. Smile inside out.
Be constantly aroused. Forget my troubles. All those things.

She was never the girl that got the guy. She’d become entangled, she had a lot of sex, and she’d certainly fallen hard many times. But she only had two real, long-term relationships in her whole life. She almost married the first one, which would have been a mistake of the grandest proportions. She did marry the second one, and she would sometimes wonder if they were a bad match, or if even the most perfect couples eventually arrive at a place of boredom and complacency.

So getting to have a boyfriend again as an adult woman with adult experience was exciting. It’s like being married for a few years and then registering for gifts and having the big party, after you’d been together awhile and knew what you needed. When you could better understand the magnitude of it all.

S: When's your birthday?

P: April 21st

S: Oh. Good. Plenty of time to make you a mix tape.

P: Lol

S: I do that, you know. Think of a song to put on your mix tape.

File it away in my brain for later. See something here or there
and wonder if you'd like it.

P: Hot

And as quickly as everything else happened between them, so came the feeling that they weren’t playing around anymore. It felt less and less like make-believe, and more and more like something she wouldn’t want to live without.

P: I get butterflies waiting for your responses

You have me grinning
Like an idiot
On my train

S: Me too baby.
I'm so glad you told me that.

P: Why
And good

S: How else would I know?
I don't get to see you smile on the train.
I only know what you share.

She grew to dread the weekends, because their day long chats turned into brief email swaps while they were each living out their real lives. All of the things she used to love – her husband being home, being pulled out of bed early by the kids, sipping coffee looking out the window, cheering at the football games, socializing with her friends – felt different now, not because she didn’t still enjoy that part of her life, but because the things she didn’t like, that didn’t fit, that made her feel suffocated or invisible, they became harder to overlook.

And she began walking this fine line between hoping he was happy when he was away from her, and hoping he was just a little bit miserable.

P: I am in love with you

She and her husband were supposed to be just a one-night stand. After that night, the first time he called her she didn’t answer the phone. The first time he asked her to go to dinner with him she declined. The first time he told her he loved her she didn’t say it back. When he asked her to marry him, her first answer was no. She just wasn’t very good at being loved. She never felt worthy of it, because she never felt like the person trying to give it to her actually knew the real her. She didn’t let her real self be seen.

S: You are in love with the idea of me.

But hearing the words from P was different. Because she thought love was never to be an option, she didn’t actively seek it. Because he was more of am imaginary friend than a real one, she could just be herself. Because she never had to look him in the eye, she could be truthful.

Because she didn’t pretend to be somebody else, it felt like she was hearing those words for the very first time.

S: I'd drive you crazy in a weekend.

Maybe it wouldn't even take that long.

P: Lol sounds like you are trying to
Convince
Yourself that we are doomed

S: Baby. We are doomed.
I mean, this doesn't end with you and me riding
off into the sunset.
Best case scenario is only us being hurt when
this ends.

P: I think you spend too much time inside your head

She didn’t know how to be the girl that actually got the guy. In the past, she was always the filler. The non-girlfriend girlfriend, who could hang with the boys, who was a great date for work functions or other parties where it was important to show up with somebody respectable, who could fill the role of the female companion until the hot chick came along. So, to be in a position where the man she wanted actually chose her? She just didn’t have the experience to know how to handle that. She didn’t know what to do.

S: So you think you really love me. ME.

You really think that you know enough about
me
to know that you love me?

P: I think I know a truer you than others.
I feel like we've connected on a deeper level.
Bullshit thrown out the window and raw. Yes

Once P said it, her instinct was to talk him out of it. To convince him that there were other women that would do this more easily, be more adventurous, have fewer hang-ups. To give him every chance to go before he discovered the depths of her clinginess and insecurity. To tell him to leave before he decided to all on his own.

S: I never quite say the right thing do I?

P: You noticed that too?

S: I'm sorry I didn't say the right thing.

P: Sok

S: You know what? Even though I love my husband and

have absolutely zero interest in messing up our marriage?
When I sleep with him, I feel like I'm cheating on you.

His love for her wasn’t the only thing she learned about P that day. She also began to understand that all of his open, vulnerable, honest conversation took effort. It didn’t come naturally for him to share himself with such intimacy. If she didn’t receive it with patience or tenderness or love in return, she could hurt him. She did hurt him. Her insecurities weren’t the only ones being overcome by their being together; he was conquering some of his own.

And just as he didn’t share himself easily, nor did he forgive her easily when she’d stumble.

S: What do you want to do? I mean, is this what we do?

Chat and email and sneak conversations on the phone?
Do you want to meet me someday? Do we plan secret
rendezvous here and there, telling our spouses we are away
on business? I mean, what do we do? I trusted you when you
said you wouldn't love me. And now? I love you too.

P: The IDEA of me

S: All of that. All that I said. And you're still focused
on the word idea.

P: You seem to link the word to an action
A meetup
A life shift

S: Yes. You're right.
I worry that after blowing through several of our
initial rules,
we'll just keep on.

P: I'll slow down

S: Because I never get enough of you.

P: I overshared
I'm sorry

S: And I'm always thinking a few steps ahead.

P: Lesson learned

S: STOP IT.
Fuck Baby.
You didn't do anything wrong
I'm trying to share, too and you won’t let me

P: Share

S: Being told I am loved means everything to me.
I want to be worthy of it. I take it seriously.
I take you seriously. I love you, too.

P: The idea of me
You mean

S: Am I ever going to get to say it to you without you
inserting the word 'idea' in to it?

P: Doubtful
You fucked it up

It exhausted her, this dance between real and pretend, confidence and fear, trust and anger. The excitement of being with somebody new came with the downside of not knowing how to make it through the intensity of the first fight. Each cross word felt like the beginning of the end rather than a simple growing pain. And regardless of the language they were using, she knew she did not want this to end. That was the one thing she knew for sure.

S: You could have picked an easier girl, but you didn't.

You picked me.
I don't want to fight with you.
That's not what I want.

P: Me neither because you see
I love you

S: I love you too.

P: I wish you wouldn't say that

S: Are you kidding? I thought you were giving me the moment
to do all over again. So that my memory of our first I love you
wouldn't be when I got scared and fucked it all up.

P: Ok
Baby

S: ?

P: I love you

S: I love you too.

P: Good girl

Somehow they salvaged a pretty spectacular moment through all the mess, and though she didn’t know it then, they were establishing a pattern for all of their spectacular moments. They wouldn’t come easily; they would all have to be extracted from his fear and her anxiety. But what she did know was that something in her world just shifted. She knew that knowing P meant she would never be quite the same.

S: I don't like fighting with you.

I prefer to be the one you don't have to fight with.

P: Me either

S: You feel very far away.

P: I'm right here
Close
And with a box of tissues

S: That's a nice thought. But you're not. You're a
Million miles away, and I'm here with the runny nose.

P: And my full attention
And my heart

S: It would be nice to have your full attention.
I can't even imagine what that would be like.
No co workers or traffic or ringing phones.

P: Lol
Intense

S: Yes. Intense.

P: I miss you today

S: Oh God me too.

The day ended with her listening to the music and P telling the stories. She cooked dinner, the kids played outside, and their chat during his evening commute kept her company. They were once again back at that comfortable place, meandering through their conversation. Where they could just be. Together.

S: Van Morrison

P: Into the Mystic?

S: Tupelo Honey. My favorite song.

P: If we were together right now we would be dancing

very, very slowly. Like a song long hug.

Just like two people in love.