14. You Get One
There is someone for everyone on this planet.
Every pot has a lid.
True love is possible.
Soul mates exist.
And this theory is not some chaste Hallmark Channel storyline or a YouTube tarot reader's prognostications.
It's true.
I know it happens because it happened to me.
The crushing reality, the oh fuck, while driving way too fast along some country road, is that I may have used up my cosmic allocation of true love a long time ago.
It dawned on me a few years after my husband left. Sure, I was devastated. But I was even more crushed by the hard truth that I did not love him as much as I pretended. My idea of true love was not even close to what I gave or got. My imprint for it was stamped by someone else a long time ago.
He took my sister on one date. He was two years older and I had never said a word to him. He was a senior and in a band. And you didn't talk to guys in a band or seniors. Because really, what would you say?
They played all over our town in school gyms, church basements, and house parties-- the five best-looking guys in town and Billy M., who much like Ringo Starr, was one of the luckiest guys in rock and roll. The audience was way smaller, obviously, but the adulation was on par.
Billy was definitely the best musician in the bunch, but he was too long, and when he stood on the stage, his bass and his arms took up too much space. All lines and sharp angles. He had no stage presence and did not cultivate it, because well, Billy was in a band with the five best-looking guys in town.
The first night I saw them was at Walnut Avenue School. I used my snorkel coat as a sit-upon and leaned forward, so my elbows touched the gym floor. The lights went out, some guy announced the band, nasty red polyester curtains opened, and they began to play. It was Friend of the Devil. I named it in three notes. Smoking insane amounts of pot earned me the Name that Tune champion in Leslie A's basement. The opening riffs are a dead giveaway if you smoke insane amounts of pot.
He played lead guitar. His hair was dark and floppy, and even though he had comically large glasses, they were actually so big; they seemed to disappear. His brown oxford lace-up shoes were crazy shiny, the amateur lighting setup bounded off of them like rockets as he kept time. Levi 501s, cuffed twice, maybe ½ inch.
"Weird," I whispered.
He could have cuffed them once, only a little bigger as we all did. But it looked better this way like he cared so much about how his tapping foot would appear; he framed it with just the right border. His pink Brooks Brothers button-down was untucked, wrinkled but not unkempt.
I could not breathe. I could not move. I couldn't tell you the next three songs they played, but when I hear any of them on my All 70s Nothing But 70s playlist on Spotify, I immediately think of pink shirts and floppy hair.
The following weekend, I was vaguely aware he was coming to our apartment to pick up my sister. Or at least that was the vibe I was desperately trying to present. I was on the living room floor watching South Pacific while my mom, on the couch, nervously bit into salted peanuts.
"I love pistachios so much more, but have you seen how much they want for a bag of them these days?"
She got up to mix another gin and tonic.
"How could it be so hot still, at 5 o'clock?" Mom stage whispered as she walked toward the bar.
On our black and white TV, it was hard to imagine why the characters all thought the scenery was so beautiful and that Bali Hai was someplace anyone would want to go so much they'd steal a boat. But I'd seen the movie three summers ago at Gramma's. So I knew. I knew.
He said, "Hey,"
Grateful I did not hear him come in; no one ever locked the door to our apartment. We lived in the suburbs, for God's sake. Everyone had a lot more money than us.
I managed an unimpressed, "Hey."
"That South Pacific?" He sat down on the couch, his feet only inches from my head—oxblood loafers, subway tokens instead of pennies in the slots.
"Yeah," I said, trying hard to sound completely uninterested. But he was talking to me.
My sister flitted about like a housefly looking for a safe landing. "Hi, wow, I love your shirt."
"Thanks," he said quickly,
But she was already off, walking toward my parent's bedroom. "Dad, come meet my date."
"I hate the Lt. Cage Oriental girl subplot. I mean she’s got to be like thirteen. It’s creepy." he said, "But the Frenchman definitely knows romance. You're Amy, right?" he leaned forward on the couch, extending his hand for me to shake. His fingertips were callused. Guitar hands.
"Hey," my sister said, just a little too loudly, "I'd like you to meet my Mother and Father," like she had rehearsed the introduction in front of the mirror a hundred times. Well, it was probably more like twenty.
He released his grip on me, stood up, and extended it once again toward my father. "How do you do, Sir?" No one called my Dad, sir. He was not that often in the company of anyone who needed or wanted to extend that level of respect. I could tell immediately that he liked this boy.
"We should go," said my sister pulling on his hand, "The movie starts in like fifteen minutes."
"Right, yeah, OK," he said and then looked over at me. "Nice talking to you, Amy, and don't worry, it all works out just great for the Frenchman."
"I know, I know, I've seen the movie already like a million times."
Memories are strange. You can invest a whole lot of time searing the horrible stuff somewhere onto your heart. Then poof it all changes if the badness is replaced by goodness at just the right time.
All it took was a two-minute conversation with him, and the memory of the badness of South Pacific got nudged out of the way for a good long while. That stuff never disappears, but it sure is nice to get a respite from it.
He did not take my sister on any more dates. But he asked me. To prom. His prom. We wore black. No one wore black in 1978. We were that cool. We were that cool for a good long time.
Forty years later, we still call one another when memories fade. I’m happy his terrific wife does not mind these intrusions. But there are days when you just have to know the guy’s name who secretly loved him and wore too much Drakkar Noir. Or whether it was The Talking Heads we saw at Forest Hills or Joe Jackson. And did we like rockabilly or just the food?
Sometimes your first love is all you get, which is totally not the worst thing in the world by a long shot. I've made peace with that, and trust me not in some "Don't be sad because it's over, smile because it happened” TJ Maxx distressed wood plaque bullshit way. I am not a cliche. I'm just old and content.
But should the universe decide to send me one last chance at this whole boyfriend thing, at least I know what to look for — a straight guy with shiny shoes and a thematic appreciation of Rodgers and Hammerstein. I realize we’re talking about a niche demographic here but I’m nothing if not a cockeyed optimist.