Ten Tiny Love Stories Page #8

to be upfront about the whole thing.

I had nothing

to say about it.

It wasn't my business.

And one fine day,

the whole thing

started to bug me.

I don't think it had anything

to do with the money.

We didn't need the money...

at least I thought we didn't.

Albert handled the money.

It was his money.

So I didn't feel

I needed to deal with it.

But suddenly,

the whole thing began

to get under my skin.

In the beginning,

I said nothing.

I held it inside,

nursing it.

Then, one day,

we had this huge fight

because Albert said

I had overcooked an artichoke.

I reacted badly

and threw the artichoke

against

the kitchen cabinets.

He just looked at me,

up and down,

like I was a stranger.

Finally, he said,

"What the hell

is wrong with you?"

And I said, " I want you

to stop sending money

to that whore in Vermont."

He got up,

picked up the artichoke

and started to eat it.

I waited and waited

and he said nothing,

and finally I asked,

"Will you stop sending money?"

And without looking at me,

he said, "No."

I still remember how he put the entire

heart of the artichoke in his mouth.

Anyway...

things went downhill

after that period.

After a few days,

he took me out to dinner.

He was very patient

and tender with me

and he wanted to talk

about the whole thing.

But I could already feel

my whole interest

in the conversation

fade away.

I lied to him

and said he was right.

I even asked him

to forgive me.

He was very pleased

and he smiled that big smile,

and after dinner, we walked to

Elsie's Ice Cream for a special treat.

During the walk,

he held my hand.

It was the longest

walk of my life.

After that, I don't know

what came over me.

Every day that passed, Albert became

more and more repulsive to me.

The thought of him kissing me

made me sick to my stomach.

The little things I hated the most,

the little routines,

like him clipping his toenails

sitting on the toilet.

We had this cat

in the house,

that we inherited

from his sister.

He would feed it pieces

of canned sardines from his mouth.

I never used to care, but now

I had to turn away when he did it.

Even the sight of his empty shoes

by the bed was unbearable.

And I started to think

of all the things in the past

he had done that had bothered me

and that I had let pass.

Little things.

I can't think of them right now,

but they all came back to me,

driving me crazy.

By that time,

he had already quit the Air Force

and was working in a hospital,

doing maintenance.

I was working

for a tailor in Laguna.

We never argued again.

He even offered to stop

sending money to Vermont,

but I told him

he didn't have to do that.

That's what

he wanted to hear,

so that's what I told him.

But when he started talking to me

about having children?

That was my cue.

After months

of avoiding the subject,

he finally sat me down

and confronted me with it.

I just told him,

loud and clear,

"I'm not having

a baby with you."

I think he was expecting it.

But still, it hit him hard

and he cried,

which he'd never done before,

even when his sister died.

I started an affair

with an older man from Yugoslavia

who worked security

at the Coliseum.

I didn't tell Albert,

but I didn't make much

of an effort to hide it either.

And he never cracked up

enough courage to ask me.

The man from Yugoslavia,

Goran was his name,

he was all right.

A little clingy.

But after my life at home,

my afternoons with him

were like breathing pure oxygen.

I think Albert was relieved

when I finally left.

The truth is,

I can't remember

many details

about our relationship

together.

And the whole thing

is just one big blur.

Here's another I do remember.

I haven't thought about it

since the day it happened.

The first night Albert took me out,

he took me to see a movie.

It was a rerun of Ben-Hur.

He'd seen it

many times before,

and he said he'd see it again

if I was up to it.

I said, "Why not?"

When we got to the theater,

the movie had already started.

We walked into the dark theater

and he held my hand

as we walked down the aisle,

and groped around

for some seats.

Then he let go of my hand.

And when my eyes

adjusted in the dark,

I could tell the whole place

was practically empty.

In our same row,

but all the way at the end,

there was a Mexican couple,

kissing throughout the movie.

They never once

came up for air.

After a while,

Charlton Heston is chained up

and dying of thirst...

and Jesus comes over

and gives him water.

I looked at Albert

through the corner of my eyes,

and I could tell

that he was...

crying... his eyes

were filled with tears.

And I immediately thought

it was kind of silly

for him to be crying

in a movie.

It was a red flag for me.

Immediately,

I said to myself,

"Be careful with him.

He's sentimental."

Sentimental people

are ruled by their feelings

and are capable of anything.

So I thought the whole thing

would go nowhere.

But then,

when he proposed to me,

I had already forgotten

the whole thing.

And I said yes,

and we got married.

It's funny.

Whenever

I start out with someone...

I fill my head up

with expectations.

And later,

when it's all over, I can't...

for the life of me,

remember what it was

that I was hoping for.

I remember stuff...

but I can't remember

who I was.

The whole...

relationship is like

this weird terrain...

barren mostly,

with two or three things

sticking out of it that I recognize.

Two or three things

sticking out...

like warts that have...

shriveled and died.

There's been one man and

one man only in my life... Roy.

We were married 17 years

when he died at 46

three years ago

last November.

Of course, he wasn't

literally the only one.

There were quite a few

before him, and a couple after.

But they've come and gone without

a trace, without leaving a scar.

No blood on the tracks,

like my mother used to say.

The funny thing is,

before I met Roy,

I never thought of myself

as the marrying kind.

My parents had

a God-awful marriage.

That kind of bad example can be

a burden on children, girls especially.

They never split up,

but my mother told my sister

that she never loved my father.

She said it like that,

plain and simple.

In the long run, that didn't do me

and my sister any good.

Because love, like anything else,

is learned at home too,

like all the useful things

and some of the terrible ones.

From my father, we learned

the most useful advice:

Know yourself.

That, and trying to understand

how those around you are feeling.

After knowing yourself,

that's the most powerful tool to have...

the imagination

to understand others.

It sounds highfalutin

but it's good, useful advice.

My father's advice.

By the time I met Roy,

I had had a number of boyfriends,

and I was only 27.

Some people would say too many,

but how many's too many?

And what's a boyfriend anyway?

Boys I kissed

but didn't sleep with?

My cousin Matthew?

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