Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin [68]
“You can be very cruel, like ice, but please not to me, over something so small,” said one of those love notes from when we were living together. My friends used to pull her aside to tell her how “good” she was for me, like I was some kind of superdink until she came along. I would normally discount this as a wildly unfair assessment of my personality except my wife says they’ve told her the same thing.
I hope she doesn’t dump me, too.
Lesson #46
She Wasn’t the One
by Bruce Jay Friedman
Dear Harry [the letter began] “You probably won’t remember me, but I thought I’d take a chance and write—in the hope that you would. We knew each other in the Long Ago and dated for several months. (My name was Sybil Barnard at the time.) Then we drifted apart. Since that time, I’ve been married, had two sets of twins, and have recently gotten divorced. :(
I have followed your career with a great deal of interest—and I thought it might be fun to get together and catch up on old times. I’ll be at the Plaza Hotel Nov. 7, 8, visiting my sister, and wonder if you would consider meeting me for a drink. I certainly hope so. If not—I wish you continued good luck—and just write this off as the idle fantasy of an (ex) suburban housewife.
Fondly,
Sybil Barnard Micheals
Harry remembered her, of course. How could he not remember her? He had thought of her for the last twenty-five years, if not every day, then at least once a week for sure. She was The One Who Got Away, or, more correctly, The One Who Broke His Heart and Got Away. She had been a drama student at the University of Colorado. Harry reviewed the plays she was in for the local newspaper. He had dated her during his senior year. She was tall and blonde and beautiful in a quiet regal way, and though Harry was in love with her they had never slept together, which may have been why she broke off their romance so suddenly, and in Harry’s view, with such brutality.
Their dates consisted for the most part of the two of them dancing together, along with other couples, in the parlor room of Harry’s boardinghouse. At some point in the evening, her skin would become damp and she would start to quiver and say, “Take me home when I feel like this, Harry.” And Harry would dutifully and gallantly whip her right back to her sorority house. Whenever they passed the wooded area, where couples slipped off to be together in total privacy, she would say, “Whatever you do, Harry, don’t take me in there.” And Harry would assure her he had no intention of doing so. They continued along this way, taking walks, seeing an occasional movie together and dancing—less and less dreamily as time went by—in the parlor of Harry’s boardinghouse. One night her hand brushed against his erection. She jumped and Harry apologized and told her not to worry, it would never happen again.
In some section of himself, Harry had the sense that all they were doing was treading water. He liked being with Sybil, liked the idea of her, but he didn’t really know what he was supposed to do next. One night, she asked: “You wouldn’t ever consider meeting me in Denver and taking a hotel room, would you?” Harry said of course he wouldn’t. This time even Harry knew what she was driving at—but he was twenty years old and had never rented a hotel room before. The thought of walking through the lobby with Sybil and dealing with the desk clerk was more than he could handle. Maybe if she had phrased it differently—or if she had arranged for the room.
One night, Harry returned to the boardinghouse after a film course in which the class had dissected The Loves of Gosta Berling. Waiting for him at the top of the stairs was his roommate Travis, who was smiling broadly.
“You have a call,” said Travis, who must have known what was in store for Harry and was enjoying the moment immensely. He accompanied Harry to the wall booth, as if he were a maitre