Why Did She Marry Me?
After this little episode!
She’s been ready for hours.
I was trying to be a thoughtful lover, a better friend, and not just another. I could have told a story, anything, been convincing, but, well, it would have been a story. It’s a little after eight. I’m still writing in my study when I receive her text. The previous text read: I’m at the hair salon, don’t be late. I have a new dress. This latest text reads: Where are you? The opera begins in an hour.
I’m a misfit in a suit, scrubbed to reasonable untidiness, arriving an hour late to pick my date up, and then a frustratingly slow drive down Van Ness to the Opera House in San Francisco. We didn’t talk on the way. On a warm September evening, my shoes are too tight, poorly tied bowtie, and will need to keep my jacket on because of sweating arm pits. My girlfriend’s name is Jenny. She’s wearing an elegant little black number, hair coiffured for a special night attending an opening at the San Francisco Opera, then dinner at Top of the Mark, champagne, candles, and a window seat overlooking the city. It’s our one-year dating anniversary.
I’m hardly knowledgeable about opera, thinking it boring as hell. Jenny is sophisticated. Driving along Van Ness, I’m wondering about the story I’m still writing in my head, where it must go, and have forgotten the anger flaming behind Jenny’s eyes when I entered her home in Sausalito. She was standing barefoot, in a pretty black dress, and asked: Am I wrong, Harry? Is this a real relationship? Or am I a character called Jenny in yet another of your stories? The same Jenny you’ve confessed to love since the day you met me! I didn’t say a word, knowing her anger would surely erupt. What is it with you, Harry?
There are no words. I absolutely want to work it out, get it right, listen to and remember dates, movie nights, anniversaries, but I forget…and I can’t find the time in these fragile years to remember what it is I’ve forgotten. I never sleep well at night, convincing myself there must be a place where writers with restless hearts go.
Now, I have a headache, she complains, brought on by something…she adds, slipping her feet into a pair of beautiful Jimmy Choo heels. I know the word something means someone…yes, me.
We take our seats two minutes before the orchestra strikes up, hardly comfortable, having had no time for a cocktail and arguing with a female usher who insists on putting us in seats other than those paid for, so as not to disturb people already in their seats. I ignore her demand and head down the aisle, pulling on Jenny’s hand, and disturb a dozen people as the curtain lifts.
Sitting together, the heat of Jenny’s anger adds to my discomfort. I lean my head sideways, toward her ear. It’s a beautiful dress. Stunning. From behind, a shoosh straightens me up. Fuck it. Stupid Opera anyway.
During the interval, Jenny is cross and abrupt. I finish my cocktail and intend to go for a second. Jenny hasn’t taken but a sip from hers. The bell sounds. You don’t have time, she says. However, I’m thinking I could knock it back at the bar and still be in good time but feel that’s a ledge I don’t need to jump off. It is an evening when the fates have conspired to let me down.
When saddened by my own ineptitudes, I pack my mind with every decent memory worth carrying; one to get me through this ruined velvet September night…seeing a seabird wheeling in my mind’s eye… drifting out of sight…feeling the wind, punished by the memory of waves as they break upon the shore. But I’m here in San Francisco, not watching the fishing boats sail beyond the harbour walls toward the Minch, or the Firth of Lorne back home.
When the curtain drops, we join with the wealthy throng of San Francisco. Do you recall where we parked the car? I ask, surging through the milling of opera goers.
Jenny’s response has a winter’s icy chill. Illegally, on Hayes Street, she says. Please get a cab, my feet hurt. When we arrive, the car is booted. I ask the cab driver to take us on to the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
Jenny suggests just taking her home. I want to empty out my heart in exchange for her forgiveness. The night is still young, let’s have a bite to eat. Let our hair down.
I could write a whole paragraph about her next breath.
We arrive at the Top of the Mark; our table is ready. Jenny slips her shoes off under the table and stares out across the Bay. I reach my hand out to rest on hers. She doesn’t withdraw. I watch for a facial reaction. There is none. I feel as if I started out the relationship as her project, quieting me where others could not, gave up on, and she the only one who could save the day. Jenny is the girl in the playground who gave herself the moral authority to chastise other children for using bad language. Men in her life doubled, tripled, and maybe they smoked, used drugs, but she evolved away from that sadness with two children. Looking at her beauty, the high cheek bones, lashes, eyes reflecting the sparkle of the city, I wondered if she thought she had got herself into another heartbreaking thing? To end up in a love, to pull someone apart, finding fault and calling names.
When she turns to face me, her mouth is relaxed, almost smiling, her eyes less sad. We should stay the night. You must come back to the city for your car anyway, she says, and pauses with a glint of mischief in her eyes. I wonder how often they boot a Maclaren! Her almost smile becomes a smile.
How sad San Francisco can be, men lying on paving stone, women walking the streets. The melody of Jenny’s words, on this very forgettable anniversary evening, soar like a seagull when she says: Let’s leave, go to that little street café, and remember the love we found there.
At eleven in the evening we entered a store on Union Street and bought trainers, throwing our shoes into the bag and onward to find the little café on Polk Street.
How happy San Francisco can be.
We kissed on the street, laughing at ourselves, letting our bodies get closer. I think I’ll be mad at you every other day, Harry.
Words remain in the air Too lovely to bare Never losing the love We had discovered there