The Awful Truth

Letter From Elba Announcement:  I hereby now declare the winner of last week’s “Fill in the Blank” Contest to be my friend, Joan, AKA “The Optimizer.”  (If you haven’t had the pleasure of her company, please read Sui Generis.)

It wasn’t that I didn’t love all your answers- whether by comment or email.  It’s just that she is a force to be reckoned with.  And she used the carrot/stick method on me.

The carrot?  She’s coming over today and redoing all my lingerie drawers.  (They will look so unbelievable that I am drooling in anticipation.)  The stick?  She declared herself the winner- and who am I to argue?

This is Chicago, guys.  Did you expect a fair contest?  Grow up.

Back to today’s program…

Thirty-eight years ago right now -on November 24, 1975- my new boyfriend Bill told me that he loved me.  We had been dating exactly eight days.

On the night he first said it, I had already pre-determined that it was to be our last date.

Not that I didn’t like him, mind you.  I did.

But I was broke and clothes-less- courtesy of an unscrupulous current Baltimore husband- and in our whirlwind week of marathon dating, Bill had seen my entire date-worthy wardrobe.

Best-Dressed List Sidebar: This was a guy who always looked like he had just stepped off the pages of GQ. In fact, when I opened the door to him on our very first date, he was so gorgeously turned out that I quickly shut the door in his face. He had to knock all over again as I decided if I should let him in.

And because Bill always looked better than me, I had decided that the time had come to end our affiliation. But when we met up that would-be final evening and gazed into each others’ eyes, we simultaneously said, “I have something to tell you.”

“You first,” I said- ever the gentleman.

“I think I love you,” he said.

That was a surprise.

Hmm.  Plan B.  I thought.  No reason to break up with this dreamboat now.  If he loved me…well, anything was possible.

He continued.  “Yes, I think I love you but I need to date others.  I haven’t been a bachelor very long.  (He had dumped his mistress of long-standing only a month earlier.) I’m not ready to settle down yet.”

Okay by me.

The next night Bill amended his amendment.

“I love you and I don’t need to date others any more.”

Okay by me.

And the next night…

“I love you and I think we should get married in a year.”

Okay by me.  I was still married to that louse from Baltimore, after all.

The next night Bill tweaked it further.

“I love you and I think we should get married on Valentine’s Day.”  (This was November, remember.)

Okay by me.

And the next night he updated it once more.

“I think we should get married as soon as your divorce is final.”

Okay by me.

And that’s exactly what we did.

I was divorced on January 20th, 1976.  And that was my wedding anniversary for twenty years, too.

Over the course of the next two years I am sure that he said it once in awhile.  Not a lot though. That just wasn’t his style.

He bought me things instead.

Great things, expensive things- designer clothes, jewels, paintings, cars.

But more importantly, I felt loved.  He smiled whenever he saw me.

But if I can’t remember now the few times he actually said “I love you” after we were married, I can sure remember the day that he stopped.

Although Bill had three semi-grown daughters when we met, he made it very clear on our first Coke date that he wanted more children.

I wasn’t real keen on the idea but I hadn’t ruled it out completely.

And two years later, when a glorious Mauna Kea second honeymoon was cut short by what I thought was a terminal disease, we abruptly flew home. (He- first class.  Me- first class toilet.)

I rushed to see my doctor expecting the worst.

Turns out I was just expecting.

“I have something to tell you,” I said shyly when he came home that night.  Now that the big moment was at hand, I was at a complete loss for words.

“What is it?” he said suspiciously.  “A bill?”

Not exactly the reaction I was looking for, but oh well..

“Well, sort of.  In a way you could say it is a ‘Bill.’  I’m pregnant.”

He cried.

And not in a good way.

And any love he had ever felt for me died along with the rabbit.

The next eighteen years of our married life were just end game.

In 2004 I heard that Bill was getting married again.  Naturally I was curious.  I wanted to see my successor so I took to the Internet.

I expected younger, hotter, prettier.

What I got was older, frumpier, plainer.

And plain meaner.  A divorce attorney, for pete’s sake.

(That’s where I got the “Cruella” nickname for her, btw.  I didn’t think it up, darn it.  I found it already on the Internet.)

I was confused.  Bill put such great store in appearances (“I’m in packaging,” he’d always say) that I didn’t get the attraction at all.

But I did hear that she was quite the little wage-earner.  A sure road to Bill’s good bookkeeping books.

And to be fair, Cruella did try to make a valiant effort when I glimpsed her at Nick’s wedding in 2009.

(For a San Diego summer afternoon outdoor lawn wedding, she wore a spangly, bright RED cocktail dress, stiletto heels and diamonds.  She stood out like someone’s old, thrown-away Christmas tree- complete with Italian twinkle lights.

You couldn’t miss her if you tried- and believe me, I tried.)

But like I said, after vetting her on the Internet, I was confused.  I just had to ask him.

So on the one occasion I had reason to telephone Bill before they were married, I did.

“Do you love her?” I enquired.

He thought for a moment.

“I don’t believe that I can love anyone,” came his answer.

Bingo.

The truth at last.

All those years later.

But it was worth the wait.