Page 33 - WTP Vol. IX #2

sense the sting of your mother’s embarrassment that remains and has kept the story alive.
You always picture Aunt Kathleen talking to your mother in April in the dining room—sun streaming through white curtains reflecting off the white dish- es. Your Aunt Kathleen tall (very tall) and menacing in a grey speckled dress. Your mother small (very small) in a mauve dress. “The nerve,” your Aunt Patsy says. “And her a dried-up spinster herself.”
It’s a commonplace between your mother and your Aunt Patsy that women who do not marry “dry up.” They don’t mean to apply this to you, but you can’t help but see the parallel between yourself and these other women of long ago who did not marry.
Despite your reputed lesbianism, you think of the boys and men, and they have mostly been boys and men, that you have loved, those that have walked into your life and drenched you in love—for this is how you felt—sopping wet with love. Maybe your mother and Aunt Patsy are right that having to let that sopping wet love dry out on its own, maybe does dry you up. Yes, your love has mostly been un- wanted. Orphaned it has been, left on the back stoop to cry alone.
Think of the men you have slept with: ex-boyfriends Ted and Al and flings Ted and Al. Refuse to consider the statistical likelihood of the similar names; decline your inner arm chair psychologist’s analysis and even resist the desire to go through the phone book, calling all Teds and Als. The number seems important, and
it seems too low, again perhaps, reflecting your lack of ambition; maybe, you should read the Think Big book after all, you chuckle to yourself. Nobody in your family would likely appreciate the double entendre (which, truthfully, isn’t that funny).
Begin to count the number you have loved who have rejected you. Stop at 12 after realizing you are not even halfway through. Recall both the mundane rejec- tions (“sorry” and “take care of yourself” are over- used words in the English language) and the glorious ones (wearing an unbearably itchy negligee under your new dress, only to realize that you are going home alone to take it off yourself).
All of these ex-loves and ex-lovers will die, but will anyone call to tell you? Probably not—they might call a recent ex-girlfriend but a long ago ex-girlfriend or an ex-fling or an ex-friend who might’ve been a girlfriend? Probably not. Would the men want you to
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“T
reason people talk about broken hearts. You really felt Linnea’s death in the middle of your chest. But a heart breaking makes you think of the sharp shards of glass left after you drop a drinking glass.”
hink not for the first
time that there’s a
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