Covid Eros

April 14, 2020

Should she, or should she not? For the first months following the surprise departure of Raoul, her longtime partner/boyfriend/roommate, she vacillated about posting on Match.com. One day it seemed like a fine idea. The next day it did not. She’d signed up for a subscription package (three months, to start) but had gone no further. The self-reflection required to assemble a candid yet functional profile was more work, and more introspection, than she was prepared to do. She was too old for this, and too new to this. Enticing men, back in the day, had always been so easy, so natural. A sly jut of the hips and a coy smile was all it took. Covid-19 was making everything difficult.

 

April 15, 2020

He, on the other hand, would have died to have had the option of online dating during his eligible bachelor days. Socially awkward and unable to hide it, bachelor life for him would have been very different if only he could have presented himself on his own terms, at his own pace, carefully crafting his image. He was good with words. He had the eye of an aesthete. His long and unhappy marriage would never have come to pass if only he’d had a larger field to choose from.

 

April 17, 2020

Would she actually have done anything had Roaul not up and left, March 9 to be exact, right at the start of the Pandemic? A moot question. Roaul did leave, and the prospect of living alone – which might have thrilled her at another time; she’d had about enough of Roaul anyway – now frightened her.

 

April 18, 2020

Oh how different his life might have been had Match.com been available when he left the Navy. The whole Navy thing of drunken nights with lipstick hookers in Mediterranean ports had been miserable. It was a strain pretending he was just one of the guys when in his heart he knew he wasn’t. Despite appearances, he was not just another carousing sailor flooding into the harborside whore houses. Eros is what he longed for. Stateside, he was a sitting target for the first woman who smiled his way. Too bad it was Deb.

 

April 21, 2020

What information to include in her Match profile? Just as crucial, what not to put in? Ideally, she would like to present these capsule descriptions, all of which were valid: mature woman with a zest for life; yen for the unusual in everything from fashion to food; adventurous in spirit, fanciful of mind, discerning but not too much.

Also ideally, she wished she could frankly state these without fear of penalty: has tasted romance in romantic settings on several continents and never tired of it; capacious with affections yet also fickle; easily turned on, easily turned off.

 

April 22, 2020

He’d been posting online for two years, ever since his separation from Deb. The first bio he posted had emphasized his thoughtful, cerebral, responsible side. Mature ladies, he’d read in a Psychology Today article, were less concerned about excitement. What they purportedly longed for was meaning, connection, dependability. Bad advice. The only response he got over the course of three months was from a dominatrix in the South End who assumed he was sending out a coded cry for subjugation. Eventually he settled on a revised bio that struck a balance between legitimate aspects of his nature – he was dependable, he was considerate – and the subterranean parts of his personality he longed to cultivate with assistance from the right female companion.

 

April 23, 2020

Pondering what photos to submit sent her into a tailspin. Ultimately, this was a competition, possibly fierce. In her younger years, she had great confidence in her ability to compete, and didn’t I know it? She’d been a go-go dancer in a mafia-owned lounge frequented by pumped-up stock traders near downtown crossing. String-bikini’d in the smoky purple haze, writhing like a cobra, male attention was never in doubt. That was then. The Match message board recommended making the best possible case without veering into outright misrepresentation. That left a lot of wiggle room.

Too much, really. She spent an entire morning thumbing through the photo file on her phone. Selfies were not her strong suit. She remembered a few flattering pics Raoul had snapped, at the harbor in Gloucester with a seagull over her shoulder, in a sequined gown outside the Stones concert at Foxboro. But no way in hell was she going to contact Raoul for this purpose. Or any purpose.      

 

April 24, 2020

What he really needed was a focus group of supportive friends, male and female, to advise him. Regrettably, a long marriage and the demands of raising of two daughters had pretty much starved his social life, which was spare to begin with. There were a few Navy buddies he irregularly stayed in touch with. A few years ago he’d attended the 45-year reunion of his ship down in Ft. Lauderdale. That affair, no surprise, was a drunken bacchanal and it wasn’t hard to guess what photo advice he get from that crew: dick pics, and doctored ones at that!

He settled on recycling the photos he’d posted previously. To the extent he’d struck out in the past, he did not believe the pictures were the problem. His favored headshot, posed against the railing of a whale watching ship, the blue Atlantic in the background, portrayed him as affable and ten years younger. The full body shot – Match recommended the inclusion of both – was from the same outing. He wore a black windbreaker, creased khakis, and a Red Sox cap. He had no interest in baseball. He’d be happy to explain why if things ever got that far.

He made several revisions to the bio, however. “Enjoying life” was what he listed as his hobby, and left it at that. His real hobbies, Greek mythology, military history, and classical art seemingly sent the wrong message. He’d given up trying to guess why that was. He’d learned the hard way that the field expanded significantly if he stayed mainstream. Regarding his taste in movies, he now wrote. “I wish Harry Potter would have been around when I was a child.”

 

April 26, 2020

She settled on a headshot that conveyed a quiet charm, along with a full body photo taken on Crane’s Beach at low tide, barefoot in faded jeans and a navy turtleneck. This exercise was proving to be one strange trip. Scrutinizing her own appearance with more intensity than at any time since she was a self-absorbed 16-year-old, she detected a latent pissed-offness. Where did that come from? When did that creep in?

The headshot, on closer inspection, revealed a sneaky, devilish twinkle. But would anyone besides me detect it?

 

April 28, 2020

With each passing month, he was getting lonelier and hornier. He’d been on the very brink of giving up entirely when he came across her posting. In the sly curl of her upper lip there was a hint of pissed-offness that reminded him of Mona Lisa. That haunting timeless gaze – in her headshot and the famed Rembrandt – gave rise to an intriguing thought: he could save this woman and this woman needs saving.

And with that, a companion thought: he too needed saving, and saving her might be just the ticket.    

 

April 29, 2020

There was something veiled in the way she characterized herself. She couldn’t help it. Veils were her friend. In answer to one of the optional questions on the Match form, what character she’d like dress as for Halloween, Scheherazade was her answer. She did like men, a lot. Over the course of many affairs – countless was a tainted term in this context, though in fact she had lost count – she’d come to no clear conclusion about what type of fellow was most likely to turn her on. A lot of them did. And vice versa. She wouldn’t want it otherwise. If not all her affairs had proved ultimately fulfilling or stimulating or meaningful, there’d been enough of them spread across the years, on cruise ships and camping trips and cramped basement apartments, in Tulum and Toronto and Manchester-by-the-Sea, with psychiatrists and carpenters and software developers, that the sum total left her with a trunkful of memories and surprisingly little regret. But she couldn’t say that in her online bio. Veils were needed. So she wrote that she viewed life as “a series of unfolding stories told by Scheherazade.”

 

April 30, 2020

He'd declined the Halloween prompt. Hercules would be his choice, but it was easy to imagine the blowback he’d get by stating that. Best to leave it blank. Interestingly, of all the mytho-historical goddesses he favored, Scheherazade was near the top of the list. Thirty-one dreary, joyless, sexless years of marriage had amply acquainted him with the deprivations of a fantasy-free relationship. No more of that, no m’am. Enough with the broccoli. Bring on desert.

Careful bro, you’re starting to sound like a drunken sailor.

He had a powerful hunch she was the one. More than with any of his twenty-nine initial replies to female postings, all of which he’d labored over as painstakingly as a poet with a publishing contract, this time he was determined to flaunt the full splendor of his language skills. He felt almost giddy at the prospect, like a composer who’d found his muse.

“Dear Ramona,” he began. She’d declined to disclose her surname; he questioned if that was truly her first. That was cool. Anonymity made for the possibility of playfulness. He could use some of that. “It is evident to me that you possess a number of qualities that I find to be both uniquely charming as well as significantly aligned with the very qualities I value most in human beings of all genders, not only females. In your writing I detect eloquence, sensitivity, and a sharp eye. In your photos I detect deep wisdom and keen intelligence, but most of all I sense a basic decency that is enhanced by what I perceive as shyness. I too embody aspects of these very same qualities, as you may come to realize.

“I do not assume that a magical connection to another person is the supreme test of the strength and depth of a relationship. However, I sense in various details that you have chosen to make available the distinct possibility that you and I have between us the potential for a special connection that may be rewarding in untold ways TBD (to be determined). Reflecting on this, I find myself reminded of the ancient yet often misunderstood story of Eros and Psyche. Do you know it? That can be a discussion, perhaps, for another time. Speaking of time, I do appreciate the time you have spent reading my communication and I look forward to learning your thoughts in return.”

“Thinking of you,” is how he chose to sign off, although he was insecure enough about its implications – did it expose him as too eager, too affectionate? – that he kept it as an unsent draft for nearly two days. His final argument for hitting “send” came down to, what did he have to lose? Already she was having a liberating effect.

 

May 1, 2:01 p.m.

He would not have been her dream correspondent. There was a stiffness to his prose that brought back memories of a boy she knew in high school. Gangly Eddie Levitz had the mistaken impression that flaunting his polysyllabic vocabulary would enable him to get his clammy mitts on her tits. It did not. Still, she gave him bonus points for what he was not. He posted no photos of himself hoisting a slimy silver fish, newly hooked, or atop a snowbank with a backward ballcap and a drunkard’s grin. There was no inclusion of an allegedly favorite quotation from Steve Jobs or – the contrivance of this one always got her – Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

What snagged her about him was what he professed to appreciate about her. He did not use his inaugural reply to puff himself up. He was not a salesman ramping up his pitch. He appreciated the hint of shyness in the photo she’d posted. She was not shy, of course. But it was affirming to know she’d succeeded in projecting herself as such.

“So nice to connect with someone” – she nearly wrote “connect with a man,” which would have been okay except for the implication that he was one among many, which he was – “who has such a refined palette for what matters most.” Not just dead fish, she was tempted to add. And would have added if she had just a smidgen of confidence that he possessed a sense of humor. And wasn’t himself an avid angler. “I was especially intrigued by your fondness for Mediterranean islands. Just thinking about that part of the world is relaxing. I close my eyes and imagine myself on a sunlit hotel balcony in Crete. I can’t wait for this Pandemic to be over.”

She didn’t think that would be the last she’d hear from him. But there was always that chance. Her friend Vicki, who had been Matching for the past three years, informed Ramona that there was no point in predicting how any of these connections would develop since the answer lay within the convoluted psyches of the male correspondents, and there was no way to understand that until it was too late.

 

May 1, 2:57 p.m.

“Lovely Ramona,” he began. He almost wrote “My Lovely Ramona.” But he’d learned from prior whiffs to presume nothing. “Although we have yet to meet” – presumptuous, perhaps – “I can nevertheless envision you on Crete in the hour before sunset on a hill above Almyrida, or perhaps Plaka, gazing across the sparkling horizon. I have been there myself and yearn, once the obstacle of this unfortunate Pandemic is removed, to return with a partner in  . . . partner in what? I leave it to you to fill in the bon mot.”

 

May 2, 2020

Now that was spooky. Bon mot ? How would he know to tempt her that special way, in French? What exactly did this dude know about her? How much did she want him to know? Inscrutability became her, Scheherazade and the veils and all that. It was her mysteriousness she wanted men to focus on. All else was private, for her eyes only.

There were things about this fellow that appealed to her, his interest in the aesthetic, his fondness for the Mediterranean, the absence of a backward ballcap. Yet wasn’t it a bit soon to be referring to her as “lovely?”

Wracking her brain, she could think of no one who’d called her “lovely” since at least the age of eight or nine, and only frumpy uncles with cigar breath at that. She adored the sound of the word, lovely, but it did not seem credible that a man could sincerely direct it toward her unless he was deeply smitten. This was far too soon. In her humble opinion.

 

May 3, 10:46 a.m.

“How sweet of you, my gallant knight.”

What the hell? This was all a game. She wanted it to be a game. She wanted life to be a game. What was the alternative? Yielding to the gloom? “You ask me to fill in the blank? How about this? Partner in the exploration of . . . Now I’m stuck. Please assist by providing me a bon mot.

P.S. I’d like to hear more about Crete.”

 

May 4, 8:28 a.m.

Wow! She’d come right back at him! With gusto. She was into this! They almost never were. Not in his limited experience, and how depressing was it at age 65, or even the 60 he claimed on his profile, to have had so very few romantic relationships. Actually only one and you could hardly call that romantic since it resulted in marriage.

Women might feign a kind of gaminess, but it was never heartfelt. To be fair, it might be possible for women to loosen up and simply enjoy the moment. But being with him sure as hell never brought out that tendency. In the darkest days with Deb, and there were many of them, he wondered how it was that she’d transformed from a serene young woman no more pessimistic than anyone else to a paranoid shrew intent on ridding the world, at least his corner of it, of all lightness and joy. If he was somehow responsible, he certainly never had any idea how to undo it.

But this lass? Whoa, Nellie! Aha, he had it. The missing word. She was a lass, the very essence of it. My lovely lass, is how he’d greet her. But should he ditch “my”? There was risk in a possessive pronoun. Lord knows, he was no risk taker. Part-time history instructor in the state community college system and property manager for his Uncle Mike’s condo developments, one of which (Saugus) he lived in while raising the family and another of which (Stoneham) he lived in now.

“My lovely lass, I look forward to regaling you with tales of my time in Crete, perhaps as we stroll the ancient footpath around Rethimno Fortress or wend our way through the hills down to Agios Pavlos. But I digress. Or do I? It is all intertwined and unified, do you not agree? The exploration of the earth’s bounteous wonders and the search for the suitable bon mot have a great many things in common, and we humans must bring the same purity of spirit to each. At any rate, where do you stand regarding the finer things in life?

 

May 5, 4:01 pm.

Her hunger for the finer things was huge, although eccentric and severely constrained by budget limitations. Income from her furniture remodeling business lagged behind the rate of inflation. Raoul when he was around was of no help, earning little as a freelance videographer, or so he said. She was up for a re-boot. Swank restaurants, boutique hotels, theater tickets near the stage. If that’s what he meant by the finer things, bring it on. But what if his notion of “finer” things was box seats to the Bruins and a weekend at Foxwoods?    

Still, nothing to be gained by giving the impression that her life was so shapeless and absent of schedule that she had nothing else to do except: a) check her inbox; b) immediately open emails that were not flagged alerts; c) respond with breathless excitement as though exchanging fantasies with a stranger was the only thing she had going. Too much candor would not be lady-like. Or lass-like. For all her free-spirited ways, her favored mode was to coyly drop her handkerchief, figuratively speaking, as she sashayed by.

This guy just might be the gent in the doorway, poised to retrieve the hanky from the sidewalk and return it to her. He was fairly tall (or so he said), and slender (so he said), with a wizened gaze (cultivated at sea, so he said; but no fish!).

She paused two days before replying.

 

May 9, 7:57 p.m.

“My lovely lass, have you vanished so soon?”

 

May 9, 11:19 p.m.

“Not at all. I’ve been compiling my list of favorite finer things. It’s taken longer than expected. It’s a rather long list. But . . . “ Suddenly, it came to her, the handkerchief. She needed to let it accidentally slip to the sidewalk. “But I don’t want to bore you.”

 

May 10, 6:39 a.m.

“I can assure you, my lovely lass, that the list you have so painstakingly compiled will enchant, not bore, me. I’ve been awake much of this night just passed, contemplating what might be on your list. Are you familiar with Artemis, Apollo’s sister? The list of wishes she delivered to Zeus, her father, was fascinating and quite unusual. Can you please share with me some of the items that occupy a place on your list? If it will help, I will forthwith share with you some of the items that occupy positions of prominence on my list.

Greek islands, especially Crete and Corfu. A chilled Laurent-Perrier Couvee sipped from Schott Zewisel glasses on our private balcony overlooking the turquoise cove. A nymph emerging from the sea, smiling radiantly into the setting sun. Could that, perchance, be you?

 

May 11, 11:11 p.m.

Up all night wondering about her? He cared. Did he care too much? Too soon? Hmm. Moderation was the happy ideal, not that she’d any first-hand experience with it. Red hot was what she was most familiar with. Men didn’t seem to have a lukewarm cruising gear. Not around her.

However, he hit on something and he got credit for that (unless, somehow had he’d been tipped.) The Greek islands, and tropical islands as well, held a cherished place in her fantasies. She could absolutely see herself – indeed, on at least two occasions, once in Majorca, once in St. John’s, definitely had seen herself – emerging nymph-like from the turquoise waters to the lustful gaze of a fascinating gentleman who could not pull his eyes away from her.

Get real, girl. You’re no longer a nymph. He had to realize that. Who was he kidding? Not her, that’s for certain. Which left one other option: himself!

“My list, sir, remains a work in progress. I did not mean to imply that it is set in stone. Just last week I removed one item that since puberty I believed to be indispensable. This was a direct result of the correspondence I’ve been enjoying with you. It’s getting late now. Sweet dreams.”

 

May 13, 8:04 a.m.

Was he actually starting to reel her in? Or was she wriggling away? If he’d had any first-hand experience with actual courtship beyond the one that led to his unfortunate marriage, he might be in a position to better assess the situation. One thing for certain, she was continuing to respond. That had to mean something. The seventy-nine and a half hour gap between May 5 and 9 had put a scare in him.

He’d been dumped by other Match correspondents. The two instances where the correspondence progressed far enough to allow face-to-face meetings, one at the Natick Mall Starbucks and the other at the picnic area behind Costco, would have been have benefitted from Covid-19 prohibitions. Getting together so soon – in the Natick case, after but three email exchanges – had not been his idea. What was the hurry? What clock were they on? Not the biological one, that was for sure. Why the haste? Did they know nothing of the special pleasures of a slow-cooked meal that grows tastier with time?

Both those ladies had profiles that suggested mainstream cultural preferences, one a pickleball player who adored Billy Joel and the other a dog lover with a time share on Captiva. Tellingly, they’d sidestepped his inquiry about reading habits. It wouldn’t surprise him a bit if the reason they were so hot to trot came from binge-reading harlequin bodice rippers. There too the Greeks would have proved far more instructive, and hotter, in his opinion. Venus, Aphrodite, Circe. He’d once confided in another of his correspondents about his fondness for Greek mythology and the bitch shot back that there was a separate online dating site for gay man and he should confine his activities to that.

Still, it was important to remind himself that a permanent pen pal was not why he’d signed up. What would Priapus do?

 

May 14, 5:19 p.m.

“The hour has arrived, my lovely lass. We need to meet in person. I link here (see below) to the updated Center for Disease Control guidelines. You will note that with proper facial masking and appropriate social distancing in outdoor settings, residents of the Commonwealth can safely gather in limited numbers. The Pandemic is the raging sea that has kept us apart. Crossing it, even at great peril, is the challenge we must boldly confront. It is my fervent belief that we are up to that challenge.

 

May 14, 2020, 6:04 p.m.

She knew this was coming. Getting together was an essential step in the direction she’d hoped this affair – was “affair” the appropriate word? were they really on that track? – would take. Yet the road ahead was strewn with potholes, and perhaps a landmine or two. Getting together would be a crucial step. But there was a chance, and not a small one, that it could be the terminal step. And where would that leave her?

 

May 18, 11:19 a.m.

This was the longest she’d delayed without responding, and her delay was not tactical. She was genuinely uncertain what to do next. She was on a moving train, and soothed by its gentle rocking. Arriving at the destination could easily ruin it. Fucking is what it was about, ultimately. Always was, always will be. Lust sweeps you blindly forward, followed perversely by the inevitable cooling down. That elemental rise-and-fall was baked in. It was baked into sex. It was baked into breathing. It was baked into life on earth.

She’d taken a literature course back in college, and there was a poem they’d studied that had stayed with her. By Keats. Had she not dropped out junior year to vagabond through Central America with Jeremy the singer-songwriter who fancied himself the next Dylan, literature would have been her major. “Ode to A Grecian Urn,” was the poem. She trembled at what this synchronicity might portend. Grecian urn. Greek mythology. Again she had to wonder if there wasn’t some mysterious underlying connection to this guy.

Halt! Don’t go there! That’s crazy thinking. That’s how he thinks. No doubt he could name the very gods that governed such matters. Nutty stuff. Nutty but not, she had to admit, altogether dull. In fact, nutty yet exciting. Perhaps he was onto something. Not about the actual influence on their lives of make-believe tales from vanished civilizations. That was pure hokum. But the psychic titillations of pretending your life is a reenactment of a timeless drama? Who didn’t enjoy dressing up on Halloween?

“Heard melodies are sweet,” was a line from the poem. “Yet those unheard are sweeter.” Amazing what she remembered after so many years. LSD had apparently not done the damage it was always accused of. Professor Rothstein’s lit class discussed the poem for an entire hour. Uncharacteristically, she’d had a lot to say. At the tender age of twenty she knew intuitively what the poem was about. That haunting truth had never left her. “Forever parting,” was another line. “And forever young.”

But she couldn’t hit him with that. Unless he too was in no particular hurry. Unless he too saw the benefits, and the beauty, of slowing it down, of taking his time, of stringing it out. Perversely, that is not the sort of guy she’d ever been drawn to. Or had ever been drawn to her. Like Scheherazade, she gloried in the drawn-out process of attenuated temptation. Yet that very mode brought out the fiery beast in men, undercutting what small inclination they might have for delayed gratification. Covid was her veil. Covid was her friend.

“I do want to get together,” she wrote. “When summer comes around and the infection rate recedes, fingers crossed. Until then, I believe it’s important to remained veiled. Ooops, I mean masked.”

 

May 19, 3:49 a.m.

His own face was a feature he did not especially mind masking. He was not bad looking. He knew that. And he could even be considered handsome if smartly attired in favorable light. But there was a pastiness to his skin, a sallowness in his cheeks, a weakness to his chin, and a daintiness to his nose that announced a congenital meekness. His eyes, he’d been told, told another story. They were bright blue and, when squinting, conveyed the determined, faraway look of a lone sailor on watch, or a visionary leader of men. Covid masks, even the annoying N95s, left the eyes exposed. The advantages of masking went beyond virus prevention.

Her reference to poetry sent him to the bookshelf, a faux walnut stand-alone beside the TV he’d inherited from the condo’s prior occupant. He thought there might be a poetry anthology. He recalled that he’d received such a volume years ago from one of his daughters as a Christmas present. But he found only hardbound history volumes, art books, and an assortment of James Patterson novels he’d never read. A quick google search on his iMac, however, delivered the poem. Thankfully it was not long.

“Forever parting, forever young.” There were a dozen ways one could interpret those lines, some favorable to his agenda, some not. Layers of plausible implication must be why college professors loved to assign the poem. Yet every one of the interpretations were secondary to the overarching reason she must have chosen to reference it. It was the Greek. Antiquity. Classicism. Mythology. Timeless themes. Elemental passions. Gods and goddesses. High stakes. Noble quests. All or nothing. That was her way of reaching out to him. What else could it be?

 “Among the poems that have been most influential to me,” he lied. “I look upon that Grecian urn and vividly see the two of us, hand in hand, as we wend our way into the new territory called tomorrow and all the yet-to-be-discovered tomorrows thereafter. But enough for now, my lovely lass. The hour is late. Dawn is near. I must take my leave.”

 

May 20, 5:12 p.m.

The good news was that he made no mention of meeting face to face. At least for now. But hopefully not – and wasn’t this a startling thought to consider? – forever. It was the core conundrum of human existence, in her experience. She wanted him to keep pushing. She needed him to thrust forward, to own and embrace that fiery desire. For without it she’d have nothing to resist and push back against, would she?

If he were to pull away, if he were to suspend his urge to get together (and, why kid herself, to fuck her) that loss would be hard to bear. It was incumbent upon her as a female immersed in western traditions to make a grand show of hesitation and indecision. That was compulsory. But it was not acceptable for him to drop the matter entirely.

She needed him to be proactive. She had a knee-jerk revulsion to the word horny (as did Keats, seemingly) but the word did clearly spell out the operative dynamic. Slosh too much cold water onto a horny male and he just might disappear. There had to be a middle ground.

She wrote, “The birds are out singing today. The sun feels warm. I do believe that our long-awaited summer will very soon be stopping in for a visit, with plans to stay for a while. I took a walk today around an old 18th century cemetery not far from where I live. (Cautioned by Vicki, she’d not disclosed any specifics about her residence except to say Cambridge). It’s a gorgeous place with winding paths and a quaint duck pond overhung by weeping willows. I took this photo below at one of the gravesites. No writing etched on the gravestone except her name, year of birth, year of death. Makes you want to fill in the blanks. Peace.”

 

May 20, 9:54 p.m.

“My lovely lass, I fear you have fallen into a state of melancholy. It has been a long and trying year. The temptation to discouragement is ever present. I myself from time to time feel despair’s clammy fingers inching closer to my vulnerable throat. I urge you to resist, resist, resist. I have found several methods that demonstrate efficacy. May I suggest the music of Sir Elton John? You might start out with Crocodile Rock  (see link below). As a supplement, if you have the time, may I suggest the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life? Admittedly, the film is black and white and dated in several ways. However, the acting is first rate and I can almost guarantee that the story will lift your spirits. I myself viewed this film again only last week.”

 

May 21, 2020

Ugh. She really did not like Elton John. Too schmaltzy, too sing-alongy. Her opinion of that movie was favorable, yet watching it again when she already knew every single plot point? Besides, she wasn’t in the least depressed. Why did he think that? Cemeteries were lovely places, with all the pastoral pleasures of parks and none of the annoyances like noisy kids on tricycles and picnicking families with boom boxes. She had to wonder about his mental health. And why did he again neglect to mention meeting face to face?

 

May 22, 2020

Phone conversations, they’d both agreed, were not the best way for them to communicate. And FaceTime, forget it. From his viewpoint, the unadorned human voice, detached from the nuancing context of the whole person fomented too many false impressions and was too easily manipulated by wily practitioners. Or so he insisted the few times they’d broached the matter. In truth, he was keenly aware that the person he projected through the written word was infinitely more dashing, more worldly, more eloquent, more self-assured, and more fun than was conveyed by the halting “ums” and “you knows” that drew inordinate attention in a phone call.

In person, of course, there’d be no way to conceal these tics and shortcomings. But at least they’d be embedded within the reassuring gestalt of his height (72.5 inches), his attire (business casual, washed and pressed), his hair (not too short, not too white), and his hairline (remarkably intact).

 

May 23, 2020

She had her own reasons for bypassing phone communication. Her voice was a potent asset. She’d been told this many times by many people, men and women. She had a way of speaking that was as sensual and beguiling as the sauntering, big-hipped way she walked. Her conversational style was a slinky, languorous sashay. If he got a dose of her voice before meeting, it would be all she wrote. He’d swoon. He’d be hooked. It wouldn’t be fair.

Still, she was fifty-nine, not twenty-four. And there were times when fifty-nine is how she felt. What she desired now was neither fling nor adventure. It was time for a partner. Whoever that fellow turned out to be, she would want him to have a clear-eyed picture of who she was, including the gray roots (but only the roots) and extra pounds. She wanted to be appreciated for what lay beneath the veil, figuratively speaking.

Why was he no longer pressuring her to get together?

 

May 24, 11:46 p.m.

The Covid-imposed sameness of her days was grating on her. By mid-evening, she’d downed three glasses of chilled Sauvignon Blanc and probably should’ve called it a night. She considered getting stoned. Raoul had left behind, no doubt mistakenly, a stash of their neighbor Brady’s homegrown. There was a lot of crap Raoul’d left behind, automotive tools, an acoustic guitar, a blood pressure gauge. She’d chucked it all except for the wrinkled baggie with a brown packet of ZigZags and two fat joints stuffed inside. She lit a match to the fatty end, took a deep drag.

On her iPhone, she scrolled the Sonos app. Ah, Charles Lloyd, the mystic saxman. She’d played him yesterday while cooking up an omelet. Soon she was up and swaying.

She paused in her gyrations, matchbook in hand. Carefully, she lit the tall drip candle atop her coffee table. She flicked off the overhead. Lloyd’s sax wailed. The piano came galloping. She threw her arms wide. Her reflection in the mirror was, if not Scheherazade, then the closest she could come.

Actually, she could come closer. Pea green Patagonia fleece and baggy jeans would not do for what she had in mind. A quick dash offstage to the bedroom. She returned swaddled in veils, purple, forest green, cherry red, rainbow. In aggregate, the layered veils added up to something like clothing, loosely enclosing her from neckline to ankles. In the mirror, she liked what she saw.

She lifted her iPhone. She extended her arm. Click. A selfie.

What would be the impact on him of sending the photo? What would be the effect on her of withholding it?

 

May 25, 8:22 p.m.

He did worry that he may have been coming on too strong, pressing her for a face-face. Icy cool and a trifle preoccupied were traits that women allegedly found desirable. In his brief bachelorhood, post Navy and pre-marriage, he’d tried with a few ladies to achieve that effect. He’d blow smoke rings (he was only a social smoker then, and only for show) skyward and pretend to be enchanted by their drift. There was rarely a second date.

The one thing he could do to mitigate the damage caused by being so . . . so . . . himself was to hit the pause button. That might suggest he was a cool customer. Until the lady got to know him better.

His correspondence with Ramona, now in its second month, was already the most thrilling experience of his life. She understood him at a profound level. Penelope’s steadfast ardor, minus the twenty-year absence and related histrionics, was the template. On the bedroom wall of his condo, his “gallery of the gods,” he kept a framed reproduction by a 15th century Italian painter that showed Penelope in a seductive pose  — kindly, faithful, bare-breasted — that he absolutely could envision her assuming.

He’d not met her in person and that needed to be fixed. His zeal to meet had grown ferocious. Yet expressing it, even in the respectful manner in which he’d done so, produced a baffling reaction in her. To his suggestion, delicately posed, that a face-face meeting between them was “fated,” a word he’d chosen with considerable care, she’d made no comment. Nada. Not even the kind of brush-off – that’s sweet of you, I’ll take a raincheck – he was always subconsciously braced for.

He realized he’d have to pretend to play it cool. Although he was not aware of a single mythological god or goddess who made a thing out of playing it cool.

His method for composing emails was laborious. He yearned to be a spontaneous, improvisational writer. It’d sure be a lot easier to sit down and just let it flow, word upon word, a tumbling cascade of ideas and observations and feelings. His constipated approach ran the risk of stressing him out (damn good thing he wasn’t under deadlines) and causing actual G-I damage. He already was taking Mylanta. Perhaps under the nurturing influence of her love – there, he’d said it! Or thought it – he might develop a jazzy, free-association, Dionysian approach.

For now, however, it was slow, deliberate, exacting labor.

There were times when he’d spend an hour creating a single satisfactory paragraph. And that was just the first draft. Even when he’d assembled a reply that adequately expressed what he had to say, employing phrases and sentiments that would optimize the chance she’d be enamored with him after reading it, he’d still vacillate before hitting send. He’d recite the email aloud, sometimes reading off his iPad in the bathroom where the acoustics were best, in order to assess its pace and flow. Then he would ponder what hour of day or night should be time-stamped on the missive to optimize its impact on her. This final review process could itself consume an entire day or more. Each email was a mini-marathon. He was building up his stamina.

 

May 26, 10:59 pm

He wanted his email for today to be casual, breezy, a further demonstration that, despite earlier missteps, he was in no particular hurry. A few days earlier, he’d taken a hike into the woods of a nearby state park and had an epiphany. He needed to portray himself as a lover of nature, in harmony with the natural world and content with his place in it, a man who on the one hand would make no demands and on the other hand could be relied on for survival in the wilderness. Shaping this email was a daunting challenge. Because it was largely untrue.

“My lovely lass,” he began.

DING. An incoming email. From her! With attachment. Stop the presses (not that he’d progressed very far)!

Oh. My. God.

The photo was poorly lit, but so what. Enfolded in flowing veils, she flashed a shy grin that penetrated his innards. No province of internet pornography had ever packed such a wallop. Alert! Alert! All hands on deck! The hint of inner thigh peeking through, the naked arm arched overhead with balletic grace, that come-hither twinkle he’d never thought he’d see on a woman who wasn’t an actress. He was erect and raring to go.

Pornography served its purpose, but its purpose was never romance. Or fulfillment. Or love. Porn pressed a button. The function was mechanical. Even with pornography he’d come to realize how atypical he was. He found most of it to be disturbing rather than arousing. What he did find arousing, in a sad, shameful fashion, was the site Large Ladies of Lesbos. Its focus was portly, curvaceous women, all overweight and proud to reveal every inch and fold, leering into the camera like they’d never been happier, like they were the luckiest women on earth to have the opportunity to slowly strip off every article of clothing, blouse, skirt, bra, panties, and stretch out on a bearskin run and masturbate, taking all the time they needed, the longer, the better. Your basic happy meal. Ramona could be his happy meal!

He could not take his eyes off her photo. He could not take his mind off the raw fact that she’d willingly sent it. Sure, the lighting could’ve been improved. Still, there was plenty to see. He had to pinch himself to be reminded this wasn’t a download from an X-rated site, wasn’t a still from the opening sequence of Large Ladies from Lesbos. Ramona was a real-life woman who really did pose for the camera attired in a way that did nothing so much as call attention to the naked flesh underneath. And she’d done so for the sole and exclusive purpose of sharing it with him. Him! Grecian urn, here we come.

He began typing, his fingers frantic on the keyboard,  “In your photo, my lovely lass, I see the wisdom of Athena, the mysteriousness of Circe, the earthiness of Gaia, the curiosity of Pandora, the vitality of Aphrodite. I could go on . . . “

A terrifying notion stopped him dead in his tracks. Was she expecting him to get all costumed up and send a pic in reply?

“We must,” he continued, “meet. I sense your eagerness to take this next step. I hope you sense mine. The Pandemic that rages across the world is the storm-lashed sea that we must find the courage to cross. It is clear that you and I were not fated to connect in normal times. We were meant for a greater challenge such as the world now confronts. I have every confidence that we are strong enough and bold enough to meet that challenge. Others might back away until the turbulence recedes, until tranquility returns to the raging seas. That is not our fate.

“I am flexible regarding the date and time and location of our meeting. Please apprise me of your availability. Sweet dreams. XXXOOO”

With gusto, he jabbed the send button. No re-read. No spell check. No re-write. No looking back.

 

May 26, 11:17 p.m.

She should’ve known better. His reply leapt like a panther onto her laptop screen, clawing at her. Of course it would turn him on. Duh. Her aim, which in retrospect she might have found other means of achieving, had simply been to gently fan the flame of his eagerness, to make sure the embers stayed alive. Dousing with kerosene was not her intent. She’d not thought it through. Getting him all hot and horny was a mistake. She knew where that led and how – and how quickly – that ended.

There was a chance – there was always a chance – that getting together would not instantly put an end to it. She did not expect him to be more attractive, more suave, younger or more fun than the profile he’d contrived. She could hardly expect the real thing to be an improvement on the air-brushed, stage-managed, closely vetted version. Yet there was no reason why he couldn’t prove appealing. She was a mature woman. Mr. Fantasy or bust was only for newbies.

 

May 27, high noon

“OK. We will rendezvous. We will need to meet outside. Temperatures should be mild, no less than 70 degrees. There should be no threat of rain. Other criteria may occur to me, but that’s it for now. As to location, please make some suggestions.”

The game was afoot. Whatever suggestions he’d make would tell her a lot, possibly more than she could handle. Crete was out. Athens was out. Fantasy Island was out. Let’s see what he comes up with.

She pondered deleting the next sentence right until the instant she impetuously hit send. “I look forward to our next chapter.”

 

May 29, 2020

Bit by bit, he was gaining a feel for the game. His selection of possible meeting sites would, he realized, send a message that went beyond their practical suitability. This was a test. The man he had been until now was unfortunately a man likely to flunk this test.

In “Don’t Always Believe What They Say,” a book about the psychology of dating that had largely proved useless, he’d read that women frequently express a desire to be presented with multiple choices while secretly, perhaps subconsciously, they prefer to have it narrowed to one. Over which they retain veto power. That truth, if it was a truth, stuck with him.

He’d never been to the outdoor sculpture park at the DeCordova Museum, but his daughter Caroline had dated a fellow who worked there one summer as a groundskeeper job. Benjamin was the kid’s name. Photos posted on the museum’s website confirmed what he remembered Benjamin saying, that the grounds were charming and spacious and the so-called art was really weird. Too bad about the art –Michelangelo these were not – but thirty acres and ample parking was hard to beat.

 

June 1, 2:24 pm.

He sent her the DeCordova link and itemized eight optional dates and times that worked for him. Of course any day worked for him.

 

June 3, 9:06 p.m.

This is when I was called in.

I guess I was flattered she picked me. Back in the day we’d been fleetingly intimate, in a manner of speaking. Subsequently, we followed divergent romantic paths, me to marriage and family, she to picaresque affairs on several continents. It was a measure of our bond that we’d stayed in touch despite having less and less in common, lifestyle-wise. Over the years I’d proven myself to be non-judgmental, and she valued that.

In truth, I did have opinions but kept them to myself. Some of the juicy details she’d confided made me squirm, mostly out of concern for her. She should have been simmering down. But really, who was I to advise a free-spirited woman of a certain age to start pacing herself?

She phoned me on my cell and breathlessly launched a rapid summary of the play-by-play thus far. She said his name was Thomas and she peppered her account by reading snippets from some of his more florid emails. I had to laugh at his preening use of language. I could not tell if she too found it funny. She didn’t seem to know a lot about him, like his source of income or employment history. To my surprise, they’d not yet spoken on the phone nor Zoomed with each other. That too seemed negligent.

He did not strike me as a suitable partner for her. But I held my tongue. As she knew I would.

The reason she was relating all this to me now was that she preparing to meet him in person, at the DeCordova Museum on June 5 at 1 p.m., weather permitting. Would I be willing to go there and clandestinely observe her interactions with this dude, with an eye toward risk assessment? All those wild affairs with scalawags and pirates throughout the Caribbean and half the countries of western Europe, and now she was seeking my input? A sign of aging was my guess. Yes, joyful, zestful, lustful, forever youthful Ramona was finally growing up.

To provide me an out, Ramona told me her good friend Vicky, the one who’d initially urged her to consider online dating, might be able to handle this assignment if I was not. But she did express concern that Vicki’s own checkered history – nine online affairs conducted over the course of four years, five of which became sexual and none of which endured – might taint her perceptions. Envy, Ramona pointed out, would not in my case be a tarnishing factor.

Not envy of her, I might’ve countered. But didn’t.

 

June 5, 12:45 p.m.

I arrived fifteen minutes early. I wanted ample time to situate myself for the stake-out. The museum itself was closed due to Covid but the grounds remained open to the public. There were fewer than a dozen cars, most of them late model Subarus and Volvos, with one Ford minivan. I took up a position by the gaily colored interactive musical fence on the grassy rise overlooking the lot.

It was sunny, low 70’s, a slight breeze whiffling through the surrounding maples. Give the fellow credit. He’d selected one very sweet spot. I did wonder exactly what I was needed for, as this hardly seemed like a place where she’d be under any physical threat unless the guy was a complete psycho. Truth be told, if physical assault was her foremost fear, I was hardly the ideal bodyguard. I was in decent shape, but only for jogging, bike riding, and half hour swims in a lap pool.

But being a semi-retired marketing professional, and working from home at that, I was available. I too yearned to get out and stretch my legs. She wasn’t the only one feeling the effect of Pandemic confinement.

I had no advance information about the car he’d be driving. She did say he’d be wearing a black beret (confirming my suspicion that his hairline was suspect) and a beige sport coat with elbow patches (confirming my suspicion that he was an imitation intellectual.)

A silver Lexus pulled into a space near the entrance steps. I had not pegged him for a Lexus owner. The doors opened, all four of them, and out tumbled four soccer mom types in casual wear, yakking a blue streak.

Ramona arrived first in a copper RAV4. I watched her pull into a remote space on the far side of the Museum Store. She remained in the driver’s seat, slumped low so only the top of her hennaed head was visible. No mystery what she was up to. She too was in surveillance mode. She wanted advance notice of what she was getting into. Or perhaps, what she was getting out of.

I’d not seen her since the onset of Covid. This Thomas fellow wasn’t the only one who was curious to see what Ramona looked like these days.

 

June 5, 1:00 p.m.

He arrived on the dot. His white Corolla was carwash clean. Its sloped and squarish rear made me think it was an older model.

On climbing out, he glanced left, then right. He was taller than I’d expected. Why wouldn’t she have added that detail to the identifiers I should watch for? Unless he’d not revealed that to her. But that wouldn’t make sense. Men on the make tend to strut favorable information about their height. It’s one of the few stats that can be verified.

Grimacing, he pressed his hand to the small of his back to give the himself a quick massage, all the while scanning the parking lot. Spotting no new arrivals, he proceeded with a slight limp to the entrance path. There he assumed a wooden pose, chest puffed, shoulders back, doing his level best to manufacture that all-important first impression. I found it amusing to observe him studiously practicing this pose, knowing she was surreptitiously watching also. A bad actor playing Odysseus in a parking lot was what she was seeing.

Five minutes passed. He checked his watch. A silver Mercedes drove in. He stood so erect I thought he was preparing to salute. The Mercedes parked. An Asian couple climbed out. I retreated up the hillside to a bulbous orange blob, pretending to be admiring it.

Finally, she emerged from her RAV4. She looked great, better than I remembered. We’d not seen much of each other in recent years. Her jeans were tight, which might have been folly since she was wide of hip with an ample rear. But damn! She wore a snug dark turtleneck that highlighted her bust (easy to do). She looked radiant and she looked her age.

As she sauntered from the parking lot, I watched him watch her.  She always possessed a naturally sultry gait and she did not conceal it now. He liked what he saw.

Each wore masks. His mask was pale blue. Hers was a brightly colored tie-dyed number. The age of Aquarius remained in her undimmed.

The benefits of masks, I realized, went beyond Covid prevention. As she moved toward him, they were able to stare unabashedly at each other without fear of revealing too much too soon. Were they smiling? Smirking? Wincing? Frowning? Who knew?

There was a flurry of indecision about the mode of greeting. Handshake extended then hastily withdrawn. Elbows presented but no bump. A wriggling of shoulders, perhaps in surrender to the confusion. They headed up the path, side by side, somewhat closer together than the CDC-prescribed six feet.

My cover was an Art Lover newly sprung from Covid confinement by the mild weather and flattening of the curve. I wore faded black Levis, a faded blue work shirt over a white T-shirt fraying at the neckline, graying Asics running shoes, faded Red Sox ballcap, and mirror sunglasses. If I wasn’t perceived as a quintessential Art Lover, I might pass as the artist himself.

The grandiose orange blob was one of the first sculptures you passed coming up from the parking lot. The blob was large enough that I could position myself on its ridiculous nether side and feign fascination with its childish composition while tracking their progress. They were engaged in vigorous conversation. I’d always thought of her as somewhat on the shy side, conversationally speaking. Could I have been wrong? I could hear their buzzing but not make out the actual words. His voice, in contrast to the bombastic emails she’d shared with me, was wimpy, almost effeminate. Man up, dude!

I was the only person in the vicinity. Nearing, she’d showed me only the superficial acknowledgement you’d show any fellow art lover. As they moved slowly around the circumference, alternating between eye-balling the thing and eye-balling each other, I got the sense that she was raising her voice in order to encourage him to do likewise.

I really did hope she was pumping him for some basic information. Facts were needed. About his alleged passion for classical art. His peculiarly rococo style of writing. His financial status. His marital status. His employment history. His criminal history!

Alas, they were discussing art.

“Baby with the bath water,” I heard her merrily trill.

“Exactly! That’s something else we agree on.”

She laughed, as if he’d made a joke. Although it struck me that she was laughing at him, at his over-the-top insistence there was a bond between them. The guy was a salesman, avid to close the deal. That was funny.

“Think about it,” he enthused, “two such very different life trajectories and yet here we are, on the same path. That must mean something.”

Must it? Nice try, dude. Suddenly he glanced at me directly. Until now, I felt I was suitably incognito, lost in contemplation of the bulbous orange blob.

She leapt to my rescue, diverting him by wondering aloud if the blob might not be more stunning with a different color.

“Or shape,” he added, back on task.

The weather was exquisite, bright sun, soft air, fragrance of spring flowers and cut grass. I supposed I’d served my purpose, having gathered a few superficial observations to share with Ramona (basically, the guy was as conventional as they come, if that’s your thing) and establishing that she was probably in no imminent risk. He walked with a splay-footed gait, appeared to have lower back issues, had narrow shoulders, and a general meekness to his overall body language. I’m not claiming outright that I could take him down, mano a mano. But I’ll admit that just such a scenario was percolating in my mind as I made my way uphill to the next installation, a writhing tangle of stainless-steel pipes.

They headed the other way, in the direction of the cast iron donuts and the towering haystack cubes. I realized that by walking counterclockwise, I would soon cross paths with them.

I paused at a pink-yellow humped eruption, knowing they’d be coming this way.

A dozen onlookers were milling around the thing, mostly women in their thirties and forties. The nation was coming out of its cocoon. One man, a bit older with a full beard and a nasal voice, was talking loudly. A docent, probably. Or an adult ed instructor.

I fell in with them. I’d done this before, tag along with a museum tour group without having signed up or paid, and so long as you cut away periodically and don’t go overboard in flaunting your freeloader status, there’s not much anybody can do. The museum is a public space. If they don’t like the fact that you’re eavesdropping on their valuable expertise, they can schedule the tour after hours.

The weirdly humped sculpture was shapeless in a shapely way. It struck me as the sort of concoction a playful child might come up with if she’d mastered industrial welding and enjoyed National Endowment funding. Beyond that, I couldn’t say what was going on. Except that it seemed to captivate people.

“Notice the horizontal lines,” the bearded docent sang out. His voice was truck driver gruff, a nice surprise. “What do they suggest?”

Nobody ventured a guess. Or was willing to put it into words.

“Do you see a woman with her head thrust backward?”

Murmured assent, nodding of heads.

Ramona and her date were approaching from the other side, amiably chatting. Just as I’d anticipated. She spotted me. Possibly he did too. So what?

“Note also,” blared the docent with a backward sweep of his right arm, as though flinging a frisbee, “in that pinkish zone, the suggestion of – how can I put this delicately? – a phallus. Propped against her hip. Or what we imagine to be her hip. Michelangelo in his . . . “

Ramona and the guy were planted on the opposite side of the side-winding thing. Camouflaged among the art aficionados, I felt free to safely steal a look.

I wished I hadn’t. They were holding hands. Like high school kids. And like high school kids, they were using the diversionary pretext of the docent’s insistence that everyone look elsewhere – at the imaginary phallus! – to slyly get cozy. That brought back a few memories. I’d had a high school girlfriend who had an actual interest in art. Indeed, she went on, long after me, to get a master’s degree at a college in Oregon. The Museum of Fine Arts was our spot, lolling before the Monet lily pads, my arm around her slender shoulder.

Gently, Ramona grazed her thumb across the inside of his wrist, back and forth. She had to know I was watching

“One final point,” crowed the instructor.

I was curious what he’d say. But Ramona and Thomas resumed their circumlocution and I had no choice but to continue in the opposite direction to avoid them. As we crisscrossed, I thought I heard her say to him, “Not like any phallus I’ve ever seen.”

But maybe I was imagining that.

I wish I’d imagined what he mostly definitely said in reply. “I’d like to hear more about that, my lovely lass.”

 

June 9, 10:29 p.m.

“A truly blissful outing,” he wrote. “Spending those luxurious hours in your radiant presence was proof yet again of the poet’s eternal insight. ‘Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty. That is all we need to know.’ I do confess that my spirits, so elated throughout that golden afternoon, underwent significant downward slippage upon my return to Planet Earth. I wonder if you experienced a similar reversal of mood.”

 

June 9, 2020

Do Not Respond! That would’ve been my advice if I’d learned of this communication in real time. And definitely Do Not suggest that you experienced a similar letdown in the aftermath.

 

June 9, 11:44 p.m.

She took great pleasure in riddles. She herself was the very embodiment of a riddle. Life is a riddle, might well have been her philosophy. If you can call that a philosophy. Did she believe this fellow was a riddle, and one worth solving? Was she hoping he’d become one? No easy answers. Which did make it all a kind of riddle.

“A most enjoyable outing, sir. I sometimes found myself wondering what impression the two of us made on strangers milling around. Would anyone have guessed the truth?”

 

June 10, 6:14 a.m.

He was thrilled to awake early and discover an overnight missive from her. It was less thrilling that she’d side-stepped his heartfelt question. Was she as lonely for his company as he was for hers? Was she being coy? Did she think the question un-important? Based on what he was learning about her, it could be either.

Uncertainty annoyed him. It was possible she thrived on it. Could she be toying with him? She wouldn’t be the first. It had started out that way with Deb. In the end the joke was on her. Yet something told him Ramona, if she was toying with him, was doing it out of affection rather than scorn. If Ramona was having fun playing off his straight-arrowness, he was happy to indulge her. Attraction between opposites was legendary; she might be his shot at becoming a legend.

True, it was hard to imagine a couple – yes, couple was the term he used in his thoughts – more opposite. The photo she’d sent of herself cloaked in diaphanous silks,  now you see it, now you don’t, said it all. He’d rather pose full frontal nude with his daughters looking on than in such an outfit, and there was no chance he’d ever do that.

Breathe deep. Early morning erections were no way to start the day. Action was needed. She needed to visit. He needed her in his lair. Would a full frontal in his birthday suit do the trick? The very thought creeped him out (and got rid of the erection.)

Instead, he decided to send her a picture of his condo.

With the early sun slanting in, he set about staging his living room as though he was a Century 21 realtor putting the unit on the market at an exorbitant price. There wasn’t much to straighten out. He routinely kept the sofa cushions squared and fluffed, the armchair free of newspaper sections, the National Geographics atop the coffee table neatly stacked. For purposes of the photo shoot, he did introduce a silver ice bucket and made sure to prop the wine bottle so its green neck protruded. Beside the ice bucket, nearest the camera, he arranged two hand-blown wine glasses, angled to reflect the morning light. “The only thing missing,” he wrote, “is you.”

 

June 14, 2020

It was clear to each, and certainly clear to me, that schedule complications were not the sole reason the discussion about when and where had grown so attenuated.

My advice, had she asked, would have been to wait until Covid was safely in the rearview mirror. There was talk of a vaccine. There was talk of herd immunity stopping this in its tracks. In time, life would normalize. It always did, right?

I got that loneliness could be a problem for a dazzling lady who drew so much pleasure from dazzling others. Find a pod of trusted friends would’ve been my advice. Count me among them.

 

June 20, 2020

Every few days he’d float out several new options, pausing judiciously between each missive in order to bolster the impression that he’d been waiting for his appointments secretary to shift a few things around in order to create space on his calendar. One guide-to-online dating manual – he couldn’t recall which, he’d read so many of them and their advice when you came right down to it was so generic – had emphasized not so much playing hard to get, for that would be a ruse too easy to dispel and potentially self-defeating, as presenting the image of a man who made judicious use of his time. It hinted at a Spartan work ethic, a goal-orientated mindset, an aversion to idleness. The implication was that ladies appreciated such traits. But maybe not all ladies.

 

June 26, 2020

She’d hem. She’d haw. It was always something and the something was not always something she felt the need to specify. This or that proposed date wouldn’t “work” because she “already had something.” A virtual charity fund-raiser she’d promised “someone” to attend. A Zoom memorial on the one-year anniversary of the death of “a guy” who used to be a neighbor. An online reunion with “a group” she used to “hang with.”

She was in no hurry. Their relationship – yes, they’d been corresponding long enough to accept it as a relationship – meant something to her. She did not want it to end. The pace, which might rightly be characterized as languid, felt fine. They were doing so well at “familiarizing” (her word, deftly chosen for its mild dampening effect), why rush? Once, to bolster the case for procrastination without having to outright admit it, she wrote him that her horoscope expressly urged her to make no commitments that might result in lasting consequences until midway into Cancer or possibly as late as Leo. She took special delight in injecting the Zodiac as a consideration into the planning process, as he wouldn’t know her actual birthday. She’d have to be careful not to overuse it.

She did wish she could be more candid. She did wish she could be transparent about her desire to string it out as long as possible and possibly forever, to treat this courtship, if that’s what it could be called, as the thing itself, the goal itself. The grown-up world frowned on attenuated adult dalliance, as if it was a sport that should be left behind in high school, as if it was child’s play. Trying to justify it out loud could make it sound like child’s play. It wasn’t.

 

June 30, 1:01 p.m.

He did get it. Procrastination was something he was familiar with. He’d procrastinated six months before deciding to divorce Deb, and if that didn’t teach him a lesson – during that stretch she became pregnant, setting his plans back another nineteen years – nothing would. He’d procrastinated for six weeks about buying his condo, and if that didn’t teach him a lesson – the asking price shout up by $13,500 in the interlude – nothing would. He’d damn near frittered away the golden opportunity of Ramona’s Match.com posting. Only after several days brooding over his woeful romantic history, and further brooding on the fact that he wasn’t getting any younger, or healthier, or happier, did he man up to that most crucial of questions: what would brave Odysseus do?

Sending her pics from his condo seemed like a good idea, and a way of playing the game as she seemed to want to play it without flinging himself into the lunacy of trying on costumes to see what worked. In truth, he could not imagine representing himself as anything other than what he was, a man with conservative tastes and a secret self that he desperately needed help in cultivating.

His kitchen was tidy and spotless with modern appliances. The living room had a plush green-gray sofa and reclining armchair from Jordan’s. On the wall were reproductions of some of his favorites, Mona Lisa, The Thinker, Adam and Eve naked and in flight. He snapped a few and moved on.

The bedroom, let’s face it, is what this was all about. The king-size with the Amish wedding ring quilt would make a positive impression. That the quilt had indeed been a wedding gift, one of the few possessions his inept attorney was able to salvage from the divorce proceedings, was not something Ramona needed to know. Camera angle would matter. It would be difficult to show all the artwork on the bedroom walls, seven pieces total. He settled on a shot slanting upward from the foot of the bed. This angle captured the sumptuous pillows by the headboard and above it, the 4’x3’ print of a muscle-bound Zeus being attended to by a bevy of buxom nymphs. Zeus was not one to procrastinate. She’d pick up on that.

One last detail. He turned down the bedding as the maid service reputedly did in the kind of boutique hotels he envisioned them staying in once this thing took flight. Turning down the bedding got him to thinking what else might he do, by way of staging, to perk her ardor. A crystal decanter of brandy atop the nightstand. His plaid pajamas, bottom only, upon the quilt. A dildo! Oh, you’re bad, Mr. T. Bad, bad. She is not that sort of gal. Well maybe she is, but doesn’t know it. Yet.

He let loose a merry snort. He’d never do anything of the sort. But chalk this up: the fact that he even hatched the thought was a clear sign of the impact she was having.

He clicked the iPhone camera and downloaded the image. Before sending, he thought to include a line from another poem that he’d kept in his back pocket for just the right occasion. He omitted providing author attribution. If she believed the line originated with him, what was the harm in that? “At my back I always hear,” he typed, “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”

 

June 30, 10:46 p.m.

Strike two. She hated that poem. In high school, she’d been made to analyze it. To her, the poem completely misconstrued the foundational impulses of female coyness, and she knew damn well that he had not authored that line (although she had to admit that the stilted syntax sounded like him.) But how much of her displeasure, with the poem and with him, to disclose outright?

A pig-headed, self-absorbed, egotistic bull of a man was one kind of problem. A meek deflated one was another, and a lot harder to fix. Those pics of his condo, sunlit and immaculate, had her worried. Was he hoping to win her over with his housekeeping skills? She needed to inject some spunk into him. Woman’s work was never done.

“I can visualize you relaxing there, lord of your domain,” she wrote. “However, the lighting is far too bright. Does it ever get dark in there?”

 

June 30, 10:58 p.m.

If he knew where she lived, he’d be there in a flash. Precise home coordinates remained private information they’d not yet shared. There were other gaps they’d agreed, for now, to leave. She still did not know what he did for income. He’d noted once that he was too young to retire. Was that a tactic to deflect further inquiry into age? And retire from what? He sure seemed to have time on his hands, although Covid did have many working unstructured hours from home. True, she could have popped the question directly. And she would certainly do so, at such time as it really mattered. For now, it didn’t.

There was a lot he didn’t know about her. For example, he hadn’t asked why she’d never been married. She would have thought that would be of paramount curiosity. Did he assume she was lying about that? Indeed, how much of what they’d told each other was assumed by the other party to be dissembling or blatant fabrication? Was this all an extended session of Dungeons and Dragons?

 

June 30, 10:58 p.m.

“Pitch dark right now,” he wrote. “Except for the glow in my heart.”

Send.

Immediately he regretted it. Not the words. They were brilliant. What he regretted was ending so abruptly. A postscript should have been annexed. It was unlike him to act precipitously without strategizing all options from all angles. This affair – that word again – was denting his equilibrium. He was surprised at his own delight in the piecemeal gradualism of their developing rapport. There was definitely a part of him that wished it could be strung out in perpetuity. But a bigger part of him believed, just like those dufus bros in backward ball cap holding their six-pound walleyes up to the camera, that a fish nibbling the bait remains far from hooked. He loathed that analogy. Too bad it was so goddam valid.

“You must,” he frantically typed, chewing his tongue, “come visit me soon. Very soon. I will adapt my schedule to accommodate whatever time of day or night can be arranged (darkness is my preference, but I yield to you.) Our desire to be in each other’s presence cannot be allowed to languish. The fire must be stoked or it runs the risk of burning out. Do you know the myth of Pothos? Come, my lovely lass, and I will tell you.”

There! That’s better. Send.

 

July 5, 11:01 a.m.

She apprised me via text. A phone call would have been better. I had a lot of questions, and comments, that I’d been saving for the right occasion. The occasion was now.

She wanted me to know that she would be driving that day, that very day, to visit him at his condo in a middle class suburb fifteen miles northwest of Boston. Early afternoon was her ETA. She wanted me to be in possession of his street address (314 Weatherly Green Drive, Unit 2B) and his full legal name or at least the one he provided her (Thomas Wilson) that she required of him before signing up for this expedition. “Security” was the reason she wanted me to know this information, although it was hardly clear what security it might provide. Except, perhaps, to provide homicide investigators a place to start.

“Surprised you’re taking this step,” I texted back. “But that’s who you are, and don’t I know it.” After sending, I realized how uncharitable that sounded. Who was I, married and financially comfortable, to second guess the needs and desires of a mature woman fending for herself in a world where the complications, including the march of time, are mounting? I texted again. “I will be available throughout the afternoon and evening, and will keep my cell phone handy should you want to reach out.”

 

July 5, 1:41 p.m.

I had plans that afternoon to attend an open studio art show in the South End with my wife. A collective of artists would be setting up in the courtyard, in the manner of a farmer’s market. There would be limited admission, mandatory masking, ubiquitous hand-spritzers, and industrial fans strategically arranged to maximize air flow. This would be our first real outing together since early March. It did feel like an adventure to be leaving the bunker, getting in the car, driving into the city.

For several years Lilly had been taking painting classes with Henrietta Z, an elderly bohemian who reputedly knew Warhol and had a cult-like following that gathered twice a week in a Fort Point loft and every August for a ten-day full immersion art orgy in Rockville, Maine. This year, all of that was suspended due to Covid. The open studio event was a chance for Lilly to connect again with art and artists, a tentative step toward normalcy.

The old textile factory courtyard, repurposed as an art oasis, felt positively festive. The adjacent galleries with their windows flung open and air circulation fans blasting had the feel of an open air seaside market. Nobody believed the Pandemic was history, but the communal excitement at resuming, however cautiously, the tribal spirit was palpable. Having filled my annual quota of art-appreciation at the DeCordova (no need for Lilly to know that), I plunked onto a plain wood bench in the shade, telling Lilly to come get me whenever she was ready to leave. Which I knew would not be soon.

On the bench, I checked my phone to be sure it was sufficiently powered. I did not expect to be pressed into service.

Thomas seemed like a decent fellow. Not her type but, hey, who was I to say? I did wonder how much he actually knew about her. Did he know about the swell and sway of her breasts when unloosed. Did he know of the otherworldly bliss she experienced at being slowly, skillfully caressed? Did he know about the fragrance that seeped from the pores of her sex-moistened flesh? She really was an extraordinary package.

The Pandemic must have put a scare into her. At any other time in her life, this guy would be no more desirable than a department store mannequin. And he’d have no more than a mannequin’s chance of getting it on with her. Yet how important an attribute was decency to her? I’d known a number of her men. Bartenders, bass guitarists, cartoonists, venture capital charlatans. I might have been the only decent one in the lot.

I spotted Lilly on the far side of the courtyard. She was with a group of women I didn’t know. Lilly spotted me. She opened her arms, palms skyward, miming a question. Was I okay where I was, doing nothing? I shot her a thumbs-up. Yep, I’m good.

The day was warm. I was happy to be in the shade. It was nearly 2 p.m. Early afternoon was the expected time of Ramona’s visit. She might be there already. My thoughts went darting like bats in a pitch-dark cave. I opened my phone onto Safari. I should’ve done this earlier. It was a measure of something amiss in my thought process that I’d punted on this most elementary task. Who was this guy? What level of risk did he pose?

Google research might not be the hero’s way. But it was a start.

Ignoring the swarm of nattering art lovers, I buckled down to the task. It troubled me how little she’d learned. Still, there were a few scraps she’d gathered and relayed to me. Age: 60 (add at least five to allow for standard deception.) Employment: sales (ugh, too general to be useful); sun sign (Taurus); surname (Wilson). Thomas fucking Wilson. Christ! Might as well have been John Doe. Needle in a haystack.

I hurriedly scrolled through some of the back-and-forths she’d forwarded, hoping to snag something that might help narrow the search. His texts were sprinkled with allusions to mythological gods. I wanted to search his name in combination with the keyword “bullshit.” But time was wasting. The emails were maddeningly discursive. And frankly, not all that interesting once you knew that she ultimately consented to an unchaperoned visit to his condo on a sweet summer’s day.

I racked my brain, groping for any detail that might assist in the search. He was weird. Maybe add the keyword “weird” to “bullshit” and see what comes up? It was 2:39 p.m. She could be there now, pretending to admire his layaway plan living room furniture and framed prints of voluptuous goddesses.

I plunged deeper into the email thread, scrolling hurriedly.

“As passionate as Orpheus,” was how he’d described himself in one of his earliest communications. A transparent lie but a curious one, given that he had no reason at that point to assume she had any notion who Orpheus might be or, for that matter, to assume the reference would resound to his credit. One mystery about this fellow, and possibly the only mystery, was his penchant for tossing out laughably pompous allusions that might, like an idiot savant spewing whatever comes to mind, resonate with unimagined significance.

I swiftly googled Orpheus.

In the courtyard, throngs of merry art lovers swept past, chattering like school kids let loose for recess. Massachusetts Covid numbers, both new cases and deaths, had been plummeting. The trend lines were hopeful. The White House was saying it might be over by Labor Day. Happy days could be here again.

Orpheus’ renown, mythologically speaking, was for the epic scale of his sorrow following the tragic death of his lover. Poor Eurydice, bit by a poisonous viper on their wedding day, died a wretched death. Forever after, Orpheus dined out, so to speak, on the unrelenting magnitude of his sorrow. Titanic grief made him a legend.

Was immortality what Thomas aspired to? You’d never know it by the Walter Mitty life he’d led. So far.

 

July 5, 6:22 p.m.

Lilly was inspired by the vibrant orgy of shapes, colors and zany lines. That and the anything-goes exuberance of so many folk wriggling free of the Covid cocoon filled her with a newfound zeal for her own work. Once back home, she immediately retreated to the studio she’d established in what had formerly been our garage. I was glad to be left alone. It was after six p.m. and still no word.

Even allowing for traffic congestion, Ramona would already have spent at least three hours in his company. Talking about what? She had no patience for bull-shitting. And this fellow did little else.

That said, I had to admit she was fundamentally an enigma. Predictability was not a cloak she’d be caught dead in. She was a creature of the moment, a butterfly alight on the winds. She navigated by improvisation. Impetuousness was her energy source,. If she arrived at Thomas’ condo and turned around to leave ten minutes later it would be no more surprising than if, Covid be damned, she elected to spend the night.

Her instructions to me had been simple and specific – keep my phone on, stay tuned – with a hint of self-mocking melodrama. She was ever theatrical. A low probability threat was the perfect spice to sprinkle into a drab encounter. And I too was perfect for the part she’d enlisted me to play. I knew her. I cared. She needed me to make whatever game she was playing – and wasn’t she always involved in some fantasy excursion? – more realistic. But not too realistic.

 

July 5, 7:14 p.m.

 Lilly, uncharacteristically, had planned on cooking a Sunday night dinner. Since our son and daughter had departed, first for college and subsequently for professional lives on the west coast – Gerry doing something with software, Amy as an architect – cuisine in our household had been fairly rudimentary. Local restaurant take-out and kale-based salads filled the majority of our dining needs. Steak on the grill when weather permitted. Sometimes baked scallops or shrimp to toss atop the salad. Empty nest for us had become the trigger for slimming down, scaling back, measuring out the coffee spoons.

Emerging from her studio, Lilly was raring to get a move-on with dinner. She assigned me a variety of chopping tasks: onions, peppers, celery, zucchini, carrots. She may have mentioned the name of the dish all this was to be funneled into, but I’d been too distracted to take note. I merely passed the chopped-up ingredients to her as she stood by the convection stove, merrily singing, high-pitched and off-key, a medley of Joni Mitchell songs. I was happy Lilly was happy. It gave me space. It gave me cover.

It did occur to me that Ramona might have neglected to communicate. I was, after all, a bit player. A bit player never called upon to actually play can easily be overlooked. Was it possible that she had returned hours ago to her Cambridge condo doing whatever it was she did by herself, alone at night, in the soft glow of scented candles, nestled comfortably among the bulky harem pillows?

Our habit after dinner, Lilly and I, was to drift in separate directions. Our house was spacious enough – early 20th century Victorian, ten rooms, high-ceilings – to comfortably allow it. The living room was hers to watch multi-episode miniseries on our 48” flat screen. My retreat was an upstairs office with a red leather Barcalounger. We usually re-converged from our separate domains around bedtime, which was getting earlier with each passing year.

 

July 5, 8:32 p.m.

Still no text. Still no email. My preferred evening pastimes were narrative nonfictions and true crime podcasts. I liked these genres because they allowed me to plunge in without undue concentration. Tonight was different. The book about a dramatic incident in an Alaska elementary school, which I’d previously found riveting, was impossible to concentrate on. Grabbing my ear buds, I switched on a podcast about a Kafkaesque parole hearing.

Slumped in the Barcalounger, it struck me that I could be a character in a taut drama, the brooding protagonist briefly stepping away from the fray to contemplate his next move. What next, the audience wants to know?

“Going for a walk,” I called out to Lilly, safe in the assumption she’d be too absorbed in her mini-series to hear me or care. I descended the stairs, and headed out the door.

The lone streetlamp in our cul de sac was at the far corner, two houses down. It was perfectly dark at the mouth of our driveway where I stood. The only light was from my phone.

I texted. Safely home?

Then I emailed. Safely home?

I called. Four rings then voicemail. She couldn’t come to the phone right now. Her sing-songy recording instructed, “say it like you mean it, after the beep.” I knew to leave no message. In case the phone was no longer in her possession.

At this hour on a Saturday evening, the drive from my house to his condo was thirty-six minutes, according to GPS. What would I do upon arriving? Cross that bridge was my only answer. There was a reason she provided me with his street address.

I doubted Lilly could hear me as I slowly backed our late model Prius down the driveway. Soon enough she’d discover my absence. Another bridge to cross later. The time was 9:01 p.m.

I-95 was busier than expected. Covid might have quelled the party, but not everybody was at home watching TV. I treated the highway as a conveyor belt, staying steadfastly in the middle lane. I was too agitated to withstand the further agitation of changing lanes. I kept the radio silent. The white noise hum of the six-lane was audio enough for my brittle nerves.

I did wonder if I was making all this up. I consider myself even-tempered and clear-eyed. Life is interesting enough, and challenging enough, without invented melodramas. He, on the other hand . . .

What was up with all that nonsense about gods and goddesses? I understood that men in their middle years latch onto strange hobbies. Civil War reenactments, beekeeping, ethnic cooking, model train collecting, it all serves a purpose and the purpose is to forestall the vegetative state. I’m all for that. Almost anything is healthier than whiling away life’s hours on the internet. But wallowing in the imaginary feats of Apollo and Venus and Zeus, and treating these mythological figures like they were blood relatives whose grandiose powers you had magically inherited was delusion in its purest form. There was no telling how far this Thomas might go in pursuit of a woman he believed could unlock his inner Hercules. And there was no telling how he’d respond if his advances were rebuffed.

To my mind, Greek myths were in the same league as Santa Claus, harmless to enjoy, folly to embrace. Still, they could provide clues.

An angry, blaring truck horn snapped me to my senses. The entire rear window of my Prius was filled the blunt-nose cab of a mammoth tractor trailer. The beast looked like it was on top of me. In my consternation, I’d slowed to 55. The GPS showed 6.4 miles to go. I hit the gas.

Off the exit ramp, I continued straight for 2.3 miles. At the second stop sign, I turned left onto Canterbury for six-tenths of a mile. This was deep suburbia, pitch dark and lonely. I zipped down the window. I needed air. Crickets were at it.

A gold-lettered sign, lit from below, announced “Weatherly Green.” This is where he lived. Allegedly. Turn left again.

Two-story attached duplex townhouses were clustered in groups of four. New England Puritan was the design aesthetic, brick facades with white trim wherever possible. Each townhouse was fronted by a postage stamp lawn behind a white picket fence. I guess it was reassuring that he resided in such a neighborly-seeming complex. Whatever Ramona was enduring, she would not be stranded beyond shouting distance. If shouting was her desire.

“Your destination is on the right.” Each townhouse looked identical. 314 Weatherly Green Drive was the address. Of the four units, lights were on in three. It wasn’t all that late. It just felt late to me. There were only a few other parked cars. Her copper RAV4 was among them.

I was headed for unit 2B. Such a drab address, and so not her thing. Second floor was my assumption. Exiting my car, I was careful to do so quietly. This seemed like a place where nosy neighbors might be quick to call the cops on a stranger. I could hear the muffled thump-thump-thump of a high end woofer. Someone up there was trying to have fun.

Above the vestibule entrance, a coach light in a tinted glass case cast a sepia glow. I scooted inside, wary of being detected. Was that crazy? This whole thing was crazy.

The vestibule door was not locked. I had no choice but to enter. A row of vertical mailboxes on the right, a straight back chair to the side, a card table sloppily piled with unclaimed magazines and promotional flyers. A door to my immediate right was labeled “stairs”. It too was unlocked.

The stairwell smelled of curry. She liked Indian cuisine. She liked anything foreign, exotic, spicy. The stairwell was brightly lit, no doubt an insurance requirement. I wondered what other safety precautions might be mandated. At the second floor, a gray steel door opened onto an carpeted common space. Off this space were two doors, neither with any identification.

I was careful to make no sound, but why? If a frightened neighbor called the cops, I would welcome it. If I knocked on the wrong door, I’d simply say, sorry to bother, I was looking for Mr. Wilson. And if the door I knocked on was the correct one?

What then, Sir Galahad?

 

I knocked on the far door, guessing it to be 2B. I listened for footsteps from within. Not a creature stirring.

A locked door was what I’d expected. The handle turned. I pushed gently using my knuckle, a Covid protocol. I donned my blue hospital mask, a cat burglar’s disguise.

The immediate living space was dark. Further back a light was on. Every muscle impulse in my body twitched to flee. The only sound was the hum of a kitchen appliance, or maybe a window fan. The scent of curry was stronger here than in the stairwell. The kitchen appeared to be where the light emanated from. The bedroom, I guessed, was back there somewhere.

I gave off a tepid little cough in the contrived way one does to politely draw attention. In the shadows I could discern the outlines of furniture, a sofa, an armchair, a coffee table.

I stepped forward, not exactly emboldened but responding to the dare. But wait. I didn’t have to take a blind leap off the cliff. From the rear pocket of my Levis I pulled out my iPhone. “I’m here,” I texted. I listened for the telltale ping.

“Hello,” I called, struggling for an unthreatening, conciliatory tone. It was lame, but what was I supposed to do, snarl, “Come out with your hands up?”

The condo had an open floor plan, living room flowing into kitchen which flowed rearward. The stuff on the walls was proof I’d come to the right place. Voluptuous nymphs, brawny gods, semi-naked hunks and hunkesses.

So many warning signs. I entered the kitchenette.

On the stove, a frying pan encrusted with yellow-gray globs. A saucepan was half-filled with water. Taped to the refrigerator, a yellow sheet of paper with bold print announcing that the water would be turned off between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. on July 11.

The bedroom door was ajar. I hurriedly thumbed my iPhone for the flashlight feature. My light swept the darkened room. I was as fearful of a living surprise as a dead one.

Several pillows, all in white cases, lay toppled onto a white shag rag. The white chenille bedspread was scrunched at the foot of the king-size bed. I found the wall switch and flipped on the overhead. The framed artwork above the bed, horny satyrs gamboling with lusty nymphs, was worse than I’d imagined. I bet they’d given her pause.

If she’d come this far.

As seemingly she had.

A narrow writing desk with an iMac was tucked in the corner. The computer screen was dark. I hesitated. Covid had instilled in me a caution about touching unfamiliar objects, but a greater caution was now foremost on my mind. I pulled a white cotton handkerchief from my Levi’s pocket. I wrapped it around my forefinger so as to leave no prints.

I tapped the white plastic mouse. The darkened computer screen popped awake to a pale blue one. Click again.

His Gmail account was right there, open. No need to feverishly peck across a virus-riddled keyboard.

His most recent communication had been this very morning at 7:41 a.m. “Re: Odyssey” was the subject line. I scrolled down. Last evening at 10:29 p.m., she’d written, “ETA 2 p.m. But don’t hold me to it.”

‘“I hold you to nothing,” he’d replied, “except the promises you have made to your truest self.”

What a putz. I had to believe she could see through that. Anybody could.

Furiously I scrolled backward, down the rabbit hole.

 

May 31, 9:02 p.m.

“I’m thinking of dying my hair,” she written. “What do you think of . . . “ Here she’d attached a jpeg of coloration options from NewVibrantYou.com.

I hardly needed to read the response, I was already so familiar with his unctuous habits.

 

May 31, 9:19 p.m.

“Any color,” he wrote, “would, on you my lovely lass, look ravishing.”

Ravishing was a strange word to use. I didn’t like the sound of it. Even if she just might.

And what the hell was she thinking, dangling an offer for him to weigh in on her selection of a hair color. And what was wrong with the hair color she had, the gracefully hennaed purplish brown? To me she still looked, well, ravishing.

 

May 31, 11:46 p.m.

“Nonetheless, new hair color is what I need,” she wrote. “New day. New look. New outlook. New style. New habits. New age. New life. New me. This lockdown did not begin with Covid.”

I gasped. New life. New age. New beginning. Once upon a time she’d said words very much like that to me. And I came very close to taking her up on the offer. If it was an offer.

 

June 1, 12:14 a.m.

“You are wise beyond your years, my lovely lass. Looking back, I realize I was in a self-imposed lockdown long before Covid rose up to terrorize the population. Not until viewing your radiant presence did my inner darkness begin to lift. You are my light. You are my illumination. You are my unlocking. The message is loud and not to be denied. We are destined to go forth together.”

 

June 3, 4:41 p.m.

“Simmer down. Please. I am a middle-aged woman confused about what color to dye my hair. In a moment of weakness or a moment of whimsy – call it what you wish, but it was one of those two – I asked your opinion. Let’s not go overboard. OK?

“But I do have to ask. Do you like it?”

Attached was a snapshot.

The colors she’d selected – green, silver, blue – made a clear statement as to who she was and would steadfastly remain, age be damned. It appeared she’d added a bit of jell for sheen and shape. The pic was nearly full body, from knees upward.

Her hair, I can tell you, is not where the eye initially came to rest. Not this man’s eye. Or anyone else’s. She wore a Hawaiian shirt, green palm fronds and yellow pineapples. That portion of her plump breasts not nakedly displayed, the lower third, was cupped precariously in a lacy black brassiere.

“Do you like it?” she’d shyly asked.

 

June 3, 9:27 p.m.

“I do like it, my lovely lass. However, I believe I could proffer a more informed, and therefore a more constructive, opinion if provided a variety of photographs from different angles and with different qualities of lighting.”

 

June 4, 1:15 a.m.
“Please be more specific,” was her reply.

 

July 5, 9:37 p.m.

A loud clicking sound startled me. I bolted upright. Fearful of getting caught in the act, I darted to the living room. Nothing. I’d left the hallway door open. I shut it now. And returned to the desktop.

 

June 6, 4:53 a.m.

“I have given thought to your request, my lovely lass. More thought than you can possibly realize. As you are no doubt aware, classical painting is a special love of mine. Whereas the art of photography intrigues me, I have not spent sufficient time and effort cultivating my aesthetic standards to the point where I feel qualified to render an opinion on photographic depictions of your timeless beauty.”

“Rather than ineffectually attempt to describe by means of the written word alternative approaches to styling, framing, lighting, etc. that might enhance the visual expression of your myriad charms, I attach instead several examples from the oeuvre of highly regarded artists, with the belief that you might be inspired by these to ponder anew the matter at hand.”

 

July 5, 9:30 p.m.

Slogging through his turgid prose under deadline pressure was a form of torture. Get to the fucking point! I clicked his attachments.

The infernal swirling beachball popped up, mocking my impotence. I waited, waited. Like the Pandemic, there was no forcing its hand. Frozen in time, suspended in time, stuck in time. The cheapskate needed to upgrade his router, dump some files. Come on, asshole!

Finally the images opened. Each was neatly labeled, as though this was his prized stamp collection. Fucking pedant.

First Titian’s Danae, sprawled across a bedsheet, naked and pink, dreamily awaiting a conjugal visit. Unless that gluttonous smirk on her moistened lips was post-orgasmic. No doubt our Thomas had a scholarly opinion on this question. As to exactly what guidance she might gain from this regarding hair color selection, well, this display was never about her.

Titian again, Venus rising from the sea. Fleshy arms, womanly loins, petite breasts, nipples like bronze coins, dark pubic hair! Was he really inviting her to enact a similar pose? Next.

Whoa!! Leda and the Swan by the celebrated French rococo painter Francois Boucher, as noted in his caption. Voluptuous lady stretches backward on a divan, diaphanous nightgown yanked high to brazenly flaunt her hairless vagina. And there, nosing in for an intimate close-up, the angular, outstretched orange proboscis of a long-necked swan.

I could hardly look at it. But I did. The pulchritude of Leda’s pink thighs, the lush swell of her tummy, and her glassy-eyed gaze as the swan’s beak draws near did, I admit, bear some resemblance to Ramona. But there’s no way he’d be in a position to know that. Was there?

And there certainly was be no way he could be confident she wouldn’t react with alarm and disgust. Was there?

One more image. No caption, and no caption needed. He was the model. He was the artist. On first glance, his appearance was in keeping with everything I knew about him, his stylistic blandness, his pasty complexion, his emerging paunch, his milquetoast demeanor. I found myself astonished anew that she found him even minimally appealing.

He wore khaki dockers and a light blue dress shirt with a button-down collar. If you were applying for a desk job at a state government tax collector office, this look would improve your chances. His mouth was stretched sideways in an effort to smile. The photo had been taken in what appeared to be his bedroom. I glanced up. Sure enough, in the background of his selfie was the very desk and ergonomic swivel chair where I now sat.

It was a weird sensation to occupy the very scene depicted in the image I was scrutinizing. It got weirder. Gazing again at the image on the iMac screen, his brown belt caught my eye. The silver clasp hung loose beside his zipper. The zipper . . . was unzipped! A pale patch of boxer shorts could be glimpsed peeking out. Nothing worse, thank god, peeked out.

 

June 7, 10:52 p.m.

“Artists such as Boucher who truly understand and appreciate the wonders of the female body understand and appreciate life at its deepest.  p.s. You may need some assistance with your zipper. It appears to be stuck midway between up and down. Indecision?”

 

July 5, 9:38 p.m.

Help with his zipper? Help in what form?

 Christ! What happened to her strategy of nurturing his ardor in a manageable holding pattern, not too little, not too much, until we can all figure out what life will be like once the Pandemic subsides? Vaccines were in the pipeline. Springtime spikes were leveling off. Why bring it to a boil just now?

My head was on fire. I shut my eyes, just for a moment, and was assaulted by a hallucinated image so disturbing it might have come straight off one of his hideous reproductions. Thomas and Ramona as Adam and Eve, naked except for N95 masks, hand in hand, fleeing the garden.

They’d fled. I was sure of it.

Where to? I’d know where. If it was me.

That isolated cove up a rough dirt road on the other side of the mountain from Coral Bay. I’d gone there as a young man, a dreamer adrift upon store-bought fantasies. Everyone should try that once in their life. Gauguin in the tropics cavorting with sweet-natured, bare-breasted native ladies was what I had in mind. It was a preposterous fantasy even if I’d possessed artistic skill. Or literary, for that matter. Marketing and promotion proved to be my true talents. No shame in that, I’ve since concluded. Gauguin’s business agent might have been closer to my calling, and that guy would need to live a lot closer to civilization.

Ramona was there too, on that rough dirt road that snaked around the bay. She’d arrived a few months earlier with an ethno-musicologist boyfriend who had some kind of academic fellowship to subsidize their hedonism. Their tin roof shanty tucked in the jungle was a gathering spot for stragglers like me after blissful days doing nothing. Not long after I arrived, the boyfriend returned to the states to further his studies. She stayed.

One humid, wind-blown afternoon, we wandered off together, she and I. We snorkeled the enchanted maze of underwater reefs. At a cliffside bar, we drank dark rum and smoked a spliff. The sun on the horizon was plump and orange. In the palm grove above the cove we kissed as the sky began to darken. I caressed her sumptuous body with all the tenderness of the breeze itself, and was caressed in return. We did not fuck. That was saved for later, a later that never arrived.

On the stroll back to her hut, she nuzzled my shoulder and slid a warm finger inside my waistband.. The jungle pulsed with strange squeals. The air was fragrant, muggy, lush. I was bewitched, besotted, alive. If it was possible to capture this moment in amber and preserve its glories to savor forever, I would want no more.   

Will you, she asked in a dreamy tone, run away with me?

Run away? I was already as far away, in body and spirit, as I’d ever in my wildest hoped to be. And that’s what I told her.

She never asked again.

 

July 5, 9:49 p.m.

On the wall above the iMac was another garish print, a fleshy harlot pressing her sumptuous breasts into the brawny bicep of a grizzled old coot in loin cloth.

What would Odysseus do?

I pulled out my phone. “Call Lilly.”

It took her several rings. When freshly awakened, no matter the hour, Lilly’s voice has a velvet sweetness. “Where are you?” she purred.

I didn’t hesitate. “On my way home,” I reported.

Either way, it was the truth.