Relationships In a Paragraph

1. He cooked me goulash involving beets. We listened to NPR and didn’t talk for over an hour. Calm cave-like silence broken only by the wash of cold rain on the window.

2. “God, that’s so weird. I just mentioned that song to you – and now it’s playing on the radio! Isn’t that so weird??” “Not weird at all. Sheer coincidence.” “Thanks for the sunshine, pal.” “Who loves ya, baby.”

3. We went to the famed Ear Inn, drank beer, and played hangman on the white-paper tablecloths. He drew me a cartoon explaining the Masons’ journey across the sea. He drew little boats on sharp little waves. Irish musicians played jigs in the corner.

4. He rolled his eyes when I tripped on a curb. I got dressed up for Easter and it confused him. When I cut up peppers for dinner, he would intervene impatiently and show me how to do it.

5. I lay in a hot bath, face puffy from crying. He sat on the toilet seat and read out loud to me from Peter Manso’s sneering biography of Marlon Brando. He got so angry when I looked both ways before crossing an empty street. “Sheila, take risks, goddammit. Your caution is holding you back.” I yelled, “Leave me ALONE.” Then we went and had some Ben & Jerry’s. Years later, after no contact for 3 years, out of the blue he left a message on my answering machine. “I just came out of a John Cassavetes movie. Why aren’t you here with me. Will you marry me? Call me back with your answer.” Click.

6. He used to be a Chippendale’s dancer. He did an imitation of one of his routines on our first date, and I nearly fell over laughing.

7. He took a nap during his brother’s wedding reception. I knew no one else there. I barely knew him. I went up to see how he was doing. He lay on a couch in his tuxedo, so asleep he seemed dead. He was tall, black-haired, green-eyed, gorgeous in an overblown Italian way. The party raged downstairs. I put my hand on his forehead. It was burning hot.

8. He walked me back to my house in Ranelagh, outside Dublin, where the Edwardian black iron gates gleamed in the rain. It was my birthday. We had met 5 days before in a pub outside Glendalough. We had spent the last couple of hours in a disco, talking about Sweden, police states, and the EU. Because that’s what you do in a disco. We turned onto my block, and he said, “Aw, aren’t these gates lovely?” I said, “They remind me of ‘The Dead’.” He stopped in his tracks, and said, “You. You understand us.” “Nah. I just read ‘The Dead.'”

9. We walked through the bird sanctuary during a snowstorm. His cheeks glowed with the cold. We held hands as we walked through the icy patches, and leaned against a wooden fence, staring out into the snow drifts. The next day in school, he acted as though none of it had happened.

10. We lay on our backs on the motel room bed. The sunset light was so molten-gold it was like liquid amber. We didn’t speak or touch. “Doesn’t this whole thing feel like a dream?” he said.