XI

Sometimes when we’re together, I forget time and place.

I pretend that we are man and wife, living peacefully in the hills of Northern Ireland. He is a shepherd. I am his plain-but-sensible wife, who stays at home all day making meat pies. He has a ruddy complexion from so much time spent on the moors. I have wobbly jowls, common to the women of our region.

He is gruff and drooly, and smells of sheep.

“I love you,” I tell him, and we live happily ever after.

 

Sure I loved him. That was the easy part.

But I fall in love at the drop of a hat. At least a hundred times a day: I love the fry cook at McDonald’s. I love Kelly Clarkson. I love balsamic vinegar on my vanilla ice cream. . . .

Love is easy; it’s when you actually start to like someone that it gets difficult. Putting up with their odd little idiosyncrasies. The way they suck their teeth after dinner, say, or the way they change perfectly good lightbulbs. It’s when you like somebody despite the fact that they have every season of Reba on DVD—that you know it’s something special. It’s about liking someone in spite of the gaping flaws in their personality. . . .

 

And that’s how it all started with Flip. It’s when I actually started to LIKE him—as a person—despite the fact that he’s a bit of a mouth-breather, possibly an idiot, and is waaaaaay too enthralled with Charmed—that I realized how much I cared.

It’s true! He was soft and sweet, and my eyes went blurry when I looked at him. A friendship began. And it was like an old half-forgotten song. It started quietly, and I couldn’t quite place it; but with each refrain, each time we saw each other, it became clearer, and the tempo picked up. Suddenly, we were both singing along, and it was sweet and natural. There was a rhythm that was full-bodied and exciting. And a robust chorus that added layers and textures. When we recognized it, we felt good. We were friends.

Isn’t that nice?