For three years Pietro and Tess lived together without marrying. Such an arrangement had ceased to be scandalous when they took it up, had even become fashionable. It expressed the partners’ reevaluation of the culture, or their liberation from tired old values, or something. It doesn’t matter what. Pietro and Tess did it.
They were married a few weeks ago. “It had got to the point where it didn’t matter,” Tess explained at the reception. “For all practical purposes we were married anyhow, and very happily, but it was starting to go sour because we didn’t have the marriage certificate.”
The canker in the love nest was the English language. Though English is the world’s most commodious tongue, it provided no word to define their relationship satisfactorily to strangers. When Tess took Pietro to meet her parents the problem became troublesome. Presenting Pietro, she said, “Mommy and Daddy, this is my lover, Pietro.”
Pietro was not amused. “It made me sound like a sex object,” he said. “What’s more, Tess’s dad kept taking me off alone and trying to pump me for tips about how to become a lover.”
Pietro felt demeaned and cheapened. Afterward, he quarreled with Tess and accused her of not respecting him as a person who had a fine mind and was a first-rate stockbroker. “Next time,” Tess said, “I’ll introduce you as my stockbroker.” Pietro stormed out of the house.
A few weeks later, they were invited to meet the President. Entering the reception line, Pietro was asked by the protocol officer for their names.
“Pietro,” he said. “And this is my mate.”
As they came abreast of the President, the officer turned to Mr. Carter and said, “Pietro and his mate.”
“I felt like the supporting actress in a Tarzan movie,” said Tess. It took Pietro three nights of sleeping at the YMCA to repair the relationship.
“Why don’t we call a spade a spade?” Tess suggested. Pietro pointed out that it was all very well to call a spade a spade, but it sounded ridiculous to call a relationship a relationship. Tess insisted they try it anyhow, so when Pietro bumped into Mayor Rizzo one day in Philadelphia, he said, “Frank, let me introduce you to my relationship, Tess.” The Mayor said he was delighted, but he looked more like a man who suspected somebody was trying put one over on him and fled without wishing Tess a nice day.
“Let’s get down to basics,” Pietro told Tess. “I’m your man and you’re my woman. Why don’t we just come out and say so?” And so, when Pietro ran into Sammy Davis, Jr., at a party, he said, “Sammy, this is my woman, Tess.” Whereupon Sammy seized Tess, whirled her into a fast fox-trot and brought down the house by shouting, “Tess, you is my woman now.”
Back to the drawing board, on which they kept the dictionary.
“This is my beloved” was no good. Sounded like a bad poem.
“This is my companion”? Worse. Invalids, octogenarians, wealthy lunatics and kleptomaniacs had companions, but not persons who were young, enlightened and progressive enough to take turns washing the dishes. “Boyfriend” and “girlfriend” might have worked if they hadn’t sounded so 1926. Pietro and Tess were 1976; yes, and 1977, too, and also 1978. For Pietro, this eliminated, “This is my chick, Tess,” “This is my bird, Tess,” and “This is my sweetie, Tess.”
For Tess it eliminated, “This is my beau, Pietro,” as well as, “This is the man in my life, Pietro.” For a while they tried “my friend.” One night at a glamorous party, Pietro introduced Tess to a marrying millionaire with the words, “This is my friend, Tess.” To which the marrying millionaire replied, “Let’s jet down to the Caribbean, Tess, and tie the knot.”
“You don’t understand,” said Pietro. “Tess is my friend.”
“So don’t you like seeing your friends headed for big alimony?” asked the marrying millionaire.
“She’s not that kind of friend,” said Pietro.
“I’m his friend.” said Tess.
“Ah,” said the matrimonialist, upon whom the dawn was slowly breaking. “Ah—your—friend.”
As Tess explained at the wedding, they couldn’t spend the rest of their lives rolling their eyeballs suggestively every time they said “friend.” There was only one way out. “The simple thing,” Pietro suggested, “would be for me to introduce you as ‘my wife.’”
“And for me,” said Tess, “to say, ‘This is my husband, Pietro.’”
And so they were wed, victims of a failure in English.