August 14, 2012
Dear Leo,
Six weeks left until your return from your international summer school stay in Korea. Maybe you are better off being at Ajou University and nowhere around me right now. I am going through a period of feeling even more of a misfit than usual. If you were here you’d make me laugh about it.
You know I don’t chase men. But I don’t know… every once in a while, I see someone and am overwhelmed. At such times I think of my old gynecologist-obstetrician friend Harold, who said he always went about his business professionally but every two thousand patients or so he would internally examine a woman who he found, in spite of himself, alluring.
In any case, this morning I was in the coffee queue at that new downtown café, Swish, when a peculiar thing happened. In front of me stood a couple of men, talking to each other. One was probably a fine person and a credit to his family; to be honest, I neither knew nor cared. His companion, though. Oh, his companion. My my, what a fine example of manhood. From a strictly aesthetic point of view, I am convinced that if you and I had been together, you would have shared my admiration of him. He wore black pants, tailored and well-fitted without being excessively tight, and a spectacularly white shirt. He must have been a business executive, or perhaps, a waiter. What did I care? I was doomed.
A couple of minutes later, as we waited for our drinks near the pickup counter, I got a better look, as the beautiful one and his friend stood off to the right of me.
Height, five-nine. He’d look perfect by my side, especially if I were practicing posture-awareness like you always encourage me to do, and also if I were wearing those spunky patent-leather heels you convinced me to buy last June. Medium build with no flab in the middle. I caught a fantasy glance of him at his regular Saturday-morning racquetball match, looking godlike in his shorts and T-shirt and fingerless gloves.
Huge dark eyes, small nose and mouth. And could nature have made teeth so even? If not, I was prepared to call his mother and thank her for taking him, when he was a teen, to a great orthodontist.
He, mid-thirties. Me, fifties. He, sporting the telltale gold wedding band.
So what? Such things have been done before.
My drink was called, I picked it up, and when I turned around, he was gone. As far as I know, he had not even registered my presence.
Ending it that way was unfair to both of us. Let me rephrase that. Ending it that way was unfair to me.
But wait. Just like in Roy Orbison’s song “Pretty Woman,” he came back. He walked up to me, gently removed the coffee cup from my hand and placed it on the counter. Then he gathered me into his strong arms and gave me the kiss of my lifetime.
Not really. I had to make that last bit up as I sipped my coffee.
Take good care of yourself and keep enjoying your adventures in Korea.
Your devoted friend,
Ariadne