In which Primo admits that "some people" = "his parents"

Primo: Some people think you're mean because of some of what you write about me on your [other, public] blog.

Me: Who thinks that?

My friend Ilene, who reads my public blog: Yeah, who thinks that?

Primo: Some people.

Me: Who? I want names.

Ilene: Yeah. Who?

Primo: You know.

Me: You mean your mom and dad?

Ilene: You mean people who already don't like her?

Primo: I guess that's it.

Ilene: So the people who already don't like her don't like some of the things she puts on her blog.

Primo: Well. Yeah.

Me: Like I care.

In which I give myself a black eye and almost everyone at work won't look at me or say anything

I wrote this story several years ago. What I left out is that when I went to work on Monday, still with a black eye, almost nobody said anything. My first thought when I see someone I know with a huge black eye is to do what my boss did, which is to ask, "What the heck happened to you?"

But the liberated, swaggering, field-hockey scholarship female VP of my department, who never met clogs or ugly shoes she did not like, averted her eyes when she saw me at the coffee station. We chatted for a few minutes, probably about how she had spent the weekend cleaning her house even though she had a stay at home husband and two teenage daughters - but the maid had quit! what was she supposed to do? - and not once did she say, "Wow! That's quite a shiner! How does the other guy look?"

Nope. She looked at the floor, behind me, over my head, everywhere but at my HUGE BLACK EYE while she was talking to me.

Even if she thought that a boyfriend had beat me up, shouldn't she have said, "You know, you can get help. You don't have to stay in an abusive relationship?" [Not quite sure where to put that question mark. The whole sentence is a question but the latter phrase is a statement.]

Now the story:

Friday night, I wake up to use the bathroom. The next thing I know, I am lying on the floor by the window. The first thought that flashes through my mind disgusts me because it is such a cliché, but I think, "Where am I?"

Really. Can't I be more original than that?

I am dizzy and nauseated and my head hurts and my hip hurts. As I pull myself up, I realize that I must have fallen, my left cheekbone striking the windowsill as I fell. I must have landed on my left hip. My neck must have snapped when my head hit, because those muscles hurt. I could have put my eye out!

I make it back into bed and do not sleep well the rest of the night. The next morning, I have a red patch on my cheek and a little swelling, but it doesn't look so bad. My hip hurts, but not badly enough to be an excuse not to run. I run six miles.

When I get home, I notice that my eye is starting to turn lavender. As the day wears on, my eye and my cheek get puffier and more colorful. I hold a bag of frozen cranberries to my cheek in hopes of preventing further discoloration, but to no avail. I keep my sunglasses on when I go to the grocery store and the library. I don't want anyone to think my nonexistent boyfriend beat me up. I would never take physical abuse. Just emotional.

I wonder what happened. I don't remember falling. Did I pass out and then fall? Did I just slip? If I had slipped, wouldn't I have felt myself fall and stopped it?

I must have passed out. But why? Maybe I have a brain tumor. It could be a tumor!

Hmm. If it's a brain tumor, I could have one of those non-disfiguring terminal Hollywood diseases. In the movies, any time anyone gets a terminal disease, she just becomes more beautiful and luminous as she dies, inspiring everyone with her bravery. No one ever looks bad in the movies, no matter what. They obviously don't know what chemo is really like.

Anyhow. What if I have a brain tumor and am going to die? Maybe I could get Ted [not Primo's half-brother Ted but a different Ted, whom I should re-name and maybe I did, but now I can't remember] back. He would hear the news (how? I need to figure this part out) and realize that he did indeed love me and we didn't have much time. He would rush to my side, beg my forgiveness and ask to remain with me until the end.

I would torture him for a little while, of course, but not too long. He deserves some punishment, after all. But then I would relent and take him back and we would live happily ever after.

Until I died six months later.

This is where the fantasy needs some work.

When I go to church on Sunday, my eye is still colorful. I tell everyone I got in a fight. That afternoon, I go to some open houses. After ten minutes with one realtor, who keeps looking at me sideways, she looks at my eye and says, "My ex used to beat me, too."

"I fell!" I tell her.

"It looks like you fell into someone's fist!" she replies.

"I promise, I fell," I say.

"Oh, honey," she sighs. "My ex-husband used to beat me. I know. I know."

"I don't even have a boyfriend!" I protest, but she is unswayed and proceeds to tell me the story of her second marriage and her drug-abusing, wife-beating, philandering surgeon husband. The first husband opened a strip joint nine years into their marriage.

"After that second divorce -- which I got nine months after I got married, which is really embarrassing -- I decided I wanted nothing to do with men for a long, long time," she finishes.

I insist that is not what happens but she doesn't care.

In which Doris joins facebook

Are any of you guys on facebook?

I am.

I waste way too much time there. I post almost every day and sometimes more than once a day. I don't get too personal - I posted this exchange there once and took it down almost immediately because TMI. Here, though, it is relatively anonymous. Those of you who know me in real life can just pretend I am a complete stranger if it makes you squeamish to read this.

Primo: You're just going to have sex with me because you feel sorry for me. You really don't feel like it right now.

Me: Yep. This is pity sex.

Primo: That's fine with me.

See? A little personal. But it did not last long - maybe five minutes. The post, I mean.

I don't write about politics. I try to save my trash talk about Primo's parents for here, although I did chronicle the entire Christmas of Ought Nine disaster on my FB wall. On my mother's advice, I removed it. Good thing my mom doesn't read this blog because she would learn more about me than she ever wanted to know and more than I ever wanted her to know. Fortunately, my family has boundaries and we respect each other's privacy and don't go where we're not invited, unlike some others I could name but won't.

But I still write about my life and I don't want Doris to be part of my life.

Maybe that's mean.

Maybe I'm mean.

But you don't get to complain to my husband that I should be over that threatening not to come to our wedding and don't marry me by now if you have never apologized to me. Heck, you've never even mentioned it.

And you don't get to be my friend.

Not that I spend a lot of time holding a grudge or nurturing anger against Sly and Doris. It's more that I just don't want their presence in my everyday life.

So imagine my distress when Primo told me today that his mother was on facebook and she had friended him.

"What am I going to do if she tries to friend me?" I asked.

"I don't know," Primo sighed. "I have to accept her. She's my mother."

Which is true. I would never ignore my mom's friend request on FB. I might not tell her about my double secret probation blog just to maintain some discretion and privacy in our relationship, but I would never not be her FB friend.

"If she asks, I'm going to tell her no," I told him.

And I would.

But then I posed the question to my FB friends: What do you do when your husband's mother goes on facebook?

And that's when I learned about the BLOCK function.

Oh block how I love thee.

If I block Doris, she will not even know I exist on FB. She will not see me in Primo's profile. She will not see anything I write on Primo's wall. She won't see any comments I make on Primo's posts. Not that I ever comment on his posts because all he writes about is politics and sheesh - I argue enough with him in person. I don't need to argue about politics on FB. With anyone.

Now all we have to worry about is if she asks Primo if I am on FB. I am telling him to lie. He is all "the end justifies the means" (that's what his political arguments always reduce to), so this should not bother him.

In which Sly asks Primo if we will take one of their cats

Primo: My dad says that Puff (cat #1) is terrorizing Snow (cat #2) and would we maybe take Snow.

Me: No way.

Primo: I know. We have two great cats. We are not taking my parents' cats.

Me: What did he say when you said no?

Primo: He laughed. I think he was just joking.

Me: Yeah. Right. Joking. Hey, he does understand that if they die before the cats do, we are not taking the cats, right?

Primo: I don't know.

Me: Maybe he should know that.

Primo: I guess I should talk to him about it.

Me: I dunno. It's really not your problem. Except what is their plan for the cats?

Primo: They don't have one.

Me: So it's in our will [actually, in the extra instructions I have given to my sister] that our cats should go back to the cat rescue place with a $3,000 donation, but they don't have a plan? They're 50 years closer to death than we are but it hasn't occurred to them that they might outlive their pets?

Primo: Yep.

Me: So now it is our problem because we'll be stuck finding a place for the cats when they die. Great.

Primo: I'll say something to them.

In which Sly and Doris deign to go to Stephanie's house for Christmas

Primo: My parents have let themselves be talked into having Christmas at Stephanie's.

Me: What do you mean, "talked into?"

Primo: They're going to Stephanie's for Christmas.

Me: They didn't want to spend Christmas day with their grandchildren?

Primo: I guess not.

Me: So they think they are doing Stephanie a favor* by going to her house for Christmas?

Primo: Apparently. They think they are doing the kids a favor.

Me: Because the kids really want to be with them?**

Primo: Oh yeah.

* After years of whining about having to host Christmas at their house and not wanting to do it because it's too much trouble, which it can be, as we who have hosted a dinner party at our house know. But they don't want to go to Stephanie's, either, because that is also a huge huge hassle. You know. To drive 15 minutes to someone else's house for a meal. Oh the humanity.

** The kids' dad, Jack, told Sly and Doris that the kids don't like spending time with them because they are so critical. [See: Sly criticizes Maria for saying "exTRACT" instead of "EXtract," even though 1. she did say "EXtract" and 2. everyone would have understood her even if she had said "exTRACT" because who makes pizelles with lemon exTRACT?]

This was after Sly and Doris asked Jack why the kids seem so reluctant to come over to the house and why they don't want to accept Sly and Doris' frequent corrections on their choices of grammar, clothes, grammar, jobs, grammar, college applications, grammar, food.

Jack had just had dental surgery and was not in compos mentis when he blurted out the truth. Sly and Doris were livid and sent several emails to Jack telling him he was wrong. They also involved everyone else in the family, because that is their way. They still have not gotten the real answer about the kids. As in, it can't possibly be that the kids don't like being around them. It has to be something else. Has to.

In which I find out three years later that Ted was an even bigger jerk than I thought

You didn't think the Ted story was over, did you? Oh no! There is more.

Fast forward to a few years later. Two or three. I can't remember. I am organizing yet another alumni party. I do this once a year. The alumni office sends the invitations; I collect the RSVPs. Yes, I know that "RSVP" isn't really a word, but you guys know what I mean.

As I cannot exactly tell the alumni office not to invite Ted, he gets an invitation.

And he emails his response to me.

His email address has changed from Ted@tedsdomain.com to Ted@tedandsueswedding.com.

What is the next logical step? What would any normal scorned woman do?

This scorned woman goes to tedandsueswedding.com, which turns out to be - as one might expect - the website for Ted's marriage to Sue.

Who's Sue?

Oh just a woman he mentioned to me many times.

Whom he saw frequently when he made eight-hour drives to attend church events. Where Sue just happened to be.

Who was "just a friend."

Which should have made me suspicious because Ted and I were "just friends" and as we saw, Ted had a rather elastic definition of "friend."

In the section about how they met and became engaged blah blah blah was the fascinating news that they had met in 1998 and started dating in the fall of 2000.

Which is the same time when he and I were "just friends."

You can do the math.

Yes yes yes yes.

He was dating Sue at the same time he was telling me we were NOT DATING but maybe in the future he and I could have a relationship, that there was "potential."

A bullet dodged, I think.

In which Ted calls me eight months after ditching me

It’s a Friday in August. I come home from work, humming a John Denver song (to myself -- I don’t want to be ticketed by the hip police), looking forward to my "run" in the morning and my afternoon with Mary and her daughter and two days of sleeping late and sitting on my front porch with a good book.

My answering machine light is blinking. I listen as I put away the dishes in the drying rack. The recording is bad - cheap answering machine - and I have a hard time making out the words. It is the voice I recognize first.

It’s Ted. After nine months.

He says, “Hi, it’s Ted. This is probably unexpected for you. [You think?] It’s unexpected for me as well. Anyway, I noticed the bank putting up a ‘for sale’ sign at 123 Main Street. I know you have been looking for a house in this area. You could probably get a good deal if the bank is selling it. Hope you’re doing well.”

I press ‘play’ over and over. I can’t believe what I am hearing. What is going on? Why is he calling?

At work, I interrogate my male friends about the meaning of the call. Leigh thinks maybe it is just what it appears to be -- a call about a house.

My men friends, however, scoff. “He doesn’t care what kind of house you get or if you get a good deal,” Jerry says. “He wants to see you again.”

Don echoes the sentiment. “That’s so lame,” he says. “He wants to see you again. Tell him to go to hell.”

Lenore says to send him an email that I have already bought a house. Jerry disagrees, saying that I need to leave a phone message so Ted can hear the tone of my voice and know that I am receptive.

Three days later, I leave him a message at him. “Thanks for your call about the house, but I bought a house in May. It’s at 1644 Oak. Come by for the grand tour sometime,” I say.

Days go by and I hear nothing. Whatever, I think, to the world, but inside I am disappointed. [Despite all the evidence to his jerkiness - how pathetic is that?]

In the mean time, I run by the house he told me about. It is right across the street from his grandmother’s house, a few blocks from mine.

Six days later -- Saturday -- at 7:00 in the evening, he calls. “Sorry it took me so long to call back,” he says. “I didn’t get your message until late last night when I went by my mom and dad’s. I’ve moved into my grandmother’s house.”

Even though I know full where the house is, I play dumb. “Where is it?” I ask.

“Right across from the house I told you about,” he tells me.

My heart flutters. He wants me to buy the house by where he is living! But I am cool, calm.

We chat, although I am chatting on eggshells. I keep waiting for him to say something about how he was such an idiot and such a jerk and can I forgive him and will I give him a second chance. [Not that I should!]

But he doesn’t. We talk for two hours about random stuff. Thinking of things to talk about has never been an issue for us.

Finally, he says he has to go. “Let me give you the phone number here so you can reach me,” he offers.

I am silent for a few seconds. Finally, I say, “If you want to talk to me, you can call me.”

“I thought that’s what I just did,” he says.

“Last January, you made it pretty clear that you never wanted to speak to me again,” I say.

“I never said I didn’t want to speak to you again,” he answers.

“Whatever,” I say. “I would love to talk to you. I would love to see you. I think it would be really good for us to talk. But I am not going to call you. If you want to talk to me, you will have to call me.”

See how I finally got some sense? Will you lose more respect for me if I tell you that I was still disappointed that he didn't call again?

In which Ted and I sleep together and it ends in disaster

The only way I can write this post (heck, this blog) is that I am positive my mother does not read this blog. There are things I just don't want her to know and that I think she would rather not know. I have never told her about this blog (both because of my own interest in maintaining some dignity with her and because the deal with Primo was that if I wrote the truth about his mom and dad, I couldn't let anyone he was related to read this) and considering it is mostly strangers who read these stories, I can't imagine anyone else would have, either.

This is the kind of stuff you tell the person sitting next to you on the plane, not mortifying stories you share with people you will see again. That said, I open a book as soon as I sit down on a plane because I usually get the people with boring tales. No! I don't want to listen to you talk about your hobby of making decorative items with a crochet hook and the cardboard innards from the toilet paper roll! I am not that nice! If you are dull, leave me alone!

Back to Ted. And the Big Ending. Well, the penultimate Big Ending.

Despite the "just friends" pronouncement, a few weeks later, Ted came to my house for supper. I had been out of town for a week and I had returned to this message from him: "Welcome back. I hope you had a great time. I look forward to hearing all about it." He lowered his voice and said, "I was going to leave a lewd message, but didn't want your coworkers to overhear."

I called and asked if he wanted to come over to cook dinner the next night. I warned him that this was to be a platonic evening -- he had been pushing his own boundaries and I was tired of being the police. After all, he was the one who wanted this stupid "just friends" thing, not me.

We flirted on the phone. I told him I needed to go, that I was meeting somebody at the wine bar. "Be careful not to get too many irons in the fire," he told me. "You might get burned."

I told him I would be happy just to see a fire.

"There are some fires you can't see," he assured me. [Oh brother. I can't believe I bought this crap.]

The first thing he did when he arrived was kiss me. I was happy -- perhaps he had finally overcome the "friends" thing and was ready to admit there was more between us than platonic feelings. We made ravioli and drank wine and talked and laughed. When we were not rolling out the pasta dough or boiling the ravioli, we kissed.

I was not sure where the boundaries were. He kissed me first. As he was rolling out pasta dough, I kissed the back of his neck. I got no response and complained about it.

"That's because you're playing nice," he commented.

OK. I decided to play not so nice. The next time I kissed him, I got the response I wanted. He started it. He gave me permission. That's how I look at it.

I lit candles. He looked at me and said, "You are beautiful by candlelight."

He paused, then continued. "Of course, why would you be any different by candlelight? You are beautiful all the time."

But we were NOT DATING.

I was ecstatic. I sensed a shift in attitude here -- a willingness to acknowledge the attraction that has been drawing us together. I was also stupid. Why should I trust a come here come here come here! go away go away go away! man?

We ate supper.

We walked into my bedroom.

I told him I didn't want to sleep with him and never hear from him again.

He told me not to worry, we weren't going to sleep together.

Well it takes a stronger person than I to be half naked and necking with a guy not to go all the way. Especially when I wanted that anyhow.

He maintained nothing was going to happen, but he was certainly willing to play around and to remove key parts of his clothing.

So we did it.

He said some really romantic things that I cannot bring myself to repeat here, but if I ever write a memoir, I will print because then it will be for money.

And he left, saying he couldn't stay the night because he didn't have anyplace to put his contacts.

I waited for the post-coital phone call of, "Last night was great when can I see you again?" but it never arrived.

I steeled myself not to call him. Let him call me.

Two weeks passed without a phone call. TWO WEEKS.

I broke down and called him. Left a message. The next day, I got home from work to find a message from him.

The essence of it was that I had lured him to my house under false premises and with bad intent and that without trust, there can be no relationship.

[This might be a good time to point out that the reason he left the seminary on the other side of the state was because he was kicked out for having an affair. Yes, he was still married at the time. No, he did not tell me about this. How did I find out? A friend who had known his parents for years told me. "He leaves women in far worse condition than he found them. Nothing is ever his fault." Where was the trust with this, huh?]

I was stunned. The blood drained from my face. He was accusing me of having my way with him without his consent. Sure, there were silk scarves involved that night, but seriously? THIS?

I called him and left four long messages protesting my innocence and asking him to call. I explained that I had not planned for us to sleep together but that I wasn't sorry it had happened and that I had never wanted the stupid just friends thing anyhow.

He didn't call back. I wrote him a great letter telling him I really didn’t think he thought I was dishonest and that the real issue here was the intimacy and that it scared him.

Oh yes. Way too many self-help books. Not enough "Learn to recognize manipulation" and "Don't let yourself be an idiot" books.

I said that we connected on all levels -- emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical -- and that that evening was the best time I had had in ten years. I asked why he wouldn't want that all the time.

On the back of the envelope, I wrote indignantly "If I were guilty of premeditation, don't you think I would have had on fancier underwear?"

He never responded and I was left reeling.

All I could think was, "If we hadn't slept together, I would still get to talk to him. It is my fault!"

In which Ted and I go to the movies and neck BUT WE'RE NOT DATING!

Ted left me a message he had gotten some really good chocolate that he needed to share with me. I left him a message that he should bring it over to my house, if he wasn't too scared to be around me. I told him that the main reason I exercise is so that I can eat chocolate. His message back to me was this: "To me, you are sexy with or without the gym, with or without chocolate. You are the one who mentioned exercising, not me."

But he never brought me the chocolate. And we still were NOT DATING.

He called four times in three days and I was not at my desk for any of the calls. I didn't return the calls because I was a little annoyed with him. I decided to call him back on Wednesday, but when I got home, an ice storm had knocked out all the power lines. We didn't speak again until Friday. I told him I wanted to call him on Wednesday but couldn't and that because I didn't have light to read by, I just went to bed.

He said, "Too bad you couldn't reach me. There's going to bed and then there's going to bed."

I didn't respond. I couldn't figure out why he is talking like this if he was the one who wanted us to be 'just friends' for now. [Now I understand completely. He is a manipulative jerk.]

I mentioned that I was taking off work early and going to a movie. He said that he could meet me there. My heart raced. I hadn't seen him in three weeks. We agreed to meet at the theater.

When I got there, he was on the phone. When he was done, he walked over to me, stopping just inches away from me. He looked into my eyes, smiled and said, "You are indeed captivating." [It's like he got his dialogue from a Harlequin Romance.]

When we were in our seats, he asked if I want a mint. I nodded yes, and he took one, placed it between his lips, leaned over, and kissed me, passing the mint to me. It was a dizzying, swirling kiss, full of promise. We spent the entire movie kissing. He whispered, "You are so beautiful and smart and funny and sexy." [Harlequin.]

But we were NOT DATING.

When the movie ended, we put our intertwined limbs back in their public places and waited for the theater to empty. As soon as everyone else was gone, we kissed again until the attendant entered to clean. We walked out reluctantly, stopping at every corner and hidden space to embrace. At my car, he hugged and kissed me, but I was too cold to enjoy it, so we moved into the car and kissed some more until the windows steamed up. I finally, reluctantly had to leave as I had made other plans for the rest of the evening.

When I got home, I found a message on my machine telling me what a wonderful time he had and how he was not going to be able to stop thinking about me.

But we were NOT DATING.

In which Ted tells me he is attracted to me BUT WE'RE NOT DATING!

Ted called me at work. "A bunch of us are going out to dinner. One of the women who is going is the older one with the crush on me."

"She has good taste," I said.

"I've tried to get across the idea that I'm not interested in her, but she's unconvinced."

"What does this have to do with me?" I asked.

"Maybe if you're there, she'll give up."

I laughed. "Sorry. I have other plans for tonight. You're on your own."

Later, I left him a message. "I've thought about it. Having me there would make her even more determined. Some women are into competition. It's not enough to win the guy -- you have to take him from someone else."

When I got home, I found a message from him. "I disagree. If she could see how very attracted we are to each other -- how hot we make each other -- she would realize that her efforts are futile."

But remember - he told me we could not have a dating relationship.

In which we have another version of the class reunion meeting with Ted

I have found an old journal with very detailed notes. I'm glad to see that I have remembered the basics of the Ted story, but there are additional details in my notes.


He had walked me to my car and we were standing there with that wonderful tension you have before you kiss someone for the first time. This tension had been present every time we had seen each other the past few weeks but he had never acted on it. I couldn't stand it anymore and blurted, "Are you going to kiss me or not?"

He said, "I want to kiss you. I've thought about it a lot. But we need to have a conversation first."

"OK, so talk," I said.

"Not here. When we get back home."

Thinking he was going to tell me something like he moved back in with his parents after the divorce and until he completed his residency -- which I already had figured out -- I said "OK" and stepped away from him and toward the car.

And he kissed me. We ended up sitting in the back seat of the car, kissing and talking. I hadn't done that since I was in college. Appropriate that I was back in one of the same parking lots I used to visit with my college boyfriend. We talked until 2:00 a.m. He said, "I've been attracted to you for a long time."

"Oh -- since we first met at that alumni thing last month," I said.

"No. Since we started talking on the phone in August."

"But you hadn't seen me yet," I protested.

He leaned over, caressed my cheek and whispered, "But we had spoken. How could I not be drawn to you?" [Tell me you wouldn't have fallen hard for a line like that.]

He said, "That evening, when we met in the airport, when I saw you walking toward me, you were so beautiful. But you had been so casual in your messages -- 'maybe' you would meet me there!"

"I was playing it cool," I explained.

"Why?" he asked. [Because I didn't trust you and in retrospect, I was right.]

He had already turned my stomach into knots that evening. When I got to the Class of '85 reunion dinner, I saw him standing at the bar. None of my college roommates were going to the dinner and I had no one to sit with. I walked over to him. He looked at me and said -- and this is the first time a man had ever said this to me in my life, "You are gorgeous." Up to then, I had not known what his feelings were about me. We had talked a lot, but had not been out on a date and I didn't know if he was attracted to me. I have lots of men friends who are nothing more than friends; he could easily have been one of those.

He looked into my eyes and said, "You are gorgeous" and I couldn't catch my breath.

"So are you," I whispered, and it was the truth. He was smart, he was articulate, he was passionate. [He was also manipulative and a liar and nothing was ever his fault, but whatever.]

We had spent hours on the phone and I had not gotten bored. I couldn't believe that I had met someone so interesting this late in my life. I had just about given up.

At dinner, we sat together. I didn't know anyone else at the table [except Sam and his wife, but yeah yeah yeah. Primo was there as well but I had not met him yet. Sam probably introduced us but the wedding ring on his finger made him dead to me], but didn't mind talking just to Ted. I took off my glasses and laid them on the table.

"Why don't you wear your glasses?" he asked.

I considered telling him a lie: that they hurt my ears or nose. But I told the truth. "Because I'm vain," I admitted.

He looked at me intently. "You are beautiful with or without your glasses," he said firmly.

Two weeks later, he had the, "I'm hot for you but we can't date" conversation that I have already written about. Do you see why I was confused? Oh it gets worse. I'll tell you all the humiliating details. But ten years later, it is still hard to write about this stuff. Jerk.

In which Ted comes over for supper and tells me that he and I think exactly alike

I finished the birthday cake and called Ted to arrange the return of his cutting board and roasting pan. I asked if he was going to the wine tasting the next night -- he could come by before that. He was not. Disappointed, I said, "But I wanted you to help me with my attic. The cord has been snapped off and I'm not tall enough to reach the edge of the door."

"You're probably going to need a new cord put on," he sighed.

I stared to say, "Yeah, but I can do that," but then I caught myself. I have read Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus and now know the rule is that men like to rescue women. True, opening recalcitrant attic doors is not exactly slaying dragons, but it's better than nothing. By the time a woman is 37 years old, she had better have learned to take care of herself. But it doesn't hurt to play the game.

"Yes," I said, trying to be coy but probably failing miserably. Down to earth Texas girls don't do coy well. Helpless and clinging are even further away from my lexicon. I stuck with a simple "yes" and hoped that did the trick.

He came over that night and we cooked risotto. When I got out a chunk of parmesan to grate, I realized it wouldn't fit into the rotary grater my mom sent for my birthday. Ted looked at me and said, "You have to cut a chunk of it off."

I turned to him, surprised. "You don't know that's what I was thinking!" I said.

"Yes, I did," he assured me.

Later, I was refilling our water glasses. I didn't remember which is which. He looked at me, then said, "Mine is the one on the right."

"How on earth did you know what I was thinking?" I asked.

"All I have to do is look at your face and I know exactly what's in your mind. You and I think exactly alike," he answered.

It was one of the sexiest things anyone has ever said to me.

Weeks later, he told me, "I've never had that happen with anyone else in my life. It was eerie."

While we were cooking, I asked him about his job. How did he avoid being overwhelmed? He told me that he had had to learn to leave the pain with the patient. He washed his hands every time he finished a session. "I imagine myself washing everything away," he said.

"I had lunch with a customer today," I told him. "He is middle aged, divorced, new to the city. I tried to keep the conversation very businesslike, but he kept talking about his life. His loneliness was so strong. I had to fight it. I didn't want to hear it."

"Why not?" Ted asked.

I stirred the risotto and thought. "I don't have room for it," I said.

"Why not?" he asked.

I just shrugged. "Everyone has pain," I said. I hardly knew this guy. It was not appropriate to say, "Let me tell you about my father's excruciating eight-month battle with and subsequent death of cancer."

After we ate, he went to fix the attic. When he pulled the attic door open, he realized that the cord was not broken but that it was just pulled through to the other side. He drew it back down so I could reach it, then asked, "How do you want me to leave this?"

I answered flirtatiously, "That depends on whether you want to have to come over here every time I need to get into my attic."

He turned around, pulled the cord back through the door, then turned to me and smiled expectantly. I caught my breath and held it. I couldn't figure out what this guy wanted from me. He made me a cake and was flirting openly, yet had told me we couldn't date. I didn't know what was going on. Right then, we were in a perfect kiss moment, but he was not kissing me. I sighed and said, "Better leave it out so I can get to it when I'm alone."

In which Ted takes me to meet his parents and then tells me we can't date

One night, when Ted was working late at the hospital near my apartment, a week or two after we had returned from the class reunion, he called me. Finally! He had to pick up something from home, he said. Would I like to ride with him?

That was a date, right? Sure, he was calling me ten minutes before the event rather than the Wednesday before, but as the prosecutor explained to us when I was on jury duty, premeditation for murder doesn't have to mean that you planned for weeks in advance. It simply means that the thought, "I'm going to kill that SOB" has to cross your mind before you pull the trigger, even if it's only seconds between the thought and the deed. Premeditation means that you thought about the act and then did it, as opposed to an accident or in self defense.

By that standard, I would guess that Mary Winkler did willfully and knowingly kill her sleeping husband by shooting him in the back, because it's not like a sleeping person causes an instinctive self-protective reaction, especially when one would think that an instinctive, not premeditated action would have led to the calling of 911 after one saw the bleeding body on the bed rather than the unplugging of the phone, the loading of the van with the children, and the fleeing to Alabama.

But I digress.

It was a date. He called and invited me to do something and then he picked me up. That is a date.

We drove to his house, aka his mom and dad's house, aka pathetic for a grown man to be living with his parents and why why why didn't I see that?

Oh but he had just divorced! Was finishing school! So much more practical to live with mom and dad!

Maybe. But sheesh. At that age, have some self respect and get your own place.

He showed me around the basement, his living quarters. He wanted me to know him. To see how he lived. Progress.

He introduced me to his mom and dad, who said, "So you're the one Ted has been talking about!"

He told his parents about me? Remember the grad school jerk, whom I had been dating for a few months when his parents came to visit and not only did I not get to meet them but I learned that they did not even know I existed? If someone told his parents about me, he must be serious. Oh deepening crush.

A few days later, he called me again. Could he take me to lunch?

Definitely a date! Definitely!

We went to a small Vietnamese place near my house. I was starving and ordered a big bowl of pho tai. Before I started to eat, Ted told me what he had been trying to tell me for a while.

He said, "I cannot start a relationship right now. I'm afraid that if I do, I will kill it. I am trying to sort a lot of stuff out from my divorce and I know I am not emotionally ready for a new relationship. But I like you a lot and see a lot of potential with you. I would like us to be just friends for now. Later, when I am through this, and if you are not seeing anyone, I would like to have a dating relationship with you."

I lost my appetite. "I've never had anyone break up with me even before he started dating me," I joked weakly.

He took my hands in his. "I'm not breaking up with you," he said earnestly. "But I can't do this right now. It wouldn't be fair to you. I've just got so much stuff. I'm going to a counselor to try to work these things out. But once I'm through it..."

I sniffed and a few tears rolled down my cheeks. He leaned over and wiped them away. "I'm sorry that I've been giving you mixed signals. It's not that I'm not attracted to you -- I am. But Big Southern City was a mistake. I let my emotions take over." I thought to myself that this is not such a terrible thing -- that if your emotions tell you to kiss someone, that that's what you should do (well, if you are both single, etc.).

We continued to talk, leaning in closer and closer until our knees were touching. I held his hands in mine as he told me about the divorce. At one point, I brushed my lips against his fingers. He closed his eyes and took a sharp breath. I kissed his finger. "That feels wonderful," he whispered.

On the way out to the car, he put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. In the car, he rested his hand on my thigh. When we got back to my house, he gave me a hug, then kissed me once. I leaned into him and he threw up his hands and stepped back. "No," he said. "No. I am not starting this." When he left, I am confused. His words and his deeds didn't match.

The next day he called me twice. I asked him more about this 'just friends' thing. "Define the difference between being 'just friends' and dating," I said.

"With friends, you don't have the emotional or the physical involvement," he told me.

"Does that mean we can't hug?" I asked.

He thought about it. "No, hugging is OK."

I thought this could work. You can't rule your heart. It's not such a bad idea to limit the physical stuff and if he spends time with me as 'friends' or dating, it's the same thing to the heart. If he was going to fall in love with me, it would happen whether he wants it or not.

I was so naive.

A few days later, he called four times, wondering where I was, leaving messages: "Out with some other guy, I suppose." The next night, he called twice. I was planning to meet Leigh and Megan at the Wednesday night wine tasting. Ted said that he might show up. When I got to the restaurant, they told me that the tasting had been canceled that week. While I was waiting for Leigh and Megan, another wine taster showed up. He had his own wine with him and asked if I would like to share. As he was asking, Megan walked in. We decided to sit with this guy and drink his wine while we waited for Leigh.

Ted didn't show up until late. His friend Richard had intercepted him in the parking lot and told him that the tasting was canceled. When I got home later, I found a series of messages from him telling me that the tasting had been canceled, that I could find him at the restaurant, that he had his cell phone with him (he usually left it in the car) and that I should call him.

So Leigh and Megan and I talked to this guy. Ted and Richard joined us for a while, then left together. I stayed -- we are just friends, after all, so I was not going to follow him to the parking lot. I left shortly after he did and the phone rang as soon as I got home. It was Ted. "I'm housesitting for my sister," he said. "She lives a few blocks from you. It's really cold over here. Why don't I come over and sleep with you instead?"

"I'll lend you some blankets," I told him.

"But it's late! Why don't I just stay there?"

"You may sleep in the spare room," I told him.

"But I'd rather sleep with you!" he answered.

"I don't sleep with 'just friends,'" I said.

"Well, if you don't sleep with friends, who do you sleep with?"

"Significant others," I answered.

"And I'm not significant to you?"

"Hey. This whole 'just friends' thing was your stupid idea, not mine. You live by the sword, you die by the sword."

He laughed and said goodnight.

Months later, after it was all over, when I was seeing the therapist, she told me that he had indeed been courting me hard. My head was spinning from all the mixed messages from Ted: I want to spend hours talking to you! I like kissing you! Meet my parents! But no - STOP! NO DATING! FRIENDS ONLY! I didn't know if I had read everything wrong or if he had been messing with my head.

The therapist assured me I was not mis-reading things but that I should not be involved with Ted now or in the future because he was toxic.

I should have told him to go to heck, or, more nicely, just stuck with my assertion that I did not want to be just friends and if that's all he wanted, he could stop calling me thankyouverymuch.

Instead, I agreed to his terms because half a Ted is better than none.

Yeah. Not so much.

In which Ted calls me every night while I'm out of town at a trade show and then we see each other at our class reunion and neck in my rental car

The week after my birthday, I had to go to California for a stupid trade show. Of course it was on a weekend. My industry always had trade shows over the weekend so nobody would have to miss any work. Heaven forbid we actually spend a weekday discussing the company's products with customers and prospects. That's Saturday work! Or Sunday!

Ted called me every night I was gone. At the hotel. I was at the show for three days. Wait. Maybe he called only once. I remember that for sure, because we talked for about two hours. Still, though, even once on a three-day trip is good, I thought.

On my way back into town, I ran into him in the airport. I was arriving in Springfield from California, he was leaving, on his way to Big Southern City for the reunion. We stood, almost nose to nose, breathing in each other's air. Noted lightly that we would see each other in Big Southern City. (He went early to visit friends.)

When I got to the Saturday night reunion party, I scanned the room. I didn't see him. Rats.

Suddenly, he was standing next to me.

"You look gorgeous," he said.

Well, I did. But to hear him say it - my knees weakened. He didn't look too bad himself.

We sat together at supper.

We sat at the same table with Sam and his wife, Sam being Primo's best friend and a friend of mine from our college days working at the faculty club and eating the "badly cut and not worthy of being served to a professor" piece of pecan pie inch by inch as we went in and out of the faculty club kitchen.

According to Primo, he was at the table as well.

I don't remember him.

Probably because 1. I was in lust with Ted and 2. Primo was still married at the time. Ring on the finger meant invisible to me. I don't mess with married men. I did that once (kissed one who had been flirting with me by phone for months and didn't bother to tell me he was married until we started kissing, which was in person, naturally, but he was so mortified and ashamed that I suspect he never did anything like that again) and vowed to avoid such in the future. I didn't want to be That Woman.

Which is a (small) shame, because Primo was already trying to figure out how to leave Isabel and maybe if he'd had a little nudge (not kissing, but maybe some light flirtation? an awareness of what was out there and what he was missing? except he probably knew that already and actually, yes he did, because the decision to finally leave Isabel came when he realized he was about to have an affair and he didn't want to be That Man), he might have moved more quickly and we wouldn't have gone through all that divorce drama. But then I would have felt guilty for breaking up a marriage and I sure wouldn't want that on my conscience. I have enough there already.

Ted and I talked almost exclusively to each other. When I got up to leave, he said he would walk me to my car. We stood outside the car until he finally kissed me. We kissed and kissed and kissed, then moved to the back seat of the car, where we kissed some more.

No clothes were removed in this endeavor and fortunately, the campus police did not come by with a flashlight, because even if you are fully clothed, having the campus police shine a flashlight in the back seat when you are 37 years old would be a bit embarrassing.

Kiss, talk, kiss, talk. He Opened Up To Me (women love that) and told me about his Bad Childhood and his parents' Bad Marriage and how he didn't want (another - he was divorced) marriage like that and how he Just Wasn't Heard as a child.

"What did you want to say?" I asked, genuinely puzzled, for I had not been through therapy yet (thanks to Ted, though, I would have my chance) and did not know the language.

Just To Be Heard, he insisted.

He finally returned to the party and I left, swooning.

A few days later, Sam emailed me. "What's going on with the chaplain?" he asked. "He sure took a long time to walk you to your car."

"Oh nothing," I answered airily.

And nothing seemed to be the proper answer, for I did not hear from Ted again for a while. But I was not going to call him. I had learned that lesson. I was vigilant! I would wait for him. Oh would that I had stuck with that.

In which Ted surprises me with a chocolate-raspberry terrine on my birthday

Ted and I had been talking and talking and talking. He would call me as he drove from work back home (living with his parents! red flag! red flag!) or out to make house calls. He told me he had gone over his minutes talking to me the first month. Talk talk talk talk talk.

Once or twice, he had met up with me and my friends Leigh and Megan at the weekly wine tasting at a restaurant near my apartment. Not officially a date, but at least we were in the same place at the same time.

It was the night before my birthday. Ted called me at work. "Will Leigh be at the wine tasting tonight?" he asked.

Crap. Why should I be surprised that he was interested in Leigh? What man wasn't interested in Leigh was more the question. She is funny, smart, nice and as cute as can be. Men fall to do her bidding.

I sighed. "Yes," I answered curtly. "She'll be there."

Why had he bothered to call me all this time? Why was he asking me about Leigh? Couldn't he just call her directly? No wonder he hadn't asked me out. I was the person to talk about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Q documents with. She was the one to date. (Not that Leigh couldn't have talked about these things, but she had a lot more work to do at her job. I could goof off a lot and waste time on personal phone calls.)

Fine. I was still going to the wine tasting to see my friends and sulk.

I got to the restaurant. Leigh and Megan were there. Ted was there. We talked and talked and talked and I lusted and lusted and lusted. But still, he would not ask me out. At least here, though, I could lust in person.

It was late. A work night. I finally said, "I need to go home."

He said, "Wait."

Leigh smiled and squirmed with excitement.

Wait? Why?

He went into the restaurant kitchen and returned with a roasting pan. Leigh ran behind him and brought out plates and forks.

He placed the roasting pan in front of me and removed the lid. Lifted the contents out of the pan.

It was a chocolate terrine. He pulled out a container of raspberry sauce. "This goes on top," he said.

My jaw dropped. I had no idea what to say.

He started to sing "Happy birthday" and my friends joined in.

"Cut it!" Leigh urged.

"I don't have a knife," I said.

Ted reached into his pocket. "I brought this," he said as he handed me a box of mint dental floss. Dental floss is the right tool for cutting cinnamon rolls and for delicate cakes.

Remember how I was unhappy about how Calvin would forget my birthday? Up until a later boyfriend's cool gifts, including a belt sander, this was the best thing anyone outside my family had ever done for my birthday.

We ate our cake, which was delicious. Ted repacked everything into the roasting pan, including the layer of ice on which the terrine had rested, and carried it out to my car for me. "I spent some time in Home Depot figuring out how to engineer this," he said. "It had to stay cool and it couldn't get bumped."

He had 1. remembered my birthday even though I had mentioned it only casually in passing, 2. thought about my birthday and what I might like, and 3. gone through a lot of effort to execute the plan, including involving/invoking Leigh to make sure I would be there.

Tell me you wouldn't be seriously crushing on this.