The Diary (My love stories) -- 2

Will and I woke up facing the opposite walls but turned over to each other’s arms. It was already 8:30 in the morning but we remained in bed, luxuriating from the glorious memory of our sexual union. At 9:00ish, we got up.

I brewed fresh ground Starbucks’ coffee for Katie and me. Will had stopped drinking coffee when he started whitening his teeth and got the braces. He had an extra tooth that had been extracted recently. I was glad that he was finally taking care of his teeth, but now it was hard to kiss him because his mouth was always sore.

We had leftover pumpkin pie that he made yesterday with our coffee. Will had wine with his citrus juice. If I had known in the beginning that he could drink so much wine, I would have never dated him. He knew that that was one of my prerequisites in dating: no drinking, no smoking. But in his defense, he could go for days without drinking, so perhaps he was not alcoholic. Since he lost his job he had not bought any bottle of wine—something that had been a regular content in his grocery list for Costco: a case of 24 bottles of his favorite wine.

I was very friendly with Katie and Will, and he and I were very amorous to each other at the breakfast table. After eating, I proceeded to clean the kitchen. They had left a few dirty dishes on the counter from their party yesterday, other than that, there wasn’t much to clean up. Will and Katie offered to help. I just instructed them to clear the table and I’d do the rest. In the past, I was always bothered and annoyed by Katie’s lack of initiative to help in cleaning up after eating. In fact, she offered no assistance whatsoever in cleaning up or in cooking. She always just watched TV, enjoyed our collection of movies, socialized, ate, slept and meditated.

I recalled the time two or three years ago when she invited her friends from Boulder over. I worked hard in preparing an elaborate Asian feast, which they loved, especially the Philippine lumpia (egg rolls) that were always so time consuming to make--too much chopping of vegetables for the mix, then deep frying them. I was the perfect hostess for her and her friends. After the meal, everyone retreated to the living room. I was left in the kitchen to clean up. I never told Will that this experience had made me feel like a lowly maid and it infuriated me for a long time.

Will and I had been together for four years and I had spent a major part of that time with him in his home in Colorado. From the beginning, I had voluntarily assumed the domestic duties of a pseudo-wife. Cleaning the house, making the bed, doing the laundry, cooking, reading to the kids (Molly mostly) at night, and other incidental chores. This—from a woman who used to have maids clean her house. All those years, I never asked the kids to help me in the kitchen, clean the house or fold the clothes. They were too young, I thought, although I believed that they should have started earlier. Until recently. It just kept building up inside me – this feeling that I was being treated as a domestic help. Will used to always help me make the bed in the morning; that stopped. He used to help me clean up the kitchen. That stopped a long time ago. Finally I could not take it any longer. I confronted him and told him that I expected help from everyone in taking care of the house. It wasn’t that I found it difficult to do, it was the feeling that I was being taken for granted, and that it was my duty to clean up after them.

Of course, Will had always appreciated and felt grateful for my conscientious efforts to keep the house always neat, and how I always fixed foods that everybody liked, even if I had to prepare four different kinds of meals for each one of us. His kids were the pickiest eaters I had ever met in my life. They ate no vegetables at all, and seldom ate any meat. They were raised in junk foods and were spoiled at having only what they wanted to eat. Lucky for me, they could eat very simple foods like soft rice with cinnamon and brown sugar and milk, grilled cheese, fried potatoes. Most of the time one did not like what the other did, but they both went crazy over my fresh baked rosemary bread and cinnamon rolls. I loved cooking their favorite foods, but they were so few. I had no problem with Will for he loved everything I cooked for him, even updated leftovers. He was a very good cook as well and we used to have a cooking party together in the kitchen. He had remarked at how he loved cooking with me (with or without the intermittent sexual groping), and how most women he had met were intimidated with him in the kitchen, but not I. They must have been really awful cooks, I thought.

I had digressed too much from my main topic so I retreated to the morning’s event, of what would be the second conflict in two consecutive days, and the third conflict ever in my relationship with Will. Most significantly, the only conflicts I had ever had with Will since the start of our serious relationship.

It happened after I made the bed while they were busy planning something in the living room. When I came out of the bedroom, Will informed me that it was the best time for me to use the Internet because he would be doing something else that was not clear to me. So I turned on the Mac and was getting ready to get situated when he approached me and said that he wanted me to use my PC downstairs.

Aha! He advised me to do my Internet work now because he wasn’t going to be on it, but he wasn’t going to use the Mac, and yet, he wanted me to go downstairs. For what? There was only one reason for it. He wanted privacy with whatever he and Katie were going to do.

My blood started to percolate through my circulatory system. Oh no, not again! I screamed inside me.

“Oh, you want me out of here,” I said spontaneously. He did not react to my semi-sarcastic comment.

“Katie and I are going to call her friend,” he said.

I did not want to listen to any further explanation, assuming he wanted to give any. I quickly turned my heel and rushed downstairs.

I did not turn my PC on. I sat there in front of the computer as if waiting for it to do its own magic. Surely there was a logical explanation for him to drive me away like that. How could he have done something like this again after what we went through last night? Where was his sense of respect for me? I was fuming once again and losing my capacity for reasoning. It was beyond my comprehension at how I could let myself suffer from this recurrent state of disquiet all because of jealousy to--of all people--my lover’s sister.

I got up and walked towards the garage door and grabbed my winter jacket and slipped on my rubber boots and I headed outside to walk up and down the driveway. De ja vu once again. That was exactly what I did the during our first conflict. I walked up and down the icy and snowy and muddy driveway and hoped that the cool air could freeze the wild fire that was building up inside me. It did not help.

I had gone back to my computer for about 40 minutes before Will came down. He noticed right away, and who wouldn’t have with the expression that must have distorted my face, that I was hot and bothered.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, touching my shoulder.

I exhaled an exasperated sigh and waited a few seconds before answering him. “Yes,” I said without facing him.

He walked towards the cedar chest and sat down facing me. “What is troubling you?”

“You did it again,” I blurted out without raising a voice. I was full of bitterness. “You excluded me again from your private affair.” My heart started to play bongo drums in my chest again. “How could you do that to me? I thought you said you were going to modify your behavior and not do that to me again?” I tried hard to keep myself from crying.

His face was ashen. “I am sorry. I did not mean to exclude you from anything,” he said in a low voice.

“But you did.”

“It was not meant to be. I just didn’t think that you would be interested in listening to our conversation with her friend.”

“That isn’t the point. And how would you know if you don’t ask.?”

He was quiet for a moment. His eyes were reddening from emotion. “Katie paid a professional astrologist to read my horoscope. He is supposed to be known and well respected in the business and Katie had referred people to him. She did it for me as a gift and from what I understand, he is expensive. I could not say no, especially because she was doing it in light of my unemployment and impending court battle with Sue. I think I was embarrassed at consulting with an astrologer to map out my life’s course.”

He was almost successful in disguising the crack in his voice.

“Why would that embarrass you?” My voice took on a softer timbre.

“Because you’re a pragmatic person, and I didn’t know how you would feel about it.” His eyes misted.

“And all this time I thought you’ve known me so well.” I felt my nerves relax. I sincerely believed now that he was not guilty of my accusation. He looked miserable, which moved me. I felt like wrapping him in my embrace. “I can’t believe you’d think of me as being less than open minded,” I said, my voice low and steady. “I thought I had told you once that I’ve had the same thing done for me years ago, which contributed to my departure from the Midwest. I received a thorough 50-page report from an astrologer who predicted that I would be moving west and it was going to be the right time for it.”

“Really? I didn’t know.” He looked pleased. He shifted in his seat and assumed a more comfortable pose.

“You should know that as long as it cannot be disproved beyond any doubt, I would never say I don’t believe in anything that science can fully explain.”

I had never relied on astrology, but I had always found it amusing and believed that everything they said about my zodiac sign (Gemini) was true as far as my characteristic traits were concerned. I fit everything to the most minute detail about Geminis. But then again, my sister Linda was born under the same Zodiac sign, and yet, we had totally conflicting personalities; she was my contradiction, my antonym – the opposite of everything that I was – perhaps for her own good. I knew for a fact that many people, including dignitaries and celebrities use this pseudo-philosophy as an alternative form of counseling and therapy. And I had always enjoyed reading my horoscope, but always taking it with a grain of salt.

How could any one dismiss astrology when it had been practiced by civilizations throughout the world more than 3000 years before Christ was born? Astrologers even believed and contended that the system dated back 50,000 years ago when Cro Magnon people read patterns of the stars in the sky and marked seasons by matching bones.

I did not know if this ancient system of divination using the positions of the planets, moon and stars could really govern people’s lives. If everything truly was a matter of energy then perhaps it was possible that the celestial bodies could exert forces and exhibit personalities that influence people and events.

“Really, if I had known how you felt about it, I would have asked you to hang around and listen to the conversation.”

“Well, what did he have to say to you? How long did you talk to each other? Did you have a 3-way conversation with Katie?”

“Yes, at first, but then it was hard for him to hear us, so Katie decided to hang up.”

Our conversation at this point had turned normal. All the emotions had subsided and he sounded eager to tell me what the astrologer had said to him.

“He explained to me how the zodiac is a band of constellations through which the sun, moon and the planets appear to travel. Astrologers use the movement of the heavenly bodies to determine auspicious times, which they call ‘horary’ and the ‘mundane,’ which predicts disasters in various forms. He said within a cycle of twelve months we experience our low points and high points, and not surprisingly, this is the lowest period in my life. But it will improve again in September – my highest point.”

I remembered a long time ago when I used to obsess in the paranormal and theories of celestial influences. At that time I actually believed, except for the concept of predestination, that ideally astrological predictions offered guidance to opportunities and potential problems. Strangely enough, I stopped believing this, but began to believe in predestination, which I would not attempt to rationalize at this juncture. This belief, of course, had my own variation of predestination: that we still had our own free will to exercise in charting our course, but the outcome was always going to be the same. For instance, every time I planned an extended road trip to other States, I always considered various routes to get there, perhaps choosing a more scenic path even if it took longer to reach my destination. Sometimes I would get lost because of my challenging adventures; still, I would eventually reach my predestined place. At times, I might have decided to linger in a certain town because it fascinated me, and I would get a hotel room for a night or more. Destiny might have given me Will as my ultimate partner in love and life, but before I found him, I had to take a detour and experience love and relationship with other men (my scenic tour in romance).

As a scientist, Will did not fit the profile of someone who might be inclined to believe in astrology and the paranormal. But his exceedingly close relationship with his sister could easily proselytize him into being a believer; after all, Katie used to be a scientist before becoming a yoga instructor.

“What did he have to say about your court case?”

“He said that my chances are favorable if it’s held in September, so he thought it would be a good idea if I had the hearing scheduled for September.”

“Will you?”

“You know, I have never really accepted astrology, but again, part of me says that maybe I should listen to what he said; anyway, what harm would it do if I believed him?”

“Right.”

“So, yes, I’m going to request a September hearing. Why would I want to schedule it during my lowest point and risk the case?”

“How about your consulting company? What did he have to say about that?”

“He saw nothing but good about it, although he said things will not start happening probably until September.”

“You know, your job loss could be the best thing that could have happened to you. If you’re successful, your prospects are limitless, whereas at the university, you could only grow so much.”

“That’s what he said.” He flashed a smile, a spark of delight in his eyes. “We also talked about you . . . us.”

I did wonder if there had been a discussion involving me. But then I had said to myself: they had excluded me twice, why not go for three for a stike out?

“Oh yeah? What did he have to say about us?

“He thinks it’s the bright aspect in my life. The fact that we’ve been together for almost four years indicates that we have a very solid foundation in our relationship.” He paused, smiling still. I liked the path the conversation had taken, and the look of pleasure on his face that suggested happiness about the astrologer’s prophecy. He continued. “And ready for this? He thought that towards the end of the year, I would be seriously thinking about marriage.”

That revelation took me by surprise. Could he have said that simply to make me feel better? Although I was pleased with what he said, I didn’t know how to react in response. My sophomoric answer came out too quickly before I could bite my lip. “Are you meeting a new girl?” It was meant to be a joke, but it came out sarcastically.

“Why, where are you going to be?”

I just smiled. I wanted to ask him: So what did you think about his prediction? Would you consider proposing to me? I did not verbalize this thought. Although I was satisfied about our relationship, which had been almost perfect had it not been for the Katie Factor, and that I had, in the beginning, told him that marriage was the farthest thing from my mind, it would be nice to have heard him say that he wanted to marry me and live the rest of our lives together.

It was a very poignant moment, almost in a diffident and uncomfortable way. Marriage was something we had never discussed, perhaps because of my pronouncement early on that I was not interested in marriage. We did, in fact, talk about it briefly, perhaps merely in passing, whereupon he had commented that it was I who was not interested in getting married. Whether or not he was suggesting that he, in contrast, had contemplated marrying me, I could not decipher.

He did not ask me how I felt or what I thought about the astrologer’s prediction. My asinine and harebrained comment could have stopped him from asking the question. Why, are you going to meet a new girl? Why did I say that childish remark? Was it shyness? It was the only explanation I could find because I usually made those kinds of off-the-wall comments when I felt shy or embarrassed about something. It was merely a shield to a persona that I tried to lock up inside me.

We fell into an awkward silence, as if measuring or trying to decipher and dissect each other’s thoughts. As I evaluated his face, I suddenly noticed how handsome he looked in my eyes. When did this happen? I recalled the first time I set eyes on him. I did not expect to see a handsome face to which I had been accustomed in my previous relationships, but I never expected to see the vision of a man that I would have never given any attention to in my life, for a lover. He was shorter than all my priors, quite skinny, longish and scraggly hair that was parted in the middle, exposing a middle-aged thinning stage. When he smiled he exposed yellow teeth in a narrow mouth. And when he kissed me on the cheek (it was meant to be in the mouth, which I avoided), I smelled something fishy in his breath. It was actually from handling the shrimp he had brought for the celebration of our first meeting. It was a long story that I would relate later. One thing I also noticed was the absence of manliness--in my personal and unjust definition of masculinity. In contrast, he seemed effeminate in his mannerism. Of course, he was far from being feminine. He was a very strong man who was adept of many things my previous men were inadequate of, like cutting timber, rewiring and repiping the house, calibrating and installing sophisticated electronic equipment and doing all general repairs around the house.

Yes, he had transformed himself to a better looking person. When did that happen? After I had cut and restyled his hair so that it would look much fuller; or when he had gained enough wait to fill those wide shoulders; or after he had gotten his teeth professionally whitened? Could it be that the transformed image was merely a manifestation of my altered view, ideas or feelings about him? My love for him had deepened through time, and my attachment and affection for him seemed to have transcended the physical, culminating in the love of wisdom itself. As a result, he was no longer my perception of ugliness. He was truly handsome. The old adage: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder could not have held truism in its totality more than now.

“I’m sorry for having hurt your feelings again,” finally he said, rising from his seat. “I hope I’ve convinced you that it was not deliberate. I will modify my behavior, once more.”

He took a step closer. He might have intended to embrace me but I remained seated, looking down, pushing a small speck of nail polish from the inside of my fingernail tip with the point of a paper clip.

“Are you going to come upstairs?” he asked.

“Okay,” I replied timidly.

“I love you,” he said and affectionately squeezed my shoulder.

“I love you, too,” I said, managing a smile. “I’ll join you soon.”