Excerpt from the novella
Lovers and Boyfriends
by Michelle Harris
I met the Green Beret in an airport. I was on my way to visit girlfriend #2 who, at the time, lived in Florida and I had a delayed layover. He had a layover on his way home from a year-long mission in Haiti to keep the peace during Aristide’s return to power. This is how we found each other. How we met.
We had long weekends and telephone calls but not much else until I planned a backpacking trip through Europe. It would start in Paris and end in Nice and in the middle it would bow out in a wonky circle that netted four more countries and numerous cities. As I described the ever malleable itinerary he informed me that he was leaving for an assignment in sub-Saharan Africa. He would be gone eleven weeks and his return date may or may not have him home in time to depart for France. Then he held me close.
Eleven weeks is 3.66666 months. It is more than a season. More than a quarter of a year. Almost twice the gestation period of a kangaroo. Even more time than it took Kim Basinger to get wise to Mickey Rourke’s (sexy, but still) bullshit.
I got a card while he was away with a pathetic little message that went something like: Hoping you are well. Kind regards, the Green Beret.
Seriously?
Then he changed his first stop upon arriving back in the country from my city to his mother’s.
By the time I telephoned a friend from a phone booth in Paris, it was to inform her that I had the ick. He stood on the other side of the glass not entirely oblivious.
It takes something like traveling together through Europe to cure the ick because the ick is usually terminal. I guess that could go the other way, too, which would ruin any trip beyond measure.
An example of peevishness, selfishness, neediness and the want to possess someone can be found in the following: I felt angry when I heard the excitement in his voice when he spoke of his upcoming assignment in Africa. After he was gone I wanted him to be miserable wanting me. I wanted him to rush to me with the fury of insatiable love (and, admittedly, lust) immediately upon his return.
I moved to Miami, to the beach, and we made plans for the Green Beret to move down the following year when his time in the Army was up. Not long after he arrived we moved to the Grove and got two dogs. We worked every weekend on the house. We built a gazebo, expanded the patio, built a wall around an enormous banyan tree with coral rock, put lights in hidden places behind palm fronds, had dinner parties, watched our puppies grow, talked indirectly about how all children should learn Spanish and that having a Spanish speaking nanny would be the best way for Emma (that would be her name) to learn it.
Eleven years later, on the day the Green Beret was to be married (to someone else), my mobile phone began ringing at about six a.m. but I did not hear it. I did not even get out of bed until after noon as I was with RDJ (he looked very much like Robert Downey Jr.) and I had no desire to get up. By the time the Green Beret and I spoke he had been drinking wedding champagne for a 1 ½ days. Unfortunately, the wedding had been called off rather last minute so there was plenty of it to drink. His story is not mine to tell so I will say only that his fiancé, having bought a house and planned a wedding with him, started having an affair with someone else and then, days before the wedding, she backed out.
At first, I was modestly flattered that during such a time he would think to call me. About an hour into the call I changed my mind. Let me be clear: I did not ever plan a wedding with him, make a big financial commitment with him, have a tacit sexual affair with someone else while with him, nor did I leave him at The Alter. But his question to me was this: you deserted me and she deserted me so you are the only person who might be able to tell me why she did this.
Lovers and Boyfriends
by Michelle Harris
I met the Green Beret in an airport. I was on my way to visit girlfriend #2 who, at the time, lived in Florida and I had a delayed layover. He had a layover on his way home from a year-long mission in Haiti to keep the peace during Aristide’s return to power. This is how we found each other. How we met.
We had long weekends and telephone calls but not much else until I planned a backpacking trip through Europe. It would start in Paris and end in Nice and in the middle it would bow out in a wonky circle that netted four more countries and numerous cities. As I described the ever malleable itinerary he informed me that he was leaving for an assignment in sub-Saharan Africa. He would be gone eleven weeks and his return date may or may not have him home in time to depart for France. Then he held me close.
Eleven weeks is 3.66666 months. It is more than a season. More than a quarter of a year. Almost twice the gestation period of a kangaroo. Even more time than it took Kim Basinger to get wise to Mickey Rourke’s (sexy, but still) bullshit.
I got a card while he was away with a pathetic little message that went something like: Hoping you are well. Kind regards, the Green Beret.
Seriously?
Then he changed his first stop upon arriving back in the country from my city to his mother’s.
By the time I telephoned a friend from a phone booth in Paris, it was to inform her that I had the ick. He stood on the other side of the glass not entirely oblivious.
It takes something like traveling together through Europe to cure the ick because the ick is usually terminal. I guess that could go the other way, too, which would ruin any trip beyond measure.
An example of peevishness, selfishness, neediness and the want to possess someone can be found in the following: I felt angry when I heard the excitement in his voice when he spoke of his upcoming assignment in Africa. After he was gone I wanted him to be miserable wanting me. I wanted him to rush to me with the fury of insatiable love (and, admittedly, lust) immediately upon his return.
I moved to Miami, to the beach, and we made plans for the Green Beret to move down the following year when his time in the Army was up. Not long after he arrived we moved to the Grove and got two dogs. We worked every weekend on the house. We built a gazebo, expanded the patio, built a wall around an enormous banyan tree with coral rock, put lights in hidden places behind palm fronds, had dinner parties, watched our puppies grow, talked indirectly about how all children should learn Spanish and that having a Spanish speaking nanny would be the best way for Emma (that would be her name) to learn it.
Eleven years later, on the day the Green Beret was to be married (to someone else), my mobile phone began ringing at about six a.m. but I did not hear it. I did not even get out of bed until after noon as I was with RDJ (he looked very much like Robert Downey Jr.) and I had no desire to get up. By the time the Green Beret and I spoke he had been drinking wedding champagne for a 1 ½ days. Unfortunately, the wedding had been called off rather last minute so there was plenty of it to drink. His story is not mine to tell so I will say only that his fiancé, having bought a house and planned a wedding with him, started having an affair with someone else and then, days before the wedding, she backed out.
At first, I was modestly flattered that during such a time he would think to call me. About an hour into the call I changed my mind. Let me be clear: I did not ever plan a wedding with him, make a big financial commitment with him, have a tacit sexual affair with someone else while with him, nor did I leave him at The Alter. But his question to me was this: you deserted me and she deserted me so you are the only person who might be able to tell me why she did this.