Richard Sharon - Diary of a Lover

"I'll believe it when I see it. Tenure is like a carrot that they dangle in front of you to keep you on your toes. The only way I could possibly get it this year is if Mrs. Gilchrist doesn't come back, which is a good possibility because of her age and bad health, but this whole business has made me a pessimist."

I smiled. "Did you know that the other teachers call you Queen Victoria?"

"I know they joke behind my back. Let them."

"You realize, of course, that the day you throw your costume in the garbage can and dress normally, half of the male faculty are going to have heart attacks when they see you."

Susan laughed. "It'll serve them right for calling me Queen Victoria."

Following an impulse, I pulled at her hand and we ran along the surf, splashing each other with handfuls of the cold Pacific and giggling. Finally, exhausted and coughing, our lungs full of clean, salt air and wood smoke from bonfires down the beach, we collapsed against an old log, sitting on the sand with our wet pants and using the log to support our backs.

Susan asked me to tell her about myself, not the vague comments and opinions she had heard from me over the past few months, nor the evasions to pointed questions, but to really tell her. She wanted to know why I was so different, and although she didn't say it she must have been wondering why she found herself so attracted to me.

I told her, and this time there was no bullshit. I didn't leave out a thing; I wanted her to know it all. I felt that it was important to both of us that she know. If any of it shocked her, she didn't let it show.

By the time I finished it was sunset. The entire western sky became a gorgeous panorama of every hue of orange and red imaginable. We tuned in a Corelli concerto on the radio and sat and listened and watched the sky in silence. Our silences had never been embarrassing. When we didn't feel the need for conversation we didn't speak, and it had never been awkward. Now, together, there was a feeling of contented wholeness between us.

As the colorful sky ebbed and turned dark we looked at each other.

"I know," Susan said.

We wandered up the hill to the Cliff House, still hand in hand, watching the glow of wood bonfires on the beach, puffs of light against the dark sky. The world was a small, warm closet which divorced us from reality, and I finally knew the feel of love for a woman-. My insides were warm, as from a fine wine.

We entered the Redwood Room bar and took a table overlooking Seal Rocks, which were lit a brilliant white against the night sky by floodlights. I ordered us each an Irish coffee and the waitress asked Susan for her ID, which she produced, sighing in resignation, as if to say, "See? I told you so."

We watched the rocks until our drinks were brought, looking for seals and finding none. The horizon blinked with the lights of ships voyaging to and from the Golden Gate from all over the world. The only light in the bar came from a huge fireplace built into the north wall.

"Susan by firelight," I said. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?" She smiled, a contented, honest smile. I reached across the table and took both of her hands into mine. "I love you," I said softly. It was the first time I had ever said it.

She took a sip of her Irish coffee, drawing the cream off the top. "I know. I've known for a long time that you think you're in love with me, but I wonder if you know what love really is?"

"The first person who defines love beyond doubt will win a Nobel Prize, at the very least," I said.

"Well, what I mean is that maybe your personal definition of love and mine are not the same. I'm not asking for any universals, but there are so few people today who define the word the way I do, and unless we both mean the same thing when we speak of love, then we're both lost before we begin.

"The physical attraction between us is overpowering, I know that. And we get along well together, we're harmonious, I know that, too. And we share the same interests and passions. But you're almost six years younger than I, and you're a student of mine, and there are so many problems caused by that, "

"Look, baby," I interrupted, "you asked me what I think love is. So before you go any farther, I'll tell you, okay?" She nodded. "It's true that I'm younger than you are, but far more mature in so many ways. I've seen more and done more in the last five years than you'll do or see in the rest of your life. I'm very protective of you. I think of you as something precious to me that should be shielded from hurt. I've got this consuming desire to take care of you. So maybe the best way for me to tell you what I think love is would be to tell you what I think it is not.

"It's not Madison Avenue and it's not Hollywood. It's not Vogue, or Harper's Bazaar, or Redbook romances. It's not TV ads. It's not beautiful people riving beautiful carefree lives, using the right deodorant and the right toothpaste and the right mouthwash. It's not fuzzy-hued lovers going slow motion into each other's arms on a grass hilltop, or the smell of perfume or cologne. It's not wearing the right clothes to create the right impression. It's not candlelight dinners and romantic bars overlooking Seal Rocks.

"Love is just two people making a life together, with all of its problems and trials, two people who have a deep caring for and understanding of each other.

"That's why I argued with Mrs. Wiggins in the family-living class. Because she's teaching a lie, that -you will find your perfect mate and get married and live happily ever after. Well, it doesn't work that way, not even after all the romantic novels and movies and magazine stories, not by a. long shot.

"So what you get is a whole nation of people who grew up on this myth, the myth of love at first sight. Girl meets boy, falls in love, saves her precious virginity, and gets married in white, with relatives beaming in pride. It's got to be a perfect marriage, made in heaven, because they're both good kids and they've both been brainwashed by a lifetime of romantic bullshit.

"But it doesn't take long for the magic spell to wear off. If they're normal people, they know little or nothing about sex, they only think they know all about it. Good old Prince Charming lasts about two minutes in the saddle, if he's lucky, and whether she feels like it or not, gives his princess a good night smack, rolls over, and in five minutes he's snoring. She lies there wondering why the books and movies made such a big deal about sex, thinking that at least she's done "her duty," as her mother instructed her to do, and vaguely aware that maybe she-ought to be getting more out of it.

"And so their dream is shattered; the myth explodes in their faces like a storm of dirty diapers. They sit home and watch TV, resenting each other because they should be running barefoot and carefree through soft, green glens, and cavorting around in ethereal brooks.

"The dream disappears for both of them and pretty soon Cinderella starts looking around for another Prince Charming, and the old Prince Charming begins screwing a little stray stuff on the side. They might stay together and continue to hate each other's guts for the next fifty years, or they might get divorced; it really doesn't matter, because they blew it the day they got married, and everything else was just anticlimax. They bought the romantic dream and couldn't stand the strain when ugly reality slugged it to them.

"I love romance. I love to make love, and I've done a lot of it. I love sunsets, and sunrises also, when I can get my ass out of bed early enough. I love candlelight and soft music and quiet places like this with beautiful views and roaring fireplaces. I love beaches and parks and trees and flowers and children playing. I'm eighteen years old and I've seen some of the worst of life and some of the best. I want to live with you, love you, take care of you, and have you take care of me. And if we can make it, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, growing old and fat and probably bald, because it's in my family. A lot of people make fun of the marriage vow, but the cat who wrote, "… in sickness and health, for better or worse," knew what he was writing. He knew what it takes for two people to be able to spend a lifetime together.