Memoir of a Missing Woman

¶ … Memoir of a Missing Woman

The woman in the mirror returned my gaze. I recognize her deep blue Elizabeth Taylor eyes as my own, but the crow's feet, and that place just above the nose, between the brows where the hours of worry, concentration, deep thought and introspection have left a deep valley; and the deep laugh lines and the little puckers at the corner of either side of the mouth do not seem familiar to me. That is not the way I feel, although these signs are an accurate reflection of me. For a moment, I feel like the sparkle that I catch in the blue eyes; Elizabeth Taylor eyes he used to say. The woman staring back at me would not have accepted such a trite remark as a compliment on her beauty. She would not take compliments about her beauty well at all, because she was an educated woman; a woman who worked hard not to be seen not as an object of beauty, but as someone whose ideas and thoughts were valuable and could serve purpose. Well, not to worry about that these days, because it was no object of beauty staring back at me. Nor would the woman staring back at me from the mirror miss him, but the woman behind the blue eyes that twinkled and sparkled with the playfulness of an afternoon meeting between two lovers would. Yes, she would miss him, but she was locked behind the blue walls where she has been for these many past years - often times completely forgotten. We exchanged smiles, the blue eyes and me, and I wondered if it was not perhaps time to once again set her free. The thought of unleashing her was both frightening and exhilarating; what would she do, where would she go? The answers to those questions, of course, are found in her past. She would return to that place from which she had come here from. Would that really be so bad? It was impossible. She had been missing so long I barely recognized her. There was a lot of work to be done this evening. I switched the light off and closed the door behind me.

I took the book I was reviewing from the shelf where the real mantel of my success stood - hundreds of books, all read by me. Now, this one, a university release by a notable historian and professor who was taking umbrage with the fact that Hollywood filmmakers were not historically accurate in their portrayals of important historical characters and events. Imagine that, he actually found some 320 pages to rattle on about a nonsensical topic like that. Why not just relax, I wondered, and allow his self to be entertained. I saw several of the films he was critical of, and I can assure you, no one - especially no woman - was thinking about the historical accuracy of the characters or events when a certain Hollywood actor stood before the big screen, naked to the waist, hard bodied and full of wanton desire to be satisfied. How boring that the book's author missed that. Of course, he was a man. I closed the book and felt a wave of exhaustion wash over my body. He had great abs, a hard stomach, but his legs were the real treat.

A closed my eyes, and soon I was someplace else. There he stood, tall, darkly handsome, his green eyes fixed on me from across the room. I remember thinking to myself, "He shouldn't be staring at me like that." I was, of course, a grown woman, but very naive. I was 29 years old and it was the first time I had ever been in a bar. During the '70s, bars were a place where the young and lustful met on common ground and formed relationships - or not. Maybe I had never been in a bar before, and maybe I was naive, but I was never stupid. I knew what the looks were leading up to, but if I am completely honest here, I can't say that I wasn't flattered - of course, I wouldn't have been flattered, but she was. In fact, I - she was blushing. Though she never really turned red or anything like that. She was always a very internal, which I think came from the fact that I was born the third of five girls, in the middle. The middle is as internal a place as one can get.

A ignored him, but if he was issuing an invitation, honesty compels me to confess that it was one have readily accepted, but it was, of course not proper to do that. Not for me. All going back to the middle thing I suppose - but we're going to put that aside because it is, even now, slowing me down. To expedite the telling, and to be frank, I fell for him at first sight, the very moment our eyes met and he smiled. It was a warm, friendly and sincere smile. I liked it; and he was gorgeous. I never really thought of myself as a beautiful young girl or a beautiful woman; though I had always received those kinds of compliments. They embarrassed me, and I really focused on them. But this was different. Here was an incredibly handsome man with a warm smile who seemed to be attracted to me, and I liked it. There is no measure to how much I liked that.

Still, I felt immature, inadequate in the environment that was unfamiliar to me. I had been married for ten years, and I did not know the first thing about dating or flirting. Never really did. I had gotten engaged while I was still in high school and never really had much opportunity to date or learn the dating rituals. Later, he would say, he sensed an innocence which he liked about me. He said it made it easy for him to fall in love with me. Yes, he fell in love with me.

We were of the same time, he and I, born just months apart having experienced the same events as we grew up; the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam, the cultural revolution where, because of young age, we were observers more than we were participants. There were of course those people our age who forced themselves into the active events, but they were much too young to have been there and really contributed nothing except trouble to those times. He was from a large family, bigger than my own family and, as fate would have it, he was the middle child.

That first night, in the bar, was not one that provided any grounds for getting to know one another. It was manic in the bar, not an environment I felt comfortable in - it was me already emerging in my newfound freedom in ways that I did not then recognize.

He and I agreed to meet for a cocktail at a restaurant that weekend. I gave him my number - something I would do again and again over the years until, finally, one day I would stop giving it to him. I'm all over the place here. I'm going to try to approach this in a more organized and coherent way. Although that was the problem, it was not a coherent time or place in my life, and I have never been able to make sense of my relationship with him. but, for the sake of clarity, I will try.

We agreed to meet for the first date at a public place, a restaurant, closer to his side of town actually, and a place where he was comfortable and knew the people who worked in the restaurant. I felt awkward, not really knowing how to conduct myself on a date. Even though I had never dated much in high school, I knew that the rules had changed. Should I offer to pay for my drinks, should I offer to buy him one; these were the things that I felt uneasy about because I didn't know what to do. I never really had anything to worry about. He was a man of the old school, in so many ways, and he took care of everything.

We talked, and I liked that. It was, again, the emerging me that felt driven to relax and get to know people, and at that moment in time, it was him. I found him easy to listen to. He wasn't a college graduate, and in fact he had dropped out of high school. This didn't surprise me because a lot of the people I went to school with did not finish high school. For me, it was never a question. It never occurred to me that I had a choice other than to finish high school. But it made sense I think that he didn't. He was, I quickly realized, a sensitive man. He was from a relatively poor family. "There were times," he told me, "when my mom would say, okay, it's your turn to sleep on the couch, you sleep in the chair, and you three get the bed." His poverty embarrassed him, and probably had a lot to do with his dropping out of school. He said that when he dropped out, he worked two jobs. This was not a man who would stay poor, and even though he didn't go on to college or start his own business, he worked in the steel mills, which were booming back then. By the time I met him, he had been there more than ten years and was financially secure. But something else came across in that first conversation too. I realized that he coveted his money. It represented a level of security to him that he could not be without, and was one he would not risk.

I, on the other hand, was a struggling single mother. Like him, recently divorced, but, unlike him, I had three children; he had just one. My life was a struggle because I was a woman, and, back then - probably still - women were paid less than men. That has never made sense to me, but of course it is a historically true fact. I am not sure to what extent our conversation that first night provided him with insights into just how desperate my situation was. I was a sinking ship, I had three children - whom I would not wish away for anything - no child support, and, like dropping out of school, it never occurred to me that I should seek state assistance. Rather, I worked hard, and when one job didn't prove enough, I took a second job. In hindsight, if I had it to do over, I would have gone for the state assistance. Giving up valuable time with my children to work a second job during their early years is something I can never have back. Although my children aren't affected by it; if anything, as young adults today they are stronger for it - and they have told me as much.

Still, either he didn't realize or he chose to ignore the fact that I was very poor. I dressed simply; my clothes were clean, well pressed, but also well worn. I was a glorious size five back then, still wearing the same blue jeans I had worn in high school, which meant they were well worn. I took care of my clothes, but I never seemed to have enough. It had been years since my ex-husband had worked, and the marriage had never been financially comfortable. At some point, much later, I realized that he probably suspected that I was very poor, struggling, on that first date, but that he chose to ignore. Like me, he had fallen hard at first sight and he just wanted to run with it, to let it be a free flowing kind of thing; and it was that if nothing else.

After the first date I knew that he was a kind and gentle man, a good man, and a man who had had what he thought was a good marriage until the day he came home to find his wife "in my house, in my bed, banging my mailman." That was the end of it, he said, he walked out and never looked back. She apparently didn't chase him out the door because when I met him, six months after his divorce was final (mine wouldn't be final for another month), his ex-wife was still dating the mailman. He was bitter about it, but not the way that most people might suspect. He was most bitter about the fact that she had bought a new furnace before the divorce was final and had charged it to their joint JC Penney credit card, and that with the divorce he got the bill. He was bitter, too, about the child support that he paid; every time he got a raise, he said, she would take him back to court and get a raise in the child support he paid to her. "It's not like it's for the kid," he whined (and, yes, at that time I thought it was whining - the emerging me). The kid was taken care of, he said, had everything he needed and always would, regardless of what he paid in child support. He wasn't going to gauge his support of his son by the financial standards the court set.

He was a good dad. He spent most weekends with his son, but if there was an event that he was interested in attending, a baseball game or football game with his friends, he didn't feel guilty about passing on that weekend. I'm not sure why I thought he was special (That's not her talking. Even now, she would never say such a thing, I am sure). I also realized early on in the relationship that he was probably more open, more relaxed and warmer with me than he was with most people, even his own son. With others, he was distant; with me, he was completely relaxed. I think that had something to do with the fact that we usually began our time together by making intense love until we were both completely exhausted. "I am totally relaxed," he would always say afterwards. I could never put my finger on exactly where that was coming from. It struck me as an odd thing to say after one had just exhausted one's self making love (That is her talking).

Still, those times together - and there were many of them - were a mixture of great and playful fun - he taught me the fine art of ballroom dancing while in bed. He would often lift his long legs in the air and say, "Do you like my legs?" I did, I loved his long, perfectly shaped legs that were muscular and masculine and led to - well, never mind. Yes, I loved his legs. I loved it that he was tall and that he would create this curve in his body to pull me close to him, and then he would wrap his arms me, not tight, but gently. He always treated me gently. Then he would rest his head next to mine, where he could whisper in my ear and he would say, "You feel good." I loved making love with him.

I can't quite put my finger on the moment in time when things changed, when he I noticed that he made an effort to aloof, and to be stand offish from me. I remember the feelings of hurt and confusion, not understanding what was happening. Then, suddenly, after six months, he stopped calling. I was deeply hurt, because I had no answers for his disappearance. But there was so much that I had to do, important things to take care. My ship was sinking fast - something he might have guessed, but I never discussed my financial problems with him, and I never asked him for money or help. It would never have occurred to me to do that.

Finally, I had to take a second job, and I didn't know what to do except to train myself for a job that I could work at night and on the weekends. There were no offices that were open at night - none that I was aware of, and the only skills I had were office skills. So I managed to steal from Peter $150 to pay Paul for bartending classes. It was, for a lot of years, my saving grace really. My best friend became a surrogate mother to my young children - and she was okay with that because she had just one child, and our children were already close. She liked it that they spent a lot of time together. I think it freed her from being the constant source of entertainment for her only child.

Tending bar was an experience she will never forget. For me, it is so far in the past and so educated away from me that it seems really never to have happened at all. But it did. I lived outside Washington, DC, in Virginia, and the night clubs were booming. I chose not to work in the singles bars, they were too fast paced and I didn't have enough confidence in my skills when I first graduated bartending school. So I worked in restaurants - and who would have guessed that they're not any less fast paced than the singles scene was. I worked my fingers to the bone mixing and serving drinks, but I was young, energetic and organized. I wish I could say it was hard work and organization that helped me earn good tips, but it wasn't. I was size five with long dark hair that hung below my waist, Elizabeth Taylor blue eyes, high cheekbones, an Irish pale complexion and I was beautiful. I can say that now. I was beautiful. I couldn't say it then, but I made good tips.

The extra money made the difference between having to choose to buy milk for my children or pay an electric bill. I could afford to keep up with their changing shoe sizes, buy my daughter a new outfit and new jeans for my boys. It didn't mean that I suddenly had a lot of money; it only meant that times were less difficult and that I had a few more choices than I did before I began working a second job.

A met a lot of men while tending bar and it wasn't unusual for them to ask me out. I learned a lot about men while I was tending bar. I could write a book about men based on my tending bar experiences. However, I never accepted dates with my customers and I never drank while tending bar. I wasn't very good at drinking, alcohol and beer always affected me very fast when drinking it and I did not like the sense that I was losing control over my behavior or senses; so I seldom drank. Then, one day, a man came into the bar who I vaguely recognized as someone I had met through him. "I know you," he said. "Yes, I think we have met," I answered. He was with another man, and it looked like a business meeting. They had a couple of drinks, left, and I thought very little of it. Then, a couple of days later, he sat down at the bar when I was working. I was stunned into silence. "Aren't you going ask what I would like?" he asked me, smiling, like we were great old friends catching up, instead of the man who had made love to me two months earlier and then had disappeared from my life.

What would you like to drink?" I asked.

He ordered a beer. "Slow night," he asked as he looked around the empty restaurant.

No," I answered, it's almost closing. It gets like this around closing time." My heart was pounding and I felt completely disoriented. What is he doing I wondered to myself.

How did you learn to do this?" he asked waving his hand towards the bar.

I went to school," I answered plainly.

He laughed, and looked at me with a curiosity that I had never seen before. "You need a second job," he said, "and so you just go to bar tending school and learn it?"