Cheryl

She was finished with school and I was expecting us to get together that week. So she says, "I am going to Manhattan for ten days. Are you going to miss me?" Of course I said. What's that all about? She didn't tell me she was going. Got the scoop when she got back. She went with her theater class from school, about thirty woman, and they went to plays. Now that she was back there were some changes. She got new bosses. They wanted to promote her and she refused because it meant leaving the union. Now they were punishing her by reducing her hours. And her ex-husband was transferring in from another store to manage the produce department. So now I would have to meet her ex. I decided it was no big deal since by this time I am starting to think I may be presuming this whole thing. Not going to get into negativity. She saw her union rep and everything got straightened out. She got her old hours back and we went on as normal.

It was around this time that I got a woman pregnant. Would visit a friend at the local VA and give him the run-down on my imaginary girl friend. He is always interested. He worked with a woman named Marta, young and beautiful, and I was always attracted to her over the last few years. Whenever I had an appointment she was usually there. So now talking to him she was was there also and she took part in our conversations. She was married and trying to have a child. He told me she had been trying for years. So she got a thing for me. A fellow always knows these things. Well I could have a thing for her if she was not married. Then she got transferred and so I would not see her again. So this last time I visited my friend, to bring him up to speed on my affair with Cheryl, which wasn't happening, he told me that Marta was pregnant. So my theory is: she was trying so hard to have a child, the sex was more of an ambition than any actual love making. She may have blamed her husband since most people don't blame themselves, and so maybe she needed just a little extra push, which was a little imaginary romance, which I may have provided. So goes the theory. Did a survey and seventy percent agreed. And who knows; it is a good story. Should start a paid service. I still got it.

Then I heard my son was going to China and I would have to go to San Francisco to house-sit for two weeks. Cheryl always told me if she was not going to be there on my next time around and I always told her if I would not also. I said why don't you come and visit me in San Francisco? She said she couldn't - she had to go to a family reunion which was at some distance. Well she said maybe ... and I thinking she was just trying to placate me, and the thing now complicated said: "Oh don't matter, was just trying to get something going".

Soon after I began to wonder why she wasn't doing a thing with her buddy Eric. He was about her age and if they were already good friends, I became curious why nothing there. I asked her, "How come you and Eric are not a thing"? She said we are a thing, but not for that long. I was crushed and whether I showed it or not I am not sure. I certainly tried to maintain my aplomb. I went home and the news headlines were that a fishing boat went down in Mexico named Eric, flipped over and through all the passengers overboard. Parallel metaphysics. I was free again. Didn't have to think about her anymore. Didn't have to include her imaginarily in the various contexts of my life. Didn't have to think about all my negatives and whether they would be copesetic. He of course would be better for her anyway; more her mind-set, probably better for her kids. And anyway - who knows how much longer I would live.

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