"There's something!" he said. "That's true, too, isn't it?"
"Yeah. You do it to prove to yourself that you aren't crazy, I think."
I wasn't all that proud of the thought. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to have thought up that trick.
"I told you about the girl that lives in a penthouse on Turtle Creek, right?" he asked me.
"No," I said, and I drank from my glass also, with a little annoyance. "You never remember which stories you've told me: it's like you're pretending you've had all these conversations with me and then you pick up where ever you've imagined we've left off."
That made him laugh, too. "I'm not allowed to spend the night over there any more now that she's engaged."
Oh, God.
Not to my surprise, he mentioned something about marriage, about the fact that he hated it. No, you? I thought.
"I like it," I said. "But I think the only reason you should ever get married is if you feel something magical, for lack of a better word."
He gave me a look that indicated that was a stupid thing to say, and to go on.
"You don't get married if there just isn't this inexplicable reason why you want to be with this person every day for the rest of your life. The marriage either falls apart or you duck out of it, somehow, if there just isn't any...I really don't know. Magic, I guess."
"I think of marriage as two people watching each other decay," he said.
"Maybe. I think that happens when you don't want to be married but are. If you do, though," I continued, pulling from his bloody Mary, "then one of the pleasures--one of the magical side effects, right?--should be that you never get tired of that person for as long as you live."
"Say this, though," he said, moving back to the mimosa. "We've all got our ideals of who our significant others actually are. Okay, they aren't 'ideal,' like, we're not idolizing them. But we have these ideas about who the object of our love is.
"Yeah. You do it to prove to yourself that you aren't crazy, I think."
I wasn't all that proud of the thought. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to have thought up that trick.
"I told you about the girl that lives in a penthouse on Turtle Creek, right?" he asked me.
"No," I said, and I drank from my glass also, with a little annoyance. "You never remember which stories you've told me: it's like you're pretending you've had all these conversations with me and then you pick up where ever you've imagined we've left off."
That made him laugh, too. "I'm not allowed to spend the night over there any more now that she's engaged."
Oh, God.
Not to my surprise, he mentioned something about marriage, about the fact that he hated it. No, you? I thought.
"I like it," I said. "But I think the only reason you should ever get married is if you feel something magical, for lack of a better word."
He gave me a look that indicated that was a stupid thing to say, and to go on.
"You don't get married if there just isn't this inexplicable reason why you want to be with this person every day for the rest of your life. The marriage either falls apart or you duck out of it, somehow, if there just isn't any...I really don't know. Magic, I guess."
"I think of marriage as two people watching each other decay," he said.
"Maybe. I think that happens when you don't want to be married but are. If you do, though," I continued, pulling from his bloody Mary, "then one of the pleasures--one of the magical side effects, right?--should be that you never get tired of that person for as long as you live."
"Say this, though," he said, moving back to the mimosa. "We've all got our ideals of who our significant others actually are. Okay, they aren't 'ideal,' like, we're not idolizing them. But we have these ideas about who the object of our love is.
