Don't Compare

The last time I saw her was a few days before she left for Paris.  She was going to work for the fashion magazine W, and she had come to tell me goodbye. It was a surprise visit, unexpected.  She walked into the empty classroom after the students had gone. I looked up to see her standing in the open doorway leaning seductively against the frame.  I loved looking at her looking at me.  

"I'm leaving," she said.  

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm going to Paris.  Can you come to lunch?"

It was my last class of the day.  

"Sure I can," I said, picking up my things.  When I reached her, she gave me a hug and a kiss.  She took my arm as we were leaving the building.  As we were preparing to descend the steps, we noticed something in the sky.  

"What's that?"

There was a trail of smoke that ended in a giant bubble cloud.  

"I think there was a space launch.  That doesn't look right."

A kid was walking by and saw us staring into the distant sky.  

"The space shuttle just blew up," he said.  "I just heard it on the radio."

We all looked up.  

"Oh. . . wow. . . ."  

That was almost the last time I saw her.  She would write to me from Paris occasionally, once sending me a photo she had taken that was published by the magazine, but as things do, that all eventually petered out.  

The first time I saw her, I was out for an afternoon run.  As I made a turn around a street corner, a convertible pulled up beside me.  It was a nice car driven by a pretty blonde.  She coasted beside me with her with the windows down.  

"Hey, can I talk to you for a second."

My imagination was going faster than I was, but there was a little voice inside me telling me that this wasn't what I thought, that she was simply wanting to get directions.

"Sure," I said, "but I'm going to keep running."

"Oh.  O.K."  She kept kept along side of me at my slow, eight minute mile pace.  

"Listen.  I've seen you around.  I have a photo shoot at the beach this weekend, and I wanted you to come be in it."

I had no illusions that way, but I was tempted to say O.K. just to hang out with the pretty girl.  

"Oh. . . no. . . I've seen myself in pictures before.  That would be no good."

"Well. . . can we talk about it?"

"Sure," I said.  "I'm going to finish my run, but I live just around. . . "

"I know where you live.  I'll come by in an hour." 

And she did.  She was a student at Country Club College.  I lived close.  You could see the campus from my front porch, so we were nearly neighbors.  We sat outside and talked for about an hour, and I got the lowdown.  She was an "it" girl with an air of privilege about her.  She was raised by her grandparents who owned a number of car dealerships.  She had a boyfriend, "maybe."  She gratified him, she said, but didn't have sex with him.  

"He's kind of boring.  He sits around all day watching sports with the sound turned down doing his own commentary.  He wants to be a sports commentator like his father.  

His father was a famous sportscaster and former NFL star.  

"I'm leaving Country Club next term," she told me.  "I'm transferring to Hollins College in Virginia, so. . . ."

And that is how it went.  She would write to me from time to time, and when she was in town, she would get in touch.  She remained what she had been, a beautiful sophisticate, and I was always happy when she came around

I saw her twice after she went to Paris.  She came to my house one last time when she moved back.  The last time was about a year later.  I saw her on the Boulevard with a group of people.  She was on the arm of her new wealthy Texas husband.  She gave me a look of warning that I was not to approach.  This was absolutely not my crowd.  

Always a groomsman and never the groom.  Kicked to the curb again.  An eternal outsider/a sometime gypsy in the palace.  No matter.  We'd had our fun.

I thought of her last night as I watched the evening news with my mother.  Her Country Club College boyfriend is the brother of Trump's Chief of Staff.  As I watched the story of her Vanity Fair interview, I began my trip down Memory Lane.  

That was a very long time ago.  She was untamed then.  Some of the things she wanted to do were sheer lunacy.  No. . . I won't.  The better part of valor, etc.  But it neared mythical.  

* * *

I was walking across the parking lot to the grocery store a couple days ago when I saw Captain Fitzpatrick from "Bad Monkey" going in ahead of me.  When we got inside, I speed limped to catch him.

"Hey, fellow, I'm tired of everyone mistaking me for you," I shouted.  He slowly turned around. 

"Oh, hey. . . yea. . . pretty close."

"I'm going to start doing really terrible things in your name," I laughed.

"Might be good for my reputation," he said.  

"How are things?"

"Good. . . good. . . we are getting ready to start filming Season Two of Bad Monkey, so I can't complain."

He had some reservations, though.  They hadn't begun production yet, and he was concerned that Hiassen was not going to be overseeing the script.  

"He refuses to work on any production unless it is shot in Florida.  The producers decided to move production to L.A. this year."

He asked about me, and I briefly told him my sad tale.  

Whatever.  

Today I have a photo shoot and tonight a Holiday Happy Hour, so there are people who have it worse.  I guess.  I mean I am certain, but it hardly seems like it some days.  

My problem lies in doing something I know I should not do--comparing the present to the past.  You know, "the good old days" when beautiful blondes in fancy convertibles would stop me in the street, give me their phone numbers, tell me they had seen me before and knew where I lived.  

Don't do it, kids.  Don't compare one day to another.  That is the action of the truly sad.  Live in the moment, all the way up.  Trust me.  I'm not like the others. . . .