Lions, Tigers and Bears Part 3 ...Tilting the Odds
It's the old story—torn between two lovers—Frizzy and Grier.
Two women couldn't be more opposite.
Me? I'm not frightened by much, but I am by this cockeyed love affair—or should I say affairs?
I'm tired of drawing a line down a center of a page with Frizzy on one side and Grier on the other.
A song is playing quietly in the background—Lions, Tigers & Bears by Jazmine Sullivan.
I've just completed my chart of plusses and minuses and Grier won again.
That should settle it, but it doesn't. For some reason, I always try to weight the points so Frizzy wins.
The irony seems so poignant in the words of the song:
Just cause I love u and u love me,
It doesn't mean that that we're meant to be,
I can climb mountains, swim cross the seas,
But the most frightening thing is you & me!
Yeah, I'm not scared of lions, tigers and bears—just of loving her.
Later, that night I'm sitting again by the fire trying once more to descry my Fate.
What is the hold-up here in my relationship with Grier?
She fits with my circle of friends—my parents love her—her parents seem to like me. We have this soul-to soul way of wordlessly communicating. So why not full speed ahead?
I’m flying, Jack Dawson says, arms outspread on the prow of the Titanic.
But his ship went down—slipped beneath the cold Atlantic.
Why all these fears and catastrophic images—black waters and icebergs?
My I-phone chimes and I check the text. How’s your aye, Me Hearty?
It’s Frizzy’s way of apologizing for poking my eye with a paper dart.
My brow is furrowed, but the corners of my lips are curling into a smile.
A warm wave rolls through me and a sob catches in my throat.
It was mid-winter and we were on the pier watching the lake—the wind punishing her red hair.
We had wax-paper sandwiches and bad take-out coffee— and a gust of wind took her red wool cap and matching mittens and blew them into the waves.
She had to hold me back—I might have jumped in. Why? …so strange.
“They’re only wool—I can buy more at The Bay.”
But I bought them for her at Christmas, and the waves were washing them away.
“Too bad, so sad,” she whispered, her face an elfin smile.
I wanted to hold her and shelter her from all life’s storms—and never let her go.
“You can get more—you’re a pirate,” she laughed.
The wind spun strands of her hair, formed tiny vortices that spun off into nothingness like tiny gales.
“Why did you say I’m a pirate?” I asked.
“I was on a genealogy site—saw your name and looked it up. You have a coat of arms, you know, but your ancestors were pirates and actually kidnapped St. Patrick. That would not make you too popular with your countrymen.”
I laughed, “Knowing my relatives, it definitely would not.”
“So, if you’re a pirate, why are you with Grier?”
“What do you mean?”
“Pirates seek treasure—treasures don’t pursue pirates.”
I laughed it off as one of her witticisms, but it stung—stayed with me afterwards too.
Grier had pursued me I suppose—but that wasn’t atypical of liberated women today—and besides, we’re from the same social class. Hell, our families are friends.
And after that day—I couldn’t look too long at Frizzy or I’d stare.