First Love
We went out last night to celebrate my mom’s birthday in what has become a new tradition – dress like my mom – glamorously. I wore the fox stole my mother in law gave me along with mom’s jewelry that she gave me and got all dolled up in her honor – she was a snazzy dresser. Happy Birthday Mom!
We then came home to learn that the first love of my life is on his deathbed and might not make it till the end of this week. I can remember him taking his nitroglycerin pills when I was only 19 years old. I met him because I was staying at my brother’s apartment and he had a date with my brother’s dear friend and neighbor (who sadly died in a car crash a few years ago). I fell in love with him at first sight – I was 13 and he was 29.
He was 6′ 8″ and his favorite come back to anyone who asked him if he played basketball was whether they were a jockey. He had Nordic good looks and was a freak of sorts – a genius, an alcoholic, a lover. After he cheated on me so many times I couldn’t count the times on my two hands, I gave up trying. And they were always dramatic times – he slept with my boss after meeting her one night with me, he left the bar with another woman while I was in the bathroom (the bartender took me home instead – Linda), he would sit at Cosmos and wait for me to come home when I lived in the shotgun on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter. He moved into the lavish apartments on Esplanade and conducted business by the pool. I threw another woman’s clothes over the balcony after finding her in bed with him. She was my co-worker and lit my cigarette with matches from the bar he had been at the night before – it tipped me off. He made millions. He owned hotels with my brother and my brother in law. He was bohemian, a high roller, a lush, and a cheat.
Then he had a nervous breakdown and committed himself to an institution.
For 20 years afterwards, I dreamed about him. I went to work for my brother and he came to work with my brother again. He was married for the third time, with a new baby, and he talked to me as if we were still lovers – it was disconcerting because my heart still skipped a beat when he walked in the room. He told me tales about how if we were together I would have to let him also have a darker woman in his life. I told him he was absurd and there was no “we” anymore and never would be. I was married to my first husband at that time.
I had married my friend who had been my confidant when he first went into the mental hospital. I had decided to never love like that again.
We always believe our first love is our last, and our last love is our first.