Bob’s mother was the kind of person who buttoned up her
hair. I’m not being facetious
either. Not exaggerating. She would wash it, blow it out, and
then take these button-ended pins to tack the two sides together in the back.
It was perfection every time. As
if a hairdresser on the set of I Love Lucy had spent an hour meticulously doing
her do. Every day.
Even vacuuming around the house she wore a double strand of
pearls. And sometimes a cashmere
sweater. High heels more often
than flats. And sometimes a cameo
brooch from her own mother pinned to the sweater or to a silk scarf tied
perfectly beneath her chin.
I should have seen the red flags from the beginning. I mean if you’re the only son growing
up in a house with four older sisters and a mother who cleans house in pearls
and cashmere, you’re bound to have at least a few issues. No doubt about it.
But I was smitten the first time I saw him. A young freshman sitting in the third
floor Art studio trying to grasp the guidelines for a class that included a
stereo for you to play your own albums on (Beatles, Stones, The Dead, James
Taylor, or even Jimi Hendrix.) An open
door, drop-in-anytime policy. A
supply closet that pretty much said “take anything you want.” And a teacher who seemed to smile at
whatever you did or said.
I had just started high school after a very tumultuous
summer including a cousin found shot in his bathroom by a young friend, a
neighbor who held up the candy store in town, and my own parents’ inevitable
divorce. Although I had always
been the do-as-your-told, homework-done-every-day, on-time, maybe-even-early
kind of student, I was looking for a change...
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