Barbara

It wasn't so much the words.  It was the silence that was spoken.  The first time I had met him, it was non-stop conversation.  For three whole hours.  He zapped up all the oxygen in the room.  Would he come up for breath?  Or was he just nervous?

He was all Mediterranean in appearance.  Dark brown hair almost black.  Curls and waves.  Maybe Catholic.  It would have been a deal breaker.  Too much ritual and that would have bothered me.  Definitely not marriage material if that were the case. 

I was more than relieved when he said he was Jewish.  Reform.  Barbara was Jewish and I had spent a lot of time with her family growing up.  Her Mom was an artist.   Her Dad was a furrier.  They lived nice.  Very nice.

We didn't.

Barbara and I attended art classes together in middle school. She became a wild woman.  With men.  After that we had little in common.  The county school system redistricted us and sent her off to Milford Mill High School.

It was college before we met again.  Barbara was now married, very polished.  She reminded me of the polished lawyer in the film, Beaches.  The once rough, wild edges became smooth, refined, peaceful.  She said her husband was in law school. But marriages, children, careers, life took us in different directions.

Until...