Low Tide in Happytown

  We sat in the front window of the restaurant on the pier, my back to the bay and the boats and the water, facing her and the decrepit buildings of the pier itself, the old train tracks, the houses clinging to the sides of the hill beyond.   We were planning a future together, or so it seemed.  We had looked at a house earlier in the day here, we were moving in together.   After looking at, and liking this house, we drove around for an hour or two all over the seaside town, writing down phone numbers, searching for “FOR RENT” and “FOR SALE” signs, listening to the radio, singing along to what we heard.  I should have been very happy or having a lot of fun. I had been in love with her.   This was one of my greatest fantasies ever, becoming real before my very eyes.

   "So.   If we get this house,"  I began "do you know what room you want?  What will go in the living room?   My couch?   Your couch?   What about the piano?  I like the room with the - "

  "OH!!!!" She shouted, interrupting me  "Look at that bird!  He is VERY HANDSOME, that bird!  That is a...   a....   I forgot the name.   It looks like he's wearing a tuxedo though, doesn't it?"

   I had to turn around in my chair to see the bird swimming somewhere  behind me, somewhere far away on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling double pane windows.     I looked for the bird for a moment, but there were about forty or so out there bobbing up and down in the water,  all looking the same, all black and white, all doing something or other.

    " Oh yeah, a tuxedo, yes"  I said, turning back around to face her.   I wondered if she would remember what I just asked her, or would I have to repeat myself?   I waited a moment.  She was still looking beyond me, through me, watching the birds floating around out in the bay.   Then, suddenly, she was back.

   "Oh, I know you just HATE BIRDS" she said to me apologetically, incorrectly, and then she directed her attention to the loaf of bread in the basket between us.  She began to tear the end off of it with her bare hands, exactly the way a person would remove the head from a chicken.   With a strenuous effort, a twist, and a final pull,  the heel of the loaf was liberated from the rest.   She thrust this end of the bread into the cube of butter which had been artfully displayed on another tiny plate.  "You should know I LOVE BIRDS though!   They are VERY IMPORTANT to me.  Nature is VERY IMPORTANT to me. "   She then bit a sizable piece of the buttered bread and began to chew, watching me, waiting for a reaction.

    "Oh, I know THAT alright!"  I answered, trying to sound as happy as possible.    I DID know that animals were important to her.  I had no idea if I was important or not to her though, and this was beginning to become a problem for me.

   We had known each other for almost exactly a year at this point,  I had hired her to be my 'Personal Assistant' or 'General Manager' or something like that, and I had a crush on her right from the get-go.  The two of us were the entirety of my online business, and so we were alone all of the time together.  Over the course of the year we had discovered we got along well, had similar goals for the future,  and seemed to like each other pretty well.  We became BFFs.   Everyone knew it.   Including her boyfriend.

   Yes, she had a boyfriend that she didn't seem to be crazy about, although she didn't say anything too awful about to me, either.   She actually never mentioned him to me at all until about a month or two before the decision to live together (she and I) came to pass.   I had a feeling she was sneaky in a bi-directional manner, which is a fashion of sneaky in which there are no losers or winners, not in a clearly defined way.   I felt she thought she was being loyal to him by not letting me touch her much more than resting my hand on her upper thigh every now and then while we ate lunch together,  but planning to move in with another guy in order to break up with him did not strike me as an exceptionally gallant or  loyal gesture either.   I began to think the real reason we never made out when we were on the couch or in my bed watching movies together was because she really did not like me at all like that.  We never really talked about these sorts of things very often, usually it would get weird or someone would get quiet or begin to explain something and then rescind with a series of 'Oh Nothing's.    I was left to wonder and ponder and calculate, and the conclusions I came up with were never flattering to myself.  SURE, she said she wanted to live with me, but the reasons offered never included anything about ME,  but were a few simple sentences regarding a clean sink and a desire for a fireplace.    I was into that sort of stuff too, but I also had a crush on her and wanted to live with her to see how things would go.   She really never shared that thought or want with me, not that I could remember anyway.    So, now two weeks into the quest for mutual living space, I was beginning to get frustrated with her. She was not being as nice in general. She was not looking as good to me anymore these days either , she had stopped plucking her eyebrows altogether and she wore the same pair of shabby  black pants all the time.  I felt I had gotten a good hard look behind the curtain, and I was starting to get worried.    The future did not look so warm or pleasant anymore.    Especially so for about one week out of every month.   I'll circle back  around to this later.  In the meantime,  I was trying to keep her happy and not rock the boat too much with my feelings, and it was not so easy for me anymore, but I would try hard in the interest of achieving the goal, seeing this through to the end, planting this flagpole into the top of the mountain, so to speak.    I would do everything in my power.    So, I said to her:

   " I know animals are very important to you Darling. ME TOO.    That's why I want this house with you.  We can come on down here and look at those birds anytime you want to.   Where is that tuxedoed rascal, anyway? "  and with that humiliation uttered, I turned back around towards the windows to pretend to look for the bird again.   It was right then that  I started to wish I was dead a little bit.