Mayer, Mindwinter day (22nd December 1978

The sauce is done. Then I went to visit a girl­friend of mine who was going to a Jesuit col­lege in Syracuse. When I came home Bob met me at the air­port, it was the first time I’d flown and I had fal­len in love with someone and that was Ed. We went back to my house in Ridgewood, this was when I was trying to go to Barnard but it took me two hours to get there. Bob’s mother had given me a wed­ding sho­wer because my grand­fa­ther had given me my mother’s dia­mond ring and she took that to mean we were enga­ged since she was wor­ried any­way I’d get pre­gnant before we got mar­ried, though she was relie­ved that Bob wasn’t queer after all. I didn’t know any­thing about birth control. We had set a date for the wed­ding and arran­ged a recep­tion but the place we were going to have it in bur­ned down. Bob’s mother wor­ked as a maker of wed­ding gowns. So that night in my house I told Bob to watch me sleep because I was afraid to sleep other­wise. In the middle of the night I sat up in bed, he said, and asked him a ques­tion. After that he always unders­tood that I was no lon­ger in love with him. I didn’t know what Ed wan­ted to do but a couple of days later he came to my house and said I want to live with you, meet me in two weeks. The night before I was sup­po­sed to leave I went out with Grace who a while before had been in such a bad car acci­dent she was still wal­king with a cane. We went to a bar and I left with a minor league base­ball player who had an MG, Grace left with some­bo­dy else and we met later at my house. I mis­sed the taxi I had cal­led to make the ear­ly plane but I caught a later one and when Grace woke up in my house all alone my grand­fa­ther mis­took her for me even though she has red hair and he cal­led her Bernie. When Grace left my neigh­bor Tex told her he’d seen the taxi and won­de­red what was going on, he’s the one who had said when my father died, “Who’s that?”