Ironically, it was Manny who solved my dilemma by introducing me to one of his fraternity brothers, and that’s how I met my future husband, Matt. I don’t know if we would have managed to find each other on our own, or if fate meant us to find each other, or if it was only Manny trying to mastermind my life to suit his purposes.
Chapter Ten:
Matt Sightings
[email protected]: Remember the time right before my wedding when I found out Little Jon was holed up in that hotel room with a nineteen-year-old bimbo waitress during their fraternity pledge class reunion and you told me to forgive him if I really loved him?
[email protected]: If I really thought he was cheating, I would have helped you throw him out on his long, lanky ass. I still think the White Witch was just blowing smoke when she ratted him out.
[email protected]: Well now I’m returning the favor. Forgive Matt for whatever it is you think he’s done, which for the life of me I can’t figure out. He’s one of the good ones, Julie. Your parents don’t call him The Prince for nothing. He worships the ground you walk on. No matter how much shit you shovel, he just keeps coming back for more. You don’t know how lucky you are.
[email protected]: I used to be able to count on Matt. He’s all but deserted me. He’s always working.
[email protected]: Julie, it’s called making a living. Why do you think Matt works so hard?
[email protected]: Why don’t you tell me?
[email protected]: He sees how successful Manny’s business is and he wants to do better. He’s been competing with the man since college.
[email protected]: Competing?
[email protected]: For you.
[email protected]: It’s not a competition.
[email protected]: In his mind it is. Now with this new deal, he feels he’s finally made it.
[email protected]: Did he tell you that?
[email protected]: He doesn’t have to.
[email protected]: Oh, so just because you’re married to a shrink, you feel you have the right to psychoanalyze me? Have you and Little Jon been talking about me behind my back?
[email protected]: I have my own opinions apart from my husband’s. You need to be more understanding.
[email protected]: Whose side are you on?
[email protected]: Yours, always. And if you still love him...
[email protected]: That’s the thing, Mackie. I’m not sure I still do. And I’m not sure I ever did.
A serious silence ensued.
[email protected]: Didn’t you love him when you made Natalie Rose?
[email protected]: Yes. Then I did.
[email protected]: All those years with Matt—were you just faking it? Pretending to be happy?
I didn’t have an adequate answer.
[email protected]: There was a time in college when you were so hot for him you practically followed him around like a stalker. Don’t you remember?
****
The Matt I remembered was not the same Matt I was now married to. The old Matt was edgy and a little wild and dangerous. A rule breaker.
I tried to remember back to the time when Matt and I couldn’t get enough of each other, but it seemed impossibly far away.
I first saw Matthew Paver at an Alpha Tau Epsilon party on Fraternity Row. After we met, I kept my eye on him the rest of the evening. Although Matthew wasn’t much taller than me, he was very solid and muscular. Offsetting his dark hair was a milky complexion. His brothers called him the Black Sheep because he had a thick dark head of curly hair on his head, his chin and—it was reputed—in another more private spot—a theory I often daydreamed about confirming for myself.
There was a longstanding story going around the ATE house that one night, in a moment of madness or in a stoned haze, the Black Sheep had set his hidden black thicket on fire as he ran stark naked through the fraternity house. The brothers referred to that as the “Burning Bush” incident. Then there was the story about the “Slip and Slide,” where Matt’s fraternity brothers reportedly propelled him across a soaped-down terrazzo floor in the house, slamming him into a wall, when he was wearing nothing but a football helmet and the top of a wet suit.
Matt was different from the other boys I met at college. He was a year older, which might have explained some of the attraction. Dressed in his signature long-sleeve khaki Army Surplus shirt, he was involved in a near-riot at an anti-war demonstration in front of the administration building after the student shootings at Kent State. I didn’t even know where Vietnam was.
He drew an unlucky 21 in the draft lottery but had injured his knee running track in high school. Armed with a note from his doctor, Matt was coded 4F—not qualified for military service.
Manny, on the other hand, managed to skate through those turbulent times relatively unscathed. The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, Roe v. Wade, presidential politics, and the feminist movement didn’t even register as blips on his radar screen. With no strong opinions and no apparent convictions, Manny’s unspoken motto—Don’t Rock the Boat—had served him well. Moved by nothing but the music of those decades, the only high Manny got was his draft number.
I spent the first three weeks after we met dreaming of Matthew Paver and looking for his white Volkswagen Beetle all over campus.
“There it is,” I said, pointing out the car to Mackie, who tried to look properly interested. Not that I was stalking him or anything, but I found out where his classes were and arranged to “accidentally” bump into Matt outside of class or at least catch a glimpse of him as his white VW bug drove by. There were “Matt sightings” all over campus. I waited for him under the shade of the magnolia trees and the moss-draped oaks on the grass outside the library. I watched him walk by Memorial Tower in the center of campus and heard the carillon bells chime the hour when he changed classes. I saw him frequently at fraternity parties, and, as much as I contrived to talk to him, nothing I did seemed to make any inroads. Finally, Manny took pity on me and agreed to speak to the Black Sheep on my behalf.
When I got back to my dorm one evening, the phone was ringing, and it was Matt. “Hello, this is Matt Paver, Manny Gellar’s fraternity brother.” I started to choke on my own surprise.
“Matthew,” was all I could manage. I could hardly speak.
“Winter Frolics is next week. The Four Seasons are coming, and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.” Dead silence.
“Julie, are you there?” He laughed. “Cat got your tongue?” I could tell he was enjoying my awkwardness immensely. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Of course I said yes.
Our first date wasn’t a big success. Matt told me he liked sports and he liked to work out. I didn’t tell him sports bored me to tears and that I wasn’t remotely interested in anything athletic. We were perfectly mismatched, only I couldn’t see it then. I did enjoy watching him play touch football in the field across from the fraternity house, but mostly because it gave me an excuse to drool over his buff body and the bulging muscles that were on prominent display under his sleeveless T-shirt and cutoffs. And a chance not to concentrate on Manny Gellar.
The second date was a marked improvement. We went to a movie and afterward up to his fraternity room—a small space crowded with books and record albums stacked on concrete block shelves.
“You want to smoke?” asked Matt. In the sheltered existence I led, smoking meant cigarettes.
“No thanks, but you go ahead,” I said politely. Normally, I would have been repelled by his behavior, but nothing about Matthew Paver repelled me. I didn’t need grass. I was high on Matt and the idea of him.
I was so hopelessly infatuated with Matt I couldn’t see straight. When had that glorious infatuation ended? Where was that wild and reckless man who couldn’t keep his hands off me? And when had he been replaced by the buttoned-up, straight-laced man who would no longer share my bed?
Down the hall from Manny’s room in the fraternity house, my relationship with Matthew Paver was beginning to blosso
m. The evenings we spent in Matt’s smoke-filled room after the movies or parties were exciting. I was falling harder and harder for him, and he returned my affection. Matthew Paver was a great kisser. I loved to run my fingers through his wiry black hair. I loved the way his piercing green eyes smiled and his nose crinkled when he laughed. The way our bodies seemed to fit so perfectly together when we kissed. But I wouldn’t let it go much further than that. I had learned the hard way that making yourself too available to the object of your affection was not a smart move.
It was nice to be in a relationship where my feelings were finally reciprocated. Now that I thought I might be falling in love with Matthew Paver, Manny was beginning to view me in a new, more proprietary light, although his time was mostly occupied by the wealthy and well-connected Nita.
My growing relationship with Matt somehow made my hopeless involvement with Manny seem bearable. The more confident and in control I became about my relationship with Matt, the less Manny’s cavalier attitude had the power to hurt me.
But then Manny threw me for a loop, in the fall of my senior year, when he asked me to be his date for Opal Weekend, his annual fraternity party in Jacksonville Beach. What I later found out was that he would have asked Nita but they had argued and she was going to another fraternity weekend with another boy. And not going was not an option for Manny.
“It’ll be a lot of fun,” he promised.
I suspected what he had in mind. But I thought I could handle him.
“Oh, my God,” said Mackie when she found out. “Manny really is a snake. He only pays attention when some other guy is hanging around you. It’s a pattern with him. Now that Matt is interested in you, Manny wants to protect his territory. He’s done it with every guy who’s ever looked twice at you. You know I’m right.”
“Yes, but this is what I’ve wanted forever, isn’t it?” I reasoned. “Maybe this will be a new start for us.”
Chapter Eleven:
Opal Weekend
[email protected]: Remember Opal Weekend?
[email protected]: That was a long time ago.
[email protected]: We could have that again.
****
In the end, all my memories of Manny Gellar culminated in a single event—Opal Weekend—the defining moment in my life. My early frame of reference was forever compartmentalized into tracts of time before Jacksonville Beach or measured after Jacksonville Beach, which was where all my problems started.
We arrived at the Holiday Inn at Jacksonville Beach on a cold Friday night in November. The thought of being alone with Manny Gellar all weekend had my pulse racing. My only regret was that seeing us together would hurt Matt.
We were bundled up in front of a big bonfire for a cookout. Mackie’s date, Jonathan Shack, parked his car on the beach, and he was doing his best to keep Mackie’s engine warm. Jonathan was affectionately known as “Little Jon,” although his nickname belied his considerable height. He and Mackie always drew stares because physically they were such an unlikely couple. The average observer would have pegged me as more Little Jon’s type and Mackie more of Matt’s. But the mysteries of attraction are unfathomable.
Little Jon was a mile high, and he towered over Mackie, who was so tiny she was barely visible next to him. But you could tell he was really into her. He called her his “Little Bit.” He was a proverbial flirt, so his fraternity brothers sometimes referred to him as “Jon Juan” or “Love Shack.” When Jon and Mackie finally joined the others, Jon turned off the ignition and left the car on the hard sand.
We roasted hot dogs, drank, and talked. Some of the brothers passed around joints and got wasted on weed and wine. The band was playing something romantic. I was nestled with Manny under his blue mohair fraternity blanket, and he was nibbling on my lips affectionately.
“Stop it,” I said, not wanting Matt or anyone else to get the wrong idea. “Get a hold of yourself.”
“I don’t want to hold myself,” he whispered. “I have big plans for us.”
“Yes, I kind of figured,” I said. “But can’t you control yourself out here?”
“I’ll try,” he said. “But how about another kiss to tide me over?” I looked around. Matt was sitting nearby with his date, a friend from his marketing class he had invited at the last minute. He had been sneaking furtive, furious glances at the two of us the entire evening. I hesitated. At that moment, Matt roughly grabbed his date’s hand and practically dragged her back toward the hotel. In midstream, he changed his mind, turned around and stomped over to where I was cuddled up with Manny.
“Gellar, let’s have this out now,” Matt growled. “You’d better watch yourself around my girl.” Things were about to get out of hand.
Little Jon left Mackie and got between Manny and Matt as they circled each other menacingly.
“All right, you two. Time out. That’s enough. Both of you get out of here and cool off for a while.” He motioned to me.
“Julie, over here with me. They just need to blow off some steam.”
I followed Little Jon to a picnic table out of the moonlight and out of sight of the rest of the group.
When I turned to look back at the campfire, Little Jon snuck up behind me, brushed my shoulders and wrapped his arms around me, pressing me against him. An erection the size of Texas signaled that I had interrupted something big between Little Jon and Mackie. Kilauea was about to erupt. Hot lava would soon flow into the cool sea, forming new parts of the island.
“Little Jon,” I admonished, trying to slip inconspicuously out of his powerful grasp. Little Jon was lethally charming. Mackie was going to have her hands full with this one.
“Hey, Julie girl, why don’t you ditch those two bozos and switch to a real man?” Little Jon said, pulling me back against him.
“Get serious.” I laughed. “You’re wasted, and Mackie’s waiting for you. She’s probably watching us now.”
“I am serious, baby. Dead serious.”
I laughed nervously and pushed him away again.
“Okay,” he relented, finally getting the message, “but you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I don’t think Mackie likes to share,” I said.
“There’s enough of me to go around, Julie girl.”
I rolled my eyes and walked off. Little Jon’s ego was off the charts.
When he was gone, I turned around, and Manny was standing there. He told me Matt had gone back to the hotel. Manny led me back to our place by the fire. I relaxed and allowed him to kiss me softly on the lips. I shivered as he stroked me gently. The wind, the wine, and the music blurred, and we fell asleep in each other’s arms on the beach. When we awoke the next morning, the tide had come in and swept Little Jon’s car away.
That afternoon was the Florida-Georgia football game—that legendary arch-rivalry between the Florida Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs—the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party. The Gator Bowl had been filling steadily since noon. It was bone-chillingly cold, unseasonably so for Florida. I shivered and asked to borrow Manny’s orange and blue jacket. It stood out against the sea of red and black as we sang the Florida Alma Mater.
The excitement in the stadium built to a fevered pitch as the announcer remarked on the impressive opening drive for the Georgia Bulldogs. The roar in the stadium was deafening, but the crush of the crowd was exhilarating.
“The Bulldogs of Georgia have handled everybody this season, except the Gators,” the announcer commented as the referee signaled a personal foul against the Georgia team.
“I’ll be gentle when I handle you tonight,” said Manny, putting his arm around me possessively, tightening his hold and drawing me closer. His idea of foreplay?
“Well played by the Gators,” commented the announcer about a later play. “John Reaves to Carlos Alvarez. Nice hands.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking about Manny.
In the end, the Gators shut out the Bulldogs in the second half. When the game was over, Flo
rida fans stormed the field and tore down the goalposts.
Saturday evening was a formal dance at the hotel, and I spent a long time in Mackie’s room getting dressed and fixing my hair.
“Did you find a ride back?” I asked.
“Yes, Matt Paver is taking us,” Mackie said pointedly. “He’ll probably be pining away for you the entire time. You’re mean to do this to him. You’re driving him crazy, you know, making him watch you and Manny together. Manny can’t seem to keep his hands off you when Matt’s around.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” I said honestly. “I hate that he has to see us.”
At the dance, Manny was unusually attentive all evening. The treasured emerald medallion Manny’s mother had given me for my Sweet Sixteen complemented my floor-length apple-green taffeta gown and blazed brilliantly in the artificial light of the room, blinding everyone who looked at it.
We danced every dance together, all but one, when Matt, who couldn’t stand it any longer, walked over in an obvious huff.
Glaring at Manny as he had been doing all evening, he said, “I hope you don’t mind if I dance with my girlfriend,” and whisked me off for the last slow dance.
I was really attracted to Matt, and it felt good to be back in his arms, but I had only been dating him on and off since my junior year in college. Manny was someone I’d wanted for as long as I could remember. Circumstances had put us together this weekend, and I knew I had to play the evening out, to see if we might have a chance. Matt pulled me close. After the dance was over, he gave me a long, tender kiss.
“Don’t forget you’re still my girl,” he whispered. I looked into his green eyes and was about to cry when Manny came up and grabbed my arm.
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