A Story of Romance, Addiction, and Steak Knives

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Alexander Pope.

I had my new lady friend Marilyn down for Brunswick stew last night. She came at five and stayed until 11.

She told me, among many other things, that she had just had back surgery and that a ‘friend’ of hers had been over to visit earlier in the week and stolen her pain meds that the doctor had prescribed. She can’t get anymore meds until the end of the month, so, she says, she’s in agony all the time. She broke down crying when she told me this. I felt pretty helpless about it and offered her an Advil, which she took. In hindsight I should have offered to arrange a Priesthood blessing, but at the time her bawling unsettled my wits to a strange extent.

She really wanted to talk, and since she is very pleasing to look at I was willing to sit back and listen to her after we ate the stew.

She’s pretty conflicted about moving out here to Utah from Ohio. And about her Church membership. According to her everyone in our building (I guess that includes me) is an old ‘fuddy-duddy’ -- no fun to be with and always gossiping and judgemental. And I don’t think she’s far off the mark, either. In one breath she says she had to get out of Ohio because the opioid epidemic had already taken half of her friends and she didn’t want to be involved any longer in that sordid drug culture-- and then in the next breath she’s telling me that she should have stayed in Ohio and married one of the rich men who wanted her to be their trophy wife. Then she wouldn’t be stuck out here with no car and living off her Disability check.

She seemed pretty hazy about her reasons for joining the Church; she wanted to be like everyone else around her, so she took the missionary discussions and was baptized. But she has never read the Book of Mormon and obviously isn’t interested in going along with the Word of Wisdom. But at the same time she told me she yearns to get closer to, in her words, ‘God and Jesus.’  Her parents raised her as a hardshell Baptist.

She’s terrified of spending Christmas alone. She has a daughter with a family in the area but recently got into an argument with her and now they’re not talking, so she has nowhere to go for Christmas, which she says she finds really depressing. I assured her that she was welcome to spend Christmas with me, since I wasn’t planning on going out to family gatherings or anything -- my kids and grandkids would probably just stop by for a few moments on Christmas day to say hello. So she’ll probably spend Christmas day with me and we’ll do some cooking together. She wants to make Eggs Benedict.

She’s been married 3 times and still exudes the kind of physicality that make wicked men want to swarm around her; she has no idea how to dress modestly. I guess I’m a hypocrite for writing that, since I enjoy the way she presents herself too.

I feel like she wants me to be both her therapist and her sugar daddy -- giving her sage advice and helping her out financially. I won’t give her any advice except to invite her to come back to Church and I haven’t any money to help her out with -- but she knows she’s welcome to a meal from me anytime she wants.

So it seems highly unlikely that our ‘relationship’ is going anywhere. My feeling is that she’ll cut me out of her life the minute she finds a well-to-do man who wants to take care of her, and that renewing her baptismal covenants is too corny. Let’s hope I’m wrong. I can afford to invest a lot of time in her, but I’m not sanguine about developing anything deep and abiding.

She’s coming over for split pea soup this afternoon . . .

“I want to be in love” Marilyn told me, in response to my announcement that I had scorched the split pea soup so we were having baked tilapia instead for lunch. She said this as I let her into my apartment and took her coat.

She has the habit, sometimes fascinating and sometimes irritating, of disregarding small talk and the social amenities to dive right into her immediate thoughts and feelings.

As I offered her a splinter of brie cheese with a rye cracker as an appetizer she explained that she needed to be in love in order to feel alive. When I pressed her for her definition of love she made it abundantly clear that she was speaking of physical love, not the romantic kind.

“You’re blushing” she said, halfway through her graphic and detailed account of what she meant by love. I admitted that her narrative was becoming too steamy for me, so she obligingly switched subjects to Italian food, and we had a much more comfortable chat as we picked apart the tilapia -- she favors stuffed pastas such as ravioli, while I was emphatic that anchovies are needed in every kind of pasta sauce. It was at that point, as I thought back to the savory aroma of oregano from past Italian meals, that I realized Marilyn wears no perfume. Her good looks provide a kind of fetching scent. And I blushed again as I thought of the heavy aroma of Williams Lectric Shave I was carrying about me like a rope of garlic tied around my neck.

The macadamia chocolates we had for dessert proved an uncomfortable revelation, when a piece of nut got stuck underneath her dentures. I didn’t even know she had dentures until that moment, when she demurely took them out to oust the offending macadamia kernel. There is something obscene and infinitely sad about a beautiful woman’s face when it suddenly collapses and becomes toothless -- to my shallow and superficial way of thinking. Beauty is such a sad burden, I thought to myself; it’s a good thing I’m homely. Keeps me out of trouble.

Then she talked about boots; leather boots, suede boots, and especially knee-length boots. She had taken a taxi out to Nordstrom’s Rack last week to buy two pair of boots -- the taxi fare costing almost as much as the boots themselves. Although I have vowed not to descend into giving her avuncular advice when she tells me of her extravagances, I had to let her know that the 850 bus that runs practically right in front of our apartment building goes right by Nordstrom’s Rack. She feigned interest in learning how to get around on the bus for a moment, but then her native honesty asserted itself -- she said she despised public transportation and the people who used it. She was going to go after her last ex-husband for back child support, which would provide her with a tidy enough sum for a new car. She had wrecked her old one when she moved to Utah -- and somehow the insurance money went for a fur coat instead of a new car.

(at this point I see clearly I’m falling into my old habit of writing as a humorist and critic of the human race -- so I want to make a public promise here and now that out of respect and affection for Marilyn I will not turn these narratives into blog posts. She deserves better than that.)

Over club soda she gave me a tutorial on the American drug scene from the 1960’s through 2015, which she participated in with gusto. She rattled off pharmaceutical terms that I’d never heard of, until I thought I was at an M.I.T. chemistry lecture. Her father, she claims, spearheaded the legislation outlawing quaaludes in Ohio when she confessed her addiction to them to him.  She’s now quit all the party drugs but still relies heavily on prescriptions from her doctor for back pain, anxiety attacks, and chronic insomnia. Those are the pills stolen from her apartment by a ‘friend’ she told me about yesterday -- she has withdrawal symptoms already that make her gasp with agony in mid-sentence and weep uncontrollably for no discernible reason. I remonstrated with her to call her doctor for an emergency refill but she won’t do it -- she told me she’s afraid he’ll think she’s a drug dealer trying to get extra pills to sell. So she has to wait until January for a refill. I think she wants to go through the hell of sudden withdrawal because she needs to be punished for her past sins -- her old Baptist upbringing coming through.

Since we had been talking about Italian food, and to take her mind off her current distress, I offered to take her out to an Italian restaurant over on Center Street that night. I had eaten there before and the food was good -- although they didn’t use enough anchovy paste in their pasta sauce to suit me. She went home to take a nap and fix her hair, and I took a nap as well (and plucked out a few nose hairs when I got up) and we were at the Italian place promptly at six -- only to find it shuttered and deserted. Brown wrapping paper in all the windows. She was wearing a cute beige ensemble, which did not include a warm coat, and it was about twenty degrees outside, so  her teeth were chattering. Clearly, we needed to find another place close by to eat -- pronto -- before she got frostbite. Joe Vera’s Mexican place was down the street, so we hurried in there for burritos and guacamole. She couldn’t stop shivering even after we were seated; she asked if she could have a margarita to warm herself up. A stern lecture on the Word of Wisdom was on the tip of my tongue, but looking at her all huddled up and miserable, and still very cute, I decided to turn the other cheek, so to speak, and let her have a snort. Besides, my vanity wouldn’t allow me to look like a cheapskate in her eyes -- if she wanted an expensive drink, then Tim Torkildson, last of the big time spenders, would gladly foot the bill.

And it turned out to be a pretty big bill -- because she had four of ‘em over the course of the evening. Live and learn -- the next time I invite her out to a restaurant I’ll call ahead first to make sure the place is still in business. Downtown Provo is turning into a doggone ghost town as it is. And I’ll insist she wear a thick wool coat, with gloves and a chic cap. And I’ll deliver my lecture on the Word of Wisdom. She can get a buzz from herbal tea if she wants.

Walking back to the apartment building she said she didn’t feel the cold at all now. But I felt it -- in my wallet.

Today, Friday, the Provo Senior Center has their annual Christmas Lunch with turkey and all the trimmings. I’ve made reservations for myself and Marilyn to attend. She’s never been to a Senior Center before. When she asked me how to dress for it, an evil imp inspired me to say she should get made up like a runway model -- looking her most alluring. That should wake up those pensioners in their bib overalls that fall asleep over their Jello . . .

Marilyn is in a movie coming out this spring -- a documentary about drug abuse. So she told me yesterday morning when she came down for some dry toast and chocolate milk. Her son produced it. I got a blow by blow account of her scenes in the film, or video, or whatever it is. She plays a glamorous older woman caught up in a web of violence and deceit as she becomes hooked on pills and then weans herself off them cold turkey. (Which she is actually doing right now -- she swears up and down she will not get her pain meds prescription refilled but will tough it out to get clean so she can talk to the Bishop about getting a Temple recommend. Is it flummery? Probably. But I believe at some level she truly wants to get straightened out. I hope her therapist and psychiatrist will help her stick to her nascent resolve.)

My old friend Phil stopped by at noon to drive us over to the Senior Center for the Christmas lunch and music program. Marilyn was dressed to kill. And Phil, who is in his eighties but still in good trim, perked right up when she sat next to him in the front seat of his truck on the way over. I’ve never seen him smile so much before. He actually put in his hearing aids so he could hear her better -- something he never does with just me.

The turkey and mashed potatoes were good -- but the dressing held together like epoxy. I inveigled the serving lady to drown my plate in good brown gravy, but I still couldn’t choke down more than a few bites of it. I didn’t like the looks of the pumpkin pie -- it had a sinister glisten to it, so I took an orange for my dessert. Marilyn, sitting next to Phil, demurely picked at her food like a good sport -- emanating the impression that only Phil’s sparkling conversation kept her from throwing the whole plate out the nearest window.

The program was presented by the nearby grade school -- with dozens of little girls in tutus prancing about to selections from the Nutcracker. The entire school, teachers and parents too, got up on stage to sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for the finale. And then we had a raffle drawing for some gift coupons for Golden Corral. Marilyn kept saying she never won a thing in her life and wanted to leave, but Phil and I convinced her that ten more minutes at the Senior Center would not ruin her life. And she won a gift coupon. She wrote ‘Marilyn Monroe’ on her raffle ticket, so when they called her name she rose slowly and turned around to let everyone have a good look at her. There was a collective gasp, and I could swear that several of the old men let their dentures drop while their eyes started out of their heads like ping pong balls. She basked in the randy adulation and gave both me and Phil a hug. It’s a wonder that Phil’s pacemaker didn’t implode at that moment. I think mine did -- and I don’t even have one!

The outing did Marilyn a lot of good -- she was able to forget about herself for a while and interact with some salt-of-the-earth people. Phil dropped us off at my place, after Marilyn made him promise to take her (and me -- I’m not letting her out of my sight when there’s a rich old married man in the picture) shopping for a little tree and some lights next week.

We stayed up until midnight talking. She made a heroic effort to put a positive spin on everything in her life that we reviewed in minute detail about her life in an Ohio suburb called Fairlawn. She only broke down crying twice, when she remembered that she would not be seeing her daughter and grandkids for Christmas. I will never understand the dynamic between mothers and daughters. There must be an algorithm for it somewhere.

But as the evening wore on we both noticed a certain rumbling in our tummies that presaged an extended bout with the Charmin brigade. I don’t know if it was the turkey dinner that turned traitor on us or something else. It was partly her continuing withdrawal symptoms, for sure -- and I believe I am becoming so emotionally invested in her problems that my stomach is reacting along with hers out of sympathy. Or it could be the stomach flu -- I never can go through the winter without coming down with it at least once.

Be that as it may, I had to make a run to Fresh Market for a large economy size bottle of Immodium. My stomach is still doing flip flops this morning and it looks like a long day of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and Sprite for Mrs. Torkildson’s little boy. I hope Marilyn sleeps long and deep -- I can use a long session on my Kindle in the peace and quiet of my own mind. If this is how great romances start, I’m going back to misogyny.

It’s easy to tell the truth about others -- since we don’t actually know it and can fill in the blanks with guesses and theories. The truth about ourselves, about our own situation, is much more difficult and painful to map out and admit. During Marilyn’s interminable chatting yesterday with me, we both crept up on a melancholy realization about her current situation.

She sailed into my apartment Saturday morning as breezy and pleased with herself as could be. She had slept well and taken a bubble bath in the one tub available on each floor of the building. Our individual apartments have only a shower stall, not a tub -- and it’s barely large enough to turn around in, what with the built-in seat. With my girth, I always feel like a subway passenger at rush hour -- able to turn no more than 180 degrees without tumbling out.

She didn’t want any breakfast -- her stomach was still as tender yet rebellious as mine. We both sipped on flat Sprite. I gazed at her in carnal admiration. She had on an off-white athletic t-shirt, slipping down over one shoulder, showing off her balcon to good effect, and stone-washed jeans with the knees out. Her tan boots reached up to her knees.

Over the course of our blossoming relationship she has unloaded a tremendous amount of personal data on me. She is not familiar with the phrase “Too Much Information.” So she started out our morning confab with a detailed account of her son’s sexual exploits -- which she claims to know in startling detail. I did not have to ask her to stop this time -- she noticed the pained expression on my face and immediately ceased her vicarious boasting. She’s a good face reader.

Under my prodding we switched the talk over to the video she and her son had filmed out here in Utah. It’s being edited in California, and being pieced together at a snail’s pace -- she affirms that everyone in the state of California is on Xanax. Reeling out her pride and affection for her son (I should be able to insert his first name here, but darned if I can remember it at the moment) her kaleidoscopic narrative about his career seemed somewhat disjointed to me. He’s a successful male model, jet-setting all over the world for photo shoots. He’s an architect. And he’s also a medical doctor who is co-owner of a detox center in Arizona.

“A doctor -- a medical doctor?” I asked her, trying to keep the unbelief out of my voice.

“Yeah -- he got his degree online two years ago.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“He told me, Mom -- we’re filming your life story to show at my detox clinic, so you have to be the star. We filmed all over Utah and Arizona.”

Then she dived into her Exodus story once again. Every time we sit down for a long talk, her Exodus story -- the reason she came out to Utah from Ohio -- changes and expands. At first it was simply to escape the drug culture and violence of the ‘hood’ back in Cincinnati. Later she added that her daughter had joined the Church -- after first running away from home at the age of sixteen to marry a polygamy cult leader who was subsequently jailed -- and had pleaded with her, Marilyn, to finance her and her new husband’s trip out to Utah to start over again -- which she was glad to do, using up the last of her savings. This, in turn, inspired Marilyn with the idea of coming out to ‘Mormon Land’ (her term for Utah) to be close to the swarm of grandkids she now had because of her daughter’s second marriage. Then yesterday the story burgeoned even more, as she approached closer to the truth about her current circumstances. Both her son and her daughter had urged her to make her home here in Utah Valley because it was close to them and was relatively crime free. Now prosperous and eager for her company, her son and daughter helped her close up her apartment in Cincinnati and flew her out here, first to shoot the documentary, and then to settle her into a nice apartment.

That’s when everything fell apart. Being a passionate and outspoken woman, with too many indiscreet pharmaceuticals coursing through her veins, she had first argued with her daughter, who stopped talking to her and stopped giving her money, and then, once the video was done, she got into a scuffle with her son when he flushed her Xanax pills and prescription down the toilet at a gas station in Sandy, Utah.

“I screamed at him, ‘are you crazy?’ You can get ten dollars apiece for those little blue pills!’” she told me.

Her son gave her several thousand dollars and a car right there in Sandy, and then left her flat -- driving away with the camera crew. She drove down to Provo because she met a man in a bar who claimed to have a condo she could sublet here. He didn’t, naturally. With her money running out, she rented a small basement apartment, and then wrecked her car, injuring her neck and spine.  Her son Michael (NOW I remember the name) came out to visit her in the hospital and then helped her move into this place, Valley Villas -- a subsidized apartment building for indigent seniors. That was a month ago. Since then he has texted her from time to time but otherwise remains distant, both physically and emotionally. And financially. Marilyn now has no income outside of her Disability check. She got that after her last husband beat her to a pulp and left her for dead.

“So now I’m stranded . . . “ she began jokingly to tell me. Then stopped.

“So now I’m abandoned . . . “ she tried to start up again. But couldn’t. We both began to realize that she had truly been discarded by her kids in a place where she knew no one and did not fit in with the prevailing culture at all. She is a stranger in a strange land.

She became silent, the tears running down her cheeks. Silence, for Marilyn, is a sad thing.

“You’re the only one who gets me, out here” she finally said. “Don’t leave me alone like my kids did -- okay?”

A touching moment, you say? Hardly. As soon as I reassured her that I would always be a friend to her she lowered the shoulder strap on her t-shirt and gave me what I can only describe as a wanton smile. I don’t know what she was preparing to do, but I forestalled any possible disaster by asking in a shrill desperate voice what she thought about Donald Trump.

“He’s the best!” she declared without equivocation.

Then we were off to the races, as I detailed my opinion of the Commander-in-Cheap.

We wrangled for a good hour before deciding that we’d have to agree to disagree. My inflexible distaste for the man inspired Marilyn to show her patriotic feelings towards the President by mailing him a letter of support, along with a photo of her when she was a pole dancer. She just happened to have the photo in her purse. All I can say is if she does include the photo and it does reach the President, he is going to invite Marilyn to Mar-a-Lago for an intimate dinner -- as sure as pigs have snouts.

“What kind of idiot doesn’t have steak knives?”

And so began a Sunday with Marilyn. She had offered to come down and make me steak & shrimp for Sunday dinner, now that food stamps have come through for the month. (She gets $190.00 each month; I get $19.00.)

She brought over everything for the feast, then felt in too much pain to make the meal -- so I made it. No problem. I love to cook. She sipped on a glass of chocolate milk while reiterating stories she has told me before. When I brought her plate she asked where the steak knives were. I told her I didn’t have any; she’d have to use a butter knife. Wrong response. (Thank goodness I didn’t serve her steak on a paper plate, as I first thought of doing!) She made a point of picking up her steak with her fingers and biting off hunks, grunting in disgust.

I thought, at that moment, that we had reached the parting of the ways. I can take a lot of abuse -- but when it comes to food I am touchy. But before I could give her a piece of what I laughingly call my mind she was in my arms, saying she was sorry. I buried my face in her hair and cooed the soothing words.

“Don’t worry about it. Not a problem. I’ll cut your steak up with the carving knife, okay?”

“I look ugly today, don’t I?” she finally asked, after I peeled myself off of her. She was not wearing her lower dentures, because, she said, they hurt too much. She had not showered or brushed her hair that morning. Mascara dribbled down her cheeks. There is no way that question, from a woman, especially a woman like Marilyn, can be answered safely. It’s like being handed a bomb with a very short sputtering fuse.

“I like you no matter how you look” I replied, wishing I had increased my burial policy when I had the chance.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?” she demanded, giving me the Glare That Sank a Thousand Ships. Obviously words were no longer of any use to me, so I simply spread my arms apart with a meek look on my face, my neck fully exposed for the garrote, and mutely awaited my fate. We stood facing each other for about ten seconds -- the longest ten seconds I can ever recall -- and then she sat back down again, wishing she had a large glass of merlot. I silently wished she had a bottle of it, inside of her and making her happily drowsy and pacific.

But that was the last of Hurricane Marilyn for the day. After the meal she chatted happily about her mom and dad. She was the youngest of eight. Her dad was an engineer who traveled all over the world building bridges, and her mom was a pious homemaker who never caught on to Marilyn’s descent into the cesspool of quaaludes and other pharmaceuticals. She had a car when she was sixteen -- a red GTO. They had a swimming pool in their backyard; where boys by the dozens prowled around whenever Marilyn came out to sun herself in a bikini. Her parents did not drink, smoke, or swear -- and neither did Marilyn, until at 17 she was introduced to a contingent of NASCAR drivers (Marilyn’s narrative became a bit convoluted at this point as to how and why she was dropped into this group of roistering speedsters, who gave her cocktails and let her try a Cuban cigar.)

Her grandparents had a farm in Medina, Ohio, where she spent summers riding ponies and picking strawberries. Both grandparents spoke only Plattdeutsch; they covered her with hugs and kisses and strudel. She loved being spoiled by them.

When Marilyn was in her twenties her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and passed away quickly. Her father then faded away a year or two later. Her brothers and sisters, all older than her and with families and careers already eating up all their time, left Marilyn pretty much to herself. Husbands and lovers (Marilyn made little distinction between the two) came and went until now she’s a grandmother alienated from her two children and consequently a dozen grandchildren.

At this point it was dark outside, so I plugged in my little Christmas tree for some light and put on easy listening Christmas songs from my Chromebook. Marilyn groaned and began writhing. Not so much from these sad memories as from continuous stomach cramps as she continues her withdrawal from her pain meds and anxiety pills. She begged me to get her some Immodium and a pint of rocky road ice cream. Which I did.

I got back as she finished a call with the ‘friend’ she said had stolen all her meds earlier in the week.

Turns out, said Marilyn, that her ‘friend’ apparently was guiltless of this theft; when Marilyn called her while I was on my errand of mercy, to bawl her out, her ‘friend’ claimed she would never do such a thing. And since she is on the exact same medications as Marilyn she promised to come over first thing Tuesday morning to share her bounty with Marilyn. For free, I’m sure.

Marilyn is now happy in the prospect of deliverance from her pain and distress. I feigned happiness for her, and was about to remind her that she had told me a dozen times in the past two days that she wanted to be off all her pills, even though they are legally prescribed by her doctor -- but instead I shut my trap. I don’t know if this is a legitimate reprieve for her or another rung down to the Pit for her. I simply don’t know. I’m completely out of my depth here.

Her euphoria expressed itself, to me, as an earnest desire to go have a private talk with the Bishop about how to become active in the Church again. I gave her the executive secretary’s phone number so she could call him to make an appointment.

Before she left my place she gave me a tremendous buss -- first on the cheek and then on the lips. It made me very glad indeed I had not served her steak on a paper plate. She twinkled at me as she closed the door behind her, saying:

“Maybe I can even start volunteering at the Temple!”

When she came over today, Monday, for another six hour marathon of chat, I kept steeling myself to tell her not to hold her breath about becoming a Temple volunteer anytime soon -- but I was at the doctors all morning getting blood tests and a rectal exam, and did not feel up to doing anything but nodding and smiling at her.

I’ll let the Bishop do all the explaining. That’s what they’re there for, right?

Marilyn is at the door right now; knocking, knocking, knocking. I’m not answering. I’m not letting her in. I have cold-heartedly kicked her out of my life -- and out of my bank account.

She came down at 10 this morning and when I let her in she ripped into me about turning my phone off. I explained, for the umpteenth time, that it’s a Tracfone and that I have to buy minutes for it and I didn’t have the means to put any minutes on it until the end of the month. (I did not say that the reason I didn’t have the means is because I have taken her out to eat and provided her with home cooked meals and I even gave her a roll of quarters yesterday so she could do her laundry.) Yes, I’m a cheap son of a gun -- but that’s not what caused the final breach.

She has her pills now. Her ‘friend’ dropped by this morning, she said. But her mood towards me this morning remained critical and bullying. Had I marinated the steaks? Yes, in cooking sherry. What? In that crap? Why didn’t I go get a bottle of good wine to do it with? What’s wrong with me? Am I retarded or what? I did not answer her, except with a shrug and an eloquent peace-making face. But that’s not what brought things to an end.

She wanted something to drink. I gave her a can of club soda. My last, as it turns out. She opened it, sipped it, put it on the floor -- when she had a TV tray right next to her -- and then accidentally kicked it over with one of her gorgeous booted feet. But that is a petty thing; not something to end a burgeoning friendship over.

My daughter Madelaine sent me a Monopoly game via Amazon. I opened the package in front of Marilyn this morning, thinking it might give her some hope that her own children would be in contact, somehow, with a reconciling gift. Wrong thing to do. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I couldn’t read her face as she silently looked at the game in my hands. Was it contempt or envy, or a heavy mixture of several emotions? I did not ask “A penny for your thoughts.”

I complimented her on her blouse. She told me it’s not a blouse, it’s a sweater. Didn’t your ex-wife teach you anything?

Now we were approaching dangerous territory.

You still love your ex, don’t you? She said it with a sneer. I said yes I both loved her and hated her -- that it was complicated, and that I preferred not to talk about it.

So she talked about it, for the next fifteen minutes. I interrupted once, in a quiet voice, to ask her to please change the subject. That only made her ruder, and her talk turned to sexual speculation about Amy and I. I’m not sure I understood all of her graphic terms, but I got the gist of it -- and it was ugly. She finished by saying “You know I’m not your girlfriend, right?”

I did not trust myself to reply. I don’t know what look I had on my face, but I’m guessing it was not a pleasant one. Marilyn abruptly arose, saying I was in a bad mood so she’d come down later when I felt better. Then left.

I sat still for five minutes. I clocked myself. Enough time to review not just this immediate contretemps, but all our past conversations. I did not grow angry or passionate, but cold and determined. At the end of five minutes I went upstairs to her apartment, knocked on her door, was told to go away, so started back down the hall. Marilyn came to the door and said to my back “What?”

I returned to say quietly, to her face, “I can’t take your mood swings anymore. Whatever this is between us, I’m breaking it off. I’m done. Don’t call me. Don’t visit me. Let’s just nod pleasantly at each other when we pass in the hall or run into each other at the store.”

“You’re embarrassing me in front of everyone!” she replied, in distress but not too loudly. It was then I noticed, for the first time, how her voice always descends into a low nasal whine when she gets worked up. There was no one around. The hallway was empty, and I doubt very seriously that any of the old noddies in the other apartments were glued to their doors so as not to miss a syllable of this juicy scandal.

I simply said “I’m done, Marilyn. This is too toxic for me. I don’t wish you anything bad. Good-bye.”

Then I left her at her doorway.

Now she is knocking, knocking, knocking on my door. Rapping quietly, not making a scene. But she is gone. From me. Not that she was ever with me, not in any real sense. Please go away, Marilyn.

I strongly suspect there will be some loud scenes down the road. But they won’t be caused by me. And I will not respond in any way to what she might do or say. Unless I need to call the police. I think I’ve already mentioned she has a rap sheet with the Provo cops.

I know this is cowardice on my part, but it is also self-preservation. After only a week in her company I began to resent her neediness and her roller coaster emotions. I took her feelings and words personally -- way too personally. I’m not a trained therapist nor a psychiatrist -- I’m just a fat old man who feels sick a lot of the time. I have a right to my peace and quiet.

Marilyn was heaven, for a while. Then she became hell. And now she is nothing. Merry Christmas, Marilyn.