How Sweet It Is

He stood you up. In the movies there are always extenuated circumstances that cause the boy to stand the girl up. He was biking to your house on that long country road, but then he got a flat tire, and then he got a ride from a kindly old man in a Studebaker, but then the old man had a HEART ATTACK, I swear ta God, so I drove him to the hospital. And before he died he told me, “You go find that gal of yours. She’s a keeper, I can tell. Take care of ol’ Custer for me (hacking cough).” So that’s how I ended up with this basset hound and I put the bow on him because I feel real bad I missed your special dinner, baby.

But that’s the movies and this isn’t, it’s real life, and that means cold pasta in a pyrex bowl that you curl around your fork and stare at as if it fascinates you, while you think of how he stood you up. But it was not well done, not even interesting. He’s not coming around with a melancholy dog wearing a blue bow.

Whenever something good is supposed to happen, you are happy, so you listen to Karen Dalton sing “How Sweet It Is” and you think, perhaps I will know. But then the good thing doesn’t happen, so as an entertaining twist to your script, ironic or something, you listen to “How Sweet It Is” every time you are disappointed.

You fall asleep and dream you are taking a walk with your mother. She tells you to let it all go. You wake up tired, in a cold room. It’s too big, and the door lets in the night draft.