I See You, Quiet Man

I am continuing this story as I commented earlier to its dire conclusion to illustrate how utterly confounding I find the opposite sex most times. I do find myself in these push me pull me scenarios for reasons I don’t understand, and it tires me, mentally.

I believe the next time I was to see Quiet Man was at a get together at the house of a man whose mother is famous. This man apparently gets money from his mother, but with that kind of cash, who could blame him?

After the fall bash, I spoke to Fred who explained that they came in late and had to leave early. They had another event in a neighboring state that night which was for Quiet Man to attend. Why Fred even gave me an explanation, I don’t know. I did not inquire about anything from him.

I could not help myself the night of the next event. I rushed home early to get ready. I was frustrated that I had not given any thought to what I was going to wear. I was mad at myself for even caring and worse yet, wanting to see Quiet Man again. What was wrong with me?

The hot rollers were frying my head, but I hoped the curl would be tight. After throwing everything I had in my closet out of my way trying to find something I had not worn before, I settled on black pants and a long sleeved copper sparkled top. The sparkle was more like copper sugar, not ostentatious.

I took the rollers out in a hurry and my hair was tangled. I was trying to put on false eyelashes-they would not go on straight. I ripped them off, put them on and ripped them again. I kept feeling like one end was going to pop up and I would not know it, causing me to walk around with a section of eyelash over my eye that would be like an old curled shoe. Sick and tired of my eyes being stuck with eyelash glue in between rips, I smashed on the troublesome lash and hoped for the best.

I looked at the clock. I was, as usual, running late. I slathered my lips with a deep fuchsia tinted rouge made by Chanel.

My mother was getting a ride from me for that evening. Along the ride, she was complaining like only a mother who can get under your skin can; she has this concern about arriving extremely early-I was trying to explain to her she was not going to a restaurant where it does not matter if you get there early, she was going to someone’s house, err, mansion. She had decided to use this annoying time together to tell me in her flat disapproving tone she did not like Quiet Man. It was not a surprise, for reasons I will not divulge.

We had gotten lost on the long winding roads to the house. There was no one to ask and it was getting dusky. My mother of course was complaining since it was past the time of arrival as stated on the invitation. Each house on the road was set back far from the road and far from each of their neighbors.

At the top of the hill was a cul-de-sac. I pulled over and decided to stop a car descending from the long, long driveway belonging to a monstrous house. An older four door Mercedes being driven by a crazy blond sped into the cul-de-sac and had arrived at the apron of the long driveway as the car driving down the driveway arrived from the other end. Blah-Blah-Blah, she went with her window down.

She swung her car around the circle and flagged me on. Oh, she was going where we were going. It turned out our host lived off the cul-de-sac and I was right in front of their driveway which looked more like a path into the woods. His house was being custom built and they had not finished the drive.

As we approached up the drive, we saw the cars parked along the grass. I saw an antique Rolls. Fred and Quiet Man were there already. I pulled up next to the garage and found a spot. Before that, I had let my anxious mother out of the car at the front of the house so she would not lose one more precious second to get into the party.

I checked my rear view mirror. Apparently I needed more fuchsia rouge by Chanel. I whipped it out of my evening bag which was crammed to begin with; I decided to spray on more perfume, just in case the walk to the front door, eroded the scent. Walking around the garage, I saw my mother.

“Why are you out here?”

“I can’t find the front door!”

“What?”

I looked and sure enough there were two doors that both looked like front doors. What kind of house was this?

I told her we were going to pick one. We did and we entered the house, which was lit like a Christmas Tree on the inside.

The entrance hall was quite small for the size of the house. We were greeted and asked to take our coats. I had on, of all things, a black down vest! I decided to keep it on, because for some reason, it looked good with my outfit. I am quirky at times. My mother gave up her frock and went inside to chat to her heart’s content.

I walked around for a bit; they were actually giving “tours” of the house, but I was not interested. This was not a historic mansion, but whatever floats their boat. Everyone knew the money that built this house came from the host’s famous mother.

A friend of mine who I had not seen for a long time, rushed over to me to talk. We were both surprised to see the other at this house. We exchanged stories as to how we made it there and we walked to the bar to get some wine. It was fantastic. It had an unusual name for a merlot. I remembered the name for a while but was not able to ever find it at all.

We stood in a doorway, sipping the delicious wine. As is my habit, as I was talking and listening to my friend, who is married and did not bring his wife, I scanned the room. I saw Fred intensely conversing with my brother. Fred raised his eyebrow to acknowledge me. Belina was sitting on a leather couch by herself. Ah, Fred brought Belina again.

I saw Quiet Man. He was leaning against an adjacent doorway close by Belina. He had a drink in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth, sipped it and returned it to its previous position by the top of his thigh. He was watching me but did not acknowledge me. That was fine with me, because my friend was attractive and alone. The impression of us together was enough to keep Quiet Man’s attention while he nursed his drink. As his hand rose to provide his mouth with a sip, his eyes darted to me, watching me.

It was very odd.