I didn't want to send Melinda to her house in her Benadryl daze. And she was out through the 2 AM SportsCenter anyway so my whole need for privacy after our fun Saturday night date was achieved by the drugs... She woke up at 3.

"I better go to my house," she said half asleep.

"No. Stay here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Go to my bed. I'll be in in a little while." She shuffled off to my bed room; I shuffled the other way, to the kitchen to polish off the rest of the batch of cookies and then joined her.

She woke up early, like 9 o'clock since she had been asleep since 11 the night before. She adhered to the rule of kissing me good bye before she left (I think it's sad when people just leave the bed without a kiss. Kind of like people who don't kiss good night or say, "good night" before falling asleep? I've known women like that.) and split for her house. I assumed she'd come back around 11:30, knowing that's when I usually get up these days.

I stretched out and felt free. As much as I do like feeling the safety and solace that someone I care for's body brings lying next to me, I still always feel a bit cramped until I have the bed to myself.

I was awakened at 11 by the front door and the smell of the perfume I had gotten Melinda. She marched into my room and set a box on the floor.

"I wanted to get you a hair dryer because I told you I would. I'm going to get a cab to the airport now. Good bye."

"What are you talking about? Your plane's not for hours."

"I just wanted to drop off your hair dryer and say good bye in person. I'll go now."

She was clearly upset. She had said she would get me a hair dryer when she went to the drugstore on Saturday and forgotten. It wasn't that big of a deal. Something had happened. Sunday mornings weren't good for us. Maybe on getaway day we were sad so we manufactured fights rather than just feeling sad. Rather than feeling the separation anxiety. I had done it in Charleston; maybe she was doing it here.

"Honey. What's happening? What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. I brought you the hair dryer and now I'm going home."

"But what's wrong? What happened? Why are you acting like this?"

"Nothing." She seemed close to tears.

"Come here. Sit on the bed." She did. She looked beautiful. Like a really pretty Audrey Hepburn. Black turtleneck, diamond studs, red cheeks from the cold, and sparkling blue eyes. Always a little sad, but usually excited and hopeful underneath, now though, frightened.

"I don't want to get hurt." She said softly, like a child.

"What happened?"

"I read page 190 of your book." She had the galley and had been reading it since I knew her. I didn't think there was anything scary in there that would freak her out. I mean, she knew about my sexual proclivities and was into them. She didn't particularly like reading about my exes which I liked. I'm jealous in the same way and make her play a game in which if she ever talks about sex in the past she must refer to it as something she knows about because a "friend" of hers participated. She, of course, was a virgin before meeting me. I feel her pain in this area. But she knows it's in there and deals with it how she deals with it. This was something else. Something much worse. I had forgotten about page 190.

"What's on page 190?"

"You talk abut how whenever you date someone and tell them you want to still see other people before you go steady it always means you're just wishful thinking and really just staving off the inevitable which is that you don't really like them enough."

Melinda had told me she wasn't interested in seeing anyone else. I told her I needed some time to get to know her and trust her and even though there wasn't anyone else in the picture right now except for her, I just wanted more time to see if I liked her enough to want to be exclusive. All fair. All understandable in normal circumstances she agreed... now, understandably upsetting in light of the feelings I expressed on page 190.

"Oh right. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about that before you read it, Melinda."

"Is that how you feel about me?"

"Here's the deal. As with everything in that book, and I think as you know, it's how I feel about everything in my life that I think... I half completely believe it and I half completely challenge it in myself. In the past, what I wrote on page 190 has been true. Do I think that it has to remain true? Absolutely not. Do I believe whole heartedly that I could be entirely wrong about everything I hold to be true? Absolutely. I go forward with the best that I know in the moment, it's well thought out, it's based on my life experience so I get behind it and live it with complete devotion, but at the same time, am completely willing to have it's validity and usefulness and worth challenged by myself or anyone else. Does that make sense?"

"Yes." She was instantly relaxed. It was the answer she was hoping for and believed. And she should have, because it was the truth.

"I do want to get to know you. I don't want to fall in love anymore with someone I don't know. I like the feeling and believe it's okay to have but I don't want it anymore with someone I've decided I'm gonna have it with just because. I want to dial the drama down a couple notches and see if I like you and you like me. As people. As friends, and then if we fall in love, great. But I've fallen in love too many times with people who ended up being people I didn't really like and I just don't have the heart for it anymore. Because once you're a pickle you can't be a cucumber again as they say. And even if I don't end up liking her, if I've fallen in love with her, my heart hurts the same."

She nodded in agreement.

"I mean, this is all stuff you said to me in that first week when we were talking on the phone."

"I know. And I agree with you. I just wanted to hear you say what you said."

"And you believe me right?"

"Yes."

"I really like you and I like you more and more as we get to know each other."

"And I you."

"Okay, so stop reading my book like it's Dianetics. You scared me."

"I'm sorry."

"May I fuck the shit out of you now?"

"Yes, please." She smiled and jumped on the bed. The bright midday sun filled my room and bounced off my white duvet and her alabaster face and we were good again. This Sunday's disaster not nearly as harsh as the previous one's. Maybe we were learning each other a little better.

We had it off. She caught a cab to Newark and I went to buy Super Bowl supplies. As she flew home to the South, I binged old school on home made bacon cheese burgers, French fries, and a pint of Hagen Daz and three Chocolate Nemos. I would be sick on Monday, but not from a Sunday morning fight, which made the smell of Melinda on my pillow all the more sweet.

P.S. I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 3:52 AM

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