Love, Lose, And Repeat

Serial Marraige

    I met Irving sailing, in Maui, on my second date with Milton the millionaire. Irving lasted twenty-two minutes in a shed full of parasails and snorkels. My marriage to Milton lasted three years. I left him, not because he made me sign a Prenup, but because he was impotent on Saturday nights.
    Marriage is a sweaty tube sock--familiar and warm, but I still don't want it on me for too long. Feet need air. I need air. Marriage is--well, it's not for kids. It's for women like me, old and bored. I've been married on the beach, in a barn, on a roof, in Las Vegas, city of sin, and Newport, Newcastle, San Jose, El Salvador, the South of France, the south side. My last wedding was in the middle of the street to Frankie Fitzroy.
    He owns a bagel place on the nice side of Hanover Street. My girls tease, they tell me, I better make this one work or ill have to find a new place to get my onion bagels. I can't do that--Frankie really knows how to toast a bagel.
    My girls all look like their dads. Janelle is Japanese, Nicole is African, Ashley looks like her Hispanic father, and Jackie is Italian. Mia is my child. She looks like me; she looks like New York--busy and sharp.
    Mia goes to school upstate and she wants to get married. I said to Mia, "why you wanna get married? What's he going to give you that you don't have." She gave me the obvious answer. Marriage isn't for a twenty-year-old. Tube socks aren't for twenty year olds. I was wearing knee high black tights before going barefoot when I was twenty, thin, hair I streaked with gray.
    She calls her father more than she calls me. Mia called me a--what did she call me--a hypocrite. I'm a hypocrite because I don't want her getting married. I don't want her picking out dates, or buying a dress, or even imagining a color scheme. I don't think about marriage, I just happen upon it at bagel shops, the hair salon, the park. I wear it for a while then return home to try on a new pair of socks. I wear them for awhile--until they get sweaty, because Im too old for bare feet and black tights just don't feel right anymore.