Giant Men and Violent Women

What's the Problem?

PRESLEY ANN

The hardest thing about love has nothing to do with making it work. Any fool can stay married forever. The hardest thing about love is taking a picture of it.

Jewels and I are in Dar Bar tonight, seated at a cozy table for two, listening to the reggae-folk sounds of some of the Jesper boys, who are onstage, singing like real artists. Wow. Good for them. I'm drinking coffee, spiked with Irish cream, and Jewels is drinking eggnog, spiked with tequila. There's a fire in the hearth, off to the side of us. Above it are the antlers of a moose, propped up as a warning of the danger of crossing the road without looking both ways.

Jewels and I are smiling at each other, living in our own Norman Rockwell painting-the all-American-looking couple residing in an all-American picture-perfect world. There's a slight buzz of people at tables around us, who are drinking Darling Cider. Jewels's and my love has gained their attention simply because they've noticed us trying to use the best filter to display it.

Jewels hands his camera to me, so I can approve the pictures of our love that we've captured thus far. I flip through them. There I go, blowing on the steam of my coffee mug, while half of Jewels's face is showing. I must have taken that one. Then, there's Jewels, poking his lips out to kiss me on the cheek, while I look like a hostage just recently taken as prisoner. These pictures look awful. There is no other description necessary. Jewels and I might be in a picture-perfect painting, but our pictures are far from perfect.

"We've failed," I say as I pass the camera back to him.

"I just don't get what's so hard about this," he says in frustration at both of our awkwardness. "Why can't we just look like regular people who can't get enough of each other?"

He's confused, but I think I might know why.

Women call my father The Love Doctor because he is a handsome doctor and a heart surgeon. People call my mother Cherokee because that is her name. My father is a doctor, so he's the one with bedside manners. My mother is the politician, so she's the one you don't want to fuck with.

I have a lot of my mother in me and she's a New Hampshire girl to the bone. No one in New Hampshire knows the first thing about love, especially in Darling. The town of Darling didn't get this far by loving its neighbor. The Great Righteous War proves that.

However, for the sake of this picture, I have to pretend that Cupid's killed me. No, I won't give up. I will never give up. Even when I'm one hundred five years old, I'm going to be the type of old person who goes to the Google to figure out how my iPhone works. I will never give up.

"Maybe we should go to Google and type in, look of love," I say. "Ya know, just see how other people do it."

"All right, come on," Jewels says. "I'm desperate."

So, I pull out my phone from my clutch and look up how to look when Cupid has killed you. Kiss the other person on the cheek. Blow on your hot cocoa while the other person smiles at you. Look at each other and laugh.

"We did each and every one of these poses." He leans back in his chair in defeat.

He's right. What felt so right with Ashley just a few months ago feels unnatural with Jewels.

In Boston, when the congressman's wife captured a picture of Ashley and me at the ice cream shop, his arm was around my shoulders, and I was scooping ice cream onto my spoon. He was leaning over me, laughing with the congressman. I was smiling at whatever they were talking about. It all looked so natural. It all felt so natural.