We are sitting and talking of love over a dead chicken and two glasses of wine.

She is complaining about her heartbreak in Paris. She has been complaining for weeks. It makes me wonder how long she suffered over me.

Bryan Adams is playing over the sound system. Why? This is a Peruvian restaurant. I kind of understand the "If you ever really loved a woman" since it was from Don Juan De Marco, but now we are getting into the Prince of Thieves soundtrack. I think "So this is what they pipe into Hell."

I am trying not to remember.

"How many people will love her the way you do? How many people would cross an ocean for her? Leave everything they know and go to another country where they don't know a word, not one word of language? How many people would let go of their reason enough, shut that critical voice in their head up, to do that? How many people would do something that absolutely terrified them just to see her for a few days? How many? This is your power."I am speaking without thinking.

I do not tell her that most people do not want to be loved in that way. Most people when confronted with that kind of love say "Thank you, but don't love me that much."

I do not tell her the fairytale about the young man and the song bird. A babysitter, a friend's older sister, read it to me once. A young man falls in love with a beautiful maiden and demands to know what he must do in order to win her love. "Find me a single red rose" she says and off he goes over hill and dale. But he can only find white roses. White roses everywhere he goes. Finally dejected and exhausted he sits down beside a white rose bush. A small songbird notices him and asks him what is the matter. "I am love with a beautiful maid who has promised to love me if I can find a red rose, but I can only find white roses." The bird is touched by the young man's plight and jumps onto one of the branches of the bush. He begins to sing and as he sings the thorn from the bush pierces his chest. The rose on the nearest branch begin to turn red from the bird's blood. The deeper the bird pierces himself on the thorn, the sweeter the song, the redder the rose. Finally, the bird sings the last note and falls dead as the rose turns completely red. The young man returns to the maid. He is so elated that he does not notice the rings on her finger or her jeweled hair combs. She laughs when he presents her the rose. "What do I want with this? I have a lover who brings me jewels and gold. But don't worry. I am sure you can find a girl as simple as yourself who will be impressed by such a gift, but you better find her quickly before your flower wilts." She closes the door in face, before he even has a chance to utter a word. The young man struck by the failure of quest and the futility of the bird's sacrifice leaves the rose at her door and walks away weeping.

She loved me this way once. Now we are old friends. We make jokes about it and laugh.

The next day someone will ask her if there is something going on between us, that there is something "wierd" about our relationship.


Wierd doesn't begin to describe it.

But it is comforting now drinking beer with her as I wait, foretelling her future as I try to forget mine. She will go home and think of the girl in Paris instead of me as I lose myself in the conquest of the evening.

Last year a friend said to me "You know she loves you." "I know." "Could you love her back?" "No, not like that." "Are you sure?I don't think I could say no to someone who loved me like that." I gave her that even Mona Lisa look, "I am sure."


I am sure.