I have a key to Shy Boy’s apartment. On weeknights, he tells
me to let myself in if I arrive before he comes home from work. Now of course
being the nosey James Bond loving spy (oops, fan, I mean fan) that I am, I’ve
been through his medicine cabinet and I’ve peaked in his hall closet. There was
nothing exciting in any of those places. No fungicidal medications or
suspicious ointments I should be aware of. Tonight, however, there was
something far more interesting to nose through. He left his bedroom door open
and it looked as if he was in the process of cleaning out his bedroom closet. I
peaked inside the room, but didn’t actually step into the room at first. Then,
a Carrie Bradshaw moment overtook me. His personal items beckoned me to them,
challenging me to find something sneaky, something interesting that Shy Boy
might be hiding or not telling me. I say Carrie Bradshaw because there’s a
moment in the “Sex and the City” series where Carrie finds a suspicious box in
her boyfriend’s closet and goes crazy trying to open it and figure out what’s
inside of it before her boyfriend comes home. During her desperate attempt, he
comes home and finds her stooped on his bed trying to pry open the mystery box
with a screw driver. I was just anticipating Shy Boy walking in on me as I
greedily went through some sort of secret treasure.
The main thing that drew me into the room were some pictures
scattered on Shy Boy’s night stand. At first I thought they were pictures I had
given him because I recognized the first one, but then, hello…what’s this I
found? Behind my picture there were two other pictures of a woman I did not
know. In one picture, Shy Boy was standing next to the woman with his arm
around her and his head tilted toward her with a smile on his face. In the
other picture, the same woman was posing next to a former President of the
United States. Judging by the picture of this mystery woman standing next to
Shy Boy, I knew exactly who she was. But you, gentle reader, probably have no
idea what I’m talking about. You see, Shy Boy was in a serious relationship
before he knew me. A year and half before we met, he was engaged to a girl he
had known for six months. After the seventh month, they broke it off. When he
first told me the news about four or five months ago, I was surprised. I mean,
he’s old enough to have had at least one serious relationship before he knew
me, but at the same time, he used to be far more timid and shier than I am
(hence his nickname in this blog), so the thought that he was almost married
off while I remained a hip single girl searching for a nice Jewish boy seemed
cosmically unfair. Yes, I am selfish. Keep in mind when he told me the news, I
was not as committed to Shy Boy as I am now. On the other hand, maybe I was
jealous at the time. I didn’t like the thought of someone else kissing him or
him holding some other girl or him wanting some other girl. I hated hearing him
say “my ex” even though he hardly ever said it. It felt unfair that I didn’t
have a similar story about an ex to make him feel jealous over. Then again, I’m
much more cautious about who I’ll date. I absolutely refuse to be with someone
who might break my heart. At any rate, the months went on and Shy Boy recently
felt more comfortable about telling me more about her. A few weeks ago, he
asked me what’s the worst date I’ve ever been on and that led into a discussion
about the ex and why it broke off. Apparently, her parents were too involved in
their relationship. She wasn’t very loving. She hardly ever let him kiss her
(makes sense, actually. He’s a great kisser now, but when we first kissed, he
didn’t quite know how to respond). She was a very serious person. She never
wanted to be zany like he sometimes likes to be. His job hours had been cut for
a time and she insisted he get a second job even though he had a lot of
difficulty doing so. She had wild mood swings and when he finally realized it
wouldn’t work out and broke off the engagement, she threw the ring at him. She started
prank calling him at odd hours after the break up as well.
I know he’d never go back to her. Nevertheless, the curiosity
of what she looks like, what she sounds like, what her name is sometimes goes
round my head. So when I found that picture of Shy Boy with his arm around a
woman’s shoulder, I knew exactly who that woman was. I nearly dropped the
photos out of shock. I don’t want to be mean, or should I? She hurt Shy Boy
badly so why not be mean? Alright I’ll be cruel to be kind: the woman’s a
horse. Wait, that was too blunt, too Sophia Petrillo ala “The Golden Girls.”
The woman was visually astounding. How’s that? Sounds pretty good. You can’t
tell if I’m saying it in a good way or a bad way (bad, bad way of course!) Was
my Shy Boy desperate?? I guess that shows what a good person he is. He’s not
interested in looks. He wants to get to know the person…wait, am I actually
dating a man here? A person with a Y-chromosome? A person with testosterone?
Maybe he’s a person who can’t see well. I’m not normally this mean, but if she couldn’t
appreciate Shy Boy and hurt him to the point where he felt a fool and felt
depressed after their split, I’m going to have a good jab at her. Call it a
roast if you like. She had a very long chin, eyes that didn’t go in the same
direction, a crooked face, frizzy hair, a physique that appeared a lot older
than her age. In a contest of her versus me, I’d win hands down. It wouldn’t be
a contest. She’d never stand a chance. Now, of course, I should be fair. I don’t
know her side of the story. But Shy Boy is a very decent, extremely honest
person, so I’m going to believe him when he described her personality to me.
In just a nick of time, I peaked out Shy Boy’s bedroom window
and saw his car pulling into it’s parking spot. I placed the pictures back exactly
as I found them on the nightstand. When he gave me a kiss as he came in through
the door, I wanted to giggle at him. What did he see in that woman that made
him want to propose after six months? I certainly could understand what he saw
in me. But my goodness, Shy Boy must fall in love pretty easily to have allowed
her to get so close to him. Or maybe he was just far younger and more naïve at
the time. Who knows. I won’t dare bring it up.
