The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman (23 page)

“No.” I lean back on the refrigerator and savor the vibration. “I think a lot of it is luck. I believe I had one chance. I think maybe that’s all we ever get. I think if you screw up your chance or if someone screws it up for you ... you’re screwed.”

“Sounds like you’re not so tough after all.”

“I am tough. I dare you take this on. You couldn’t do it.”

“You’re right. I couldn’t.”

“I declare me a winner at 526.” I raise my cup in mock salute.

“But you haven’t proved the existence of real love.”

“I don’t have to prove it, I just have to see it in operation and I’ll believe in it.”

Sal reaches over and tousles my hair.

“The love was always there.

She just had to hit me in the head with it.”

~ Roman, 41, married

Case 527 / Roman

This man is one of the few interviews I sought out. Swearing to stop at 526 men, I heard the tale of Roman’s love for Lori. It was too cute, too real to pass up. Just one more and this time it would be a happy story. I contacted Lori and she lovingly turned over her husband for my examination.

“She’s my life.” Roman says, his dark Latino eyes misting. He embraces the little things that comprise a grand love affair – his nineteen year marriage to Lori.

“I can tell her anything, and I want to tell her
everything
‘cause she’s my best friend.”

A teddy-bear guy with an uncontrollable grin, Roman has spent half his life in love with the same woman. He’s as rare as a willow tree in the desert. I have the afternoon alone with him to determine if men can love women in that complete and soulful way. All I need is one example, one case to relight my own beliefs.

We’re in the conference room of the office suites where my real estate business is located. It’s after hours, and the phones are blessedly silent. The two of us sip soda from green cans. He wears a golf shirt and jeans. His dark hair is neatly combed. His hands are at rest. And his happiness fills the room like some sort of silent music.

Roman is a postal worker and Lori is a hospital administrator. Her job is high stress with a lot of responsibility. Heart attacks run in her family and are a quiet, constant concern for the couple.

Months earlier, Lori had experienced sudden chest pains while at home. As Roman raced to call an ambulance, he was stricken with the thought of losing her. The emotions were so overwhelming, Roman passed out hitting his head on a table as he fell. Lori put her own pain aside and picked her unconscious, hefty husband from the floor. Then clutching her chest she drove them both to the emergency room.

When he regained consciousness on the gurney and saw Lori at his side, Roman’s first words to her were, “I love you so much I would crack my head for you any day.” His love overcame his ego. And no it wasn’t a heart attack for Lori.

Roman’s love is the old-fashioned, I love you more than I love myself, love. The kind I was hoping to find. “Where does commitment come from? What do you draw on?” I ask.

His answer surprises me. “I don’t like the word
commitment.
That word sounds too forced. Lori is my life and that’s a fact. I don’t have to think about it or use words to describe it. It just is.”

“Do you ever fight?”

“Sure. I might get mad at her for a couple of hours, but then I forget it. It helps a lot when you’re friends because you’re always going to come back.” His smile grows.

“You think?”

“Absolutely,” Roman continues, happy to be sharing his insight. “The best part about marrying your friend is that you can take joy in each other’s lives.

“I love doing everything with Lori.” He looks shy. “Sure, I go out with the guys, but the whole time I’m out I’m thinking about telling her what happened and watching her reactions.”

He chuckles, enjoying an image in his head, “I even love shopping with Lori. I hold the clothes and follow her around.” He leans forward, laughing, again. “She has me trained to find the sale racks.”

I tell him of my misadventures and the awful men I’ve encountered. I talk about the money-thing Judge Whit said was the marriage breaker.

Roman shakes his head, no.

“From the beginning, money was never an issue. We never had
his
and
her
accounts. Once we married, she just became a part of my account.”

“Tell me how you came to do that,” I ask. “Not the part about sharing the account but trusting so easily, so quickly.”

“It’s just natural when you really love someone,” he smiles and settles back in his chair. “Tell you a story that isn’t part of me and Lori?”

“Sure. Go wherever your mind pulls you. I’ll follow.”

“When I was a teenager, my dad had a carpet installing company in New York City. This elderly woman’s husband had died. A year later, she decided to get new carpet.”

I listen attentively, enjoying the company of this man in love and wondering where this thread is going to end.

“We were taking out her old carpet, getting ready to install the new stuff. When I reached under the radiator in the living room to remove the carpet, I found a wad of money. Big bills! My dad and I gave it to the lady.”

He takes a sip of coffee and pauses.

“There was more money under the carpet in different places.” Roman shakes his head. “During their entire married life this man had been hiding money from his wife as if she was his enemy. He was never working with her or for her. Now he’s dead and his precious money was almost lost forever.”

I can easily visualize this miserly man. Being stingy is another way of being selfish. And if you must put yourself first then why bother being in a relationship at all? If money is more important than the person you’re promising to love and honor then forget about the promise. It’s worthless. I tell Roman about the many men who would NOT die for the woman they loved.

He looks shaken as if I’ve described a three-headed monster bearing down on him.

“Oh man, that’s such an easy choice,” he says. “If it was between Lori and me as to who should survive?” He jumps out of his chair. “I’d do it in a minute. It wouldn’t even cross my mind. The idea that a man would share a bed, a life with a woman, and not be willing to die for her is repulsive to me. That’s not a man. Not in my world.”

“What are you teaching your two sons about love?” I ask.

He laughs a deep, slightly embarrassed laugh. “I tell my sons, ‘If mommy’s happy, everybody’s happy.’”

I’m basking in his joyful energy. There is nothing indecisive about him. He reminds me of one of my earliest interviews, Kurt the rock musician. He was all about making a marriage work. Roman is all about how it’s impossible for it not to work.

“You draw on it every day. It’s a force of nature and feeds off of touch. I can’t resist squeezing Lori or hugging her, even if it’s just in passing. It gives us both something, a little turbo-charge. It keeps us going throughout the day.”

“How did you come to recognize that what you felt was real love?”

“Lori and I were friends for a long time before we realized what we had was really love. We grew up in the same town. She was a cheerleader and I was a football player.”

“And?” First loves ... here we go!

“The love was always there, she just had to hit me in the head one day.”

“How’d she do that?”

“We were dating other people. We would even double-date. It never occurred to me that I loved Lori. I think guys are that way. We walk over the obvious. Then one day, she just took a chance and told me that we loved each other. And when she said it, I thought, she’s right.”

He speaks softly. “In the beginning we were worried we would lose our friendship if we messed up our love relationship.”

“But it was worth the risk?”

“Oh yes. I can’t imagine my life without her. Everything I do during the day, I wonder what Lori would say about it. I think of her constantly.”

Shrugging, Roman says, “I don’t know about me, but she shines with happiness.”

“What if you hadn’t taken that chance?”

“But we did.” He smiles proudly.

As I walk Roman to the office door, I feel as if I’m on my third Mountain Dew. I’m giddy with the idea that real love does exist. Sure it’s still a matter of luck. It’s also a matter of letting nature take its course.

“Love is...?”

~ Barbara Silkstone, Love Investigator

Never, ever have I needed down time like I do now. I want to be alone. I need to process all the guy-think clogging my brain. I sit on my sofa and stare at the TV. That fact that it’s not on should scare me. It’s been two days since my talk with Roman. There’s been no word from Sam the private investigator. Why is Mark so hard to find? Is he living overseas? Did he join a monastery in the Swiss Alps? Has he had a sex change operation?

I feel a tingling at my hip, my cell phone vibrating.

“Hey there.” The cheerful voice belongs to Dodie, an old friend, and a hustler of fixer-upper homes. “I’ve got a house for you. Best deal this year. It’s a divorce situation.” I can hear the glee in her voice.

“Your timing is good,” I say. “I could use some manual labor. How much fix up does it need?”

“Heck ... you could do it all by yourself. It would be fun.”

“Okay, calm down. What are they asking for it?”

“The divorce lawyer has it listed. The guy must be an idiot or highly motivated. It’s almost half the appraised value.” I hear her lick her lips. “This is like the
ultra
buy.”

I like the idea of throwing myself into a renovation. This could be an outlet for what’s been eating at my insides. There is something supremely satisfying about tearing down and rebuilding a tired house. Address in hand, I drive to Oakfield Estates, an overblown name for a patch of earth with a pseudo brick wall at the entrance.

The house is a small ranch in the middle of the block. The lawn is fried yellow. Dodie’s in the driveway leaning against her white Lexus. She has that patiently impatient look of all residential real estate agents. Places to go, clients to meet, money to make.

“The door’s open. Go on in. I’ve been in already.”

“That bad, huh?” I ask.

“Eh ...” she shrugs, multiple gold necklaces clinking.

I enter with trepidation.

“Whoa ...” I run back out.

Dodie puts her arm out to stop me. “I know a professional clean-up company. I can get you a discount.”

“An arsonist would be a better idea. What’s that lump on the floor in the kitchen?” I ask.

“Pot roast,” Dodie says wrinkling her nose. “I think she threw it at him.”

“Domestic dispute?”

“Big time. Food fight. The baby’s high chair ... I think it was strained peas.”

“When?”

“It was about a month ago. They moved out in the middle of the fight.” She grimaces. “It’s been sitting that way ever since.”

“I don’t think I’m interested,” I mutter.

“No. Don’t be negative,” she pipes. “You can double your money in sixty days.”

“If it’s such a good deal why don’t you buy it?” I ask the logical question.

“I’m at my limit. I have six houses under contract in my own name.”

“Will they take less?”

“Let’s make an offer.” She chirps.

The house, which sat vacant and percolating under the blistering Florida sun, is worse than I guessed it to be. It was a messy divorce. In less than two weeks I’m the owner of the trashiest house in Oakfield Estates. I hire Johnnie Marino and his front end loader, a small bobcat-like device, that will lift the debris to allow the cleaning people to do their thing.

Transcribing the interviews takes a back seat to getting Johnnie’s equipment into my little half-priced renovation. Marino rents a dumpster and junks all the marital goodies from the garage: bicycles, a play pen, car parts, tools and the like. I wonder if the couple held hands at Home Depot and Toys ‘R Us when they made their purchases. I’m falling cynical again. Houses hold the good and bad. This place will need a witch doctor to purge the spirits of dissension.

For a few hundred dollars more, Johnnie and his buddies break through the wall between the garage and kitchen. The front end loader thunders into what was once Mr. and Mrs. Short’s love nest tearing out the cabinets and flooring.

Three weeks into the renovation, I’m drawing weary of roaches with attitude and wallpaper that won’t leave the wall. My hands are raw and smell of latex paint. As I pull the paper from the plaster I wonder, did the Shorts hang this paper together? Did they laugh? Did they make plans for a larger home someday, selling this one at a modest profit?

I have nightmares. In my dreams, I am interviewing giant water bugs. They have no idea they are bugs. Their hard shells glisten. I want to squash them, but I must listen to their bug talk.

I used to enjoy renovating houses. The solitude was pleasant. Now, my nerves are prickly little fingers that scratch at the back of my neck. As I paint, I hear noises that cause me to jump. I sense predators that aren’t there.

It’s the end of the fifth day of painting. My finger nails are gunky and I have paint in my eyelashes. I am finally relaxing. I am breathing slow and steady. Mark slips into my thoughts as easily as a ghost slides into a vacant house.

I recall the first time I noticed him. He was staring at me across the sales floor in a department store in Paramus, New Jersey. It was my first real job and I was enjoying all the perks of being young, blond, and new.

He
beamed
his love at me, that’s simply the best way to describe it. I returned his love. It was a perfect world. I believed in and trusted Mark. For almost a year, we lived for the day when we would marry and consummate our love. Why can’t Sam find him? Maybe it’s not meant to be.

The little house is finally finished. It sits, crisp and waiting. Within a week I have buyers – a lovely couple expecting their first child. And so it goes. Life repeats itself. Caterpillar to butterfly. Relationships should be like makeovers. You bring in a front end loader and take out all the nasties, renovate, and get on with it. I never did find a witch doctor.