Not too long ago, Henry and I threw a late wedding anniversary party.  We invited our friends, all couples who’d been married as long or longer than us, and our co-workers, who also brought their spouses.  A yard full of married couples doesn’t exactly make for the most exciting party you’ve ever seen, but it was strangely fitting.  Thankfully, our children came, bringing with them a husband, a fiancée who probably wouldn’t last and a good friend, respectively.  My children, the lights of my life, proved to be the life of the party, and I ended up spending most of the evening talking and dancing with them.  I suppose I played hostess poorly, but Henry seemed to be doing all right, and, after all, it was my party.

Twenty-seven years.  It’s not such a long time when I think about my grandparents being married for fifty-seven years before my grandpa passed away, but it is a very long time to question your choice.  I didn’t always question it; in the beginning, it seemed the right thing to do, the easy thing.  He’s so stable and predictable.  I knew what I was getting when I said “yes.”  There weren’t any surprises, no uncertainties.  I knew I loved him, and he loved me.  I just never considered the nature of my love for him, never pondered the possibility of different kinds of love.  I knew my love for him was safe.  What I felt for Bette was intense, extremely so, and therefore a little terrifying.  No one spoke of love of that strength, and it was shadowed with doubt and insecurity.  I feared love of that ferocity would eventually burn itself out.  Maybe it would have.  I wish I’d had the courage to find out.

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It never ceased to amaze me how well we played off each other in our conversations.  They read like film scripts, the banter free flowing and plentiful with just the right amount of plot advancement and seriousness to keep if from being frivolous.  Damn her for making me see how cinematic and aesthetic our lives, all of our lives, are; I never saw it before she started remarking on that quality in hers.  But always, underneath it all, was the flirting, the innate attraction, even without ever meeting.

Occasionally, I let the conversation get out of hand, leading to quite a few sleepless nights.  Even though I could be near Henry, touch him, and kiss him, he somehow failed to turn me on as she did.  When it came to topics of a more sexual nature, she got very shy, awkward, even.  She confessed to extremely little experience, yet she knew how to say just the right things to get me to want to teach her.  I realize it sounds ridiculous to admit physical attraction to an online relation, but the way she saw things and revealed how she felt and experienced informed me about how she’d be in person.  Maybe I always knew.

I knew she’d be confident and proud, afraid to fail, forthcoming with her accomplishments.  I could tell she’d project that, her posture erect, her head up.  She’d seem strong, only allowing the few she’d let in to see the weakness.  She made me want to know more, to get to know her and not just what everyone saw, but the corners that no one did.  The little pieces she did divulge were beautiful.  She came across, at first, as cynical, sarcastic, jaded, a wickedly witty sense of humor her main attribute.  Her intelligence was incredible, her areas of knowledge many, as were her interests.  At the same time, there were the undercurrents of a dreamer –her dreams were enormous- and a romantic, a child, almost, only seeing the beauty in life.  It made her beautiful, and I found myself daydreaming about her more often than I did of Henry.

Based on her pictures, she was physically attractive, too.  Gently curled dark brown hair with warm undertones framed a round and adorable face.  Even in the pictures, her deep brown eyes twinkled with a smile that lit up her whole face and creased the corners of her eyes.  She had an athletic yet feminine build.  She adorned it with simple, classy button downs, flattering jeans and a decent amount of jewelry.  She projected simplicity, not a trace of drama.  She was immensely straightforward and brutally honest.  If you were willing to hear the truth and could handle it, no doubt you would get along famously with her.  She and I were built for each other because all I wanted to hear and live was the truth.

It was all very surreal.  How we met.  How we clicked.  How much I could want, essentially, someone who existed only in cyberspace.  Our online relations progressed, and it got to the point where we immediately looked for each other when signing on.  I missed her during the day, saved things to tell her.  She was the last person I wanted to talk to at night, cyber or otherwise, and we tried to connect first thing in the mornings.

All day and all night I thought of her, wondered who she was with and what she was doing.  I worried if I didn’t see her online before I went to bed and missed her intensely the few times we didn’t talk for a couple days.  It never seemed to be enough.  We’d talk for hours, say goodnight, and I’d be missing her again when I got in bed.  I’d lie awake and wonder what her voice sounded like and, mostly, her laugh.  I wondered if she wore perfume or smelled of clean laundry.  I was curious about her inflections, whether she had an accent, if her gestures were broad and animated to match her intriguing stories.  Nevertheless, unless I found a way to get to Wisconsin, there was no way to find all of that out.  It was an impossibility, the beautiful dream I built regarding the two of us, but I knew it, so the dreaming was still permissible.  Then something miraculous happened, for her and for my dream.

I was out with Henry when I got a feeling I should go home, that something huge was going to happen.  I tried to get him to take me home, to end the evening, but he was reluctant, and, in the end, I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.  I should have pushed, I guess, but at that time, I already felt guilty around him because of the feelings I seemed to be having for a screenname with an amazing personality.

I signed on immediately when I got home and found I had a new message from her.  She’d gotten a letter that night from Vassar College.  An acceptance letter.  One she’d been trying to obtain for the last two years; third time proved to be the charm for her.  I’d heard the story before, and I knew how much this piece of paper meant to her.  It broke my heart I hadn’t been there to share it with her.  Apparently, no one had been around.  Classic Bette, a moment of glory, one of the best things in her life, and everyone had abandoned her.

It started as a joke, but quickly grew into something she really wanted.  She and her mother flew out to visit a number of schools, including Vassar.  The way she tells about her first glance of it sounds like a love story, which, I guess, in ways it was.  To listen to her, there was no greater place on earth, no place prettier or more complete or more… anything.

According to her, it was fate.  The day they arrived, it was cloudy and gloomy, hardly favorable to any school.  They somehow missed the main gate and came in the side way, behind buildings and through parking lots.  It didn’t matter, though, because she said as soon as she got on campus, she knew.  She knew there was no other school for her.  The tour and the rest of the visit seemed irrelevant, and they needn’t have visited the other schools because her heart was already in Poughkeepsie.

She half-heartedly applied to other schools, not really caring because she knew where she wanted to go.  Everything told her she was the perfect match, that Vassar was a perfect fit.  She was a 4.0 student, scored very high on her standardized tests, and was involved in a ridiculously long list of varied extracurriculars.  She held offices and played on sports teams, had the lead in plays and edited the literary magazine.  She painted and won contests.  She quite literally had it all.  She spent weeks on her application, garnering glowing letters of recommendation from a number of teachers and meticulously editing her essays.  She sent in her application with a smile and assurance that she wouldn’t fail to get in.

Finally, the day came when she got her letter in the mail.  She came home from school to a small envelope from Vassar.  She slowly opened it, read the words that told her she had been placed on the waiting list, and found her father.  Her heart broke.  It wasn’t until July that they told her they’d closed the class, crushing her dreams and expectations.