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Our neighborhood in Paris was what the French call a quartier populaire, a nice way of saying ‘slum.’ Actually it was an area where furniture was made, and most of the people were artisans – carpenters, upholsterers, window-makers, printers, that kind of thing. There were also artists – more and more of them the longer we lived there. But I was too young to appreciate a good thing; I wanted to live in the sixteenth arrondissement, or some other posh place like that.
That’s where Danny, my boyfriend from the American School, fits in. His father had been an ambassador and now worked for some top-secret international organization. Once an ambassador, always an ambassador; so his calling-card had his whole title written out. I was very impressed.
Danny wasn’t a very good student, but he was good-looking and really did live in the sixteenth arrondissement. He was the only student on campus to own an automobile. He was older than the other kids and had a French driving license. In France you need to be eighteen to drive.
We went together all during our last two years of school. I remember Christmas of our senior year especially.
We spent it down at the mill, an old, stone water-mill in the Morvan, a part of Burgundy, where our family goes for Christmas. It’s always cold and there’s nothing to do.
I was afraid I was pregnant, even though I wore a diaphragm – Mom and Dad insisted on it when I turned thirteen. On top of everything, Robert, my little brother, who was only about three or four, kept singing the Christmas song ‘Mary had a baby.’ Each time he did, Danny and I either moaned or giggled, depending on our mood. If we got to giggling, we couldn’t stop. I know it drove Mom crazy.
Later, Danny asked me to marry him, although I wasn’t pregnant. It was just before I graduated. When I told Dad and Mom, Dad looked at me a long time before he said anything.
‘Well, Kate, I think he’ll make a great first husband.’
I thought that was awfully cynical, but he turned out to be right. Danny did make a good first husband.
Right after high school, Danny and I went to California and studied at a junior college. We lived in a tiny apartment. Neither of us had paid enough attention in school to enter a real university. Also, as my parents were still California residents, I didn’t need to pay tuition. We lived together two years and then, when Danny transferred to UCLA, got married.
The wedding was in California, arranged by my Aunt Emmaline, Mom’s sister, but the real wedding was at the mill.
I’m not religious, but wanted a wedding in the little village church on top of the hill that looked down over the mill. Danny wasn’t even baptized. Dad took my baptismal certificate and used it to make one for Danny, hand-lettered in Dad’s usual crooked, artistic way, and then photocopied it. It looked better than mine. We then sent our certificates off to the bishop and I guess they wound up in the Vatican. I don’t know.
Dad describes the wedding in a book he wrote called Tidings. An old war buddy of his played the music from Fiddler On The Roof. We passed out translations to the people in the church, most of whom were French and couldn’t understand a word. All of us cried when he played ‘Where Is That Little Girl I Carried?’ The recessional was ‘Sunrise, Sunset.’ It made for terrific marriage music.
The mill was fixed up, and there was lots of food and music. The men in the village shot shotguns in the air, and a couple of them built a fire in the garage under the grange where we were dancing. This was to add a little more excitement. Excitement we didn’t need.
Dad had his beard long, with his hair pulled back in a little pigtail tied with a ribbon. He didn’t have all that much hair so it looked a little strange. Mom was beautiful and graceful in her ‘butterfly dress’ made for her by a rich Arab lady, mother to one of the kids in her kindergarten. The woman designed dresses for Christian Dior. What a crazy mixture our lives were.
It was a great wedding. The people in the village kept showing up with string beans. It was late string-bean season. We accepted them all, even though we had to bury some of them down by the old water-wheel.
Danny and I spent our wedding night up at the hotel in Montigny next to the church.
We went back to California and I was miserable. I worked cleaning houses, then as a secretary for a refrigeration company. Finally I got a real job, working for Korean Airlines. Through all this, I talked to Mom and Dad. They wanted me to continue in school. They’re great believers in education. But I needed to earn enough to help Danny through school. His parents, with all their money, weren’t contributing much, if anything at all.
Mom came and found a terrific apartment for us near the miracle mile in Los Angeles. It wasn’t too far from where I worked, or from UCLA. It was also near the LA County Museum, where I spent any time I could get. I loved art. I liked things old-fashioned and traditional.
Then I got pregnant. The apartment was a great place for a couple, but with a baby we’d need more space, and, with Dad’s help, we found a nice little house in Venice, near the beach.
Mom came to help with the birth of Wills. We wanted a natural childbirth and I did all the lessons and exercises, but in the end, they had to do a Caesarean.
Dad also wrote about me in his book called Dad. He called me Marty and described finding the little house in Venice where Danny and I lived while I was pregnant. We lived there about four years.
Mom or Dad would visit sometimes, and we’d bicycle along the path right on the beach. It was idyllic.
It was during this time I began falling out of love with Danny. It wasn’t anything he was doing; it was more what he wasn’t. I kept asking myself what was wrong with me. I had so many friends who were having real trouble with their husbands: drinking, womanizing, drugs, and all. Danny worked hard every day and, except for smoking, didn’t do much of anything wrong. He found a good job as a salesman for a steel company, and he was wonderful with Wills. It would make me jealous sometimes watching them play together. I think, in a way, Danny never grew up. Maybe neither of us did.
The big trouble was Danny bored me. We couldn’t maintain a decent conversation. I came from a family where there was conversation all the time, maybe even a bit too much, at least for me. Sometimes I couldn’t keep up with my own family. They’d go on about things so fast.
But with Danny, life was only long evenings when he’d read the papers, watch TV, or go over his bills and orders from work, then go to sleep. He seemed to love playing with that little calculator of his, making up for the fact he couldn’t pass Algebra II, I think.
I got so desperate, I remember calling Dad long distance. I asked him, Just what was love anyway? I wanted to know if I loved Danny. He told me to hang up and he’d call me back later. In about half an hour he called.
‘Kate, I’ve thought about it. I’m no expert, ask your mother. But as far as I can see, love is a combination of admiration, respect, and passion. If you have one of those going, that’s about par for the course. If you have two, you aren’t quite world class but you’re close. If you have all three, then you don’t need to die; you’re already in heaven.’
At the time, it didn’t seem to help. But I continued thinking about what Dad said for the whole of the next month. That’s when I decided I
