You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need.
--The Rolling Stones

It was a beautiful late summer day. He lit a cigarette and let his mind relax a little. The flight had been a dream. He had been making a conscious effort the whole time--the whole last couple of weeks, really--not to think too much about the coming weekend. Now he was finally here in the city where she lived, and he indulged. He recalled the first time he had seen her. 

She had been the wife of a co-worker who had invited him over for a visit. It was she who had answered the door when he arrived. He had been quite startled to discover what a gorgeous wife the man had. Over the next year or so he had gotten to know the two of them well and found them both to be quite enjoyable company. Then one day she had confided in him that her marriage was less than happy and that she was considering a divorce. At first he had tried to talk her through her troubles as a friend, but as he came to realize that she was serious, he couldn't help seeing her in an entirely new light. He had long since realized that he had more in common with her than either one of them had with her husband, but they had always seemed such a happy couple together. He hadn't wanted to, he certainly hadn't planned on it, but in the days and weeks that followed he had fallen madly, hopelessly and completely in love with her. For the first time in his life, he really loved someone. This was someone who meant more to him than himself. How the hell did that happen?

They had already been talking secretly on the phone about how upset she was with her situation and what she should do about it. Now they started meeting secretly. During these liaisons there was some highly agreeable snuggling--they even kissed a couple of times--but he had never slept with a married woman in his life and wasn't going to start with this one. He sometimes wondered if she really understood this or if, possibly, she suspected him of being timid. There had been times when she had seemed receptive, but he would have lost respect for her if she had broken her wedding promise. He would have been left wondering what future promises she might break. So he had kept his hands to himself as much as he could stand.

Now she was divorced and he was in town looking forward to two days and three nights in which they could really get to know each other without any distractions.

She finally showed up after work and about a half-hour driving time. She parked her sporty little red econo-box at the curb, got out and gave him a big hug and kiss that compensated no small amount for the delay; lots of tongue and exploring hands. It made him feel that she was genuinely glad to see him. He put his bag and his lanky body in her Toyota and she drove as they left the airport. They chatted amiably about his trip, her day, and other such small talk. She told him about her new boyfriend, Paul, on whose boat they were invited to go tomorrow. She had mentioned the boat trip when he had talked to her from the airport. At that time he had been in no mood to argue with her about it, but now he told her that he didn't want to go. He had explained to her even before he had bought the plane ticket, and then again the week before he had arrived, and now again in the car on the way to her house that he had come out here to spend time with her. He had friends in town but he didn't necessarily want to see them. He certainly didn't want to hang out with her and her new boyfriend, or any of her other friends for that matter. He knew she had many friends--she was twenty-three and beautiful and intelligent and charming and everything he was looking for in a woman--but this was their weekend together. Friends and boat trips were distractions. She explained that she was already committed to this boat trip. His impatience grew but he kept it to himself. He couldn't get mad at her. She meant too much to him.

As for her having a new boyfriend, it was not unanticipated. He had never expected her to be lonely or even celibate while he was away. Besides, she had used the word "harmless" in describing this Paul, so he wasn't too worried. She told him that they were all going to get together that evening for dinner and drinks. More disappointment, but he knew he really should meet the guy, partly to see another example of the kind of man that attracted her, but mostly because knowledge is power; the more he knew about his competition, the easier it would be to deal with when the time came.

Presently, they arrived at her apartment. She fixed drinks and he smoked some of her pot. She explained that she didn't smoke much anymore; she had bought it for him. They talked some more. After a while, he pulled her across his lap to tickle her back. It was heaven. He hadn't been this happy in a long time.

Then it came time to get on with the activities of the evening. He found Paul to be intelligent and charming in a quiet sort of way. For her part, the girl spent the entire evening playing them off one another, joking and teasing both of them, whispering and winking first to one and then the other. He found this very unpleasant and sensed that Paul did too. The two men even bonded somewhat over this fact, making rude comments to each other at her expense. He tried, with only marginal success, to salvage some enjoyment out of the evening. Over all, this was not a very good start to what he had thought might turn out to be the most significant weekend of his life.

At the end of the evening, when the three of them returned to her apartment, it slowly dawned on him that Paul wasn't going home. He couldn't believe it. He managed to corner her in the living room, while Paul was in the bathroom, to kiss her. It was purposely understated. Just lips, no tongue or other contact. Long...slow...tender. The look she gave him afterwards tore at his heart. It was, he thought, the look he had longed to see on her face. What did that mean? What was she thinking as she went off to bed with this other man?

He found himself alone in the living room and quietly imploded. He turned the volume on the radio way down and smoked a big bowl. He lay down. His mind reeled. He got up and mixed himself a powerful drink, drank it in one gulp and lay down again. He smoked some more pot, and then some more. He didn't sleep at all.

By the time the girl and her "harmless" new boyfriend awoke to go on the boat trip, he had decided he would rather pour gasoline over himself and light it than go with them. She said she wanted him to see her in her new swimsuit. He resisted the urge to leap up and start screaming at her. She brought him a huge oversize pillow and told him he could "cuddle up with it." He thought about how much he might enjoy hitting her.

They finally left him alone with his thoughts. Thoughts. Twelve hours earlier he had been in ecstasy. Then all was pain. But now, almost imperceptibly, real thoughts were starting to break through. His head was starting to clear from the hell-storm of the night before as ideas coalesced into a semblance of clarity. What to do? Was there any way to salvage this situation? Or should he just leave now, before she gets back? He might just get a morbid sense of satisfaction from that. Should he wait until she gets back, throw her against a wall, and then go? Why should he stay? He had other friends in this neck of the woods who would be only too happy to make a big effort to cheer him up until the time came for his return flight. And he certainly needed cheering up. Try not to feel. Try to think.

One of the things that at which he was particularly gifted was accepting responsibility for his actions. It occurred to him once again that moving away from this city in which lived the woman he loved might not have been the brightest thing he had ever done.

He had had a terrible year. He had made one bad decision after another--in business and in life in general. To top that off his father had died that spring. He had never felt as close as he should have to his father. Not that they hadn't gotten along; his father was a wonderful man. He was kind and generous and would be very much missed. He was just not the kind of man who let his deepest feelings show. He remembered many pleasant things about his father, strong emotional bonds were not among them. What bothered him most about his father's death was it's effect on his mother. As he had approached his thirties, he had begun to make jokes about what a mama's boy he was. Truth was, it was no joke. His mother had been the defining element of his childhood. She was always there when he came home from school. When he needed a hug or a swift kick in the behind, she was quick to respond. His parents had been married for over fifty-six years and she was understandably devastated by the death of her husband. To top that off, his brother and sister-in-law had talked his mother into moving away from her small-town home of twenty-five years to live near them. Now she was living in a mobile home behind his brother's house near a mid-size metropolis. The desire to be near his mother in her time of need and despair, his own recent troubles with life, and the opportunity, after more than twenty years of kicking himself in the head for never having gone, to go to college while sharing living expenses with his mother, were temptations too great to be ignored.

He had discussed all this with the new love of his life before he had made his final decision. It had been a very strange conversation. She had encouraged him to go. He confessed to her that he was in love with her. She encouraged him to go. He wondered why she was acting like this. But he could guess. He was not an easy man to deal with under the best of circumstances. These were not he best of circumstances--for him or her. He had put a great deal of pressure on her to be there for him when his father had died. Her grandmother, to whom she was very close, had also taken very ill at about the same time. She was not accustomed to dealing with failure to begin with, so the failure of her marriage was particularly hard for her. She had also moved out of the house that she and her husband had just bought, and had recently changed jobs. What a pair. If misery loves company, these two must surely be meant for each other.

But, in the end, he had realized that neither of them was ready for this relationship right now. He had long since recognized himself as being headstrong and impetuous. He saw and cherished these same attributes in her. It would be very easy for them to drive each other nuts. He understood that they both needed time. They needed time to recover and to accomplish on their own, in their own individual ways, in order to become comfortable with their own individual selves again. Only then would they stand a chance of becoming comfortable, as he knew in his heart that they could be, with each other.

He had regained much of his composure by the time she returned. She was alone, which helped. She tried to act as though nothing was wrong, which didn't. Even so, except for one or two cryptically ungracious remarks, he was able to keep his pain and anger under control. They discussed many things that afternoon, and much light was shed into the hitherto unexplored nooks and crannies of their relationship. At one point, he playfully threw her on the floor with himself on top as she giggled with abandon. He never understood how it got to that point. Could he go from doubting that he loved her anymore to being more in love than ever just like that? Did it matter?

He spent that night at the home of an old and very dear friend for two reasons. One was that he was now living almost a thousand miles from this town and didn't know when he would get another opportunity to see Jerry and his family. The other was that he needed more time to think.

He didn't sleep well that night either. He finally crawled out of bed just before dawn to spend what seemed like days in Jerry's back yard smoking almost a whole pack of cigarettes and a comparable amount of pot. By the time he returned to her apartment he had decided only two things. First, either she would be good company for the rest of his stay or he wouldn't stay, and second, he was determined to give her every opportunity to be good company.

She had let him take her car to go visiting so he was able to let himself in using her keys. She called to him from the bedroom. She was still in bed. As he came closer to where she lay, the smell of sex filled his senses. He struggled to fight off the bitter taste of jealousy. But if Paul made her happy, who was he to deny her that happiness? She didn't seem particularly happy right then, though. A tiny shred of optimism allowed him to believe that might be a good sign.

They decided to go to the Greek Fest downtown. As the day wore on he sensed that her veneer of cheeriness was wearing thin, By the time they returned to her place it was entirely gone. He jumped down her throat with both feet. Did she invite him here just to make him miserable? If that was the case, she was certainly doing a terrific job of it. She tried to argue, to avoid responsibility, but in the end she apologized. He was quite proud of himself, the way he argued his case clearly and eloquently without resorting to name-calling or other childishness, keeping to the point, not expecting her to accept more culpability than was her share. He was proud of her too. He knew how much she hated to admit that she was wrong.

One thing that he did want to do while he was in town was to get in touch with Pierre, who owed him money. So he made plans to get together with this man while the girl made plans to get together with Paul. He ended up spending more than two unpleasant hours with Pierre, all the while thinking about what the girl and her boyfriend were up to. When he returned to her apartment to find the two of them there he almost turned on his heels to leave again. But then Paul stood up, shook his hand and left. Until that moment, he had never been secure in his understanding of how this girl really felt about him. But she made her brand new boyfriend go home so they could be alone for the rest of his stay. This one selfless act did more to eliminate any lingering doubts from his troubled mind than anything she could have ever said or done.

They spent the evening on the couch watching a movie. She was very attentive, making sure that he had whatever he needed to feel welcome and even pampered. His awareness of her was heightened too. He noticed her rubbing her bare leg and couldn't resist teasing her, feeling comfortable in his relationship with her for the first time in a very long time, by asking if she needed help with that. He also noticed that every time she returned from the kitchen with a fresh drink or an emptied ashtray, she sa t just a littl e bit closer to him until there was almost no space at all between them.

And indeed, there was no space between them anymore. Although they now lived a thousand miles apart, and within all the confusion and animosity that had characterized this weekend, they had managed to cover the ground that he had hoped to cover over the course of his visit. He felt that they had reinvented their respect and their feelings for each other during their brief time together. Although both of their lives were still in turmoil, he was now able to proceed through this chaos armed with the firm belief that she was the girl he had originally thought she was-the girl he had fallen in love with.