THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS

On Friday morning, Jesse and Eljay went to pick a real estate broker to sell Jesse’s house in Waltham. They had gone on Wednesday morning, without an appointment, but no one was there at nine am, and instead they went on a date to the railroad car diner and Walgreen’s, before Jesse stalked off indignant that he was waiting at nine am and the brokers were not at work to serve him. Eljay walked down Main Street holding Jesse’s hand, pondering how ironic it was that she was in love with a man who put on any pants he could find in the morning, oblivious of notions of societal decency (they often had large holes in provocative places or were so short and tight that the provocative things underneath the holes showed provocatively) or ironing or clashing, he had one of her bras on for underpants, and rarely wore shoes. Sometimes Jesse and Eljay inadvertently left the clothes in the dryer for days, and had to run it through the wash again because it smelled so moldy.

The choice of brokers came down to the boring albeit color coordinated Century 21 representative from Newton, or the clashingly clothed used car salesman type guy who had sold Jesse the house so many girlfriends ago. Jesse knew it was an Important Decision and so he left it up to Eljay. They went to Bickford’s to discuss it over French Toast and poached eggs with two different sauces. Eljay could make important Decisions, however had problems deciding whether to get hollandaise or cheese sauce with her eggs. “Go with the used-car guy,” Elj concluded. “Um, okay,” said Jesse, “He had a Mac laptop anyway so he must be okay.”

“Uh Oh”, Eljay gasped. “What?,” screamed Jesse, thinking he would have to go with the Century-21 color-coordinated one instead, “Was it a PC laptop after all?” “No, it’s... it’s my ring! look!,” she stared at her right hand with horror and hyperventilation. “My emerald is gone!”. “It’s a sign,” shouted Jesse, “it means we shouldn’t sell the house,” he said in his usual thoughtful, logical manner. Eljay said, “well, maybe it’s a sign we should sell it.” “There’s that,” Jesse conceded wondering what it could be a sign of.

Jesse looked down at her ring pensively. “How much does somethin’ like dat go fo’?”, he asked bouncing slightly up and down on the balls of his feet, as is obligatory when asking what somethin’ goes fo’. “I don’t know, I only lost a diamond chip once — that was a couple hundred. The ring cost almost 2000 dollars. Jesse stared at the ring with a newfound respect. Immediately, he switched into Noble Guy mode — “I shall find it! I shall walk lo! these many streets of Walthamtowne, retracing our very steps until, glinting greenly on the ground where it lay, yon emerald beckons unto me!” he pronounced gallantly, having seen “The Holy Grail” far too many times, and leaping up for the door, calculating in his mind that he had five minutes to retrace their steps back to the used car guy’s office before his French Toast arrived.

Eljay watched, trying not to have an anxiety attack in Bickford's. “It’s just a ring,” she told herself. “A two thousand dollar ring yes, but just a ring. At least Jesse, that caring, sensitive guy was ok.” Her anxiety attack went away. The eggs arrived, and not a moment too soon, because within seconds, Jesse was back sitting down in front of his French toast after having scoured the grounds for the love of his life’s precious ring for at least four and a half minutes. He watered down his grapefruit juice and dug into the Toast.

“I figured out what it was symbolic of!” announced Jesse with great excitement. Eljay wondered if he decided it had something to do with the French Toast or last night’s episode of Rugrats. “It’s a sign that I have to get you an engagement ring now, a ruby to replace the emerald!!” he blurted (Eljay loved rubies and and called herself Ruby Tuesday (as in RubyTues18 @AOL.com) and they had decided their firstborn girl would be named Ruby in honor of this). Eljay was touched by the karma and by Jesse actually having a semblance of logic to his thoughts. They had discussed getting married that very morning, indeed Jesse had uttered the phrase for the first time “We’re getting married” as a pretext for selling the house, to the boring color coordinated representative of Century 21 from Newton, as he secretly grabbed Eljay’s breast in a gesture of true solidarity, on his way to the kitchen.

Eljay went over and sat next to Jesse and his Toast and put her arms around him and cried. “I love you” she said. “I love you too”, Jesse mumbled through a mouthful of French toast. The special moment passed. “How much did you say that emerald goes fo’?”, Jesse repeated nervously. “Maybe I can find it, and trade it in for a ruby”, he thought to himself hopefully.

“Rubies are cheap in Arkansas because that’s where they come from,” Jesse informed Eljay. “I thought they came from some exotic place,” asked Eljay, knowing Arkansas usually did not fall under the definition of ‘exotic’. “Oh ya, Pakistan, they come from Pakistan,” Jesse corrected himself. “But Diamonds, now diamonds come from Arkansas. Diamonds are cheap in Arkansas. That’s it, Diamonds.” Jesse was very excited that he remembered facts about Arkansas as he was working there this particular summer. “It’s the only active diamond mine in the US,” he expanded. Eljay thought of Dan Quayle, “Hawaii is an island. It is in the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is an island that is surrounded by water. And it is a state. It is an island that is also a state. In the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii.”

“Diamonds are a main export of Arkansas,” Jesse continued. “They don’t cost as much there! Diamonds! Arkansas!” He seemed to have forgotten that he was going to get her a ruby.

Jesse finished his French toast, hypnotized by the karma and the fact that diamonds were cheaper in Arkansas. He borrowed a twenty dollar bill from Eljay and gallantly paid for their breakfast with it, and gallantly pocketed the change to go toward the ruby ring. Or, more likely, his lunch.

They went to the car salesman guy. “How are we going to tell that lady we are not choosing her,” worried Jesse about the Century 21 rep, certain that this would ruin her life. Jesse subtly hinted by saying, “You beat out the lady from century 21,” thinking cleverly that this would show the used-car realtor that they were indeed sophisticated comparison shoppers who did not just la-di-dah select him.

Luckily Mr. Used car salesman realtor who had been doing this for thirty years was eager to take on the mission of informing the Century 21 rep and Jesse did not have to be one to destroy her life. Jesse was always concerned about ruining the lives of women he turned down for services

Eljay drove Jesse to work, and they took a nap under the romantic willow tree in the parking lot. Jesse was refreshed and happily went off to work and Eljay hurried back home to worry about the real estate market and capital gains.

They made an date for that night, a movie and dinner. She drove up to get Jesse, struggling though Friday rush hour traffic to see the love of her life. They drove back to Harvard Square, Jesse murmuring mumbo jumbo about his completely messed up finances and who he was going to pay this month. Evidently he had thought about capital gains also and had concluded that he was not only a lousy real estate manager but a lousy investor as well. Eljay tried not to worry. They would be poor for a while, but at least they had each other, and could give each other love and laughter and orgasms (all free, as Jesse often noted).

“Where should we go to eat?” asked Jesse. Food was never far from his thoughts. They wove their way through the crowds, stopping to make sure the local magician was not as good as Jesse, and stopping at the bookstore to see if Jesse’s credit card worked. It did, amazingly enough, on TWO books! He knew this meant for sure it was a special night, indeed.

They decided on House of Blues and somehow passed inspection by the bouncer outside who questioned them extensively even though they were wearing shoes, evidently “proofing” their age by mere appearance, such an expert was he, and they entered the dark haven with checkered table clothes that promised sustenance and libations as well as terrible acoustics.

Jesse ordered salmon and gazpacho and Elj got Thai sticks, which Jesse ate before he even tried his salmon, because they had peanut sauce -- PEANUT SAUCE! -- but alas the peanut sauce eventually ran out, before the Thai sticks did, so Jesse reluctantly went back to his own salmon. The gazpacho was okay except that it wasn’t cold enough so Jesse added ice from his ice water and endured the grimacing glances of the waitress who seemed to magically appear every time Jesse stirred the ice.

They discussed their plans for the rest of the summer. Jesse had a business trip to London planned for sometime around August or September; there was a friend’s wedding in France to attend on August 31; and there was a month or two of work in Arkansas. For months, Eljay had been planning her whole summer around Jesse’s so-called schedule. She was a last minute person but it was two weeks before she was to visit her beloved Jesse in Arkansas. She tried to get Jesse to help her decide on the best dates to go and also what dates that she and Jesse were going to go on a long awaited-never been done trip alone. Jesse balked uneasily, and started giving her choices between the planned trips but carefully calling them options. Eljay and Jesse had never gone away on a trip alone-Eljay hadn’t gone anywhere for years. What was Jesse doing? Why was he doing this? Didn’t he love her? Maybe his gazpacho wasn’t good? Would they be happy for the next fifty years? Would he really raise children and tomatoes with her? Would their check book ever be reconciled? Would Jesse’s evil tenants return for revenge? In the midst of the flurry of unanswerable questions that flooded her brain, she got that scared feeling. She had finally let down her walls, told people that she loved Jesse, written it down even! On the computer, not just on paper, so it was real! She was scared. Was Jesse going to break her heart?

“Are you meeting someone this month in Arkansas or London?,” she asked tentatively. Perhaps she blurted it. It’s possible. Up until three days ago, Jesse had planned on bringing another girlfriend to the wedding in France (but had invited Eljay too, in case the other one said no). Three days ago, he had canceled those plans and broken up with her, because he loved Eljay, and ten years with multiple girlfriends is long enough even for a sociopath like Jesse, and he was beginning to have trouble maintaining parallel lives anyway. What would he do in Europe when The Other One showed up and Eljay was with him? What would he do if she came to visit him and found he wasn’t homeless at all, but living with Eljay? It wasn’t right, decided Jesse, or at least it was no longer convenient. Eljay is the one for me. She is, after all, putting me on the deed to her house. He did the brave and gallant thing and wrote The Other One a Dear John letter, backed up by an international phone call. Three days ago.

“What do you think I have been working for all this time!,” Jesse said incredulously. “I have not thought of another woman in months!” He had no comprehension of time, and apparently also forgot about the Finnish woman on the overnight bus ride who had given him her address. Or the hot babe mail delivery person who Jesse drooled over daily after waiting around for hours to hand her a letter. Jesse was very upset and indignant and as usual, it escalated in him in a matter of seconds like the air in a runaway balloon that was not tied right. His face got red and the energy from his anger seemed to reverberate against the poorly acoustic walls of the House O’ Blues. “This is a bottom line issue, you’re falsely accusing me, I need ten minutes off!” he shouted fiercely and stomped away into the bathroom where Eljay assumed he was punching the walls. (In fact, the bathroom had very cool graffiti, on both the window and the walls, so Jesse got to thinking, which always meant trouble. “She knows how to destroy me. And she CAN destroy me, any time she wants,” Jesse thought. “But maybe that’s how I can lower my walls,” which Eljay had been asking him to do for lo these long months.)

Eljay was sad. Jesse would surely be unreconcilable especially because the peanut sauce was gone. Why had she asked him, how could she doubt him? She felt truly awful.

Jesse came back, inspired, spouting some pre-prepared line like, “I shall never plan trips with other women to exotic locales. You must trust me. If you can’t trust me on this issue, tell me to go away now.” He had obviously composed the lines carefully, while reading the ubiquitous graffiti, and she could see he was trying to control his anger which was about to burst out like a hungry herd of cattle when the fence is open. Eljay paid, not wanting to continue testing that credit card until it was rejected, the proverbial straw that could make Jesse finally spontaneously combust like the drummer in Spinal Tap.

“I love you, I think you’re wonderful”, said Eljay, trying to ‘smooth’ Jesse. He visibly relaxed now that he was no longer being falsely accused. They walked through Harvard Square oblivious to the crowds typical of a summer night. “You have the power to destroy me”, Jesse said. “I would never use it”, Eljay replied. “Besides the power to destroy implies the power to create something important, something beautiful.” Eljay believed this, having read in the PDR how a powerful drug like Prozac caused everything and its opposite: sleepiness and wakefulness; sweating and shivering; elation and despair; and that ultimate un-opposite-able side effect, death). Like that drug that swept the nation in the nineties, and saved many lives from depression, as well as killing the artistic temperament and doing away with tears, their love could be — would be — wonderful and life affirming and they would create masterpieces and children and tomatoes, implicit in that power of destruction. “Isn’t that some Ayn Rand line?,” asked Jesse, vaguely recalling something deep and philosophical from “The Fountainhead.” “No, it seemed obvious,” said Eljay. “Hmm. Let’s go to Longfellow Park,” Jesse suggested, (the place where, you’ll recall, Jesse and Eljay had dismissed murder and suicide as “too easy an option” in the story entitled, “The Gift of the Magi, 90's Style”, so it had particular meaning to them as part of the history of their relationship). As it turned out, the City of Cambridge had insufficient funding to weed the park around the statue of Longfellow, so it was pretty overgrown this time around, unlike the first time they had visited, when it was covered with ice and snow and despair and doom. Nevertheless, they sat on the concrete bench beneath a thousand stars (well, there weren’t really stars, because Hurricane Bertha was coming the next day, but there were SUPPOSED to be stars, so we’ll remember it that way).

Jesse said, “Elj, you have the power to destroy my life, but it’s okay because I love you. I want to give you something that gives you power over me.” Then Jesse gave her a special thing, a thing that he had kept very privately since he was eight years old, and had never shown to anyone before, and he gave it to her forever. We’re not going to tell you what that special thing was, because it’s too special to share, but Eljay knew that it was the oldest thing that Jesse had ever kept and she knew that she would now keep it always.

Then Jesse had Eljay sit next to Longfellow, and he got down on one knee in the sand. “Will you marry me?” “Yes.”

They held each other for a long time, under the approving gaze of Henry Wadsworth, who continued to survey the Charles River for as long as they held each other, and under the somewhat less approving gaze of a pair of passersby, who presumably wanted to sit at the statue for much the same purpose.

Eljay unclenched Jesse and knelt down in front of him. “Will you marry me?,” she asked, looking up lovingly from the sand. Jesse couldn’t answer through his tears, so he pulled Eljay onto his lap and they cried together and loved each other.

After a few minutes, she licked away the tears from his cheeks and they got up and walked around the park. “Can we get married here?,” Eljay wondered. “Hmm, a private event in a public park, that might be tough,” Jesse said, thinking of his bad relations with the public officials of Cambridge. “But there’s Longfellow’s house up there, maybe we could rent that. It’s a museum kind of place that you can go in for three bucks, and then we could legitimate using the park for the ceremony itself.” They walked down Brattle Street, their hearts and minds full of love and possibility and plans. A teenager on a cellular phone, making a drug deal perhaps, eyed them suspiciously. Jesse noticed him because he wanted to tell someone — anyone — that they were now officially engaged. But the guy wouldn’t hang up the phone, lest he lose the drug deal, and Jesse wasn’t interested in buying, since he and Eljay were on the best natural high in the world.

A couple passed walking the other way, nodding at Jesse, pausing and hovering for a second as if to wait for him to explain his starry eyed grin. “Did you want me to tell them,” Jesse asked Eljay. “They wanted you to tell them something.” Another couple passed, Jesse garnered up his courage and announced “We’re engaged, we just decided to get married, we wanted to tell someone.” “Did you really? We never met anyone who had just gotten engaged, congratulations,” they said, shaking Eljay and Jesse’s hand. “Do you have a date yet?” “We’ve had lots of dates, but not for the wedding yet, can you suggest one?,” asked Eljay with her usual flippancy. “May 17th, that’s my parents anniversary and they have been happily married for thirty five years,” the blonde woman said. “The spring is a nice time...” she went on dreamily. “Did you really just decide this?,” asked the suburban man a bit suspiciously, “Yup, I just asked her over there at Longfellow Park,” said Jesse proudly. “Oh was that you??” they both said in unison eyeing them with envy or nervousness or both, “we passed you while you were sitting there.” They had seen Eljay and Jesse curled in a ball, holding each other tightly, crying at midnight under Henry’s bust, and maybe it looked a little strange, but now they the couple had a sufficient explanation they seemed satisfied. “Well, congratulations,” they said, before disappearing into the darkness. On their way back to the Square, Jesse pointed out the windows of several prior girlfriends and hot babes.

“Let’s get a spirulina and celebrate,” Jesse said as they approached the Store 24, where Jesse had purchased spirulina many times before. “We don’t have any money,” Eljay pointed out. “I’m sure we can scrounge up $2.19 from the bowels of your purse,” said Jesse, knowing how many diverse things Eljay threw randomly in the suitcase she called a pocketbook, and of course being unable to contribute even a penny himself, not even the dime he had found while searching for the emerald that morning, since he had spent that on lunch, with Eljay’s other five dollars. They sat on the floor at the back of the store and emptied the contents of her purse which contained well-aged prescription drugs, an uncapped felt-tip marker whose color just matched the stain on the underside of the purse, a piece of the Berlin wall that Jesse had chipped off himself, three undeveloped rolls of film, a French-English dictionary published in 1932, various checkbooks from defunct accounts, and other meaningful treasures. They found pennies, dimes and — breakthrough! — a Susan B. Anthony dollar, which totaled two dollars and seven cents. “Let’s give him a stamp for the rest,” said Jesse, “that’s a good deal.” The clerk had pierced lips and two rings in his nose, but luckily had to write a letter and was glad to get a 32¢ stamp for twelve cents. Jesse informed him that we had just gotten engaged and he replied, “Oh, spirulina is the right drink to celebrate with,” exposing a tongue stud as he spoke.

Spirulina is dark greenish glop made from sea algae from the Pacific Ocean suspended in a base of banana pulp. If you left it open for a few hours, the algae would crust up around the rim of the container and the banana pulp would turn brown. Jesse and Eljay had both independently loved it for years and their mutual non-distaste for it was an early sign of their destiny together. “What special place can we drink it?,” asked Jesse. “The BayBank?” replied Eljay, very cognizant of their lack of money and the subsequent problem of getting the car out of the parking garage.

Under the green and blue neon of the ATM, they pushed the buttons in their new joint account and as fifty dollars was making its way out of the machine, they made meaningful eye contact, held hands and drank their Spirulina together, knowing that this would always be Their ATM.

They paid the parking lot guy, after informing him that they were engaged, and asking him his anniversary, which turned out to be September 3, which date they noted as Very Meaningful. They drove home, to their home together, under a thousand stars.