Winner Take Nothing

Last one for a while. Another Hemingway title. I wanted to write a simple piece about two ordinary people. The theme is miscommunication. So, it belongs in Loving Wives. But I also see this as a Romance. Thank you for reading me. DT

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Winner Take Nothing

Life's ironic. You live your first years thinking you're special. Then you spend the rest of them finding out just how ordinary you really are. Naturally, there are people who never get the memo. Those are the guys who spend their entire life as self-important assholes. I kind of envy that ignorance.

The war between our high opinion of ourselves and the actuality of our day-to-day existence might bother some folks. But all it did was turn me into a pragmatist.

You know the fable about the pessimist and the half empty glass. Well... to a pragmatist the problem is that the glass isn't the right size. So we spend our life rightsizing things.

For instance, I was an average guy. So I didn't even think about playing basketball. And because I was a nerd I didn't consider asking the Homecoming Queen to the senior prom.

I just did the things that reality dictated.

Mostly I was a face in the crowd. I had things I liked to do. And I did them when I could. But my family was middle-class poor. So my repertoire of fun was limited to the commonplace and cheap.

I accepted that.

The only thing that distinguished me was my academic ability. I might not be Einstein. But I could have played him on TV. My problem was that I studied everything. So when I got out of school I was a first class jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none.

When I hit the job market, my ever so close-but-not-quite-close-enough qualifications turned out to be a BIG problem. I was on everybody's short list. But I was never the one they picked.

So I rightsized myself. I found the one career where you have to know a lot. But you really don't have to know anything in particular. I became an academic.

It took four more years to earn the union card - the PhD. But once I had it I discovered that I was in high demand.

And after a number of recruiting visits I ended up working at a State University near Bethpage New York.

Bethpage would be a classic Long Island hamlet if it weren't for the fact that Leroy Grumman founded a little company there; where he built "Cats" for the Navy.

Construction of the last of that distinguish series, the "Tomcat", was shut down in 1991. But a bit of the wild-blue-yonder spirit still lurks in the nooks and crannies.

So, it wasn't like I was moving to Sleepy Hollow.

I chose Bethpage mainly because it was near work and equally close to the water on both sides of the Island.

I'm from Wisconsin and I like to sail. So I kept a 31-foot C&C Corvette Cruiser in a permanent slip at a marina in Oyster Bay.

I was by no means rich. But I was single. And for a change I was making good money. So the banks were willing to provide the financing. Even if, it was a thirty-five-year-old boat.

Everybody has to have at least one vice. And the peace and quiet of Long Island Sound was my drug of choice. I learned my sailing on Lake Michigan. So I am an excellent solo sailor. And the boat gave me the freedom to slip away on the weekends from April to October.

I'd leave right after class, coast up to Mount Sinai Bay. Then I would lay-up for the night and go the rest of the way around Orient point and down past Gardiners Island on a tack to Montauk. Or close haul off the Northeasterly's to Block Island. And if I got an early start all the way to the Vineyard.

If the wind was fair my dog Buster and I would arrive in the afternoon Saturday. And then I would proceed to party until the wee hours Saturday night and broad-reach back on Sunday

Have I mentioned Buster? I found him in the Detroit pound. I was living in Ann Arbor at the time. And I wanted a dog. The rest of the dogs were barking at the front of the cage. Only Buster was huddled in the back corner just radiating misery.

He was by far the biggest, ugliest, and meanest looking animal in the Pound. And he just KNEW that nobody would want him. I couldn't help it. My heart went out to the big lug.

Adopting Buster taught me a lesson about God's creatures. It's the soul that counts, not the package. There is no sweeter, gentler animal than my dog. He just happens to look like somebody shaved a Grizzly Bear.

He did not take kindly to the sailboat at first - being a former D-Town street dog and all. But he came along anyhow because he's my buddy. And that's what buddies do for each other.

NOW, he is slightly more nautical than Admiral Halsey. He sits in the bow, with his battle scarred ears streaming behind, like the pennants on a clipper ship. And he makes a memorable figurehead.

Nonetheless, with the exception of my occasional visits to nautical bars, I had the sort of social life you would expect in a place like Bethpage - meaning none.

I could have gone into the City. Or further up the island to some of the trendier places like the Hamptons. But I was too shy and inhibited to strut my stuff at a NYC dance club. And I was nowhere near rich, or preppy enough to fit into the Southampton social scene.

Obviously I had an entire campus full of ripe coeds. And I was only eight to ten years older than most of them. But there is that invisible line between faculty and student that I was not going to cross.

It's a matter of respect. It's hard to teach people if you are also fucking some of them.

And, at best the faculty was a dodgy proposition.

Most of the academic women were married. And the ones that weren't tended to be either ugly, gay, or not into shaving.

Sometimes they were all three.

Plus, if the relationship went south with a colleague; thanks to tenure you might be stuck running into the bitch for the next fifty years. So, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Hence, I survived on the occasional townie and anybody I could scrounge from the local social clubs.

I was not into bridge or discussing books but that was what I was reduced to.

Of course the single women who attended those things were a little ethereal to say the least. And being a red blooded American male I quickly found out what, "respect my boundaries" meant.

Then one late August day everything changed.

I had made tenure a year earlier and been promoted up the next step in the ladder. It was a nice jump in status and pay and I was still only 32. I was at one of those godawful faculty mixers sipping the cheap sherry.

We were welcoming the new hires in what passed for a Common Room in a modern academic building. The predominant theme was linoleum not thick carpets and mahogany.

I was gazing out the window, bored out of my skull. When I heard a warm Australian accent say, "It certainly is stark here isn't it?"

I turned my head and looked at her. She was relatively short, dark auburn hair and what could be best described as sturdy. She had a pretty, but not beautiful face. It featured big brown eyes and an upturned nose.

But her lips were that caught my attention. She had a wide sensual mouth with perfectly sculptured lips. Movie stars pay a fortune for lips like that.

The rest of her looked presentable but unspectacular - run-of-the-mill boobs, hips and legs.

In fact, she was the female equivalent of me. Nobody would turn to look if she entered a room. But nobody would run screaming out of it either. We were just two average people.

Nonetheless, I liked the sparkle in those very intelligent eyes.

I turned to her in the classic conversational pose and said, "Yes it is. The place got a lot of its growth in the 1960s and that was not exactly an era of classic academic architecture."

The more I looked into her sweet oval face, the better I liked what I saw. I asked, "Are you a new faculty member?"

She smiled. It was a ten-megawatt smile. My thinking hadn't turned sexual at that point. But it was headed in that direction. I knew that the person inside that average body was somebody I wanted to get to know.

She said, "Yes, don't you remember me from the interview?"

I had sat-in with a couple of colleagues on a cattle-call of applicants for an open faculty position. But I didn't remember her.

She said, "It was conducted via Skype. I was at the University of Queensland at the time."

NOW I remembered her. I was sitting off to one side of the monitor. So I had more-or-less heard her. But I had not seen her close up - at least close enough to recognize her in the flesh. And after all, it WAS 11:00 at night due to the time difference down-under.

Nevertheless, I should have remembered her sexy smoky contra-alto voice. It spoke volumes about her personality. She just sounded so confident and in-control.

I also knew her background. And the one thing that I was sure of was that she was brilliant. Her publication record was better than mine, even though she was younger. And she had already established her reputation at a world-class university.

So I asked the clichéd question, "What is a smart girl like you doing in a place like this??"

I mean Farmingdale isn't exactly Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She smiled a little embarrassed and said, "I wanted to try someplace different. Preferably on the other side of the world." I didn't push it.

I said, "Well then - let me show you one of the many fine dining establishments in this area. It will totally make you forget the nightlife in a backwater like Brisbane."

That was said with an ironic wink since Brisbane is like the Miami Beach of Australia.

She grabbed my arm, spilling my sherry in the process, and said, "Let's go mate!!" She sounded like Crocodile Dundee. Do they really talk like that?

I took her to Mr. Beery's. The place has a bumper sticker pasted on the front of the bar that says, "My Son Banged Your Honor Student's Math Teacher". That, and the name alone, ought to tell you everything you need to know about the ambience.

She loved it.

She's an Australian. So naturally she drank beer. It was a Friday. And Mr. Beery's was rocking. We found a semi quiet place in the back. Nobody noticed us. But of course, there was nothing about either of us to notice, except for the fact that we were both obviously very attracted to each other.

I sat a 22-ounce Brickhouse-21 Club in front of her. She took a big gulp, wiped her mouth with her sleeve and said, "Crikey that's good." Then she belched politely.

What a woman!! I was in love!!

The more we talked the more those fascinating eyes drew me in. This was a very smart person. But she had a woman's intelligence, not a man's.

My nerd friends like to trip the light fantastic when we are joking around over a beer. I hesitate to use the word juvenile. But if the shoe fits wear it.

On the other hand, Zoe made insightful and hilarious observations about the local fauna. I got the fact that she was trying to get a handle on the local culture. But her humorous view of her new world was a breath of fresh air.

I was also feeling a subliminal vibe that she was appraising me. It was like she was walking around - and looking me over - like a horse that she was thinking about buying.

Me - I didn't have to think about it. This was a totally together woman with a pretty face and a sweet little body, whose company I was beginning to crave.

She was definitely NOT a hottie. And talking to her didn't bring out thoughts of sweaty nights of passion.

Instead she brought out comfortable and intimate feelings of comradeship, the joy of genial bantering and the close rapport that you would want in a life's companion.

In short, she was the kind of person you went with for the long haul.

Very early in the relationship we were finishing each other's sentences. That was how in synch we were.

I would like to tell you that we went back to my place and fucked like bunnies. But adolescent fantasies don't really happen for most guys. And it definitely was NOT going to happen with me and Zoe.

Nonetheless, that evening started a relationship that worked from the beginning. We just wanted to be with each other. It was like it was fated.

I took Zoe out on our first official date two days after we met. I wanted to show off the boat since my house wasn't exactly a babe lair.

I lived in one of those old blue collar homes that were built around the Grumman plant. It was 1,800 square feet of World War II nostalgia but Buster and I called it home. I got it as a foreclosure. There were a lot of those as the jobs moved to other parts of the country.

She was living in the Extended Stay America on Oyster Bay Road, while she looked for a place. So it was an easy half hour ride over to the boat.

I pulled up outside her hotel. She was already waiting for me in the lobby. She had a look of pure delight on her face. So did I. But for a different reason.

It was hot and sunny for Late August. So she was wearing a modest pair of short white boat shorts and a cute little pink t-shirt with "Hello Pitty" and a picture of a pit bull with a bow next to its left ear - like the Hello Kitty logo.

It captured her perfectly. She was definitely one feisty little bitch.

It was the first time I had seen her outside of a professional setting and I was blown away by her muscular legs, her perfect tight hips and her jutting ass.

I hated to admit it. But she was every stereotype I had about Aussie women. She is only five four. But underneath that t-shirt she looked strong and fit. She was not so much erotic, as she was athletic. She wasn't Venus. She was a clean limbed goddesses of the hunt, like Diana.

I must have lingered a little too long appraising her. Because she said with a certain amount of sarcasm, "Like what you see?"

I gave her a melodramatic leer and said, "I sure do." That got me smacked on the arm. But truthfully, I enjoyed the view very much.

Zoe was definitely not THAT kind of sexy. I'm a guy. I can't help speculating about any woman and her abilities in bed. But the thought never crossed my mind with Zoe. She simply didn't see herself that way.

What she saw herself as, was the world's best companion. She was a woman with perfect empathy for the man she was with. And she was a genius at adjusting herself to their interests.

She chatted amiably for the entire half hour. When we got to the boat she looked up at the almost 40-feet of the mast with awe. She is from Brisbane so you would think that she was used to sailboats. But as I said, Zoe is a nerdette. So, she was a lot more at home in a library than on the bounding main.

Nevertheless, she is agile. So she hopped on board like she was born there. I wanted to get to know her better. Not spend the day sailing. But I took her out into Oyster Bay anyhow - just to show off the boat before I headed for my intended destination.

I raised sail and we did a little tacking back and forth, just so she could get the experience. My reasons for doing it were simple. I know how ordinary I am. So, I was doing the one thing that I hoped would make me special in her eyes.

I was also trying to gauge how comfortable she was with worldly things. I knew that she had a wide-ranging intellect. But you can't build a relationship on ideas alone. So I wanted to stretch her a bit just to see how well she took to more physical things.

What I discovered was that her well-made little body was a lot nimbler than mine. And she was almost immediately handling the lines like a pro. She might be petite but she was very strong and smart.

And as I suspected, she was exhilarated by the experience.

We pulled around Lloyd Point and lay-in offshore of Caumsett State Park. I got out the boat's little kayak and paddled us in.

It was beautiful and peaceful on the grounds of the old Marshall Field estate and I was planning on walking down the hiking trail until we found a nice spot with a view out over the Sound.

When we did I took off the backpack, spread out a blanket, and broke out the lunch. I also had a good cab and two cheap wine glasses. She sat on the blanket and watched me prepare the feast. We clinked glasses and I said, "Welcome to New York."

She smiled with real affection and said, "Well if the first week is any indication I am going to love being here."

I was tired of beating around the bush. There was one important question hanging in the air and it was begging to be asked. I said, "Why did you leave Brisbane? That is one of the most perfect places on earth. And UQ is a lot better institution than the one you are at right now."

She knew it was coming. And she hated it. I could see it in her eyes. She was lying on her side, facing me, propped up on one arm holding her glass in her other hand. She carefully set it down. Then she drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees and turned to look out over the water. It was a classic defensive posture.

She started in. It was like she was reciting a story, "Charlie and I grew up together in Wavell Heights. It's a suburb of Brisbane proper. We went all the way from infant school to college as a couple. It was just understood that we would marry."

I was familiar enough with the Australian education system to know that what they call "college" are the junior and senior years of high school. So they were high school sweethearts.

She grimaced and said, "Except Charlie was into Rugby not academics. So while I went on to university and got my Doctorate he joined the RAN."

A distinct shadow came over her face. She said, "We were apart a lot after that but I didn't care. I loved him.

Then she paused, and looked at me. The pain was deeply etched in her huge brown eyes. She said, "I got the letter while I was planning our wedding. He said he was very sorry. But he had gotten married. It was SO like Charlie to do something impulsive like that."

She laughed bitterly and said, "He said that the Sheila that he married was a much better match for him. I knew what he was talking about. He could never get past how smart I was."

Then the crying started. She said through her tears, "I was just devastated. I was useless to everybody, my students, my colleagues and even my family. I thought that I knew him. And I couldn't believe that somebody who I had so utterly trusted could do something so cold and heartless."

I said as sympathetically as I could, "That's horrible. I'm very sorry."

I am not exactly a master of human relations. But there didn't seem like anything else I could say. I just sat there patting her back sympathetically. But there was a part of me that was also thinking how damaged she must be.

I said, "If this is uncomfortable for you we can stop. I don't want to cause you any more pain."

She wiped her eyes and looked at me. It was as if she had suddenly discovered something. She said, "No - actually talking with you has made me feel better. I haven't really talked to anybody about this since it happened."

I said, "How long ago was that?"

She said, "I got the letter almost exactly a year ago. I started looking to leave Australia right after that. I am only 29 and I wanted a clean break from my past. So I decided to start over in this nice quiet peaceful place."

I said, "Well I, for one, am glad that you are here."

She looked at me fondly and said, "And I'm glad that YOU are here."

Then she laughed and said, "I'm sorry for acting like a weepy woman."

I said, "Hey! I'm your friend and that's what friends are for."

I was hoping to be a lot more than just a friend. But given Zoe's history only time would tell.

We cleaned up the picnic stuff and walked a little bit on the scenic hiking trails. Then we paddled back to the boat. And sailed around to Rocky Point where we anchored.

We finished the bottle of wine while we watched the sunset.