Photo by Mantas Hesthaven

My Real Memoir

Being the director of a bohemian arts academy, at age twenty-five, gave me a certain “successful young artist” veneer. I barely made rent, but I dated a lot of our students.

Pauline wasn’t a stunner, but she had dimples on dimples and big brown eyes. Plus, she thought I was smart and funny—and I really admire that in a woman. So, we became a late-summer couple. Still, she was only a place-holder until Kat, the girl I’d planned to marry, came to her senses and took me back.

Amazingly, the first day of Pauline’s community college classes, she met and befriended Kat. That very evening Kat called for the first time since our break-up. This is it, I thought. She’s jealous!

“So, I met your girlfriend Pauline,” she said. Girlfriend? Pauline wasn’t my girlfriend. “And I think she’s perfect for you!”

No, no, no, no, this was going off-script.

“Anyway,” she added, “I just wanted to tell you how happy I am that you’ve finally moved on, babe.”

I never went out with Pauline again. I was, not for the first time (or the last), a first-class ass. I did, however, finally move on.

Sort of.

Right before my own grad-school classes began, I threw a party at our vintage Balboa Island house. All of the instructors from my Institute of the Arts were there, including piano teacher Mark.

Mark’s first-time date, a student at the private university where he also taught, was a freckled fireball name Brenda. Shortly after the party began, Brenda and I ran into each other at the top of the stairs, and did the North American sage grouse mating dance.

I told her, in a cleverly circuitous way, that I thought she was as hot as a sweet potato, and smart and funny, as well—she clearly admired that in a man. “So, you’re at a Christian college, right?” I asked.

“Yes, but I’m not, you know, ‘religious.’ Did you know Mark is a virgin?” she deflected.

“Really? This is the 70s. Aren’t virgins extinct?”

She laughed. “Well, there’s one left.”

A few nights later, we had a bonfire of a date. But that was it. When I dropped her off, Brenda said, “That was great, but you like me too much. And I don’t do commitment.”

“I could be really indifferent,” I promised.

She smiled. “No, you couldn’t. I can tell.”

The next day, my new roommates informed me that I was moving out. Immediately. They’d seen the rent bill, realized I was paying $10 less per month than they were, and told the landlord I was cheating them. Since I had the smallest bedroom, and all the bills were in my name, it seemed a fair arrangement. But what I hadn’t done, was tell them that. So, yeah, it was stupid. As punishment, they decided not to pay me the $800 rent, utility and phone bills they owed me—in order to compensate for the $20 I’d “cheated” them out of.

I was dead broke. And so it came to pass that this “successful young artist” moved into a cave-like back room at his little bohemian arts academy…

And told no one.

My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.