How I met my husband.

I am 20, sitting in Ben’s tiny, mustard-yellow car, and trying to breathe at a normal pace while also trying to still the wild thump of my heart. He was barely a foot away, and I was in his car, and he had gorgeous scruffy-curly hair and thoughtful blue eyes and his slender fingers were fiddling with the knobs of his stereo and he was turning to look at me, speaking, Oh my god, he is talking to me, and why did he ask me if I needed a ride? Does he like me? He said, “Do you know Mingus?” And I didn’t, but if that was the way into his heart, you bet I knew Mingus, so I lied. “Sure,” I said. Was I blushing? I was probably blushing.

He handed me the Ah Hum cassette and I scanned the song titles, boldly deciding to take my lie to the next level. “I like ‘Devil Woman’,” I told him. “That’s the only one I really know.” I had never heard it.

“That’s a great one,” he said, and I relaxed into my seat, feeling as though I had passed some test. The song filled the tiny space around us, and it was, at that moment, one of the most amazing songs I had ever heard. The horns were low and swelling, groaning, even, and Mingus’ voice was nothing but a deep, soulful moan as he sang, “Gonna get me a devil woman....Angel woman don’t bring me no good. Gonna get me a devil woman....” and the horns underscored the deep urgency.

I was for sure blushing now, I thought, and my stupid body was struggling here, some kind of fight or flight thing. Run away or kiss him? The “run away” part was winning, and my hands lingered on the door handle.

Was I sitting right? Should I cross my legs toward him? My arms! Uncross them! No, wait. Are you shaking? STOP SHAKING, IDIOT.

This was terrible, awful, and mostly because despite my overwhelming anxiety about being in such close quarters with this beautiful boy, and despite my sudden inability to form a coherent thought, much less speak one, I had this tiny fluttering bud of hope growing inside me. He must like me, I was thinking, and at the same time, despairing: Your shyness will kill this before it starts. I tried to crush that hope, because I knew that the other side, the more grim side, was right, but the hope wouldn’t be stopped. It was raging.

It was a short drive to my apartment and he dropped me off with a nonchalant wave and a “see you in class” comment, and I spent the next half hour explaining to my roommate the amazing and awful thing that had just happened to me.

The semester passed with several meaningless moments stacking up to feed the pathetic flames of hope, until summer dawned and my roommates were gone for vacation, and one evening there was a knock at my door.

Ben!

“Do you want to go get some food?” He asked. “I know a great place.”

“Sure,” I said, and that was the last thing I said for the evening, really. We ate at an Italian restaurant where his friend was playing jazz piano, and he tried in vain to make conversation with me over the candlelight. I said “yes” and “no” at the appropriate times and then continued the active conversation thriving in my head. You’re eating too fast these jeans don’t look right on you, in fact, you should have dressed nicer my god he is pretty and he knows so much about music I know lots about music SAY SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC until dinner was over.

I knew it was going terribly and I just wanted to go home and cry because Poet Boy, you are the one I wrote about in my journals in high school and I am here with you and apparently lack the finesse to HAVE you, but he invited me over to his friend’s house.

She was older, pretty, quirky and completely comfortable with it. She had interesting art and books and lived in a refurbished house from the 20s. They chatted and I wandered around her open living and dining room area, examining her book titles and studying the paintings and sculptures. She had done most of the art.

Does he like her? Why did he take me here? Probably he likes her, I mean why not. She can speak more than two words to him. They should get married They probably will OH MY GOD I JUST NEED TO GO HOME.

Eventually I did go home, and it was awkward and terrible, and then I went home for the summer.

When I got back to school, I found out he was sleeping with our poetry professor, who was 44, very smart and witty and self-involved. And THAT was the horrifying end of that, except “Devil Woman” is actually now one of my all-time favorite songs, and Mingus’ version of “Stormy Weather” is the reason I met my husband. We have two beautiful daughters now, so it worked out, I GUESS.