The Dark Blue Satin Sheets

It’s story time! *hands out popcorn*

A long while back, when Alex and I were just friends (well, at least on MY end we were…haha!), I told him that when I moved out, I was going to buy a specific set of sheets. I had already told Rob that I wanted a divorce by then, but I was having a difficult time moving out of the house due to lack of funds and lack of family support. My very Catholic family doesn’t believe in divorce, so it took Rob acting like an irrational ass one day and screaming his head off at my mom while my dad and I looked on in abject horror for them to finally go, wow, you’re right, he’s changed and you need to get the hell out of there. As a side note, even though I found out much later on that Alex had decided that he had already met the woman he’d marry one day, Alex was very supportive of whatever I had to do at that moment. I remember him telling me that summer, Kira, I give you a 70% chance of moving out because I SEE how your family is not helping you with getting out…meaning, I know you have told Rob you are going to move out, but there’s a chance you can’t due to circumstances. If you move out, he added, you have whatever help of mine you need. If you stay, ditto. It was really nice that he didn’t push me one way or the other but just told me, I’m there for you regardless. So, there it was, six months after I had already said I wanted to get out, and I hadn’t found a job yet so I was stuck at the house. My family didn’t want a divorce, but there I was, fantasizing every day on getting the hell out of there. Part of my fantasy involved how I would FINALLY set up my house the way I wanted it. Rob hated Things. Things were a waste of money. ALL my furniture was hand me downs or assembly stuff except the sofa. Nothing matched. If I wanted something fun like satin sheets for the bed, that was a no no. So, part of my fantasy on moving out involved getting Real, Matching, Adult Furniture and also a set of satin sheets for my New Bed.

I remember sitting down with Alex and showing him this Victoria’s Secret catalogue (Note: if you want a guy friend to sit down and pay attention, flashing him the VS catalogue is a great start!). I turned to the part where they had the sheets for the beds and showed him the satin sheets. Silky, satiny, they just looked so enticing and beautiful and dreamy to have on a bed. “This is what I want,” I told him. “I have always wanted a set of satin sheets, and the second I move out, I’m going to buy a new queen sized bed and get THESE SHEETS!” I remember he was very intrigued, looked at them, and asked me what color I wanted to get.

I don’t like pastels. I don’t own any clothes as far as I know that are pink, orange, or yellow…I MAY have a lavender shirt or two, but that’s probably it. I like REAL colors. Pastels are wishy-washy to me. They scream out, I’m too PUSSY to be a REAL color, so I’ll just sorta give you a TASTE of a color. Yuck. I love bold, dark, deep colors. I love sapphire blue, emerald green, scarlet or maroon, and rich, dark purple. So, naturally, when he asked me what color I wanted, I pointed out the most beautiful bold blue I could find. “Blue!” I told him happily. And that was that.

Fast forward a year and a half later. I moved out. I got my Real, Matching, Adult Furniture mostly because my family tossed money at me. See, in the end, when they realized exactly HOW bad things had gotten and HOW Rob was treating me (oh, and the police showing up on our doorstep with a search warrant for him also helped tremendously), they all panicked, felt guilty for not helping me sooner, and threw money at me. However, it’s a hell of a lot of expenses to start up a new household from scratch. It wasn’t just furniture; I had to buy towels and cups and (well, I took most of the good kitchen stuff, but…) a garbage can and a TV and a computer and and and…you get the idea. I had started working already, so I was getting paychecks, but it wasn’t much of a paycheck. Come on, I’m a teacher. We make shit. I really lucked out on how much help I got when I moved out. One of my best friends since 13 yrs of age, Lee, even sent me money to buy a washer and a dryer. Bellybutton came down from CANADA to help me move, and stayed to assemble and move around what needed to be assembled and moved around. Another side note: nothing funnier than a techie type person setting up your computer for you for the first time and finding AOL pre-loaded on it. The cursing was enormous, as well as the growls of, “We’re getting that crap off of here FIRST THING.” HAHA! Alex and Lee came down to help me set up house too, one after the other: first Bellybutton, then Alex (who couldn’t come earlier because he was finishing up a term school in France), then Lee. But money was really tight, so I had decided to just steal a spare set of sheets from the old house for the queen sized bed I bought, and satin sheets would wait for another year. I NEVER mentioned to Alex about the satin sheets again, though. It was mentioned ONCE…a year and a half previously…and never, ever, brought up again. Not even to say, Alex, gosh, I guess I won’t be getting those sheets.

But he remembered.

It was a traumatic day, the day I started to move out. Even when you know you are doing the right thing, there’s a sense of loss, of death even. It’s the death of the dreams you had with the person you married. It’s depression over wondering why you couldn’t stop the train wreck. I picked up the keys at the apartment complex, sighed as I pulled up to the building, took a first armload of basic items to set up the place, and found…a package right there on the front of the door.

Confused, I figured it must have been for the previous renter. I kneeled down and looked at the box. No, it was addressed to me. Me? Who knew I was here? My family, the ex, a few friends…I gave just about all of them the new address, so I guessed somebody decided to send me a welcoming present for my new apartment. I carried the box inside with the other items I brought up. Hands shaking excitedly, I dug out scissors from my “necessary box” (millionth side note: I have moved enough in my life to pack up what I call a necessary box that has some basic essentials in it you want to unload first to make the rest of the move easy…it always must have scissors in it and things like a roll of toilet paper, etc.). There they were: dark blue satin sheets from Victoria’s Secret. Queen sized. I started to cry...just a few tears down my face in silence as I stared at them blankly.

I STILL can’t believe it. It was just one summer day, a year and a half before that date, that we sat on the sofa and I showed him the catalogue. He remembered the color, the style, the size, and where to order it. He remembered the exact date I would start to move out, and planned ahead of time enough to make sure they were waiting for me when I arrived. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that meant to me….I just can’t… It wasn’t that the damned sheets were so expensive. It was that he REMEMBERED something IMPORTANT to me, long after the fact. I was in his mind. For a year and a half, I was in his mind.

It was then I realized exactly what I meant to him. I was still so nervous about the idea of a man in my life after the marriage went belly up (skittish, really). But hell, what woman could resist a man who was totally patient…NO pressure, nothing…and obviously put her on such an incredibly high priority? My mind was beginning to change on a few issues…

I waited until he came down to see me to put the sheets on the bed. I figured, what the hell? He should be the first to break them in with me after all the effort he went through there….but that’s ANOTHER story. For another day ;)

*****

Today’s French slang!

Enculer les mouches

Literally, it’s to fuck a fly’s ass. LOL

But for slang purposes, it means…to split hairs, to nitpick.

Enjoy!