“What’d he do?”

“He lifts the headphone, so he can speak directly into my ear.  *****.  And he says, ‘Do you know the story of Undine?’  So I take off the headphones and just stare at him, totally non-committal, ya know?  The sculpture had a detailed description next to it.  Of course, I knew the story.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So he tells me the story about how Undine was a mermaid and fell in love with this guy and left the water to be with him, but he cheated on her, so mermaid law required that she kill him.  The sculpture captures Undine at the moment she rises from the water like this beautiful, welcoming fountain in order to possess him forever in death.  It is literally the moment before she kills him.”

“That couldn’t have been a come-on line.”

“Well, it might not have been with others, but the fact that he knew the story and he really told it skillfully worked on me.  I mean in just a few lines, I could sense the mermaid’s pain about all that she had given up for him and how he hurt and betrayed her love.  I suddenly just wanted to hear the guy talk.  He could have been reading New Haven restaurants’ takeout menus to me and I would have been swept away.  He could tell a story.  That’s the thing about Ash, he wears his heart on his sleeve.  Whatever he’s feeling—anger, love, passion, hostility, it’s all there.  He can pull you into a story because he is so familiar with emotions—they’re his best friends.”

“How in the world did you two get together?  You’re not like that at all.”

“I am, Al, I’m just quieter about it.  I feel a lot.  I don’t express it well,” Bette spoke from her heart as she thought about all she could have and should have said to Tina over the past months and years.  She shook her head, unwilling to get caught up in her newest, favorite emotional state—melancholia.  “Did you hear Ash comment on his temper?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me tell you, he had a serious problem with it.  He could rage and flare with a moment’s notice, completely lose it over something.  Even in class, his participation was always spirited and sometimes we, his classmates would just cower.  But with me, as angry and as loud as he could be, he would be just as passionate.  He absolutely loved me and showed me in so many ways.  As far as boyfriends go, he was a good one.”