My parents always entertained on weekends in the fifties and sixties, inviting one or two couples at a time to our storybook coastal cottage in Annapolis for gin rummy and drinks. Appearances were everything. The women rolled, then teased their hair into sweeping, complex volumes that were sprayed stickily rigid. The men slapped a scoop of greasy pomade through their pompadours and called it a look. Every guy had to be a clever bartender, be known for a delicately balanced bloody mary, or perhaps a perfectly shaken martini. And in turn, each fellow sipped a signature drink he hoped indicated his impeccable taste. A magical commingling occurred between women's natural skin scent and their perfume. That was feminine optimism via Madison Avenue at work. Everyone, of course, filled the place with cigarette smoke. Which brought on the ugly battlefield of ashtrays, overstuffed with snuffed out filter tips - tiny, spent armor shells.

It was incredibly phony, if that isn't obvious enough. But they never saw it that way. They were a generation brought up on movie stars; every man wanted to be the invariably tuxedoed, boozy baritone Dean Martin; or maybe Marlon Brando, oozing sexuality. Every woman desired to be like Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, or some other cast-off of Frank Sinatra's. It was important to get the lighting just right at these parties. Ever so slightly dim, enough to mask male stubble, allow face powder to work its mineralized magic, and not call too much attention to the grand effort.

The stereophonic entertainment console, which doubled as a liquor cabinet, engulfed a sizable chunk of the living room. From its nubbly speaker covering with decorative treble clefs and quarter notes came Brazilian bossa nova music - intoxicating rhythms that established a direct link with the revelers' hips. Those smooshed, satisfied grins on their faces, you would think they would want to sway all night. Yet there was never an actual dancing session. It was only a slinky dip here and a seductive swivel there, then it was back to totaling gin rummy figures and re-freshing drinks with ice. Ice, ice, everywhere - clinking, cracking, plopping noisily into glasses. We, the two children, were allowed to greet everyone, recite a poem by Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost, smother a few potato chips with sour cream dip, then say good night to the still sober guests. It was wretched that my sister and I were forced to bed at 9:00, but there were adults who were itching to be adults. We could still hear what went on.

"Listen to Mr. Lawrence,” said my sister. “What a shameless flirt.”

"Yeah, and that makes Dad get real quiet."

"Well, she's a pretty woman, Burt, men are going to be like that."

"Is she pretty, Kat? I can't tell. I know whether a girl in seventh grade is pretty. Or a star on TV. But Mom - it's hard for me to think of her that way."

"She better be. Because I intend to be pretty. Even if I have to get a bunch of plastic surgery."

"Well, you better get a bunch of money, because plastic surgery isn't cheap."

"Dad will pay for it. I don't intend to be some dog going stag everywhere. I want to meet a guy and fall in love."

"You'll be okay. You won't be class queen or anything, but you'll get dates."

"How do you know?"

"Genes. You got your mother's genes. If she's pretty like you insist."

"Jeans? Mom never wears jeans."

"No, genes. Didn't they teach you about genes yet? Children look like their parents because they pass on their genes."

"Well, that's good, because there's no doubt in my mind that Mom's a pretty woman."

By the time I entered high school, our parents' parties no longer held any intrigue for us. We slept soundly through the clonking of ice and the hubbub of apologies from spills, the raised volume of friendly disagreements and the front door finally closing for the evening whose silence brought the heating registers strangely to audible life.

Dad was a lawyer for shopping centers. I liked the idea of following in his footsteps. My college grades weren't great but my LSAT score was excellent. So I went to Baltimore Law School. It wasn't fair, but my sister, when she graduated high school, went to a cosmetology academy. She wanted to go. I felt like she was every bit as smart as me - she deserved better. But Mom had no degree, so I guess she was just following in her shoes.

As soon as we were both out of the house, our parents split. Mom had been taking tango lessons and something started up between her and the instructor. Dad was lost at first, but he met a redhead in his mixed doubles tenpin league who brought him back to life. It was all relatively painless. For them. Me, I had some problems with it. I was messed up for a while. But then, I realized, why should my family be immune? Divorce was an epidemic. My folks caught it, like so many others did. It was stewing dormantly at all those home parties, waiting to break out some day. We could hear it in our bunk beds, just bubbling through the hallway, it had all been so exciting to our young, unknowing ears.

I didn't make the best grades, but I passed the Maryland bar on the first try with no sweat. I had a girlfriend who was having trouble getting through nursing school. She had a hell of a time finding a pulse, especially with women. I wasn't sure about her. Would we end up apart after say, twenty years of raising kids and having parties? Were my parents miserable through their time together? Dad denied it, but if I pressed him, he'd end up saying that they were too busy living up to a standard to worry about whether they were happy or not. It sounded horrible to me - the late sixties had made personal happiness paramount. That new notion was supposed to be liberating, but it brought its own kind of pressure. It was just another standard, albeit quite different from the fifties one. I started reading Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and thinking love was a silly concept. At some point, some generation was going to expose it for the pretender it was. It might not happen in my lifetime, but it was bound to happen. That's how I saw things.

Kat, however, was in love with love. She hadn't found an accomplice yet, but she was looking. In the beauty parlor she worked at, she was around nothing but women all day. Too much estrogen, as I saw it. She went to a lot of parties and smoked a lot of pot. I never took to the stuff, I tried it once and it made me paranoid. That kind of thing defines a life, parcels out your friends, makes decisions for you. With no pot smokers to pal around with, I became conservative. That turned out to be just fine when Reagan got elected. It became cool. I had lost my nursing student to the NOW crowd. My sister didn't like me becoming such a Tory. But I was working in Dad's office and things were just fine, as far as I was concerned.

I started dating a lot of women. If things got a little too serious, if I felt pressure to employ the word love, I bolted. How can you engage in something you don’t believe exists? Love to me had gone the route of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. People were deluding themselves. It didn’t stop me from dating. I lined them up. But it was hard to find a permanent partner when that word kept getting in the way. They all wanted to hear it. There were a few who didn’t - none of them were keepers.

It may have been due to some unconscious emptiness, or it may have been simply coincidence, but I started doing cocaine. Unlike marijuana, I loved it. I started doing it nearly every day. For a few months, I had a lot of fun. Then things came apart. I started losing weight, losing my temper. Kat wanted to know what was going on.

“You date one girl after another, you don’t spend enough time with any of them to know if they’re right for you. What’s up with that?”

“It’s going to sound crazy to you, Kat, but I stopped believing in love. Romantic love, that is. I still believe in ‘love thy neighbor’ and all that stuff. But love between a man and a woman? It’s a fairy tale.”

“Have you lost your mind? Love is the most important thing in anyone’s life. No wonder you’re going down the tubes. You gotta believe in love. You just gotta.”

“Well, I don’t. Mom and Dad got me to questioning it, and I went through a process of examination. I decided it was bull crap.”

We have to fix this, Burt. It’s the whole reason you’re screwed up right now.”

“Kat, I’m messed up on coke. That’s what screwed me up.”

“Oh, no. I’m starting to put pieces of the puzzle together now. The first thing you need is rehab. But not believing in love is still the root problem. You’re filling your empty soul with cocaine.”

“I’m ready for rehab. I’ll go. But love is a tough sell. I spent many hours deliberating its validity. When I expunged it from my life, I didn’t allow for any kind of return path.”

“I don’t know how you got this screwed up, but I’m going to stick close by your side until you get straightened out.”

Outpatient rehab worked out pretty well for me. I was motivated to quit coke. It hadn’t burrowed its way deep into my system the way I hear it often does. Love was another matter altogether. I just didn’t buy it. But Kat had me scared. I was afraid that I’d relapse if I didn’t bring it back into my world. Yet I was also afraid to resume dating, afraid of that sneaky feeling of emptiness.

I was sitting on the train headed for a deposition when I noticed the book of a woman sitting next to me: The Love Delusion – How Romance Became the Greatest Lie Ever Sold. I had to ask her about it.

“Oh, it’s quite good. I agree with everything the author says about love.” We talked some more, and I asked her if the book had made her averse to dating. She looked at me funny.

“I’m thinking we might have a lot in common,” I continued.
“Oh, really?”

“If your reading material is any indication, that is.” I got her phone number, with just a slight bit of reluctance on her part, and called her the next day. We indeed turned out to have a lot in common. A first date went well. We started seeing each other regularly. There was no pressure about love – we were both deniers. But a fondness developed. Kat wanted to know all about her.

“She’s attractive. Prim. She has a good job with the state government. Her name is Portia. She has an interesting way of making eye contact that coaxes a response. And get this – she doesn’t believe in love, either.”

“Oh, criminy. That’ll never do, Burt. I know you feel like you hit the mother lode. But without love, you’ll just get divorced some day.”

“Not thinking that far ahead. Maybe I’ll never marry. The good thing is, I’m very comfortable around this woman.”

“Based on what you’ve said, I can’t give her my approval.”

“You haven’t even met her. She’s very engaging.”

I continued to see Portia, despite Kat’s disapproval. Six months went by. A fondness was certainly growing. One day I had a horrid realization. Despite all my resistance to the words, despite all my carefully reasoned arguments, I wanted to tell her that I loved her. What could I do? She was so set against it. I don’t know what came over me. It was that look Portia had, that way of drawing the truth out of someone. At times she gave me that look and I would swear she wanted me to say that I loved her. But I didn’t dare. I didn’t want to lose her. We went to a party an office friend of hers had and I got too many martinis in me. We danced to “Something Stupid” by Nancy and Frank Sinatra. I held her closely, her ear and my lips were in alignment.

“Portia, are you listening to the lyrics of this song?”

“I know them.”

“Well, I’m about to say something stupid. I love you, Portia. I’m speaking from the heart. I love you.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yes, I am. But that fact merely enabled me. I’ve thought of nothing else for a few weeks.”

“You’ll get over it. We have a good thing going. I don’t want love to get in the way of it.”

“I think you love me as well. When you give me that Portia look, that way of drawing words out of people, I sense your need to hear these words.” I watched her Adam’s apple move. Her fingertips gripped my shirt.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“You’ve found me out. I’m a hypocrite. We’re both hypocrites. So let’s just own up to our mistakes, and admit that we’re in love.”

“Deal.”

I was thrilled, but I was scared. I thought about my parents, how they didn’t last. But they’d had twenty-odd good years together. I made a point of following the way they’d shown me to a T. I bought a Victorian brownstone in Bolton Hill and got a cherry of a stereo system with huge Klipschorn speakers. I play bossa nova on it - Milton Nascimento's "Travessia" is a favorite. After all these years, I finally got a signature drink - B&B on the rocks. No more coke. Portia is a pretty straight arrow, which helps keep me in line. We'll get married, have two children and hold bridge parties on the weekends. Following the path you've been shown is the only way to go. Anything else may lead to trouble. That's my prescription for living.