An Education in Love

Marty had a goatee and high, intellectual cheekbones that gave him a boyish, vulnerable air, even as he was dissecting the academic endeavors of his classmates. Leonora knew everything about him. Leonora was the one that brought me in, got me acquainted. She told me how she used to track him between classes, she memorized his gym locker number and studied his college friends. She wasn't a stalker. It was his interest that had stimulated her own. At poetry reads, he was always in the first row, undressing her with his eyes. Leonara simply wondered if he was a sociopath; most of her boyfriends turned out to be in the long run, and she was heading this one off at the pass.

Eventually, they became friends. Marty made his move, Leonora rebuffed him, eviscerating him and his buddies in a few curt words. Coming from the perfectly pink lips of the exotic Leonora, this provided excitement rather than resentment. By the time I was introduced, Leonora was a fixture at their campus version of an Algonquin Round Table.

Their circle of queer, brainy acquaintances included Seymour, a deathly pale physics undergrad from Tampa; Georgette, a theater major from West Linn with high strung tendencies and linguistic acumen, and Tony. He was the joker of the group, underachiever and clown. Tony had melting brown eyes but a slightly stocky figure. Hair usually messy, but no one really noticed what he looked like, such was the appeal of his personality. I should have become the poet, but I don't know quite what purpose my addition to the circle served. I guess I had wits enough, and just enough genuine cynicism that I maintained my position on a day to day basis.