A mutual friend and her fiancé introduced us at the lake. Mario was going to take us all waterskiing. Although he hailed from Arkansas, he was of Italian descent and had lovely olive skin and big, bright, blue eyes. He was compact and sinewy, like my father, and his style was no-bullshit, wry, sarcastic. I hadn’t dated in about a year, and when I met Mario, I thought, Well, I could sleep with this guy. He called the next day and asked if we could go to dinner and did I want to go tomorrow or the following weekend? “The sooner the better,” I said. “We might as well find out if we like each other.”We liked each other. In fact, Mario announced to me that same week that he liked everything about me—shouldn’t we be an item? It sounded good to me. I was lonesome. This might have been the right time for me to have played the field, but I’ll tell you, that concept eludes me. I don’t get it. Does that make me a serial monogamist? Or just a one-man woman? I even tried to suggest we not be exclusive right at first, sensing that my habit of diving headfirst into romances within minutes might be a problem.
