The Boyfriend Sweater by Jenn McKinlay

 JENN MCKINLAY: It was 1989 in New Haven, CT. I was at university and doing the typical on again off again with the rugby playing college boyfriend. We both had apartments with friends, but my stuff mingled with his and vice versa. Neither of us minded as it was an unspoken way to leave the door open for the next session of "let's get back together" after we inevitably broke up again. This lasted until senior year when we went through our final unentanglement-disengagement-whatever-you-want-to-call-it in those glorious pre-Internet days when saying good-bye actually meant "I'm never speaking to this person again". 

Love in the 80's was complicated!

Several relationships, five moves, one marriage (still going strong) and two children later, and I decided this empty nest needed a powerful decluttering. So long beloved broken action figures, preschool artwork (I took pictures), and essays written on the SparkNotes versions of books the Hooligans should have read but likely didn't :) 

While doing this excavation, what should I find in an old box that had been carted through every move and never opened? You guessed it! The boyfriend sweater--which in my case was/is a rag wool sweater that I wore during every winter in my drafty dorm rooms and freezing first apartments where the steam radiator was situated directly under the shoddy single pane window, causing my windows to fog up every time the heat came on from the months of November through February. I loved that sweater, potentially a bit more than the on again off again boyfriend from whom I filched it during our freshman year. I hadn't seen the beloved cardigan in years, and it felt like meeting an old friend while on vacation in an exotic foreign land.

The Boyfriend Sweater!

Now I live in Arizona and have for thirty years. I don't have much use for an overly large rag wool sweater. And yet, I could not toss it into the trash or the Goodwill bag. This sweater had been worn to scores of keg parties, midnight diner runs, girl's nights out when I didn't want to be pestered (it was clearly a boyfriend sweater, acting as an off-the-market protective shield), and it had comforted me through our many breakups.

So, what did I do with it? I washed it and blocked it (a knitting thing), returning it to its former shape. Then I put it on and felt like I was nineteen again. I suppose I should mail it back to the ex-boyfriend. He lives in Colorado and could use it more than me. Yes, we are in touch (thanks, Facebook) and friends again. It's actually really nice to know that we've both found happiness. Maybe I will send it if he sees this post and asks for it back, but I'm rather attached to it as a reminder of the Jenn back then :) 

So, Reds and Readers, have you ever had a "boyfriend sweater"? What artifacts from former relationships have popped up in your life? Would you return them or keep them--asking for a friend? Okay, yes, it's me. It's always me.

How Did You Meet Your Mate?

Jenn McKinlay

Since it's the week of  love, flowers, goopy cards, CHOCOLATE (priorities, Reds), etc., I thought I'd have the Reds share how they met their partners. Was it love at first sight? Were you friends first? Did you meet online? Come on, tell all! And if you're single and looking, take notes.

JENN: I'll kick it off by going first. Hub and I met in a library. Not kidding! We were both Gen-X slackers working as part-time librarians as we pursued our dreams of writing (me) and music (him). I was engaged to another fella and he was living with a gal so while we worked in the same building, in different departments, and saw each other in passing, we never spoke - FOR FIVE YEARS! Around the time we were both turning thirty, he and the gal split up and the would-be groom and I called it quits. Thirty can be quite the life re-evaluator. After letting me wallow for a few months, my girlfriend Patti, worried that I was having a breakdown, showed up at my apartment to drag me out to see this band that a guy from work was in. I refused to go, seriously, I left claw marks on my doorjamb but she's pretty strong for a librarian, and she muscled me into her car. Prepared for the worst, I watched over the rim of my frothy beer as Hub took the stage with his band the Cartwheels. OMG! The dude who never talked (I used to call him "aloof boy" in my head) was suddenly funny, charming, and, man, he could sing and play guitar! His smile about killed me. We became friends (okay, there may have been some light stalking on my part) and hung out for several months before we finally became a thing. Afterwards, I found out he'd had a crush on me for years and when we got married and his band played, he sang a song he'd written called Butterflies and said, "I wrote this song a few years ago for a girl I had a crush on and today she became my wife."

HALLIE: Oh Jenn, that is the sweetest story ever! And the librarian came to the wedding?

JENN: Yes, she did. She's still a dear friend and in a turnabout is fair play manuever, I'm the one who pushed her (hard shove to the back) into a relationship with the man who is now her husband.

HALLIE: A generation earlier, on another planet perhaps, I was a junior in college and ran into an old boyfriend on Broadway. A very weird old boyfriend. He fixed me up with one of his roommates. I was very wary of going because the old boyfriend was exceptionally weird. But I was on the rebound (from yet another unsuitable match) and so I went... to a hockey game at Madison Square Garden with a physics graduate student whom I would marry eighteen months later. NOT love at first sight. But he grew on me.  In May we'll celebrate 48 years.

JENN: 48 years, Hallie? That is fantastic!

HANK: Absolutely by chance.  I was about six months out of a terrible relationship, and a pal asked me to go with her for a week to share a house in Nantucket. It would just be her, me, another couple, the couple's kids and their nanny.  I brought my bathing suit, and tennis racket,  and a million books--but no make up. I mean--what would happen?  When we arrived at the house, turned out the couple had invited a guy named Jonathan. I took one look at him and thought--this is the coolest man I have ever seen. Get me to the drugstore! But I did not run off to buy make-up, figuring--this is how I look, get used to it.  That was August 18, 1995.  We have not been apart since that day.

JENN: Aw...I love the no make-up. With that self-confidence, of course, he fell for you.

LUCY: I met my John at a singles tennis night at the racquet club in the next town. We got matched up for mixed doubles and had a good time. He remembered my short red tennis skirt and a big smile. I remembered...not much. So when he called to ask for a movie date, I couldn't for the life of me remember who he was and I turned him down. (I attribute that to being blinded by my infatuation with an inappropriate guy who was quite enamored of himself.)
After about six months of playing doubles with John (as friends) and another couple, I began to realize just how special he was. So I invited him to dinner one night. "Who's coming?" he asked. "You," I said. And we've been together ever since. I think he's forgiven me for that first dreadful gaffe...

JENN: What is it about the inappropriate ones, Lucy? 

RHYS: I have to confess that I met my John (how many Johns and Jonathans do we have?) at his girlfriend's party. I must qualify this by saying that I didn't know she was his girlfriend at the time. I was newly arrived in Sydney, Australia and sharing a house with a couple of other girls. They took me along to a party they were attending. I started talking to this very good-looking Englishman (who was wearing a blazer and tie. So weird in sunny Sydney). Polite conversation. He offered to drive me home. I let him. He invited me out a few days later and we walked along a beach and talked. Certainly no spark but he was an interesting man. We went out to a couple of meals, and then... then I got stomach flu. He came round to see me as I was recovering and looked about as bad as anyone can look after a couple of days of vomiting. He made me scrambled egg, sat on the edge of my bed, and fed it to me. My heart melted!

I have to add that in fifty years of marriage he has never once sat on the edge of my bed and fed me anything!

JENN: Fifty years, Rhys? I'm in awe. Congratulations!

INGRID:
Doug and I first met in high school.  We didn't attend the same school, but we had mutual friends.  This was a time when teenagers hung out in groups (do kids still do that?) even when they were dating someone in particular.  We were both involved with others (as much as you can be at sixteen!), but we liked each other as friends.  A few years later we reconnected and really hit it off.  It was over a Christmas break from college, and I remember that he invited me to a New Year's Eve party at his house, which was party central in those days.  He'd cleverly instituted a semi-formal dress code for the event to separate the invited from the drop-ins, and I vividly remember the dress I had on that night, a sleeveless black Liz Claiborne with large, crystal-like buttons.  We've been together ever since, and although it took us time to meander to the altar, I knew he was the one from the start.  My favorite part of our origin story?  The ex-girlfriend who told him shortly after that New Year's Eve, "It will never last with her!"  HA!!

JENN: Yes, I remember the dating in packs thing -- it was very John Hughes. And who doesn't love a bitter ex-girlfriend?  Ha, indeed!

JULIA: I was at a Graduate Student Union dance at GWU, where I was in the master's program for Museum Studies. The band they had hired was horrible - I suspected it was someone's untalented kid brother's garage band. I was chatting with a guy here and there, but mostly biding my time - I had only come because my housemate didn't want to go alone.

This red-headed guy came up and started talking, and he was interesting and smart, and then we made the introductions: "I'm Julia Spencer-Fleming." "I'm Ross Hugo-Vidal." We stared at each other, and then, as one, exclaimed, "You have a hyphen!" 

The challenge of going through life with a double-barrelled name may be a slender reed upon which to rest a relationship, but this May will be our 30th anniversary, so we've obviously found a few more things in common as we went along.

DEBS: Would you believe that Rick and I were next door

neighbors? He and his mom and younger siblings moved in when he was twelve and I was FIFTEEN.  I just thought of the whole bunch as the blond kids next door. Fast forward about four years. I was sitting out on the curb one hot August night with a girlfriend when he drove up on his motorbike, then walked over and took off his helmet. Can you say "love at first sight" along with "cradle robbing?" We went out off and on for about seven years. In one of the "offs", he introduced me to my Scottish ex, never thinking I would go off to Scotland to marry the guy... Fast forward another good few years, and my divorce from Scottish ex. Short version--we got back together, and will be married twenty-three years in May. His mom and sis still live next door to the house I grew up in.

Were we cute babies, or what? 

JENN: Debs, that is the best! I even fanned myself a bit at the motorcycle part. You two were totes adorbs!

So, give us the scoop, Reds, how did you meet your mate? And if you're single, do you want to find a partner or are you happiest flying solo? Because believe me, there are days... 

What We're #Writing @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS comes out on December 2, so I'm obviously not working on that. Other projects have surfaced of course...

In the early days of my marriage to John (when most things were still mysterious,) one of the biggest mysteries about my husband was this: What in the world he could possibly be discussing with his buddies over a 4 to 5 hour golf round several times a week?

So I asked him. What do you talk about?

His answer?

Relationships.

Even a new wife couldn't argue with that!

And that's what I'm writing about now in the sixth Key West food critic mystery, which will be called FATAL RESERVATIONS, and will come out next July. Hooray! Did I forget to mention that I signed a contract for two more books in the series? 
Anyway, back in the third book, TOPPED CHEF, I thought I had figured out the relationships in Hayley Snow's life. But it turned out, I wasn't feeling the zing between her new detective boyfriend and her. So I looked around to see who else might come into the picture. And I've been heading in that direction ever since.

Until I got a fan email from Sue P. last week that made me question, well, everything…

I recently found this series and love it. I do have a complaint though. I was just getting interested to see how the romance would work out between Hayley and her detective. And you bring back his ex and she gets dumped! I was not a happy camper at this development. I still would like to see where this would go, more so than with her boss, which is where you seem to be leading. I think she needs a challenge and this is not her boss. Bring him back!! Just my opinion. Thanks.

So like I said, I'm puzzling over relationships…here's a snippet from FATAL RESERVATIONS:

Fifteen minutes later, I climbed the very steep steps to the Old City Hall building, an imposing red brick structure with ornate black railings and a bell tower. For a hundred years, the city commission had been meeting here on Greene Street, a half block from Sloppy Joe's bar and the chaos of Duval Street. I doubted that visitors had any idea how much city business was conducted while they swilled beer and shouted choruses of Buffet’s Margaritaville and Kenny Chesney’s Key West theme song No shirt, no shoes, no problems.

    The hall was cavernous, handsome, and clearly set out to differentiate the commissioners and city staff from any interested onlookers. A text from Wally buzzed in, reminding me to turn off the ringer on my cell phone. 

    Let me know outcome tomorrow? Mom's chemo was brutal today. I'm going to watch a marathon of Breaking Bad and then crash. See you a.m.at staff meeting.

    As my relationship with Wally took a turn for the better over the last couple of months, his mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse. In that sense, our new half-owner Palamina Wells had been a godsend. She was smart enough to step right in and run the day to day nitty-gritty details of Key Zest while Wally took care of his mom. She was also smart enough to recognize the attraction between me and Wally, and to remove me from reporting directly to him, so we could see where this love train might take us. 



All I can say is, stay tuned to see where this is going. And thanks Sue!

AND some more good news: I have a galley for DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS that I'd love to give away today. To be considered, leave your email and a comment about how you feel about love stories mixed in with your mysteries. (I only hope that one day I will be as good at this as Julia...)