Pretty little Sheila, you'll know...

George, Eric and I always laughed about the winter we spent in Florida, me cooking a good meal, heavy drinking and watching "Cops" and other lousy TV with the dog sitting on George's lap...

Here's my side of the story.

One night I was at a charity event in West Palm, I was wandering around after the event, mingling with the crowd enjoying a fine Cuban cigar, I think it was a Fuentas. I heard a woman's voice with an English accent. "Do you have a light?"
I  lit her English Oval and we chatted, we had a drink, another. Her name was Sheila, she was blonde, blue-eyed and her face was almost too perfect. More on that later.

I gave her a ride home, we started to date. 

Sheila had a lovely house on a lake in West Palm, she had a poodle. Her poodle and my dog got along just like Sheila and I got along. Our dogs played, so did Sheila and I. 

Sheila looked like the English actress Diana Dors, maybe better. When you looked closely at her face, it was almost too perfect, it was symmetrical. 

Have you ever taken a mirror and held it in the middle of your face? The reflection shows your entire face, but only one side reflected as one. It's disconcerting.

When Sheila was 13, she was riding with her parents, she was in the backseat. Her father's car ran into the back of a lorry. Sheila was thrown between the seats and smashed her face into the dashboard of her father's Jaguar. Broken nose, broken cheekbones, lost teeth, and a skull fracture. Her face was destroyed. As she said, "I went from a pretty, happy girl to an unhappy monster in a split second." 

Sheila's father was a doctor, after much consultation with his peers, he sent her to a hospital in Switzerland, 18 months later, Sheila had her face back. (Sheila built a consulting business working with Doctors and psychologists, along with beauty experts to help people like her adjust to their new reality after injuries.)

When people first met Sheila she could be intimidating, but she was warm and funny in a typical understated English way. One evening we were in line, waiting for a table at a restaurant in Palm Beach. Guys kept staring at Sheila, a lot of them were focusing on her boobs. A middle-aged guy was especially enamored, Sheila said, "Look at them all you want, I've had them since I was 13 and it doesn't bother me in the least."

Orly Knutson and his wife the lovely Judy, came to Flordia to stay with me for a week.  When Judy met Sheila, she told me later. "She was so intimidating, her face, her hair, that body and her sense of overwhelming confidence, I was ready to hate her. She won me over in 10 minutes." 

I knew that feeling.

Through January, February, and into March, Sheila and I were inseparable. If I wasn't at her house, she was at mine. I had a small swimming pool. (it took up my entire tiny backyard) Shelia would sunbathe and swim topless. My elderly neighbor would stand, peering through the tall hedge on his side of the fence and water the same flowers for hours. Of course, it wasn't long before his wife put a stop to that. 

Things between us were going "swimmingly" or so it seemed. Towards the end of March, I took Sheila to the Palm Beach Film Festival. The festival was a celebration of Alfred Hitchcock. Tippie Hedren and Janet Leigh were the speakers. The festival was a black-tie event. Sheila looked like a movie star in an understated white silk gown. She charmed everyone she met. I was more than happy to stand in her glow.

After the festival, we drove to her house on the lake. I parked in her driveway, Sheila put her hand on my arm, "Robert, we're going to have to take a break for 3 weeks."

"Why?"

"My husband will be here, he's finished his project in Spain and he has some time before the next begins."

"Your husband?"

"Yes, we have an agreement."

I looked Sheila in the eyes and said, "Get the fuck out of my car!"
She did, I jammed my black BMW into reverse, burned rubber in her driveway and did the same on the street in front of her house.

I was mad and heart-broken. I had tickets for Sheila and me to fly to North Dakota for my father's Memorial service. I wanted my family to meet her.

Sheila called me off and on for a few months, one night she told me I "Should grow up". I told her to fuck off for the 2nd time. that was the end. 

It was the beginning of my weekends with George and Eric and my 7 months of monkish exile.  I emerged from the monastery for George's birthday dinner in October. I hadn't been out since March.

That night I met Cakes.