I could hear my heart beating.  I could hear everyone's 
     	heart.  I could hear the human noise we sat there making,
     	not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.
				WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE
				--Raymond Carver

				LOVE AT LAST

	You know, there were times when you and Oakland saved me.  In
fact, every time I needed saving, through the Madison years, I could drive
to Oakland in twenty-four hours and feel right at home.  Remember the
Oatmeal Minstrels?  All those nights your gang and I ate your oatmeal
cookies and played our guitars until the sun rose.  That Audrey with the
loaded gun under her pillow.  Man, could that girl handle her
twelve-string.  All of us were single back then.  Some of us still are.  
When did you lose touch with Carlisle?  I can't remember your funny story
about how she got that nickname.  I never did find out what her real name
was, I don't think.  Too bad you lost track of her, but I know how
friendships go.
	You and Carlisle had that strange plan.  You two said if you
didn't find the right men soon, you'd resort to artificial insemination,
move to Mexico, and raise your perfect babies in bohemian simplicity.  
Carlisle wanted to write bizarre stories about strange animals who roamed
all the better for multiple heads and eyes.  Would that have made her
novel?  You said you'd paint more of those violent abstracts, like my
favorite:  the hot pumping heart with the bright red blood surging through
constricting orange veins in the midst of a violet and black emptiness.
	You two would always talk about your biological clocks, how they
were ticking you toward motherlessness.  Carlisle and I sat sipping beers,
watching you perk espresso in that mirror-like silver pot, or slicing up
those fat yellow lemons,grown in your yard, with your very sharp knife
while you kept a watchful eye on the blue double-boiler, cooking your
gently whipped egg whites for those perfect meringue pies with the great
brown beads of sugary sweat that I always ate so ravenously.  And through
all this I would listen to you two talk about men, all of them slime,
who'd treated you so badly.
	There was the young architect who lived in Piedmont behind his
huge picture windows along with the lovely little wife he forgot to
mention to you.  And how about the English teacher who loved old movies so
much that he sold all your possessions while you were home in Hawai'i so
he could expand his poster collection and leave you a bare apartment.  I
know you laughed when you mentioned it needed redecorating anyway.  But
from the way you told it, I almost cried.  Then there was the old Berkeley
radical, balding above his cracked leather jacket, who drove like a maniac
on his vintage Harley.  You said he took one trip too many south of the
border to restock his mobile drugstore and thought you might see him in
ten to fifteen years.  Or how about the struggling lawyer who slaved for
his father, a true junior partner, so daddy could sneak lunches with you,
help you polish your Spanish, buy you red roses and perfume.  Am I
inventing this, or did you tell me he dropped dead of a heart attack,
leaving you to explain his presence in your apartment to the frantic son
who finally managed to get away from the office.
	So finally, congratulations to you on your lead mechanic and your
fine daughter and son.  You were always a great mother to me.  You waited
so long for the right man to come along, to give you the kind of love that
you always deserved, though I'm still not sure even he could appreciate
your lemon meringue pies more than I do.
	I know Audrey moved back to Hawaii with all her weapons, but I
really wish I knew whatever happened to Carlisle.  Did she, I wonder,
abandon her novel plans?  Find love at last, too, like you, somewhere
beyond her art?