American Rhapsody Read Online Free PDF

him a birthday cake shaped like an iguana. She made love to him in the lighting booth of the school auditorium. She sang “Happy Birthday” to him the way Marilyn had sung it to JFK.
    Just before Andy’s baby was born, Andy told her he was breaking up with
her
. He wanted to be a good father to the baby, he said. But weeks later, he started seeing her again, and she thought she understood now that this was the way married men behaved. They felt guilty; they wanted to stop, but they couldn’t.
    When she finished Santa Monica College, she opted to attend Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, because it felt like Bel Air Prep to her. She knew there wasn’t a chance she could end the relationship with Andy in L.A. She didn’t have the strength to say no. He was hot, good-looking, sexy. She felt herself to be none of those things.
    She shared a house with two guys near campus. She went to flea markets to decorate her room with floral patterns (she loved roses) and embroidered pillows. “She was a slob,” a friend said, like most kids in college. She called her mother to ask how to clean the bathroom and always had her hair done and her legs waxed when her mother visited.
    There was a Knot Shop in Portland, too, and she got a job there, working with the ties that she loved. She helped out at a meeting place for the mentally ill, the Phoenix Club, and tried to make matzo ball soup for the members, but the soup she made was inedible.
    Her new friends noticed that she talked a lot about sex and a lot about her weight. Some described her as larger than life. Some said she was too loud. Most, though, liked her directness and sense of humor.
    She went out with a few guys casually, but she badly missed Andy. So she called him in L.A., and, back home for Thanksgiving, she slept with him again. She slept with him again and again in L.A. during the winter and spring—when she discovered that he was cheating not only on his wife but on her, too.
    In late spring, Andy called to tell her that he, his wife, Kate, and their baby boy were moving to . . . Portland. She was excited and distressed. She felt she still loved him, but she knew that if he came up to Portland, she wouldn’t be able to break it off.
    Andy came up in June, but he came up alone. He told her he’d have to find a place to work and a place for his family to live before they could join him. He told her he was in love with her. He said she was sexy and beautiful. He stayed in Portland without his family the entire summer. She and Andy were together all the time, intimate every day.
    When Kate and the baby came to Portland in the fall, Andy told her, once again, that he felt so guilty, they had to stop being intimate with each other. She tried, but she couldn’t do it. When she met Kate, she liked her. She and Kate became close friends. She felt that her feeling for Kate was partly the result of how much she loved Kate’s husband. She started baby-sitting for Kate and buying clothes both for the baby and Kate’s older daughter. And she slept with Andy at her apartment.
    When Andy kept flying to L.A. on “business,” she became suspicious. She made some calls to friends in L.A. and they told her Andy was sleeping with a teenager at Beverly Hills High. She got the teenager’s number and called her. The teenager was angry that Andy wasn’t seeing her enough. The girl felt abused and said she was thinking about calling Andy’s wife and telling her everything.
    Monica confronted Andy and told him the teenager was thinking about calling his wife. Andy cried like a baby and said he was going to kill himself. He begged for her forgiveness and begged her to help him. She called the teenager back and convinced her not to call Andy’s wife. In return, Andy agreed that he wouldn’t just sneak away from Kate for a few hours to have sex with her. He’d take her out for a drink or dinner and