Not Fit For The Fast Life And Glamour

I managed to finish college and against my parent's wishes I moved to New York to live my my mom's little sister. It was a run down apartment, a fourth story walkup, far from the glamour of Manhattan. I got a job as a sales clerk at Macy's, close to the glamour I wanted. I spent my lunch hour outside watching the glamour walk by. I dreamed of those heels, the thousand dollar tops, the handbags. But when it was over I rode the subway with all the ordinary people back to my aunt's fourth floor walkup.

My aunt worked in the garment industry. A fancy word for a seamstress that took in work from a chain of drycleaners. She is a lesbian with a checkered past life including a porn actress when she was younger and lived in California. She didn't hide any of it from me, she didn't hide the failed relationships. She was forty and facing a long life of poverty. She wanted a man in her life to support her.

When I started seeing a girl from work, she worked in shoes and was tall, dark and handsome. Think JLO, Puerto Rico, what a woman. My aunt told me to forget her, find a man and get married. I didn't listen. I had my first ever hot, over the top love affair. And six weeks later she was dating a waitress from a restaurant in Rockefeller Center. My aunt said, find a guy who makes money and get married. She also said my window was no older than 27.

She met a widower in his fifties who wanted a woman to keep house for him. She told me she was getting married. I left New York and went back to Cincinnati, with one wild affair under my belt. I swallowed my pride, went out with my childhood boyfriend. We got married a year later. I was 25. He is a County Cop, son of a Cop. My Dad's a Cop. It's tough right now but in our 'town' Cops are still needed. I have a job with Bank of America. Been there for ten years now. New York and all its glamour is in the rearview mirror.