Roy and Joni (Chapter 7) When Dreams and Hearts Collide
(Please read previous chapters first)
Joni was a wonderful mystery to Roy. What he knew about her was based on just one meeting and some general comments volunteered from Larry. Maybe it was what Roy didn't know or even want to know that made this special creature so exciting. Biographies were for school work. Roy only wanted to be near Joni and to mutually seek to experience the joy and uniqueness of that magic that exists between a man and a woman. Roy was drowning in a sea of love and he didn't want anybody to rescue him.
Joni was a product of a broken home--her father left her mother when Joni was 12 for a woman 18 years his junior. It is a gross understatement to say Joni's mother didn't handle the divorce in an adult manner. For several months after the divorce her mother would drink in the house and just before passing out, or going to bed, she would rant and rave to Joni about how bad her father was, and in fact, how terrible all men were.
Later, she graduated to the local bars and clubs to drink with fellow female friends who were traveling down the same divorce road to recovery. The talk was always the same: They each had done
nothing, not one thing, to cause their divorce. A couple of drinks later, it was about working overtime to make house and car payments, children's dental expenses not covered by the insurance from the ex, and the latest counselors their children were seeing--again covered by the ex. Before the regular Friday night ex-wives club meeting broke up, a few of the members expectantly called their baby sitter to announce they would be a few hours later than promised. They did not mention they had an after meeting appointment with a new male acquaintance. Joni's mother married one of her new acquaintances when Joni was a junior in high school. Joni and her step father had an unspoken peaceful co-existence understanding. Neither would bother the other. Joni's mother liked it that way. Her step-father liked it that way and Joni liked it that way. Happy family conversations only happened on the Ozzie and Harriet Nelson TV program---never in Joni's family.
When Joni started dating, she had a perspective about males that was in large measure shaped by a mother who distrusted all men and a father that had hurt her mother. Up until now, she was a surrogate warrior for her mother against her father and her own war against all men. She had lots of notches on her weapon of choice---breaking hearts after a warm build up then the big break up. Something was happening with Roy---never been on date with him. Friday could not come soon enough.
(To Be continued...)
