OPPOSITES ATTRACT(Charles E.J. Moulton) OPPOSITES ATTRACT

By Charles E.J. Moulton


“Opposites do attract, but these opposites can only survive if both lovers in a relationship work on eliminating their bad habits.”

Frances had kept telling single friends all the time to work on themselves in a relationship. Alas, she was only projecting her own painful singlehood on others and thereby refusing to deal with the pain of past break-ups.

Greg had broken up with her four years ago. The dishy jeweler had left her with a smile on his lips, telling her that she was “too bossy to stand”. That hole in her soul created Frances the Matchmaker, someone who worked to bring other people together, instead of actually working on her own bad habits. Being a soul subjected to a great deal of pain, in terms of relationships, she denied her own past.

But then there came that day when she witnessed a crisis that became not only a catharsis for those other lovers, but for her own observance.

Jake and Elena were opposites in just about everything. Through the ongoing years as single adults, their bad habits increased, festered and grew in strength. In fact, they had never ever been forced to adjust to anyone else but to themselves. Here a one-night-stand, there a flirt, all on the pathway of big careers.

Frances had never ever thought they would end up together.

She had suggested other possible partners, yes. Elena had smiled, knowingly, when Frances told her she needed a boyfriend in order to calm down. Elena asked her if she was a matchmaker. If so, was it possible to find a boyfriend who could keep up with a woman who ran the finest gourmet restaurant in London, a high society location called “Brittany’s”.
Elena worked more than many guys did.
In order to keep up with that, a man needed quite a lot of durability.
On top of that, Elena was a self-made woman, half Argentinian and half-Welsh, a Catherine Zeta-Jones – Jennifer Lopez look-a-like and had the habit of wanting to change any man that she ended up with.

Frances suggested men and Elena did go out with them. She even slept with them more than once. But a week later, it was over and Elena was back to her fourteen-hour-a-day-schedule. Elena warded them off with a lame excuse:
“I have no time for a relationship, I’m sorry!”

So, eventually, Frances gave up.

One spring day, in April it was, Frances called Elena and told her that she had tickets for a successful play that had just started its’ run on the West End.

“Death and the Maiden” had received rave reviews and Jake MacAllister was hailed as the new London theatre scene stage celebrity. He also happened to be a neighbour of Frances in their apartment building in Kensington. Frances loved straight drama and going out with her best friend Elena was the obvious choice.

The funny thing was that there were no hidden agendas on Frances’ part this time. The one time when Frances had no matchmaking in mind, that was when the sparks flew.

The author was a born Argentinian named Ariel Dorfman. Elena, born in Argentina, would have to be interested. Furthermore, the leading actor was from Wales. Elena had moved to Swansee in Wales at age five. Two reasons for an invitation. Two reasons Elena should have been suspicious. Frances taking her out to see a play with so many national connections?

Matchmaking was written on her forehead, blinking in green and red lights.
Maybe it was too obvious. Maybe it was too perfect for her to suspect anything. The nerds and duds that Frances had presented her with left very much to hope for. Frances’ matchmaking days were over, or so she had claimed.

Well, anyway, the two women left early for the Duke of York’s theatre in St. Martin’s Lane. They had their Campari Oranges and their Gin Fizz and by the time they were sitting in the stalls, they were drunk and happy.
The play sobered them up and that thoroughly.

The story of the South American political activist that, after years of freedom, recognized her own raping oppressor from her days in captivity was a troubling story to say the least. The part of the raping doctor was no easy part to play, but Jake did it so well that the people were flabbergasted.

What really troubled Frances was that Elena didn’t care that Jake really played an asshole. She fell for him, head and heels. Yes, she said during the intermission, his part was that of a bastard. But what a fabulous looking bastard he was. Wouldn’t you die to have your entrances examined by that man? Okay, Elena claimed, the play was the one thing. Jake was probably a very nice person and not very evil in private.

“Look at any ‘Making Of’,” she claimed. “The director will always tell you that the man playing the bad guy is the nicest guy on set.”

Frances had to agree with that.

Frances had never ever heard Elena speak like this. This made her apprehesive. Elena, this overly pedantic boss of the finest resturant in London, and Jake, this chaotic, messy, Welsh drinker that never ever cleaned up his socks unless they walked over to the washing machine themselves: were these people compatible? Oil and water, yes. But Jake and Elena? Whew. Sparks would fly. Pots and pans would, as well.

Frances had never thought of it.

Elena had. She had spent the last hours thinking about it.

So, Elena insisted on going to “Angel & Crown”, Jake’s standard after-show-eatery, in order to meet him. All the way there, it was Jake this and Jake that. Didn’t he have a cute mouth and a cute butt. “I can’t wait to kiss him...”, on and on, blah-blah-blah.

The ladies ordered two Somerset cider brandies and waited at the “Angel & Crown”.

When Jake arrived, it was with an entourage of ladies in waiting. As he came to sit with Frances and Elena, waving off the fans, he gave Frances a short and affectionate “Hello!” before stopping dead short when he saw Elena.

“And who might you be, dear lady?”

Frances eyed heavenward. What an old smoothie.

This was Jake’s moment. She could almost see Elena’s nipples turning into cherries. Soon, there would be plates flying and loud female screams of “Bastard!” and “Get out!”
Right now, they were in love.

Frances turned into the incarnated fifth wheel that night.
For three full hours, she sat there listening to them blabber on about playwrights, art and African food. Yawn. Ah, the jet-set.

Whilst Frances walked herself home, Jake joined Elena in her Soho penthouse for, what did she call it, “a quick drink”. Ah, yes, a quick drink and subsequent breakfast.

Frances was rich, but single. That was safer, no old socks lying about.
Her net stockings were safer hanging about alone on her chair.
No more matchmaking for Frances. There was no use, anyway.
Elena made her own choices.

When she turned up at “Brittany’s” that next evening, Elena’s associates told her Elena had taken the day off. It was clear to Frances where she was. Frances decided to walk over from her Covent Garden antique shop late after work to find if the two love-birds were reconnecting again at “Angel & Crown” after Jake’s show.
They were. It was an even shorter “Hello!” this time and Frances was not even a wheel this time. She was one of Jake’s old socks.
Elena had not yet seen Jake’s flat. Whoppsie-Daisies, was all Frances could say.
Bring your detergent.

Many days went by, many nights passed. Elena was as absent in Frances’ life as the pope would be in a peep show parlour. She could have been living on the moon.
Then, one evening, she heard them coming in next door into Jake’s flat. Now, she was curious. Would Elena scream? No, she didn’t. Should she go over? Nah, they wanted their privacy. But had Jake cleaned up? Obviously. She heard laughter.
Okay, Frances, she told herself. There, no credit for ya here.
Elena and Jake, Jake and Elena, the Bogey and Bergman for poor people, they were obviously doing the horizontal mumbo jumbo. Frances was watching “Eastenders” on BBC 1 in order to cool off when Rhett and Scarlett obviously had their first eight o’clock session. They made the whole building shake.

During Monty Don’s “Gardener’s World” on BBC 2, Jake’s flat was suspiciously silent. Frances grew uneasy and even walked out into the hallway, trying to hear what was happening in the apartment above. Not a sound. Oops.
She spent the next hour zapping uneasily and fell asleep in front of “Inspector Taggart” on ITV 3. At eleven o’clock, she woke up to the sound of very intense bumping sounds in the apartment above. All the while, Cher was playing her role as an unconventional mother in Richard Benjamin’s “Mermaids”.
One episode of “Ally McBeal” was enough for her to turn off the telly.
Enough was enough.
Frances went to bed, put some cotton in her ears and dreamt about Antonio Banderas.

Elena always stopped by Frances antique store in Covent Garden before her own work day started. At least, when she had nothing better to do.
That next morning, there was a knock on the glass door.
Frances looked up from the inspection of an usually large Ming vase.
Frances went over to the entrance and opened the shop door for her, as it was before opening time. This morning, Elena was beaming.
“Hi, Francie,” she chirped.
“I heard you,” Frances mused.
“What? Heard what?” Elena asked with eyes as big as tea saucers. There was a long pause. Then the penny dropped. “Oh.” Elena smiled. “Oops. Well, Jake is fabulous. We did it five times last night. That guy is a machine.”
“You wanna be a cliché, Elena?”
The question came from a frustrated rich girl.
It was a legitimate question, but still one posed out of envy.
“What?!” Elena took one step closer to Frances and shook her head. “I’m a cliché?”
Frances shook her head. “I am sorry.” She walked up to Elena and caressed her arm. “I am having what the Yankees would call an issue here.”
Elena closed her eyes and sighed. “Issues? You spent three years trying to hook me up with every single guy in London and now you have issues?”
“It’s just that I am afraid that you are going to get hurt, dear,” Frances said and went to the Ming vase again.
“No, no, that’s not what you said,” Elena chimed in. “You asked me if I wanted to be a cliché.”
Frances looked at her watch. Five minutes before she had to open that door and let the customers in. Better do this fast and good. She wanted to keep Elena as a friend.
“I saw an episode of Ally McBeal last night and it suddenly struck me,” Frances said.
“Ally’s bones struck you?”
Frances laughed. “That we are a society fixed on appearance. I might be talking from the perspective of a single girl with lots of money hoping for exactly to have what you have. But ...”
Frances was searching for the words, stammered, couldn’t find them. She saw customers waiting outside and gestured toward Elena to come closer to the office, away from all the attention.
Once there, she continued.
She saw Elena’s tense look and was really afraid that she was going to lose a friend.
“I need your companionship,” Frances said, “you are the best friend I have ever had. It is just that I see myself having imposed every yuppie in England on you and now suddenly the one guy I didn’t really suggest is the one that seems to be the right one. And I am thinking to myself: is this the right one? Really the right one? Jake?”

For one second, time stood still. Frances had a lump in her throat and Elena was still recovering from a lump in someone’s crotch. Elena burst out laughing and this time Frances laughed along. What a relief.
“You are envious,” Elena said. Elena began singing: “Francie is jealous.”
“Listen, for all it is worth, I am really happy for you two,” Frances said. “I am just afraid that when the sex wears out, that you will be stuck with Mr. Messy and plates will fly.”
Elena smiled. “You should have been a writer, you have a way with words.”
Elena Fernandez hugged her friend. “For all my words are worth, I know what you are talking about. This is a superficial society. But right now, I am madly in love and having the best sex of my life. Let’s have this conversation a year from now, okay? Then I will see where I am and if Jake still pops my cork. Is that a deal?”
Frances nodded. “It is now Friday, April the 23rd, 2010. On April the 23rd 2011 at nine o’clock sharp we will meet right here and speak about your relationship with Jake.”
The girls shook hands.

Frances walked Elena to the door and welcomed the first customers. She was about to witness Elena’s most turbulent year yet.
Frances worked, cooked, went out dining, met friends and went to see plays. But deep inside her subconscious, Frances was worried. Jake and Elena were spending more and more time together. So much so, that Frances just saw them in passing. It was pink clouds, ice cream cones, orgasms and movie shows.
Small hints of tensions appeared inside the pink clouds of spunned sugar. Frances was on her way to work one day and Jake was obviously on his way to rehearsal. Elena had parked her Lamborghini on Kensington High Street and was yelling at Jake that he ought to start considering organizing his apartment in a better manner. Jake laughed at her and told her that it was his business what he did with his flat.
Elena asked him to shut up if he wanted a lift.
Frances drove off in her own Volvo, deliberately keeping a low profile.
In the rear view mirror, she could see them argue.
Frances shook her head and clicked the “Play” button on the car radio.
On the CD, Freddie Mercury started asking her if this was the real life. He was telling her that he was caught in a land slide.

The next few nights were calm.
Obviously, Jake had chosen to keep his mouth shut after all.
The relationship suffered its’ first major quarrel in June. Elena had vowed to move into Jake’s luxurious, chaotic penthouse flat for a week. Frances knew that trouble was coming up. She had wondered how this pedantic woman could have kept her mouth shut for so long. Jake had a great flat, but he left things laying around everywhere.

The worst part was that Jake was not rehearsing. The guest co-star for the female lead had been given her own premiere, the press was loving her and the production was selling tickets. Jake played the show eight times a week and spent the rest of his days at home. He was rehearsing his lines at times, or so Elena was saying. The couple were making love, or so Elena said. Elena was still madly in love, or so she said. She had taken a week off from her duties at “Brittany’s” and vowed to invest some time in this thing.

That was when the trouble began.
Elena started reorganizing Jake’s flat. She bought paint and brushes and told Jake to redecorate. She moved furniture around and hung paintings in other places. She threw away papers. She put documents in new boxes. The place looked grea. It wasn’t Jake’s flat anymore, it had lost his touch, but it looked great.
Jake was confused, bewildered and caught in a landslide.
Just like Freddie Mercury.
Elena was having the time of her life.
What was really strange was that Jake didn’t complain at all.
This went on for the remainder of the summer.
Bad habits come easily.
Getting rid of bad habits is harder, Frances told herself.
Jake’s bad habits were yet to unfold.

In August of 2010, Jake had turned into a sun-glasses-wearing, quiet and reserved guy.
Frances spoke to him about his appearance and he waved it off.
His six month contract with the Duke-of-York’s Theatre was finished and now Jake was rehearsing a new play at the West End. A period piece by a lesser known British playwright named Lawrence Pennyfeather. “Friends and Relations” was basically a farce set in an aristocratic Victorian home.
Fate would have it that Frances’ Covent Garden shop “Antique Nobility” was chosen to loan the theatre some period furniture. Her historical expertise was also needed. She was, after all, an expert on early Victorian fashion. She worked with the costume designers in perfecting the perfect look of the 1840’s jetset in London.
That meant, she saw a great deal more of Jake.
She didn’t like what she saw.

Here, the bad habits clashed. Now it was Jake’s turn to retalliate.
Elena’s bad habit was bossing her boyfriend around until he snapped.
Jake’s bad habit was sleeping around instead of talking about his problems.
This time it was a cute actress named Victoria, who happened to be playing his on-stage-wife. She was not darkhaired and sultry like Elena. She was blond, perky, sexy, blue-eyed, high-voiced and cute, with long legs and a C-cup.

Frances caught the two fondling each other back stage before a morning rehearsal. It was obvious that Jake was letting off steam. They thought they were not being seen, but Frances saw them and saw clearly what was going on. They were kissing behind production scenery. No, kissing was not the word. Jake’s hand was inside her bra. Victoria’s hand was inside his underpants, moving about.

Frances was in a tight spot. Here she was, her two best friends making huge mistakes and she was powerless to stop them. The worst thing was that Jake was actually behaving like an angel at home. Elena occasionally stopped by her own Soho flat, but for the most part she was at home in Kensington. She cooked for Jake, gave him orders, told him to take out the trash, laughed at him when he made a mistake and emphasized what stupid brutes men were.
All in all, Frances knew what was going on. Jake felt disrespected. He felt patronized and instead of telling Elena that she was being rude, he got his respect elsewhere. Inside Vickie’s bra.

The worst was yet to come.
This triangle drama kept on unfolding for months. By the beginning of November, Elena was pregnant with Jake’s child. It was clear that it would be a June child, a little cancerian. Outward, everything was perfect. Frances told herself that all was well. Jake was behaving at home. Elena was pregnant. Maybe Vickie had left. What did Frances know? Nothing, most probably. After all, how would she know? She had just seen Vickie and Jake fondling each other once. That could have been a one time deal.

Christmas came and went, New Year’s Eve came and went. Big parties were arranged, wonderful food was cooked, drunken nights were spent in rooms with loud music, laughter, books, midnight ice cream and early morning discussions. Wealthy customers spent their mornings enjoying bad hangovers in lucious guest rooms.

It was a snowless, drizzling, boring February when the bomb exploded. Elena was up to her ears in work, preparing a huge catering deal at the Hilton Hotel. Her restaurant “Brittany’s” was hosting a symposium for the world wide partners of the company Hewlett Packard and, supposedly, Jake was preparing to audition for The Globe Theatre. His agent had landed him an audition for Hamlet and he was working on that day and night, or so he said.

He knew that Elena had a tight schedule and that she would be travelling with the executives to Oxford. So, accordingly, she wouldn’t be in town. Frances came home to her building around seven o’clock that night and heard familiar sounds coming from Jake’s apartment above. The sounds of moans and groans and positive response to a wonderful, female climax.
Frances stood there for two minutes in the hallway, before rushing into her own flat. She managed to see who exactly was rushing down the stairs with Jake this time. It was Victoria. Jake had been screwing his colleague in the bed where he also made love to Elena.
This was a problem.
Frances had never ever had moral issues this heavy before.
Should she speak to Jake about this?
Even worse, should she tell Elena?
Whatever she did, she would become the traitor.

On the verge of just asking Jake what was going on one day, she was interrupted by a phone call and the possibility to inspect the situation was lost. The second time around, Elena herself proved to be the culprit. Third time lucky? She didn’t know.

March was a special month. The doctors told Elena and Jake that they were expecting a girl and the love birds were planning marriage and interested in buying a house.
That was when the bomb dropped and it was nuclear.
Jake had for a long time suspected that his health was shifting.
He was in the middle of rehearsals for “Hamlet”, when he at once felt dizzy and had to sit down. The director saw him sweat more than usual, go to the bathroom more than was normal for a man his age, and drink entire bottles of coke in one gulp.
In the local diner one day, a colleague told him to check his sugar levels.
That day, Jake MacAllister was diagnosed with Diabetes Mellitus Type 1.
Elena was devasted. She vowed to help her boyfriend, even in her frail condition. Never a believer of traditional medicine, she sent Jake to homepathic doctors. The specialist interviewed him and asked him all sorts of questions, claiming to cure body and soul. Elena was there all through this process and Jake felt that he couldn’t speak freely.
Jake left out the afair with Vickie.
He had felt disgusted with himself that he had been unfaithful. His dormant diabetes had exploded as a shock reaction.

Elena presented another bad habit: her own stubborn streak of not giving up even when she should. She told her boyfriend to write the homeopathic doctor a letter. If he couldn’t tell her, he should at least tell the doctor what the problem was and what exactly he had left out on that last session.
He wrote an e-mail to the doctor. That March of 2011, he told the councillor that he was in love with two women and again left out the fact that he was actually just sleeping around because he was angry at his girlfriend. Elena read the e-mail in secret and the battle began. Elena saw this as high treason.
Plates were broken, screams did echo in the hallways, male cries of help and retribution were heard. Slamming doors were followed by promises of never to return and to raise the baby herself. Elena jumped into her Lamborghi, pregnant in the sixth month with her boyfriend’s child. Jake ended up running down into the street in his underwear, scratching his knees on the pavement and promising to behave.

The car was gone.
Elena stayed away for a long time after that.
Frances didn’t mix in.
She felt she had mixed in enough.
She hadn’t expected Elena to actually turn up on April 23rd 2011 at nine o’clock.
She did, however, turn up.
So, there she was in Frances’ antique dealer store, crying, nervous and shy.
There she was, this beautiful blend of Argentina and Wales, with the figure of Catherine Zeta-Jones and the face of Jennifer Lopez, pregnant in the seventh month and mascara running down her nose.
She stood there for a long time without saying a word.
“You told me so,” she said.
Frances couldn’t answer.
She had known all along.

Before long, Elena was gone again.
Despite all the efforts of fate to destroy Jake’s psyche, Hamlet was a success. Jake was still screwing Victoria, but he was miserable. He was turning into an alcoholic.
Every night was an excuse for a drink.
Frances witnessed him coming home at three o’clock every night and sleeping until noon. He was doing good performances, but he was calling escort girls home every weekend and smoking pot with them on the terrace.
Frances never knew what actually made her knock on Jake’s door that evening in June.
Maybe because it was Jake’s night off, maybe because she felt that it was about time for her to interfere. She had called Elena five times now and had only been greeted by an answering service every time. By Jove, Frances told herself, if she wasn’t going to find a man, then at least she would be a spinster aunt visiting her happy friends on weekends.

Jake was gone. He was out and about, cruising the bars and drinking himself unconcious. He ended up somewhere around Picadilly Circus, screaming at the top of his lungs, pleading for someone to shoot him.
Frances received a call at seven o’clock that next morning, that a certain Mr. MacAllister had tried to call his ex-girlfriend and received only response from an answering service. That was why the police now were calling Frances. Jake was in prison, the police officer said. He was being held in custody until noon for drunk subordinance and had asked for Frances to come and visit him, if Elena couldn’t make it.
Frances put on her clothes, jumped into her car and drove to the police station.
She found Jake crying in his cell, regretting everything he had done and believing that he had lost Elena forever.

Angels do exist, Frances told herself.
And these angels must’ve communicated with Elena, because she called Frances on her cell phone as she was standing in Jake’s cell.
At midday, Jake was released from prison.
All that Frances could say was that someone was waiting for him outside the station.
There she was, beautiful Elena. Pregnant, crying, bruised, confused, bossy, egotistical.
Jake stood there, a victim of his own gluttony.
Two successful people stood on a crowded London street, unrecognized, not followed by the press, looking like homeless bums and feeling like wounded rabbits.
Two or three minutes must’ve passed before one of them dared take a step forward.
“I’ve missed you,” Jake said, softly.
Elena shook her head. “That’s why you slept around?”
Jake smiled bitterly and shrugged. “I didn’t have the guts to tell you I was hurt. I wanted you to love me just like I was. Messy, crazy and passionate.”
“Jake,” Elena said, stroking her tummy. “This little girl is a part of you, a part of your love. You jepordized that.”
“I didn’t dare to tell you how hurt I was,” Jake said.
“I disrespected you?”
Jake nodded. “You didn’t give a shit about my flat or my taste. You thought I had none. I felt bulldozed.”
“I’m sorry,” Elena whispered.
“I’m sorry, too,” Jake answered. “I shouldn’t have been unfaithful. I promise you that I didn’t do it out of a lack of love. Maybe I did it, because I was hurt. I don’t love Vickie. I love you. I want to spend my life with you.”

In a nearby park, Frances sat in a café watching this scenario.
A young couple strolled off, holding hands and talking, desperately trying to patch up the past, mending the future by living in the now.

Opposites do attract, Frances told herself quietly as she sat there drinking her Irish Coffee, but these opposites can only survive if both lovers in a relationship work on eliminating their bad habits.

#

Jake and Elena were opposites in just about everything. If opposites like them could make it, after all, maybe Frances was capable of finding a suitable husband as well.
As the actor and the restaurant manager tried to mend their past by looking into the future, a certain antique dealer stepped into her car and drove off trying to find her present.
This time she made a promise to herself not to play the matchmaker for other people any more. She had been the observer of the people’s joys and pains for too long, obviously defining herself as a watcher and a meddler instead of a doer.
She vowed to live and love herself, trying to find someone to hold when thunder struck and the land slided.
If she was lucky, she would be able to eliminate some of her own bad habits before her future partner discovered she had them.
Frances remembered Greg, the dishy jeweler, and decided this time not to search for a lover. This time, she would let fate find one for her.
After all, love must evolve naturally.
When it arrives the spiritual journey of discovery begins, Frances mused and vowed to let herself become someone open enough to change her own bad habits in order to, one sunny day, be able to call herself a married woman.

---