Chapter Six: Do It for the Love.

"I would kill myself if they ever tried to do that sort of thing to me," Libby said, while she was sharing the story of Kamal and Selma with me.

"Don't talk like that Libby," I rebuked her, "You shouldn't go around saying things like that."

"But it's true, I mean it. What kind of life is that living your whole life with someone who you don't even like, let alone love? Just because your parents think they know better than you what is good for you? They may do it to Kamal and get away with it. But that's as far as they're going to get with those old-fashioned rituals unless they decide to go back to the baby pit for another child to practice on. Not Libby, though, thank you very much."

"Don't you think people can find happiness in an arranged marriage?"

"Good for them if they do, but not for me. I'll go find my dream lover with no help from anyone."

"You know, I should be thrilled to hear that kind of talk from you since it would seem like I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of your folks choosing someone like me, for their daughter. But I can't help but feel a bit concerned about you taking this stance."

"I'm a big girl; I can fend for myself." She defended herself. "You don't have to go about worrying about me."

"Is this the way it works in your household?" I asked her later on. "You have got to pass every exam that you sit?"

"Why else would I sit them, if not to pass them?" She spewed the ash back at me.

"There are people in this world, you know, who believe and will swear on their mother's grave to the fact that one canlearn an awful lot more from failure than success. Or at least, from failing an exam, as it is in this particular case here rather than from passing one. You know, failure tends to get one to put things into proper perspective sometimes and to try harder the next time. Then, one might even be able to pick up on a thing or two that one might have missed on the first take."

"I would much rather pass it on the first take and be done with it, thank you. Which, by the way, is exactly what I'm expecting to happen this summer. I just want to be done with this and be out of here, the sooner I'm out, the better."

"And why is that; don't you like it here? Or is it somebody else that you can't stand to see anymore, me perhaps?"

"No, no, this is not about you. I just think it's time for me to start moving on with my life. To start doing my own thing, in my way."

"So, what, or more like, who; who is preventing you from doing your own thing now as it is?"

"Can we change the subject, please? I don't want to get into that sort of thing now. Maybe someday in the future, but not now."

"Yes, I was married before," I told her in response to her queries as to my marital status, or more like, as to why a nice guy like me is not. You know, like, married? "I got hitched at twenty-six years of age, that marriage lasted for four years. We were together for only three of those four years when she was to have up and left, a year later, we were divorced. She found someone else. Someone who (just happened to) have had much more moneythan I did. So, she started acting up. Behaving weirdly and blaming me for anything and everything.

I would have further committed the biggest faux pas ever when I gave her a cheap gift I had picked up at the pawnshop on her birthday. That's all I could afford at the time or barter trade for, but it's the thought that counts, right? She said she needed space. It wasn't long afterward, though, before that space was nicely filled by someone else, someone who just happened to be her brother's best friend and co-worker.

They were both jockeys riding at the Woodbine racetrack at the time and were locked tight in an epic and fierce battle to become the top jockey of the year. Needless to say; the money was rolling in in that arena. Coincidence or what? Little buggers weren't just riding horses though, they were riding bitches too."

"Ugh!" Libby gasped. "Are you serious? I can't believe you'd just said that."

"Bitches as in dogs you know. You know, these competitive sports professional types," I said further, lying through my grinning white teeth.

"They just seemed to delight themselves in spending time and money on extra-curricular, extra-judicial activities, such as those that cannot face the light of a Sunny day." I said all of that continuing along in the deceit, trying to deter her from the real and original meaning of what she knew darn well that I was saying. She wasn't fooled, that's for sure.

"Yeah, right," she said.

To be continued.