Blah, blah, blah. He really did talk a lot. I tried to listen and follow but I was never interested in what he spoke about. Ian Hawthorne was a doctor, originally a country doctor, who established a publishing company that only printed medical books. Surgery manuals, textbooks, and other weirdly titled books like Fun with the Colon Fun or Happy Bacteria Mean a Happy Life. I had majored in literature at Oberlin and, with money from my parents, took off to London in order to discover my life’s path. Or so to speak. My best friend, Molly, told me that Ian was a family friend and he was looking for someone to cover the office manager position, while his permanent one was on maternity leave. Wonderful. I would have a job in London and it was in publishing. I had wild fantasies of reading fiction and making recommendations for publication. No one told me that Ian published the most boring books ever. Seriously. And I couldn’t understand any of them. But they made Ian very excited and so, in our one-room office in Islington, he would talk and talk. It was very hard to concentrate.
Ian started inviting me to the pub after work. He would order two pints and then talk. He was never ending with the talking. The talking became more personal at the pub. Ian was divorced, no children, spent a year of medical school in India, and then took a post in the Lake District as a doctor to a small community. He had a passion for words, he said. Ian, as was becoming obvious, was developing a passion for me. I allowed things to unfold and we finally had sex. He didn’t really talk during sex, which was a relief. As our relationship proceeded, he still talked non-stop about so many things. I was starting to think his talking was nervousness and not a passion for medical topics. I was fast approaching my end date in London and I explained this to Ian. He was not happy.
“I can only stay 90 days,” I told him.
“Where will you go? What will you do?” He was frantic.
“I don’t know. Probably New York City. Maybe get a job in publishing.”
Ian looked at me sadly. “I could marry you.”
I laughed but his face was serious. “You can’t mean that?”
“I mean it. We could run this publishing company together. We could start an imprint and you could select books you like.”
I shook my head and then nodded my head. It was perfect and, honestly, Ian had grown on me. I wasn’t madly in love but I did love him. I didn’t even mind the boring topics anymore. So I married him and I started an imprint. Mostly literary fiction and non-fiction books about authors. I had selected one about Emily Bronte and I spoke excitedly of it to Ian. He was reading a manuscript about the prostate.
“Blah, blah, blah,” he said. I shut up. And that was the beginning of our marriage. We were both sick of listening to each other.
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