by Peter Pogany

Created on: January 24, 2010   Last Updated: January 25, 2010

Why cover up a fragrant rosebush in full bloom?

And she certainly didn’t. Her summer dress left more skin bare than covered.

Rich brown hair on attractively strong shoulders; a touch of sarcasm under half-shut eyelids; vivid, challenging smile on expressively curved lips - red like a fresh-cut wound! 

But she was no cheap head turner. Her intangible surcharge of erotic instinct paired seamlessly with intelligence, charisma, and generosity.        

Once a lifeguard in Delray Beach, a student of modern dance, then of business administration and management, and - to top off her academic adventures - a no-regrets law school dropout, Rose became the special assistant of an Undersecretary, in Washington, D.C.

“I’m 29,” she told Charles but, of course, we all know the significance of “nine” in informal autobiographical declamations. Even if she denied a few years, she was still young but not compared to my friend who was only 25, a graduate student of international relations at John Hopkins.  

After an almost two-year relationship - hot as it was (very hot) - Charles had had enough.

It was time to move on. Rose made hints about going together to Michigan to meet her parents. That was the wakeup call. The threat of an engagement or worse was blowing in the wind. Little crows around the corner of the eyes - showing particularly when she smiled - thanks, but no thanks.

Out, out, out!

She began to appear desperate, holding on to him with growing matrimonial hopes, eventually changing into demands - scenes. Thanks, but hell no thanks.

Time to move on!

There is Linda in the graduate seminar; Sarah, his neighbor in the apartment house where he lived, Susan from the cafeteria - lots of exciting prospects. And why ever choose among them?

“I don’t want to fly to Michigan to meet her folks,” he mumbled while driving to the Virginia suburb where Rose lived alone in a townhouse.

He thought it was unworthy of him to write a ‘Dear Rose’ letter or break up over the phone or push her into the annals of his conquests with a cowardly email.

“She will open the door and I’ll tell her - we need to talk!”

“We need to talk, Rose,” the invisible bird kept chirping in his ear as he pulled into the parking lot.  

The door opened and the Earth stopped in its course. She was not alone. A very tall, friendly-looking man stood close behind

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