Husband Two
Was tall and true.
A shining armored knight.
I was the louse
Who wrecked the house.
Accounting for my flight.

Our traveling circus of an industrial show, Buick ’60, wound up the tour in Miami. All were gatherd by the pool of the posh, pink, hotel where we had been billeted to exchange our sincere but futile promises to stay in touch. There would be a big closing night party later. Wearing my saved-for-the-occasion turquoise, glittery, one-piece suit with a single strap over the shoulder. I did a stunning racing dive into the shallow end of the pool and the damn strap broke!

I thought of the two foam-rubber falsies pocketed therein by the manufacturer. I had taken them out and replaced them
several times during a cursory check in the mirror. A vision of them popping out and bouncing around on top of the water coursed through my mind in a blinding flash. Bare tits, I could handle, but FALSIES bobbing around me in the pool?! I frantically gripped the top of my suit, which altered the slant of my dive just enough to scrape my forehead on a raised concrete seam in the bottom of the pool. I knew I’d hit my head, of course, but I had no idea I was trailing a red tide as I swam underwater the length of the pool, still clutching my suit.

A hand encircled mine as it reached the edge of the pool and with one mighty heave, M hauled me up out of the water, swept me up into his arms, and carried me toward the frantic producer who was shouting orders to bring his car to the edge of the pool area. I was transported to the nearest emergency room, protesting all the while that it was but a scratch and someone should simply give me a band aid. Thanks to the producer, Len Bedsoe’s, insistence that I be treated by a plastic surgeon, not just the ER room staff, I was saved me from major disfigurement.

The tall, daring darling who pulled me from the pool and I began spending most of our time together.
****
Excerpt from The Devil Made Me Do It, page 105

“A two-week sail on a twenty-foot sloop bareboat charter through the Florida
Keys went so well that M and I bought our own twenty-eight-foot sloop. Well,
technically, I bought a twenty-eight-foot sloop. I was rolling in cash from
commercial residuals at the time. I learned to sail. I even made a sail for the
dingy on a treadle sewing machine that I inherited from his mothers former
governess. That’s how committed I was to this new life.

Much as with CB, M and I would probably have remained good friends for a
long time, but this time HIS mother, bless her pure Austrian heart, insisted he
make an honest woman of me.
Big mistake. My father knew it. He referred to me as The Buzz Saw. Not in
my hearing, of course. How right he was. Less than two years later, I fell madly
in love with another man: Ian, the stage manager of a summer stock company where
I was hired to play Lola in Damn Yankees.”
*****
end of excerpt
Ian and I played house for ten years, but had sense enough not to get married. I tracked him down after thirty years and sent him a draft of my manuscript. My primary purpose was to vet the segments in which he was mentioned. He not only read, but carefully critiqued, the whole thing. His notes were invaluable. He was, after all, a published author by then and had been a
staff writer at one of the major studios for years. He, too, succombed to cancer before I was able to finish my book. His wife was gracious enough to invite my husband, John, and me to the memorial service. His two sons, who had gleefully refered to me as the “wicked step mother” during the years he and I lived but a few blocks from them and his first wife, were there and embrased me with genuine affection. We had had a lot of good times together.

You can visit Georgina at her personal blog GeorginasWorld.com

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