I am a woman who is full of inherent contradictions.  I readily confess to that.

For instance, even though I desperately yearn to make friends and experience genuine female companionship, I will often sabotage myself in choosing actions that are not conducive to this goal.

Take the spa trip.  I couldn't wait to get away, to flee from home so I wouldn't have to face the break-up with Jeffrey.  I saw myself kicking back, getting pampered with lots of sensual massages, spoiling myself rotten with facials and strange but wondrous beauty treatments and becoming more intimately acquainted with each one of these women who I've become so quickly associated.

Well you know the old adage about good intentions?  

I shut down the first day we left.  Why?  Everyone was paired up including Esme whom I had assumed I would closely bond with as we were both unattached.  She had Jeff and Paul dancing attendance on her.  Two gay men!  Shit on a stick!  There's now an even bigger 'L' plastered on my forehead.

So yeah, I was jealous, in pain, pissed off and emitting my usual vibes of 'don't come near'.

I breezed by all of them without even giving them the courtesy of acknowledgement not even the queenly wave.

It's a deeply ingrained defense mechanism.  If you don't act like you give a damn, then maybe you'll just fool the whole lot of them.  But take it from me who can probably pull the wool over some people's eyes but never my own; it just comes across as arrogance.

Truthfully, a bit of that comes in to play as well.  Don't let on to these women that you want so badly to fit in their inner circle.  Don't give them that power.  Look like you're taking care of number one!  It's all about me, girls.

Therefore, I sat on that plane all by lonesome and watched the others laughing, gossiping and sharing jokes and secrets.

For one minute, I thought Ann was going to approach and sit beside me.  However, she got waylaid by Chili.  I was simultaneously relieved and dismayed.  Ann was hilariously funny in that refreshing way of hers.  She doesn't put on any airs.  She's candid, and I felt she would be really easy to talk about anything to.

Another two women I felt an affinity with were Marie and Carol.

I don't think I've ever seen Marie in a bad mood.  Is that humanly possible?  Wouldn't you just spontaneously combust with all that happiness stored inside? Ooooh, the horror, the horror!

Even the months when I was lurking, there was always a smile on her face and a giggle about to erupt.  Of course, Bud White had a lot to do with that, but it's just not in Marie's nature to not be caring, kind and dare I say it, "sweet"?

Let me just say here I have a natural bias towards "sweet" homo sapiens.  They give me hives because dollars to doughnuts, it is an artifice they put on to camouflage their clingy, cloying and annoying personalities.

Karen, when are you going to wake up and smell the manure?  You don't know jack about what makes people tick and who they really are.  I am too judgmental and cynical.  It gets worse as I get older.

Marie is the bona fide deal.  She's never been false with me, and she actually is one of the few people who can make my granite lips curve into a natural smile.

Carol is a riot.  She is such a perfect complement to a man like Zack Grant.  I've always liked Zack even though we went head to head a few times during hockey practices and the big game.  He doesn't bullshit and neither does she.  Carol is another one who like Ann has a great sense of humor though hers is bawdier.  She kind of reminds you of Mae West.  The two of them could keep me in stitches for days if I ever took that poker out of my arse or brushed the chip off my shoulder.

Okay, so that's three women right there who I could have reached out to during the week at the spa.  Did I?  Well, except for one occasion when Ann and I had lunch and then went for a walk, I stayed aloof.

Every now and then, I would make some smart-assed comment about the strict regime and our slave driver nutritionists just so they wouldn't think I was comatose.

The night a few of us raided the staff's pantry of veritable no-nos such as alcohol and junk food, everyone sort of let their hair down.  Need I say who was the blatant omission?

You see the alcohol had definitely cut down on the inhibitions, but the main topic of conversation concerned men, specifically each of theirs.

Gee Whiz!  What could I possible add to this focus?  Let me think.  I could have said, "Yes, Jeffrey WAS an amazing man.  He MADE me happy in so many ways."  There would always be that pesky past tense.

When they got on to sexual matters and things that bugged them in general, I could have added, "Jeffrey treated me like a porcelain doll.  I couldn't wait to fall off the shelf and break into a million pieces."

It would have been an honest interpretation, and it would have made the cut as to sharing some dish.  But what would be the point?  We're no longer together.  Instead of coming across as sounding witty and light-hearted, it would leave the impression that I was spiteful and bitter.

Again, I shut up and let all of their stories float in and out.  I drank like a fish, and someone did help me limp back to my room.  I couldn't for the life of me tell you who.

By the end of the week, I was antsy to go especially when the brigade of men led their assault in honor of their women.

Did some part of me secretly hope that Jeffrey would be in on it and come rescue me from my self-imposed misery?

Yes, I'm only human, and there is a large sentimental side to me though I try to hide it.  But let's face it, the odds were against it.  We had staged a brutal fight.  I chased him away.  He's a proud man.  He's also an older man who might not think he could contend with the rigors involved like scaling fences and taking out body guards.  He would think he'd look silly.

I'd never seen Jeffrey drunk.  As I lay in my bed surrounded by the sounds of debauched wretches, I contemplated what he would be like.  Would he be goofy?  That would be a sight to see.  Would he just collapse on the bed and fall asleep?  Would he be amorous and want a roll in the hay?  Sadly, these things I would never know.

Somehow, I made it through the big party on the last night mainly because of Marie.  Man, she's a force to be reckoned with.  She adopted me and refused to let me sulk and pout on my own.  The smile that at the start had been pasted on gradually became unglued and replaced by the actual article.

When I at last got home and caught a glimpse of my seriously sober expression, I said loudly to my reflection.  "That's it.  Enough is enough!  Lighten up already."

My plans to abandon the pub permanently were shelved.  I felt comfortable there.  I liked the music.  I liked the atmosphere.  Plus Andy makes the best martinis in the history of the world.

Why should I let a bad experience with one man scare me off?  I can't picture Jeffrey letting little old me stand in his way of frequenting The Come On Inn and tearing him away from his Jack Daniels.

That's the way it should be for both of us.  We're adults not children who can't play in the same sandbox lest World War III ignite.

It was a few days after my arrival back that I went down to the pub for a few drinks.  I had been downing potent beverages recently like Prohibition was going to be imminently declared.

While making myself comfy at the bar, I casually surveyed the room.  I actually did one of those classic double-takes you see all the time on television sitcoms when my eyes alit on a solitary figure sitting alone in a back booth.

Professor John Forbes Nash, with his head huddled over some papers, didn't feel the weight of my stare.

As I sipped my double screwdriver and drummed my fingers nervously on the bar, an outrageous idea was formulating in my less than beautiful mind.  I ordered a beer and slowly waltzed over to his table.

I didn't even register 1/16th of a decimal point on his radar.

Attempting to be clever, I quoted his own lines from his movie to him in greeting.  "Professor Nash.  Table for one; Prometheus alone chained to the rock with the birds circling overhead."

John was clearly flummoxed to see me standing there.  I wondered if he thought I was some sort of hallucination.

I pushed over the beer and told him it was high time I returned the compliment that he had paid to me long ago.

He had that 'deer caught in the headlights' look as I sat down opposite him.

Without mincing words, I asked him why did he originally send me that drink and why didn't he follow through on his man on the make move.

Evading the questions completely, he just showed me his invitation to Marie and Bud's wedding.  He was struggling with the RVSP.  All of his concentration was on this one small task.

It was then that it dawned on me.  John felt like an outcast too.  He told me generally that he didn't like people much, and it was reciprocated on their part.

I was chastened at my bold and brassy stance.  My first instinct was to offer solace.

"John, I've seen you with other women here.  You had a thing going with Eris, and weren't you involved in some way with Heather?"

He was uncomfortable when I mentioned them so I didn't press the issue.  My point was to bring to his attention that women showed interest.  He wasn't a social reject.  I don't think I quite got that through to him.

Then he stunned me by spontaneously asking me to go to the wedding with him.  John was clueless to the fact that going to a big formal do like a wedding was a big deal for a couple.  It etched them forever in people's minds as a duo, a pair, a twosome...whatever.   You don't bring a first date to such an event.

My first inclination was to automatically say no.  What would people think?  I go from Wigand to Nash in the space of a couple of weeks.  I don't even know John.  How awkward would it be to attend a joyous occasion which is all about bliss, bonding and love with a virtual stranger?  Yet my lips couldn't form the negative.

I searched his face.  He seemed not sad, not lonely but resigned.  I think he saw it as a social obligation to go which I give him credit for.  He does retain some sense of societal norms and mores in spite of his appalling lack of social skills.  Nevertheless, he was lost about navigating through such a function on his own.

When I thought about it later, I realized I had never seen John at a party.  He was definitely AWOL on Valentine's Day as I had deliberately looked for him.  The few times I had seen him at the pub; he was either drinking and smoking alone or chatting up some woman.  The latter had become increasingly rare since I had made my official debut.

Since all these things were rattling around in my brain and I had been drinking steadily, I needed a quick nicotine fix.  So I helped myself to his cigarettes and lighter.

Again, I surprised him.  His right eyebrow arched but he didn't say a word.

I am not a smoker.  The odd time when I am stressed out or imbibing a little too much, I drift back to my younger teenage years when I thought it was very cool and hip to place a cancer stick in the corner of my mouth.

Of course, I thought of Jeffrey.  I would never ever even think of lighting up in front of him.  With his history of battling his tobacco firm, with him knowing the zillion carcinogens and other chemical toxins in a single cigarette and with his volunteer work with youths advising them to just "say no", I might have got spanked.  I'm only kidding; but no, he would definitely not approve, which is probably why I took an inordinate amount of pleasure in taking another deep drag and exhaling.

As I saw John constantly fiddle with the invitation reply, I took it out of his hands.  I said I would be delighted to go with him and I would send in OUR RSVP to Marie.

He was plainly relieved by the burden being lifted.  Of course that did not leave him off the hook about my earlier questions.  Men are so stupid.  They think we forget.

I had to know why he came on to me.  Did he just want to get his rocks off that night?  Were there pretty slim pickings and I was the least undesirable?  Did he even remember the incident?  How embarrassing would that be?  Maybe it was so insignificant that he didn't recall the gesture.  I mean it was pretty tame.  It wasn't like he sent over a dozen long-stemmed roses or a half a dozen violinists to serenade me.  I always blow these things up in my mind so they snowball and become a happening of epic proportions.

Finally, when my nagging got on his nerves, he curtly and in a clipped fashion said that even he knew not to interfere in an established relationship between a man and a woman.

Okay, that only answered one of my questions about why he didn't continue his pursuit.

He cheekily added that since said relationship was no longer a factor, he was thus making his move.

Gosh, he is just too cute for words.  Here I was thinking I had made the first attempt at seduction.  How silly of me?  I made some sarcastic remark that if I had to wait until he instigated anything, we would be attending Marie and Bud's children's wedding.  He was not amused.

He asked me to dinner, but he tried to mask that he even asked by saying that we both had the biological need to eat.  Why do I find him so adorable when he's so hopelessly gauche?  He reminds me of me.

Through dinner, I politely asked him about his work and his research.  He went on a bit of a rampage.  But when he caught my ditzy airhead glazed expression one too many times, he stopped.  Face it people; I dropped out of high school.  Math is not my forte.

John didn't ask anything about me.  That's not because he's arrogant or self-centered.  Believe me; I've had enough of those kinds of dates to peg them right out of the starting gate.  It just doesn't occur to him that it's the normal round of courteous small talk between two people who initially meet.  Idle chit chat is not his forte.

We ate; we drank; we smoked, and that was about it for our dinner outing.  Our eyes

though did a lot of talking.  I would inevitably drop mine first.  I still thought he was a handsome specimen.  

He was the one who summarily chose to end the evening by abruptly saying he had work to do.  He then stood up so hastily that he upset what little beer was left in his glass.  Wishing me goodnight, he took off before I could ask him where, when and how about the wedding.

Wiping the wet table with a napkin, I just shook my head.  What now had I gotten myself into?

Saturday, April 9th rolled around.  When I woke up and stared out my room's window, I first thought about Marie.  I had slept in.  By now, she would be up and running around like a chicken with its head chopped off.  Last minute details to be arranged, bridesmaids to gather round, hair and makeup to be applied, dress to be donned and probably a somewhat nervous and edgy bridegroom to contend with.  I had utter confidence in Marie's skill to cope with the hectic but ecstatic chaos.

I got up, showered and eventually got ready.  I hoped to heaven John remembered the time and place we had finally worked out.

I looked pretty good if I do say so myself as I spun around and cased my image in the mirror.  I had lost weight at the spa and treated myself to a new lavender dress.  It was a halter style and had a big silk sash around the middle.  New shoes I couldn't justify so I wore my standard beige pumps.  I enviously cursed Uma's smart and fashionable collection of designer ones.

Soon it was time to leave.  Everything went like clock-work for the most part.  I met up with John at exactly the designated time and place we had determined.

I shamelessly lapped him up like the eye candy he was.  He had cleaned up real good.  His hair was slightly slicked back though some unruly tendrils swept across his forehead. Wearing a dark brown suit and crisp white shirt, he only faltered with the choice of his tie.  It wasn't garish or plaid or some outlandish color.  It just didn't quite go with the more upscale image he had on this day.  It looked too much like what he would wear to a Profs Meeting.  It wasn't on straight either.  I'm not one of those women who can just slip behind and easily adjust it.  I told him to re-arrange it himself.  He did.

He didn't offer to take my arm as we went in for the ceremony.  John Nash was certainly not Jeffrey Wigand.  Now where did that thought come from?  Go way!  Shoo!

Before the nuptials, John and I got a few curious glances, but no one even deemed to say anything to our faces.  If I put myself in their shoes, I guess I would think we were an odd couple, but then to rip off another one of John's direct quotes, we were "a pair of odd ducks".

The wedding couldn't have been more perfect.  Marie was simply gorgeous and radiant.  Bud was so good-looking and proud as anything to take her hand in his as Cort pronounced them husband and wife.

Uma, Bou and Clarity were breathtaking attendants.

As I peeked at the various visages of the guests, I saw a few sentimental tears.  I wasn't one who cried at weddings though I was happy to celebrate unions between two people who pledged their love to last eternally.  I just never could picture it happening for me so I guess you don't ruminate over it and miss the impossible.

John kept his head down.  I wonder how he felt.  You see John had crossed over into our world before he met Alicia, his future wife, the woman of his dreams who would steadfastly stand by her man through his many years of devastating illness and bear him a son.

I don't know the whys and logistics of this crazy universe of theirs.  It did seem to me that it was horribly unfair and cruel to dump him here without knowledge of the comfort and love that he shared with this woman and by rights his child.

It kept things in perspective for me.  Who was I to complain and moan about my life?  I had my health.  John would always have good days and very bad days in his.

The onset of his schizophrenia had just started in relatively recent years while he had been a student at Princeton.  In his movie, he had denied the truth of his sickness until it was forced upon him by his wife and psychiatrist. 

Here, he already had accepted it.  John was keenly aware he had a mental illness.  He even made jokes about it, jokes that I found hard to find funny.  I don't know how often he relapsed into his fantasy world of people who didn't exist.  I just hoped I would be a good friend to him through all of it-the good and the bad.  I would like to think I'm a certain caliber of person who would never desert someone in a critical crisis.  The truth of the matter is, you just don't know how you'll react until it happens.

Pondering on all this made me feel oddly moved, and I reached out to take John's hand and I squeezed it in affection.  He turned to at first look at my hand touching his and then into my eyes.  I simply smiled.  Bewilderment crossed his features, then shyness almost like a little boy's and then just the tiniest squeeze back before he released my hand.

After all the kissing, hugging, shaking of hands and congratulations, we made our way to the reception.

I reminded John that it would be lovely if he brought me a glass of coke.  I was firmly resolved to abstain from liquor this day.  I don't trust myself when I drink to excess, and I would never do anything to take away from Marie and Bud's special day.

The food was exquisite and I indulged not giving a hoot about diets and self-restraint.  It was fairly noisy so John and I didn't make any real attempts at talking.  It was fun to just people observe.

The toasts were magnificent, humorous and even raunchy at times.  Well what would you expect from this crowd?  Soon it was time for the dancing to start.

Marie and Bud floated across the floor in their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Wendell White like their feet would never touch the earth.  I must admit at this sight a tear or two might have escaped from the corner of my eye.  Then again, it might have been my allergies acting up.

Gradually, other couples joined in the revellery.  There were some extremely talented dancers in this group.  Lachlan and Cassie in my opinion were the best.  When that 50's jive bopped out, Lach was in his glory.  He whirled and flipped Cassie into the air like she was as light as a feather.  Everyone clapped, whistled and hollered at them for an encore when they finished.

My feet were tapping impatiently, and I was itching to get up there and strut my stuff.  Dino rescued me-the sweetheart.  He is one fast dude, and we all know how hyper he is when he's not dancing.  I didn't know whether I was coming or going but he was always in control.  I just let him do his thing and grew dizzy from his spinning.  Good thing I stuck to coke.

Thanking him heartily, I found myself once more on the sidelines.  You think he would take the hint?  Well, I guess you know the answer to that one.

I grabbed John's hand and commanded, "Dance with me."  The tempo had slowed and as his one arm tentatively wrapped around my waist, I shivered inexplicably.  Wanting to be closer to him, I inched forward still keeping a respectable distance.

John licked his lips nervously.

I wanted to relent and soften by placing my head on his broad shoulder, but such a bold move might make him so skittish that he could very well stop dancing and draw notice to us, or even worse he could bolt and leave me stranded.  In the end, I did my modus operandi and did nothing.

I don't know what made me suddenly shift my head so that Marie and Bud came into my sights.  A tall grey-haired man who was strikingly familiar had just kissed Marie's cheek.  He was now shaking Bud's hand.

Oh My God!  Jeffrey was here.

I closed my eyes in shock and couldn't help but quietly cry out, "He's not supposed to be here.  What is he doing here?"

John followed my gaze and seemed to pale.  I didn't pay particular attention as my focus was fully drawn elsewhere.  I dimly heard something about not worrying anymore about his face getting slapped but his lights getting punched out.

Then it sunk in.  "Don't be ridiculous", I chided him.  "We broke up.  Besides Jeffrey would never make a scene."  I don't think John was that confident in my assertion.

Just then, as fate would have it, Jeffrey looked over in our direction and straight into my eyes.

I thought I would die.  Not because I was embarrassed or ashamed to be seen with John, I just couldn't look at him and not still want him.  It was that simple and that complex.

Breaking the gaze, John and I stopped dancing in the middle of a song.

Jeffrey, not in the least bit daunted or thrown off his stride, walked over and greeted us.

"Hello Karen.  You're looking well.  Professor Nash."

Define what he meant by "well".  Did he mean I looked healthy, robust, good, glowing, and beautiful or was it used simply as an innocuous adjective and just meant that...well?  And this from the man who accused me of being vague?

It was then that I gleefully could have killed John and never felt a single second of remorse.  He opened his big mouth and said, "I thought he wasn't coming."

Hello?!!!!! Did he not just hear what I practically shouted to the whole congregation?  I was mortified.  As I felt the hot flush creep up my cheeks, I nudged him savagely.   Then he had to go and compound things further by saying, not even whispering, "What's his name again?"

I ignored my troublesome escort.  I think Jeffrey was amused.  He nearly smirked.

Jeffrey was already turning away saying something about needing a word with the bride and groom.  I found that just a tad weird since he had just been with them and obviously expressed his congratulations.  Was the dignified pragmatic doctor just slightly unnerved too by this encounter?

Then I had to be the brainless twit and say exactly what I could have kicked John in the ass for.  "How nice that your convention ended early so you could come after all?"  So much for playing cool and remote.

I tossed out, "By all means, don't let John and I hold you back.  We have some serious partying to do."

And the Academy Award for Best Actress in a cameo goes to Karen Donovan for her brief but poignant moment when she beamed brilliantly up at John and pulled him in really tight, no respectable distance this time, for another sexy languorous dance.

I didn't watch him leave.

John babbled, "That wasn't too bad.  He seemed civilized enough...although he's not Ivy League."

Blasting him for a superior attitude I hissed out, "Don't be such a stuck-up snob."

He didn't appear wounded at all so either he was used to being accused of being somewhat arrogant or he was now quite used to my bluntness.

Continuing his conversation, which was more than he had said the entire day, he said he liked dancing.  His exact words were "It has an interesting geometric pattern if you watch the counter motions of couples on the dancing floor...not to mention the sway of some of these remarkably attractive women."

Okay I had had it.  I don't have red hair for nothing.  First, a man that I had a short but incredibly intense affair with practically spurns me and is so cavalier about the fact that I'm in the arms of another man.  Then the imbecile I'm with starts prattling on about other pretty women?  No fucking way was I taking that lying down.

So I lit into John.  "First of all, save the math for somebody who is so inclined.  I don't do math.  I don't walk the walk or talk the talk.  I never want to work that hard.  You'd do better with me if you just simply stick to sex as your next favorite topic.  Secondly, I'm your date."  Here, I turned his face towards me.  "Stop ogling other women and pay some respect to me."

I think I spelled that out quite succinctly for him.  I could see he was wondering again if I was going to slap his face for his indiscretion.  Talk about paranoia!

My night was now in ruins totally by Jeffrey's arrival.  If I had been a better woman; if I had been more mature, maybe I could have processed and handled the situation differently.  But hey, I can only be me.

Right now, I needed comfort, attention and anything smacking remotely of rejection was not on the menu.

I laid out my cards to John.  "Your place...or your place?"

Even John was quick with that one.  He hustled me out and into his car before I could invoke a woman's prerogative and change my mind.

En route to his apartment, I fought with my conscience.  How could I do this?  How could I sleep with one man while another was imbedded in my brain?

"Don't use John," I remonstrated with myself.  "He doesn't deserve that."

But would it really be using him?  The devil on my right shoulder was jabbing his little pitchfork into me.  Hadn't I always wondered what it would be like with John from the first time I noticed him?

John was my reason for coming back to the pub time and time again and hiding for months in disguise just hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

Yes, there was abundant chemistry.  Yes, he was a likeable man if you really took the time to figure him out.  Yes, the constellations were aligned and the theory of governing dynamics came into play.  Okay, so I made the last part up.

Would I have sex with John Forbes Nash that night?

Stay tuned.  Same Bat time; Same Bat channel...