How I Became a Heartbreaker

We choose to show this man that Dan has a life worth envying. Our kiss goodbye is long and passionate.

Much as I took issue with Paul’s limited ideas about beauty, now I have to acknowl-edge that I’m sometimes guilty of the same thing.

I’m meeting Dan for lunch with his friend who trains guide dogs. Afterward, they are traveling to Virginia to meet potential donors to the training school. I see them walking toward me and my throat tightens. Without realizing it, I had been hoping this friend would be matronly and unappealing. But no, she’s lovely.

Then we attend a concert with a longtime friend of Dan’s who is quite plain. Months later, I learn that they had once been romantic. “Her?” I hear myself say incredulously. In the space of a glance, I’d named her a non-contender.

“The last thing I care about,” he tells me, “is a pretty face.”

“Define beauty,” I had asked of Dan during that first long telephone talk. 
Now he touches my hair, puts an arm around my waist and calls me gorgeous. He loves the feel of my hair and the planes of my body, but mostly what’s gorgeous to him is the woman who, conversation by conversation, I’ve revealed to him.

One day a friend confides her fantasy 
about making love with a blind man. She’s certain that she’d feel more self-assured and be more open in bed, knowing that her partner couldn’t see her.

I think of Dan’s hands exploring my body. Those hands he reads with, has felt his way through the world with.
“I’ve never been so closely looked at in my life,” I tell her.

It’s true. It’s also true that since Dan and I have been together, I’ve never looked so closely at myself.

*Some names have been changed.

Ona Gritz is a prizewinning poet and children’s book author. She writes about motherhood and disability for Literary Mama.