Free Love Is a Thief by Claire Garber Page A

old leather diary. ‘If you don’t mind I would like to read something to you.’ She cleared her throat and began. I felt as if I were watching her in one of her films.
‘June 5th
I went on another date last night with a man who works in Wall Street. He was handsome in a banking sort of a way and very interested in the play I start next week. But I knew, within 30 seconds, that he wasn’t for me. How could I know such a thing so quickly? I should know better than to judge any book by its cover. I am supposed to be a curious individual, an artist absorbing and embracing every single experience. But because I had decided he wasn’t The One I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the evening. This man never said, “Delaware, come to dinner. I am the man of your dreams.” Yet on some level that was my expectation of him, or at least my hope, a hope so hidden that for the most part I don’t even know it’s there .
How is it possible to miss something you have never had? How can I ever really embrace any moment if I am always subconsciously searching for a thing called love? And what is this overwhelming human desire to define oneself by being in a pair?’
    ‘But you did fall in love!’ I squeaked. ‘You married Richard!’
    ‘I married Richard.’ She nodded before looking off into middle distance. ‘I knew the minute he walked in the room that he was the one for me. We met at an after-show party for a play I’d been starring in on Broadway. At the time he was still a young director but with big ideas and absolutely no sense of life’s boundaries that constrain the rest of us. He was intoxicating to be around. I had feelings in my body that I was completely at the mercy of, feelings I knew were never going to go away. Thank God he felt the same way. I had a girlfriend who fell so in love with a Swiss man and he resolutely didn’t feel the same way about her. What an awful predicament for a woman to find herself in. Your One True Love doesn’t want to be your One True Love.’
    I loved the way predicament sounded in her Texan drawl, each syllable exquisitely over-pronounced: pre-dic-a-ment.
    ‘So when Richard arrived, when love showed up, how did it affect your life?’
    ‘Well, Richard and I began working together almost immediately.’ She nodded. ‘To share one’s passion with the man you are also passionate about was a dream come true.He was creatively brilliant and is responsible for some of the greatest performances of my life. He transformed my life on every single level.’
    ‘So falling in love was a positive experience for you?’ I knew it. Chad was going to throw me head first from the roof.
    ‘I believe in balance in life, for every high there is an equal low, and so it was with Richard. My career sky-rocketed, thanks in large part to him, but when dream acting jobs came along I didn’t want to take anything that would cause us to be apart for long periods of time. I certainly couldn’t take roles where he’d been turned down as Director or where I would be working with a director he felt was a competitor of his. So my career, and love life, started to become like a game of chess. For each opportunity I had to predict the next five moves. What would this role lead to? Where would I end up living? How would Richard get to see me? Would me taking the role undermine his confidence as a director? Ultimately the more I moulded and shaped my decisions to stabilise my relationship, the more unstable it became. In hindsight if I had just been consistent, consistently choosing the right roles for the right reasons, Richard would have always known what to expect from me. And I think consistency is underrated in relationships. Your partner being able to predict you, be certain of your choices, of who you are, it has a stabilising effect on a relationship. When you become a smaller version of yourself in order to keep your relationship on track, all that happens is that your partner no longer recognisesyou. You