The Look of Love

The Boston Herald

I love the way he looks at her.

I've watched him look, not often and not for long - not for months or days or even for hours. I hardly know him - or her. But I know the look. I recognize it from poems and love songs and old black and white movies. I recognize it from real life, too. My neighbor Stan, who died too young, used to look at his wife in the same way, as if he were constantly surprised that someone as beautiful and smart as Deborah belonged to him. "Pinch me" is what his look said. Am I dreaming? Is this real?

A high school boy I know wore this look on his face last year at this time. His girlfriend would walk into a room and he couldn't take his eyes off her. He'd sit and watch her the way he watched TV when he was a little kid, transfixed and bedazzled, sure that the images before his eyes were made for him alone. He could not get enough of her.

But then - who knows why - his gaze shifted and he suddenly started noticing things around and beside and beyond her. And just like that, in a blink, in a heartbeat, it was over. And he didn't look at her in the same way anymore.

But the man I've watched is no kid. He's been around the block a few times. He's in his 60s and the object of his affection isn't his girlfriend or someone he wishes were his girlfriend. The lady is his wife of many years. And they have children and grandchildren. And no doubt, like all of us, they have their problems.

But you'd never know any of this from looking at him.

The first time I watched him watch her, she was up on a stage at the Reagle Players in Waltham rehearsing her part in "42nd Street." He was in the audience, in the back, the ONLY person in the audience.  And he was not reading or doing a crossword puzzle or listening to some baseball game on his Walkman. Nor was he constantly checking his watch. He was watching his wife and listening to her sing "Shadows on the Wall." And I thought that maybe he had never heard her sing this before, that maybe he was sitting there with a great big smile in his eyes because the play was new and the song was newer and he liked what she was doing with it. 

But then he told me that no, he'd been sitting in the back of the auditorium for weeks now. He didn't like Marla driving home alone late at night so he drove her. And no, he didn't mind. "What else would I be doing? To tell you the truth," he added, "I like watching her. And I like listening to her sing.” 

But he didn't have to say this. You could see it. And I did. Every night when I picked up my daughter, who was also in the play, I'd see George sitting there gazing at Marla as if after nearly five decades of marriage, he still couldn't believe she was HIS Marla.

Last Saturday night Canton Public Library hosted a party to celebrate the completion of its addition. It was a big cocktail party with a lot of talking and congratulating and looking around. There was entertainment too in the new community room and Marla, among others, sang. George, of course, was there, at a table right next to the stage. And when anyone sang he was attentive and polite. But when Marla sang? He was more. When Marla sang there was no one in the room but Marla.

I watched him and I listened to her. And after a while I left. But I bet George sat at that table watching and listening all night.