It could be we needed each other. She was direly in need to divulge her confidences to someone. She had advertised on a church billboard she needed a companion/driver.
I took her phone number down and decided to give her a call. I soon began to understand my ability to listen to people without interrupting them was what I was here for. I would rarely get a word in edgewise about my own life, my own aspirations. This one would spill everything to me that had been kept a secret as she was alone in the world and a very proud person who played victim very well. A certain haughtiness aura I didn't really mind as I played a role of light and fluffy hippie which would give her the freedom to be herself. She laughed and called me Tootles condescendingly, gayly, feeling smug within her role of regality and polite society.
Margot bought and sold life. She bought me. I let her buy me as I was here to study her, I knew, for reasons I'd find out later. I didn't really need the money. I had other income. So we would see what happened.
I would drive her to her weekly hair appointments, wondering what hair appointments had to do with the children starving in Africa but keeping my mouth shut about these things that bothered me in the world, as I was told by guides I needed to practice being like god is, and judgment of others belongs to god.
I would be a clock watcher with Margot, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bolt to the door. I would soon learn a drive to the salon meant a 5 hour day over lunch where my ears got burned off and my lip had a zipper.
She paid for the lunch of course.
Still, she began to grow on me, as I saw her vulnerability begin to show around the edges. Here was a person on a journey different than mine and I couldn't say to her I held the key to the mastery of happiness and success, and also have love thrown in there either. So I learned not to judge and I tried to help Margot whenever she wanted to hear me talk.
And I would let her call me Tootles anytime she wanted and not take offense. I did tend to tootle along anyway.
Margot had married twice in her life, both men were millionaires. “It's just as easy to love a rich man as a poor man.” Said she while I ogled at her in wonder. She said she had presented herself to the men and chosen them. The first marriage had born a daughter. The man, true to my impressions of power, had ran roughshod over Margot. He had been an abusive man and their relationship had never gotten mended. He had, according to Margot turned the daughters' affections away from Margot, by buying the daughter's affections. She now had no family relationships. She said she had no one to leave her money to when she died, then she winked at me. I got a bad feeling from that remark but played dumb.
I wanted to be her friend but I didn't like to be manipulated or condescended to, or bought, yet this seemed to be a constant pattern in her life, that she saw money as power, while I didn't pay attention to money as anything but a promise to pay on paper.
Her 2nd million dollar marriage turned out much better than the first. although the man had died and left her a widow all alone. Probably he had died from the stress of business affairs I was thinking but didn't say.
She gave me a picture of this pretty girl, and she was indeed a beautiful girl in her youth, who strolled right into his office and made her pitch point blank to his startled face, she said “honey, if you're ever wanting a wife, I just want you to know I'm your gal. Here's my phone number, call me.
She didn't even know him when she said that. All she gave as the reason was that it was just as easy to love a rich man as a poor man. I disagreed, but as I said, I didn't want to shut down this movie unfolding before me so I continued listening.
Both her husbands were taken by her approach to love as a business deal. Love as a business deal was a completely foreign concept for me; I was a born romantic who hated myself for being one as it seemed I was always getting myself smashed up in the heart area just like she did, so we were the same in that respect. She explained that there were sexual problems within the 2nd marriage, that her guy was impotent and she spent a lot of time assuring him that she still loved him despite his feelings of inadequacy to satisfy her this way. He began to get ill early on in the marriage. Didn't sound like a match made in heaven to me, but it was clear she did love their lifestyle which money could buy and she had made her own bed, and would lie in for better or worse.
