Lucy's Launderette. Betsy Burke

lost in love with Madeline from the art department. Madeline was his only defect. He would come looking for her, his dark eyes puppy-dogging along all the routes Madeline might have taken, checking out all the places where Madeline might be. We made friends during his long waits for her. What Jacques didn’t know back then was that Madeline was a very busy girl, very popular, with a lot of extra-curricular men, and she loved having Jacques as a personal six-foot-four doormat.

      “So what are you doing these days, Jacques?” I asked.

      “Working at the university, rescuing departmental techno-dummies all over the campus whenever they melt down. Hey, you still painting, Luce?”

      “Mmmm-hmmm.” It was neither a yes nor a no. I hate lying to friends. “How’s Madeline? She still making…”

      “Heart art. Yeah. She’s doing some really great stuff.” He sounded slightly panicky, the way the less-loved partner in a relationship sounds when they are afraid of losing the other. “She’s selling quite well in New York.” He sighed. “She’s there right now. Gonna be there for a couple more weeks.” He sighed again.

      These words crushed me like a ten-ton block. Back then, Madeline had been into this mock-sixties pop art stuff using a lot of pink and hearts and doe-eyed Twiggy-like female figures. The worst part was that there were professors who thought she was the great promise of the art department.

      Hearts.

      She still had Jacques’s heart after all these years, and it looked like she was still reducing it to pulp.

      I reached for my caffe latte and knocked my bag off the desk. Its contents, including my virgin peach lace underwear, spilled all over the floor.

      Jacques smiled and raised his eyebrows quizzically. Nadine looked peeved. I would like to have told them that it had been a great night, a masterpiece of lovemaking, but the fact was, the Maestro had barely dipped his brush.