This “Hearts on Fire” story was told Feb. 10 as part of Tell It Like It Is: Iowa Storytellers Project, funded by the Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation in partnership with the Des Moines Register. These stories can be republished by any Iowa newspaper. The next storytellers event is “Search and Rescue” on June 2 at Hoyt Sherman Place. If you have a story to tell, reach out at stories@hoytsherman.org. Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation has donated a portion of the proceeds to help finance Register internships.
Patrick Albanese as told to Courtney Crowder
My love story started the way all classic love stories start: By being stood up for a date. Living in L.A., I had learned that if you don’t get stood up every now and then, you’re not really trying.
If you’re like me, your life isn’t often changed by big events, but rather by small, seemingly inconsequential nothings, that over time you find has changed the direction you were heading in, drastically. They’re little chain reactions.
I call these events pebbles on the path. Being ghosted for that date was a pebble. In lieu of the date, a friend took me out to a very popular celebrity hangout in Hollywood. They had a waiting list of people who wanted to work there. We went to see her friend, and this friend had just put in his two-week notice earlier that very day. Coincidentally, I needed a job and thanks to that perfect timing, I got his. Another pebble. That job opened the door to me working at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, which reignited my love of performing magic. Another pebble. And performing magic took me down to San Diego to see a show called “Triple Espresso.” More pebbles. I loved the show so much, I went way out of my comfort zone to ask the magician performing that night if they were ever looking for replacements. I was trying to take his job. Perfect timing struck again. He was leaving after a failed two-week search to find a new cast member, until I showed up at the 11th hour. Make that 11:59:59.
They hired me, and two years later offered me Des Moines. “six weeks, with a two-week extension should it do well.” Six to eight weeks of work… YES! Des Moines??? Where is that? It’s in Iowa. Cool. Where’s that? I accepted. I figured I’d look it up on a map when it was time to go. (Alt: Cool! I’ll get my passport ready.)
The show did do well. Extremely well in fact. Six to eight weeks turned into 68 weeks. Eighteen months of wondering if I had remembered to unplug the iron when I left L.A. And 18 months of discovering there’s a lot more to Iowa than the State Fair and college football. It was a fantastic place that I quickly fell in love with. It also led to the need for a local stage manager to take over the show. A call went out to the Civic Center asking if they knew of anyone. They said, “Sure, we have about 14 resumes in a drawer here. We’re sure one will work out.” What they hadn’t mentioned is that all 14 were from just one person — a woman named Janet.
Janet had been stopping by every Friday to deliver another copy. “If you ever need a stage manager….. call me,” she’d say. Her persistence paid off. She beat out all the other Janets and got the job.
I was impressed early on. Janet was the most together woman I had ever met. Intelligent, funny and just wacky enough to satisfy my own inner clown. She also happened to be beautiful.
I was definitely interested. But my track record dating was not, shall we say, impressive. 0 for…well 0. If my dating history in L.A. allowed Amazon style reviews, mine would read, “Would not recommend. Not as advertised. Broke immediately. Missing instructions.” I always got the shopping cart with the wonky wheel.
One actress I had been dating was invited to a fancy Hollywood party loaded with casting agents and producers. She said she couldn’t take me with her because for her career prospects it was best she appear single. I said, “Technically, as of that last statement, you are single.” Another broke it off by telling me that she couldn’t date a man who didn’t drive a nicer car than her. That’s when I learned that if you drive a Yugo, then you go.
My favorite might be the “date” I won on a game show called “Personals.” A clone of “The Dating Game,” the bachelorette chose me! At the end, after we blew a kiss to the audience and the cameras were turned off, she was kind enough to introduce me to her boyfriend, whom she had brought along to the taping. We had won a hot air balloon ride together, but the relationship never got off the ground.
But it didn’t matter. I had gotten used to it. I also knew that I couldn’t get hurt if I never let anyone in close enough to hurt me. It was an art form, and I had mastered it. It was the subconscious reason I chose these women to ask out. It wasn’t going anywhere and I knew it. So I was safe.
But now in Des Moines…. there was Janet. Yes, there was attraction, but attraction is easy. Compatibility is hard. But as we got to know each other over the next year, I could not deny that every quality I wanted in a partner, were qualities that Janet possessed. She checked every box, and she used a #2 pencil to make it legit.And then, the show came to a close. It was time to go home to L.A., 1,800 miles away. Not ideal. But fate can be quirky. Just weeks later, Janet was offered a job, and it too was 1,800 miles away. In New York, the opposite direction. Did I mention that fate has a sense of humor? (Fate can also be jerky.)A close friend said, “Don’t worry about the distance. If you love each other, you’ll work it out.” Gee…. Thanks. But we did work it out. It was incremental, move after move she made her way back across the country, until we were together again in L.A. I now had all the signs I needed. So I went outside that comfort zone again and proposed. And she accepted.
A storybook ending, right? Until the plot twist at the end of the second act. One I didn’t see coming. I walked into the apartment, and there was Janet, sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. She held a familiar ring box in her hands. There was no ring on her finger, just a faint tan line where a ring used to be. As she handed it back to me, she said, “I do love you. And I do want to marry you. But not here in L.A. This will never feel like home. So I’m torn. I don’t like ultimatums, but I need to be back in Des Moines. And I have to let you be free to find your home.” And off she went.
This was not a pebble on the path. This was a very large rock.
And that’s when I felt it. That hurt. That deep pain I had spent my entire life trying to avoid by dating the wrong women, by staying detached, by being isolated. Protected. Or so I thought.
Strangely, it was a familiar pain. I had experienced it before. But where? And when? But sitting there, it came back to me. The moment I’d first felt it, and it replayed in my mind like a waking nightmare.
I’m 13. My dad had just died. I see myself walking into the funeral home, arm in arm with my mother, a 39-year-old widow with eight kids. As we approach his casket, I felt her collapse into me. In agony. All the pain she felt, I now felt, on top of what I was already feeling. And at that moment I told myself I would never experience that pain ever again, nor put anyone else through it. And the only way to do that was to never get too close to anyone. Don’t get serious. Don’t get married. And certainly don’t have kids. Don’t you dare put kids through this!
This was a boulder that I had never gotten around. It had been there my whole life and I never saw it. I had put up barriers to protect myself. And my plan worked for over 30 years. But I realized as Janet left, that the barriers had also separated me, as barriers are known to do. No one got close. And I was in pain anyway. These barriers had never made me happier. I’d always been sad and anxious; I lived in fear of what could happen. Never letting myself think about what could happen.
The happiest I had been was with her, when I let her into my life. When I’d taken a risk to knock down those walls. Now she was gone, and as bad as the pain was, I also felt something else I had never expected. That it was worth it. That the joy I had gained was greater than the risk. Janet had that effect on me. She was the only one who had.
I also realized that the only way to get over that pain was not to avoid risk, but to embrace it.
They say that when one door closes in life, another one opens. What they don’t tell you is these are not simultaneous events. You may be fumbling around in a dark hallway for some time, looking for any door or window to open. And so I did fumble around a while, but I knew who I wanted to be on the other side of that door when it opened. I also knew I had found my home.
So it was my turn to move. I made it to Des Moines. I already had the ring and was waiting for the right time to propose again. I realized my first attempt lacked certainty. I would joke, “You pick the date, I’ll pick the year!” There would be no wavering of any kind on my part this time. You. Me. This year. A house. Kids. Even a wacky dog. What do you say? Hopefully a little more eloquently than that.
She said yes.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: The big boulder that blocked ‘Triple Espresso’ actor from finding love
Reporting by Patrick Albanese as told to Courtney Crowder, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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