Jerome is missing. The for lease sign already up in front of the house. His black Volvo station wagon no more.
___________________________
We had met eachother for many mornings on my way to walking Sailor to 'The Cave' for coffee.
Always he stands above me and atop the little mound where his house sits. Always at least twelve feet away, and always in dark glasses that black out his eyes and make him almost invisible to anyone a shade less nosey than I.

'Uh, hi.'
'Hi.'
'Uh... [just come out with it, no need beating around the...uh, bush?]
I have to ask...I mean my boyfriend says, that you are a porn star.'

His cheeks burst with white teeth.

'I could never ask someone that' he says in a pillowy Michael Jackson-like voice.
I appologize sincerely to the tar inbetween the sidewalk slabs.

'It's okay' he'd says to me, and then 'why do you ask me that...?' hesitant to answer.
'It's just that this woman at Whole Foods I guess had said....'

'Whole Foods?' he was very confused because he doesn't understand it to be the bastion of neiborhood gossip that it is'...but why do you want to know?'
'I don't know, I just want to know, I mean I've never actually even watched porn before.'
'Oh no? Well, I've got some of the DVDs upstairs if you'd like, I could go..'
'No no....NO! I just wondered.'
Quiet and teeth again.

'Actually, I'm 40 years old now, and I don't do that anymore. I produce now.'
Oh. Okay.

Turns out, he wants to sell all of his things and move to Brazil. Drop the dog at the pound, sell his antiques and go in August. Might teach engligh even. Do I have any books he can borrow?

But the clincher.
We chat for days,
until one morning he pops the question.
Would I like to go?
'To...to Brazil? With you to Brazil?'
'Yes.'
'Uh, yes and no...but I think the No is going to win out.'
Why?

And so the opportunity to run away with a porn star to Brazil comes and passes too quickly...like sands through an hourglass as they say.

And back to cake.