Jealousy
Have you ever been intimidated; felt yourself being compared with someone else apparently far superior in every way? This happened to me once. Lucy and I were flying (on an aeroplane) from San Francisco to London. We shared the third seat in our aisle with a man whom I was to end up disliking immensely despite the fact that he had done nothing to deserve it.
James was in his mid to late thirties, good looking, well tanned and groomed, and before he spoke had an air of confidence and masculinity about him that made me try and sit up instantly in my seat and make myself look bigger and taller. He wore trendy faded jeans and a battered but well looked after black leather jacket; the type that speaks of years of hard-earned fun and daring; the type us non-bikers would love to own and never will. He ordered an orange juice and his voice was British with a very slight North American twang, giving him a desirable international flavour. Immediately, he turned and introduced himself, his five o'clock shadow not dimming his winning smile one bit.
Of course he didn't look at me, but kept his penetrating blue eyes fixed firmly on those of Lucy, my wife. The hairs started to bristle on the back of my neck and I'm sure I turned amber, ready to go red at any moment. I decided to play my joker there and then. To discover that James was an insurance salesman would bore Lucy to tears and cheer me up no end.
"So, what do you do...James?", I asked, leaving an incredibly long gap before adding his name to the end of the question to make it sound like I couldn't remember his name. I didn't have the guts to call him a different name like 'Roger' because I knew that Lucy would give me one of her extra long Paddington Bear stares.
"I'm an actor", he replied, keeping his eyes on target.
Ha! Got you now, I thought. Amateur dramatics, excellent.
"I've just played a part in a film that's coming out soon, you might have heard of it, Titanic?"
My smile started to fade just as Lucy's started to kick in. Titanic. Soon to become the biggest film ever. Just my luck. And we were stuck with this superman for the next eight hours. Not only was he good looking and ripplingly fit, he was also extremely nice, friendly and interesting.
I won't bore you with the details of the conversations Lucy and he had during the flight; about his twenty years as a paratrooper, his beach house in L.A. and his next film with Mel Gibson; the way he savoured every drop of Lucy's conversation and the way my life (and waistline) paled into insignificance in comparison.
I didn't speak much on the way home from the airport but once we arrived back at No.10 Cricket Green, I asked Lucy why on earth she was married to me when she could have had any man she wanted. She didn't say anything but looked straight into my defeated eyes and kissed me - a long, passionate kiss - the type that makes your knees wobble and leaves your mouth agape, unable to speak. She had answered my question without the need for words.
You might be wondering if this James character was too good to be true, but sure enough when we went to see the film Titanic, we saw him (all five seconds of him) and I had no need to be jealous because I had my beautiful wife by my side.