Rancho Tarzanadu: Miss Linda's Phantom Lover

Miss Linda had a phantom lover for the last few years. He lived across the golf course in the hills; he was very reclusive. Sometimes when the moon was full or new, he would come traipsing across the green with a red rose in his mouth. Miss Linda had a difficult time saying no to him, even though she knew it was ultimately fruitless. He was like a firefly caught in a jar...only for the moment. She always felt a deep melancholy when he was gone...which was usually. He would never stay the full night when he visited her, always creeping out before dawn (she wondered if maybe he was related to Vampires), and she would wake up alone and ponder if it had actually happened or if she had dreamed it. He would stay away for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time, and she would speculate about what he was up to. She told no one of his existence, because he had made it very clear that he was not her 'boyfriend'. "Why do we have to 'label' it?" he would moan, and look anxiously towards the fading sun dial on the golf course green. "Why can't you just let it be what it is?"

"And what is it?" she would ask him. He would avoid the question, then slip away.

Everyone at Rancho Tarzanadu thought she was a loner; how could she tell them that she was emotionally involved with a phantom?

He made Miss Linda very angry and she started to resent his capricious behavior and elusive charm. He was never available for most major holidays or family functions and when she needed anything from him he was nowhere to be found. When she got into a car accident and needed a ride he later told her that his cell reception was horrible in the woods so he never got her message. She found this hard to believe. When she got her eyes unexpectedly dilated at the eye doctor months previously and needed a ride home he later told her that he needed more advance notice of such things and had a former engagement. She ended up driving herself home, blindly, and saw it as a metaphor for their 'relationship' which was really just a 'situation'.

For Miss Linda's most recent birthday, he handed her a folded up piece of paper, with an 'I.O.U' scrawled inside.

She would completely and utterly lose her patience with him and vow never to speak to him again, only to find him climbing up her balcony unannounced at an unexpected hour while serenading and mesmerizing her with his magical flute and incandescent ways; they would laugh and dance into the wee hours. (That stupid flute! Maybe it was the culprit of all this nonsense.) He would soothe the savage beast inside her with music and stories and smoke and mirrors and then disappear into the morning fog as she would awaken in a vague cloud, alone.

She considered putting up barriers and blockades around her property, so he couldn't get through if he ever tried again. But he could get through anyway, because her heart was still unbarricaded. She felt like a chump; she'd been duped with faerie dust and moonbeams. She sat outside on her balcony, smoking and looking at the stars and listening to the frogs sing, and wondering. She disliked him immensely for making her wait and wonder. She decided firmly that she would never yearn for him again. The next day she would waffle, then wander around the house trying to talk some sense into herself. If he knew the torment he caused her and cared about her even slightly, he would never, ever attempt to bedazzle her again with his whimsical ways, but would go deeper and farther into those wooded hills and play his flute to the muses and the birds instead...surely they would understand him far better than she ever could.