He was an actor.

What’s worse, he was a Cuban actor.

My parents were people full of advice for their children. Mamma once told me, “Never fall in love with an actor, because he will break your heart. Actors are liars… except for your Daddy, of course.” She would then add.

Daddy, a man to judge, had said, “Never fall in love with a Cuban, unless you want trouble. They’re all trouble!” I didn’t think so.

It always seemed quite funny to me how at the age of fourteen, I fell in love with someone my parents had both warned me about, without ever meeting him. But after all, who said love needed rules?

He was older, by ten years, which would have been to Mamma’s satisfaction. Besides the advice regarding loving actors, she had also said, “If you are going to marry, which I wish you would, marry someone older, never the same age or younger. He will be stronger and wiser than a boy at your age.” And, to me at least, ten years was plenty older.

Daddy would have liked him because he was talented, because Daddy loved people of talent, and surrounded himself with them every day. Aside form the fact that the man I love was an actor, he could sing, dance, and play the ukulele.

My fondest memory of him was when we were taking a break form a movie we were filming, and sitting in front of the prop house. A small man was pushing a cart, filled to the brim with junk, into the prop house.

“Hold it!” He said to the man. He pulled a ukulele out of the cart, and examined it. “May I borrow this? I promise I’ll bring it right back.”

“Of course, Mr. Fellove.” Said the man, continuing to push the cart inside.

“Call me Carlo!” He shouted to the man, who disappeared inside the prop house. Shrugging, he put out his cigarette, and turned his attention the instrument in his hand.

“What is that?” I asked, laughing at the odd looking device that my companion was so infatuated with.

“This,” He said, proudly holding up the small guitar. “is a ukulele, and it just so happens to be the only instrument I can play.” He strummed the four strings and grinned. “Nicely tuned!”

“Play something.” I said, wanting to hear how it sounded. He smiled at me, and began to play the kind of music you would hear at the airport in Hawaii, and started to sing.

“Her name is Marie,

She’s as sweet as can be,

And is only the age of… how old are you?”

“Fourteen!” I laughed.

“Fourteen! I knew that!” He said. He continued to play, and I continued to listen to the well-improvised lyrics, and laugh.

Despite how much fun we had over the years, I was in some kind of acute pain. He had the charisma of an actor, and the looks of an angel. He had the kindest coffee-brown eyes, ebony colored hair, a pearly white smile, and to complement them all, the most darling Spanish accent. All of these became imbedded into my memory as though my eyes carved them there. This pain was that as much as I loved to admire his looks, I knew they would never be mine.

So I treasured every minute with him. I remember a couple occasions of him driving up to my house and saying to Mamma, “Good morning, Mrs Coletti. I was wondering if Marie was home?” I would go see him at the door, and he would take me for a milkshake, or anywhere else I wanted to go. He treated me as an uncle would treat his favorite niece, and I responded as the niece towards her favorite uncle, as reality would have favored.

I was his friend, and he was mine. I even attended his wedding to a beautiful woman, eight years after that day in front of the prop house, and was there at the celebration of the birth of his first and only son.

It always seemed funny to me, especially now that he is forever gone, that although I never told him so, I never truly stopped loving Carlo Fellove.