Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: I met my dream man. The only problem? He wasn’t my husband
I had been married for six weeks the night I met Anthony. Tall, olive-skinned with electric green eyes, he was so handsome my cheeks were flushed when I walked through the front door of his shared Venice Beach home.
I was in L.A. from Seattle visiting my sister for the weekend. Crossing paths with her boyfriend’s best friend and housemate wasn’t on the agenda. Due to flight delays, Anthony had just returned from a trip to the East Coast. His suitcase was still at the foot of the stairs.
“Well, where are we all going for dinner?” he asked.
The four of us drove in his powder-blue vintage Land Cruiser to Cafe Brasil on Venice Boulevard. Outside on the tiny patio, Anthony scooted in next to me with the bottles of Two-Buck Chuck we’d brought with us.
I pushed away nagging thoughts of my husband. College sweethearts, we had wed just shy of my 23rd birthday.
Eating fried plantains as sweet and sticky as the August air, Anthony and I bonded over a shared passion for music, books and foreign movies.
“Have you seen ‘In the Mood for Love’?” he asked. I shook my head, smiling, my mind swirling from the cheap red wine. “You’re going to love it,” he said. His hand grazed my thigh with a familiar intimacy that belied strangers.
The next day I flew back to my husband, brushing off the night as harmless flirting. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about the gorgeous 29-year-old video editor. Every time I remembered Anthony’s fingers against my leg, an electric surge swept my body.
A week later, he called me.
We talked for hours and kept talking in the weeks to come, an intense emotional connection exploding between us. Neither of us had felt this way before. Did we dare to explore it?
Seven months prior, my wedding planning was underway. I had told my fiancé that I wanted to extend our engagement. Everything was moving too fast for me. He balked at the idea. Losing him scared me just as much as marrying him did. When I confided my hesitations to my Mexican mother, she assured me that my cold feet would thaw. The edge in her lilting voice had a warning: Don’t screw this up.
I didn’t care about screwing up. I had to see Anthony again. Inventing an excuse, I returned to L.A. for Labor Day weekend.
Our illicit affair unfurled over those last days of summer.
During the afternoon, we sprawled out on a grassy knoll by the beach. Blankets and books spread around us as we listened to a playlist he’d made on a shared iPod. “Declaration,” the towering metal sculpture flanked by palm trees, rose high into the hot air above our entwined bodies.
In the evening, we strolled the Venice canals, holding hands like any other young couple, only with my wedding ring jangling against the change in my coin purse. Anthony and I made out over margaritas at La Cabaña, stumbling the few blocks from the restaurant to his house — and his bed.
After the weekend ended, I physically returned to my husband. But every other part of me remained on the glittering shores of California with Anthony.
“We rushed into marriage,” I told my husband a month later. “I need time to think.” He drove me to the airport, believing I was going to stay with my sister. He was unaware that another man was waiting for me at arrivals.
For a short while, Anthony and I existed in the fantasy of our little cocoon. We frequented Vidiots, where we rented Wong Kar-wai’s stunning and tragic story of unrequited love. Anthony was right: I was captivated by the film. We rode bikes on the beach path, snaking along the coastline with the autumn air crisp against our faces. We watched the sun set from Pacific Coast Highway, toes touching as our feet dangled from the back of his SUV.
Yet, even in these moments of happiness, as I pretended that I was free, I felt more lost than ever.
By winter, I was spiraling. I confessed my infidelity to my husband. His anguish shattered the cold barrier I had put up, leaving me bereft over my betrayal. “Your heart hurts?” he cried. “Well, mine is broken.”
My affair with Anthony imploded.
I returned to my husband. But there was nothing to salvage. I still wasn’t over Anthony. My husband and I signed divorce papers nine months after we had said, “I do.”
That summer Anthony called to say he’d been diagnosed with colon cancer.
The final time I spoke with him was two months later in October. It was a couple of weeks before the surgery to remove his tumor. Still reeling from the consequences of our relationship, I lashed out when he told me he was seeing someone and it was getting serious.
In the ignorance of my youth, it had never occurred to me that he might not survive. In July, at 31, he succumbed to cancer.
On the one-year anniversary of his death, I stood in the hallway of the Venice Beach bungalow Anthony had moved into with his new wife. He married the woman he had told me about on the phone. He must have told her about me too. A kind and gracious woman, she had invited me to his life celebration. Her invitation was a gift. She couldn’t have known that I had spent the last year drowning in grief, guilt and regret.
Before me hung a framed photo of Anthony and his wife on their wedding day. A salmon-colored button-down shirt hung from his skeletal frame. There was hollowed space under his shimmering eyes. He looked as beautiful as ever.
At midnight, his friends and loved ones assembled on bicycles, riding in his honor through the dark streets of Venice. Our bike gang was so large that people stumbling out of bars on Abbot Kinney Boulevard stopped to stare.
When we arrived at Anthony’s favorite spot on the beach, we formed a circle, hands linked, our voices howling in the salty sky. There, in the moonlit shadow of that mighty steel sculpture, I declared my love and loss and said goodbye.
The author is a freelance writer living in Highland Park. She’s on Instagram: @kimberlybridson
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
“She’s like a female Willy Wonka,” Sakief Baron, 36, said about Kendra Austin, 32, after she explained that her personal style had a playful and cartoonish spirit.
Dressed in loose, oversize layers in blue and neutral shades, the couple were walking on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I noticed them on a Saturday in April. There was a symmetry to their ensembles, so it wasn’t too surprising when she noted that he had influenced her fashion sense.
Before they met, she said, she was “less sure” about her wardrobe choices. “I also have lost 100 pounds in the time we’ve been together,” she added, which she said had helped her to recalibrate her relationship with clothes.
His style has been influenced by hip-hop culture, basketball players like Allen Iverson and his mother’s Finnish background. “I just take all these pieces and then it kind of comes together,” he said.
Both described themselves as multidisciplinary artists; he also has a job at a youth center, mentoring children. “I want to make sure that I look like someone they want to aspire to be every time they see me,” he said.
In my L.A. Buy Nothing group, I started noticing how some objects, given for free from neighbor to neighbor, carry emotional weight. An item was more than it appeared. It was a piece of personal history, perhaps one with generational memories.
From one person’s hands to another’s, objects find new life through the free gift economy on Facebook or the Buy Nothing app. Buy Nothing Project, a public benefit corporation, reports having 14 million members across more than 50 countries who give away 2.6 million items a month. There are more than 100 groups in Los Angeles alone.
Buy Nothing reduces waste by keeping items out of landfills. It also builds community. When our lives are increasingly online, Buy Nothing encourages us to get out of our cars and make connections with neighbors, even if the interaction is no more than a wave when picking something up left by a doorstep. Researchers have found that even small social interactions can foster a sense of belonging.
Still, Buy Nothing has its challenges. For years, some have complained that the groups shouldn’t be limited to neighborhoods, but rather have more open borders. Last year, many longtime members complained about the project enforcing its trademark, leading Facebook to shut down unregistered groups even if they were serving people under economic strain. Critics saw the tattling as a shift from mutual aid toward control and branding. For its part, Buy Nothing says its decisions are based on building community, trust and safety.
Despite those disagreements, Buy Nothing offers a platform for special connections. As much as there are jokes about people offering half-eaten cake, many have passed along treasured items. Buy Nothing items may feel too valuable for the trash or too personal for Goodwill. The interaction between giver and receiver becomes just as meaningful as the object itself.
I set out to document these quiet exchanges in my Buy Nothing group, drawn to the question of why people choose to pass their belongings from one neighbor to another.
Tiny builders, big exchange
Lidia Butcher gives a toolbox and worktable her two sons used to Chelsea Ward for her 17-month-old son.
“We’ve had the toolbox and worktable for the last 10 years, it’s been very special. When I told my youngest son we were going to give it away, he was a little sad. He said he was still playing with it, but then I explained that it’s been sitting untouched for a year and that if we gave it to someone else, maybe someone else would be happy about it. So he felt joy about giving it to another child who would want to play with it. I have this little emotional feeling letting it go, but at the same time, it’s a good feeling. Like a new beginning.”
— Lidia Butcher, 35, joined the group several years ago when someone told her a person in the group once asked for a cup of sugar.
“We’re getting a worktable. Benji is now old enough to be interested in playing with tools. I’m going to move my drafting table out of his room. His bedroom is my office. So that will go into storage or the Buy Nothing group and the worktable will go in its place. We live in an apartment, and as he’s growing, his needs change but our space doesn’t. Buy Nothing is really helpful to be able to cycle out of stuff.”
— Chelsea Ward, 38, has found the Buy Nothing group extremely helpful since becoming a mom.
Something borrowed
Abby Rodriguez lends Sophie Janinet a veil for her wedding.
“Sophie had asked for a wedding veil on our Buy Nothing group and I’m lending it to her because I wanted it to have a second life. I hate the idea that precious things just sit there and never get touched. My wedding day was one of the best days of my life. At one point the power went out and now we have this amazing picture with my husband and I and everyone using their phone to light up the dance floor.”
— Abby Rodriguez, 40, discovered Buy Nothing when she moved to her northeast L.A. neighborhood in 2020.
“I moved to Los Angeles from France four years ago. The day I joined Buy Nothing was the first time I felt connected to the community. It played a huge role in my adapting to life here. I’m receiving a veil because I want my wedding to look and feel like my values. I thrifted my dress, I chose a local seamstress to alter the dress but when I tried it on, I felt something was missing. I wanted a veil but I didn’t want to buy new because I didn’t want to add anything to the landfill. So I posted a request for the veil on Buy Nothing.”
— Sophie Janinet, 37, is recreating the low-waste, slower-paced values she once lived by in France through her local Buy Nothing community.
2
1. Abby Rodriguez, left, holds her wedding veil that she is lending Sophie Janinet, right, for her upcoming wedding. 2. Michele Sawers, left stands with Beth Penn, right, while giving her a decorative owl.
A pigeon-spooking owl gets a second life
Michele Sawers gives Beth Penn a decorative owl.
“Coming from a place of luck, now I have plenty to give. The owl has been with me for 26 years. I bought the owl soon after I bought this house. The owl was purchased because I had a pigeon problem, they would camp out under my eves and I would have bird poop everywhere. The owl must have worked because they’re gone and they haven’t come back.”
— Michele Sawers, 58, uses Buy Nothing regularly to connect with her community and support her low-consumption values.
“There are things I don’t want to own. So borrowing those things on Buy Nothing is really nice. There is a person who I borrowed their cooler twice and their ladder twice so I feel like they are my neighbor even though they are not [right next door]. We get these birds that poop on the deck and the recommendation online was to get a fake owl. When it was posted on Buy Nothing, I thought, ‘I have to have that owl!’ It’s going to have a good home with me on the deck with some cats, a dog and some kids.”
— Beth Penn, 47, once helped build her local Buy Nothing group and now experiences it from the other side, as a member.
Stuffed toys find a new purpose
Magaly Leyva, left, stands with Tatiana Lonny, right, with the stuffed toys and play balls she is gifting her.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
Magaly Leyva gives stuffed toys and plastic play balls to Tatiana Lonny.
“My mother-in-law gave the dolls and plastic play balls to my daughter, but she has so much. My daughter is not going to play with them with the same intent that another kid would, because she’s really little. I’d rather another kid use these things.”
— Magaly Leyva, 35, joined Buy Nothing nearly four years ago to find clothes for her nephew.
“I’m taking these new items to a township called Langa in South Africa. I know the kids there will be so happy. They have so little there. I’m doing this all by myself, I’m just collecting a GoFundMe for the suitcase fee at the airport.”
— Tatiana Lonny, 51, began using Buy Nothing in hopes of finding resources to support the animals she rescues.
A second helping
Laura Cherkas gives Aurora Sanchez a cast iron pan.
“Buy Nothing gives me the freedom to let go of things because I know that they will stay in the community and the neighborhood. I’m giving a couple of cast iron items that my husband and I got when we were on a cast iron kick, probably during COVID. We determined that we don’t actually use these particular pans and they were just making our drawers heavy. So we decided to let someone else get some use out of them.
“I hate throwing things away. I want to see things have another life. Sometimes I take things to a donation center, but I like the personal connection with Buy Nothing and that you know that there is someone who definitely wants your item.”
— Laura Cherkas, 40, has built connections with other moms through Buy Nothing and values it as a way to cycle toys in and out for her child.
Laura Cherkas, left, holds the pan she is gifting Aurora Sanchez, right, through Buy Nothing.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
“I wanted a cast iron pan because I cook a lot of grilled meat. I’m excited to try this style of cooking out and it will help me when I cook for only one or two people. I got lucky because I was chosen to receive it.”
— Aurora Sanchez, 54, has spent the past two years engaging with Buy Nothing, finding in it a sense of neighborly support that makes her feel valued while strengthening her connection to the community.
Next player up
Joe Zeni, 70, is using his local Buy Nothing group on Facebook to give away a basketball hoop he used with his son when he was little.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
Joe Zeni first offered a basketball hoop on Buy Nothing in 2023, where it remains unclaimed.
“I’m giving away a Huffy basketball freestanding hoop because it’s just taking up space. We used to play horse and shoot baskets together. My son is now 35, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
— Joe Zeni, 70, uses Buy Nothing often to give items away, believing many of the things he no longer needs still have purpose.
In the year since his death, there has been no hard pivot at Armani. The shadow of the founder has stayed in place over the Milan HQ, where the brand seems happy to leave it. Armani is not just plumbing the past for continued inspiration, it’s reselling it.
Today, Giorgio Armani is announcing Archivio, a grouping of 13 men’s and women’s looks, plucked from the brand’s back catalog and remade for today. (And, yes, at today’s prices.) There’s a jacket in pinstriped alpaca of 1979 vintage; a buttery one-and-a-half breasted jacket with a maitre d’s flair that first appeared in 1987; and an unstructured silk-linen suit that will activate ’90s flashbacks for die-hard Armani clients and those who want to capture that era’s nostalgia. The advertising campaign was shot and styled by Eli Russell Linnetz, who has his own label, ERL, but always seems to be the first call brands make when they want sultry photos with the aura of Details magazine circa 1995. (He did a similar thing for Guess recently.)
Linnetz’s images are a reminder of how Armani’s work still reverberates decades later.
Archivio is also a canny recognition of what shoppers crave now. On the resale market, Armani wares are as coveted as can be. Every week it seems as if I get an email from Ndwc0, a British vintage store, announcing a new drop of meaty-shouldered ’90s Armani power suits. They sell for less than $500. At Sorbara’s in Brooklyn, you can buy a tan Giorgio Armani vest for $225.
That vintage-mad audience is in Armani’s sights: To introduce the collection, it’s staging an installation, opening today, at Giorgio Armani’s Milan boutique. It will feature the hosts of “Throwing Fits,” a New York-based podcast whose hosts wear vintage Armani button-ups and shout out stores like Sorbara’s.
It’s prudent, if a bit disconnected. Part of the charm of old Armani is that it can be found on the cheap. I’m wearing a pair of vintage Giorgio Armani corduroys as I write this. I bought them for $76 on eBay. Archivio is reverent, but its prices, which range from $1,025 to $12,000, may scare off shoppers willing to do the searching themselves.
If you ask me, the next frontier of this archive fixation is that a brand — and a big one — will release a mountain of genuine vintage pieces. J. Crew and Banana Republic have tried this at a small scale, but a luxury house like Armani hasn’t gone there. Yet. Eventually, Armani (or a brand like it) is going to grab hold of the market that exists around its brand, but through which it gets no cut.
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