***A
Tale Out In The American Neon Wilderness Night - The Girl With The Pale Blue Eyes
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
All Sam Lowell wanted, all he really wanted, the aged sixty-seven
(too scary to use numerals, too easy to fudge) fires of desire seemingly gone
out of him many years before, was to be paid attention to, to be looked at, to
be prized even. He did not need or want love, or know what that word even meant
so long after the layers of studied emotional indifference had melded, had been
coated inside him, leaving him a shell, a muddling shell.
So when Melinda Loring came by, passed through his seedy has-been
muddling love life, called him darling and meant it, whispered things in his
ear, hell, just paid attention to him he was like an eager puppy. But in the
end all he had left was to write, to write some big human heart home truths,
some marginal political screeds, some be-bop language-twisted high heavens’
word stuff, some little etched and edged things that would stand in as his
posterity, and speak of their time together flame-out. Love, what did he know
of love in a flamed-out world after some many years without, having lost touch,
having no frame of reference, he himself flamed out. She nevertheless would
make him pay, and made him pay, pay big time, for not knowing that word, for
not laying on an extra coat of armor against the onslaughts of the human heart,
and of human sorrows. And so now all Sam had left was to write, write down the
notes of the saga of sorrows, and try to exorcise the pain and be done with the
thing. Damn. And so he did and passed
them on to me to be put into some remembrance shape…
Who knows when or what will feed the miasma, the emotional
miasma of the struggle against the human muck, the feelings that you have been
betrayed, or betrayed, got caught on some Mandala wheel of misfortune before
you even got up, got up to brush your teeth, and then something, something in
the human range came and slapped you down like a dog and maybe you deserved it,
and maybe you didn’t, but here it was all wrapped up in a bow, all the human
grizzle of it, all the, as you might expect, the human dame of it, for what
could drive your batteries, a man’s batteries,
to extinction better, or faster, than a human dame who let the air out of your
tires, left you feeling flat, left you flat with egg on your face and more
confusions that if you had never talked, never taken that first step, lo those,
could it be, could it only have been five months before, let me count, yes five
months although some of that was cyberspace time, some dead space too.
All it took to break Sam’s stride (to break his heart if he
had been honest with himself if not with me his old friend) was one Melinda deadbeat
cellphone call, one nada, nobody, nothing call, to finish their “thing” (the
word they used between themselves to call what they had for each other since
she screeched at words like “fling” and “affair”). And then a Sam flight into despair in order
to regroup and begin that bloody healing process that they say the human heart,
crushed, is capable of recovering from, or about or with or whatever the damn
process is.
For a few minutes, a few minutes that Sam was enflamed,
reddened in the gray ghost day, the time before he had to ride the snickering
hearse horse home he was at peace or about to make peace with his new found
void, was ready to admit that some human dame had his number, had it good and
it took no doctorate to be able to figure that out when he had to face his
demons once again. And the corpse of his love not even twenty-four hours old,
although truth to tell the damn thing had died weeks before but I will tell
that part as I go along since he asked me to. So Sam stopped, stooped to
regroup his inner forces and to put paid to the last embers of their “thing, ”
ship it off via some mailed letter, no card, no note, just silence like the silence
of the groves around the cemetery of their moment, he dared not call it love,
did not think it was love, did not want it to be love but somehow it felt like
that, that feeling in the pit of the stomach, gone gnawing gurgling empty, that
clustered heart, bunched up against his broken chest.
So Sam had a minute reprieve against the bad heart beatings
within his breast, a deep swallow before he had to admit he was licked, had
been in love or something like that but the thing was too confused to live and,
or, grow and so he was ready to accept that casted fate when some young bucolic giant of a lad came into the bank where he
was making his penance, his retribution, his mailing, wearing a University of New Hampshire Hockey
tee-shirt (it had been a warm day, a warm day even for late April after weeks of mucks and heavy
winds portending those badly beaten attempts to figure out things rationally
but the warm day only made him feel worse, feel sickly, feel that he needed,
craved, overcast chilly days to fit his mood, to temper his sorrows), an
unknowing tee-shirt proclaiming for all the world that he was snake-bitten,
that far from that locale, the place where his love had faltered he was being
mocked by unkind gods who refused to let him bask in his sorrows, his beating
fast heart, his closed mouth breathe, ah, his, doldrums.
For a minute he thought about how before Melinda, before
that infernal her who did not beget him (funny term, huh), he had not been in
Durham (where the University of New Hampshire is located and where she worked
as a professor but more on those details later) his old anti-war pals days in
the early 1970s when he stayed at some plainsong Quaker house, a private house
while working on a campus issues campaign. Hadn’t been there in Durham even
when their thing started but only returned there one “the shining” day when she
needed to get out of the house as she was recovering from her surgery and he
needed to get her out of the house so that he could breathe, could ready
himself for his other life. The life he led back in Boston, the life that would
in the end prevail, for he was not made in the end for rural trees and laconic
slow-moving country campuses with equally laconic teeming students. But that
did not come until later, later when he, squirming, tried to do an end around
in order to get free from the bucolic, the rural, and those damn trees that
only sated him at twilight. And so that bank minute passed, that tee-shirted
hulk child, with his own fevered dreams, his own ice palace fancies, subsided
from his view, and from memory.
Forward he said, and forward Sam was going although with
fits of angst, fits of sorrow, fits of remorse, and fits of missing his “girl
on the rocks.” He was making small progress the next day, when Boston-bound,
sweet home city, skyscrapers, teeming masses, honking horns, life-bound, he was
waylaid again by her fates for him. Walking around the edges of a rally, a
rally for some justice (really injustice) cause he was approached by an old
comrade-in-arms, a fellow fighter against the American imperial night, against
the night-takers, and their earthen dragons, a fellow from Nashua, Nashua up in
New Hampshire where they, he and she, Sam and Melinda had met early on, early
fresh bloom weeks on, in their, what to call it now, yes, “fling,” in some Irish shabeen, some place
where they would argue, always argue about what they were going to do, and
while he did not like, had not liked the town he took his old comrade’s
presence in a strange city, on a strange city street, as an omen, a portent,
that he must think the thing through. Or thought he must think the thing
through because isn’t that what people do when they have their hearts crossed,
don’t they soul-search, bleed, bleed pores worth of bleedings to wash
themselves clean.
Still Sam hesitated, thought he could defy the times, the
gods, and the human feelings that he was hurt, had hurt her and was hurt. Later
that night trying to confront some other demons, trying salve his wounded
heart, he made plans to get away, to fear thinking, to freeze his heart against
the coming voids, to count the minutes until the hurts subsided, until she,
Melinda she, was no longer under his
skin. The place he was to hide, the place where sorrow’s face would gather
sunshine was up in damn seacoast New Hampshire, a place they knew well and it
was then he realized that unless and until he pulled the eyes out of those
demons, had come clean (or as clean as he was liable to come since he had no
seasoned track record of performing such hygiene, none, except perhaps the
other way to add salt to wounds). And so he thought, or for him the same thing,
wrote, wrote to try made sense of the begotten world that he had created for
himself. Wrote to figure out each and every piece of the puzzle that he had
created, and for which he had no solution. Damn.
And so he wrote some copious
notes, some sketches which he then ordered, yes, ordered me so I knew that this
mass was important to him, to compose something that he could read later,
something to make sense of, and something to calm his nerves. I remember, as I
looked at his disjointed notes, having written something a while back, a
commonplace something although never-the-less true despite its humble
imprimatur that sometimes a story cannot be told except that some
technology-advancing event had occurred to drive the action. I noted there as
an example that in a number of Dorothy Parker’s short stories where some bereft
female was waiting by the telephone for some ill-disposed or vagrant lover to
call you needed that damn gadget to have been previously invented or you could
not have such a scene, the damsel in distress would probably have to be waiting
for the mail, or a Western Union wire or something like that. That simple fact
is true for my, uh, Sam’s story -the beauties of the Internet, e-mail and
cell-phones made it possible and would otherwise have been impossible without
those communication advances. Let’s flush out the details.
Sam had been thinking about his
50th class reunion at North Adamsville High School since he had
received an invitation to go to his 40th reunion back in 2004.
Although he had not been, as he perhaps had been at previous times, exactly
“hiding” still he wondered how the class reunion committee had gotten his then
current address. He later found out that it was easy as pie either through his
membership in a state-wide professional organization, the Bar Association, or a
zip through the “white pages” where he was publicly listed both via the Internet
and Google searches. At that time Sam had dismissed the invitation with so much
hubris because then he still thought that the bad luck that had followed him for
much of his life had been caused by his growing up on “the wrong side of the
tracks” in North Adamsville. He told me, a number of times, that he had spent
half a lifetime blaming that affiliation on everything from acne to
wormwood.
Subsequently through some
family-related deaths that took him back to the old town Sam had reconciled
himself with his roots and had exhibited the first stirrings of a feeling that
he might like to see some of his old classmates. In late 2013, around
Thanksgiving he, at least marginally savvy on such user-friendly sites, created
a Facebook event page in order to see if anybody else on
the planet knew of plans or was interested in making plans for a 50th
reunion. One day, a few days after setting up the page, he got an inquiry
asking what he knew about any upcoming plans.
He answered in a short note his own limited knowledge of any such plans
but that his intention in setting up the page had been to seek others to help
out with organizing an event if nothing had been established as yet. In that
reply he had forgotten to give his name. And that is how the girl with the pale
blue eyes came into view.
“Who are you?” asked Melinda
Loring returning his message, a name that Sam immediately remembered from his
high school days although he did not know the woman personally. He shot back a
blushed reply about being sorry for forgetting to include his name, gave it,
and casually remarked that he had remembered from somewhere that she was a
professor at a local public university in the Boston area. He asked if she was
still there. She sent an immediate reply stating that no she was no longer
there but that she had been and was still a professor at a state university in
an adjacent state, at the University of New Hampshire, and had been for the
previous twenty-five years. She also mentioned that, having access to her Manet , her class of 1964 yearbook she
had looked up his class photo, and said he was “very handsome.”
Naturally any guy from six to
sixty would have to seriously consider anybody, any female, who throws that
unanticipated, unsolicited comment a man’s way especially since she sent her
class photo as well. That got them started on what would be a blizzard of
e-mails over the next several weeks but just then got them together via Facebook as he “friended” her and she
accepted. They quickly decided, both agreeing that given her profession (and
those ever nosy college students who live and die to troll that social
networking site), that e-mail was the proper vehicle for their
correspondence.
During the early stages of their correspondence
Sam told Melinda that his previous knowledge of her had been perked a few years
earlier when he had as part of his reconciliation with the old home town looked
up and found his old high school running and running around buddy Brad Badger
through a school-related Internet site and he had gone over to Brad’s house in
Newton to look at his Manet and talk
over old times. As part of that “look see” Brad had some material about the 25th
class reunion where Sam noticed Melinda’s name (and profession). That got both
of them commenting on what a “fox” Melinda had been in high school, although
Brad said he did not know her personally either.
Sam, having had a few drinks that night and
feeling expansive, related the following story to Brad and which he
subsequently related in an e-mail to Melinda to her delight if disbelief. It
seems that in his junior year at North Adamsville Sam had noticed Melinda
around school (they later confirmed they had had no classes together, although
having been in the same junior high and high schools for five years or so they
must have run into each other or been in the same room sometime if only the
auditorium, gym or cafeteria) and had an interest in meeting her after seeing
her around a few times.
Of course in high school, at least back then,
maybe now too, a guy didn’t just go up to a girl and start making his moves. He
got “intelligence,” found out if she had a guy already, stuff like that.
Usually this information was gathered in the boys “lav” (especially the Monday
morning before school session when all the “hot” news of the weekend was
discussed) but in this case since Sam was a trackman this happened after school
in the boys’ locker room where he inquired of two guys he knew who knew her
what she was like. Both agreed instantly that she was a “fox” but told him to
forget it because she was “unapproachable.” Meaning low-rent raggedy guys like
Sam forget it. Meaning, as well, that Sam as is almost always true with the
young just moved on to his fantasy next best thing. And so they did not meet
then. Melinda said she laughed when he related that story to her and in their
further exchanges related lots of information to Sam about what she was really
going through back with an extraordinary tough family life, lots of low
self-esteem, and other problems too intimate to detail in an e-mail.
Frankly, after the first few exchanges Sam had
been more than a little intrigued. And as it turned out Melinda was as well.
They discovered they both had much in common academically, professionally,
politically and personally. I won’t go into the specifics of those “things in
common” because in looking over my notes from Sam that would take more time
than necessary to make the point and since I will be interspersing some of the
story below with actual informational e-mails between them where they mention
the common interests that should cover me. Stuff like this-
“Melinda – Thanks for the eight millions thoughts-
Wow-somebody who is as interested in the NA [North Adamsville] past as I am.
And strangely has many more things in common with me than you would think as
you will found out. So I am pleased, no more than pleased, that you are writing
to me like crazy and will ignore that venting ending. Between the two of us we
will not figure what the heck happened back then, unfortunately the time for
doing something about that is past, but we might have some solace in
“analyzing” it. This is what I have been looking for, no question. Even
now I feel comfortable enough to tell you stuff and I hope you develop that
sense as well.
I know this is a busy time for you. Most of my friends
and/or golf partners are professors or work in college administration. I hope
that mention of golf doesn’t disqualify me in our friend thing that is
developing, that now you will not dismiss me out of hand as a savage hitting an
innocent white ball with a big club so I will response to your last message in
parts via e-mail and we can talk on the phone when you are less busy or on
vacation. Talking rather than spending lots of time writing all this stuff will
free up lots of time. And I will sent my cell phone number then.
Okay?
First off and this may be a bizarre coincidence- when did
your mother save that child’s life doing in the “projects” (that is what we
called it so when I say that I mean Germantown-Snug Harbor where I went grades
1-6) ? How old were you? Was it a boy she saved? The reason that I ask is that
I almost drowned at that beach (the one across from the Housing Authority) when
I was either eight or nine. Typical boy story: I had grabbed onto a log, a
telephone pole maybe, and started to ride it as the current went out. When I
sensed I was going too far, way over my head, I, ah, let go of it. I started to
go under. My brother on shore saw me and called for help and some lady came and
saved me. I swore my brother to an oath not to tell our parents. I also have
ever since had a love/fear relationship with the ocean-love to be near it (have
to be near it like in Maine but later on that) but still really don’t like to
go out too far. That would be something if it was her. I don’t remember the
details of what she looked like but she was fairly young and an adult.
We moved from the projects in February of 1959 and I entered
North Adamsville Junior High then from Broad Meadows so I was, as you were, in
the first full graduating class in 1960. What I have been trying to find
information about for a while since I missed it was the move from the high
school to the middle school (oops, junior high). Also about the North
Adamsville /Central division in our class (they came in 1961). More importantly,
I don’t think we were in the same classes at all, and I don’t remember you from
around school then like I do from high school (yeah, we know the routine by now
on that one, the “hot” girl who was “unapproachable,” and who wore those not 40
plus cashmere sweaters and was the girl next door and had a bunch of guys in
the bowels of the building wondering and dreaming stuff- oh yeah, and a
“Squantum” girl to boot.
Have I got it right so we can give it an acronym?). To
finish this point I lived in a shack of house over on Walnut Street (which has
now been cut by the Newport Street extension) just a couple of blocks from the
Best Western Adams Inn where our reunion will be held. That shack on the wrong
side of the tracks represented my parents’ best efforts to get us out of the
projects. It did not save my older brother (who would have been in our class if
he had graduated) or my younger brother who did (1966, and who that 1963
football rally sketch is dedicated to), and for me it was a close thing.
That brings me to my last point for today (apparently
we are destined to write an e-mail a day until we come up with that original
new idea to save my poor fingers anyway - the telephone.). That point about
alienation from family hit home-partly about politics, partly about craziness,
mind and theirs. What I did not tell you about when I mentioned my mother’s
death in 2007 was that I had not seen her in 25 years and my cousins who
controlled the funeral arrangements did not inform me until after she was dead
and buried. Thus the damn need to make sense of that whole thing, then and now.
So yes, Melinda, we certainly have some things to talk about and that is, my I
hope friend, is not another story but the story. Later Sam ”
And this
“Hi Sam,
Put pictures of the fallen with in memory
Your email message was really welcomed as I'd
had a rough day otherwise, culminating in a nasty confrontation with a grad
student in my class this evening at UNH-Manchester. It's end of the
semester craziness!
First of all, I'm nervous too (very
distracted!) and yet figure the worst that can happen is that we've become
friends and that is pretty cool. You've already helped me so much make
sense of who I was and what I became, which is huge. For the meet-up next
week, I'll bring the yearbook, the 25th and 40th reunion brochures and we can
just focus on high school over a nice meal, and you can fill me in on the
committee's decisions from this week. Friends laughing over old times, sounds
good to me!
I'd like to talk on the phone, not sure if you
are a night person or not, but usually I don't get home from teaching til
almost 8, which is the case tomorrow, Tues. Or we could chat Thurs eve,
but I think that's the Rockland reunion meeting for you? or Sunday eve?
If you're going to Portland the 11th-13th then maybe lunch on the 11th or
dinner on - um - Friday the 13th?!
Some literary license is fine with me now that I
know that you've used that for the “hottie” page list, I actually looked up all
those pages to see which girl you were referring to! Glad you posted your
yearbook photo, and also that you posted a message for Kathy. I talked to
her tonight and she said it was ok if I mentioned that she has breast cancer,
how thoughtful of you to do that. I figure that any inspiring messages for our
classmates are great! I've tried to add posts to those who passed on (how awful
to me that only those with posts get red roses, like some sort of valentine
mishap). I'm hoping more classmates will add posts and profiles and pix!
For sure I want to know more about your
"good lawyering" work, such as Courage to Resist and how that
connects to your own military experiences. Some major soulful
transformations must've happened. And yeah, that family stuff is powerful
and so hard to make sense of, one step at a time.
Animal rescue league is a good charity, my will is split
between PETA, NHSPCA and Colorado State Animal Tumor center (where I took a cat
that had cancer & they were amazing). I like how you named Willie! My
current cats are Micki, Queenie, Jinx and Elle. Three came with names, and
since I was in a Phillipa Gregory (English queen historical novels) audio tape
stint in the car, I renamed Rhianna Queenie. She looks the part since
she's a Norwegian forest cat with a gorgeous blond mane. Do you have any cats
now? Yes, for me too pets, mostly dogs growing up, always a source of love and
comfort.
My grandfather taught math at Boston Latin and had to tutor
me in order for me to get thru Mr Leone's algebra 2 class. OK, more later
on our teaching (except tonight I still had to stand up and square off with a
grad student no less! & tomorrow I have what I call the "young and the
restless" class of 30 ed majors, avg age 20 and all my classes are doing
the "very important to my career" course evals this week).
Interesting you got into BU and Boston State, btw I also did not get into
UMass (ditto unh) and became a prof UMass/Boston, yes another connection since
Boston State became UMass/Boston. I of course want to know more about
your upward bound academic career. I finally escaped to South Carolina, but
after graduation I had a few months as a hippie in Colorado, where I wanted to
be a forest ranger (what funny stuff was I into?!) So it intrigues me
about your vagabond adventures, apparently out west somewhere too, but probably
longer than my short westward expansion.
The brief and jeans questions had no heavy stuff
attached, just curious. pro bono work is fascinating and I imagine rewarding.
I just wear jeans a lot. Jogging and golf, impressive as you must
still have good joints and feet (my feet had major surgeries 3 years ago, now
ok and can hike but probably not run any more 10ks as I used to in the 80s). I
do remember the track team running on all the streets, often saw you guys since
I often had to take the late Squantum bus and waited outside the school or on Newport
Ave for it. In our grade school years, I do remember my mom being very
upset but also grateful that she rescued a boy, I'm sure it was you.
Since I was the youngest and couldn't be left alone I suppose, she took
me to all her Snug Harbor parks and rec work, and I remember she plunked a
sailor hat on my head because I got so many freckles out in the sun.
Remember a freckle faced girl with a sailor hat on the beach?!
I sure do have this strong feeling we have met, it’s part of
the very disconcerting part of this communication. But that means we can now
have a happy reunion instead of a first meeting.
What talk time works for you?
(not cheating on this email, on my laptop; but anything sent
in the daytime is from my walking around the house and multitasking and talking
on the iPhone)
Good evening, Sam!
Melinda”
And back again, portending trouble in paradise:
“Hi Melinda –Well we have been on a roller-coaster so far
and we have not even met in person yet. That is what is so surreal about this
whole thing that had developed between us. That business from last night about
me tracking your record down got me thinking though. Kind of has forced my hand
about something that I had intended to bring up tomorrow as the first order of
business to clear the air and give our friendship a proper footing. I was
struck by the way you said you have been honest with me and that got me motivated
to write this now instead of wait until tomorrow. I have, unlike you, not
always been honest in the past. For example, not to brag or anything like that
but to deal with the honesty question, a couple of times way back I have had
five girlfriends at one time so there was no way I could be honest and juggle
all that. So I was lying to beat the band. I have gotten better and tried to be
honest with you and have been doing so. But sometimes you can be honest and
still omit things and that is what this e-mail is about. I take it as something
that we will work through as we go along and I hope you agree.
You know as well as I do that we both carry a lot of
baggage, busted marriages, affairs, and so forth. On the other hand we are both
old enough to have whatever level of friendship we want from just friends to an
affair because with both as far as I know have no ties that would prohibit
that. And even if we did in this day in age we could still have whatever
relationship we wanted. As long as we both have our eyes open and know the
score. That “know the score” part is what I want to talk about. It is nothing
bad but it is a complication. And even if we decide to be just friends it is
part of what is unfolding. I have decided to do the rest of this as a narrative
so here goes.
Up until a few weeks ago for the past ten years or so since
the end of my last serious relationship I was just rolling along writing, doing
legal work, doing politics, playing golf and all the rest. Doing all of that
while living in the same house as the woman that was my last serious romantic
relationship, Laura, who is still my closest woman friend. I have known her for
over twenty- five years and about twenty years ago we bought this modest house
in Walton. As time went on though we had, as couples will, our problems until
about ten years ago we decided that it wasn’t working. But we both wanted to
keep the house (and the cats, Willie Boy, my Willie Boy and Sasho) and be
friends (I won’t go into all of that but you can ask me about it). So that is
what we did. And nothing wrong with that people make such arrangements all the
time. And so time moved on. I did my thing-she did hers and we do things
together. For example we still go out to Saratoga to Laura’s family for
Thanksgiving and Christmas since I don’t have family that way. Stuff like that.
At some level we have deep affection for each other but it is just easier and
more comfortable to be friends.
Then out of the blue you came along. You know how we “met”
and all so I don’t need to go into that but what happened is that I was not
sure where we were heading (at one point if anywhere) and so I made a point of
keeping that information to myself. Remember I made a point about just
concentrating on us and not on other baggage stuff. Part of it obviously is
that if we were not going anywhere then such information didn’t matter and if
we were then that would just be an awkward situation that we would deal with.
That is what a lot of my concern about expectations, the way we have met and
all of that has been about. I have told her about you in general terms (the
only way to put it since we still have not met) and since this whole thing has
been topsy-turvy that is where things stand right now.
If all of this seems like too much then so be it-but as for
me I still say forward- if you don’t that is okay and we can work on some other
way to be friends. I think we both strongly want to be friends and should be
damn it if that is what we want. Later Sam”
The tipping point for both of
them, the piece of information exchanged that startled, hell, flabbergasted
them both, made them think for a moment that destiny’s wings beckoned, made
them think their flame thing might be written in the stars was an event that
occurred when they were nine. Here is what I wrote at the time when Sam told me
the story (after he told me that he was “smitten” with Melinda and I begged him to be cool, be cool for
Laura’s sake although I had always had an abiding interest in her, if she ever fell
off of Sam’s wagon. Laura never did, damn, she never did):
“Now you have to know a little bit about Sam Lowell, about
his attitudes toward things like mysticism, fate, kismet, the unknown and all
of that to appreciate that he does not truck with any of that stuff. He fancies
himself a man of science, or at least of there being rational explanations for
things and this is why the information that he imparted to me baffled him. Me,
I am more agnostic about such things but this one did have me scratching my
head a little so I might as well get to it:
“The year 2014 will be a
milestone for Sam (and the same for me as well) marking the 50th
anniversary of his graduation from high
school, in his case North Adamsville High School about twenty miles up
the road from my hometown of Hullsville. For a whole number of reasons that
should not detain us here Sam had been looking forward to that event for a
couple of years in the expectation of going to his class reunion. He had never
gone to any before for those whole bunch of reasons. Moreover he had actively
attempted to put himself into the mix by setting up a class reunion event on Facebook. What he was doing at that point was making an
ad hoc attempt to enlist fellow
classmates to help organize the reunion. He got the usual early
sparse response and then the response that triggers this sketch already
mentioned.
A woman, Melinda Loring, a
fellow classmate commented that she was interested in helping out but due her
professional career commitments would not be able to do much. Also she lived up
in New Hampshire and since the reunion would be held in Massachusetts that too
would be a barrier. In any case Sam, looking to find some kindred help, began a
blizzard of e-mail traffic with her. It seems that this Melinda was what they
now call “hot” back in the day, a real looker, as a look at her yearbook
picture testified to that Sam had forwarded to me, a fresh dewy “girl next door”-
type who wore cashmere sweaters and who by popular opinion (boys’ locker room
after sports’ practices opinion) was “unapproachable.” In any case Sam had seen
her around school but that was about it.
Well some things change in
this wicked old world, some things are not eternally etched in stone and Melinda
like all of us from the Generation of ’68 has learned a thing or two, had
been through her share of ups and downs and survived to tell about it.
Naturally Sam was all ears to hear about this life if for no other reason that
he could say that he had actually talked to her, even at a fifty year remove,
for some such reason which only Sam is privy to. And so the blizzard of e-mails
continued (her almost as crazy as him to write, write, write).
“One exchange, the one that
matters here, involved the question of where they had gone to elementary school,
she to Adamsville North and he to Adamsville South. That Adamsville South
response by Sam brought out the fact that Melinda’s mother, Margaret, had been
a swimming instructor down at the Adamsville South Beach during the 1950s
summers and had during her career there saved a drowning boy. Melinda, nine at
the time, had been present at the event.
Sam said he had flipped out
when he heard that information. See, and I remember him telling me one time
about his love of the ocean but fear of it, fear to go too far out when
swimming because he had almost drowned when he was nine down at the Adamsville
South Beach one summer. Typical boy story: as the ocean was rising he had spied
a log, an abandoned telephone pole, and had grabbed onto it. He drifted out for
a while and then, as he said sheepishly, he realized he had gone too far but
instead of holding onto the log he decided to try and swim for shore. Not a
good swimmer and just too far out he started going down. His brother who was on
the shore called for help and the swimming instructor came out and saved him in
a nick of time.
So what lesson did Sam draw
from that today. Anything about fate, karma, or just plain good luck. No. He told
Melinda that since they had already “met” maybe they should get together and
discuss the matter more fully. And guess what, she agreed. Jesus.”
And so they cast about for
some fated thing from that experience. All of this back and forth in
any case grew to a desire to know more about each other as they were kind of
Internet-enforced “smitten” after a time and both agreed that the “so much in
common” required more than a blizzard of e-mail traffic.
So they exchanged cell-phone numbers. One cold
December night Sam, from his car sitting in an isolated parking lot, called
Melinda and they talked for a couple of hours. Laughing, giggling and being
somewhat shy while they were doing so.
Here is an e-mail that Sam sent after that
first cell phone talk:
“Melinda –Well now I can truly say that
I am “talking” to Melinda Loring and wouldn’t all those boys in that “phantom”
locker room be jealous. And rightfully so. I hope that you got from the sound
of my voice that I was, well, excited to talk to you (after that schoolboy
weak-kneed, and dry mouth, anticipation nervousness).Now we can go easy with
only one more “nervous” thing, actually meeting. I think we are going to be
okay whatever happens. I haven’t felt like this since my last serious
relationship ended about ten years. We both carry whatever baggage we have
accumulated and will discuss that but we shall see. All I know for now is
forward. BTW I am in favor of keeping our “talking” and whatever very private
for now-meaning I am not going to be “boasting” to one and all about what we
are up to-let’s say to the reunion committee or those long-ago locker room boys
as I help prepare for the reunion and come in contact with those remaining.
Later Sam”
And her response:
“Hi again Sam,
Me too, very positive about our first
conversation. You have a very youthful voice, without our old Boston/North
Adamsville accent! Felt bad you were
sitting in your car sorta late in the evening, not even haven't gotten
home; but it sounds like you have a lot of energy, jogging very early
in the morning on those "astroturf "soccer fields.
Okay, no bragging about our pre-reunion
stuff! I did mention our connecting over the 50th to Kathy before I got
that message, but will keep it private from here on in.
So much zigzagging over our lost
histories! Of course I want to hear more about your having been chained to the
White House fence! And these various volunteer groups for assorted war victims;
and especially about how you train for nonviolent resistance and the
philosophies that go with that (King, Gandhi, Thoreau & those wonderful
Irish women from the 70s & you & so many more).
Ha ha, at least we have sound bodies,
and it looks like pretty strong minds too!
Looking forward to our chat on Thursday
evening, and I hope that the 50th committee work goes well and you
have fun reconnecting with some of our classmates too!”
And to show you the tenor of their budding
relationship his response back:
“Hi Melinda - I didn't mean to make a
bigger deal out the private thing than maybe I expressed - Of course talk
to Kathy and that kind of thing. What I was thinking of more is like the
committee (made up right now of all women some of whom are part of a group of
nine who have been meeting together for 30 years who may or maybe not like a
little off-hand gossip.) Or a better example when I reconnect with Bill
Cadger and a few others to get them to sign up for the site/go to the
reunion. I was probably directing it more at myself now that I read this since
I will be more in the line of fire. Okay.
It is funny about accents because when
I gave a speech on Chelsea Manning's behalf down in front of Fort Meade
just before her trial opened in June everybody came up to me and said I had a
strong Boston accent. I am kind of with you though on the accent thing
because I think my father's slight southern drawl leveled the Boston.”
A couple more cell-phone calls and another
round of e-mails got this pair to the idea of meeting in person, a “date” like
some hormonally-driven teen-agers. (Sam could not remember who suggested the
idea first but neither flinched at that possibility.) They both admitted to
nervousness as they planned to meet in Portsmouth up in New Hampshire at a
restaurant that she had selected (he was to be at a legal conference in Maine
and that locale was the closest convenient city for both of them). Needless to
say they hit it off remarkably well. She even had thoughts that early on that
finally, after two divorces and untold liaisons, she might have met her
“forever” man.
Here is the drift of what they were
thinking then:
“Hi Sam, this is a short one honestly.
What, I think we still are forlorn teenagers, I certainly never outgrew that!
And with a little bit of dyslexia I realized I'm on page 89 not 98!
Of course not one-shot does it all, and
no matter what we're friends and also no matter what we're working on the
collective memories piece for our upcoming reunion.
I look forward to some mundane topics
as well; here's a starter what was your favorite movie from that North Adamsville
theater off Hancock Street (The Strand, and I walked past it just three years
ago with Alison it's no longer in business)? My mother had to drag me
out of the theater with "Alice in Wonderland" because I screamed when
I saw the Cheshire cat's teeth, but I think I liked "under the big
top." But my favorite was "around the world in 80 days
" How about you?
Now your turn to ask me a mundane
question.
Later,
Melinda “
And back:
“Hi page 89- thanks for note and
thanks, big thanks, for being nervous too. Yes, by all means let’s be casual
(but shaking underneath, a little). Rudi’s looks like that kind of place from
the link you gave me. Maybe if we are both nervous that will help. What I
suggest is that we give ourselves the option of maybe a couple of “dates” just
in case to see how things go so we don’t have to depend on one roll of the dice
on Wednesday. We are going to be friends anyway no matter what (and I want that
for sure, no question). What do you think?
We did not get much snow here but it
must have been nice to see that snow on those pine trees. I hope you had good
luck shopping and got everything done. I know about those tough Maine roads,
especially Route 1 and 1A going up. Sorry you could not go to that Christmas
party. See I can talk about just regular stuff too. In fact I will be very glad
when, whatever happens, we can talk about such things as books and movies and
music without my having to “impress” you with all this other stuff. And
definitely not to have to fret about whether we are going to like each other or
not like a couple of forlorn teenagers. I hope you agree. Later Sam”
And this after a
second date:
“Dear Melinda (yeah,
it’s that way, it’s dear Melinda now)-
Needless to say last
night was great and all and whole bunch more. If you can believe this I am at
something of a loss for words, a least cogent words and most of this requires
that we talk in person or on the phone but I just have to get it out and we can
save this e-mail for future talks. Here goes in no particular order-
One UNH Professor Melinda
Loring, NA Class of 1964 is fragile and must be handled with care and
affection.
I did not want
to leave you last night and kept the conversation up to be with you a little
longer.
I wonder if
anybody was listening to us whether they would have known we were only on our
second date.
Funny since I wrote
an e-mail earlier in the day that I had the distinct feeling that I wanted to
jump into bed with you and then fly (not hitchhike showing our greater
resources now) to California (to NOT cross the Golden Gate Bridge). Funny too
after two dates already I was ready to fly some place with you.
And neither of
us thought that strange.
Of course jumping
into bed implies the question of sex, if any, in our friendship which we have
no talked about but all I know is when we were holding hands and all I had
some, uh, funny feelings. And you know what I mean.
We need to go slow
here –one step at a time- I don’t think you want a quick flame thing and then
burn-out and I know I don’t.
Whatever happens in
the future we should at least have experiences like last night, times like that
to be together- isn’t the possibility of future times like last night better
than not having anything just because of baggage?
I know we are going
to have some disputes on this and that is okay but, pout or not, I have a
special relationship with Laura that I
don’t see how can be broken. I don’t even want to break. I have always enjoyed
doing things with her. She is a waif too. If we get serious (or better more
serious because if last night wasn’t serious I don’t know what is) then it will
have to be with that kind of understanding. But for right now isn’t it better
like I said above to have special moments like last night rather than nothing.
You know my answer.
Jesus, a month ago I
was walking around minding my own business, doing things with Laura and
assuming that would be it, and NOT being a womanizer, and then you came
along
to, ah, disturb my
sleep. I am glad but it sure is hard trying to do the right thing-very hard.
What I am trying to
say with all this and what is causing me to be all balled up this morning is
that as I suspected we would be good for each other-very good- at least I think
so- if you want that then you are going to have to compromise a little and take
what I can give you- while could be quite a lot-
I know you’ve had a
rough time with men (and maybe when I was younger you would have had that with
me too) but I think I have a lot to give and I don’t want to be feeling like I
have to hide stuff- In short dear Melinda (yeah, it’s that way like I said) I
really don’t want to do anything to hurt that smiling pretty face of yours.
Obviously more later on
this.
It is very important
to me that you get your work thing done and don’t feel harried so it is good in
a way that you have stuff you need to do that means we have time away over the
next week-Get it done and we can work around that Ms. Worker Bee- We are
okay-we are moving forward and I like that idea-like it a lot- Later Sam”
And Sam, with two divorces under his belt and
that also untold number of liaisons, was also in his less lucid moments
thinking along some just such lines. Except. Oh yeah, except Sam was, as he
learned as they went along ah, “married,” had been “married” for many years to
Laura, although for a number of years past they had been living as “roommates.”
Roommate meaning separate beds, mostly separate lives, and most definitely no
sex. That hard little fact, that “marriage” fact, a fact that I kept mentioning
to him as he got deeper into the human sink of Melinda. Naturally he would not
listen. Although not because, and it can
face the light of day now, I secretly, secretly then, wished that Sam would
leave Laura, Laura who had disturbed my dreams for years. We later discussed
this situation after Sam’s fever over Melinda had broken. Sam knew of my
feelings for Laura, had known for years and acknowledged that if things had
gone differently with Melinda he would have wished me well in my pursuit of
Laura.
Naturally, or maybe not so naturally for the
senior set, for people in their sixties,
and supposedly beyond sexual desire as they dote on grandchildren, gardening,
golfing or whatever, the question of sleeping together, staying overnight
together came up after several dates. Sam as part of his professional duties
often went to Maine on legal business and so he suggested that they, he and
Melinda, meet at a hotel a mutual distance between them and they did one Friday
afternoon in frigid January. Melinda, assuming that the offer of meeting at a
hotel meant that they would sleep together, had made provisions unbeknownst to
Sam to stay that night with him. Sam, perhaps a little more backward in the dating
game and its progressions expected them to just have a few drinks, go out for
some dinner, come back and have a nightcap, let her go back on her way, and
leave it at that. That afternoon Melinda came on strong, almost caught Sam
flat-footed with her desire but he was not ready, had not been prepared for
Melinda’s desire and so nothing happened that night except an unhappy Melinda
who left unfulfilled around midnight.
That event left Sam in a quandary. He knew,
just like Melinda knew, that he desired her, wanted to have sex, make love to
her. But he also knew that once that happened that a bridge would be crossed,
or so that was his thinking at the time. Still Melinda was there, still he
wanted her so the next Friday afternoon he called her up out of the blue and
told her to meet him at that same hotel. Oh yes, and feed the cats and bring an
overnight bag. She was thrilled and arrived a couple of hours later. And that
was that. Well not exactly because that night they a great long sex bout like
fifty years of unacknowledged, unknown, unknowable desire surfaced. And that
was their high point, the acme of their thing. That was also the point where
Sam, back-tracking, began to squirm a little both at what he had done, that
bridge that he had crossed and that home he had left behind for a minute. The
omens thereafter were not good, although he never spoke of those nights to me and
I only knew about them from the notes he handed to me.
Who knows how some
relationships turn from spun gold to dross in a short time, in time for a
“forever” man to turn into a never man (the first designation an inside joke as
it turned out since she had started to call him that in the early days when she
was still smitten with him and expected to share her time with him that long,
and everything was possible. In the event “forever” turned out to be, ah,
significantly shorter.
Maybe the turning point was Sam’s response to that second date, a
December Friday a couple of weeks before Christmas date at a tapas restaurant in
Portsmouth. Sam had never been to such a restaurant where they give you small
portions of many good things to eat, well-prepared, served at intervals and a
place which provided a relaxed atmosphere to while away the time in. They
talked up another storm and could barely keep their hands off each other,
gathered closer as the evening progressed. After the meal, the weather New
England winter cold he escorted her to her car and before she left they
exchanged several meaningful hugs (and he might have kissed her on the cheek).
They left knowing they both definitely had a thing for each other.
But Melinda was a fretter and a planner, not necessarily in
that order so at some point between that Friday and their resumption of e-mail
traffic the next day Melinda possessed of some dream future with Sam tried to
find out more about Laura, about that “roommate” arrangement and what was to
become of her. See Melinda had certain rules as we all more or less do in that
she took pride in her serial monogamous relationships. She was with a man, and
a man was with her, or no dice. Once she finished with a man that was that. She
told Sam that in an e-mail exchange set. He in a little panic over her position
kept trying to calm her doubts, kept trying to pass over his longtime
relationship as some platonic boy-scout trip, kept trying to keep his head
above water with Melinda. That night, that restless Saturday night he tossed
and turned trying to mull things over in his head and came up empty. Came up
with the only conclusion that made sense-end the flirtation and walk away. He,
and this is characteristic of Sam, “wrote” the thing out in his head first and
then at the crack of dawn gathered himself from his bed and went to compose the
following e-mail which he sent later that morning. Here it is:
“Dear Melinda
I have to admit that I am all balled up about you but in the
cold light of day I have also admit that I am perplexed by the tone of your
e-mail last night (the “down the snowy road” one in case you have sent a later
one). I am a little confused now about your reasons but from early on you
seemed interested in my pursuing you, and encouraging me to that effect. And I
certainly have been interested in pursuing you and encouraging you to make me
feel that I should. Also I like you am amazed by the fateful number of common
things we share but now I am beginning to believe we might be star-crossed. It
is with you do not know how much great sorrow I have to write the following, I
hope you will respond to my e-mail with an e-mail (seems we are better on such
issues this way) and if you don’t I will understand and accept that you agree
with my solution. In any case I hope you will think and reflect on what I have
to say and not think too badly of your old classmate.
We are cursed you and I, we, the both of us with the three
curses, A tendency to intellectualize things, over-analyze them, fret them to
death, try to engineer things rather than let them take their natural course.
We have also been around the block enough to be wary, defensive about
relationships and things having taken and given our bumps and bruises. Of
course, as well we carry those long ago created scars about expectations,
acceptance, need to be wanted, praise and the like. A lot to carry for sure.
I know and I have said it before that you have had a rough
time with men and now it looks like with me too. That has to color your
perspective and that is not wrong. However your e-mail got me to wondering
about why you have kept trying to throw up roadblocks to our blooming romantic
relationship (formerly known as our possible “affair”). Not when we are
together or on the phone but in your e-mails. I won’t argue the point if I have
done the same but let me point out some things that will show what I mean:
Your general early wariness of my intentions and what I was
about and lately about my “marital” status.
The criminal report incident where you assumed that in the
whole universe I did such a goofball thing
The whole FB/ring thing
The womanizer issue
Now this thing about my true relationship with Laura
I wasn’t going to bring it up but since you asked
about it and I have told you more stuff about myself than probably any other
woman including Laura we have not been intimate for over fifteen years (part of
our problem). Sure on trips and stuff we have shared the same room and even the
same bed but that is it. If that isn’t platonic I don’t know what is.
We share a seven room house she has a room and another room
for her singing/mediation/photography- I have a room, a small office (which I
am writing this in now) and we share a living room, dining room and kitchen.
All modest and kind of small but with room for guests.
The big thing is that all of this in really uncharted
because Laura and I have never had to confront a situation like ours. Who knows
what would happen. All I know is she is the innocent party here and should be
treated like that.
Of course if our romance had blossomed then I would
have no problem bringing you to my house. But I do not think you are thinking
outside the box. I/we have resources so if something had bloomed I know (since
I have done it before) that other arrangements could have been made. Laura keeps
the house and I move out to an apartment. I move in with you and share expenses.
We both move some place together. We run away to a cave off of the Pacific
Coast Highway-they are plenty of alternatives.
All of this to say I really never would want to hurt you. I
am sorry if I have but there are no guarantees. Although I would much rather
have you holding my hand right now dear sweet Melinda I think perhaps it is
best that we stop right now, accept that our time together has passed. We have
been on a roller-coaster so I think just friendship would be hard, although
maybe when I calm down and knowing the limitations maybe we could work
something out. I hope you will respond but in any case I still hope to see you
at the reunion. That after all is what got this whole thing started. Sam”
Sam never gave Melinda a chance to response since a few
hours later, maybe two, he called her up and begged her to forget what he had
written and that they should keep on going as best they could but that he
planned to do right by her. Of course he sent me this new information and I
blew my top but since it cannot anybody any harm, or minimal harm let me show
you an e-mail he posted to Melinda after their “mini-break-up” episode:
“Melinda -Glad to reach you this morning to
make sure things were right between us and thank you for being understanding
about me being a little crazy yesterday. Yes, crazy because why would any guy
in his right mind walk away from somebody who was certifiable good for him. In
any case the time for walking away is past. If I really wanted to do that I
could have just done that yesterday. And you could have indirectly done the
same by just saying to yourself why should I go forward with a guy who doesn’t
have enough sense to come in out of the rain when somebody that is good for him
walks through the door. So the walking away is done and while we probably still
have rough patches ahead we are moving along-along in case anybody asks to the
hand-holding stage. So something is up.
I still can’t get over my response when you
started tearing up Friday night. I have been accused and rightly so in the past
of not showing enough emotion but I almost instinctively reached over to you to
comfort you like we had been together for a long time. I won’t forget that.
Hope you are okay after your dental
work-rest and take it easy tonight. Later Sam.”
Maybe it was San Diego- Sometimes a guy can’t quite figure
out what to do, can’t for the life of him, despite his age and the fact, the
hard fact that he has been through many mills before what the right thing to do
is, or maybe is too callous, too concerned with having his own way, having his
kids’ stuff two women thing that he gets blindsided by the truth, by the
equally hard fact that he cannot burn the candle at both ends. Melinda had
screamed at him, raised bloody holy hell about the fact that he was taking Laura
to San Diego with him, a few days in the sun he said to give her winter-weary
body so Melinda would have to put up with the fact that he would be with
“another woman” in the same room in the same hotel.
That drove her to rages, to
fits, to tantrums which made him cry bloody murder. He made sure that he called
her every day but that every day was like a prison as she took aim at his
situation. He made the supreme mistake though of one call making a comparison
between the hotel room in San Diego and their love-nest in Portsmouth. That
caused a burning flame for days after.
Maybe it was after that
Washington, D.C in February which was a trip that solidified, mainly, their
desire for each other, but because she was taking a scheduled bus back to New
Hampshire and he was grabbing his car from an off-site lot they had a rushed
good-bye after furious movement at the airport where she had an odd exchange of
luggage problem getting hers’ mixed up with another causing several headaches
and problems for Sam at home when Laura received a telephone call from Jet Blue
asking if that mislaid luggage was there. The next day feeling some ill-wind had crossed
their paths Sam had refused Melinda’s request of him to call her when she was
confused by an e-mail that he sent because he had written it hastily as he had
his hands full with Laura and her furor as fallout over the luggage problem.
Probably though the end
started to crumble the month before the end when a few days after coming back
from that fateful Washington trip Melinda took a big spill, a serious fall at a
pool in Portsmouth where she swam to get exercise, that broke her hip bone requiring
surgery and their budding romance came to a crashing halt as she convalesced
and Sam took on the unaccustomed role of care-giver general. Not so much that
incident itself since it was an accident but what it did to enforce her
idleness which left her too much time to think about how she wanted him with
her, wanted him to leave Laura, wanted to make those 208 plans (roughly) that Melinda
spent her waking hours doing in order to have him come closer to her. And Sam
needed to be in Boston, or wanted to be, and not stuck in some winter
wonderland town in Podunk New Hampshire at the beck and call of her highness.
Not a meeting between them in
that period went by without some variation of the on-going argument. Although
there were some nice times, (one time he drove her to their North Adamsville
youth homes and they had many laughs, and some sorrows, over that). Even when
he had driven up in order to allow her to teach a seminar at UNH and then drove
her the next day over to the Portsmouth General to get her cleared to be able
to drive she/he/they argued over that same old, same old material. Now that Sam
thought about it he believed that was clearly the case, the place where all
hell broke loose, since he just from his end got tired of the arguments that
were leading nowhere.
The few days before the end
had not been better (really a few weeks Sam thought since that damn accident
put her out of commission placed a damper on their affair as he became a
care-giver and she a patient). The inevitable Melinda war cry of when was Sam
going to leave his “wife,” when he was going to leave Laura, and what, get
this, constructive steps he had taken to break with her had led to a series of
arguments starting with the day that she was finally given the okay by the
doctor in charge of her case at Portsmouth General to drive.
Melinda, as an act of
liberation from her confinement, had driven them to Newburyport and then to
Plum Island where when Sam had expressed his concern about the change in their
relationship from romantic to care-giving, that the “spark” had gone out
somewhere along the line (she took his remark, the way he said it, as his
displeasure at her). Melinda had exploded and said that “she wished he had
never taken care of her during that month she was laid up if she was such a
burden.” They talked but the fires had not been put out. Newburyport was
significant for that was where he had brought her a trinket on their first trip
there in December when they could hardly keep their hands off each other (and
had their first “lean-in” kiss). The next day walking on Hampton Beach the
smoldering fires erupted (slightly) again when an issue came up about Melinda
doing a favor for her ex-husband. They kissed a statutory kiss and parted
company she to Epping and he back to Boston.
Naturally the e-mail and
cell-phone traffic (actually the diminished traffic, significantly down from
the days when they would sent blizzards of e-mails to each other when he
thought about it later) reflected those unresolved tensions. She needed to
spent that first week of liberation catching up on work, house, social chores
and could only spare that next Thursday evening for them to get together and
since she was going to be in the Salem (NH) area they decided to meet in
Amesbury for dinner. Before that though Sam made what would be a mistake, a
fatal mistake, of putting into writing some of his feelings about where they
were at in their relationship. Thus he sent the following e-mail which was the
final piece of evidence that things had gone drastically wrong.
“Dearest Melinda -Where have
those hands grabbing at each other across the table in delight/need/want at
Moxy’s (and elsewhere) gone. Where has your hand grabbing my arm while walking
outside of Rudi’s (and elsewhere) and me glad to have you do it gone. Where
have the little stolen sweet kisses of Portsmouth parking lots gone. Where have
those endless phone calls where we hated to sign off talking about great
adventures ahead gone. Where have those roundabout hours of blissful silliness
gone. Where have those shy but meaningful moments when our feelings for each
other blossomed gone. I could go on with a million more examples when were on
the same page and were relaxed and confident about our relationship and where
it might head but you get the idea.
I sensed from this e-mail
that you are beginning to get the feeling like me that you/I/we are not in a
good place these days. Think about the first time at Newburyport in precious
December and last week. I had already spoken about this last week and now I
think you sense that too from your side. Our talk today where we got all
theoretical about the future without any sweet talk kind of epitomized that.
Frankly, and you can speak for yourself, I am unhappy with the drift of things
now. I/you/we spent too much time thinking about the future, future plans,
about the relationship itself and not enough about how to get out of the rough
patch we are in. How to get the romance back and just relax with each
other. Why don’t we take a step back,
maybe two, today and tomorrow and think about things we can say and do when we
meet on Thursday to break the impasse. Why don’t we step back and just forget
about the future for a little bit and just think we are “dating” for right now
with all its sense of mystery in the now with no future goals. Or maybe that we
should think about just being friends for a while. I always want to be friends
with you that is for sure. These are only suggestions. The main thing is that
you/I/we think about this and not rush into a blizzard of e-mails. This rough
patch requires thinking not writing-
From a guy who misses those
delighted hands across the table, that grabbing hand on my arm, those endless
funny phone calls waited for in anticipation and nervousness, those sweet shy
stolen kisses, that bubble silliness when the outside world didn’t matter for a
bit, those intimate moments when you and I both blushed a teenage-like blush at
how close we were, those all night talkfests, those candles flittering in the
dark, serious Melinda and Sam just being foolish and off-guard, the kindnesses
we did for each other just because we were special to each other, the sense
that our thing was written in the wind, and lots of other things you remember
as well as I do. Sam”
They had a short acrimonious cell-phone
exchange after that e-mail but again agreed to meet in Amesbury the next day to
figure things out. That next evening things started well enough, after Melinda
had ordered wine with her dinner. The net result of their discussions was that
they would go on as friends for a while and see where that led. Of course to go
beyond the friend stage Melinda gave no uncertain terms to the proposition that
she could not go on, was “ashamed” to go on under the circumstances unless Sam
got a place of his own, left Laura.
Melinda ordered another wine,
unusual for her, and that must have given her courage to speak again of the
e-mail. She said it read like a lawyer’s closing argument, that she had been
hurt and that he was basically a bum of the month. He became incensed, yelled
at her and threw money on the table for dinner and walked to the men’s room to
fume. When he came back he tried to tell his point but he was tired of arguing
by then and just said “let it go for now.” They left, she put her hand in his arm
as usual and he muttered that “they were in very bad place” as he walked her to
her car. He looked at her shoes, the shoes she reminded him that she had worn
in sunnier days down in Washington and he commented “that seems like a long
time ago” as they arrived at her car. Rather than the usual kiss good-bye he
yelled out “I’ll be in touch,” as he walked back to his own car.
Since Melinda was not good at
directions (and the Google maps were
helter-skelter on this one) Sam had consented to have her follow him out of
Amesbury on Route 27 which she did until they got to the U.S. 95 South
entrance. A couple of exits up she veered off onto Route 133 for home. As he
shifted gears from fourth to fifth to push on up to speed in the U.S. 95 night
after he saw her automobile veer off to the northern route home he breathed a
sigh of relief, and of sadness. And although there was some muted cellphone and
terse e-mail communication between them later to officially finish up their
affair they never saw each other again.
