How I Really Met Your Mother

Jack scoped out The Dancing Leprechaun with his usual scan, checking out the terrain. He wasn’t looking to make a connection of the female kind. If he ran into an attractive someone, he would introduce himself, then make a go for a weekend date. Wednesday nights were for a bull session with three former college buddies.

You could tell the Dancing Leprechaun was an Irish pub by the decor on the walls. Posters and paintings and photographs of great Irish folk the likes of Yeats, Lady Gregory, Joyce, and the Big Fellow, Michael Collins. In the middle of the floor stood a statue of the Irish Hercules, Cú Chulainn, brandishing his broad sword.

Jack was the last to arrive at their regular booth. After four hi-yas, they started talking NFL draft and Stanley Cup. In no time, Jack finished off a burger and was ready for a second Guinness. Looking for a waitress, he turned around from his seat in the booth. Across the room, he spied a brunette in a yellow dress as she and three of her friends entered the pub. It was like a bomb detonated inside him.

He had to meet this woman. While some other guy might have hesitated, Jack didn’t. And he wasn’t about to wait till the weekend. He had to get to know this woman immediately. He got up from his seat and told his buddies he was calling it a night.

George looked over at the woman’s group and grinned. “Hmmmm. You may be messing where you shouldn’t be messing. It looks like they’re both with somebody.”

“That never has stopped Casanova before,” Dan commented.

Horst said. “You remember what happened the last time.”

Jack laughed. “That was then; this is now.”

Jack walked over to her group and introduced himself to the brunette and her friends, looking directly into her eyes and smiling. “Can I buy you a beer? I mean the four of you.”

“Don’t see why not,” the brunette said. “My name is Ashley.” She reached over and shook his hand. She wasn’t what you would call the kind of beauty you would see on television and in the movies. She had other qualities which gave her face a glow, but it was her beautiful brown eyes and the spirit behind them that reached deep inside Jack, a spirit that had known great pain, a spirit that could love deeply. “This is Helen.” She pointed to the other woman. The curly guy was Doug, the blond Thomas.

“Five beers please,” Jack called out to the waitress. Then he motioned to a table. “How about there?”

“Sure,” Helen winked, then pushed blonde hair strands out of her eyes. “Anything for free beer.”

Jack eased into the chair between Ashley and Helen. “What brings a party like you guys to a place like this?”

Ashley laughed. “Doug here wants to marry me. I’m trying to decide. What do you think?”

“If you have to ask a stranger, I’d say you shouldn’t.” He lifted the icy Guinness bottle and drank from it.

“But I’m rich.” Doug gave Jack a smile that didn’t feel like a smile. “And I love her. That should count for something.”

“Then I guess that settles it,” Jack said. “Right, Ashley?”

Ashley smiled and said, “I haven’t said yes yet.”

“You will,” Doug said to her, anger in his eyes.

Helen changed the subject. “What about you? What do you do?”

“I’m single. I write poetry, and I teach high school English,” Jack said.

“Poetry?” Thomas asked. “Write us a poem right now.”

“Oh, it’s not that easy,” Ashley said. “I’ve tried.”

“Let me see,” Jack said, looking at Ashley. “Tell me a favorite thing of yours.”

“She has this pillow she really loves,” Helen said. “We used to be roommates, so I know all her secrets. In case you wanted to know some.” Jack could tell that Helen didn’t like Doug or Thomas and she was going out of her way to flirt with him. If he had been after her, it would have been easy.

“Don’t,” Ashley said to Helen.

“Aw, c’mon,” Doug said. “You never told me about your favorite pillow.”

“And I don’t intend to,” Ashley said. “Now.”

“In that case, I won’t ask,” Jack said. “Maybe I can write a poem for you some other time.”

“No,” Thomas said, downing the last of his beer. “I think you should do it now.” Then he called for another round of beer. “This time I’m buying, okay. The poem will be your way of paying for our company. Right, Dougie?”

“I don’t really care for your company,” Jack said softly. “It’s the company of the women I want.”

The waitress sat the five beers down on the table.

“Helen said, “Calm down, tigers.”

The waitress left.

“So you’re a poet?” Doug asked.

“That’s me,” Jack said, then drank from his bottle.

Doug went for a put-down. “Must not be many bucks in that line of work.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how well we poets do.”

Thomas snorted and spilled some beer on Helen. “Thomas, you shit,” she said and jumped up. “I’ll be back in a moment, darling,” she said to Jack.

“Bitch,” Thomas said, watching her stalk away to the bathroom. “Dougie, why don’t we get out of here?”

“What and miss Mr. Poet’s rendition of the poem he’s about to do for Ashley’s pillow.”

“Doug,” Ashley snapped. “What’s got into you?”

Doug leaned forward toward Jack and glared. “Oh, I’ve just become a poetry freak.”

Jack smiled and looked at her and took a sip of his beer, then said to Doug, “You wouldn’t know a sestina from a sonnet if you saw one.”

“Guys,” Helen said, sitting back down at the table. “Let’s be civilized.”

“If we were civilized,” Jack said, “we probably wouldn’t be here, snarling at each other.” Everybody laughed.

Doug smirked. “Shouldn’t of let you get under my collar.”

Ashley breathed a sigh of relief, then leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. He kissed her back hard, showing the rest that she was his woman. But Jack noticed her body wasn’t into the kiss.

“It’s okay, man,” Jack said. “Seems to happen all the time to us poets. Guess it doesn’t take much to bring out the Neanderthal in us guys.”

“That’s my last name,” Thomas laughed. “Neanderthal.”

“You can say that again,” Helen said, rubbing Jack’s left foot with her foot under the table. But Ashley was the one he wanted.

“Neanderthal,” Thomas repeated himself. “Sorry, guys. I got to go to the little boy’s room.” He slid out of his chair and headed to the men’s room.

“I got to go pee too,” Doug said and stood up. “Now y’all behave yourself, you and Helen.” Then he was gone.

Helen moved herself closer to Jack and pushed her hand between his legs. Then she said, “Damn, I gotta go pee too.” She got up and rushed off.

Ashley smiled at Jack. “Well,” she said.

“Well,” Jack said.

She took his hand and ran her fingers across his palm.

“I’m going to have to get home soon,” she said.

“Too bad,” Jack said. “I was just getting to enjoy your company.”

“Yeah,” she said, “Doug’s going to drop me off at the Everglades Apartments. I am in Apartment 6B. That’s where I have my pillow. You should see it sometime. It was my Granny’s.” Then she took back her hand as Helen returned and sat down next to Jack.

“I’m afraid I have to go,” Jack said.

“No,” Helen said. Then pouting, “Don’t go.”

“Have to,” Jack said. “Got a class to teach tomorrow. Those kids wear a guy out if he doesn’t get his sleep.”

“I bet,” Doug said as he and Thomas sat down.

“It was good to meet you guys. I haven’t had this much fun since…I don’t know when. And congratulations, Doug. Maybe you can invite me to the wedding. Here’s my card.” He handed Ashley the card.

“Sure thing, poet,” Doug said. “Maybe you’ll read the poem at our reception.”

Jack walked back to his apartment four blocks away, then drove over to the Everglades. As he pulled into the parking lot, Ashley walked up the stairs to her second floor apartment. Her lithe body had the grace and athleticism of a Jordan Baker from  The Great Gatsby.

He parked in an empty space at the end of the building. Then he saw Doug start his Lamborghini and take off, speeding out of the parking lot. Wonder where he’s going so fast? Maybe to Helen’s. Wouldn’t that be something?

Jack gave Ashley five minutes to settle in, then got out of his car and hurried up the stairs. He rang the doorbell.

From inside, Jack heard her call, “Doug, it’s late.”

“It’s not Doug.”

She opened the door. A white robe covered her slender body. “Well,” she said, smiling.

“I’m here to look at that pillow.” A boyish grin filled his face.

“Come in then.”

He followed her into the apartment.

“It’s in here.” She led him into her bedroom. He followed her.

“This is it,” she said, taking a hand-knitted pillow off the bed. It was white with blue unicorns dancing on it. She handed it over to him, as she looked into his eyes and he looked into hers. They kissed, the pillow between them. It was like the first kiss he had ever had. Suddenly he was happy. They sat down on the side of the bed and kissed some more.

“That’s some pillow,” he said.

“I thought you would like it.”

Afterwards, they lay side by side, both of them smiling.

“That was wonderful,” she said.

“That was what I was thinking. But what about Doug?”

“Doug? I’ve forgotten him already.”

“He’s not going to give you up that easily.”

“I’m not his possession, you know.”

“Oh, he thinks you are.”

“Well, he’s got another think coming.” She kissed him again.

The next morning her smart phone woke them at seven.

“Yes,” Ashley said, answering it. “No, I won’t be in to work today. I think I’ve got a bit of the bug.” Then she hung up and said to Jack, “That was my office. I work as a paralegal. One of my co-workers called to ask if she could get a ride.”

“I thought you were a student at the college.”

“I work three days a week and take a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“I’d better call in too.” Jack called work and told them they needed a substitute for his classes. Then he hung up and they made love again.

Later, she turned to him and said, “You want breakfast? I am a great breakfast maker.”

He kissed her and she crawled out of bed and took a shower, then headed for the kitchen as he showered. If the rest of his life was this good, then he was going to be a very happy man.

Across from a breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and orange juice, she reached over and took his hand and said hesitantly, “I have something to tell you.

Oops, he thought. Here it comes. Oh, well. Things were good while they lasted.

She gulped, then let it out, “I only have three years to live.”

That hurt. That hurt bad. He gulped.

She went on to explain, “Don’t worry. I’m not contagious. Something inside me is all messed up.” Jack wanted to ask for more details. The tone of her voice told him she was in no mood to give him more.

He leaned over toward this woman he loved and kissed her, softly, gently, then said, “We’ll just have to make the best of those three years, won’t we?”

Fine and Dandi

Two sisters.

One, the oldest, as pretty as a model, blonde hair, blue eyes, a killer of a smile, a waist that never puts on weight. She was the smart one, and the one who never talked ‘cause she was shy. Her thing was music. She ate, drank, slept music. She played a kick-butt cello. Her name was Anna Belle. Everybody called her Fine.

Her sister, two years younger, was Mary Belle, but she was known as Dandi. She was the popular one, a little bit on the chunky side and long, stringy hair, a washed-out blonde. She had no particular bent for any of the arts. She liked people and people liked her. She had such an infectious laugh. And she could tell a joke that would have the listener rolling on the floor.

Fine and Dandi were inseparable. As the two grew up, no one could remember them having a disagreement. If a guy wanted to date Dandi, he had to find a friend for Fine. The guys didn’t mind. After all, she was the attractive one. But her attitude toward them made them conclude she was stuck up. She just didn’t reciprocate their affection while Dandi did. So there came a time when Dandi no longer was asked out. The guy couldn’t find a date for Fine.

Fine waited to go off to college until Dandi graduated high school. During the two-year interval between high school and college, she gave cello lessons to bring in some money to pay for the rent her mother charged. “It’s time you paid your way,” she told her daughter. “Can’t stay around here and twiddle your thumbs.”

Dandi managed to get through high school with a B average with her sister’s help. But it was just barely a B. Then she and her sister took off to college. They had a dorm room together. They went to the same classes. Decided they would become teachers. They both liked kids.

Soon they had their degrees and were interning at one of the local elementary schools. Both waitressed at the same restaurant and made enough in tips to keep a roof over their heads. They moved several hundred miles away from the college and found jobs as teachers at the same elementary school. They found a two-story house and renovated it over the next three years.

When the sisters went home for Christmas, their parents noticed the two were looking more and more like each other. Fine had long, stringy hair, a washed out blonde. She gave up the cello. Now she played guitar. Dandi lost weight and now strummed a guitar. Both had become shy but they had Dandi’s infectious laugh.

Then there was something else. When Fine left a room, Dandi worried that she wouldn’t return. When Dandi went off to the store to pick up some groceries, Fine kept looking out the window. It was as if each expected something bad to happen to her sister.

Sure they had always been close, but this was ridiculous. At least, that was what the parents said to each other. “We’ve got to do something,” their mother said to their father as they laid in bed, worrying. “But what?” their father wanted to know. He’d always been a man in control, except when it came to his daughters. So the parents conspired. The parents decided that the closeness was unnatural. It reminded them of people in a cult. What they needed to do was an intervention.

The holidays came to an end and the girls returned to their life in the town three towns away from their parents’ home. Their mother went on the internet and found exactly what she was looking for. It was a Saturday when the de-programmer showed up on her porch. The mother invited him in, told him what she had in mind.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked the parents. “Once we start on this road, there is no turning back.” He told several stories of what happened when parents backed down after the process began. It wasn’t pretty. “This is what we want,” both parents agreed.

The next Friday night, two men sat in a van across from the sisters’ house. They watched. Saturday passed and both the girls stayed indoors. And the same for Sunday. On Monday evening they came home from work and began their usual vegetarian dinner. While Dandi cooked in the kitchen, Fine set the table.

The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Fine called out to her sister, happiness in her voice.

She opened the door. A man in a dark blue suit threw a hood over her head. She screamed but it was too late. The two men had her in their van and they were down the road.

Behind the van, Dandi in the sisters’ red mustang was a block away and gaining. On the seat beside her lay the .38 the girls kept in the house for protection. Just as she came up behind the van, it started to rain. She almost touched the van’s bumper. Crying, she tried to think of what to do. Then it came to her. She pulled around to the side of the van and slammed into it. The rain was pouring. She pushed harder against the van with her car. The van hit a telephone pole. Dandi stopped her car and jumped out and ran over to the van.

The driver opened the van door. He looked stunned. The other man was slumped over in his seat, unconscious.

“Get out.”

The driver crawled out of the vehicle.

“Now where’s my sister.”

He pointed at the back of the van.

Dandi stuck her gun into his gut and said, “Open the back door.” He unlocked the door.

Fine was on the floor, tied up. “Untie her,” Dandi urged.

The man did as he was told. Fine crawled out of the van.

“Now turn around.”

The man did as he was told.

Dandi said, “Hands behind you.” The man’s large hands went behind his body. “Get into the van and lay face down.” He did as he was told. Dandi handed the gun to her sister, then tied his feet and hands together with his belt. She slammed the door, went to the driver’s seat and took the keys and threw them over into a nearby yard. Down the street came a police car with a flashing light.

Fine and Dandi got into their car and slowly drove away. Dandi left the lights off the car and the police did not follow.

Their car disappeared into the night. That was the last anyone saw them. Ever.

In ancient Greece, there was a story of two brothers, Castor and Pollux. When Castor died, Pollux prayed to Zeus, the king of the gods, to let his twin share his divinity, so that they would never be separated. Zeus agreed and they were made into the constellation Gemini. Perhaps the next time you look up to the heavens with your telescope and see Gemini, you will think of Fine and Dandi. I know I do.

The Hills Still Like White Elephants

The American stepped off the train and into the warm Spanish afternoon sun. One of the Guardia Civilia stood at attention beside the door of the station. The policeman eyed each of the passengers, measuring them for trouble. The American had other business on his mind than any trouble he might make for Franco and his Fascists.

The station looked run down, paint peeling off its walls. Walking into the bar, he ordered Anis del Toro. When it came, he threw back his head and downed the liqueur with one try. The cold, licorice taste went down fast and filled him with a momentary contentment. It was time to get on with what he had come to do, he reminded himself.

Grabbing a taxi nearby, he asked the driver to take him to the inn where he had booked lodging. Once settled in and after a good meal, he walked back to the station, and then on into the arid landscape behind the building.

The afternoon was now evening and shadows were everywhere, then it was night. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and prodded the hills in the distance, hills that did indeed appear to be elephants. It was too late to know if they were white or some other color. He dropped his knapsack and sat down on a large boulder.

The hills drew his eyes toward them. He found himself peering further and further into the past. It had been one long stretch of time, thirty years of it since the girl. It had been thirty years since the girl spent that afternoon with him in the train station. Thirty years since she had said those hills in the distance reminded her of white elephants. Thirty years since he had convinced her to have an abortion and she died of an infection from the abortion, her head on his lap in a compartment on a train to Paris. It had been thirty years of regret. Each day since, he had relived every moment of that afternoon, detail by detail, one moment after another whittling away at any kind of life he had tried to live.

They met in the Prado. She was a nineteen-year-old English student, sketching Velázquez’s painting, “Las Meninas”, and he, a twenty-five-year-old architect from Chicago, come to Spain to study the architecture. The previous six weeks he studied and sketched the Alhambra, the heart and soul of Moorish Spain. On his way back to Paris, he stopped in Madrid for a few days to get to know that part of Spain better.

While strolling through the galleries, he came up behind her, her long black hair falling from her beret to her waist. She was deep in her work with pencil and sketchbook. He sat down on a wooden bench, unable to take his eyes off that girl. Hours must have passed, but they seemed like only minutes. He took out his own sketchbook and drew the lines of her image, though he knew that there was no way he could put what he felt onto paper.

The girl stood up, straightened her skirt, then turned toward the American. Her smile filled an open face.

“You like Velazquez’?” she asked from across the room.

He walked over to her. “I do. Very much.”

Her eyes looked back at the painting. “How can anyone deny that is perfection? Every artist before and since should bow in his presence.”

“Even Rembrandt?”

“Even Rembrandt,” she said.

He suffered a momentary loss for words. Then she put out her hand. “My name is Lina. I come from Bristol.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” He had never believed in it until that afternoon.

“Well, yes. And no,” she answered.

He got up his courage and asked, “Would you like to get a drink?”

“I am thirsty. And hungry too.”

“Good,” he said. “I found a place around the corner that serves a good paella.”

For the next six weeks, they began each day and ended each night together. The days she spent in the Prado, sketching the paintings she loved so much, losing herself in the paintings before her.

Some days he wandered the city, taking in the sights and the sounds. Others he strolled through the halls and sketched the contours of the museum. Mostly he sat and watched the girl, never tiring of this girl he had fallen in love with.

Then one night over drinks and cocido madrileño, she said, “I’m pregnant.” They were hesitant words, and they were words that dropped like a bomb into his lap.

He choked down his food, then drank some water.

“I haven’t had my period.” she said nervously, afraid of his next words.

“It’s okay. I love you, and no matter what, we’ll work this thing out.”

Later he suggested an abortion. It came with the moment of doubt that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a father, that doubt he later regretted. But it seemed the only way to get back to the way it had been those first days in Madrid.

Before they left Madrid, they decided to stop at a little town in the Valley of the Ebro. She wanted to see the hills and the dry valley, measure its colors and its light with her eyes. It was summer and she was working on a painting. “It has good light,” she said of the valley.

A friend told him of the fishing there and the catfish and the wild carp. While she was painting, it would give him some time to be alone so that he could figure things out. There was no better way to be alone than going fishing.

On the train to the valley, they did not talk. In the valley, they talked and their talk was filled with dread. Back on the train, they did not talk again. They knew what they had to do. In Barcelona, they found an abortionist.

In the room, not the cleanest of rooms, he almost backed out of what was about to occur. But he didn’t. As she lay helpless on the bed, he held her hand. He poured all the love he could summon into that small hand of hers. After thirty years, he still felt the grip of her strong fingers grasping his hand. He still heard the screams as the abortionist pulled the baby out of her. When it was done, she looked up at him. Her face was radiant, her eyes shining her love on him.

He knew he had made a mistake. He should have insisted that she have the baby. On the train to Paris, her head became hot. She trembled from the chills running through her small body. Then she was dead, her spirit lifted out of that fragile body he loved so much.

He came back to the present and turned his eyes from the hills. He reached into the knapsack he had with him and pulled out a revolver. Sitting on the rock, he thought about what he had to do. It was the only way for him to find any peace. It would be such a relief.

He reached into the knapsack again and pulled out a box of shells. He took out six and popped one into each of the chambers on the cylinder. Then he tested the gun, aiming and firing one shot at the hills. He placed the warm muzzle against his head, then he stuck it into his mouth. Yes, that was the right way to do this. He pulled the hammer back, cocked the gun and waited. What he was waiting for, he was not sure. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour, and still he waited.

From the hills in the distance he heard a “Don’t”.

“Why not?” he said to the hills.

“Please don’t, Matthew,” the hills said.

He thought about the words for several minutes, mulling them over in his mind. He pulled the barrel out of his mouth. “I can’t go on like this,” he said to the hills.

“But you have to. You just have to.”

“Oh, my God.” He slid off the rock and onto the dirt. He cried for a good long time. He took the gun once again and pushed the barrel into his mouth, then cocked it.

Another “Please” came from the hills,. Then they went silent.

It was the final plea that did it. He dropped the revolver in the dirt, then dejectedly headed back to the town.

The next afternoon he caught the train to Madrid. From his compartment, he watched the hills like white elephants recede into the distance. It was on to the Prado and “Las Meninas”. After that, he didn’t know. He just didn’t know.

Mrs. Henderson

The Library Director, Mrs. Wheeler, escorted the new acquisition librarian through the large stone building. Stopping at each of his colleague’s desk, she introduced Jason. They were friendly, each in his or her own way. One stood and shook hands. Another gave an enthusiastic hello. Still another shared her appreciation for the new hire. “You’re going to love it here. Our patrons are the most wonderful people. Very supportive.”

Then they moved on, the director pointing out different features of the hundred-year-old building. An arch here, some restoration work here, a special collection in this room. Along the walls were pictures of contributors and former directors of the library as well as paintings by local artists.

The two descended to the basement. After meeting several technical service workers, they came to a small office at the end of a hall. Shelves of books and papers lined the walls. Still more books and papers cluttered the small desk. Mrs. Wheeler led him around to the woman whose head was barely seen above the stacks of clutter. With her gray hair pinned into a bun, she wore a gray dress, not as gray as her hair but still gray.

“This is Mrs. Henderson,” the director said. ” She is our Inter Library Librarian. And she has been with the library the longest.” There was a bit of nervousness in her voice as she introduced the woman.

“Nice to meet you,” Jason said.

The woman continued her work, not acknowledging either the director or the new librarian.

Mrs. Wheeler then led him to his office. The shelves and his desk were empty as if they were waiting for his arrival. She introduced him to Sarah, his assistant, hard at work at her desk working her way through her in-box. She stood and shook Jason’s hand.

Over the next few days, Sarah helped him get situated and familiarized him with the different library processes. He came to appreciate her sunny disposition and the bright colors she wore. It seemed that she must have quite a collection of scarves. She never wore the same one twice. In the break room on the second floor, his colleagues were friendly, treating him like he was one of a large family. Even the director joined them from time to time. But he never saw Mrs. Henderson.

One day, he asked about her. “Nobody seems to know,” Case two tables over said. “She’s a loner. Never socializes. Never talks. Guess she likes her solitude.”

“We drop an ILL request in her inbox,” Margaret, a reference librarian, said. “Several days later it magically appears in our inbox.”

“She does her job. If she wants to be left alone, we leave her alone. But it’s sad to be so isolated. I would think.” Case finished peeling his orange.

“Seems nobody sees her come or go,” Margaret again. “She’s like some phantom who has made her home here.”

One Monday morning, Jason stopped at a florist on his way to work on a hunch. He bought a rose with a vase for it. He came to Mrs. Henderson’s office. It appeared that she wasn’t at her desk, then he saw her behind her desk hard at work. “Good morning, Mrs. Henderson.” He sat the vase and the rose on her desk. “I thought you would like a rose.” The older woman did not acknowledge his presence.

For several months, this became his ritual. On his way to work each morning, buy a flower, greet Mrs. Henderson, remove the previous day’s rose from the vase, put in a new one. Then one Monday she wasn’t at her desk. She wasn’t at her desk Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. At the end of the day Friday, there was a staff meeting.

“Mrs. Henderson is no longer with us,” the director announced. “Last night the police found her dead in her apartment.”

Over the weekend Jason searched for an obituary. It was missing from the local paper. On Monday, every was told that the library would closed the following Saturday. There would be a memorial service at St. Anne’s Catholic Church. Mrs. Henderson’s ashes had already been dispersed according to her wishes. But it was the least the staff could do to honor such a loyal employee.

At the service, many of the long-time staff spoke a few words. Mrs. Henderson had gotten a near impossible book to find. A patron wanted a special edition of another book. The woman had gotten it. Again and again, each of her colleagues spoke well of the mysterious woman. Then the service was over.

In the months after the service, the library hired a new Inter Library Loan librarian. The new woman, a recent Library Science graduate from a local university, was pleasant enough. Extremely efficient, as well. The shelves were cleared and her desk nice and neat. Occasionally Jason would stop by her office to say good morning. But it wasn’t the same as saying good morning to the gray-haired woman. He took to missing Mrs. Henderson. It was like having a piece missing from his life. Things just didn’t feel right. From time to time he thought he had seen Mrs. Henderson out of the corner of his eye as he passed her office. He would look, but she wasn’t there. Only the new woman.

Then one morning, a yellow rose in a vase was on his desk. “Where did this come from?” he asked Sarah.

“I don’t know. It was there when I came in. It’s such a lovely rose, isn’t it?”

Jason smelled the rose, then said, “Yes, it is.”

Sammy

Oh, to be nineteen again and work in the A & P and ring up a queen of a girl in her bathing suit for a can of I-can’t-remember-what and quit my job and leave my co-worker, Stokesie, and the manager of the store, Lengel, behind and walk out into a whole new life. Sometimes you get a chance and you take that one chance and everything changes. It was such a good spring day to be alive and the air was sweeter than any I have breathed before or since. It was a good day to go out and see the world.

The girl and her two friends were gone when I got outside, but that didn’t matter. I was a man now because I had made a man’s decision. I had said goodbye to all the things I hated when I walked out of that store, and there was no going back. I walked over to the blue ’54 Chevy my dad gave me for my eighteenth birthday, got into it, checked my gas gauge and decided I had enough fuel to get me to the beach five miles away and back. I knew I had see that girl again, and there was no better time than then to see her.

I drove to the beach and parked my car, then ambled over to the food stand. “Where does a guy go around here if he needs a job?” I asked the man inside the stand, improvising my way through this part of the day.

“What kind of job you looking for?” he wanted to know.

“Lifeguard,” I said, continuing to make things up. Surprised that things were going in the direction they were going in.

“You a good swimmer?”

“The best.”

“Better’n me?” He pulled off his apron.

I gave him a good up-and-down and decided just maybe. “I didn’t bring a set of trunks.”

He reached down and pulled a pair out from under the counter and threw them at me.

“You can change over yonder.” He pointed toward a men’s room several yards away.

I took the swim trunks and ran to change. Several minutes later I walked back to the stand. I handed him my jeans and shirt and shoes. He put them under the counter. “They’ll be safe here,” he said and locked the stand up.

We raced down to the water and I was first in. The water, cold but not too cold, came up to my waist. I dived in and headed for the platform floating in the ocean. About halfway there, the guy pulled ahead of me. I was a good swimmer but this guy was a fish. He got to the platform and crawled out of the water and stood watching me. Grabbing the edge of the wood, I pulled myself up onto it. I steadied myself. He hauled off and hit me hard with his fist. I hit the water. What the–?

I swam under the wooden floor, came up on the other side, crawled up on the platform and rammed into him. He fell back into the ocean. I watched him go under the water and then his head appeared again and now he was trying to get his breath. I jumped in and grabbed him. He fought me hard, real hard. But soon I had him up on the platform and I was breathing mouth-to-mouth, scared as all get-out. He was not moving. Then water shot out of his mouth.

Slowly he sat up. Then he looked at me with that look that made me think I was lucky knowing him. “You got the job,” he said.

On the beach, the queen waved to me.