by R. M. Green
***
So, like I said, it has been an up and down couple of years. Well, like all my life, like all our lives it has had its fair share of good and bad, triumph and tragedy, or any other of those contrasts you can name. Ian bought a boat and plans to spend the winters in the Caribbean. He named it ‘The Sweet William’. Jeff and I are swapping houses with Caroline, Daniel and the girls. They could use the space and we like their two bedroom apartment. It is in Sandy Hill, right back where we started; seems fitting somehow. Paul and Sarah have another baby on the way and have bought a pretty, old-colonial style house in Halifax and I just got a lovely email from Sonya and Habib. They are rushed off their feet with animals of all sorts which are brought in at all hours of the day and night. Habib calls the ranch, ‘The Ark’ and they are coming to visit this Thanksgiving and we are going there for Christmas.
So, you see, just as I said before, pretty standard stuff for a life. Certainly nothing worth putting in a book, but I am glad we had a chance to catch up.
Well, I better get going, Jeff is due home soon. He should have retired this year but they asked him to stay on to help settle the new guy in and he was happy to help. He has recently started curling; he calls it, “Bowls on ice for pensioners,” but he takes it very seriously and I have a feeling I won’t be seeing too much of him at weekends. But in a few months, I will have him around all week and Lord knows how that will work out!
***
Oh wait! I forgot. I wanted to tell you about Rachel and Larry! I remember telling you that they had a very bitter break up after 23 years of marriage. That was back in, let me see, it must have been 2003 or 2004, I think. Well, they had not been on speaking terms at all until their son Damien and his wife, Julie, had the triplets: Eve, Gillian and Tabitha. Well, after the girls were born, Larry and Rachel were civil to each other and spoke at family gatherings. Rachel went back into nursing and Larry stayed working with Jeff at Rogers. Rachel devoted herself to work and helping Julie with the girls and Larry went on a few middle-aged man type dates with younger women but nothing came of them.
Then just over two years ago, maybe a little less, Damien and Julie’s house caught fire due to a short in the water heater of all things. Damien was out driving a cab, covering for one of his guys who had a burst appendix, and Julie and the girls who were about twelve at the time were asleep in bed. Fortunately, the smoke alarms worked and they all got out just in time. They lost everything and although the insurance covered most of it they were temporarily homeless. Larry offered for them to live at his house and said he would get a motel. Rachel was having none of that and insisted he stay at her apartment as long as he slept on the couch. That was all fine and while Damien and Julie were looking for a new place, Larry stayed with Rachel and they started hanging out like they were dating in college! Larry still slept on the couch but all the old rancour had gone and a genuine friendship was re-emerging. What pushed it from friendship back to true love was horrible.
It was the day that Damien, Julie and the girls were due to leave Larry’s and move into their new house. Everyone was terribly excited and the girls were running in an out of Larry’s house with boxes of clothes and bits of furniture that Larry was giving to them. Larry had mixed emotions because it meant leaving Rachel’s and he felt rather flat about that. To tell the truth, Rachel felt the same but was too proud to admit it. Anyway, Tabitha, the youngest of the triplets by thirty-eight minutes, had a wooden-framed round mirror and was very gingerly taking her time carrying out to the van that Damien had hired. It wasn’t heavy and Tab was being very careful. But she hadn’t spotted that Evie had dropped a couple of coat hangers from her last trip to the van when loaded with winter coats. Somehow, Tabitha’s foot got caught up in the hangers and she came crashing down with the mirror underneath her. She cut her wrists to ribbons and lost a lot of blood. The ambulance was there in four minutes and she was in the emergency room in twelve. They gave her a transfusion and stabilised her and when she was out of danger, Damien and Julie started making the calls to let people know she was safe. But it was Larry who called me.
Since Rachel had called me earlier to tell me what happened I had been sick to my stomach. I wanted to go to the hospital or to Rachel’s but she told me to stay put, as she may need someone to look after Eve and Gillian. So I waited by the phone chewing my nails and saying a prayer and apologising to Sister Mary-Joseph again. Towards evening, the phone rang and I snatched it up immediately. It was Larry. He told me she was fine but that when she fell, a sliver of glass from the mirror had gone into her eye and that it was too early to say what the prognosis was. I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly the bus crash, the hospital, the little sleeping girl, Agatha, the doctors and nurses, my mum’s ‘Evening in Paris’ perfume, the bandages, the names I was called by the girls at school and, most of all, the pale girl in the little mirror with the black patch came flooding back all at once. I had never had a bad dream about my eye or the accident in all those years but now it was as if the accumulated nightmares of fifty years had all come crashing down on me at once. I threw up on the breakfast bar. Larry was still on the phone and must have heard me sobbing and puking. Oh God!
“Nance, Nancy? Are you OK? Do you want me to bring Rachel over?”
I collected myself. “Don’t be silly, Larry, I am fine. All I care about is Tab right now. Promise you will let me know as soon as you hear anything?”
“Of course we will. You sure you ok, Hon?”
“Sure. Now go and make yourself useful. I am sure Damien and Julie could do with a break.”
Well, medicine, particularly optical surgery, has improved out of all recognition since 1966. Micro-surgery and lasers and all sorts of things they have now. They got the glass out and saved the eye. Tabitha had to wear a patch for about three months while she healed but I leant her some of mine, and she ruled the school! Six months later Larry and Rachel got married again and I was a fifty-seven-year-old bridesmaid!
My patch matched my dress which Rachel had picked out… it was aubergine!
THE DINNER DATE
Denise: We have been married for eighteen years but tonight is only our third date! Personally, I blame Dr Phil and Oprah. And don’t think it was my suggestion. It was Todd’s daft idea. I always suspected that those days when he worked from home, all he did was goof off and watch TV.
In fact, a lot of our marriage has been the opposite of the conventional roles for men and women joined in that whole holy matrimony thing. But I am getting ahead of myself. Hello, I’m Denise Parkinson, née Driscoll, and I am English (or British as you say over here), born in Lincoln, forty-cough-years old, height: 5 feet five inches, weight: none of your damn business. Married to the aforementioned Todd and mother of two: Jane, eighteen (yes, the same age as the number of years we have been married), freshman at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Steven, sixteen, junior at Western High, Baltimore and part-time server at Subway, Charles Village outlet, on Saturdays and every other Sunday.
And I am sitting here in my office at Maryland Dream Realty (Get it? Where we make your dreams a Realty… sigh) at half past six on a Friday evening, putting on my make-up under strip lights with a powder compact mirror, showing only two square inches of my face at any one moment. My tights have a ladder and my black Versace sequin stretch-wool cocktail dress is hanging on the doorknob. It has to stretch a little more than I would like but it is very cute and goes well with my LK Bennett Sledge leather court shoes, which I bought at Selfridges on our last trip to London to visit my sister, Harriet. Looks like I will have to go without tights, so good thing I shaved my legs this morning. I know I said we had opposite roles from convention, but that doesn’t mean I stopped being a girl!
Anyway, I better get on with this mascara. The three whiskey sours I had at lunchtime and the doobie I lit up when everyone left about half an hour ago have all kicked in nicely and steadied my nerves for later but it’
s playing havoc with my make-up application! The office phone is direct to voicemail and I have my mobile on silent, so I reckon I have about twenty minutes before my ‘date’ gets here. He is always bloody early! I hope he gets stuck in traffic then I can have a fag and take a slug from Bob Carpenter’s Wild Turkey – I know he keeps it in his filing cabinet. It should be a sackable offence but as I’m the boss, I will let it slide this time!
I can’t believe I agreed to this. It’s bad enough having to date your husband without him insisting we keep a bloody video blog of the sorry experience too. I think he wants to become a YouTube sensation. Well, Toddy boy, you asked for it ‘warts and all’. Cheers, darling!
***
Todd: Hi! I just tried calling Den but she didn’t pick up. I bet she is too psyched! This whole date thing has really got to her! I know she loves it. I knew she would as soon as I mentioned it to her when I saw that show on Lifestyle, How to Keep it Alive: CPR for your marriage. I was waiting for them to get us organized with a conference call with my boss in ‘Frisco and our advertising guys in Chicago and I idly turned on the TV just as the piece on dating your spouse came up. And I thought, Bingo!
Hi! I’m Todd Parkinson. I live in Baltimore but I was born and raised in Falls Church, Virginia. I’m 48 and graduated GW in interior architecture, class of ’88 and I’m a designer for an executive jet company. I design the interiors for your office in the sky. It’s an election year in three years’ time, so we are real busy right now gearing up for all those politicians’ needs. I have been lucky enough to have been married to Denise for almost nineteen years and we have two beautiful children: Stevie, who is a catcher for his high school team, with a .380 batting average, and my very own princess, Janey, who is as cute as she is smart and has just started at Amherst. Stevie is almost seventeen and Jane turned eighteen last May. Yep, Den and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other when we first met and although we were always going to get hitched. Janey helped us set the date, so to speak!
Jeez, it’s almost quarter of seven, I better grab my coat and make a move! Den hates to be kept waiting. So long for now!
***
Denise: It’s five past seven and darling Todd is, thankfully, stuck in traffic. He sent me a text: “Traf Nmare! B@U N20 X.” I honestly think it takes longer to abbreviate text messages and render them nigh on incoherent than it would to compose them properly with correct grammar and punctuation. Well, it gives me the opportunity to have another cigarette which Todd strongly disapproves of and seems to enjoy lecturing me about and I’ll just take another refreshing draft of Wild Turkey straight from the bottle. Is this my second or third? Oh well, doesn’t matter, I can’t face this date sober!
And not just a date, dear viewers, but a date with rules, no less! Fancy! My only rules for dating were to make sure I had clean panties on (unless he was really hot, had a decent car and looked like spending a fair bit on dinner in which case I would sometimes forego the panties altogether) and remember to put my diaphragm in my purse! I could have said ‘knickers’ instead of ‘panties’ and ‘handbag’ instead of ‘purse’ and, in fact, I switch between American English and British English depending on where I am and with whom I am talking. But the punters lap up the old Queen’s English at work! I have been here in the States since I was eleven when Dad got offered a job as a professor at the University of Delaware, my alma mater, and left Mum and Harriet back in Lincoln. God, they were such socialists! So much so, that when they got divorced, they divided everything equally – even their daughters! But the olds have long croaked and Harriet is a PA in the city and although three years younger than me, she is a decided spinster. Actually, Hattie, if you ever get to see this, your sister thinks you’re a lezza! Oh my! In vino, well, in Bourbon, veritas!
I shall have to reapply the lippy, mind. See Todd, smeared on the bottle and on my dog end?
So, the rules. We each get to ask the other six questions and we have to write down what we think the other will answer. But we don’t know each other’s questions beforehand and we have to video the other person as we ask them to catch the live reaction. How Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? meets Mr & Mrs. I’d rather be soaking in the tub with a bottle of Chablis and maybe a line of coke then getting a massage from… well, I better stop there or I shall have to repair to the ladies again and I don’t want to crease my Versace! Am I naughty? Do I shock you, Todd, and you, viewers? Well, if you knew what I know, you might not be so surprised that I am, well, how I am.
Bugger! He’ll be here in a minute, so I better make sure I am ready to go. The other rule is that he takes us to Dino’s Wine Bar before dinner where we walk in separately and we each have half an hour for a cocktail or two at either end of the bar like we’re strangers. Then he ‘picks me up’ and we go to dinner at Zen. Three words; for fuck’s sake! But who knows, I might get lucky in Dino’s and have a great evening? Well, at least I have my questions ready and what I know will be his answers and I couldn’t care less what he asks me although I bet I can guess. Now all I need to do is find my panties!
***
Todd: Hey! It’s Todd again! I just sent a SMS to Den that I’m running late. But she didn’t get back to me. I guess she must be getting ready for date night! And here I am, stuck in traffic behind a big rig with a blow out and rubber all over the freeway. Looks like I may be here for a little while. I hope she’s not mad. She’s been acting kinda funny lately; moody-like and bent outta shape over the littlest things. Sure, she always got cranky when she was on her period, but this has been going on a while. I guess it might be the menopause maybe. Anyway, Stevie is staying over with Jimmy Miller across the street playing Halo 4 or Rock Band 3 on Xbox so we have the place to ourselves when we get back. So, I suggested the dinner date to keep things fresh and keep Den sweet. It’ll be cool, just like old times. We only ever had two proper dates before; our first date a couple of weeks after we met at that Christmas office party when I was breaking up with, oh what was her name now, Cherry or something like that. Anyway, this girl worked as a secretary and Den worked there too as file clerk at an attorney’s in DC. And the second date led to Janey, so I must have been doing something right! What with the pregnancy and all, then the babies then work, you know how it is. Well we just never got to spend much time together as a couple and before ya know it, nearly twenty years goes by and you need to put the magic back!
Uh oh, looks like we’re moving again. I better put the cam down. Don’t want a ticket! Gee, that would be great on YouTube. Todd gets a ticket in a traffic jam!
Darn it! False alarm. We moved about ten feet! But should be any minute now. So, quickly, to tell you, we have devised some fun rules for our date. We each get six questions but can only ask them live at dinner and we each record the answers. I spent all yesterday thinking up my six and then I had to write down what I think Den’s answers will be and we get to compare notes. Wanna hear my questions? Looks like I just have time.
OK, question one: do you remember we met?
I bet she says it was at the party when Cherry or whatever got real drunk because I told her we were through and Den, who had been watching me all night, came up to me and asked me if I was ok. Next thing I know she is kissing me like we were the world’s greatest lovers. Man, she was hot! She was all over me and not even a bit hammered! I knew she had been checking me out all the while I was with Cherry. They were roommates and I had caught her coming out of the shower before, wearing nothing but a towel, so I figured it was only a matter of time. God, Den was hot back then; short skirts, tight tops and a great body. Even after kids and hitting 44, she still looks great when she gets herself done up. Sure, she has gained a few pounds, but in all the right places! Shame she has gone off a bit in the bedroom department. I guess it must be the menopause. But I don’t mind that much. I know we can find our spark again. She started taking yoga classes on a Tuesday and Thursday evening for a while, a few years back, and I thoug
ht she was trying to get less stressed so that we could relax again and have fun in the sack like we used to. But didn’t seem to help at all. Although she always enjoyed the classes and came back looking relaxed, but then just took a bath and slept like a baby! Then last year she tried photography, going over to my cousin, Hannah’s place on Saturdays. Hannah is a professional portrait photographer. Den really enjoyed it, although I never saw her stuff. She says it was private, like a diary and just to help her keep her centred and focused. I have no idea what that means but she seemed to enjoy it. She dropped it though, just like the yoga, when Hannah sold her studio and went to Paris to work with some famous chick in a photographic gallery.