“I like your shirt,” says Sam, and he flushes, feeling as if he had no control of the words that suddenly flew out of his mouth.
“Thank you,” says Shelly, splaying her hand over her collar, as if trying to hold in a rare compliment.
Sam racewalks away, the word “awkward!” blaring through his brain. At the fountain by the vending machine, he laps up water like a parched dog and wipes what’s dribbled onto his chin with his forearm.
Before she rounds the corner, Ellie Barnes announces her presence with her perfume, which to Sam, smells like a cherry juice box.
“Good afternoon, Samuel,” says the features editor, who, like a skunk, has a white stripe in the middle of her black hair. “Say, I brought in a pan of sweet potato brownies. They’re in the break room.”
“Great!” says Sam, even though he’s learned to avoid the treats brought in by Ellie, as she seems to follow recipes that confuse “healthy” for “tasteless” or “granular.”
On his way to the conference room he passes Haze’s office and is surprised to see his mother inside, sitting at the desk.
“Mom?”
Susan looks up, a dazed expression on her face.
“Oh . . . Sam! Did you . . . did you have a nice lunch with your dad?”
“It was okay. We went to Rosa’s.” Standing in the door’s threshold, Sam folds his arms, not liking the thrum of anxious concern he feels. “Mom, were you crying?”
Susan pinches her nose with a tissue. “Oh Sam, I’ve just been reading all about Haze’s marriage.”
Relieved she wasn’t crying over something that had to do with their family, he asks, “Haze was married?” and taking six steps across the small office, he plops himself in the chair facing his mother.
“And she wrote columns about it,” says Susan. “Not enough, but what they lack in quantity they make up for in quality.” She sniffs and blinks hard.
Not wanting to witness more tears, Sam leans forward and spins the file on top of the desk.
“‘On Love and Marriage,’” he says, reading the yellowing label.
“I knew Haze kept a chronological file of every column she wrote, but I didn’t know she had a special file reserved for the ones she wrote about her husband. I found it in there.” Susan nods to a cabinet drawer still pulled out.
Sam reaches into the file and takes out a thin sheaf of papers.
“Don’t!” Immediately Susan offers a sheepish, “Sorry. But I still haven’t read those.” She dips her hand toward the paper-clipped stack of papers to her left. “I want to know what happens in order.”
He shrugs, and worried that she somehow offended him—she seems to have a special knack these days in offending her son—Susan asks, “So . . . tell me more about your lunch.”
“Mom,” says Sam, and as an idea blooms in his head, his eyes grow large. “Mom, you should run those columns in order.”
“What columns—”
“the ones about Haze being married! I mean—they’re making you cry! And Mrs. Athorn”—she was Sam’s English teacher last year—“says that a good story always has a reader asking, What happens next? If you want to know, and it sure seems that you do, I bet lots of other people would too. I know I would.” He feels himself color. “I mean, shi—sheesh. I didn’t know she was ever married.”
The circumferences of Susan’s eyes widen as she mimics her son’s earlier expression.
“Oh, Sam. That’s a great idea.”
“It is?” Sam says, and enjoying the compliment, he’d like her to expand on it, but Susan’s already crossing the room, shouting for her assistant to stop the presses, and Sam doesn’t care how lame a joke it is, he laughs.
6
“Haze Evans’s fan base has never been limited to a certain age group,” wrote Susan in the Gazette. “She hears from high schoolers as well as octogenarians, but only those who were reading her in the late sixties and early seventies were privy to a type of column she has not since written. Columns on marriage, specifically her own. It is our pleasure to reprint Haze’s love story, as she wrote it.”
December 31, 1967
I don’t make many New Year’s resolutions, having learned long ago that I seem to forget the root word of resolutions is resolve. The word should be changed to considerations, as in, “I’m considering not to eat my weight in chocolate this year.” You can’t break a consideration, you merely ignore it, which to me would lead to a lot less guilt and self-recrimination.
The one resolution I have remained committed to is that every New Year’s Eve, I write in my journal a wrap-up of the year to which I’m about to bid adieu. I have remained committed to this practice since I was thirteen years old and, missing a childhood friend who’d moved away, I wrote him a letter recounting all the adventures we’d had together. The next year I recapped for him the ups and downs of 1948 and did the same thing for 1949, but the next year the letter was returned to me as “address unknown.” Thereafter, my year-end summations were recorded in my journal. I submitted this column so that it will run New Year’s Eve, but you can believe that before I attend this year’s party, I will have sat down and looked back on the year, recording the high and not-so-high lights. But for you, dear reader, let me tell you about the year’s highest light.
Two of the girls in my high school class got married the summer after graduation. Three more said, “I do” the next year (sadly, I’ve got the bridesmaids’ dresses to prove it), and after that, it seemed a race to marry off all seventeen females of the class of ’53. I may indeed be the last one, but I believe there’s something to the saying, “saving the best for last.”
On December 23, in my hometown in western North Dakota, I said, “I do,” and in answer, a man said, “I do too.” (Insert big whoop of delight here.)
Let me tell you a bit about my groom. Like me, he was his high school’s valedictorian, although his class (he grew up in Houston) was slightly (ten times!) bigger.
He’s kind and handsome and boasts a flashy name, which somehow fits this humble man. In his spare time, he likes to walk his dog (now our dog), snow ski and waterski, play piano, and sing in the St. John’s by the Lake choir. Now here’s the biggest clue: Some of you have had close personal contact with him.
Yes, my brand-new husband is Dr. Royal Kirby!
Our courtship may have not have been a secret to those who’ve seen us around town, at Zig’s Supper Club (try their Chicken Kiev), in the audience at the Palace Theater (I’m still chuckling at Louis & Lewis—that comedy duo from Scotland), or picnicking by the falls. But when we started dating, Royal asked that we keep our personal life out of the paper, and it’s an agreement I’ve kept, until now.
“I can’t not write about getting married!” I told him, and he reminded me that I had already written our wedding announcement. (See the upcoming Sunday edition.)
“At least let me add my two cents’ worth,” he said.
“Okay, but a good writer tries to avoid clichés like ‘two cents’ worth.’”
Herewith, from the pen of my new husband, whose handwriting is much better than his prescriptions would suggest:
I have always been a lucky man. Lucky to know from a young age I wanted to be a doctor, lucky to have parents and teachers and ultimately funds to support that dream, lucky to land in this beautiful lake-filled state where I have learned to say “uffda,” to eat lutefisk on Christmas Eve, and to love seasons, including—and especially—winter.
In meeting and now marrying Haze, my good luck has magnified. I thought I enjoyed bachelorhood too much to give it up, but that was before I met my bride. I am older than Haze by fifteen years, and yet she makes me feel like a schoolboy. She makes me laugh, she makes me sing louder, she makes me want to be a better person. She is, for me, just what the doctor ordered.
Yes, I cried when I read that. Who wouldn’t? So here’s to us, here’s to all couples who find one another and hold hands through the rose gardens and brambles of life. My utter happiness is
only slightly colored by the guilt of taking Granite Creek’s most eligible bachelor off the market. Sorry—and Happy New Year!
“Oh,” Susan had said softly while reading a memo note attached to the column. “Listen to what my grandfather wrote.” She cleared her throat. “Haze, I had to call Royal to make sure he was still on board with this. He says, ‘Fire up the presses!—she’s worth any flack I get!’ Just wanted you to know—Bill.”
Susan’s smile was faraway. “I’d forgotten what good friends my grandfather and Dr. Kirby were. Granddad had a picture of them on the golf course in his office. He told me that he enjoyed the conversations they’d have walking the course more than the game itself. In fact, if I remember the story, it was at my grandparents’ New Year’s Eve party that Dr. Kirby and Haze were introduced!”
Caroline had been reading a different sort of letter.
“It’s from that same Mr. Joseph Snell,” she said. “He writes that a doctor is a public figure and writing about his personal life ‘trivializes his profession and the confidence of his patients—which I am relieved to say, I am not!’”
“Well, he’s in the minority,” said Susan, and indeed the pile of letters offering congratulations and best wishes dwarfed the two letters whose writers were not happy with the newlywed's column.
“MY GOODNESS, WHAT A LOVELY WEDDING STORY!” says Caroline’s mother, who reads Haze’s columns online from her home in Winnipeg. “So romantic!”
“Wait’ll you read tomorrow’s.” The phone slips away from its precarious anchor against Caroline’s shoulder. “Hold on, Mum, I’m going to put you on speaker.”
“So how is she doing?” Mrs. Abramson’s concerned, amplified voice fills the kitchen.
“Still unconscious to the world,” says Caroline. “I went to see her last night.” She hiccups a little gasp.
“Oh, sweetie.”
“It’s just that . . . well, as old as she is, she’s just so young, you know?”
“They can do wonderful things these days. Remember Midge Sedgewick was on death’s door, and now with that new kidney she’s back bowling!”
“Which you must have mixed emotions about,” jokes Caroline, knowing Midge has always been her mum’s number one rival in her bowling league.
“Honestly, Caroline, that’s not funny,” her mother says with a sniff. “Now come on, I want to know how things are in the romance department for you! Yesterday I saw your old boyfriend Dan Merchant at Tim Hortons—he was sitting at the counter all by himself and—”
“Got another call coming in, Mum,” lies Caroline. “Love you, talk to you soon!”
February 15, 1968
I wish I could write about the most romantic Valentine’s Day a newlywed ever experienced . . . but if I did, I wouldn’t be writing about my own.
It started off wonderfully. When I got up, Royal had already left for the hospital but had thoughtfully left a nice gushy card propped up against the toaster, and later at the newspaper there was a delivery of red roses (tip to men: you will earn big points by sending your wife flowers that she gets to accept in front of her co-workers!).
The plan was to meet at Zig’s for a romantic dinner, and I was lavish with the perfume and the lipstick, and when Royal strolled in, my heart skipped so many beats I thought I might need to be resuscitated. (Thankfully, he is a doctor.)
It’s a lovely thing to fall in love, especially when clocks and society are ticking and tsking, and you yourself wonder if that old-fashioned and ugly word spinsterhood is going to apply to you. The man of your dreams doesn’t appear—but someone even better comes along, and defying logic, he thinks you’re not so bad yourself, and you’re a bride at exactly the time you were supposed to be.
I was aware that there were other life-forms around us, but our table was our very own candlelit universe. We ate shrimp cocktails, and I had a glass of champagne because after all, it was a celebration. Royal had soda water, because he was on call, but surely Cupid would conspire to prevent all medical emergencies.
Cupid wasn’t cooperating. The hospital phoned just as we were about to order our entrées (I was debating between my old favorite Chicken Kiev or the Steak Diane).
Royal was apologetic, but duty called, and I assured him that I understood, which was ninety percent true. Well, seventy-five percent. Okay, forty percent.
I watched him leave, and he hadn’t taken two steps away from our little candlelit universe before his posture changed, and he took brisk and efficient strides across the room and out the door, and I knew that if I were a patient, I’d want that brisk, no-nonsense efficiency.
The good people of Zig’s boxed up my dinner, and once home, I was all set to devour that Chicken Kiev, but when Brigadoon (once Royal’s dog, now our dog) signaled that she wanted to go out, I decided that instead of a walk, I’d take her for a slide, and after changing into flannel-lined denim jeans and grabbing my skates, the hound and I were off to Kingleigh Lake. It was a cold night, and the moon wore a veil of clouds, and most of the frozen lake was covered in snow, except for the big rectangle the city always plows off for skating.
Brigadoon loves being out on the ice almost as much as I do. She runs at first, because of course dogs free of their leashes and fences will run, but remembering the surface she’s on, she surrenders to it, stiffening her legs and sliding. Across the ice she slides, and if there’s a picture that captures glee better, well, I’d like to see it.
There was a teenaged couple skating hand in hand and a hockey player shooting pucks into an unguarded net, but all of them stopped to watch this mutt skidding across the ice.
Like Brigadoon, I feel a joyfulness on ice, and when my blades made contact with that smooth, hard surface and I pushed off in a long glide, I thought, ahhh.
I skated around the perimeter backwards, the blades of my skates making the sound of industrious scissors snipping. No threat to Peggy Fleming and her gold medal, I am nevertheless a fairly good skater who can do a couple tricks, and as I spun and jumped, my lungs filling with that cold frosted air, the heaviness of being stood up (yes, I know I hadn’t really been stood up, but I was feeling sorry for myself, okay?) on Valentine’s Day lifted, and when Brigadoon slid into me as I was crouched down, leg extended in a Shoot the Duck* pose, I had to laugh. Hard. When I got home, I built a fire and made a cup of hot chocolate with a five-inch fluff of whipped cream on top, and sat sipping it, covered in the furry warmth that was my tired-out pooch, who’d been allowed up on Royal’s big easy chair.
In grade school, onto the well of the chalkboard, we’d clip paper bags we’d decorated with paper doilies and red hearts, depositing our classmates’ valentines in them, and I remember the thrill of taking that decorated paper bag home and reading every rhyme and studying every illustration on every valentine carefully, trying to discern who really, really liked me (what did it mean that Joel Morris and Todd Coons gave me the exact same Popeye valentine?).
It was just past eleven when Royal came home, with the good news that the emergency gall bladder surgery had gone well.
He promised me that next year he’d make a point to not be on call on Valentine’s Day, but honestly, I don’t care if he is. If someone needs their appendix out or their broken leg set or their baby delivered, I’d rather my husband is there to answer that need. I realized tonight that wherever he is, he’s answered mine.
*I love that there’s an official figure-skating trick named “shoot the duck”—so similar to the phrase my family used, although “Who shot a duck?” was a question asked not of an agile ice-skater but of someone suffering from flatulence.
The overwhelming majority of the reader responses attached to Haze’s column were positive—many sharing their own Valentine’s Day stories—although there were several who wrote in objecting to the asterisked sentence.
Sam laughed out loud reading the letter from, “Just Wondering” who asked, “Who shot a duck? Could it be the same person who cut the cheese? Maybe it was the one who dropped a
rose! Who, oh who is that vulgarian ass flapper?”
May 5, 1968
If I had a nickel for every time someone asks me, “Why don’t you use your married name in your column byline?” I could probably cash them in and buy something nice for the kitchen—maybe not a refrigerator but at least a toaster.
The other day a woman at the drugstore nearly accosted me as I was innocently pricing callus pads (hint: break in your new pumps before wearing them in the office all day), hissing at me that I dishonor my husband by “clinging to my maiden name.”
Not wanting to break out into a fistfight by the foot care display, I politely thanked her for her opinion while inwardly screaming, “It’s not my maiden name I’m clinging to, it’s myself!”
As proud as I am to be my husband’s wife, anytime I’m addressed as Mrs. Kirby, there’s a split second of confusion, and I think, “Who’s that?” Maybe it’s a newlywed’s reaction, although I think when Royal and I are celebrating our golden anniversary, the name’ll still seem a bit foreign.
I asked Royal, “What would you think if you had to take my name when we got married?”
Granting me one of his charming, loving smiles, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean what if that were the custom—that the man takes the woman’s name instead of vice versa.”
He looked startled.
“Well, I wouldn’t do it. It’s my name, for crying out loud.”
“And how about, after you were married, you were referred to as ‘the former Royal Kirby.’ Wouldn’t you think, ‘Hey, I’m still here!’”
We stared at each other for a moment, and then he said, “Haze, are you writing a column about this?”
“Maybe.”
Now I’m not saying I have a vast readership, but still, my own name has been my byline since I published in my college newspaper, when I was hired at the Fargo Forum, and now here. When I told Royal I planned on keeping it for professional reasons, he assured me it was fine with him. So to any married woman reading this column, ask your husband if he’d ever take your name. To any married man reading this column, how would you feel if your name was suddenly changed and to the world you were no longer who you’d been?
Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes) Page 6