“If anyone has any necklaces that are tangled up, I can fix those too. I fixed three of them for my sister when I was in Colorado.” He gave her a kiss and left the room.
Her sister Sara laughed and asked, “Who was that man?”
Her mother said, “I love that man.”
She plopped back down on the bed and groaned.
* * *
The wedding was a huge success. The bride and groom danced to Bob Marley's One Love and her boyfriend requested Mellow Mood, informing her that was their song. Steaks and swordfish sizzled on the grills, served along with various salads friends and family made. A varied cheese selection was displayed on three Singer sewing machines with pots of flowers on the foot pedals underneath. Again she caught the bouquet. Again her first instinct was to toss it, but when she saw him sitting next to her father smiling, she blushed, curtsied and kept it.
They left for Newburyport late Sunday afternoon after he helped clean the yard. Katie decided to stay and visit with friends for a few days. She didn’t have to work until Wednesday and would take the bus back to Boston. As they drove out of Burlington, he looked over at her, smiling shyly. “I don’t know why you don’t like weddings. That was awesome. I had a great time, thanks for inviting me.”
“It was nice, but weddings just don’t seem very romantic to me, making a big spectacle of things. What does it have to do with two people in love? I would rather run off and elope instead of shouting out to the whole world, hey look at us, in love and getting married and spending lots of money so you all know. It’s a huge cottage industry of florists and caterers and dresses and tuxedo rentals. It’s big business.”
“I don’t think your sister’s wedding was like that. You’re sounding jaded.”
“You’re right. It really didn’t even cost my parents that much money.”
“See, I’m right.”
“Don’t get cocky, you aren’t always right.”
“Are you tired? You seem really cranky.”
“Hey, I noticed you sitting with my dad during all that toasting and cake cutting and bouquet throwing rigamarole. What were you two talking about?”
“Some very interesting things.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Well, he told me to ask you about Jared.”
She sat up straighter. “He didn’t? Oh my God, I can’t believe him.” Slouching back down in her seat again, she put her bare feet on the dashboard and sulked. “I am not talking to you about Jared. That is ancient history.”
“Are you wearing your seat belt?” She glared at him. “You don’t have to tell me about Jared. Your dad kind of told me some of it. Ear stretchers? Really?” He laughed. She tried not to smile, but couldn’t help herself. “I was eighteen. What else did he tell you?”
“He told me the principal called you into his office because you were on some list of top ten IQ’s in your senior class? He thought you should be making high honors and was encouraging you to try harder. But it backfired, because you intentionally got all C’s your last semester. But fortunately, you had already gotten a scholarship.”
“What a blabber mouth. I told you to watch out for him. And weren’t you the one who also wouldn’t take advanced math classes?”
“Yeah, that’s why I understand you. He was saying this stuff, not me.” He reached over and tousled her hair. “By the way, you said it would be me he would be interrogating.”
“Guess I was wrong about that. See, I can admit when I’m wrong.”
“He did say some really nice things, too. I think you’re his favorite, he said you’re the most like him.”
“WHAT? No way. I am not like him.”
“He said you were a restless soul. You would never be content. Sometimes you wanted the conventional things in life, but when you got them, you felt trapped and bored and had to move on. You were always seeking something new. Thinking life would be better somewhere else. And he knows this because he's your father, and he's like that too. He said the man who caught you was going to have to like adventure and change. He would need to be spontaneous and very patient.”
“Why on earth was he telling you this stuff?”
“Because he likes me. But he told me not to tell you that, because that would most likely backfire on me, like the principal.” He laughed. “A very interesting thing he said was YOU were Trouble.”
“I was Trouble?” She looked at him incredulously.
“Yes, you, not the boys you were bringing home. He said you have a tendency to shoot yourself in the foot, to rebel even when it was not in your best interest. But he really wants you to quit your job and write. He thinks your job is bad for your spirit. He said you should waitress part time so you can write, and when I said I told you the same thing, he slapped me on the back and said, you hang in there son, you might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to her, but I wasn’t supposed to tell you that either.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because I think he’s right and he might just know you better than you know yourself. He is your Dad after all.”
BE BRAVE
Early June was always the nicest time of year in the Ryan yard. Lilacs and apple trees were in full bloom, their scent perfuming the air. Raking and spreading bark mulch, Sophie knew the gardens needed professional help, but at this time of year the peonies and rose campion were abundant enough that they covered the weeds that would overpower the gardens later in the summer. Lynn was helping, she would garden anywhere, any time, because she loved doing it and was an amazing friend. From the upstairs window in the addition, Ray hollered, “Sophie, could you come up and give me a hand?”
She put down her rake and met him in the unfinished master bathroom off their bedroom. “I just need a hand getting this piece of sheetrock on the ceiling. It’s going to be really tricky over the shower enclosure here. It’s a tight space and a tough angle.”
“Okay, just tell me what to do.”
Ray demonstrated what he wanted from her, showing her a long piece of wood with a triangle at the end to hold the sheetrock against the ceiling once it was in place. Sophie stood behind him while he maneuvered it into the corner and above the shower unit. Holding the back end, the sheet rock pressed against her chest and her back pressed against the wall as Ray lifted it to the ceiling and tucked it into place, then grabbed the triangle bar and slid it carefully along the sheetrock until it was wedged against the ceiling. Ray got the nail gun, climbed on a stepladder and nailed the sheetrock into place. “Nice job,” he said.
“That was heavy.” She shook her arms, glad the sheetrock didn't jam her in the neck. Ray gave her a kiss.
The following weekend Sophie and Lynn painted the doors on the deck as a radio played and they sang along to some of their favorite songs. “We’re really making progress here. What can we paint next?” Lynn asked.
“We’ve got the door and entranceway over near the garage. Ray did the rest of the house last year, and it’s still looking pretty good, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, it’s looking great. So when does it go on the market?”
Ray poked his head out the window upstairs. “When I’m done.”
Sophie shouted back, “Early July, dear, whether you’re done or not.” Whispering to Lynn, she said, “If he doesn’t have a deadline this will drag out forever. I wanted it on the market in early June when the yard looked awesome. Now look at the lilacs, they're all brown.”
“The market is good right now, things have been improving and interest rates are still low. You have to make your move now.”
Ray shouted, “I can hear you two out there.”
Sophie shouted back. “Get back to work and stop eavesdropping.” She looked back at Lynn. “He’s golfing at three with Miguel. The master of distraction. They went fishing for striped bass last Monday on the Cape.”
“Is there any male past time Ray doesn’t like?”
“I don't know of any, and friends who’ll do it with h
im? It would take more than two hands to list them all.” Ray poked his head out the window once again. “Have we earned a lunch break yet?”
“Yes we have. I’ll make it.”
“And a cold brewski please.”
“Well Lynn, in that case, we get wine with lunch. I’ve got a bottle of white chilling in the fridge.”
“Better days are coming, Sophie.”
“I’m actually beginning to think that might be true.”
* * *
Later that week, Sophie was at work emailing her college boyfriend. Somehow he found her work email, she couldn’t remember if it was their alumni website or if it was through LinkedIn. Anyway, they corresponded every once in awhile.
After dating all through college but not ready to settle down, she broke up with him a year after graduation. She spent the rest of her twenties traveling, including the backpacking trip through Europe with Kathy. She bounced around various accounting jobs and took a year off to waitress and ski bum in Vail, always making just enough money for the next adventure. That might explain why she was stuck in a cubicle this late in her so-called career. Ted was a nice guy, making quite a name for himself in the engineering field, and also writing music and playing in a band on the weekends.
An ongoing conversation via email developed between the two of them, their recent conversations revolving around the topic of writing. He still cherished the letters she sent him in college. He kept them in the basement of his house in upstate New York, the faint scent of L’air du Temps still lingering. No longer wearing perfume, she found it hard to believe she not only wore it back then, but had a signature scent. That afternoon an email arrived.
Obama is really an amateur. I can’t think of anything he has done in almost four years to help the economy. I thought he was a unifier not a divider. Would you agree?
Oh that’s right, she thought, we’re also having a political discussion. Maybe that was another reason she broke up with him? She couldn’t remember now, but marriage was hard enough. If she married a Republican it would certainly be a house divided. But maybe money wouldn’t be a source of so many arguments? When she got overwhelmed with the bills, she often said to her friends she should have married a Republican. She went to a business college for goodness sake, how did she not marry a CEO or hedge fund guy?
No, I do not agree. Ask the people in Michigan and Ohio working for the auto industry what Obama has done about jobs. Hey Ted. I am going to be upstate next weekend. We are having a girl’s weekend at Lynn’s fishing cabin again. Maybe I can get the letters?
Two years ago, she and her friends went to the Adirondacks and walking into a bar, heard him singing a cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World. Immediately recognizing her, despite the fact her hair was now blond and she gained a few pounds, he changed the lyrics to Sophie Mahoney is rockin’ in New York tonight. Her girlfriends teased her all weekend. She attributed it to the fact that forty and fifty year old women looked for romance anywhere they could find it, even when it didn’t exist. He gave her a couple of his CD’s that night. Two of the songs about his college days mentioned her by name. Imagine that, she thought, immortalized in song.
Gee I can’t give up those letters yet. They have inspired me to write a new album titled Letters. I’m only half way through pouring over them. There are sooooo many good stories and songs in your words. It’s funny how inspiration comes to us...
I can’t believe you are going to use my copy! Hey I am going to need royalties on that you know. BTW my screenplay is now a novel.
That’s so cool! I thought you told me that all copy is up for grabs????? Even the great writers like you steal wherever they find a good hook.
Give me a hook. It’s mine after all.
The story/song is evolving. Maybe after I read the letters I should destroy them and let the sweetness of the memories linger.
Don’t you dare.
Let the sweetness linger? Funny, she didn’t remember their relationship quite that way. What she remembered was heartache and too much time spent in the wrong relationship. She regretted she stayed with it so long. It should have ended two years earlier than it did.
Later that evening, she stopped by the farmers market in town. Ray was golfing with Miguel. Still early in the growing season for fruit and vegetables in New Hampshire, it was nothing like farmers markets she had visited in Santa Monica and Napa, but locally raised beef and poultry were available along with soaps, honey, some early lettuce, alpaca wool and a Middle Eastern vendor selling tabbouleh and baba ganoush.
“Can I try your tabbouleh? My roommate in college was Lebanese and her mother sent huge tubs of homemade tabbouleh every few weeks. I have yet to find anything that tastes that good in the supermarket.”
The young man selling his products was dark and handsome, around thirty years old and extremely flirtatious. “You will love this. It will bring back memories of your youth.” He put some on a pita cracker and handed it to her. “Ummm. You’re right, I feel twenty-one again. I’ll take some.” Packaging it in a plastic container, he said, “You don’t look a day over thirty.” She laughed. “You’re a very good salesman. Your tabbouleh is delicious.”
Her next stop was at a tent where a woman with loose, wavy gray hair flowing to her waist was selling goat cheese. She looked like a gypsy with her Birkenstocks and large hoop earrings, the tattered hem of her Indian print skirt brushing the ground. Various cheeses were set out along her table, along with a basket of crackers. Sophie tried the one with blue veins running though it. “This is excellent. You make these here in New Hampshire?”
“Yes, just down the road in Kingston.” She reached out to shake Sophie’s hand. “My name is Sally Kingston.” She handed her a card. Sophie read the card and laughed. “Sally Kingston from Kingston, New Hampshire?”
“Yes. You’re thinking coincidence, right?”
“Sure.”
“More like serendipity. I was working as a microbiologist for a drug company and living in Haverhill, Massachusetts. I didn’t like my job, too much stress, and I disagreed with some of the policies of the company. I was extremely unhappy.”
Sophie nodded as the woman gazed directly into her eyes, the window to her soul.
“One Sunday afternoon, my husband and I took a drive through the countryside, as we often did on weekends. We ended up in Kingston, on Haverhill Road, where we saw a farm for sale.”
“A farm in Kingston on Haverhill Road?”
“Yes. That was five years ago. We bought the farm and some goats, left our jobs at the age of fifty and started making cheese. I sell it at the farmers markets around here and to several local restaurants in the area. I also travel to New York once a week, to the large market they have there on Saturdays. Several of the farm to table restaurants in New York buy my cheese.”
“Wow. It must be hard work though, getting up early, milking the goats, making the cheese?”
“Nothing’s too hard when you’re doing what you love. We didn’t think about it, we just did it. We had no fear.”
“I work in accounting, in a cubicle. I hate my job, too. I have a dream of running a bed and breakfast in the islands. I’m going to be fifty this year.”
“Life is short, dear.”
“I know that. I lost my best, life long friend to breast cancer four years ago. Life is very short.”
“It’s never too late to find yourself. Follow your dream. Would you like some advice?”
“I would love some advice.” Sophie was hanging on her every word.
“Be brave.”
THE COMPANY PICNIC
One night after work, Dave and Helen picked her up at the Newburyport train station. A large annual surfing competition was taking place at Hampton Beach, starting early in the afternoon. She wished she could have escaped work, but she’d used all her sick days that summer and was happy to at least catch the tail end of it.
She loved his aunt and uncle. They invited them to dinner quite often, es
pecially now that it was summer and they were grilling in the backyard. Helen offered to read her screenplay and was extremely helpful, writing notes in the margins and offering advice. Having served in Desert Storm, Dave had very strong opinions on the current wars. He thought if there was a draft, people would think twice before voting for hawks, resulting in far less war. “People who haven’t seen war shouldn’t decide to send other people’s children off to fight.”
He loved discussing politics with her, probably because she agreed with him on most everything. She knew her father and he would get along great. “Most kids your age don’t pay attention to any of this. Most of them don't even vote. I hope they learned after this election that their vote does matter. They can change the future.” Tonight he was very excited about the surfing competition. “Wait’ll you see that nephew of mine surfing,” he boasted.
“I’ve seen him a few times, but the surf wasn’t great. He tried to teach me, but I was a disaster. It’s not quite like skiing, although he kept saying it was.”
“Tonight’s gonna be great. That storm off the coast is really kicking up the surf.”
Helen brought sandwiches and Dave packed a cooler filled with beers and ginger ale. They spread a blanket close to the water and Dave spotted him right away. “There he is, on the blue board.” He was cresting a wave and spinning around. "Aaaah, nice three sixty.”
He was amazing out on the rough water. Early in the evening, he rode low on the board, catching a beautiful ride in the hollow pocket of a very large wave breaking just behind his head. Everyone on the beach cheered. Dave told her he tubed it, the ultimate reward of surfing. “The waves don’t usually get big enough in these parts, but that was a decent one. I told you it was going to be a good night.”
The Reverse Commute Page 26