Phoenix Fire

by Chitwood, Billy

  “Mardel captured his essence, Grandma. That's just the way he would look when he mused over something.” Jason raised his highball glass and faced Myrena and Jenny. “Here's to my Grandfather, to the best man I've ever known.”

  The front doorbell rang and interrupted the toast.

  “That must be Carlton,” Myrena suggested.

  They could hear Wardley greeting Carlton in the entry hall. A woman's voice was also heard. It was Sheila, Myrena suspected. They must have patched up their spat, she thought.

  The mood of the evening changed in a palpable way with the arrival of Carlton Prince and Sheila Broward. Jenny felt a disturbing awkwardness descend upon her. The feeling had something to do with the way Jason's brother looked at her. His constant stares of appraisal made her uncomfortable.

  There was something else. Jenny began to sense a subtle but heavy aura upon the group. Jason spoke less and appeared to become somewhat remote. When she made eye contact with him across the dining room table he would quickly look away. It was a strange and unnerving transition. Somehow, with the arrival of Carlton, a great cloud of cool indifference and antagonism befell the group. Jenny wondered if she was simply overreacting or if she was perhaps feeling an adverse reaction to the prior cocktails. After all, she was not much of a drinker and she had perchance over imbibed this night. It was, real or imagined, a troublesome feeling she could not shake; a feeling that there was hostility hovering above the Prince family.

  Sheila Broward seemed pleasant enough. She was a tall, willowy, attractive woman with a pageboy cut to her dark hair. She wore a pretty pink and blue pants suit ensemble. There was a light non-assuming air about her and she spoke with a slight lisp, not at all unbecoming, but, actually, a rather charming trait. It was obvious that she cared a great deal for Carlton Prince, although he was sporadic in his attention to her.

  Carlton was dressed in a tan lightweight suit. He was tall and almost handsome. His down-turned mouth and the dark intensity of his eyes produced an intimidating effect.

  Dinner passed with predominantly polite and civil conversation about trivial matters and some discussion of the national economy. Rosemary, Myrena's longtime cook and house manager, became the major focus of table chatter, or, more precisely, the culinary delight she placed on the table that evening, a savory roasted duck with all the accompanying side dishes, plus a five-star banana pudding for dessert.

  After dinner, over coffee in the library-parlor, Carlton asked of Jason, “What is the progress of your 'Apple Brown Betty' project?” The question was asked idly without any discernible sincerity of interest.

  “It progresses nicely, Carlton, a few months until ground breaking. A few government approvals are needed. Thanks for asking.” Jason was not unmindful of Carlton's true lack of interest in his project, but was yet appreciative of the question. Jason continued, “Heritage Tool seems to be doing well. I read where you got a very nice contract from Avco. Did you work on the deal?”

  “I'm a Controller, Jason. You know that. I don't get involved in the bidding wars. I trim all the numbers or embellish them, whichever the case will demand, but only with our negotiating people. But, yes, it was a hefty contract.” Carlton looked at Jenny during most of his response, with little concern that his openly flirtatious glances might be disrespectful or embarrassing. He wanted it so.

  The ladies were sitting in a quaintly lit corner nook of the parlor, sipping tea and enjoying their own bit of chatter. Low and soothing classical guitar music came from the hidden speakers.

  Understanding his older brother's distracting ploys, Jason continued going through the motions of holding a conversation with Carlton. “Your company is building another facility in Goodyear. It seems Heritage is on a roll.”

  It was essentially the same or a variation on the theme each week. Jason wished that he and his brother had more in common, wished that they were closer through their adult years. The fatal accident that had taken their parents lives altered forever the sibling relationship. The plain truth was that Jason did not like his brother, and, the feeling was mutual.

  “Our company is doing fine,” Carlton spoke brusquely, “but tell me, brother, where did you meet this exquisite lady?” He spoke in conspiratorial tones as he watched the women in their corner scanning scrapbooks and photo albums.

  Jason related to Carlton the lightning episode, and the older brother was genuinely interested.

  After several quiet minutes, Wardley came with his tray, offering them brandy and more coffee.

  “You know, Jason, you're the much favored grandson but I must hand it to you. Your tastes are top shelf. Now, Jenny is my kind of gal.”

  “Shut up, Carlton. Can't you put your stupid crap away for one evening?”

  “Oh, my, I've gone too far! Please forgive me, my beloved sibling!” His sarcasm was beyond Jason's acceptable limits.

  “You're a real ass, Carlton. Were it not for Grandma I'd kick the crap out of you. Now, give it a rest.” With that, Jason stood and went to the bathroom.

  Carlton was cumbersome and relentless in his mind games. Jason understood his brother but, despite this acknowledgment, he found his irritation had gone beyond his ability to control, not something he wanted to happen. Carlton obviously liked Jenny and wanted Jason to know this fact and wanted him to suffer his snide remarks and observations. Carlton's inquisition of Jenny and his openly lascivious stares in her direction caused a rather abrupt mood swing for Jason.

  This mood shift was not lost on Jenny. She had become much less aware of Carlton's continuing flirting and more concerned by Jason's demeanor. She was bonding quickly with Grandmother Wimsley and felt a maternal fondness for her. Jenny liked Sheila as well, thought her nice, somewhat shy and self-conscious. They were traits which Jenny had always liked in people.

  As the evening went on Jenny noticed that Jason became cool and detached. She began to feel a sense of paranoia, that perhaps Jason's coolness was directed toward her. This bothered her immensely because she felt that their relationship was melding nicely.

  Their dinner date was wonderful. Jason had lavished her with attention and was a total gentleman all evening. They had embraced, kissed, and lingered at her apartment door at the end of their evening together, and Jason had made no advances whatsoever. Jenny was surprised when Jason called her for lunch the next day. Then, there had come the invitation to join him for dinner at the home of his Grandmother Wimsley. Actually, she was so pleased because it seemed he wanted his Grandmother to pass judgment on her, a move that could signal some serious intentions.

  Now, Jenny sensed that Jason was irritated, perhaps with her for some reason. She could not find sense in her own mind's reckoning. She felt that she was acting irrationally and naively. She tried to push the thoughts away. It could simply be that Jason and Carlton were clashing in some way. Siblings did that.

  The signals were mixed and misunderstood by Jenny Mason. The real reason for Jason's abrupt mood change was two-fold. He was wary and weary of his brother's rude and arrogant goading, a not so unfamiliar scenario when he was around Carlton for any period of time. The more compelling reason for Jason's moody behavior was his accidental discovery of Grandma Wimsley's poor health condition and prognosis.

  Innocently enough Jason had gone to the guest bathroom at the completion of dinner. The phone had rung just as he left the dining room table. It had all been so coincidental. Unaware that Jason was using the guest bathroom, Myrena had taken the call in the hallway adjacent to the guest bath. Jason had overheard the ensuing conversation between his Grandma and her longtime friend and physician, Dr. Nelson Paige. It was obvious that they were in a discussion over diagnostic lab tests that had detected widespread cancer. Jason had heard the words, 'death and terminal,' and he had felt a terrible pang of anxiety. That feeling had persisted on into the night and had effectively altered his personality, and his heart had sunk to an awful place of despair.

  While Myrena had talked to Dr. Paige with no apparen
t panic in her voice, it was clear through the remainder of the evening that she was having periodic pain. It was only obvious to Jason because he was privy to the telephone conversation. As Jason glanced at Myrena through the night, he could see when the pain hit her. There would be a slight wrinkle at her brow, a stiffness that came to her lips, and her eyes would register a momentary spasm.

  It was evident to Jason that his Grandma did not wish to divulge her condition to the family, and he would honor and respect her wish. The reality of her cancer overwhelmed him in a way he could not have expressed. Oh, he knew that Myrena was in her late seventies, that she had lived a full life, and that her fierce independence would not let her encumber her grandsons with the terminal aspects of the disease. Jason had considered his beloved Grandma indestructible and indefatigable, a matriarch who might outlive all of them. He was both saddened and unhinged by his innocent discovery.

  He found it difficult enduring Carlton for the remainder of the evening, and, for the most part, he was totally uncomfortable in his forced mask of amiability. Except for his one eruption of pique at Carlton's comments about Jenny, he was able to stay even keel and tolerate the mindless barbs. What he wanted more than anything else was to be alone, alone to handle the awful truth that had come to him. When he looked at Jenny he could not hold their gaze. There were moments that he thought he might begin to weep. How ironic, this business of fate and serendipity! He had met the woman that could possibly be his love and soul mate through life and eternity, only to discover that he was soon to lose a major piece of his heart.

  Jason held together for the remainder of the evening, staying beyond the departure of Carlton and Sheila, trying valiantly to maintain his composure. The large parlor became for him a stifling cavern that threatened to cut off his breathing. Finally, when he felt that he could no longer hold together, he pretended the need for sleep because of a pending full day of activity.

  Jason was conscious of his curtness in his leaving of Jenny at her apartment door. For him it had to be that way. He knew that if he remained too long in her company that he would break. He cared very much for this new and special lady in his life, but the tragic discovery of his Grandma's illness had filled him an awful apprehension and depression. He would need soon to explain it all to Jenny, but not this night. He did not wish to drive her away by exposing his tender emotions. It was too soon in their relationship. Hopefully, she would later better understand.

  He walked late into the night, unmindful of the fulgent moon and stars in a cloudless sky, deep into a darkness of spirit which he felt might never leave him. His dear Grandma was dying. It was a reality that should have not been so alien, not so devastating, not so soul wrenching. But there it was, a truth he had to accept; a truth he had to know was coming; a truth, despite its natural relevance and its simple rite of passage, a truth that became a sodden and heavy weight upon his heart.

  With dawn and the fire of the Arizona sun he thought again about living.

  He thought of Jenny.

  Chapter Eight

  It was 'as lonely as Sunday.'

  Mark Twain had written that line in Connecticut Yankee. Funny how it came to her now so vividly, years after reading the book. The lightning had apparently cleaned out her recall circuits. She usually could not remember much of what she had read.

  “As lonely as Sunday.'

  The words, the feeling, embraced her like a gray soggy memory of an afternoon in Lawrence, Kansas, sitting at her bedroom window seat, looking out at the ceaseless patter of raindrops. That day, she was sure that her life was a tragic crossroad, that her heart was surely about to break. The tears were overflowing and becoming a syncopated blur with the noisy falling rain. She had a major fight with her steady boyfriend, the star quarterback of the high school football team. He had wronged her in a cruel way, sneaking behind her back, leaving their date early on a pretext, to spend a sex evening with the school harlot. It was the most devastating and humiliating experience in her young life.

  'As lonely as Sunday.'

  It was like that now but in a less tumultuous way. It was Monday evening and she sat in the dark listening to a taped Bach symphony, watching the moon track its way across the starry eastern horizon. She was not devastated as on that distant rainy day in Lawrence and she had no concern about a fragile heart. She was not without hope but she did sense another crossroad in her life.

  She was lonely, lonely for Jason Prince.

  Why had he not called? What had she done to upset him? Had she been too premature in her school girl glow? Had the lightning made her more susceptible to anticipation and yearning? Was she expecting too much too quickly from a fateful rainy day meeting?

  Jenny thought about their last night together at Grandma Wimsley's house. Something unexpected had happened there that night to cause a change in Jason. Was it something she had said or done? She thought back carefully and could not remember an utterance or faux pas which would have caused his shift in mood. Was it something that happened out of her earshot when Jason had talked to Carlton? What had happened?

  She wanted to scream!

  She was so sure that they were evolving into 'something,' a very 'special something.' She could not have been so wrong about that. A person knew when a feeling was special, when the heart was pumping faster, when that feeling was being shared. She could not have been so wrong about that. She was sure that she was falling in love with Jason Prince, and, that he was falling in love with her.

  It was several days now since the dinner. Why had he not called? Jason was not the coy type. He would not play silly macho games with her. Why had he not called?

  The moon had left her window. She could no longer see its slow rising arc. The stars, though, were there in a crystal clear and deep night sky.

  Bach was now repeating the regal, tranquil movements of his symphony 101. Jenny sighed and curled deeper into the old familiar stuffed chair. She understood a rather spectacular notion that weaved itself in between the lapping folds of loneliness. She felt somewhat peculiar in her understanding. There was no despair. Actually, there was an intelligence now in her loneliness, an almost caressing awareness that these moments were but a linking part of a larger passage. It was nearly contradictory in its message, but it was there, and she was sure of its communication.

  “Wow!” she uttered aloud. “This is crazy! I'm lonely and miserable but I'm enjoying it! Nuts!” She again thought of the lightning episode and her out of body experience.

  In spite of herself she smiled up at the stars outside her window. She must be in some kind of delirium. She finally rose from the chair and made her way through the strewn advertising papers on the floor. She exchanged the Bach tape for Puccini's La Bohème on the way to running her bath.

  When her bath was ready she poured a glass of Gallo Chablis, turned up the volume on Puccini, disrobed, and sank tentatively into the hot water. Soon, the water's heat brought a languid concession to her loneliness. She lazily soaked and sipped her white wine. The image of Jason Prince's face came to her softly etched on the steam rising from the tub. A wistful smile played upon her lips. Without fully knowing why, she felt a deep sense of contentment. She felt at peace and her earlier feelings of emptiness and solitude dissipated into the evaporating mist.

  She remembered their first kiss, his lips like a warm dewy sweetness on her own; the gentle stirring within her body as he held her close; his eyes, intense, sparkling with something like devotion. She purred in the hot water and gave herself to the romantic imagery floating around her, purred and languished in the ecstasy of thought. The hot silky water soothed her, and the imagery swayed to and fro on the melodious arias of Puccini.

  She must have fallen asleep. The telephone was ringing from some deep place, growing louder, more urgent, to her returning consciousness.

  “Darn it!” she mumbled, her words bouncing off the wet tiled walls. She struggled out of the bath, feeling heavy and unfocused, reached for a large bath towel and wrapp
ed it around her dripping body. “Oh, I'll never get it in time. Should have connected the answering machine.” She almost slipped on a throw rug next to the bathroom door as she hurried to reach the phone in her bedroom.

  She was too late. She picked up the receiver and heard a dial tone. It could have been Jason, she thought. “Darn!” she said again, angry with herself for missing the call.

  She glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. It was 9:40 PM. Maybe she would call him. His telephone number? She didn't have it. Maybe it was listed in the phone directory. She checked the thick book of listings but there was no Jason Prince. She called the information operator and was informed that the customer had requested an unlisted number.

  She felt tormented and trapped by the small and tedious details of the moment. She wanted to talk to Jason. It was probably he who had just called, and she did not have his unlisted number. She was also dripping water all over the carpet. “Darn! Darn! Darn!”

  She turned off Puccini and returned to the bathroom, unplugged the tub drain, and thoroughly dried herself. She paused to check herself in the wall mirror above the counter sink. Her hair was pasted against her forehead and was hanging in damp clusters about her head. Her face had a rosy tint and her eyes gleamed and teasingly grinned back at her. She puckered her lips in a mock sadness and finally laughed at the mirror image. Her petite but ample breasts danced a jaunty jig in time with her laughter and she became momentarily beguiled by the curve and flow of her body. Her self-appraisal did not disappoint her. She raised her eyebrows, puckered her mouth, and slowly nodded her head in silent affirmation.

  The telephone rang again, startling her. With an unaccountable embarrassment, a mild gasp escaped her lips as she grabbed her terrycloth robe from the hook on the bathroom door. She rushed to the phone and reached it on the third ring.

  “Hello!” her voice was high pitched. She virtually squealed into the mouthpiece.