Eyes on the Stars

by Lynn Ames

  Truly, I’m lucky to have landed this job. Not many firms would hire someone as old as I am. My years of experience working on studio lots and with actors, directors, and production folks are what got me in the door. I guess the partners figure I understand the system and I know some of the players, so I’ll be an asset. I sure hope so.

  I really want to be good at this, Jess. Heck, I really want to be good at anything. These days, apart from being “Grandma,” I feel pretty useless.

  Well, I don’t want to depress you further. I miss you, love. Sometimes I torture myself by vowing to show up on your doorstep, wherever you are, and beg you to take me back. I think, maybe now I can explain and you’ll forgive me and we can start over. Then reality sinks in and I know that cannot be. I still cry often. Did you know that I have an old photo of us? I can’t remember who took it, but I’ve had it forever. I keep it on my bedside table, now that I’m the only one in the house, and I kiss you every night. Still pathetic after all these years.

  I love you, sugar. Now and always.

  Your girl,

  Claudia

  Jessie frowned. She’d never envisioned that her bubbly, effervescent Claudia could sound so down. “I hate that you struggled, sweetheart.”

  What would Jessie have done if Claudia had shown up on her doorstep unannounced? “I would have made love to you until neither one of us could move.” Jessie laughed at herself. Here she was, an old woman, still thinking about making love to her sweetheart. Was that a good thing or just sad? She dug back into the pile.

  December 24, 1987

  My Dearest Darling Jess,

  It’s another Christmas Eve, my 44th without you. Natalie and Josh are away on vacation skiing in the Alps. Like all teenagers, Lisa didn’t want anything to do with her parents and certainly not her fuddy-duddy old grandmother, so she’s off somewhere with friends celebrating her eighteenth birthday doing God-only-knows what. At least Natalie got her to agree to go to college in the fall. Believe me, with Lisa, that’s a major accomplishment.

  So, here I sit, alone again with my memories. I’ve been watching old movies—It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorites. Casablanca will be coming on next. Every time I see that movie I think about our date. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and ice cream afterward. Nothing has ever been so sweet.

  Oh, sugar. What I wouldn’t give to go back to those wonderful, heady days when we were first falling in love. If only…

  Merry Christmas, darling. I love you, Jess. Now and always.

  Your girl,

  Claudia

  “I love you too, sweetheart,” Jessie whispered, her lips trembling. “I always have, and I always will, even after death takes us. God, how I wish now that you knew that. I can’t stand the thought of you dying without knowing that you were always loved. I never stopped. And Lila would kill me if he were alive today.”

  “Jess?” Lila’s voice was scratchy and weak.

  “I’m here, sweetheart. What can I get you?”

  Lila fumbled for Jessie’s hand. “I don’t have much time left.”

  “Don’t say that,” Jessie’s voice cracked and tears filled her eyes.

  With tremendous effort, Lila pushed himself up in the bed. “We both know it’s true, so let me finish.” Jessie opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. “That’s better.” He coughed, and his body was wracked with spasms. Jessie held him until they passed.

  “You need to conserve your energy.”

  “For what?” He tried to laugh. “You need to listen, and I need to talk.” He labored to suck in a deep breath. “I don’t have much time left, but you do.”

  Jessie held Lila a little tighter. The idea of spending the rest of her life without him there to talk to, to fly with, to enjoy the theater and movies… It didn’t bear thinking.

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “I need you to go find Claudia and tell her how you feel.” Jessie stiffened. “Sugar… Yes, I called you that on purpose, what are you going to do, beat me up?” Lila coughed again. “If you’ve learned nothing else from me, it should be that life is too short to have regrets. Life is too short to live without love. Jess”—he held her face in his hands and made eye contact—“you’ve known the kind of love in your lifetime that I only ever dreamed of. Please, promise me you won’t waste the opportunity to tell her how much you love her.”

  “You’re such a drama queen.”

  “I’m not kidding, Jess. Please, promise me. I won’t die in peace until you do, and I so want to die in peace.” He leaned heavily against her shoulder. She laid him back down gently, guiding his head onto the pillow.

  “I tried to find her…”

  “That was thirty years ago. This is now. Try again. Try harder. Try until you find her. Promise me.” Lila panted, trying to catch his breath. His hand tangled in Jessie’s shirt. “Promise me.”

  There was a desperation in his eyes Jessie had never seen before. She worked hard to keep her composure. He so hated when she lost it, said it was unseemly for a big butch like her.

  “I… I promise you.”

  “You promise me, what?”

  “I promise you that I will try to find Claudia and tell her how much I love her. Okay?”

  Lila smiled a beatific smile. His grip on Jessie’s shirt relaxed, his eyes fluttered, and he stopped breathing.

  “Lila? Lila? No! You can’t just leave me. No! Lila! No!” Jessie put her head on his chest and cried. “Don’t leave me. Please. Don’t leave me.”

  Jessie shook her head. Losing Lila before his fortieth birthday sent her into a tailspin. She didn’t leave her apartment for weeks. She missed committee meetings for ACT UP—the new militant AIDS action group Lila had insisted they join. She called in sick to her day job at the New York state senate minority leader’s lower Manhattan office.

  Worst of all, Jessie didn’t make much of an effort to keep her promise.

  “I wanted to work up the nerve, Lila. I did. Since the WASPs had been granted military benefits in 1977, I tried to follow the paper trail to see if maybe there was some official record of where she was. But they wouldn’t tell me anything. I know you’re probably disappointed that I didn’t try harder. I just couldn’t do it.”

  Even with Claudia on her deathbed, Jessie wondered if she had it in her to face her lover. What would she tell her about what her life had been like? Natalie hadn’t said what Claudia’s illness was,…maybe she suffered from dementia and was only lucid some of the time. Maybe she wouldn’t even know who Jessie was. Jessie couldn’t bear that.

  She thought about calling Natalie’s room to ask her, then she looked at the clock—it was after one o’clock in the morning! She’d been reading Claudia’s letters for more than eleven hours, and she still was twenty-three years away from the present day.

  Time was slipping through her fingers, so Jessie picked up the last letter in the bottom packet.

  February 19, 2010

  My Dearest Darling Jess,

  I am dying. There, I’ve said the words aloud. The doctors tell me I’ve got less than six months, but I’m betting I’ve got less than three. I don’t want to tell Natalie, because I don’t want her to make a fuss. She’s still so busy with her medical practice and flying around the country to give lectures. She’s very important in the field of oncology, you know.

  Also, today is my great granddaughter Chelsea’s eighteenth birthday. Who thought I’d live to see that? I do feel blessed. She’s a good girl—got a far better head on her shoulders than her mother did at that age. She’s more like Natalie than Lisa, thank God. At any rate, I don’t want to spoil Chelsea’s birthday celebrations.

  I’m afraid, darling, that this will be my last letter to you. They’re moving me today to a hospice center. I’d much rather die at home, but that would mean someone would have to stay with me around the clock, and I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. So I haven’t said anything
about it. Still, I’m proud that I’ve managed to live all by myself for so long.

  I’ve made only one promise to myself all these years—it’s what has kept me going, even when I didn’t think I wanted to live anymore. I swore to myself that before I died I would tell you the truth about what happened on that day at Sweetwater Lake. I can’t die and not have you know, and I’m as confident as I can be that there will not be any reprisals or repercussions.

  I did not want to go on that walk with Matt and I told him so. He ignored me and, with a tight grip on my arm, continued to lead us deeper and deeper into the woods until I couldn’t hear anyone’s voices anymore. I was so frightened. I demanded that he unhand me and that we return to the group.

  He wouldn’t let me go. He was babbling about how it was his last day, and I should give him a proper sendoff. I told him I had no interest in what he was suggesting.

  Dear Jess, he said horrible, horrible things. And then he…he forced himself on me. I screamed, I fought, I clawed, I pleaded. Nothing worked. He was so much bigger and stronger than me… I couldn’t stop him, though God knows I tried.

  Jessie dropped the letter. It fluttered to the floor. She didn’t notice. She threaded her fingers through her hair and pulled. She rocked back and forth and closed her eyes tightly as hot tears leaked out onto her face. She couldn’t erase the image from her mind. It was far worse than anything she had conjured when she was convinced it was consensual.

  The idea of a frightened Claudia being hurt, violated in the worst way… It made Jessie want to wring Matt’s neck. She wondered idly, if, at her advanced age, she was physically capable of it. If so, she would hunt him down with her last breath…if he was still alive.

  “Why, Claude? Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve taken care of that punk. He never would’ve bothered you again. Heck, he never would’ve bothered anybody again because he wouldn’t have had the equipment for it.”

  Why did Claudia lie? Not once, but several times. She lied twice when she came out of the woods that day, and she lied again repeatedly on the morning she said she was pregnant.

  “Why, Claude?” Jessie rose slowly and made her way to the window. The flashing lights of the Washington Monument blinked back at her as she gazed out over the Mall. “We could have had the life we wanted. I would have raised Natalie as my own. All you had to do was tell me the truth. Why, Claude? Why?”

  Jessie wiped angrily at her tears. She was angry about a life snatched away from her—from both of them—that should have been theirs. What had possessed Claudia to let all that slip away?

  Jessie stooped over and reclaimed the letter from the floor. She didn’t want to read anymore, but she knew she had to. It was Claudia’s dying promise to herself. Jessie already had let Lila down, she couldn’t let Claudia down too.

  Oh, Jess, darling, how I’ve wished all this time that I could have told you the truth back then. But I couldn’t risk it—couldn’t risk that his threats might be real. I hinted at it the day I told you about the baby, do you remember? I left you a note. I closed it by saying I knew you didn’t want to hear it, but that I loved you with all my heart, then and always. I said you were the only one for me and that I hoped someday you would understand and forgive me.

  That was as close as I felt I could come to telling you the truth without putting you in danger. You see, sugar, he threatened to do the same thing to you and then kill you if I ever told. I would never put you in jeopardy. I couldn’t. To imagine him doing to you what he did to me… I couldn’t bear it.

  So I let you send me away. I let you believe something that was as far from the truth as it could be, in order to keep you safe. And I’ve kept the awful secret for sixty-seven years, because I never knew if he was telling the truth and if he could find you. It was a chance I wasn’t willing to take. There were other reasons too, but I don’t want to dwell on all that.

  When I changed my name and Natalie’s, it was to keep Matt from finding us. I was so scared that he would come looking for me when he got out of the service. I realize that by changing my name, I made it nearly impossible for you to find me, but I felt as though I didn’t have much choice. That is one of my biggest regrets. Deep down inside, I always hoped that somehow you’d figure it out and come rescue me. Or that you’d forgive what you thought I’d done and fight for me.

  It isn’t your fault that that didn’t happen, lover, so please don’t beat yourself up about it. It was the unrealistic whim of a silly woman who had lost everything that mattered to her—the only thing that mattered to her—you.

  Now you know the truth, darling, and it’s too late.

  I’m putting this and all my letters to you in a box and giving them to Natalie for you. I understand we WASPs will be receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor next month. I don’t know how they managed to track me down, but they found me and sent me the notification. Obviously, I won’t be able to be there, but I’m hoping you will. I’m sending Natalie in my stead, and giving her instructions to find you and give these to you.

  God speed, my one and only love. I am, as I have always been, yours for eternity. I love you, Jess. Find me in Heaven.

  Your girl,

  Claudia

  Jessie blew her nose again. She wouldn’t let it happen. She simply wouldn’t allow it. Claudia could not die without knowing that Jessie’s love for her burned as strongly as it did six decades ago.

  She picked up the piece of paper on which Natalie wrote her room number, gathered up her cane, and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Jessie knocked again. When that got no response, she rapped her cane against the door.

  “Just a minute,” came a voice from inside. After several seconds, the voice, now much closer to the door, asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Jessie.”

  “Jessie?” She heard the chain come undone and then the bolt slide back as the door flew open. On the other side stood Natalie, hair disheveled and eyes wild. “Are you all right? Do you feel all right?” Natalie reached out and put her fingers on Jessie’s wrist to take her pulse.

  Jessie pulled back. “Am… Am I too late?” She hadn’t expected to get emotional. Not yet.

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “No. At least not right now. Am I too late? Your mother—am I too late?” Much to her chagrin, tears started to flow down Jessie’s face.

  “Come in for a minute. Please.” Natalie pulled Jessie inside and turned on the light. Chelsea remained dead to the world. “What’s this about?”

  “Am I too late to tell… Am I too late to see your mother? Would she know me? Where is she? How do I get there?”

  “Slow down, Jessie. Here, have a seat.” Natalie tried to steer her to a nearby chair.

  “No. Please, I need to know…”

  “Okay. I spoke to my daughter just before bedtime. Mama is resting comfortably. There’s been no change. She has periods of consciousness, but she tires easily and drifts off.”

  “Is her mind…”

  “Blessedly, Mama has all her faculties. She’s sharp as a whip, although the pain medications occasionally make her spacey.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s at a hospice facility near her home in southern California.”

  “Please give me the address. I’ll make arrangements.” Jessie would leave now if she could find a way.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “I need to see her.” Panic rose up. Would Natalie try to stop her from seeing her beloved Claudia?

  “I understand. I’ll take you there, myself. Tomorrow, or should I say…later this morning, if you like.”

  Jessie was fully focused on the task at hand. “But I’ll need a plane reservation…”

  Natalie chuckled. “Consider yourself reserved.”

  Jessie’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need you to pay for me.”

  Natalie put a hand on her arm. “You’re misunderstanding me. I flew us here. On my own private
jet. I’ll take you back with us, if that suits you.”

  “I thought your mother said she didn’t let you become a pilot.”

  “She never let me become a professional, commercial pilot. I’ve had my license since I was sixteen. Mama taught me herself.”

  “And you’ve got your own private jet? Not a prop plane, but a jet?”

  “That’s right. It’s handy for getting from obligation to obligation.”

  “I guess you must make pretty good money, then. Jets aren’t cheap.”

  Natalie laughed again. “I do quite well, thank you. Now, it would be my honor to take you to my mother’s side. I can’t think of any gift I could give her that could be greater than that.”

  “You’re not humoring an old lady?”

  “Absolutely not. I never humor old ladies at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “Oh.” For the first time since she’d picked up Claudia’s last letter to read, Jessie became aware of the time. She blushed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

  “Please, don’t worry about it. I’m used to being awakened in the middle of the night when I’m on call.” Natalie’s eyes twinkled. “Wheels up at 1300. Does that work for you?”

  “Just tell me where to be.”

  “I’ll have Chelsea come to your room at 1100 and help you with your bags. In the meantime, I suggest you try to get some rest.”

  Jessie turned to go. At the door, she stopped to face Natalie. “Thank you.” The tears began to flow again. “Thank you so much.”

  Natalie pulled Jessie into a hug. “It’s my pleasure. Will you be able to make it back to your room all right? Do you need me to go with you?”

  “Goodness no. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll see you soon.”