On the first sip the salted rim teased Ruth’s tongue. She took a second sip and then a third until before long her glass was empty. Cyrus ordered another round and said they’d also have two hamburger platters.
That night they danced as they had not danced in many years. Ruth snuggled her head against his chest, and he whispered how very lovely she was. Standing with distance enough to blur the tiny laugh lines in the corner of Ruth’s eyes and the silver threads in Cyrus’s hair, you would have sworn they were young lovers.
They danced almost every dance and stayed until the trio played their last song and began packing up. Walking out of the Peppermint Club arm in arm they strolled back to the hotel, Cyrus whistling a tune and Ruth doing a two-step.
The magic of that evening stayed with them for the full five days of their vacation. They walked hand in hand at the edge of the ocean, swam in the pool and stretched out in the warm sun doing absolutely nothing.
They were relaxing on chaise lounges when Ruth sighed and said, “Isn’t this simply wonderful?”
He gave a nod of agreement then added wistfully, “We should have taken more time for vacations. I regret that we didn’t.”
Ruth laughed. “I swear, Cyrus, you’ve got more regrets than any person I’ve ever known.”
“I suppose so,” he answered, “but it’s because I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
“No more than anyone else.” She slid her sunglasses to the tip of her nose, looked across at him and smiled. “The only difference is you keep hanging on to the memory of them.”
Ruth lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his palm.
“Cyrus Dodd,” she said, “if I had to choose all over again, I’d still marry you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
The Decision
Eight months after their vacation John Pennyworth, the railroad company’s personnel director, paid a visit to Cyrus’s office. He lowered himself into the chair on the far side of the desk then sat back and crossed one foot over the other.
“Cigar?” he said and held out a silver case.
Cyrus shook his head. “No, thanks.”
Pennyworth, apparently in no hurry, lit the cigar and took a good long draw.
“Next month will be twenty-five years you’re with us,” he said. “Long time for a man to be working in one job.”
“It wasn’t only one job,” Cyrus replied. “I started as a trackman and worked my way up.” He deliberately avoided any mention of Arnold Greenly.
“A man working his way up, that’s something to be proud of.” Pennyworth took another long pull on his cigar. “You sure you don’t want one?”
Again Cyrus shook his head.
“You’re missing a good smoke.” Pennyworth flicked the ash from tip of his cigar into the ashtray then set it to the side.
Pennyworth wasn’t a man who stopped by to pass the time of day, so Cyrus began to wonder what he was there for.
“Was there something you needed to talk about?” he asked.
Pennyworth nodded. “You see, the company’s decided to move the scheduling operation to Richmond. They’ve already got payroll coming out of there, so it’s a good move. You know, consolidation, efficiency and the like.”
Cyrus said nothing and waited.
“Anyway, seeing as how you’ve got twenty-five years in with us, the company’s offering you two options.” Pennyworth took another pull on his cigar. “Naturally we’d like you to stay on, but Richmond’s three hours from here. So you’d have to relocate, find a place within commuting distance.”
Cyrus shuddered at the thought of moving. “What’s the other option?”
“Early retirement. According to company policy you’ve got five years to go before full benefits would kick in, but given the circumstances they’ve decided to offer you retirement with full benefits now.”
“Full retirement, huh?”
Pennyworth nodded. “Not everybody gets this, but you’re well-respected in the company so they’re going the extra distance.”
Cyrus couldn’t help wondering exactly why they would be going all out for him.
“Does this have anything to do with Arnold Greenly?” he asked.
Pennyworth sat there with a puzzled look stretched across his face. “Arnold Greenly? Can’t place the name. Is he with the company?”
“Nope.” Cyrus gave a broad grin and said he’d take the retirement package.
On Cyrus’s final workday the company hosted a luncheon, and executives he’d never before seen attended. Wesley Lehman, East Coast regional manager, gave a speech saying Cyrus would be greatly missed then affixed a small gold pin to his lapel signifying his years of loyal service.
That afternoon Cyrus packed his personal effects into a small cardboard box and for the last time walked out of the Grumman Bank Building. In the decade he’d spent in that office, he’d accumulated five shelves of procedural manuals but only a few personal mementos. A picture of Ruth and Joy taken on an Easter Sunday when Joy was still a child, perhaps ten or maybe eleven. A shell-shaped ashtray they’d brought back from Virginia Beach. A bottle of antacid tablets, two spare handkerchiefs and a book he’d planned to read over lunch but never did.
Now I’ll have time enough to get to it, he thought. It should have felt good. He’d thought it would feel good, but suddenly a vague sense of disappointment settled in.
Walking home with the cardboard box in his arms, he was reminded of the first night they arrived in Wyattsville. This box was much lighter than the suitcase and two crates he’d carried then.
* * *
The following Monday Cyrus woke at his usual time. He shaved as if he were heading off to the office then dressed in his Saturday work clothes.
He and Ruth sat at the breakfast table together. There was no dashing out the door before he’d swallowed the last bite of egg. He finished one cup of coffee then poured himself a second.
“Since I’ve got plenty of time,” he said, “think I’ll give the fence a fresh coat of paint.”
“Today?” Ruth asked. “When it’s supposed to rain?”
“Rain, huh?” Cyrus took a sip of coffee. “I suppose I could put it off for another day or two.” He sat saying nothing for a few minutes then asked what inside jobs she might want done.
Ruth was hard-pressed to give him an answer. Over the years, he’d spent weekends and days off doing the things that needed doing. There was nothing more that needed to be scraped, sanded, refinished or repaired. In fact, he’d oiled the closet doors so many times they now swung shut even when she wanted them to stand open.
“There’s no need for you to be working all the time,” she said. “You’re retired, so relax and take it easy for a while. Read the newspaper and have yourself another cup of coffee.”
“I’ve already had two.”
“Hmm.” Ruth thought a few minutes then suggested maybe he could rearrange the pantry shelves.
“The canned vegetables are on the top shelf,” she said, “and it’s impossible for me to reach them without the stepstool.”
“Isn’t that women’s work?”
“Not if I can’t reach the shelf.”
That spring Cyrus took to mowing their lawn twice a week, and when he finished their lawn he’d help out the widow across the street and do hers. He also planted three rhododendron bushes, two scarlet azaleas, built a trellis and planted ivy that in time would wind its way upward.
Three times he painted the picket fence. The first time was a fresh coat of white paint. Then he decided it would be less obtrusive if it were a dark green, but the green didn’t look anything like he thought it would so he repainted it white. That time it took two coats to cover the green.
While it seemed that he had to work at finding something to do, Ruth was constantly busy—making telephone calls for the library’s fundraising program, fixing casseroles for neighbors who were feeling poorly or rushing off to meetings for some club or another. One Tuesday wh
en Ruth said she had a book club meeting that afternoon but would leave his lunch in the refrigerator, he sat there looking disappointed.
“I thought we’d be spending more time together,” he said.
Ruth saw the sadness in his eyes and said, “I’ll skip this meeting if you want, and we can go for a walk or maybe see a movie.”
“No,” he replied glumly. “Go ahead. I don’t want to spoil your plans.”
That afternoon he gathered scraps of wood, built a birdhouse and hung it on a branch of the oak tree.
When fall came Cyrus could find little to do other than rake the leaves in the yard and water the two pots of chrysanthemums sitting on the front porch. He did it every day, but by the middle of November the trees were bare and the waterlogged chrysanthemums had died. With absolutely nothing more to do, he paced from room to room checking to see if there was a draft from the window or a leak spotting the ceiling.
In the evening they sat across from one another in the living room club chairs, Ruth weaving her crochet hook back and forth as she worked on tiny hats for newborns or turning the pages of whatever book she happened to be reading. When Cyrus complained he had nothing to do, she smiled patiently and suggested he relax.
“You’ve worked hard all your life,” she said. “Now you can just enjoy being retired.”
“Relax?” Cyrus replied. “When I feel like a horse put out to pasture?”
Cyrus Dodd
I’m beginning to think maybe moving to Richmond wouldn’t have been so bad after all. With Joy and Peter gone off to New York, it’s not as if there’s a lot to keep us here in Wyattsville. Ruth might disagree because of her lady friends and those clubs she belongs to, but to me one place is the same as the other.
This business of doing nothing is getting to me. When I was working there was always something to plan for. In the morning I’d head off to the office thinking about what all I had to do that day, and by the time six o’clock rolled around I felt pretty proud of all I’d accomplished. Then I’d start wondering what Ruth was going to make for supper and how her day had gone, and I’d look forward to coming home.
Now there are no more surprises. I know what we’re having for supper because I see it simmering atop the stove, and I don’t wonder how her day has gone because I already know.
That’s not even the part that bothers me most. The worst part is the long hours of having nothing to do. It used to be that I’d look at my watch and think, Holy cow, is it six o’clock already? Now I watch the clock and count how many more hours I’ve got to go before the day will end.
Every day I read the newspaper front to back, but that’s done in a half-hour. Yesterday I got so bored I started reading the classified listings, and that put a thought in my head. There was a job listing for a shoe salesman. It said experience needed, but how much experience do you really need to sell a pair of shoes?
I know it’s water over the dam, but I keep thinking how back on the farm I would never have a situation like this. On a farm you’ve always got something to do, summer, winter, noon and night. I guess it’s time for me to add leaving that nice railroad job to my list of regrets and move on to finding something else to occupy my time.
I keep thinking surely to God I have already done everything there is to regret, but every time I’ve thought that I discover another regret waiting on the horizon.
Jobless
In the dead of winter on a day when boredom picked at his thoughts like a thorn caught beneath his skin, Cyrus telephoned John Pennyworth.
“That offer to relocate to Richmond, is it still available?” he asked.
Pennyworth chuckled. “It’s been nine months. That job was filled in two days.”
“How about something else?” Cyrus said. “Maybe something here in Wyattsville? I’m okay with taking a junior spot, something at a lower pay grade.”
“The whole operation was moved to Richmond,” Pennyworth replied. “The only thing still in Wyattsville is the train yard.”
Cyrus was going to say he’d be willing to work the yard again, but he didn’t get the chance.
“Working the yard, now that takes a younger man,” Pennyworth said. “It’s certainly not for old war horses like us.”
“I guess not,” Cyrus replied grimly.
He hung up the telephone feeling worse than before. He’d already missed out on two other jobs he’d applied for. At the time he’d not been overly upset about either of those since he had no real desire to be a shoe salesman or night watchman. But with Pennyworth he thought he might’ve had a chance. Maybe not as scheduling supervisor, but some other job; some clerical thing that he’d have turned down years earlier. Now he understood beggars couldn’t be bargainers. A job was a job, and being without one was downright depressing.
A half-hour after the telephone call Cyrus felt so miserable that he pulled on his pajamas and went to bed in the middle of the afternoon.
When Ruth returned from her Brookside Library meeting she found him with the covers pulled up to his neck and his eyes wide open.
“Are you sick?” she asked. “Should I call the doctor?”
“I’m not sick,” Cyrus replied and gave no further explanation.
That’s when Ruth began to worry about him.
The following Tuesday she called Clara Bowman and suggested it would be better if she dropped out of the library committee for a while.
“It’s Cyrus,” she said. “He’s not doing well.”
“Is he sick?” Clara asked.
“Not sick exactly; more like disheartened.”
“Disheartened? That’s a poor reason for quitting the committee.”
“Maybe so,” Ruth said, “but Cyrus took care of me when I was disheartened, and I’ve got to do the same for him.”
Clara thought back.
“I don’t remember you ever being disheartened,” she said suspiciously. “There was that one time you had the flu but other than that—”
“It was a long time ago, back when we lived in Elk Bend.”
Still not convinced Clara said, “You sure this isn’t an excuse to get out of—”
“Why would I want to get out of anything? I love working on the committee, and you know it.”
“So you say.” Clara gave a labored sigh and hung up. Now she’d have to find a replacement to do the begonias on Broad Street.
In the weeks that followed Ruth skipped the club meetings and set aside her crocheting. She spent her time trying to cheer Cyrus and coax conversation from him. She cooked his favorite meals and suggested they see movies she was almost certain he’d enjoy. Although she would sooner have been reading a book or catching up on some letters, she’d sit beside him and watch a full evening of television shows. When Cyrus turned the dial to shows such as Gunsmoke and The Restless Gun, not once did she say she’d rather be watching George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Despite all of that, his melancholic mood persisted.
The idea came to her while the winds of March were still quite brisk.
“I know it’s not warm enough to swim in the ocean,” she said, “but I thought maybe we could stroll along the boardwalk and go dancing again.”
Cyrus, who by then had taken to listening with only half an ear, turned to her with a puzzled looking expression. “Dancing on Broadway?”
Ruth shook her head. “The boardwalk in Virginia Beach.”
“What about it?”
“Well, we had so much fun on that vacation, I thought it would be fun to go again. A getaway would do us both good.”
For the first time in almost two months Cyrus didn’t frown or shake his head.
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said, and the corners of his lips curled into a smile.
That evening as he searched for his bathing suit, Ruth heard him whistling a happy tune. She could almost swear it was Elvis Presley’s Blue Suede Shoes.
She slipped into the kitchen and dialed Clara’s number. “Cyrus seems to be coming around, so there�
�s a chance I can do the begonias after all.”
“Really?” Clara replied skeptically. “Are you saying I can count on you?”
“Well, it’s not absolutely certain,” Ruth said. “I’ll know more in a few days.” She was going to explain about the vacation but held off because she heard Cyrus coming down the hall.
“I’ll call and let you know,” she said hurriedly, then hung up the telephone.
On Saturday morning it started to rain just as they left the house. Ruth looked at the dark clouds overhead, and an ominous feeling settled in her stomach.
“Maybe we should wait and go tomorrow,” she suggested.
“This is barely a drizzle,” Cyrus said. “It’ll be gone in no time.”
She eyed the sky again. It seemed to be growing darker by the minute, but with Cyrus acting himself for the first time in months she was hesitant to argue the point.
So it rains, she thought. Then we’ll go dancing in the hotel ballroom.
Shortly after they passed Richmond the rain began coming in torrents, and the five-hour trip turned into an eight-hour nightmare.
Ruth could no longer hold her tongue.
“We should have turned back,” she said. “I hate driving in this kind of weather.”
“You’re not the one driving,” Cyrus replied pointedly.
After that they drove in silence with just some spotty static from the radio and the swish, swish, swish of windshield wipers.
It was still raining when they pulled up in front of the Majestic Hotel. Cyrus let Ruth out in front of the hotel then parked the car. Ten minutes later he followed her in. He was wearing the same discouraged frown he’d been wearing for weeks and trailing puddles of water across the marble floor.
The Regrets of Cyrus Dodd Page 14