Harry proposed to me!!!
Boy, did he take me by surprise! I said yes, and now my whole life has changed. I’m not going to university after all. We’re thinking we’ll have a mid-winter wedding and go somewhere warm for our honeymoon.
Harry says he wants kids right away.
My mom and dad are really happy. My mom and I haven’t got along this well in years.
I hope you’ll come to the wedding. I’ll send you an invitation. Only right that my favourite penpal comes to my wedding, isn’t it?
I know you’ll like Harry.
How’s your love-life going? You haven’t said much about it. I’ll bet you have to beat the girls away with a stick.
Well, I wanted you to be one of the first to know my news.
Wish me luck!
Sincerely,
Janie.
>
Anticipation
I go out for a dry run—not all the way to Jason Hunter’s house, but close. Linden Woods is a maze if you’re going to someone’s house for the first time. Guided by Jason’s directions and my coil-bound Sherlock’s Map of Winnipeg, I find the street and I’m in good shape for Monday night.
I go home and pour myself an Appleton’s Rum and Diet Pepsi. Now that Tracy—and Vera’s grapevine—know about my date, it seems real. Much more real than … whatever I had with Liz Oliver.
I sit in the living room and think, If this truly is a date, what should my expectations be? Is Janie now a feisty feminist? If so, what will her expectations be? How will I know what her expectations are? Will she revert to being a kid again the way I might, or will she be a mature woman who sees anything like holding hands or nuzzling each other or kissing as juvenile? Janie was so turned on by our kissing all those years ago, so turned on, she almost lost control of herself—what if she’s still that way? Since she’s been a widow for a number of years, might she be even more anxious for intimacy? Just after she moved away, she told me in a letter that she thought we had a bond—does she still feel that? Will she be inclined to finish what we started all those years ago?
I get up and put a frozen spinach pizza in the oven and pour a second drink. This one tastes better than the first and my thoughts grow more risqué. If we kiss—and I can’t imagine our not kissing—will she expect to be groped? Will she grope me? Do people our age neck? Will I kiss her in the car, in the restaurant parking lot, or will she expect to go somewhere and then kiss? Where will she expect to go? A hotel? My house? If we go to my house, will she be freaked out by photos of Barb? Do I need to put the photos away in anticipation of our going back to my house? Will she want to see photos of Barb? What if she is so savvy about contemporary behaviour, she sees this date as a chance to hook up? Since neither of us has any commitment to anyone, will she expect to go to bed? If she does expect to go to bed, will she prefer to go to the guest room? I can’t remember who last slept in the guest room—do I need to change the sheets in anticipation of our using it? If we do go to bed, will I remember what to do? Is it like riding a bicycle—you never forget—or is it so different with a different woman that it’s like starting all over again? If we do go to bed, I’ll have to use a condom—should I buy some so I’ll be ready? What if, at her age, she needs vaginal cream and doesn’t have any with her? Will we break from our clinch to make a run to the drugstore? Or will she expect me to be ready for any eventuality, be prepared, like a Boy Scout? Will she expect me to have taken a prescription drug to ward off any possible erectile dysfunction? Will someone like Janie be thrilled with these kinds of preparations or will she be totally turned off by sex that’s so obviously premeditated?
I’m so full of anxiety, I can barely eat my pizza.
Next morning, after a troubled sleep, I think, that whole line of thinking last night was absurd. When it comes right down to it, how do you introduce the topic of sex in the first place? You might not even want to. People our age don’t fall into an embrace and suddenly start ripping at each other’s clothes. Besides, I have no desire to get in deep with Janie Hunter. I have no reason to believe that Janie wants anything more than a bit of chat, a bit of reminiscing.
Yet later, in the shower before I leave, my subconscious delivers to my brain the song “Perfidia”—what they played for the last dance at high-school graduation—and I sing it in my loudest tenor voice before my rational side reminds me once again that I’m a foolish old fart, and that the person I’m going out on a date with is no longer the girl I’d spent the night with fifty-six years ago.
On the way over to the Hunter residence, I have misgivings. All those years ago, after I found out how passionately Janie could kiss and I got razzed for doing things to her that I hadn’t done, there was a mystique surrounding my memory of her, a strong sense of unfinished business. And there were those letters of hers that were probably intended to drive me crazy and did. But I was a kid then, with laughably little experience in matters of the opposite sex. And Janie knew it. If she’d stayed in Winnipeg, she never would’ve made herself accessible to me. For all I know, all these years later she’s still toying with me, letting me buy her dinner, tolerating me for a couple of hours while maybe she quizzes me about how the old town has changed.
So why, despite that unfortunate evening with Liz a few months ago, am I feeling like a kid on a date? Why is an irrational part of me looking forward to a good-night kiss? Why do I feel a certain swagger, as if I’m going out to dinner with a lovely and wanton young woman? Why do I have an erection?
The house is a large, yellow two-storey with a broad driveway. Three late-model SUVs are parked there, but I have lots of room to pull up beside one of them. I take several deep breaths. In case there’s a chance I can be seen from the house, I try to step out of the car with some remnant of agility. I feel a sharp pain in my left instep, the one I usually get from having the foot at a weird angle while driving. I fight to keep from hobbling, which brings a grimace to my face. Instead of keeping my head up to appear jaunty and devil-may-care, I frown down at the concrete in my path, watching for anything that might trip me. One of the SUVs is dirty, and that’s the one I rub against, putting a grey smudge on my sport jacket which, fortunately, is grey. I look up at the front door just as I approach the first step; I don’t quite get my foot all the way up to the step—I trip but keep my balance, half-running the rest of the way and stopping inches from the door. No sign of anyone there, thank God.
I ring the bell.
Except for the fact that the house is twice as large, this could be Doreen Holden’s front door. Doreen, my very first date. I half-expect a smiling Mrs. Holden to appear. I have a momentary twinge of having forgotten something … the corsage!
The door opens. A handsome man with a receding hairline stands there looking at me as if I might be selling chocolate bars for my school. He’s wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt open at the collar.
“Hi, I’m Jenkins,” I say. I’m not sure what else to say. He knows why I’m here.
“Mr. Jenkins, come on in, sir. Mother should be down in a minute.”
I enter. He closes the door and holds out his hand.
“I’m Jason Hunter,” he says. “A word before she comes down. She cannot, I repeat, cannot, under any circumstances, have anything to drink of an alcoholic nature. Do you understand?”
“Yes—”
“Good. I’m holding you responsible. She’ll tell you she can have a glass of wine. She can’t. That’s one of the reasons we moved her here. So we can keep an eye on her.”
“I see.”
“And if you drink?”
“I’ll get a taxi to bring us home—but I likely won’t drink—in fairness.”
“Good. She has some pills. She’ll have them with her, but you might have to remind her to take them. With water. Before dinner. Got it?”
“Got it.” I no longer feel like a kid going out on a date. I’m a foot-soldier being sent into battle with life-or-death instructions from his sergeant.
“And I t
rust you’ll bring her straight home after dinner. Oh, here she comes.”
A shapeless woman appears; her torso in a rust-coloured pantsuit seems to be the same thickness from shoulders to hips. She has young Janie’s face and hair, except the face is wrinkled and the hair is grey. She’s carrying a large leather handbag and she’s giving off a sharp fragrance.
“Gerry,” she says. “It’s been so long.” She comes to me and gives me an aggressive hug.
“Mother, it’s Jenkins,” Jason says.
“Of course it is,” says Janie. “What did I say, Gerry? Well, no harm done, right, Jenkins?”
“Right.”
“How are you, Jenkins, after all these years?”
“I’m fine, Janie.”
“Well, let’s go, shall we? See you, Jason. Don’t wait up.”
>
Dating Then
I met Barbara at Grads’ Farewell, the last university social event before I graduated. She was with Neil Charnetski, a guy I’d met in Money and Banking class. He and Gary Johnson and I decided to go together once I managed to get myself a date.
Here’s how my date came about. I was studying and cartooning my way through my final year—another dateless winter. One day in February, walking from the Arts Building to the new library, I bumped into Jennifer Jordan, the gorgeous blonde who had turned me down for high-school grad.
“Jenkins!” she said. “I was hoping I’d see you one of these days. I love your cartoons!”
“Glad you like them.”
I thought that would be the end of the conversation, but she was in no hurry. She told me which of my cartoons she’d liked best and she laughed about not knowing they were my cartoons until somebody told her. She said she was taking Science but wasn’t doing well. Then I said, “Still going out with—?”
“Doug? No, we broke up ages ago. Say, I never apologized to you for turning you down that time. I was stupidly chasing Doug. I wish I’d gone to your grad with you.”
“You don’t have to say—”
“I mean it.”
“Hey—um—listen. We have Grads’ Farewell coming up and I haven’t … well, do you think you might like to go with me?”
“Gee. I’m sort of going out with—when is it?”
“Middle of March.”
“It wouldn’t mean—you know—oh, you know what? I’ll go.”
“You will?”
“I’d like to go to Grads’ Farewell with you. It doesn’t mean we have to go out together between now and then, does it?”
“No!”
“Then you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Well, a date.”
“Jennifer, thank you.”
“No, thank you.”
Charnetski, Johnson and I took cabs because, as Charnetski put it, “This is a night when you want to get stinking drunk.” I had a taxi pick me up and then Jennifer. She was so slender and beautiful in her gold-trimmed white strapless gown that I felt dazzled by her and, when the six of us met in the Marlborough Hotel lobby, I noticed that the others kept gazing at her. We went up to the room that Charnetski had rented for our coats and our stash of booze.
Johnson had curly red hair, wet lips and a slouchy posture, and his date Valerie had dark hair that was shorter and curlier than his. Her light green strapless gown exposed shapely shoulders and prominent collarbones. She stood ramrod straight in her high heels, making her a few inches taller than Johnson. Charnetski, wearing a rented tuxedo just like Johnson and me, was tallest of us all and had blond hair that was already receding from his broad forehead. His date, Barbara, was the nurse he’d been telling me about (“You know what they say about nurses”). She was pudgy with what guys called baby fat and her chubby cheeks made her eyes almost Asian. She wore a turquoise gown that matched her eyes and her hair was dark brown, done in a pageboy. The bodice gave her breasts a kind of understated prominence that allowed her to maintain a certain elegance.
We went up to the ballroom on the top floor, hid our bottles under the table and ordered soft drinks, as everyone did in those strange times before the liquor laws changed. There was a live band and some couples were already dancing. The roomful of young men in black and young women in bright colours radiated prosperity and promise for the future.
Barbara was anxious to dance. “Any takers?” she asked.
“I’ll be ready in a minute,” said Charnetski, sipping his drink in a mock-genteel way. “Someone warm her up for me.”
“Go ahead, Jenkins,” Jennifer said. “Get us started.”
I jumped up and did an exaggerated bow in front of Barbara. The band was playing “String of Pearls.”
Barbara was a good armful, taller than Jennifer, not as rigidly erect as Valerie. She adjusted immediately to my step, which meant I could hold her close, making conversation unnecessary. I liked her perfume and the texture of her gown, but most of all I liked how easily we danced together. As we moved across the floor, I saw people I knew—Shelley Kurtz, who waved at me; the editor, who was squiring around a glitzily dressed girl he’d imported from Toronto; Charlotte, a pretty but enigmatic girl I hadn’t seen since Grade Twelve.
When the music ended, Barbara said, “Thank you, that was very nice,” and we walked back to our table.
Charnetski held a drink out to her. “He’s a regular Mr. Twinkle Toes, right?”
“Absolutely,” Barbara said, and she gave me a playful wink.
“You two looked good out there,” Jennifer said to me.
“Your turn now?” I said.
“Why not?” she said.
I’d danced with Jennifer only once before—that brief segment of a Bingo dance back in high school. I walked with her onto the dance floor. The music began: a polka.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Don’t like polkas?” said Jennifer.
“Can’t do them.”
“Come on. Let’s give it a try.”
The last thing I wanted was to do a polka as my first full-length dance with Jennifer. You couldn’t adapt the Magic Step to a polka. I started, holding her at arm’s length, bending my legs and trying to watch my own feet. I bumped into several other dancers. When I thought I’d figured out what to do, I collided with a girl and she fell.
“I’m sorry!” I said. I stopped dancing to help her up. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“I should’ve seen you coming,” the girl said.
“You should’ve honked,” her dancing partner said to me.
“We’d better sit down before I do any more damage,” I said to Jennifer.
The next dance was a slow one. Charnetski asked Jennifer and Johnson picked Barbara, leaving Valerie to me.
“Do you know anything about parrots?” Valerie asked me.
She was so stiff, I felt as if I were dancing with a plank. I remembered hearing that parrots lived as long as humans and I was about to tell Valerie that when I noticed Jennifer dancing close to Charnetski, her head on his shoulder.
“Why—why do you ask?” I said.
“A friend of mine wants me to babysit hers.”
“Does it talk?”
“That’s the problem. It says the worst swears.”
The band took a break and I knocked back a couple of stiff drinks. I had a spirited conversation with Johnson about what we were going to do after graduation; Johnson liked the idea of teaching “except for the goddam students.”
At last, I got a chance to do a slow dance with Jennifer. I wondered if her eyes were closed the way they were with Charnetski. Her head was tucked to one side of my jaw and I didn’t disturb the arrangement to see her eyes. As we danced, she did a little clicking sound with her mouth. At first, it seemed cute. After a while, it got on my nerves. Twice I stepped on her feet.
I danced again with Barbara and preferred her humming to Jennifer’s clicking, even though it seemed off-key. I thought Barbara was dancing more closely. Was I imagining it, or was her pelvis looking for mine? You know wha
t they say about nurses. I gave her a squeeze at the end of the dance and she squeezed me back.
At one a.m., the evening was over. As we said our goodbyes in the hotel lobby, I swore that Barbara winked at me. But did Charnetski have to kiss Jennifer on the cheek?
In the cab, Jennifer didn’t speak. We drove along Main Street, over the Main Street and Norwood Bridges. The cabbie, a swarthy guy in a golf cap, didn’t speak either. I started to chuckle.
“What are you laughing at?” Jennifer asked.
“Nothing.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No!”
“You are. That’s why you’re laughing at nothing.”
“I’m laughing at the absurdity of life.”
I let out a burst and held back any more. My shoulders shook. It was the kind of spasm that used to come over Gerry.
When the taxi pulled up to Jennifer’s house, a bungalow on St. Elmo Road, I leaned forward to check the meter and dug into my pocket for money.
“You don’t have to walk me to the door,” Jennifer said.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I paid the cabbie and hurried to get out of the cab and around to Jennifer’s side, but she was already out. She headed up the sidewalk.
“Hey, wait!” I called.
Rumour had it that Jennifer had slept with previous boyfriends. With confidence bred of booze, I thought the least I could expect was some heavy necking. This cold shoulder I was getting was probably part of a game she liked to play.
At her back door, where the light was off, she said, “I had a nice time. Thanks.”
“I had a nice time, too.”
“Good night, then.”
I laughed. I was in that kind of mood. “Don’t you want me to come in?” I said.
“I told you I’d go to Grads’ Farewell with you. I’ve kept my part of the bargain.”
“Bargain?”
“I said I’d go because I hurt you when I turned you down before. That’s all there is to it.”
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