Betty opens another cupboard. There are water tumblers and juice glasses. I find one highball glass and ignore the chip in it.
“Ice?” I say, feeling as if making a drink has become one of life’s most laborious tasks.
“That I have,” says Betty, opening the freezer above the fridge. “Do you see it in there? The open bag behind the frozen peas.”
I do see it, between the frozen vegetable mix and the ice cream. I reach in and feel ice—a boulder-sized chunk that must be several cubes stuck together. I pull it out and we both laugh.
“I’m not very well prepared, am I?” she says, suddenly turning red. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit out of sorts—but I do have a nice meal—I just have to make sure I serve it at the right time.”
Running hot water over the chunk and using a spoon to chip away, I create two drink-size pieces. “What are you going to drink?”
She checks the oven. “I’ll just have—I don’t know—one of those ginger ales.”
I mix my own drink and pour a can of ginger ale into a tumbler. “Should I maybe open the wine? Let it breathe, as they say?”
“Good idea,” Betty says, beginning to assemble a bowl of salad.
“Um … do you have a corkscrew?”
The lasagna is so delicious that I have a second helping. The wine is good despite the little pieces of cork floating in it. Betty couldn’t find the corkscrew—a Swiss army knife that used to belong to one of her husbands. I used a paring knife to dig the cork out but fragments fell into the bottle. Betty did come up with wine glasses—champagne flutes, to be accurate—and we made a little game out of using dessert spoons to snag the cork bits.
We talk about cooking—how lazy you can become when cooking only for yourself. I play down the number of times a week I fry steak or eat Chunky Soup. Betty begins to make a reference to Darcy’s culinary skills, catches herself, blows her nose, jumps up, tosses off the apron and suggests we move to the sofa.
We sit down with our wine and a minute later she sets her glass down on a table and takes mine and sets it down too. Just as I’m thinking about how I can politely leave, she leans into me and presses her mouth against mine. I’ve been thinking way too much about Darcy, even imagining him behind a curtain snickering at everything we say. Now I find it difficult to resist this woman’s unbuttoning of my shirt and running one warm hand over my bare chest. There is no interrupting phone call this time. She’s on her knees now, leaning over me, kissing me hungrily, and I’m caressing her behind.
I don’t know if it’s my relatively recent experience with Iris or my contempt for the way Betty treated me back in February, but I feel a crazy confidence even though I think I’m taking advantage of a needy woman. Somehow, it seems perverse to be enjoying her active mouth, her fingers tweaking my nipples, the unflinching response of her flesh to my hands. And I sense that she’s every bit as well equipped for where this seems to be heading as Iris was.
“Betty,” I whisper, as she licks the curve of my jaw.
“Oh, Jenkins, Jenkins,” she breathes.
“Do you want to have sex?”
She barely hesitates, her hand inside my shirt moving from my chest hair to my bare shoulder, as she says, “Oh, Jenkins, of course I do.”
I undo a couple of her buttons. “Right here,” I whisper, “or do you want to move to a bed?”
“Oh, Jenkins,” she says, staying close to me, “not tonight. I can’t. Not tonight.”
I’m surprised, confused, and yet glad in a weird way, and I pull her shirt up and unbutton it all the way and she grabs hold of my head with both hands and straddles me and pushes herself against me as she says into my ear, “I’m just not ready yet, okay?” as everything about her cries out, I’m ready! I’m ready! and then she breaks from me and flops back on the sofa and says, “We need a little time—well, I need some time,” and she covers her face. Minutes later, she says, “I promise you: When I’m ready, you’ll be the first to know.”
>
Twilight
October comes and I’ve heard nothing further from Iris. I hoped for at least a report on her health. I would’ve been grateful for a quick call like “Jenkins, I can’t talk right now but I just thought I’d say Hi.” I become resigned to never hearing from her again and I try to convince myself that it’s all for the best. From the little she’s said, her family sounds as complex as Janie’s. And Iris is at the peak of her working years, whereas I’m long past mine—I have no interest in what it takes to keep a business like hers functioning. And that one night—was it really that much fun? What about all those sleepless hours while she was totally out of it? And perhaps most trying is her dilettante nature; the only spot where our interests intersect—a liking for books—is minor at best, nothing on which to base a friendship or—dare I say it?—a love affair.
I’ve heard nothing further from Betty, either. In the sober light of the morning after my dinner at her place, I saw her as unstable, maybe even deranged, or—just as bad—having a difficult time accepting Darcy’s defection. I’m already planning my excuses for turning down an invitation to Bea Branwell’s next New Year’s Eve party.
And so I gradually readjust to my solitary widower’s life, and one Tuesday morning, just after Thanksgiving, I go to my local Safeway to pick up some apples, some skim milk, a frozen spinach pizza and some medium cheddar cheese. I seldom see anyone I know at Safeway, but on this morning I hear my name.
“Jenkins?”
Behind one of the new small-sized black carts in the aisle I’m passing stands Maude Sanderson, my neighbour at Victoria Beach. She is the widow of Alec, who died some four years ago. We partied together many times over many summers; Barb and I went to Florida with them for a few winter vacations. The Sandersons were part of the group that used to organize beach celebrations whenever somebody’s kid was getting married. Maude and Alec hosted the bash put on for Tracy and Clay way back in 1993, the same weekend Barb’s mother died. Maude, my age or a year or so older, looks good—trim, with her white hair shaped in a flattering way. I stop to speak with her.
“Jenkins, how are you?” she says, with a look of concern, as if she might’ve heard I have a dreadful disease.
“I’m fine, Maude.” I glance at her cart, in which the prominent item is an upside-down box of Post Spoon-sized Shredded Wheat. “Do you know, I read that it’s common these days for people who want to let others know they’re single and available to walk supermarket aisles with their shredded wheat inverted like that? They call them cereal daters.”
“Oh, Jenkins, you just made that up.”
“No, no, I read it somewhere just recently.”
She laughs. “Well, I am single and available, aren’t I? I just never think of it that way.”
“What are you doing in this part of town?”
“My optometrist is out this way. I was just there and I thought I’d drop in here for a few things.”
“Well, whether you’re advertising for companionship or not, how would you like to go for coffee after you’re finished here?”
“Oh! You know, I think I’d like that, Jenkins. Where would you like to go?”
“Bread and Circuses? Over on Corydon at Lilac?”
“Yes, I know it. Meet you there in half an hour.” She chuckles and turns the shredded wheat right-side up.
My sudden invitation is not intended as a way of getting over Iris—not entirely, anyway. Maude is a good-looking woman and, now that I’m into this dating thing, I kind of like it. And I think Maude will be relaxing in her way, unlike Betty or Iris or Janie.
Once we’re at Bread and Circuses, settled at a window table with our large medium-roasts and our date cookies, Maude says:
“Are you coping all right, Jenkins? I know it must be difficult for a man, what with the cooking, the dishes, the laundry, on top of all the yard work. You’re still in your house, aren’t you?”
“I am, but so are you.”
“Yes, but you know, I had an ag
ent in just this week. I think the time has come to put it on the market. You don’t think the time will come, but it does, you know. It does.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Do you do your own cleaning?”
“I have an excellent couple of women come in once a month. I asked one of them what was the best way to clean my sweaters and she took them home and washed them for me. So I’m pretty spoiled.”
“You haven’t been down to the lake much this year, have you?”
“No, but Tracy and Clay have been down a lot.” We are at that stage of succession. The Masons passed the place on to Barb and me, and it was a great place for the kids to go in summer when they were growing up. Now the next generation is gradually taking over.
“I know how it must be for you. Seeing Barb everywhere she used to be—getting dinner ready in the kitchen, reading the paper over coffee on your deck. It’s not easy, I know. Even with our kids there so much, I’ll still walk into the tool shed and expect to see Alec, working on something or sneaking a bottle of beer.” She laughs. “He used to like sneaking his bottle of beer, didn’t he?”
I had no idea Alec liked to do that, but I say, “Yes.”
“I saw Tracy there on Thanksgiving and she said they were closing up, but she said you like to go out a week later for one last check around. Are you going this weekend?”
“Sunday, yes. If there’s something you’d like me to get from your place …”
“Oh, that’s very kind of you, but I want to go out—it’s something Alec and I always did after Thanksgiving—it’s so peaceful when everyone else has packed up for the season.”
“Then why don’t we go together? I’ll drive. Save on gas and all that.”
“Oh, Jenkins, would you? I’d be happy to pack a lunch and we could have sort of a nice little picnic—outside if it’s nice out, inside if it isn’t. Does that appeal to you?”
At this moment, having Maude Sanderson accompany me to the beach on Sunday afternoon seems like a splendid idea.
In stylish prescription sunglasses, a hip-length black leather jacket, a white scarf and black slacks, Maude Sanderson sits beside me as I drive my Pontiac G6 to Victoria Beach. The day is sunny and cold, meaning we’ll likely have to eat the lunch indoors. What Maude prepared sits in a large red cooler on the back seat. As we drive along, she looks out at the bushes and trees and says:
“I used to like the autumn colours. Such a variety of yellows and reds. But look—most of the leaves are on the ground now and the branches are bare. A reminder of the brevity of life. Did you know that Jackie Mortimer went into the hospital this week?”
“No! Not Jackie! She’s been the dynamo in our group for so long …”
“They saw something on an X-ray and when they went in they found a lot more …. And I’m sure you knew Alf Gorman’s back on chemo.”
“I didn’t.”
“He was such a big man—he’s half the size now. Poor Alf.”
Maude continues to give me updates on the beach people who are ill or recently deceased and I realize how out of touch I’ve become. Much as I appreciate the information, I hate to dwell on it and, when she gets to some names I barely know, my mind wanders and, at the cut-off to Patricia Beach, I recall once again the winter night when Barb and I parked. It seems important to think about some life-affirming event.
Magically, at that moment, Maude says, “Remember when a gang of us went skinny-dipping after the Adult Dance?”
I’m not sure how Maude moved from death and dying to skinny-dipping, but there, that’s another wild and crazy thing we did!
“Wasn’t that fun?” I say. “Do you remember what year it was?”
“No, but we were a lot younger and easier to look at.”
“We’d all had lots to drink. It was oppressively hot that night, especially in the Club House. After the dance, we all went out on the beach—I think we were going to walk home along the sand instead of the road because it was cooler by the water.”
“And can you believe it, Jenkins, we took our outer clothing off and went into the water in our underwear.”
“And when we got in so far, we took off our underwear and waved it in the air as if we were completely liberated.”
“Or completely insane!”
I remember Barb staying close to me, jumping into my arms, and how easy it was, with the buoyancy of the water, to carry her with her legs around my waist, and I remember the lusty sensation of feeling our nether nakedness juxtaposed underwater with oblivious friends all around us bantering with each other.
“It was incredibly dark that night,” I say. “No moon, no stars. It was hard to see anything in any detail.”
“Most of the men moved closer to Vicky, hoping to get a look at her, because she had the biggest bosom.”
“Poor Vicky,” I say. She’s another who’s gone from our midst.
And just like that, we’re back to the dead and the dying.
There’s really nothing to do in the cottage. Tracy and Clay followed all the procedures for turning off the water and locking up the bikes and cleaning out the freezer and the fridge and covering the furniture and leaving nothing of value visible. I look into the little back room I slept in before Barb and I were married—it’s now a storage area. I stare with awe at the narrow cot—now loaded with boxes of odds and ends—and wonder how two of us were able to lie on it that night Barb sneaked in to see me. I smile at the innocence of it all; at the time, I considered it one of the most sexy events of my young life.
I move one or two things, throw some ancient Pringles into the garbage, tuck in the duvet on my bed to keep spiders out. I look out the master bedroom window at the lake, remembering Barb’s walks up the path to Scott Point. I remember all the times we took the kids down to the beach. How fleeting those childhood years were! My thoughts go further back, to our dating days and our walks hand-in-hand along the sand to Government Pier. I recall one blustery grey day when the cold lake water lapped over the pier and Barb wasn’t dressed warmly enough and I took her into my jacket the way I used to do when we wanted to be close.
At one o’clock, I go outside, across the lawn to the path, and I enter the Sanderson yard through the front gate. I walk up the front steps, across the deck and into the screened porch. Maude has the sliding main door partially open but I tap anyway.
“Come in, come in!” she says, playing the jolly host. “Jenkins, I meant to tell you, since the water’s off, please feel free to use our outhouse. I don’t want you going into the bushes.” She laughs.
“Thank you, Maude. I hate to admit it but I’ve already used it—Alec gave us permission twenty years ago.”
“Then you noticed we still have the Charles-and-Diana tea towel mounted on the wall. Despite what happened to them, I’ve always thought it gives the place a little class.” She snickers. “Oh, Jenkins, look what I found.”
She holds up the TRACY AND CLAY banner I made for the party back in 1993.
“You’ve kept it in good shape,” I say. “I thought we had it.”
“I did, too! And there it was in the back of a closet. Whatever happened to the Congratulations part?”
“Well, you may remember I did a Congratulations LOUISE AND JEFF banner for our very first pre-wedding party. Because it took me two whole days to draw, and everybody loved it, Barb had me cut the names off and re-use Congratulations each time we put on another party. So we still have it, but it’s wrinkled and tattered now, much like me.”
“Nonsense! You’ve looked the same for twenty years.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment—and since we’re handing out compliments, I must say, Maude, you look ravishing today.”
“Oh, Jenkins, you must be going blind. Now, everything is on the table. These are tuna sandwiches, those are ham and tomato. Pickles, carrots, cheddar, celery. Oh, and apples and bananas. I have a thermos of coffee, but would you like to start with a beer?”
“Maude, this is magnificent!
Yes, I will have a beer—but only one. I’ll have a coffee chaser.”
“All right. Now, please sit down and help yourself.”
As we eat our delicious lunch, Maude reminisces about the pre-wedding party she and Alec had for Tracy and Clay. “Bea and Donald’s son-in-law—what was his name—Sean brought that lovely baron of beef. And remember Matt and Letitia played guitars? And here none of us knew Barb’s mother was dead in your cottage. She’d played bridge with us only three weeks before! She could still bid and go into club convention at ninety-five. What a neat old lady! And poor Barb knowing before she came over that Mrs. Mason was dead and not letting it spoil Tracy’s party. I remember when the party was over going to your place and seeing Mrs. Mason lying there so peacefully. Tracy and Barb and I had a good old cry.”
“It was a strange day, all right. I’d driven to Winnipeg in the morning and picked Barb’s mom up from the home and she talked the whole way out here.”
“And now poor Barb is gone, too.”
We’re silent for a few moments.
Maude says, “Do you think Barb and Alec have gotten together up there, Jenkins?”
“Quite possibly, Maude, but they have an awful lot of others to choose from.”
“Do you ever wonder why things happen the way they do?”
“Of course. We all do, don’t we?”
“I mean, who would have thought, five years ago, that Barb and Alec would be gone and you and I would be left.”
“No one can predict these things.”
“Do you think it happened for a reason? Do you think the Good Lord is trying to tell us something?”
“Like what?”
“Oh … I don’t know.”
“I think the Good Lord knows you make delicious sandwiches and He knew I’d be hungry at one o’clock today.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“I don’t mean to. I just know I used to read a lot into things but maybe it’s best to take things at face value, not try to second-guess, just enjoy what we have.”
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