“Maybe.”
“Someone once said, ‘You know you’ve reached maturity when you realize you can’t do a damn thing about anything.’”
“I’m not sure that’s a healthy way to look at life, Jenkins.”
I think I can hear an edge creeping into my voice, and maybe that’s due to disappointment over Iris, and I’m a fool for giving her any thought at all. I’m trying to ignore Maude’s none-too-subtle overtures. Yet what would be wrong with giving in to them? Here is a pleasant woman who is healthy, capable, attractive, and who doesn’t mind spending time with me. Except for our respective kids, we are both pretty much alone in the world, and wouldn’t it be marvellously convenient if each of us took on the care of the other? As we have today—I providing her transportation, she providing my lunch? Or is she a trifle too morbid?
Maude talks about some of Alec’s possessions; she likes to dispose of a few items every time she comes to the lake, or at least take them into the city. There are books she’s picked out, and I’m free to go through them before she gives them away and pick any I want.
“That was a fantastic lunch, Maude, thank you,” I say, standing up and carrying my dishes into the kitchen. “I’m going to help you clean up.”
“No, no, Jenkins, you take a look at the books—I’d appreciate that more. They’re over there on the sofas.”
They are war histories, military biographies, books on wildlife. I’ve seen most of them before on previous visits. I have little interest in them, but I can’t reject them all and hurt Maude’s feelings.
“Okay, I’ve picked three. Do you want me to take the rest to the car?”
“Oh, would you, Jenkins? There’s a dear.”
On the way home, Maude says, “You know, Jenkins, I sometimes think Barb and Alec were the lucky ones.”
“How so?”
“They had someone who loved them to the very end.”
“You have your son. My son’s in Toronto, but I have Tracy here.”
“It’s not the same, though, is it? I was by Alec’s side nearly every minute of every day. In the hospital, they wheeled in a cot for me and I stayed with him even at night.”
“That was wonderful of you. I went home every night—the nurses recommended it. They thought I’d sleep better without the commotion.”
“Do you know what Alec wanted two days before he went back into the hospital for the last time?”
“What?”
“He wanted to have sex.”
“Really?”
“And I obliged him the best I could.”
“That was nice of you.”
“You see what I mean when I say he was the lucky one?”
She talks about some of our friends who were “lucky” because they died before their spouses. I don’t exactly see things that way, but I don’t argue. We’re approaching the city, following the perimeter highway to Route 90, when she says:
“Are you going somewhere warm this winter, Jenkins?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t mind winters here as much as some people. I did used to like the trips Barb and I took to Arizona—something nice about golfing in January.”
“You should rent a place in Mesa. This year you can get some wonderful deals with the financial situation the way it is down there. I’m going down next month, renting a place in Leisure World. Who knows, I might put my house up for sale while I’m away.”
As we drive, I wonder if she’s hinting that I could go down there and stay with her. She doesn’t come right out and say it.
“We don’t have a lot of time left,” she says. “We need to go gracefully into our twilight years.”
We drive along without speaking, both staring ahead as if we’re visualizing our twilight years. It seems sensible for someone like me to spend those years with someone like her. And yet …
We pull up to her house in River Heights. We both sit for a minute, as if we’re mesmerized by our visions.
“I’ll carry those books inside for you,” I say at last.
“Oh, thank you, Jenkins.”
The house is a two-storey stone structure with mock balconies outside each of three upstairs windows. Maude carries her cooler up the front steps and unlocks the front door. I make four trips inside with piles of books. The house interior, which I’ve seen at social functions over the years, is tastefully furnished, but it now seems tomb-like, everything lying in state.
“I’ll be leaving now, Maude,” I call from the door. “Thank you for the wonderful lunch.”
She comes to me from some other room. “Oh, Jenkins, the lunch was nothing. Thank you for the drive and the lovely companionship.” She looks at me in kind of a shy way. “May I kiss you?”
We both blush. She reaches one hand around the back of my neck and gently pulls me close. Her lips are soft. It’s the kind of sweet kiss I craved when I was in my teens, as sweet as Barbara’s on our first date those zillions of years ago.
>
Space Mountain Sideshow
I enter my house and pause in the dining room.
“Maude thinks you were lucky,” I say to Barb. “How about that? It’s an interesting way to look at …” I don’t finish the sentence.
I go into the living room and sit there for a while. My house is smaller than Maude’s but no less unanimated.
Eventually, I go upstairs and turn on my computer. I scan the list of items in my Inbox and write a message to my travel agent. It’s Sunday and she won’t answer until Monday, but that’s fine. She likes to be called LA—after her initials, not the city—but I always call her LAX—not after the airport but as a little joke—she’s the opposite of lax and has been my travel agent for more than thirty years.
I do a lot of stewing, wondering if I might be off my rocker.
In the morning, about half an hour after the travel agency opens, I check my e-mail. There’s a message from LAX:
Mr. Jenkins, are you NUTS?
But she attaches the flight information I need. I send her an answer telling her I’ll confirm arrangements within an hour or two if possible.
I’m jittery when I make the phone call and deflated when I hear the recorded voice: “Hi there. Sorry I missed your call, but I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.”
I leave a brief message, not giving any details, just saying it’s urgent. I spend the next hour or more in total agitation, walking back and forth and up and down in my house. Twice I check my phone to make sure I’m getting a dial tone. It’s after 11:30 when the phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Jenkins, what’s up?”
“Do you still want to go to Disney World?”
“Yeah, sure—”
“Would you go with me? My treat?”
“When?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Jenkins, you know I can’t just leave here like that.”
“You said your partner told you to get out of there for a while—you deserved a break.”
“That was weeks ago.”
“We’re not talking a long while. Five days tops. You skip tennis tomorrow and we take off.”
“It’s tempting …”
“Would you ask Margot?”
“Hey, you know, it’s crazy enough to make sense. She’s out right now—back after lunch. I’ll talk to her. I can’t promise anything.”
“Try to get back to me soon, okay? I have to confirm the bookings.”
“You have bookings?”
“I have a great travel agent.”
I think I’m going to have to suffer through more hours of stewing but she calls me twenty minutes later.
“I couldn’t wait for her—I called her cell. She said, ‘Go for it!’ So I’ve got a helluva lot to do to get ready, but I’m calling your bluff.”
“That’s fabulous!”
“Jenkins. I can’t believe you.”
“I can’t believe me either. Hey, we’ll have fun. I haven’t been there in years.”
> “Listen, I’ve been making notes.”
“What?”
“Notes? For the book? And I wrote a couple of sample chapters. I’ve made a copy of everything for you. You can read it on the plane.”
We say we’ll talk on the phone later, about how we’ll get to the airport and what time, and she assures me that she has an up-to-date passport. When I get off the phone, I pump my fist: Yes!
I run downstairs to fetch my suitcase, not feeling any of the pains that usually plague my feet and my knees. I phone LAX instead of e-mailing her and she assures me that I am nuts but our tickets would be waiting for us at the check-in counter. She booked the nicest hotel in Disney World and she tells me not to bother renting a car because I won’t use it. I change two appointments, cancel the newspaper and leave a message for Hildy to take in the mail.
Okay, I’ve opted for a wild and crazy trip instead of resigning myself to my twilight years—is that so bad? Maybe Iris will get fed up with me after five days, and then I can worry about twilight. God, five mornings with Iris are better than a winter in Tahiti! So what if I don’t sleep? All right, I know twilight is coming, but not yet.
I spend an hour picking out and rejecting clothes—what does a guy like me wear in Disney World? I think for a minute about Disney World—up to now I’ve thought only about Iris—my friends like Claude and Gillian would not be caught dead in Disney World. Well, as a matter of fact, I like Disney World, God damn it! And I’m going to have fun there.
I have a shower to calm myself down. Putting off the clothing selection, I go through my shaving kit, making sure I have all the vital things, like little blue pills and deodorant and blood pressure pills and razors and shaving cream and dental floss and—where’s that nice cologne I used to have?
I hear a car door slam. I look through the bedroom window: Tracy and Mason. Shit! Have I forgotten another commitment? Am I supposed to take Mason to gym and keep her here till the morning?
I’m still naked from the shower—barely dry—and I toss on my old dressing gown. I go to the top of the stairs.
The door opens.
Oh, no, I think, feeling like an irresponsible teenager, how the hell am I going to explain Disney World?
~
Hey, Mum & Dad!
I’m writing this on Iris’s iPhone! Cool! Iris & I had a game of air hockey on it! Can I get one? Maybe for Xmas?
Mum, Iris has these killer designs on her fingernails. Witches, cats, bats, ghosts. In black and orange for Halloween!
She’s writing this story. About a girl. She let me read some of it to see what I thought. It’s fun!
Thanks for letting me come here. Awesome, having my own room!
Did most of Epcot yesterday. Papa freaked on the trip to Mars.
Iris and I are waiting in line for Space Mountain. Did Papa tell U she was a gymnast once? Artistic, not rhythmic. She did a hand-stand right here while we’re waiting! The people in the line cheered. Another woman did a cartwheel. So of course I had to do an aerial.
Poor Papa missed it all. He’s back at the hotel having a snooze.
Mum, Iris rocks!
Luv U!
Mason.
>
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Wayne Tefs, whose editorial suggestions freed the narrative from shackles I had imposed. I’m also grateful to Heidi Harms for her astute copy-editing. And thank you to the staff at Turnstone Press for magically turning my manuscript into a Turnstone book.
Small sections of Dating appeared in much different form in the following: “Retrieving,” a short story originally published in the anthology Beyond Borders (Turnstone Press and New Rivers Press, 1992), and republished in North Dakota Quarterly (Fall 1992) and in the collection Accountable Advances (Turnstone Press, 1994); “Confession (September, 1960),” a short story in Windsor Review (Spring 2004); “Tracy and Clay,” a short story in the anthology A/Cross Sections (Manitoba Writers’ Guild, 2007); “Experiencing the joys of not skiing,” a feature article in the Winnipeg Free Press (November 3, 1996); and “Why golfers golf,” a feature article in the Winnipeg Free Press (August 10, 1997).
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