TFRoot - The Elixer

by The Elixir (v1. 0) [lit]

  The two of them leaned in closer together to each other. Tom gently embraced his wife and kissed her, very tenderly. He then pulled her very close to him, cradling her head against his chest. “Haven't you figured that out by now?” he whispered quietly to her. “I'm in this for the long term."

  "Well, that might be a very, very long time,” said Carole, looking up at him with a smile.

  "Forever usually is."

  Arriving in Manhattan a few hours later, Tom parked in a lot a few blocks away from the West 63rd Street Steakhouse, which occupied what was referred to as the mezzanine level, between the second third floors of the Empire Hotel, an aged but still well-maintained New York City landmark located, as one might expect, on West Sixty-Third Street, between Broadway and Columbus Avenue. Tom and Carole were now seated at one of the tables along the window, giving them an excellent view of Lincoln Center, which was on the other side of Columbus Avenue. The waiter had just taken away the empty plates of their finished starters, Tom a mesclun salad and Carole a shrimp cocktail, of which, of course, they had both given each other a little taste, and they gazed out the window at Lincoln Center. A formal event of some kind was being held there this evening, and the two of them watched the people arriving, all of them dressed so elegantly, the men in tuxedoes and the women in long evening gowns.

  "That's pretty,” remarked Carole, referring to an especially stylish outfit worn by a youngish woman who emerged from a limousine. “Don't you think so?” she asked Tom.

  "Not bad,” he agreed. “But I like yours a lot better. That looks great on you,” he added, referring to her gorgeous silk, short-sleeved, Oriental-style dress with a mandarin collar, bright red with tiny pink flowers.

  "I love New York,” Carole remarked. “From the time I was a little girl in New Jersey, coming into the City was always so special. There's always something to see, something going on."

  "I would never want to be anywhere else,” said Tom. “I mean, I never actually lived in the City,” he added, in the way that people from the New York area refer to the Borough of Manhattan, “but I always loved coming here, even just knowing that all of this was only a drive or a train trip away."

  "Speaking of which ... well, what do you think we should do?"

  "I don't know, they're both really nice houses, and they're both close enough for us to be able to enjoy the City whenever we want to."

  "Well, the one over in Manhasset would be closer to Dr. Michael, I guess."

  Tom shook his head. “Don't worry about that, Carole. I don't anticipate us spending our entire lives in doctor's offices anymore. The one in New Jersey would be a bit closer to your sister. And, of course, your physical therapist's license is still valid in New Jersey."

  "There's full reciprocity between New York and New Jersey. Is there for law?"

  "No, I'd have to take the New Jersey bar if I wanted to practice law there.” Tom grinned. “But, hopefully, it won't ever come to that."

  The waiter brought their second course, penne with vodka sauce, Carole's favorite pasta.

  "Oh, that looks wonderful,” exclaimed Carole. “I'm afraid that's going to fill me up, though.” They had decided to share one single order of the penne as a pasta course; still, the portion was quite generous. “If I eat all this, I'll never eat the lamb,” she said, referring to the rack of lamb for two that they had ordered as their main course.

  "Don't try to finish it, just have a little taste.” He smiled at his wife. “We can afford to be a little extravagant, tonight.” Tom took a bite. “Um! It's very good."

  Carole sampled hers. “Not bad,” she agreed, “but you've made it better at home. Really, though, what do you think we should do? We need to make a decision.” She smiled. “Allof your stuff is still in storage down in Florida, and it's costing a fortune!” She paused. “I guess you really would be happier living on Long Island. It's so close to where you used to live, to where you grew up, and you always told me how much you missed it."

  Tom's face suddenly took on a very serious, thoughtful look. “You know something, Carole?” he began, measuring his words very carefully and deliberately, as if explaining some complex legal concept to a client, “it took me a while to realize this, but I know now that it's the truth. What I was missing really wasn't the place itself; after all, it wasn't like here, there was really nothing extraordinary or interesting about it in and of itself. What I was missing was the way that it made me feel, the sense of security and belonging that I always felt when I knew that I was home, where I was supposed to be, if you know what I mean."

  "Of course,” said Carole, as if this were the most patently obvious observation that anyone had ever made, “that's why they call it home!” That was the whole point in our coming back up north, wasn't it?"

  "Okay, I know that you're mocking me here, but that'snot really the whole point.” He paused. “What I'm trying to say is that that sense of security and belonging I was talking about, well, I realize now that I can have it anywhere, anywhere in the world, as long as I'm with you. Being with you is the only place that I'm really supposed to be, and I know that now."

  "And I always thought that you were so much smarter than me.” She shook her head in good-natured disbelief. “I've knownthat one for a long time—that you're the only one that I'm supposed to be with.” She grinned. “Now, this is all very heartwarming, of course,” she said facetiously, “but it still doesn't answer the question: New York or New Jersey!?"

  "Okay,” said Tom, now trying to sound like a savvy negotiator, “here's what we do: we like both houses equally, right? So, we just take the better deal. Both asking prices seem to be right about in line with the market value. So we go to each of them and offer them ten percent below what they're asking, and we take the first one that goes for it. If neither does, then we offer five-percent below, and so on, until one of them accepts the offer."

  "What if neither one of them does?"

  "Then we flip a coin!

  "Now that's brilliant."

  "I learned that from Ran Holloway. He's a pretty smart lawyer."

  "You're no slouch yourself."

  Tom and Carole finished their dinner around ten o'clock that evening. After taking a little walk around the block, digesting their meal and soaking up the atmosphere of this rather glamorous section of New York's upper West Side, they entered the underground garage where Tom had parked, on West Sixty-Fourth Street, just off Broadway. Because of the event going on at Lincoln Center, the garages in the area were very crowded, and they had to endure a wait of a good twenty-five minutes for their car. While he had thoroughly enjoyed his meal, Tom had overeaten a little bit, and was feeling rather sluggish, so when Carole had casually mentioned that she had never driven his Cadillac before, he was quick to suggest that she drive them back to Long Island tonight.

  "It drives really nice,” Carole remarked as she pulled out of the garage and onto the street.

  Two new vehicles had been Tom's and her most lavish indulgences after he had received the large executor's fee that had conferred financial freedom on them. For Carole it had been a big, black Lincoln Navigator SUV, large enough to comfortably accommodate Yukon and customized with left foot pedals to accommodate her disability, a feature she wouldn't actually be needing any longer, and for Tom this car, a Cadillac Seville, the kind he had always wanted, top-of-the-line, candy-apple red metallic with a leather tan interior, fully-equipped with every available option.

  "It gives a very smooth ride. I always thought that a Cadillac gave a smoother ride than any of those foreign cars, even though they were more expensive."

  "It's a much different feel than my truck."

  "Very different,” Tom agreed. “It might take you a while to get used to it."

  To Tom's surprise it took her less than a minute. Carole, having grown up in New Jersey, a state dominated by highways and by the culture of the automobile in general, had always liked cars and was an excellent driver.

  "You know how to go, d
on't you?” Tom asked his wife.

  "I know my way around.” She smiled. “It's been a while, but I used to come into the City a lot. Feel like taking a little ride?"

  "Sure.” Tom sat back and relaxed as Carole made a left turn onto Eighth Avenue, then a quick right to enter Central Park and began a nice, leisurely drive across town. The traffic now was relatively light, this being an evening in the middle of the week, and August, the month when many New Yorkers traditionally vacated the city for their summer places out on Long Island or down the shore in New Jersey.

  "It must have rained while we were waiting for the car,” observed Carole, noting that the streets were slick.

  "Probably cooled off a bit,” said Tom. He reached over and pushed the button on the climate control area of the dashboard to display the outside temperature. Sure enough, it had dropped considerably, down from the upper eighties to sixty-eight degrees. “The humidity always seems to break when it rains here, not like in Florida."

  "Maybe you can turn that off, then,” Carole suggested, referring to the air conditioner. Tom pushed the off button and Carole opened the windows about a third of the way. As Tom surmised, the short thunderstorm had precipitated a drop in the humidity, making it quite comfortable, and he and Carole enjoyed the refreshing breeze as they drove along the winding road through the park, that always welcome oasis of sylvan tranquility in the midst of bustling mid-town. The slightest hint of a chill had insinuated itself into the air, bringing with it that ever-so-brief glimpse of the approaching autumn that was sometimes characteristic of late summer nights in New York. Tom always loved the feeling he got when the weather was like this: straddling two seasons, as it were, still suggestive of the many languid pleasures of the summer that was almost over, while at the same time auguring all that was good and still to come in the remainder of the year. He welcomed this time as the beginning of what he called the year's long homestretch, starting with the cool early fall of September, continuing into the brilliance of the autumn itself—his very favorite season—and culminating ultimately with the joy of Christmas at year's end.

  Carole exited the park at Sixtieth Street and proceeded downtown on Fifth Avenue, passing all the upscale boutiques and specialty stores along the way. When they hit the lower fifties, Tom smiled as they passed two of his favorite landmarks, Rockefeller Center on the right and, directly across the street, the Neo-Gothic spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral. He remembered how he had sometimes come here on his lunch hour back in the days when he was working for Ran Holloway on Park Avenue and Forty-Sixth Street, two blocks over and a good five blocks down, a short enough walk when he was a young man first discovering the City and becoming entranced by all of its romance.

  Before too long they reached the thirties, and Carole maneuvered onto the approach for the Queens Mid-Town Tunnel. Not unexpectedly, the volume of traffic started to pick up a bit, and it was fairly heavy on the Long Island Expressway after they left the tunnel.

  "Maybe I ought to get off,” mused Carole. Having become accustomed to riding high in her Lincoln Navigator, she felt a bit intimidated by the large commercial trucks that seemed to be everywhere on the expressway appearing to loom menacingly so far above her.

  "No, but you ought to switch over to the Grand Central when you get the chance."

  They moved along steadily enough for a few miles, until Carole reached the point about halfway through Queens where she could exit the LIE for the Grand Central Parkway, which would become the Northern State at the City Line. Tom had advised her well; the traffic was a bit lighter here, and there were no trucks. Carole relaxed now. She glanced over at Tom, who was slumped down low in his seat. It had been a long day, and he kept closing his eyes, struggling to keep them open as a comforting wave of weariness washed over him. She reached over and turned on the CD player, smiling to herself as the car was filled with the soft rock sounds and that so familiar voice of Billy Joel, Carole's favorite.

  Tom straightened up and opened his eyes. He looked over at Carole, saying nothing but nodding in approval. Then he sat back and looked out the window. He was suddenly gripped by a strong, strange sense of déjà vu, which puzzled him for just a moment before he could identify the source of his memory, one now over twenty-five years old, of the weekly drives with his mother, who took the Grand Central every Saturday to pick up her mother to stay with them for the weekend. Tom remembered how great it felt to think that his mother was cool—so much more so than any of his friends’ mothers, who all hated the music their children listened to—becauseshe liked Billy Joel and would always let Tom play one of his tapes of “The Stranger” or “52nd Street” on the cassette deck of her white Pontiac Grand Prix. That car itself was pretty cool, too, the one Tom would inherit years later, his first car, the one with which he had learned to drive. The world was such a wonderful place then, filled with so many joys both large and small, and completely devoid of any cares or worries of any size—happy, peaceful times marked by the innocence of childhood and the exuberant, expectant confidence of youth. It had been a long time indeed since he had felt that way, so utterly content and secure, but on this day that enviable state of mind had once again been realized. At this moment, he thought, his life couldn't possibly be any better. There was absolutely nothing more in this world that he could conceivably ask for.

  But there was one very important difference between how he had felt then and how he felt now. For as he'd articulated over dinner and as he so keenly recognized, he now enjoyed the one thing prized above all others in this life, what was truly most important of all, the piece of the puzzle he'd never even known was missing. It was love, hers for him and his forher , the woman who adored him and whom he adored with a gorgeous intensity, a passion so pure that was far greater than he had ever dreamed was even humanly possible. And now she was no longer sick! The one impediment to their happiness had been totally eradicated. He may not have known for sure how or why this had happened, but it had; Dr. Michael had said so, confirming what his and Carole's own five senses had told them. Exactly what lay ahead for them was unknown, but how could it ever be any less than wonderful? Right now, life was perfect...

  Tom's old friend, Gene Daniel, had taken his wife out to his sister's house in Westhampton for the week, and so tonight Tom and Carole enjoyed the prospect of completely undisturbed usage of his house in Port Washington.Could things possibly be any better? Well, they could be in their own house, their own home, perhaps, but that was a minor point. In fact, if anything, the location lent a bit of illicit excitement, maybe the only desirable component that might ever again be missing from this part of their married life.

  I never really believed her,Tom thought, remembering how his wife, this little slip of a girl not quite five feet tall, had always maintained that she “had never been this skinny,” had always had “a little meat on her bones” before she had met him, before her injury and all those pain-killing drugs that had so disrupted her system and precipitated a weight loss. But now that description seemed particularly apt, and a most welcome state of affairs at that. She had never looked lovelier, more inviting, more like awoman , than she did right now, here in his friend's guest bedroom, the gorgeous silk Oriental-style dress perfectly draping the seemingly newly-developed curves of her breasts and her bottom that gracefully swelled beneath it. In a flash it was off, as was his outfit, the two of them regarding themselves in the altogether as if for the first time; for indeed, in a way this was the first time, the first time in what would be the rest and, surely, best part of their lives together. They approached each other slowly, cautiously, both of them consumed by a sense of solemn gravity. Then they embraced, each of them fondling the other's body with an almost reverential tenderness. Finally their lips met and they began to probe one another with a firm gentleness that both belied and presaged the passion burning inside of them. They stopped for a moment, taking a step back, as it were. Tom swallowed visibly as he once again took in the full measure of his wife's bodily splendor
. Then he began to caress her, and kiss her, only now more deeply and with greater intensity. Carole was extremely responsive, her excitement equaling his, both of them enjoying the keen anticipation of impending ecstasy that is sheer ecstasy itself...

  What must heaven be like? They both mused, awakening many hours later in each other's blissful embrace.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Young Lucinda Hobson sat at her large oaken table that was now completely covered by a dizzying array of tea tins in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors, frowning as she picked up the little white one decorated with little hand-painted purple flowers. Once again, for what was probably the tenth time today, she carefully measured out its contents one teaspoon at a time into another tin, then poured it all back again into the white one.What's there is what's there , she sighed.Perhaps enough for three more pots, nothing more! She glanced out the window, the outer edges of which were still covered with a thin layer of ice.They all had it wrong. Hell is not a place of heat and eternal flame, but of an unending cold and frost, a spring-time seemingly just out of reach but which never quite comes...