Seems Like Old Times

by Joanne Pence

  Tony got out of the Jeep, and walked around it to open the door for her. He'd left his own door ajar, and closed hers softly so that Ben wouldn't awaken. All the other cars but her rental were gone from the lot and the park had been given over to the night creatures of Miwok. She could hear an owl hoot, and she was sure skunks and raccoons and possums were scampering about, with only the stars to watch their play.

  He walked with her the few steps to her car. She found her key in her purse and unlocked the door. When she glanced up, his features were highlighted by the moonlight. Seconds passed, and silence fell around them. The collar of his black jacket was turned up and the jacket puffed out a bit from the breeze, "Thank you for inviting me this evening," she said, breaking the quiet.

  Once he would have reached out for her now, touched her face, or at least a lock of her hair. He slid his fingertips into the back pockets of his jeans. "I hope it wasn't too dull, compared to what you're used to."

  She gazed up at the moon peeking through the oak branches. "What I'm used to is sitting in an apartment with four locks on the door, reading summaries of news events and special features we'd be showing on the air." She faced him squarely. "Tonight was fun for me, not dull at all."

  The silence built again as dark brown eyes pulled her into their dizzying depths. They were close enough to touch, but didn’t. He placed his hand on the roof of the car. "I'm glad," he said softly.

  She looked at his hand, familiar yet different, and it was all she could do not to reach out and touch it with her own. How could she feel this way, this strongly, about him? And if she felt this strongly, what did that say about her? About Bruce and her? She stared hard at the back of his hand, the long fingers, the square, clipped nails. It was just a hand, she told herself, just a hand. "I guess I had better get home."

  He gave the roof a light rap, then stepped back. "Right." She looked down, grasped the door handle and pulled it open. Quickly, before she made a fool of herself, she slid into her car. She reached for the door, but Tony held it. Their eyes met, then she drew her arm inside, eyes ahead, and waited. She heard the door shut, the lock catch. She gave him a little wave as she started the engine and backed out of the parking space.

  Tony stood and watched as she turned out of the lot toward home.

  Chapter 10

  The next day, Lee vowed to stop humoring her aunt and to empty as much as possible from the house. She couldn't believe how much work there still was to be done. What had she been doing all these days besides wasting time? She obviously left her brains along with her common sense back in New York. She needed to go home. Seeing Tony was madness--fun, she had to admit, her pulse hadn’t raced like that in more years than she could remember--but it was insanity nonetheless. And getting to know Ben...She had to leave soon.

  She put on chinos and a tee shirt, and let her hair fall loose just past her shoulders. Dishes, linens, cleaning products, cosmetics, photo albums, not to mention all of Judith's clothing, still had to be sorted and bundled for discard or contribution to charity.

  No sooner had she vowed no more distractions when Miriam announced that a lovely way for them to celebrate, so to speak, their last weekend together would be to go to the annual Miwok Indian Festival picnic and barbecue at Settlers Park on Sunday.

  "Don't expect me to go with you, Miriam. I was never one for picnics," Lee had announced, looked up from the stacks of tax papers, receipts and home repair and maintenance records she was sorting on the kitchen table. The various utilities would probably have to be stopped--she needed to check with the realtor. At least the phone service could be disconnected.

  "But you're special to this town, Lisa." Miriam filled a teakettle with water and put it on the stove. "You're one of the few people who made it big. People here proudly tell their friends that you're one of their own, and now you have a chance to say hello to a lot of people who remember you and have followed your career. You should do it."

  She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I scarcely know them anymore. I've been away too long."

  "Yes, that’s true, and that's all the more reason to let them know you haven't forgotten about them, and that you still care about your hometown." She placed tea bags in cups and put them on the counter.

  "Do I?" Thoughtfully, she rubber-banded a batch of receipts and labeled them, adding them to other neatly ordered piles, then turned to face her aunt. "Most of the time, I feel like a stranger."

  "There have been changes on the surface. But go below them, and you’ll see that people are the same. That you're the same."

  "I’m not, though. I’ve changed. What’s strange, the longer I’m here, the more I realize how much and how complete that change has been."

  Miriam took a seat at the table. "How can that be, when I see so much of the little girl I knew so well? And I'm sorry to say I still see too much of the unhappy young woman who came to me, too. But all that happened, it's all part of you, Lisa, it makes you who you are--just like Miwok does."

  "That unhappy woman is completely gone now."

  "Is she?" Miriam asked. "Or are you still hiding from yourself?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "It isn't anything I can explain. Someday, I hope, you'll understand." At the kettle’s whistle, Miriam filled the cups with water and placed them on the table along with cream and brown sugar cubes, then sat again. "Let's just say I'd very much like to go to the picnic, and I'd feel awkward going alone. You wouldn't disappoint your poor old aunt, would you?"

  At the guileless tone, Lee shook her head, pausing from her work in order to remove the tea bag from her cup. She remembered, from her time with Miriam how delicious milk and brown sugar tasted in tea. These days, she drank hers black. "Miriam, you still have so many friends in this town it isn’t even funny. You won’t be alone for ten seconds."

  "Sure I will! And there’s my knee, you know. What if it locks up on me? But then, if you won't go, I understand." She gave a heavy, hangdog sigh. "I’ll just sit here all day Sunday, knowing my friends--and yours--are at the picnic, in the sunshine, enjoying themselves. Maybe somewhere along the line, they'll toss a fond thought my way, and raise a barbecued chicken leg in a toast "

  "No, Miriam, if they raise anything, it'll be a ham." At Miriam’s expression, Lee smirked. Then they both began to chuckle. "Why do I let you talk me into these things?"

  "Because you want me to. You just don’t know it yet." Miriam sipped her creamy, sweet tea. "I wonder what I should wear? My but people will be happy to see you, Lisa. You know, since you’ll be at the picnic all day Sunday, you probably will have lots of little things to do your last day here that might get overlooked. I think you need to put off going home until Tuesday, don’t you?"

  o0o

  That night as Lee drifted off to sleep, in that half-awake, half-asleep nether world, her mind wandered back to the last time she went to the Miwok picnic, back to the early hours, just before dawn....

  The door to her bedroom banged against the wall. She jumped, waking just as the light in her room was switched on. Blinded, she put her arm in front of her eyes. "Mother?"

  "I won’t have it!"

  Lisa sat up, blinking hard, instinctively recoiling against the headboard even as she tried to wake. "Have what?" she asked.

  "Don’t play dumb with me!"

  Judith leaned against the bedposts. Lisa smelled the beer on her breath and turned her head away. Judith put her hand under Lisa’s jaw and yanked her head around so that they faced each other, their noses nearly touching.

  "You’re not going to a family picnic with that little beaner and his father. What would people think of you? Of me, for letting you go?"

  Lisa jerked herself free and scooted toward the edge of the bed, tucking her legs under her. "I’m just going with Tony and some other kids. No one will think anything of it, Mother."

  Judith grabbed her wrist, twisting it as she pulled her close. "Just Tony, she says! Just Tony! He’s a dirty little Mexican. Do
n’t you have any common sense? Didn’t I raise you with any decency? Good girls don’t go out with that kind of boy."

  "We’re just friends."

  "You’re acting like a slut!"

  "Please mother!"

  "He’ll drag you down to his level. You could have been something. You could have made me proud--made the memory of your father proud!"

  "I didn’t do anything wrong!"

  "You make me ashamed!"

  Lee's memories hurled backwards to other times she'd been awakened by Judith screaming about something real or imaginary. She hated remembering those days, hated herself for the stupid things she did trying to appease her mother. She didn’t want to think about it, but the memories wouldn’t stop.

  She turned over and over, peeling off the covers, tossing them aside. No one would have ever believed that the once beautiful, heartbreakingly tragic widow, Judith Reynolds, turned into Mr. Hyde when midnight came.

  And Lisa never told anyone about it, not Cheryl, not Miriam, not even Tony. She had tried to act as if nothing was wrong. Not until years later, when she was away and able to look back on her life in Miwok and some distance and clarity, did she realize how transparent her brave little front must have been.

  It was only some nights, like before that picnic, when Judith screamed and cried and acted as if she wanted to strike out, that Lisa thought perhaps she should ask for help or advice from someone. But she never did, and instead helped Judith hide her drinking.

  With the wisdom that came from experience, she realized that that had been the greatest mistake of all.

  o0o

  Miriam had said the town wanted to meet Lee Reynolds, so Lee decided to do it up right. She drove twenty miles to Nordstrom’s in Corte Madera, and found an off-white DKNY dress, matching sling-back heels, and a flattering wide brimmed straw hat. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything like that in New York City, but it was perfect for the Miwok picnic. She looked like she was going to a garden party on the White House lawn.

  She brushed her hair into a loose knot at the crown, then used a hatpin to hold the hat in place.

  The park was hot and crowded. She had perfected remaining unflappable and cool in the headiest of situations, and so her expression bore a constant, elegant smile as one person after another introduced themselves. She was surprised at how many people she didn't remember seemed to know her, and also by the number of stories they told her about her childhood. "Do you remember me, Miss Reynolds?" was a typical beginning for many such reminiscences. "I'm Mrs. So and so. I run the bakeshop and whenever your mother would come in to buy a cake I'd give you one of the red cupcakes with a clown head on top. You always wanted a red one, remember?" Of course, Lee would nod and tell Mrs. So and so she'd always remembered how delicious her baked goods were, sending the woman off beaming.

  Some of the people, though, she really did remember. She was touched to see Mrs. Campbell, her first grade teacher; Miss Gleason, the piano instructor she tortured with bad playing for over six years until Judith finally acquiesced that Lee would never becomee a female Horowitz; and even her high school journalism teacher, Mr. Roberts, gave her a stuttering hello. He was the one who started her off on the road to fame and fortune, he told her. "So you're to blame," she teased. He blushed, and strutted away with as wide a smile as she'd ever seen on a man.

  After a while, she took off her hat and held it in her right hand, which throbbed from having been crushed by overly friendly greetings. Even her well practiced smile felt strained.

  To everyone else, though, she continued to portray a picture of unruffled coolness and sophistication. Heads turn to follow the tall, slim, golden woman, who seemed unbothered by the picnic’s swarms of people waiting to meet her.

  One of the people who came by was Gene Cantelli.

  "Well," she said, "weren’t you the little prankster?"

  He looked so sheepish she quickly let him off the hook. "It’s all right. I was glad to get a chance to talk to Tony again after all these years."

  He gave her a smile that showed white teeth under a thick mustache.

  Miriam sauntered over to them. She was wearing a pale blue print sheath with spaghetti straps that showed off her tan, plus intricate silver and turquoise Navajo jewelry. "Gene, let me introduce my aunt," Lee said. "Miriam Dailey, Gene Cantelli. He’s a good friend of Vic and Tony Santos."

  His gaze quickly flickered over her from her red spiked hair to her white wedgies, than back to her face as he stuck out his hand. "You’re Lisa’s aunt? I thought you were supposed to be old. But you look even younger than me."

  Lee noticed that Miriam, taken aback, stood a little straighter. "And how young is that, Mr. Cantelli?"

  "Call me Gene. I’m fifty-nine."

  "Well, I'm a teensy bit older. But not much." She peered down her nose at him, but Lee noticed that her eyes sparkled.

  He put his hand on the back of his neck, his gaze catching Lee’s then back to Miriam. "I’m sorry. That was pretty rude of me. It’s just...you’re just...a surprise."

  The two eyed each other, then Miriam began to smile, and Gene grinned broadly. Lee was surprised to see a blush touch her aunt’s cheeks, and to feel a sudden crackle in the air. "I can imagine what Lisa and Tony told you about Lisa’s old aunt," Miriam said, slanting a quick glance at Lee. "These kids think of the Kennedy assassination as the Dark Ages. Anyone remembering it has to be older than dirt."

  "That’s nothing," Gene said, his arms folded. "I remember watching the Howdy-Doody on a big, boxy black and white TV with a tiny screen."

  Miriam arched an eyebrow. "Is that so? Well, I used to get teary-eyed listening to ‘When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain.’"

  His amber eyes danced. "Ah, yes. The Kate Smith Show! What a gal. What a lot of gal. Remember Milton Berle?"

  "Of course! How about What’s My Line?"

  He snapped his fingers. "With Arlene Francis!"

  "And Dorothy Kilgallen."

  "She was the smart one, along with Bennett Cerf." Head cocked, Gene eyed Miriam a long moment. "I'll bet you don’t know Clayton Moore."

  "How could I not know the Lone Ranger?" Hands on hips, she said, "I even know the name of Roy Rogers’s dog?"

  He stepped closer, a goofy smile plastered on his face. "Bullet! Garry Moore’s show?"

  Grinning, too, she met him practically nose to nose. "I’ve Got A Secret. Lonesome George?"

  "Gobel! A knight without armor in a savage land?"

  Eyes locked, they both suddenly sang out, "Pa-a-a-a-ladin!" Then erupted into laughter.

  "Have you two gone nuts?" Lee said, looking from one to the other. "What are you talking about?"

  Gene glanced at Miriam and shook his head. "I’ll bet she doesn’t even know who Mrs. Calabash is."

  "Or Topo Gigio. Poor kid."

  "How about some adult beverage?" Gene suggested. "They’re serving white wine at the grandstand."

  "Oh...that sounds lovely." Miriam beamed. "Lisa?"

  "No thanks," Lee said. "You children run along. I’ll take my poor ignorant self over to Cheryl and see how she’s doing." She stepped away and then watched in wonder as Miriam and Gene walked off chatting and laughing like old friends. Miriam seemed to shed about ten years, and Lee noticed that her aunt’s so-called bad knee had just made a miraculous recovery.

  She walked over to Cheryl. Her friend surrounded Lee with her husband and children as well as her parents, Mark's parents, plus his two brothers and their families.

  It was good to see Cheryl, but as time passed and the initial hellos with her family dwindled, Lee felt increasingly uncomfortable sitting there with nothing to do but try to follow the huge family's multiple conversations about people she didn't know. She fanned her face with her hat before putting it on again. Her nylons were hot and sticky and her slip had developed a severe case of static cling. She looked at the tee shirts and cut offs the people around her wore with no small degree of wistfulness. And self-amusement. It was hard no
t to laugh out loud at her own vanity. Strangely, this flash of honesty banished the sense of obligation she had felt, and she soon found herself withdrawing into herself and relaxing, savoring the feel of the sun on her face, the smell of the many barbecues, the cool crispness of the heavily-watered lawn under her feet.

  As families settled down to the serious business of eating, Lee began to feel once more out of place despite everyone's best efforts to make her comfortable. Perhaps it was because of the special efforts that she felt so much in the way--as if the family could not sufficiently relax with her nearby. The constant watchfulness and even eavesdropping of people at nearby tables didn’t help the situation any. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happened to her anymore with increasing regularity. She noticed that she took the attention much more in her stride than the others were able to do.

  "Look who's here, Lisa." Lee was pretending to be fascinated by hamburgers browning on the grill when Cheryl spoke to her. She turned. "You remember Vic Santos, don't you? Tony's father."

  Of course she remembered him. He was the one person in Miwok she felt truly disliked her. "Hello, Mr. Santos," she said, holding out her hand.

  Black eyes skimmed over her with barely concealed distaste. He was not a tall man, and he was built like a cannon ball--round, hard and explosive, "Lisa." He grasped her hand. His brown skin, worn from work and weather, felt like sandpaper against hers. "My grandson talks about you a lot. Another Santos on your side."

  Her face grew warm. "Ben is a very charming boy."

  "Too much like his father."

  "That's a blessing, not a fault."

  He tucked in his chin, almost belligerently. "A blessin’, yeah, in most things."

  She caught his eyes, but found them unreadable. "As you wish."

  Cheryl tried to ease the tension. "Is Tony here, Vic?"

  "I doubt it. You know Tony. He hates anything that don't have a baseball and bat."