Once Upon Another Time (12 page)

“Okay, well back
to Jack,” said Katelyn.  “Remember me telling you that he was already a
twenty-something professor at Brown when I graduated.  Well I can tell ya’ll
this much, there wasn’t a girl in my class who didn’t swoon over him.”

I clasped my
fingers on my lap and studied the table.  “I agree he’s handsome, smart, kind,
and decent, but I just don’t think he’s my type.”  I didn’t hide my less than
thrilled attitude.  However, Laura ignored my obvious lack of interest and
droned on to Katelyn about the great time we had at dinner with David and Jack,
while enlightening me on things I didn’t remember doing or saying.  Even when
our salads arrived and she was eating, she was like a chattering chinchilla--to
the point of being irritating.  I tied to be upbeat and listened attentively. 
Only once, did I groan until finally I had to put a stop to her rambling.

“So, you sounded a
little annoyed with David,” I interjected while she was in mid-sentence.

“Ah, who?” she
asked, her fork suspended in midair.

“David, the man
you’ve been sleeping with for the past five months?”

“Oh, yeah,” said
Katelyn.  “Maybe one day I’ll finally get to meet him.”

Sticking the
forkful of salad in her mouth, I knew Laura was stalling, trying to catch up
with the unpredicted switch in topics.  Whenever Laura became overly hyper, I
knew she was trying to hide something that was brothering her.

“Oh, you mean when
I was on the phone with him before we left the office?”  She took a deep
breath, looked as if she was about to say something, but instead, she harpooned
the scallop lying on top of a chopped lettuce leaf.  She put the scallop in her
mouth, gave a slight shake of her head, and waved her fork dismissively. 
“Everything’s fine.”

“Hmm,” said Katelyn
as she looked sideways at me.

“No it’s not,” I
said.  “Come on, tell us what’s wrong.”

She stabbed her
fork into the salad again, looking as if she were trying to murder it.  “Well,
it’s just that...what I mean is...”  The utensil clinked, as she dropped it
onto her plate.  She pressed the linen napkin to her lips and patted. 

“First you two
have to promise this just stays between us,” she said sternly.

“Of course,” I
said.

Katelyn nodded. 
“Absolutely.”

“Okay, I’m not too
proud to admit that I’m spoiled.  Always have been and always will be.  And you
know I’ve never been the possessive type, but if David isn’t spending every
minute of his free time with me, I get pissed.  Sometimes my imagination runs
wild.”

“What do you
mean?” asked Katelyn.

“You know, like
maybe he’s interested in someone else.  I really don’t have a good explanation
for why I feel that way.  Just something about him that gnaws at the back of my
mind.”  Laura’s gaze traveled over the crowded dining room.

The words I’d
heard David speak in my head come back to haunt me.

“Laura,” said
Katelyn, as she leaned over the table with a devilish grin.  “If there isn’t
anything in particular, it could be that you are so in-like or in-lust with the
man that a bit of insecurity is creeping into that pretty little head of
yours.”

“That’s right,” I
said.  “I’ve never noticed that about you before.  It was only after you
started dating David.”

“Hmm, so, Laura
how’s your sex life?” asked Katelyn pointedly.

 “Katelyn Walker,
are you analyzing me?” asked Laura frowning.

 “Well, I
am
a doctor,” she said with eyebrows raised.

Laura looked at the
both of us and smiled sheepishly.  “David does have an extremely good appetite
for sex.  Sex with him is like heaven.  In fact, the man practically borders on
kinky sexual perversion, and Katelyn, you know that Kama Sutra book you loaned
me?”

“Yes,” said
Katelyn, her eyes twinkling.

“He hasn’t
objected to wanting to try some new things.”  She let out a laugh that sounded
like relief.  “You guys are right, I’m just being stupid.”

“Well, of course
you are,” said Katelyn while laughing.

Laura’s green eyes
sparkled like jewels, as she leaned forward over the table and gave us an
impish look.  “Katelyn, you know that
gadget
you wanted Aubrey to
order,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“Yes I do,” said
Katelyn wearing the biggest grin I’d ever seen. 

“Ha!  I ordered
it,” Laura said giddily.

“No!”  I said,
practically throwing myself over the table.  “Well?”

“What can I say? 
It’s a virtual monument to womanhood.  It even rotates,” said Laura, as she
moved her index finger like she was stirring liquid in a glass.  “It’s
definitely a whole lot of toy for one girl to handle--not that I can’t!”  She
excitedly blurted this out. 

None of us noticed
the young busboy standing to our side, until it was too late.  Guessing from
the blush on his face, he’d overheard our conversation.  We all dissolved into
giggles, like three teenage girls that had just sneaked a peek into the boy’s
locker room. 

Three Seafood Cobb
salads, forty-five dollars, two Pepsis, and one water five dollars, the
expression on a young man’s face overhearing talk of a woman’s toy--priceless!

The waiter brought
the bill.  Laura said it was her treat and quickly handed him her charge card. 
However, as soon as he walked away, Laura’s face took on the expression of just
having eaten bad sushi.  “That is just so disgusting.”  The sound of disdain
rang sharply in the tone of her voice.

Katelyn and I
followed her gaze to see who was behind us.  Mario, owner of the Italian deli
on Washington Street was seated at a table with a group of men.  He was
blatantly making eyes at a dark-haired, twenty-something waitress with a curvy
figure, as she toted a tray of fruit salads and tinkling glasses of iced tea to
a table not far from where he sat.

“It’s a wonder how
the Italian god of antipasto, a
married
man with three kids,” Laura
quipped, “thinks he’d have a chance with her.  There should be a law against
married men acting like that!”

Katelyn and I both
knew that the one thing Laura could never get past, and found totally
revolting, was a married man who so much as fantasized about cheating on his wife. 
Cheating was what her ex-husband was notorious for doing.  To say she didn’t
harbor bitter feelings and deep resentment for guys who stray, was like saying
the character Michael Douglas played in “Fatal Attraction” didn’t deserve the
psycho bunny-boiler he managed to snare. 

Again, David’s
words came to mind, as I recalled the episode in Laura’s office. 
Exactly
what was he keeping from Laura?
 

* * * *

As soon as we
returned to the office, Ashley handed me my messages.  Flipping through them I
pulled one out, confused after reading it.

“Isn’t this from
this morning?”  I showed Ashley the pink slip.

“No, he came
back.  It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes after you left for lunch.”

“And again, he
didn’t leave a message?”

“No, said he’d get
a hold of you later.”  A glossy sheet of black hair fell over Ashley’s shoulder
as she flipped her head to one side and smiled up at me from her desk.

“Who came back?”
asked Laura.

“This guy named
Gavin,” Ashley said, as she thumbed through a stack of papers on her desk. 
“He’s really cute, too.”  She hopped up from her seat, file folder in hand and
gave Laura a wink, as she turned on her heels and made her way toward the
filing cabinet.

“Gavin who?” 
Laura asked.

 “That’s what I’d
like to know.”

“Hmm, a mysterious
man who won’t leave his last name or a message, and also happens to be cute,
stops by to see you?”

Laura’s tone had a
hint of mischief.  It was as if I could hear the wheels turning in her head. 
They were squeaky and irritating and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she
was thinking.

“Maybe he’s a
secret admirer,” she said gamely.

“Yeah right.”

“You never know. 
Well, at least your life is becoming more interesting...”  Laura’s voice
trailed off as she continued down the hall.

If only she knew
just
how
interesting my life had become. 

I walked in my
office to see Mr. Davis setting up a tall ladder next to my desk. 

He turned to look
at me.  “Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time Ms. Aubrey,” he said.  “You
left a message wanting me to check your overhead light.  Said it was buzzing.”

 “Oh, yes, the
buzzing.” 

As I watched Mr.
Davis position the ladder under the light, I walked to my desk and sat down.  I
thought about Matt always fixing something around the house.  “Mr. Davis, what
I’m going to ask will sound like it’s coming out of left field.  However, I’m
curious as to why you never married again after your wife and baby died.”

Mr. Davis abruptly
stopped what he was doing to flash a look of surprise at me.  “You weren’t
kidding about that coming out of left field.  Whatever made you think of
that?” 

He seemed more
curious than upset. 

I shrugged my
shoulders.  “Um, just wondering.”

Mr. Davis leaned
over his box of tools rummaging through it to find what he needed.  “Smart
people move on with their lives, but some are stubborn as mules always
heehawing and carrying on, pulling away trying to go in the opposite direction. 
Not wanting to accept the hand that life had dealt them, always yearning for
what they lost.  But they never stop to think of the mark they’re making on
their future.” 

He pulled a
screwdriver from the toolbox and stood upright to look me in the eye.  “Until
it’s too late.”

“So, are you
saying you made the wrong decision?”  I asked timidly, feeling as if I
shouldn’t have impulsively asked the question in the first place.

He didn’t answer. 
Instead, he climbed the ladder, flipped the light cover down, and checked the
fluorescent tube.  A thoughtful moan rose up from his throat as he began to
remove the tube from the side sockets.

Nice move
McCory
.

“Please accept my
apology Mr. Davis.  You have every right to tell me to mind my own business,” I
said feeling like a heel for being so intrusive.

He cleared his
throat.  “At the time, I thought I’d made the right decision never to marry
again,” he said, in his sweet potato pie Mississippi accent.  “I guess maybe
some folks aren’t brave enough to live their lives without the person they
love.  Some feel guilt over being alive when the love of their life is dead. 
They pour themselves into their work, acquire lots of friends, are socially
active, but their lives don’t move forward.  Not in a way that counts.” 

He stopped
fiddling with the light to look down at me.  “It was during the time when my
friends’ children were older and they started having kids that I began to feel
like an outsider.  I didn’t share the same experiences in life, couldn’t share
stories about children or grandchildren.  All I had to talk about was
materialistic things.  That’s when I realized I didn’t want to live in the
loneliness of my surroundings, but it was too late.  I was an old fool.  I
never staked my claim in life that would have marked my future of having
children and the generations that could have followed.”

 Mr. Davis climbed
down from the ladder holding the fluorescent tube.  A sense of penetrating
sadness, like the powerful swell of the stirring violins in Barber’s “Adagio,”
pulled at my heartstrings.

“I’m sorry.  I
never should have asked you anything so personal.”

He stood alongside
the ladder studying the floor thoughtfully and shook his head.  “No, please
don’t feel sorry.  I’m glad someone finally asked the question,” he said
soberly and raised his eyes to look at me. 

“I reconciled with
myself long ago for the decisions I’d made in life.  But admitting my mistakes
silently is not nearly as cleansing to the soul as saying them aloud for
someone to hear.  It actually feels good.”  The lines on his face deepened as
he smiled at me. 

“So I guess my
answer’s mighty obvious.  I wish I’d been brave enough to take the leap and
give my heart a second chance.  I would have had a much more fulfilling life.  Still,
life has been good to me.  I have money in the bank, a nice house and more
importantly, good friends, a job I really like, and I get lots of time to spend
on the golf course.  A couple floors down, I met a mighty nice fella by the
name of Mr. Burns, a widower.  Like me, he never had any children.  We hang
out, play some chess, and go golfing every Saturday rain or shine.  He even
tried setting me up with his sister.”  The bellowed sound of his deep, hearty
laughter filled the office.

“Well, I’d better
go down to the maintenance room and get another one of these,” he said, as he
held up the fluorescent tube.

As he walked off, I
paused in my own thoughts, while thinking about the meaning behind what Mr.
Davis had said.  And the one single thing that struck me most was he’d said he
wished he’d been brave. 

I thought back to
the novel, “Love Spirit.”  The young man in the book was an architect.  Matt
was an architect.  Despite the tragedies in the woman’s life, she was brave, and
for all the years she’d been alone, she wasn’t sad or depressed.  The young man
was bitter, his emotions guarded, and when he thought about the woman, who had
no one to leave her treasured things to, he knew one day he’d find himself living
the same lonely existence if he didn’t do something about his life. 

I contemplated
whether Matt came back to tell me something similar.  Like if, I didn’t stop
dealing with issues of the past I’d end up alone, forever.  But I didn’t know
how to change my life.   

*
* * *

That evening after
the sun had gone down I stood in the great room gazing at the anniversary
clock.  Its crystal sphere pendulum that worked a few days ago had since lost
its ability to move.  I tried to make sense of it all, when I noticed the book,
“Love Spirit” lying open on the coffee table, which was odd because I’d never
brought it out from the study.