The Widow's Friend (14 page)

“Levi
is Coming”

I had seen Levi just a few weeks ago at the Expo, but it was
a surprise visit and it hadn’t lasted very long. That’s not to say that it wasn’t
fun, but it had been kind of brief. Tonight might be different. I had spent
every spare minute cleaning and prepping today. I wanted everything to be just
right. I was bone tired due to all of my parties, but an extra measure of
anticipation gave me the energy I needed to get it all done. My home is
somewhat older, but I’ve remodeled it inside and out and I am very proud of it,
from the new furniture in the family room, and the theatre room in the
basement, to the swimming pool out back.

Levi had asked for food. I wasn’t much into cooking lately,
but pizza would probably be good. And what should I wear? Something nice but
conservative would be good. I certainly didn’t want to appear too… alluring, or
give the impression that I’d tried too hard. We’d been joking back and forth
about how tall I was. I wasn’t very tall really, but then again, neither was
he.

And I really wasn’t expecting much of anything to happen.
After all, he was a grandpa and I was a grandma, both of us many times over. We
were just old friends—that’s all. But on the other hand, he’d definitely made
me feel good about myself. I hadn’t felt quite this way for many years now, and
it felt good to be treated like this. I had to admit that, if nothing else.

A friend had phoned me earlier in the day. She had wanted me
to go out to dinner tonight, but I’d pushed her back. I told her Levi was
coming over. I didn’t have to tell her that or anything else, but she was one
of the few that new the slightest bit of what was going on between Levi and me.
After all, this was not the kind of thing I would share with my kids.

It was almost six o’clock. Levi could show up any minute
now. I sat on the couch and scrutinized the family room. Everything seemed to
be just right, but I felt anxious somehow. It was hard for me to believe that
anyone could want an old woman like me. I had primped and fussed, but it was
hard to cover all the wrinkles and blemishes that had been created over all
these many years. I sighed and fidgeted in my seat. For a moment I thought I
might have a panic attack. Reality was sometimes unkind.

But Levi had my picture, the picture from the reunion, and
he’d said that I was pretty; beautiful actually—that’s what he’d said. Stars
flickered before my eyes and I felt light in my head. I wasn’t sure I knew what
reality was.

And then came a knock at the door. I hesitated only briefly
before I rose up to answer it. I was ready, I thought, for whatever this
evening might bring. My footsteps were small and my movement was slow, though
in my chest, my heart pitter pattered a little faster than it normally would.

“Callii’s
Place”

I had come directly from work, but I’d tried to wear
something nice. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it or anything.

Callii was a mystery to me. I still had all kinds of
questions about who she was and what kind of life she had led. I had a fond
memory of our first visit just a few weeks before, but that was a flash in the
pan. It hadn’t been long enough for me to find out all that much, but still, it
was long enough to make me excited to see her again.

I parked in front of her home and waited, trying to collect
my thoughts. It was dark and the night was cold. Suddenly, on the hood of my
truck sat a large yellow cat. Its green eyes seemed to glow in the starlight.

“So,” I said, “Are there any words of wisdom from the big
yellow cat?” Immediately it hopped off the truck and sauntered up the sidewalk
towards Callii’s front porch. It turned around and settled down on its
haunches. It seemed to be waiting for me to join it, and so I did, but as soon
as I climbed up the steps it ran off into the night.

“I hope that’s not a sign,” I mumbled.

I paused on the doorstep. Callii was fully decorated for
Christmas there, and it was obvious she had good taste. A large wreath hung
inches from my nose. I raised a fist and rapped three times.

The door swung wide and there she stood. It took me a second
to focus, but when I did she was a vision to behold. She smiled and I did too.
I felt welcome.

The first thing I noticed was her feet, her stocking feet. I
pointed at them and smiled. She nodded and smiled back.

“Won’t you come in,” she said, just as smoothly as a person
ever could. She led me through the living room and into the family room out
back—and it was lovely. An entry in the parade of homes couldn’t have been more
proud.

“See this chair,” she said, pointing to a piece next to the
leather couch. “Remember it. This is where I sit when I send off my e-mails.”
She smiled and then gestured at her couch as she invited me to sit down. She
sat down too, about three feet away. It seemed almost strategic, not too close,
and yet not too far away.

We talked a bit, but about nothing of consequence. She asked
about my work and then spoke of her investments. She told me that she pretty
much lived off of them. Her late husband had owned a restaurant in a franchise.
She wanted to keep it after he’d passed away, but they forced her to sell it
off, and that’s what she was living off of, a yearly sum from those assets. We
talked and chatted, but I had to work hard at staying focused on the
conversation—the vision of her right before me had me rather distracted.

Callii was a beauty, in a mature kind of way, and that
pleased me. Her hair was short and frosted, and her makeup was light, not at
all overdone. The neckline of her blouse was cut low, low enough to entice but
high enough to be proper. Her jeans looked new and she sat with her hands in
her lap. She sat at a forty five degree angle, not away from me, but slightly
toward me, which seemed about right. She was eyeing me too, but I had expected
as much. I had showed up all of a sudden at the Expo and I think I’d
overwhelmed her, but this time we were on her turf.

We talked of the past, of when we had dated and what we
remembered, though neither of us remembered all that much. It was a very long
time ago, but it was fun to share our thoughts and talk about others who were
there with us at the time. I was amazed at how easy she was to talk to and how
our personalities seemed to mesh. I hadn’t expected it.

She said something that made me laugh. Our eyes met and I
asked to hold her hand. She smiled. We both reached out and our fingers
touched. She was warm and soft, and I felt…at home.

With no prodding from me she volunteered to tell me of her
marriages.

“I have been married four times,” she said matter of factly,
and she told me about each one of them. I had dated her after the first one, so
that was no surprise. I knew that she’d left him quickly, and that the marriage
had been a disaster. Her second marriage had lasted fourteen years, but then
her old boyfriend from high school had showed up and stole her away. Then,
shortly thereafter, he kicked her to the curb and broke her heart. Those were
her words, and she learned from that she said.

“So you were a bit at fault there,” I said. She nodded and
gazed at me blankly. I shrugged and raised my hands in the air. I didn’t care.

“Number three was eight years younger than me,” she said. “He
had an affair seven years in, and that’s where it ended. He just stopped coming
home at night.”

“It sounds like he might have caught you on the rebound,” I
said, watching closely for a reaction.

“Maybe…” she answered. She sounded unconvinced.

“And then you found your love,” I said softly.

“Yes, I did,” she answered. “Kevin was a good man. He took
care of my boys as if they were his own. We were only together eight years
before he passed. He was so good….” She gazed off into space. I could tell that
she loved him.

“That’s a lot of adventure,” I muttered.

“No, it really wasn’t,” she said. “Life just kept happening.
It was one thing after another.”

“Oh, I’ve forgotten,” she said suddenly. “You wanted food. I’ll
order pizza.”

“No, please,” I said, “unless you want to. I’m good—really.”
She smiled and nodded and nestled back onto the couch.

I glanced at the clock. I’d already been here an hour, but
it seemed like only ten minutes, and I wasn’t at all hungry, which was unusual
for me, but this meeting with Callii had totally overwhelmed me—food was the
last thing on my mind.

Callii was warm and genuine, and she was fun to talk to. I
felt no pressure at all, and that was a surprise.

“You’ve told me you don’t cook much?” I said.

“Not much,” she said. “What’s the point? I eat fast food a
lot. Oh, not because I like it, but just because it’s easy. It’s a wonder I’m
not three ax handles wide!”

“May I check?” I asked, then immediately wishing to retract
the question.

She gave me a sour look, but it quickly melted into a smile.

“I hardly know you,” she said coyly.

“Forty years isn’t enough?” I replied.

She moved towards me and snuggled under my arm. She smelled
of lotion and hairspray, and I felt a little dizzy, but it was a good kind of
dizzy. I tightened my grip on her shoulder. She didn’t seem to mind.

“And
the Night Wore On”

I opened the door and there he stood, and he looked just as
good as or better than he had the first time we’d met. He had a bag full of
books in his hand so we immediately made the exchange—his books for my dolls.
He tried to pay me for the dolls, but I would have none of it.

“But it’s how you make your living and it’s just an
expensive hobby for me,” he said. I shoved the twenties back into his hand with
determination. Selling dolls really wasn’t how I made my living, and I made that
very clear to him. So once we had that settled we migrated into the living room
and settled in on the couch.

Levi was easy to talk to. He made me feel comfortable right
from the first, and he was really nice. Yes, nice would be exactly the word
that I’d use to describe him. He was not cocky or full of himself, not crazy
funny, and not overpowering, but just simply nice—and I really liked that about
him.

We made small talk for the first little while, but then the
conversation opened up very quickly. I’d promised him that I’d tell him of my
marriages sometime, and this seemed like the right time to do it—so I did. He
seemed genuinely interested and asked enough questions to express as much, but
at the same time he didn’t push too hard, and he seemed very accepting of the
fact that my marital history was simply what it was. Not everyone felt that
way, but Levi seemed totally nonjudgmental.

A cat meowed from outside the window. It was the big yellow
cat that had begun hanging around my place. It was strutting back and forth on
the window ledge.

“Yours?” Levi asked.

“It seems to think so,” I answered. “It’s been hanging
around for about a week.”

“Have you fed it?” he asked.

“Once or twice,” I said, a little guardedly.

“That’s a good thing,” Levi said. “It’s a measure of your
heart.” He chuckled quietly.

“I like cats,” I said softly.

“Like I said…” he answered.

“They say if you know how to make friends with strange cats
you will always be lucky.” He smiled again.

“I don’t believe that!” I answered, but I glanced at the
cat. Its green eyes seemed to glow.

We talked and talked and then talked some more, until he
finally reached out to hold my hand. He reached out and I slid my hand into
his. It seemed such a natural progression that I hardly even knew that it
happened, but I had no inclination to pull it away. It seemed appropriate, and
it seemed to fit—but then I sat up straight.

“I have to tell you something, Levi. I really shouldn’t hide
this from you. I have a roommate and I want you to meet her. She’s downstairs right
this very minute.”

“A roommate?” he said. He seemed a bit off balance.

“Yes, let me introduce you, she lives in an apartment
downstairs.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him up off the couch.

“C’mon, c’mon,” I said suggestively, as I tugged him along.
He seemed uncertain. We made our way to the basement. I flicked on a light, but
only one, I wanted to keep the lighting low for effect. We rounded a corner.

“Levi, meet Mary Lou,” I said. Levi laughed outright,
because there stood my roommate, Mary Lou. Made out of plastic, she was a perky
little waitress from the fifties, and she was all decked out in pink and blue.
A permanent smile was painted on her synthetic face, and an eternal order of
burgers and fries rested atop her raised left hand.

“Nice roller skates, Mary Lou,” Levi muttered. Then he
turned and looked at me. “Her personality seems a little stiff, but I really
like her push-up bra.”

“I’m sure that you do,” I answered as I folded my arms
across my chest. This subject made me just a bit uncomfortable. He seemed to
sense it and lowered his eyes. I was both grateful and impressed. He seemed to
be a gentleman through and through. I showed him through the rest of the
basement, including the theatre room, and then we went back upstairs.

We sat back down on the couch and conversed again. I studied
him as we talked. His skin was ruddy and it accentuated his pure white hair. I
don’t know how he would look to a younger woman, but he looked great to me. It
had been several years since Kevin had died and I had to admit that living
alone had worn on me. I had an overpowering urge to reach out and touch his
arm, and so I did. He grasped my hand and held it once again. I moved a little
closer.

“Your hair is beautiful,” I said softly.