The Widow's Friend (20 page)

Then I got back up for an hour because I wasn’t sleepy any
more. I literally ordered a new “You’ve Got Mail” on Amazon.com before I sent
this e-mail to you. It was just that simple. That was a long explanation for an
uninteresting topic, but now you know. And I have to admit that inaugurating
the new year is not nearly as exciting as planning an exotic vacation with
Cheryl Bradford Smith and your other friends. We live a quiet life around here.
Also, I try to avoid speaking of bedroom stuff with you, both for your sake and
Mary’s.

And you also mentioned, “Who said that being single isn’t
fun and games?” I am of the firm opinion that life with Callii is continual fun
and games, whether you’re single or not. You have a thirst for life and live it
to the fullest. And that’s a compliment to you, thank you very much. That’s
just one more thing that I admire about you. It’s not just your body you know,
but let’s not discount that either.

Well, it’s one nineteen in the morning and my eyes are
beginning to sting. I’ll pick it up again tomorrow and send a little more.

***

Okay, now it’s tomorrow and it’s seven thirty in the
morning. Mary and Lexi are still asleep.

Oh yes, I have to tell you that when I read your Facebook
scribblings on Thursday night I kind of freaked out for awhile, simply because
Cheryl Bradford Smith might be just as bad as Julie Davies Larsen at spreading
gossip and innuendo. I got over it after awhile, but I dropped off an emotional
cliff there for a time.

Let me relate a little story to you: Ten or fifteen years
ago, my very own mother called me and said something like, “Levi, Julie Davies
has been talking and it’s all over Sugar City that you’re going to divorce Mary
and go after Janae Spillane.” And that kind of freaked me out a bit, especially
because none of it was true. I had just been hanging and talking and joking
around with Julie some and she betrayed me a bit. Betrayed is probably too
strong a word, but you know what I mean.

Shortly after that I was talking with mom and she said, “My
sisters were watching you at your cousin’s wedding and they said Mary was being
quite angry with you and wasn’t treating you well at all!” (We had been sitting
with a cousin and another friend.) I said, “Oh great, that’s just what I need,
people putting me under a microscope and watching my every move.” So anyway, I
got a little nervous about that whole Cheryl Bradford Smith thing, just so you
know where I’m coming from.

Mary seems to have been on her best behavior lately, which
is good, but I have this theory. I told Bailey about last October time that I
had reconnected with several old friends on Facebook. And she said immediately,
“Dad, you be careful, there have been four different divorces in my
neighborhood alone because of Facebook!” I played it down and assured her that
there was nothing like that going on. But I wonder now if she had a heart to
heart with Mary and advised her to treat me a little better. She knows that I’m
treated badly—how could she not.

I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it, but last Spring I moved
upstairs into a separate bedroom. It lasted for about a month or so, and it
almost killed me. I’m not set up emotionally for that kind of thing. Anyway,
time will take its course. Leopards do not change their spots, especially after
thirty five years.

Having said all of this, I would like to drop in and see you
sometime, but I don’t want to push it. I know you’re heading for Disneyland
soon and you’ll have some packing to do. I don’t know if you’ll have time for
me or not. I’ll leave it up to you. But I do have a surprise for you if I do
come. I’m not trying to bait you, but I guess I really kind of am—LOL.

So I’m gonna end it here, girl, and leave it in your
beautiful hands. I sure like you, Calliijo, three dots in a row, and I would
have liked to have met your mother.

I’m still confused about us, frankly, but I’m thinking of
you always.

Your friend, Levi

***

From Callii Wilson

Jan 3rd

Hello Bro. Stone, I am sorry to say there will be no Monday
lesson tonight. I am feeling a bit under the weather. So get out your bible and
read it from cover to cover before you go to bed tonight. I will try to write
you tomorrow. I hope everything is peachy with you. My mom used to say that
sometimes being peachy is the pits.

Amen, Sister Wilson

***

From Levi Stone (Twenty minutes later)

Hi Callii, I’m sorry you don’t feel well tonight. Maybe a
son could bring you over some soup, or maybe I could.

Thanks for the e-mail, it was important to me. I think I’ll
go upstairs to my desktop and send you a little story that I wrote about the
bible, it’s just another little piece of my life. Rest up and get better for
Disneyland. I feel bad for you.

Love ya girlfriend. Your friend to the end, Levi

***

From Callii Wilson Jan 4th

Hello my friend, I think my computer caught what I had. I
can’t get it to connect. I have tried everything I know, which isn’t much. I
will try again later, but just know that I am thinking of you.

Your friend, Callii

***

From Callii Wilson

Jan 5th

Hello again friend. Well, all is well at the Wilson home. My
computer is working for a minute, or at least I think it is. We’ll see when I
try to send this. It wasn’t working this morning but now all of a sudden it is.
Go figure. How are things going at your house? I am trying to get ready to
leave on Friday. We are supposed to leave at one o’clock. We’ll see about that.
I will write you on my phone while I’m gone. I hope you write to me too. You
said all I had to do was say so and you would be here. How about you come on
Friday and go with me. That would be fun—really!

I have decided the last few days that I am getting old. I
don’t know why but things seem different, somehow. I think I need to get some
exercise or something. Maybe getting away will help a little. I am bored out of
my head. Maybe I should get a job. That’s an interesting thought, but I’m glad
it is only a thought. I am rambling, I know, but I haven’t done anything of
note and I have nothing interesting to say. Sorry!

Please write to me and tell me everything that is going on
in your life. I need to live through someone way more interesting than I am,
and that would be you.

Your friendly friend, Jo

***

From Levi Stone (Thirty minutes later)

Hi Callii, It was nice of you to write, and I have plenty of
ramblings to send you, but I’ve been wondering recently if you’re okay and if
we’re still good friends. You seem to have gone cold on me since New Year’s
Eve. Is that my imagination or have you really been dogging me? Write me right
back and let me know if things are okay. I’m a little worried about you. This
is just another one of those times that I wish I could call and talk, or just
show up at your house. I’ll be glad to come down for an hour tonight if you
want me to—or not!

Thanks, Levi

***

And then I sent her another music link: “You’ve Got a Friend”
by James Taylor

From Callii Wilson (One hour later)

So Friend, you have let your imagination run overtime. I am
not dogging you nor will I ever. You are my good friend and always will be. I
have to remind myself of what part I play in all of this and have to cool
myself down a bit sometimes. I’m just trying to protect myself. It is really
hard to write and tell you how I feel. I’m scared for you and your marriage and
I don’t want to be part of the problem. I know I have told you that before. I
tell you that but then I keep flirting with you and that makes me exactly
that—part of the problem. It’s because I really like you, and I like that you
pay attention to me and make me feel like someone special. I would love to see
you again and talk to you face to face. But don’t think, even for a minute,
that I am trying to get rid of you. I am ready for bed so tonight is not so
good. Write me and let’s see if we can figure out another time. I hope this
makes you feel better about us. I look forward to hearing from you.

Your friend forever, Callii

***

From Levi Stone (25 minutes later)

Hi Callii, Thanks for replying. I do feel better now. You’re
so nice. But now I feel a little stupid for doubting you. And don’t worry about
my marriage. It has nothing to do with you. It has been bad since about the
time you were on your second husband, right around the Reagan years, I think.
That’s why I’m a bit brazen about things. In reality I don’t have that much to
lose, and after all, it’s only money.

I went down and bought a new laptop last night. The folks at
the Geek squad are my best friends. I think maybe I’ll buy you one too, Sister
Wilson. It may save me a lot of stray imaginings.

Goodnight Jo. I can’t believe the hold you have on me, Levi

P.S. I have a long draft saved for you on Google. I’ll send
it in a day or two. I’ll just keep writing for your viewing pleasure while you
wander through southern California. But please, while you’re on vacation, just
send me one-liners from that little gadget of yours. Save yourself the trouble.
Besides, it’s like I’ve always said, “I don’t need a lot of affection, just a
steady supply.”

Goodnight sweet grandma, Levi

***

From Callii Wilson (Thirty minutes later)

Thanks for the song. I loved it. I love all of the songs
that you send, and the e-mails too.

Always thinking of you, Callii

***

From Levi Stone

Jan 6th

Hi Callii, I’m gonna’ write you a long one tonight and then
add to it over the next few days. It will be a monster.

I’ve decided that I owe you an apology for the way I’ve
talked about Tom Thompson. I stand by my statement that he’s a four and you’re
a nine, (And only because there’s no such thing as a ten!) but Tom is a good
guy and he’s been quite the comedian his entire life. You dated him in your
younger years and got much more serious with him than you ever got with me. I’m
sure he’s a great guy, and you obviously have good taste! I would never say
anything like I have said to you to Tom’s face, and so—so much for all of that.

I’m reminded of the rating system that Lon Moore and I put
together when we were young. Let’s see if I can remember, from the top down: 1.
Luscious. 2. Delicious. 3. Damn good looking. 4. Dog. 5. Pig. The difference
between a dog and a pig is that a pig is also “overweight.” My memory’s not
what it once was. I can only remember the top and the bottom of the list, and
not what went in the middle, but no matter how we rank it, you’ll always be on
the top. That’s just reality, little girl.

So how much of this Disneyland trip do you have to cover
financially? Is everyone on their own, or what? Just curious. Are all of your
kids reasonably well off financially, or do some struggle?

It’s none of my business, just a few more questions from
your straightforward friend. And of course I find that you only answer what you
want to, anyway. That’s what I’ve come to expect from my careful friend,
Callii.

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told you that at one point
I thought my wife was maybe going to die. (I still wonder a bit.) A few weeks
after I started talking to you, a couple of other “women from the past” popped
up in various ways, nothing face to face or real, they just kind of surfaced. I
pondered it and wondered if Mary was going to pass away, simply because the
timing of it all was just so happenstance, circumstantial, or fateful—you know?
I thought, maybe she’s going to have that sudden heart attack she’s always
talking about. That all sounds kind of morbid, and I have never thought it in a
hopeful kind of way, just a what’s-going-on-here kind of a way. Having said
that, there was a time, shortly after my son passed, that I found her sitting
in her car with the engine running, and it was in a closed garage. I asked her
to turn the car off and she didn’t do it. She just kind of sat there, so I
pushed the button and raised the garage door on the way in the house. I have no
idea what was in her head.

Anyway, as you know, there have always been women out there
in this big old world, just as there have always been other men, but it’s
important to me that you know that you’ve been my only rodeo over the many
years, girlfriend. Everything else has been simply dreams and fairy dust as the
years have passed by. You’re the only one I have ever snuggled with or held in
my arms. I stroked your cheek and I smelled your hair. I kissed your hand, and
I’ll always be glad that I did. Something got this old cowboy going on you and
now here we are. I still don’t know why. My problem now is that I don’t want to
stop.

I sat in church on Sunday with the old men, and I looked
around the room. There was about thirty of us in there. We sit at this long
rectangular table. It’s kind of like the Knights of the Round Table kind of a
thing. I tried to imagine any one of those guys leaving their wife, for any
kind of a reason, and it was unimaginable—for any of them. I fit in comfortably
with those guys and feel part of the group, but I do have my reasons for
feeling the way that I do in my own life, as you well know. Maybe I’m just
crazy, but the real problem is that I think young, and that could be dangerous
for a guy like me.

The guy giving the lesson was a friend of mine, a guy named
Gary Gunther. I admire him, just like I admire many of the guys in that room.
Anyway, his lesson had everything to do with me. It was based on a great talk
on the three R’s of choice. The right to choose (agency), the responsibility to
choose, and the results of what you choose. I paid close attention. One thing
seemed to keep coming out at me: You need to make a choice; sitting on the
sideline does nothing good for anyone. You need to go one way or the other. I
can’t restate to you all of the reasons that one needs to choose, they all made
so much sense when others in the room were espousing them, but I was convinced
that a choice needs to be made. And of course I talked too much. I really hate
it when I do that—really. Anyway, I just thought that I’d share.