"No,
Jack," he said, "at sixteen I was out here on the lake with my high
school girlfriend."
"Come
to think of it," I said, "so was I."
Marty
smiled and pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket. "Do you think we
should call up our old flames?" he said.
“I
don’t think I would,” I said. “And neither should you.”
"They
still live in the area, somewhere around town," he said.
"I
think yours does," I said. "Mine may not be far away."
Marty
put his phone away and for a time we were silent again as we cast flies, lost
in our own thoughts. I had lied, just a little. Sally and I had sat
on the dock. We were fifteen and sixteen. She would have never
gotten in a rowboat and gone out on the lake with me. Her parents were
too concerned for her well being to put her in the hands of a boy whose sanity
they must have wondered about. Had we rowed out fifty feet and her mother heard
of it there would have been hell to pay. Leaving us alone with each other
happened only within the prescribed format of a date or a dance. Only as
we got older was I allowed to whisk her off alone in my father’s car.
At
the time neither of us appreciated such restrictions, implemented for both our
physical safety as well as our moral virtue. I have to assume when Sally became a parent her mind changed. Mine did. Our
parents’ watchfulness helped us to enter our adulthood with options that
otherwise might have been lost to the demands of our hormones. One false
step and a young woman could find herself pregnant. She might have to
work to support a child and thereby lose the opportunity for college or give up
the personal freedom needed to invest in the start of a career. The chances of
meeting a mature and responsible mate might considerably diminish. Marty
and I were lucky. We had parents who cared and we married the daughters
of parents who did likewise.
But
as I looked out over the quiet lake and remembered Sally in a white summer
dress, I knew it would be nice to renew old acquaintances. Some might
feel we should leave old flames in the ashes of our past, but as my boyhood
friend and I sat out on the lake I got to thinking that we had recently turned
seventy and that made things somewhat different than if we had all been in our
thirties.
“Maybe
it wouldn’t hurt,” I said aloud.
“What
wouldn’t hurt,” said Marty.
“I
don’t think our wives would mind if we called up our old girlfriends just to say
‘Hi,’” I said.
“You
don’t?” said Marty. “Which universe are you living in?”
“But
this is just as old friends, not lovers,” I said.
“I
assume that’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”
“OK,
maybe we could call their husbands first," I said, "and explain we're
just sitting out here fishing and thinking about their wives."
"Oh.
sure," he said.
"They
would probably understand."
"You
think?” he said, shaking his head, “I doubt it.“
"I
mean, after all, the women should see us now. Don't you agree?"
"No,
I don’t."
"But
we're mature now, accomplished, successful," I said.
"We're
also fifty pounds heavier, sagging and balding."
“Who
would see us on the phone?” I said.
“You
can hear fat and old in our voices.”
"Well,
maybe they are too." I said.
"Precisely,"
he said as he glanced at me.
"Right,”
I said. “None of us are Twinkies.”
“Pardon?”
“Twinkies,”
I said, “they never change.”
“People
do,” said Marty.
We continued
to fish while I walked around in my head, thinking about old times. Ten minutes
later I reached in my pocket and felt for my cell phone. Pulling it out
and flipping it open, I saw the reception bar nudged up by the nearest
cell tower. I called Information.
Sally
had married a young man I remembered from the Boy Scouts long ago. He and
I lived in different parts of the city and were not in the same troop, but I
saw him each year at the town-wide Scout celebration night. He often
received another award while I sat on the sidelines wondering how the heck
anyone found enough time to pursue all that glory. He had worked hard on
his Scout craft and wore a sash with more Merit Badges sewn on than I had ever
seen before or since. I might have remembered more about his Scouting
exploits than about his bride, my old girl friend. I would never forget his
name. I had their telephone number in sixty seconds.
“I
found her,” I said to Marty.
“And
what are you going to do with her?” he said.
“Just
call up and say ‘Hi’.” I answered.
“I
have an idea,” he said. “Why don’t we rehearse this?”
“What
do you mean?”
“You
play yourself,” he said, “and I’ll play Sally.”
Marty
raised his fist to his ear and used a falsetto voice as high as he could
muster.
“Hello-o-o.
This is Sa-a-lly.”
I
laughed and played along.
“Hi
Sally, this is Jack.”
“Jack!
Where have you been? You were supposed to mow the lawn this morning and
you didn’t show up. I’m going to fire your ass, Jack, if you miss me once
more—“
“Hold
on. Sally didn’t talk like that.”
“But
it’s fifty years later,” said Marty.
“Start
again,” I said. “Hi Sally, this is Jack.”
“Jack
who?”
“Jack
from your teenage years. We used to date. I gave you my class
ring. We were—“
“I
don’t have your class ring, Jack. I threw it out.”
“Wait
minute, Marty—“
“Wendell
found it in my jewelry box and became incensed.”
“Who
is Wendell?” I said.
“Whatever
her husband’s name is,” said Marty.
“This
isn’t helping,” I said.
“And then Wendell said
… if I ever had any kind of contact with you, Jack … any at all,
even if my car broke down in the swamp out yonder and you happened by … he
would absolutely never give me my allowance again. Ever!”
“What
allowance?”
“A
guy with a name like Wendell would certainly give her a thousand or two a
week.”
“Really,”
I said, witheringly.
“At
least.”
“OK.”
“How
much would you have given her?” said Marty.
“I’ve
never thought about it.”
“Uh
huh,” he said.
“How
should I know how much?” I said.
Face
it, you cheap bastard,” said Marty. “You would have been good for no more
than a hundred bucks a week … tops.”
“That
would have been a lot of money back then,” I said.
“You’re
right. Then half of that.”
“What
the hell does it matter, anyway, Marty?”
“Because
it’s the first question Sally will ask you, right after she realizes you’re not
the guy who mows her lawn. ‘Jack,’ she’ll say, ‘how much of an allowance
would you have given me?’”
“She
wasn’t like that, Marty.”
“It’s
fifty years later,” he said.
I
sighed. “Some people don’t change.”
“Really?”
he said. “Then you’d better hope she’s a Twinkie.”
I
put my phone back in my pocket.
He
sighed. “I called Rosalie last night when you fell asleep in your lawn chair
out by the fire,” he said.
“You’re
kidding me, Marty. Aren’t you?”
“No,
I’m not kidding.”
I
laughed. “Did she ask you how much of an allowance you would have given
her? Or did she threaten to fire your ass for not showing up to mow her
lawn?"
“No,”
he said. “As soon as I told her who was calling, she hung up on me.”
I
felt bad for him. I didn’t know what to say.
“I
suppose,” he said, “she asked herself why on earth would she want to have a
conversation with some old geezer who had dated her a half century ago.”
“That’s
probably a good question,” I said.
“And
you know what? We’re the Twinkies.”
“How
do you figure?” I asked.
“We
haven't changed," he said with a laugh. " After all these
years, here we are on a Saturday afternoon still trying to call up girls who
don’t want to talk to us.”
copyright
2015, David Griffin
The Windswept Press
Murrells
Inlet, South Carolina
windsweptpress.com
