old fashioned

Jim and I, we sat in our respective chairs, and we stared. He with the grit of an ex-marine, cynicism like a grin laid onto his face. His eyes so appropriately cold looking, a blue turned grey as they narrowed, judging my attire and demeanor.

My own stare met his, indignant, curious, knowingly naive. We were sizing each other up, wondering who would be victor. I was a guest in his home, however. I had niceties to maintain, sugar cookies to politely munch on courtesy of our hostess, his lovely wife. And here I sat, and here we stared. Gradually, I took notice of the conversations surrounding us. Jim's grandson, Chris, was coddling a conversation between his grandmother and his girlfriend. Claire is the type of woman who knows how to cook and sit properly, spills no crumbs from her sugar cookie, and had Chris's grandmother cooing and awing at her hand embroidered blouse. I looked quizzically at Chris, who mouthed to me that a blouse was a nice ladies shirt. I nodded gratefully and froze as I turned back towards the two. They were looking at me expectantly and I groaned inwardly as I realized it was my turn to shower compliments and answer invasive questions courteously, gracefully.

I glanced back at Jim, who was still eyeing me, and not surprisingly looking pleased about my imminent torture. Ignoring him, I addressed Claire, complimenting her manicure and asking where she had her nails done. She launched into a perfectly executed story, ending with an endearing scene in which she invited the little vietnamese woman who owned the nail salon, and her entire family to go to church with her, which they had. Grandmother Gene began her cooing again, which I didn't mind because it meant I was not the one talking.

Until Gene turned back to me, asking what church I was a member of, what did I do there, had I a boyfriend. I smiled a little at the presumption that I went to church, never mind that I be a member as well. And what did I do there? Was I supposed to be doing anything aside from going and being a member? Though I assumed she was wondering if I taught a Sunday school class, kept the nursery in order to practice for motherhood, or pretended to be Mother Theresa on a regular basis. I hesitated in answering. I was not a member of any church, save the dear body of people I called home- but they were half a country away in Manhattan. I hadn't been on a date in close to two years. To answer truthfully would result in glances of sympathy and requests that I come with them to church the very next Sunday. To lie, well, who wants to lie to an adorable eighty year old who finds no greater joy than baking cookies and serving sweet tea to her guests.

I looked at Chris for help and he shrugged, Claire seemed just as interested in hearing my answer as Gene, the framed ten commandments on the wall offered no guidance aside from further confirmation that lying would have only the most eternal of consequences. And Jim, the god damn old bastard was actually smirking, and when I met his look he raised his old codger eyebrows as if to challenge me, as if to poke and prod and say, "what have you got girl, what have you?"

"Actually, Mrs. Cannon, I have not really found a church to my liking since moving back from the city. I can't say I have been anywhere for more than a few visits for the better part of the past year. I miss having consistent fellowship and good teaching, but I won't settle for attending a circus of people who sit there every week in order to feel better about themselves and to stroke the egos of pastors who are more interested in the number of folks who attend than their names. I see that a lot, and I'm a little discouraged with it all right now, and no I'm afraid I'm not seeing anyone at the moment."

I paused, unsure of how much I had offended and if I was wanted to keep on speaking. I decided I had said enough, and waited for the next volley.

"Well darling, we'll just have to fix that. Bless your heart. All alone in that big city, no man to protect you, miles away from your mother and father. And here you are, back safe and sound in the South and with no where to praise the Lord. You'll have to come with us this Sunday. Jim and I, we just love Pastor Harris, he's a good man. And we have a Sunday school class especially for you single ladies, and one for couples." She smiled and nodded at Chris and Claire, who to her horror were sitting no more than an inch apart, Chris's arm around her.

Jim spoke his first words of the evening, aside from his first grunts of introduction.
"Gene, just let her alone. Girl says she's too good for churches around here, and probably for the men as well." The man must play poker exquisitely, his gruff but matter of fact speech held no hint of irony, but no comfort against it, either. In fact, I was disquieted at my inability to decipher his intentions with that comment. Malicious, jesting, or completely mundane?

No one spoke. I felt the hot burn of embarrassment, the remembering of words spoken too quickly. I was being a terrible guest, Chris had been kind enough to drag me out of my apartment, thoughtful enough to remember that I wanted to meet his girlfriend. Why, I could not now remember, as I was acutely aware of being a single and misguided woman to be pitied.

For God's sake, she said, "bless your heart." I might as well pin the scarlet A to my breast and say hello to Hester, who I'm sure Gene had also invited to church. If I remember correctly, Hester endured all these things with humility and silence, and I am good at neither.

And yet she was the first to speak. "Oh honey, don't mind Jim, he's asleep on the pew every other Sunday and it's a miracle any woman ever decided to stick around."
I appreciated her gesture, she might think I was a poor lost soul, but she had no intention of seeing me hang, only of saving me from singleness.

"Mr. Jim, surely you don't think I believe so highly of myself. I'm just a little over opinionated, and they don't make many men like your grandson these days," nodding toward Chris. "Besides, I'm too young to be settling down, I have my career to think of, school to finish, books to read. I can't even cook. " I offered a smile in jest.

My words were pointed back at myself, and I felt their sting. What woman doesn't hold her dreams in one hand, leaving the other to be held by a man.

Ignoring Gene, Jim spoke directly to me for the first time.
"Couple things you got wrong, missy. Chris ain't my grandson, he's Gene's. And you damn well ought to have an opinion about where you sit on Sunday morning and who you lay with after. But no, I don't reckon many men like a woman who reads every book but the ones with recipes in 'em. What's this career you're so busy with anyway?"

This man wasted no words. I immediately grew an affection for him, where anger and possibly fear had been only moments before. I asked him, hesitantly, what he meant by Chris not being his grandson and left his own question unanswered. I looked over at Chris to make sure this was no news to him, and thankfully his expression held no surprise. Rather, he was still occupied with Claire, the two of them in quiet but ernest conversation. They were no longer interested in my inquisition. In fact, even Gene was no longer in her seat but had bustled into the kitchen.

Again, Jim and I sat in our respective chairs, and we stared. Finally, he cleared his throat and recrossed his legs, settling into an air marked for a story. He and Gene had been high school lovers, sweethearts since 37. But Jim enlisted on his 18th birthday, left Gene with the promise of a marriage when he got back, asked her to wait for him. Gene, being a reasonable woman at the time, was furious at his enlisting and absolutely refused to wait.

Instead, six months later, she mailed him a photograph of herself and her new husband. Jim at this point chuckled a little, while I wiped a dumfounded expression from my face and replaced it with an appropriately sympathetic one. So Jim came out of the war with a stiff left leg, a hankering for whiskey, and a string full of women, their handkerchiefs in his duffel all smelling of perfumes and advances.

The rest of the story, Jim told in a remarkably curt and brief manor. "Well, Gene's old bag of bones died six years ago, and she hadn't changed one bit. Damn woman still won't wait for anything. She looked me up, found I was as single and handsome as ever, and we married at the age of eighty two. Now I know what killed her first husband, she won't quit talking, but I figure I ain't got too many years in me anyway."

Jim gave me no time to ask more questions. He stood and motioned for me to follow. We walked downstairs, to his own entertaining room and office. Jim pointed at the deep mahogany cabinets and told me to take a look. It was a proper gentleman's bar, stocked handsomely.

"A man ought to have a good bar in his home. His guest ought to be able to ask for any drink, and he have the best of spirits to make it. I don't drink much myself, but I'm a man and this is my home. And another thing, you always drink what your guest drinks. Now what do you want to drink?"

His demeanor doesn't allow for refusal, courteous or not. I asked for Makers on the rocks and he chuckled. "You're a damn strange woman. I'm not bringing that little goose up there Makers, we'll pour her a little hazelnut liquor and we'll see how well Chris takes a strong drink."

"What about Gene."? I winced as I had forgotten to call her Mrs. Cannon. Jim didn't seem to mind, but replied that she was an obnoxious drunk and he didn't feel like having sex that evening.

We returned upstairs with drinks and all sat down into conversations. About the things which we fight about in this world, about the things we shouldn't. The drinks eased us, we talked freely. Jim and I no longer seemed at odds, though he still shot challenging looks my way as he asked about my opinions of homosexuality, abortion, immigration, HIV. The whole of us were merry, charged by argument and tingling with hot blood. In the same breath, there was the knowing that the warmth would fade. Jim and Gene would remain old, Chris and Claire a couple, and myself so far from either.

I asked Jim late on in the evening, after my words were loose and my mind running, "How is it to love a woman who loved another man? How did you just take her back after fifty years?"

As Jim placed an Old Fashioned in my hand, he noticed my smile falter, I think he noticed the fight had left my words and I was no longer present with them. He asked me, not as an old conservative ex-marine, or as the husband to a wife who'd been married before, but as a man who loves. One who has loved much for long years, lost much, and somehow over our evening of sparring, decided to love me.

"What are you afraid of, darlin'?"
And it was hard not to heave out my answers without tears, and hard not to be angry and awkward that tears would come at such a time. I cursed being a woman under my breath. I told him I had loved someone once, and how will I love another some day, and have to tell them they are not the first, tell them someone else had me first. Won't my love be cheapened, be less for it all?

Jim and I, we sat in our respective chairs, and I looked down and he looked at his wife across the room.
"All I know," he answered, "is that love cannot diminish, and every day I am loved by that jew of a woman, I am able to love more. Read the damn Bible darlin', and give me that drink back. You've had enough. I expect to see you asleep on the pew next to me this Sunday, and for poker and scotch that evening back over here."