Mission of Mercy

"Is that him running toward us?" Rachel asked, as we jogged side by side along the bike path. "Blue muscleman shirt? Blue shorts? The man you're dying to meet?"

He was nearly fifty yards away, but I'd recognize Jake Crosby's gait at any distance. We'd been jogging past each other at six-thirty in the morning for nearly a month.

"That's him," I said.

"Wow! Tall. Broad shoulders. A Greek god. Adonis."

I breathed deeply and evenly, trying to focus on the crisp autumn air, the colorful leaves, and the sunny blue skies.

Suddenly Adonis appeared to be pulling up lame. He slowed to barely a walk and hopped about on his right foot, while gingerly lifting his left foot, the toe barely touching the ground.

Rachel and I slowed to a stroll. Jake had stopped and was bending over, vigorously massaging his left calf.

"You all right?" I asked, as we halted in front of him, all of us puffing.

He stood straight, balancing himself mostly on his right leg. "Got a bad cramp. Happens when I don't stretch enough before taking off."

"My friend Ellen's a nurse," Rachel said. "Maybe she can help."

"Nothing to do but relax," I said. "Rub it out."

"Hi," he said to both of us. "I'm Jake Crosby."

Rachel and I introduced ourselves, and then he said to me, "I've seen you before—I mean, besides on this bike path."

"Mercy Hospital," I said. "In the hallways and elevators. I'm a nurse. Obstetrics."

He nodded slowly. "I'm in food service management. New guy in town."

His blue-eyed gaze sent a warm shiver through me, but I recovered nicely, I thought, and said, "There's a bench under that oak tree. Maybe you need to sit down."

While Jake hop-skipped to the bench, Rachel grabbed my elbow and whispered, "This is your chance, girlfriend. Rub that cramp out of his wonderfully muscled calf. He's yours."

"Don't be silly!"

Jake was sitting on the bench, massaging his left calf with both hands now. He winced again and looked up at us, obviously in distress.

"Where's your car?" I asked, and sat down next to him. "Mine's about a mile west."

He pointed east. "About two miles that way."

"Think you'll be able to hobble back? There's no way we can drive a car here."

"I'll be fine."

"Well," Rachel said, "you guys are on your own." Flashing me a smile, she took off.

"She must be in a hurry," Jake said, and leaned back to stretch his left leg.

"She lives about not far from here. Her kids are probably up. Her husband's making breakfast, and she always wants to get back before they destroy the kitchen."

"You have a husband and kids to jog home to?"

I didn't hesitate. "Single," I said.

"Me, too."

"I knew that." I felt a little sheepish. "Lot's of gossip goes on at the hospital." Then, "How's the leg doing?"

"Still tight." He gave it a few more rubs. "This your day off?"

I nodded. "Every other Saturday."

A little breeze blew, cooling me off.

"Mine, too," he said. "How about if I walk you to your car?  It's closer, you can drive me back to mine.  I'll take you to breakfast."

I blinked. I felt thrilled: Saturday morning breakfast with a guy I'd longed to meet. Couldn't get any better than that.

"All right, " I said. We stood and I added, "I wouldn't put too much pressure on that calf—you sure you're okay?"

"I can make it."

But as we got up and shuffled toward the bike path, Jake suddenly stopped. He seemed to hobble worse than ever. He faced me, a painful look on his face, and shrugged helplessly. "I don't think I can go much farther."

"May be a severely pulled muscle. You might have to see a doctor." I guided him back to the bench where he plunked down.

"I feel stupid," he said, shaking his head.

I stood over him, hands planted on my hips. "Sit there. I'll be back in fifteen minutes with a wheelchair. We'll get you home so you can at least rest that leg."

"A wheelchair—no way. If I keep rubbing this out—"

"Rachel has a chair at home. Her husband used it when he had back surgery—sit there."

"I can't let you do this."

"What other choice do you have? Do you think you can drive?"

"Of course. My right leg's okay."

 "All right. Sit there," I said again. "Nurse's orders. I'll be right back."

He smiled at me though his pain. "I'll see to it that you eat free in the cafeteria all week. All month."

I shook my head. "This is a mission of mercy. No payment required."

"You've got to at least let me take you to breakfast—or dinner—sometime. I insist."

I started to stretch a bit, getting ready to leave. "All right. Maybe we can work that out."

"It's a deal," he said.  Count on it!"

And so I sped off in the sunshine on my mission of mercy. For Adonis. I felt loose and joyful enough to run a marathon.

The End

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Being Neighborly

I couldn't believe I was baking brownies for the widower down the street. I studied the recipe: butter, unsweetened chocolate, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, chopped walnuts.

Okay. The man wants brownies. He gets brownies.

In a saucepan, I melted the butter and chocolate on the stove.

I'd known Charlie Brooke forever. He taught and coached at the local high school. Both my sons played football for him and said he was the best coach ever. His wife died shortly after my husband died, four years ago now.

Charlie and I'd never socialized after our spouses' deaths. I was convinced Paul was my one and only. I just couldn't imagine myself with any other man. So why was I making brownies for Charlie?

You want to know the truth?

He's the most helpful man I know. During the winter he plows snow up and down the block for the neighbors—sidewalks and driveways. One morning this spring when he walked by my house with his dog and saw that my car sat in the driveway with a flat tire, he changed the tire.

Just yesterday, as I struggled to rake up the autumn leaves that had fallen overnight from the maple tree in the front yard, he trotted over with his leaf blower. He blew them into a pile, and we bagged them for the refuse collector.

"I don't know how to thank you." I breathed a sigh, happy to have that job finished, but I suddenly wondered how I looked. My hair a mess. My face probably smudged. All sweaty.

He gazed at me with a smile. "Just being neighborly."

Here's another thing about Charlie: He's handsome. At forty-five, he's trim and rugged-looking with dark hair graying at the temples, his eyes a gorgeous deep blue. Not that his looks mattered to me. Of course, not. "Really," I said. "I owe you."

"Brownies?" he said. "Do you bake brownies?"

My eyebrows lifted. "Brownies?"

"I'm sorry. I know it's sexist to think all women bake, but I haven't had homemade brownies since"—he faltered—"for a long time..."

I knew my recipe for brownies was somewhere in my recipe box in the kitchen. I could have told him I'd bake a batch sometime and drop them off at his house.  But what did I say? I said, "Yes, I have a great recipe. I'll make a batch." Then I added, "Why don't you come over tomorrow afternoon, about three? I'll have coffee ready."

"Wonderful."

        I carefully spread the brownie mixture in my 8x8x2-inch baking pan, all greased. I don't know why I invited him over today, Sunday. Sunday had always been a special day for Paul and me, a day to relax after a hectic week. Read. Watch TV. Play chess. I worked as an emergency-room nurse. Still do. Part-time. Paul was a traffic engineer for the city.

I had just sprinkled powdered sugar over the top of the brownies and had started to cut them into squares when I heard a knock at the front door. Wiping my hands on a towel, I felt flushed. I told myself to calm down. I hurried through the dining and living rooms. I opened the front door. Charlie's smile was wide. "Hope I'm not early."

"Not at all. Come in."

What really bowled me over was not his good looks but how happy I suddenly felt to see him. Like he filled an empty space in my home—and in my heart.

He drew in a deep whiff. "Smells like brownies in here, for sure. And coffee."

But as he sidled by me, I smelled only his cologne, a tantalizing musky scent; my heart went all fluttery. What's wrong with you, Alison? But I knew. I just didn’t want to admit it. I was smitten. Forty-four going of fourteen.

I led him to the kitchen and pointed out a chair for him at the table. I sliced the brownies, stacked them on a platter, and poured coffee for him. We munched the goodies, sipped our brew, and chattered about our kids and the lovely autumn weather. All the while he kept wiping his mouth with a napkin and saying, "These are delicious."

At one point I said, "You'll have to take the rest home with you."

He quickly glanced at the clock. An hour had slipped by. "I guess it is time for me leave."

Oh my! I hadn't meant to sound as if I were kicking him out. On an impulse I asked, "Do you play chess?"

"Never learned." He thought a moment. "What are you doing for supper tonight?"

That caught me by surprise. "Um...leftovers, I suppose."

"I make a mean plate of spaghetti."

"I love spaghetti."

"About six? Later you can teach me to play chess."

I didn't think twice. "All right, I'd like that."

I wrapped the rest the brownies in tinfoil.

"Really," he said, "don't you want to keep some of these for yourself."

I handed him the package. Our fingers touched. I felt a spark, and a smile crept across my face. "They're yours."

"I appreciate this."

My smile grew bigger. I made myself take a breath. "That's all right," I said, and marveled at how warm and mellow I felt, being neighborly.

The End
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Never Say Goodbye

I'm sitting in my mini van in the Village Inn parking lot, unsure about what to do next. I rest my head on the steering wheel. Lord, what's wrong with me? I feel like a teen again. For goodness sake, I'm thirty-eight years old. My life is good, and now all I can think about is a man I had a crush on twenty years ago.

I'm afraid to see him. Afraid not to see him. I climb out of my van. It's a beautiful blue-sky day. I march toward the restaurant's front door. My best friend Gloria told me last night on the phone, "You have to see him again.

 If you get reacquainted and realize he's still the love of your life, you get a second chance. Hooray!"

"But if he's not..."

"Then you can stop fantasizing about him. Hooray! Win! Win!"

"I never expected to see him again."

"It's why I gave him your e-mail address—I knew he'd contact you. I nearly dropped dead when I ran into him at the mall."

"He's been back how long?"

"Just yesterday. He's on leave. Thirty days. And I asked him about a wife and family."

"You didn't!"

"I did. He's never been married. I told him you're single."

Scarcely breathing, I enter the Village Inn. I stop at the cashier's counter, and my heart stops with me. I see him seated across the room in a booth in a corner by the windows.

I can still put myself back in time and relive that amazing spark that ran through me when we first kissed. But we were only high school seniors chasing different dreams, and summer's end forced us apart.

"Are you ready to be seated?" a pretty, young waitress asks me.

"Someone's waiting for me," I say. "There by the windows."

It's lunchtime. I squeeze my way between the crowded tables. I calm my pounding heart, gather my courage, and halt at his booth.

He looks up, almost as if he's surprised to see me. "Kathy!"

"Hello, Andy." The smile on my face feels huge.

Slipping quickly out of the booth, he stands in front of me, also a little nervous, I think. He looks older, yes, but he's still broad-shouldered with gorgeous thick black hair and flashing dark eyes.

"You look wonderful!" he says. His smile is wide and warm with that little dimple in his right cheek I remember so well.

"You, too," I say, "You...look the same."

His smile deepens. He touches my elbow and guides me into the booth. He sits across from me. We cross our arms on the table and now beam at each other in wide-eyed amazement.

"It's been so long," he says. "I never expected this, seeing you again. I thought surely you'd married and moved away."

"So much has happened."

"I'm so sorry we...well, lost each other," he says. "Tell me about yourself."

A waitress appears and asks if we're ready to order. We shake our heads. We haven't even looked at a menu.

I have so much I could tell him I hardly know where to begin. I ramble on about getting married while I was a senior in college and moving with my husband across the country to California where we set up dental practices together. Then I tell him about getting a divorce two years ago. Returning home. No children.

He shakes his head. "I'd always hoped you were getting along okay. I thought of you often." A sheepish smile creeps across his face. "I even dreamed about you."

I blush and smile at the same time. "Nightmares?"

"Not hardly," he says.

"Well, I'm fine. I'm in the same office with my dad now. Life is good."

The waitress appears again, looking a little impatient. We order tenderloin baskets and diet colas.

After she retreats, I say, "So what's going on in your life? Never married, Gloria says."

He tells me life as an army helicopter pilot has been exciting and fulfilling, but he felt he was in too much constant danger to marry and perhaps die, leaving a widow and kids behind. "But I've done my time," he adds. "Twenty years. "And now I've decided I want to plant roots somewhere."

My eyes drift up to his. "Really...?"

"I'll be discharged three months from now."

"You're coming back here?"

"It's a starting place. I've always loved my hometown. My folks are still here, and I can get work as a flight instructor. I'm well qualified."

Our food arrives. Smells delicious. We start to eat.

Andy seems hesitant, then says, "You're involved with someone?"

I shake my head. "I dated a few times when I came home after my divorce. But not recently."

"What I remember best about us," he says, "is that when we split we didn't quarrel bitterly like others who broke up after high school."

"A concert, a pizza, moonlight..." My voice trails off.

"A final kiss," he says. "I don't think we ever said good-bye."

I think back, hard. "'See you' is what we said."

We both take a sip of Coke through straws and look at each other over the rims of our glasses. My quivering heart feels like it's melting, and I sense a magnetic pull between Andy and me that suddenly makes me feel warm all over. I wonder if he feels the same pull.

"It's like we knew we'd meet again," he says, putting out his hand, and I hold it across the table.

I nod. "Never say goodbye because you can never tell."

"That's it!" he says, smiling his one-dimple smile and squeezing my hand. "We didn't lose each other at all. We never even said goodbye."

The End
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Back Home

Somehow it had gotten to be ten o’clock in the evening. Ben had said he should go home, but I didn’t want him to leave. He had a talent for making me smile, and he'd helped me forget the trauma of moving with my twelve-year-old daughter from Arizona all the way across the country back to my hometown.

Ben and I had been new neighbors for a week.

We stood on my front porch in the moonlight, the scent of lilacs drifting in the air from the nearby bushes.

The old-fashioned but newly stained porch swing seemed too inviting to resist, so we sat down.

 “It's been a wonderful evening,” Ben said. “Dinner was delicious. Thank you.”

“Just burgers, fries, and a salad.”

“Yeah," he said, smiling "But I’m used to TV dinners and carry-outs.”

As we rocked gently back and forth, the chain that held the swing suspended from the ceiling began to go creak, creak, creak.

Ben looked up. “That would be easy to fix, Susan. So would the leaky faucet in the kitchen."

“It was so nice of you to replace the garage window Leslie broke with her softball yesterday. I wouldn’t know how I’d repay you for any more help."

 “You don’t have to repay me for anything," he said with a gentle smile. We're neighbors.”

He thanked me again for the meal and left. What a nice man, I thought. You’re lucky to have him as a neighbor, Susan.

The next morning, Saturday, at the breakfast table Leslie arched an eyebrow and said, “What did you guys do last night, Mom? After you made me go to bed.”

“Mr. Cunningham and I sat on the porch swing for a while."

"Just sat?" She eyed me. "Did he kiss you?"

I blinked and then frowned at my daughter. "Where do you get ideas like that, Leslie?"

 “Just wondering, Mom." Then, "The swing squeaks. You should ask him fix it.”

“I can take care of it today. And the leaky faucet."

Life as a single mom had been hectic back in Arizona, and I'd known it was going to be hectic here, too. I’d left home to go to college in Arizona. I'd earned a degree in elementary education, met Tom, married, and had Leslie. We settled down in Phoenix, but when Tom was killed in an auto accident two years ago, I eventually decided I wanted to return to my hometown. I wanted Leslie to grow up knowing her grandparents—my decision thrilled Grandma and Grandpa beyond words. Besides, instead of Leslie and me living in a condo like we had when Jake was alive, I wanted to live in a house again, so my daughter could experience the charm of having a yard, a neighborhood, and neighborhood kids for friends.

When Aunt Rose decided to move to an assisted living facility and sell her house, I jumped at the opportunity to buy it.

That afternoon, I struggled in the driveway with the lawnmower, trying to get it started.

“Spark plug, probably,” Ben said.”

I looked up and saw him standing on the other side of the fence that separated our yards. He looked handsome—tanned with sandy hair long enough to brush the collar of his denim shirt. I felt tingly inside. Cool it, Susan!

Ben cleaned the lawnmower's sparkplug and air filter, drained the old gasoline from the tank, poured in new gas, and the mower fired up on the first pull. I cut the grass in forty-five minutes.

“Drink?” Ben asked from his side of the fence, as I pushed the mower into the garage. “Iced tea? Lemonade?”

Tired and sweaty, I said, "Tea would be great."

We sat in the backyard at Ben’s picnic table. Last night he talked about himself. He'd been a carpenter for twenty years. He was forty. Two years older than me. His wife had died three years ago. Tonight he told me about the neighbors. About garbage collection days. Mail delivery. The new sewer tax. His smile warmed my heart. When I got up to go home, I felt as if I’d known Ben forever.

I met Leslie in the drive. She was coming home from across the street, where she'd been hanging out with her new friend, Sandy.

“Were you at Mr. Cunningham’s house?” she asked, arching that eyebrow again.

“Yes, I was—don't ask again if he kissed me. He didn't.”

“Do you like him? I like him.”

“He’s very nice. He fixed Aunt Rose’s lawnmower.”

“He could fix a lot of stuff around here.”

"I've already fixed the squeaky swing," I said proudly. "And the leaky faucet."

Leslie smiled at me. "But there's one thing only he can really fix, I'll bet." Her smiled grew wider.

I patted my blonde-haired daughter softly on the head.  How smart twelve-year-olds are these days. "Yes, Leslie, “ I said, “Perhaps you're right...maybe...eventually...”

The End
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