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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Violins and Fireworks

The footpath was sometimes so narrow though the woods that my husband Joel and I had to hike single file. We each pulled along a wheeled suitcase stuffed with enough clothes so that we could spend three nights and two days in the wilderness.

"Almost there," Joel said. "I see the cabin."

My heart beat a little faster.

We broke into a clearing.

"There it is!" Joel said.

Smiling, I gazed at a little log cabin nestled beneath towering pines, their scent floating in the air. A picnic table, gas grill, and lawn chairs sat in front of the cabin, all provided by Foxwood Lodges. Fifty yards down a grassy hill, Eagle Lake sparkled in the late-afternoon sunlight, the sky above it a deep blue.

Joel took a breath, inhaling the fresh air. "What a great idea you had."

"I told you, we had to do something to get the chemistry back. Married twelve years. Remember when we first met? Violins and fireworks!"
He draped an arm around my shoulder. "Even after we were married, you created butterflies in my stomach. Big ones. I couldn't wait to get home from work."

I felt myself blush a little. "We had some awesome times, didn't we?"

"Beyond awesome," he said, and grinned. Then, "Look, here's the keys to the place. You open up, and I'll go back for the groceries."

"You sure you can manage alone?"

"It's why we brought the kids' wagon, right? The brochure said the place was secluded."

I watched my husband—tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome—scurry along the path into the woods. After we were married, four or five times a year, we'd take time out from our jobs, jump into the car, and spend a fun day together. Sometimes something as simple as a barefoot picnic in the park, later tossing a Frisbee back and forth. But after three kids arrived—Sandy, Becky, and Tom—those let's-play-hooky days dwindled to zero.

I pulled both suitcases up to the cabin's front porch, unlocked the padlocked pine door, and stepped inside, catching a woodsy scent. The cabin was a single room that included a kitchen area with a sink, refrigerator, cupboards, and a four-burner stove. A brass bed with a bright patchwork quilt on it crouched in one corner. In another corner, what looked like a closet, I discovered, was actually a bathroom, complete with shower. The place was totally perfect for the get-away Joel and I wanted.

I checked my watch. Four-thirty. The kids would be home from school. I needed to call to assure them their dad and I had arrived safely, we loved them, and missed them already. I fished my cell phone from my purse, plunked down at the table, and dialed home. My mom and dad were staying with the kids. I talked to each girl for about a second. They were in a hurry. Grandpa was taking them to softball practice in five minutes, but neither one could find her glove. I told them both to check under their beds. I was still gossiping with Mom when Joel started lugging the cooler into the cabin and the boxes of groceries.

He frowned at me. "What are you doing?"

"Checking on the kids. Talking to my mom. I haven't talked to Tommy yet."

"I thought this was a time for us."

"Joel, I'm letting them know we're okay."

He shook his head. Smiled. "We haven't gone to the moon, Ann. We're only a hundred miles from home."

"Just a minute, Mom," I said. "I can't hear."

I eased up from the table, slipped outside into the late afternoon sunshine, and caught my breath. The sun, perched above the trees across the lake, had painted the sky with bold strokes of pink and purple. Down near the dock, ducks paddled and quacked along the shoreline. Beautiful. I sat down at the picnic table, cell phone clutched to my ear.

I reminded Tommy that he could take a bath by himself, he was a big boy now. Brush his teeth. When Mom came back on the line, she said that Mrs. Olsen, and elderly widow down the street, had suffered a heart attack. An ambulance whisked her away to the hospital at about noon. No word about how she was doing.

"That's terrible," I said. "She's such a lovely lady."

I talked longer on the phone than I should have, I admit. But when I finished and hurried back into the cabin, I never expected to see Joel hunched over his laptop computer, papers strewn across the table.

My mouth dropped. "What's this? Work from the office?"

He looked sheepish. "I thought if it rained all the time..."

"It's not raining, Joel. Rain's not even in the forecast."

"I just wanted to gab a minute, first chance I got, to organize this data."

"Joel..."

We fell silent.

Without a word, without being asked or without complaining, he gathered his papers off the table and shuffled them into a manila folder. He shut down the computer and tucked everything into the laptop carrying case.

Before he zippered the case, I said, "Give it to me."

He handed me the case, and I stuffed my phone in with his computer and folder.

"I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

"Light the grill—I think we've both made a major mistake."

Five minutes—tops—is what it took me to tromp through the woods back to our Suburban and lock these evil distractions inside the vehicle. Back at the cabin, we grilled lemon-pepper salmon steaks and onion slices, and baked two potatoes. We drank a glass of red wine with supper. We watched the sun, a red ball, finally sink behind the trees. 

We built a bonfire in the fire ring in front of the cabin. We sat next to each other in lawn chairs by the blaze. Under the moon and stars, we held hands.

"Lovely night," I said. "Just what I'd hoped for."

He squeezed my hand. "I wouldn't want to be with anyone else."

"But I almost blew it today," I said. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm to blame. I promised myself I was going to leave all that paperwork home."

Joel stoked the fire with a long stick, and sparks danced off into the night.

I snugged my chair closer to his.

"Those sparks remind me of fireworks." he said, looping is arm around my shoulders, kissing my neck.

And I said, "I think I hear violins..."

The End

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Love Is a Circus

"Mom, is Cole kind of like a dad," my four-year-old son, Danny, asked as I reached to turn off the light on the night table next to his bed.

I'd just finished tucking him in and kissing him goodnight on the forehead.

"Sweetie, it's late. We had a big day."

"Don't you like him, Mom?"

"Well, yes, he's very nice, but..."

"Maybe if you asked him he'd be a dad."

"Um...I don't think so, sweetie. Cole is...just a person who works for us."                                               Alone in my kitchen with a cup of decaf at the table, I wondered what to make of the day's events. But before I could figure anything out, my cell phone rang. "How was your boat ride?" my best friend Rose asked.

"Marvelous," I said, which was true. Cole and taken Danny and me on an early evening dinner excursion on the Lady Belle, the last paddle wheeler to work the Mississippi River in our area. "But I can't believe I'm..."

"What? Falling in love with your landscaper?"

"It's so unreal."

"He's not just an intenerate day-laborer working for minimum wage, Cindy. He has a degree in horticulture, he owns his own business, he's single, and he's wonderfully handsome. Danny likes him, doesn't he?"

"Danny thinks Cole Spencer hung the moon."

"Well, girl! There you go."

I'd inherited a rambling Victorian home from my aunt and a modest sum of money. The home itself needed minimal repairs but the sprawling yard was a disaster, practically a jungle. Aunt Martha, a die-hard recluse, tended her home well, but not the yard.

I hired Cole Spencer to restore the yard, and I hoped by next spring to turn part of the home into a summertime bed and breakfast to help supplement my school teacher's salary.
Cole's handsome good looks and easy smile attracted me at first sight. Me. Amber Murphy. Thirty-four. Three years a widow. A scary thought leaped into my mind: Could Cole Spencer be the second soul mate of my life?

That's not happening! I told myself

Then last night our professional relationship changed in a stunning way. On my front porch, just after Danny raced into the house, Cole kissed me in the moonlight, and my blood pounded.

I can't be falling in love.

I mean, I finally had my life neatly laid out. My inheritance from Aunt Martha had left me in good financial standing. Running a bed and breakfast, if only during the summer, would take loads of time and energy. Not to mention the time and energy it takes to raise an overly active four-year-old boy. I needed no more complications in my life.

At breakfast the next morning, Danny asked, " Mom, can Cole take us to the circus?"

I smiled. "I don't think so, sweetheart. He's already done enough for us."

Which was true. Cole had rid my lawn of dandelions, crabgrass, and moles. He'd trimmed the trees and planted bushes and shrubs around the entire house. Lately, he talked of building a gazebo where my summer guests could enjoy a cup of coffee after breakfast.

"You're pretty, Mom. I'll bet if you ask him..."

I tousled my son's reddish blonde hair. "Eat your breakfast."

Later that morning, Cole showed up at my front door with two hydrangeas, one in each arm. "Thought I'd plant these on either side of the porch," he said, smiling his easy smile. "They're free. They'll bloom next spring."

As he set the plants down, I stepped out of the house onto the porch.

I heaved a big sigh. "Cole, we need to talk."

"I know," he said sheepishly, burying his hands deep in his jeans pockets. "I was way out of line last night." The sunlight slanting onto the porch gleamed off his longish brown hair. "The last thing I should be doing is kissing a client."

"Or delivering free plants to her house."

He nodded. "Very unprofessional conduct."

"Her life is mapped out," I said. "She doesn't need any complications."

"Right. No complications for either of us."

My feet shuffled. "But this...situation is partly her fault. I'm willing to admit that," I said looking at him. So handsome!

"The worst part of it is she's so very, very beautiful," he said, his gaze landing on me. "Like a spring rose."

Cole and I stood staring at each other, our eyes locked. My heart started that pounding. His Adam's apple bobbed. "There's a circus in town this weekend," he said.

"I thought you and Danny..."

Before he could finish or I could answer, he wrapped me in his arms and kissed me ever so softly and slowly on the lips, and a warm glow swept over me.
Behind the screen door, I heard Danny exclaim, "Oh wow! We get to go to the circus!"

Cole smiled. "What does your mom say?"

Complications, unprofessional conduct, life mapped out—none of it mattered. I smiled back and tried to still my pounding heart. "I love a circus," I said.

                                                     The End
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