Continued, Life A Love Story
Flo has always loved that her neighborhood is near the little branch library. It’s no more than a five-minute walk from Flo’s house, and she decides she’ll go there today to ask some questions of the librarian that might help with Teresa.
She puts on a black dress with blue flowers, one of her favorites, never mind the fraying on the edge of one side of the belt.
She’ll bring a cardigan for when she goes into the library; it might be cold in there.
Seems like people think they ought to roast you to death in the winter and freeze you to death in the summer.
She walks down her front steps and turns right and for a few moments she forgets about everything but the task at hand.
And look how well she’s walking, not out of breath, a steady pace.
If a stranger passed, he wouldn’t know a thing other than she was an old lady out for a walk.
She could go into a dimestore and buy something, she could go to a movie, she could order a cup of soup at a diner.
She could still do those things. But today she is going to the library.
Outside of Mildred Curtis’s house, Flo sees the screen door opening and here Mildred comes down her porch steps.
Mildred is someone whom Flo probably should have been friends with, but never was—maybe the age difference; Mildred is a good ten years younger.
But Mildred is also a former actress who lived in New York City when she was young, and that always made Flo feel nervous around her.
Still, Mildred’s voice gentled you down, she had a calm and kind way of speaking.
Her eyes held a great curiosity, too, and it seemed like whatever you were telling her was made more interesting just because of the way she stared so intently at you while you were telling the story.
It made you want to add details—Mildred was in no hurry, that’s the way she always was.
Mildred waves at Flo, holds up a finger, and comes over to her.
Even in her eighties, Mildred is still so attractive, like a woman in a painting with her pretty skin and clear blue eyes, and she’s kept her hair the original light brown color.
No extra weight on her, either; Flo guesses she might be one of those who drives around with a yoga mat in the backseat of her car.
“I haven’t seen you for the longest time,” Mildred says. “It seems like it’s harder than ever these days for people to get together. But I’m so happy to run into you, because I’m dying to tell someone about something that happened.”
“Really! Well, invite me up onto your porch and tell me.”
“Actually, I’d love to have you come inside. I just pulled a gingerbread out of the oven. Would you like some gingerbread with lemon sauce?”
One of Flo’s favorite desserts, but she’s particular about it. “Well, I’ll tell you true. I love gingerbread, but only if it’s got pepper in it. Do you put pepper in yours?”
Mildred puts her hand on her hip. “Do I put pepper in gingerbread? Of course I do!”
Flo follows Mildred into her bright yellow kitchen and sits at the Formica table. “Coffee?” Mildred asks, and Flo says that would be lovely.
The women enjoy a few bites of gingerbread—Flo has to admit it’s wonderful—and then she asks Mildred, “So what happened?”
“Well. I just received a check in the mail. Because I am going to be published in a magazine!” Mildred sits back in her chair, her chin raised. “You know Lake McAllister, right?”
Flo knows it well, though it has been a long time since she’s been there.
It is less than a mile way, and it was always pleasant walking around that lake in the summer—wouldn’t take but half an hour to circle the whole thing—and there were the willow trees at the edge dipping their leaves in the water and the ducks resting in the cool shade beneath the branches.
Swans came, too, and one afternoon when Flo had taken little five-year-old Ruthie for a walk there, a swan had rushed out of the water and bit Ruthie’s ankle.
Ruthie hollered bloody murder and nothing would do but that her mother put a huge bandage on her when she got home when she hardly needed it, it was just a little red mark.
“Sure, I know that lake,” Flo says. “Pretty over there.”
“Do you remember that in the middle of the lake there are two islands, Twin Islands, they’re called? They’re pretty close together, a channel in between.”
“Yes. Folks like to swim back and forth between them.”
“Well,” Mildred says, “this last winter I ice skated around those islands.”
Flo looks at her. Blinks.
“You ice skated around them?”
“Yes, I did. And it was so special I wrote about it, and then I thought what I wrote was pretty good so I sent it to Retiree magazine, and they’re going to publish it. And they paid me three hundred dollars! I just got the check today.”
“That’s wonderful!” Flo says, but she is thinking Mildred is plum crazy, ice skating at her age.
“I didn’t fall down once,” Mildred says, as though reading Flo’s mind.
“The lake had frozen and then it rained, and it froze again, smooth as glass—the surface was like a mirror. I’d driven past it earlier and then that night I was lying in my bed and I thought, I have to go and skate on it.
I have to. I got my skates from the basement storeroom and off to the lake I went.
Not a soul was there—well, it was one in the morning.
But it was so quiet, and the stars so piercingly clear.
I sat down on a bench and laced up my skates and then I made my way onto the ice.
It was just perfect, like they make it for the hockey players.
I skated out to the islands and circled them twice and then I came back to the shoreline and took off my skates and walked home.
I felt like I was buzzing, almost like I had wings inside me going at a furious rate.
” She looks over at Flo and laughs. “Don’t look so shocked!
It was fine! I still have strong ankles and I was always a very good skater when I was young.
I thought, When will it ever happen again that the ice will be like that? In my lifetime, I mean.”
“How old are you, now?”
“Eighty-two, but you know what? When I was out there, I simply forgot my age. The only thing in my mind was the urge to skate again, under perfect conditions no less, and it seemed like everything was in harmony with me—the night sky and the ragged little dark clouds, the skritch skritch sound of my blades and fine spray of ice, the curlicue tracks I left behind like I was writing a love letter to the lake. I just had to do it! And it will be one of those memories that feels encased; we don’t get so very many like that. ”
Flo nods. “You’re right. And I think that story you just now told me is beautiful. When I was listening, it’s like I was watching you in a movie.”
Flo looks up at the kitchen clock then, and Mildred says, “Oh, I’ve kept you from where you were going. Let me wrap some gingerbread up for you to have later. Can you carry it all right?”
“Course I can. I’ll put it in my purse.”
Mildred wraps up the gingerbread and puts a little ribbon around it. “There!” she says. “Let me walk you out.”
When they reach the sidewalk, Mildred says, “You know, I think sometimes when we age, we forget that we must keep on making new memories, keep on meeting new people and having new experiences. Seems like a lot of older people give up and spend all their time looking in the rearview mirror, when here is life still before them. I don’t ever want to do that.
I still want to do everything I can. I hope I get to have a romance again. ”
Flo smiles. “I hope you do, too, and then I hope you’ll tell me another story, about that.”
“You’ll be the first. But Flo, selfish me, I didn’t even ask how you are.”
Flo hesitates, then says, “I’m doing okay.”
“You look a little tired.”
“I am, I guess.”
“Well, call me when you’re rested, and we can think about doing something together.”
“I will.”
“I mean it!”
“I do, too.”
Flo waves goodbye and heads for the library, more certain than ever of what she wants to do.
—
At the library, there is a line at the circulation desk, six people deep. Flo sits in a chair at a nearby table to wait.
She thinks it was nice, hearing the story Mildred told.
It reminds Flo of times when Terrence went fishing with friends and came home and told her about it.
At such times it was as though Flo were sitting beside Terrence in the gently rocking boat, the line cast out.
It was as though she could hear the men talk in low voices as they waited for the tug on the pole that would mean supper.
She would think about the sun warming the flannel of Terrence’s shirt against his bent back, and she could almost hear the lap, lap, lap of the little waves against the hull.
Flo loves books, but storytelling out loud is a wonderful thing, and she hopes people never forget how to do it.
The desk is free now, and Flo goes over to it. The middle-aged librarian sitting there is wearing some oversized black glasses that Flo thinks must weigh heavy on her nose.
“I’m sorry for the wait,” the librarian says. “What can I help you with?”
“I have a computer question.”
The librarian looks across the room and stands. “Let me take you over while we have one free. You can show me what you’re having trouble with.” She walks quickly over to secure the machine and Flo follows more slowly.
When the women are sitting before one of the computers, Flo feels like she’s entered the inner sanctum of NASA. Next to them is a young man wearing headphones and tapping furiously away. Images appear, disappear, and change so rapidly it makes her dizzy.
“I don’t really know how to use a computer,” Flo whispers.
“That’s okay, I can help you,” the librarian says. “I’m Mimi, by the way.”
“Florence. Well, Flo.”
Mimi smiles at her and starts punching keys. She’s wearing dangly silver earrings, which Flo looks at rather than the screen.
“Okay,” Mimi says. “We’re in. What’s your question?”
“Well, it has to do with computer dating.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I want to know a little about it.”
“All right. Is this for you, then?”
Flo laughs loudly, then covers her mouth. She still thinks that you’re meant to be quiet in a library, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
“No, it’s not for me!”
The librarian raises her eyebrows and looks over at Flo.
“It’s not!” Flo says.
“Oh, I believe you, it’s just that it’s not so out of the ordinary for mature people to want to use these sites.”
“I’m ninety-two!”
The librarian leans in so close Flo can smell her shampoo. She says, “Yesterday I helped a ninety-five-year-old gentleman get on . He was looking for a lady companion.”
“Ninety-five!”
Mimi nods. “Yup.”
“Do you think he’ll actually get a date out of it?”
“I think it’s entirely possible that he will!”
“Well, that’s hard to visualize, but honestly, I’m asking for a friend who thinks it’s too late for her. There’s not a thing wrong with her, she’s lovely, just lacks confidence.”
“How old is she?”
“Only fifty-one.”
Mimi throws up her hands.
“I know,” Flo says.
“I’m fifty-three and I’m out there. It’s not too late for her!”
“I know it. So I thought maybe if I gave her some information about one of these date places, she might try it.”
Mimi takes one of the slips of paper in a holder on the table and starts scribbling furiously, furrows between her eyebrows.
“I’ll write down the names of some dating apps that I think are pretty good.
She might already know them. Mostly what she needs to know is that she has nothing to lose by going on.
She doesn’t have to accept any invitations, but it can help her confidence just to get some responses. ”
“Some hope!” Flo says, with such emphasis that her bottom rises up from the chair.
Mimi smiles over at her. “Exactly.” She writes down three suggestions, folds the paper over, and hands it to Flo. “Good luck,” she says. “You’re kind to do this for your friend.”
Flo starts to get up but then asks Mimi, “I hope it’s not rude to ask you, but have you ever tried any of these things?”
“I have.”
“And?”
Mimi shrugs. “Honestly? So far it’s just…meh.”
“Oh.”
“But I’m going to keep trying.”
“Good for you.”
Flo tucks the paper into her purse. At the right time, she’ll give it to Teresa. She’ll say even the librarian does computer dating. She’ll leave out the “meh” part.