Continued, Life A Love Story
“Am I disturbing you?” Teresa asks.
“Not at all,” Flo says, opening the door wider. “Come on in.”
“Well, I’ve got Flash. I was walking him. Would you like to sit out on the porch?”
Flo grabs a sweater from the coat tree stationed by the door and they sit down in the rocking chairs. Flash lies down on the rag rug.
“Seems like he’s pretty used to that leash now,” Flo says, and Teresa says, “You should have seen him five minutes ago. Pulling at the leash like a whirling dervish. But I won.” She sighs.
Flo waits a beat, then asks, “You okay?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“For…” She laughs. “I don’t know.”
“You can talk about anything you want with me, Teresa.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I talk about anything I want to?” Flo asks.
“Of course.”
“All right. Let’s us talk about love.”
“Oh, jeez,” Teresa says. “That again. All right, let’s talk about it. Let me ask you, what exactly do you mean by ‘love’?”
“Oh, you know, you meet someone—”
“There’s a lot of different kinds of love,” Teresa says. “For animals. For art. For travel. For solitude. For reading. For fudge.”
Flo says, “I think you know I’m talking about people love. Loving a person. And them loving you back.”
“Well, I love my clients. And they love me back. And it’s a safe love.”
“All right, Teresa, I’m just going to tell you right out. When I look at you, I see a beautiful soul, and a lonely one.”
“I’m not lonely!”
“Well, all right,” Flo says, “then I see a beautiful soul all by herself.”
“It’s okay to be by yourself.”
“Not if you feel lonely. That’s a sign that you want to be with someone.
Now, tell me true, Teresa, wouldn’t you like to be with someone in an intimate way?
Just you and him? And I’m not talking about sex, I mean someone to talk to about things, someone to share things with, who will take care of you, who—”
“I know what you mean, Flo. Thank you. But it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me to have that kind of relationship.”
“Well, you know what? I did some research on dating sites.”
Teresa looks over at her sharply.
“Over at the library,” Flo says. “I went there, and I learned about all kinds of services for dating. And guess what. The librarian, her name is Mimi, she is also in her fifties, and she went on one of those sites, and she said it is definitely not too late for a fifty-something woman to find someone. It’s not too late even for people much older than that. ”
Teresa says nothing, and Flo makes herself not push.
“And did she find someone?” Teresa finally asks.
“Well, not yet, but she had the gumption to try it, and she’s still trying.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You do know, Teresa, that some people get married from those sites.”
“So I’ve heard.” Teresa shifts in her chair, looks at her watch, and starts to pick up Flash.
“All right,” Flo says. “Let’s change the subject. And let’s us have some lemonade.”
Teresa hands the leash to Flo. “Now you’re talking. I’ll go and get it. I know where it is.”
When Teresa goes into the house, Flo pats her lap and the cat jumps into it.
Flo speaks quietly into one pointed ear.
“Work on her a little, will you?” She rocks a bit more and thinks of a friend who met up again with an old flame, just out of curiosity.
They had been a hot item in their twenties; now they were in their seventies.
They had lunch together and they had a nice time, though both of them had gone a little deaf and it was hard to hear each other.
But they had a nice time, and the friend told Flo that when they parted, they embraced, and she whispered into his ear, “We ain’t done with each other yet,” and he whispered back in a way that she described as fierce, “I know we ain’t.
” She won’t tell Teresa that story. She won’t talk any more about that kind of thing.
Not today. But, oh, what makes a person so shy as to not take something off the platter that life passes around to them?
Teresa bangs out onto the porch and offers Flo a glass of lemonade. She must see something in Flo’s face, because she smiles and says, “What.”
Flo looks up and shrugs. “Nothing. I am just an old woman wearing my Keds with red socks and an apron over my housedress and I am looking out onto this evening and my heart is full.”
Teresa leans over to put her hand over Flo’s. “I like you so, so much.”
“Ditto,” Flo says. “Who wouldn’t like you? Nobody, that’s who.”
—
A week later, when Teresa stops by, Flo says, “Teresa, I want to thank you for coming over here so often to visit with me.”
“I like talking with you. You know that.”
“But you’re checking up on me, too, aren’t you? I feel like I ought to pay you, Teresa. Can we agree upon a sum?”
“Flo. Please don’t insult me that way.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you! It just seems that I’m taking up your time same as your other clients but I’m not giving you enough in return.”
“Oh, Flo, you’re giving me so much in return. Your friendship, for one.”
All the friends Flo used to have are dead; she’s the last one standing, something she never would have predicted. Yet here again is a friend. Well, life keeps on being life, unendingly surprising.
“And because of you, Flo, I’ve made a new friend, too.”
Finally! Flo thinks. A man!
“Who?” Flo asks, trying unsuccessfully to sound casual.
“Mimi. The woman you met at the library. I went over and introduced myself, and we went out for lunch and talked about how if we were being honest, we didn’t think a dating site would ever work for either of us, ever. But we sure did like each other.”
“I guess I won’t get hired to be the host of The Dating Game.”
“Well, you’ll like this. I did go out on a date just yesterday. Just for coffee.”
“Isn’t that wonderful! Who is he? Where did you meet him?”
“I’ve known him for a while. He’s a cashier at the grocery store I go to.” She smiles. “He’s funny. And just…nice. We talk a lot whenever he rings me up; I always go to his line. So the other day he asked if we could have coffee. And we did.”
“Can you give me some juicy details?” Flo asks.
“Not really,” Teresa says, and she is staring hard into her lap.
“Well, you two take all the time you need. Seems to me the best relationships come when you can take your time. You just go at your own pace. Sooner or later, I hope you’ll—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Teresa says. “I don’t think we’ll really work out or anything.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“No, I liked him a lot. He has a parakeet named Zelda that he lets fly around his house. He said the bird knows where the crackers are and she always flies to that cupboard when she wants one. He cooks at a soup kitchen every Saturday. He just bought an electric bike, and he said he saved up for it in a Mason jar just like when he was a kid and saved up for his first Schwinn. Said he eschewed the bell this time, but he might get streamers. But…things just don’t last for me, Flo.
Sometimes it’s them, more often it’s me. I just end up…I just stop.”
“Why?”
“I guess I get disappointed. I end up thinking it’s better for me to be alone.”
Flo gets tight in the chest like she might even cry and says, “Oh, Teresa. Hasn’t your work taught you how very little time any of us has? And how much richer life is when—”
“My life is rich, Flo. Honestly! My work, my hobbies. My freedom! It seems that people never believe you can be fine alone, but you can be. Whenever I try to have a relationship, I find I have too many unrealistic expectations.”
“Like what?”
Teresa leans her head back onto the rocker and closes her eyes. “I ought to write scripts for Disney. I always want something wonderful to happen.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Sure you do. Yank out something deep in your heart that you wish he would do, and tell me what it is.”
“Okay. Well, I guess what I would love is if he would call me late at night and say ‘Don’t get dressed, just get ready for me to come by and pick you up in fifteen minutes.’ And then he would drive me out of town in my nightie and make me get out of his car and tell me to look at the stars and the immense black sky and then he would say, ‘I need all this room to hold the feelings I have for you. And have had, for a long time.’ ”
Teresa has been talking like she was in a dream, but now she seems to snap back into herself. “Good grief, I guess I’m under the influence of your romantic ways. What a dumb idea.”
“It’s not a dumb idea. I suggest you do it to him!”
Teresa points to herself and raises her eyebrows.
“Why not?” Flo asks. “Not everyone seems to know this but a lot of men like romantic things just as much as women do.”
“Huh.”
“They do!”
“Oh, all right, maybe I will.”
“Say you will for sure. Tonight!”
“But we’re going out again tonight. For Italian food.”
“All the better,” Flo says. “Do it tonight. After he drops you off at home, wait an hour and then call him and say what you told me. He will like it, I promise you. Who doesn’t like a romantic adventure?
Don’t think beyond it, don’t think what it means or will mean, just do it because it’s fun.
And then tell me what happens tomorrow, will you do that?
” Flo’s heart has begun beating like a jackrabbit’s.
She’d better calm down. She’d better lie down.
She leans forward and touches Teresa’s hand.
It’s such a small hand. She says, “Now look, Teresa, I hate to play this card, but it might be an old lady’s last wish.
” She starts coughing, as fake as can be, and Teresa laughs.
“I would look upon it as a favor,” Flo says, and Teresa says, “Oh, all right, I’ll do it, but I’m only going to show him the stars and not say anything else; those words I imagined him saying, that was just a flight of fancy.
It’s way too soon to think either one of us is anywhere near to saying such a thing. ”
“Oh?” Flo says. “Are you sure about that?”
“I’ll do what I said,” Teresa says, and Flo knows she will do it, too.
She’s one of those who if she says she’ll do it, no matter what it is, she’ll do it.
There aren’t a lot of people like that. And she doesn’t have to say any romantic words when she takes that fellow out into the night. The stars will talk for her.
After Flo comes into the house, she rests on the sofa before she goes upstairs.
Satisfaction lies within her like a curled-up cat, but Lordy, she’s tired.
She closes her eyes and thinks about Teresa and the cashier.
She hopes Teresa stops being so scared; that’s all it is, she is plum scared to risk having certain feelings.
But Flo hopes Teresa can tell that new man a tender thought or two and that he’ll hold them like he would a newborn.