Continued, Life A Love Story
Flo is standing at the bedroom window, her mind pleasantly vacant. There is the tree on the boulevard in front of her house, its leaves turning from side to side in the breeze like little boats in rough waters, and that is all. The green, the air, the day.
She looks at the empty street and a memory comes to her from long ago, a time when she knew everyone on the block.
Most people were her age—in her forties, then—and in summer kids ran all over the place from morning until the streetlights came on.
People seemed much happier then, and more giving.
More willing. They all watched the same three channels on television, and they all talked about who Jack Paar had had on his show the night before.
One summer Saturday, Flo and Terrence were sitting on the porch getting ready to go grocery shopping—Flo had just finished making out her list—when Terrence up and said something strange. He said, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you go out in the middle of the street and bark like a dog.”
Flo looked at him, her eyes little slits.
“You know I’m serious,” he said.
Flo sighed. He would do things like that sometimes, challenge her to do silly things for a reward of some sort.
Recently, when they’d gone to a park for a picnic on top of a gently sloping hill, he’d said, “If you roll down that hill real fast, I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.
” Flo had said, “It would have to be a hot fudge sundae,” and he offered his hand to shake on the deal, and so she did roll down the hill real fast and he did buy her a hot fudge sundae.
He had wanted to buy himself one, too, but Flo said no fair, he hadn’t done anything to earn it.
He said she was right and then looked at her all sad while she was eating so she gave him a good half of hers.
He was fun, Terrence! But on that day when he told her to bark like a dog, she thought he had gone a bit beyond the pale.
She looked out at the street. Ten dollars was not an insignificant amount.
She thought of a few things she could buy with it: cold cream, those new nylons that came in an egg—she wanted to try those.
She said, “All right, I’ll do it. I will.
But wait until nighttime so nobody can see me. ”
“Nope,” he said. “It has to be right now.”
Flo looked at the street again, blinked a few times, and then rose and walked outside.
In the middle of the street, she barked a few times—soft, yippy things—and then she started back for home.
One thing she wanted was a new lipstick; she might be able to get two.
But from the porch Terrence said, “Nope, it has to be louder so everyone can hear.”
Flo stopped walking, her hands on her hips. Then she walked back to the middle of the street and barked loudly: WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!
Children in the vicinity stopped playing and came over to stare. And then Edith Peterson came down from her front porch to stand on the curb, and she said, “Whatever are you doing, Flo?”
“Why, I’m standing in the middle of the street and barking like a dog.”
“What for?”
“Because Terrence told me if I did it, he’d give me ten dollars. So I’m doing it.”
Edith shaded her eyes and looked over at Flo’s porch. “If I do it, will he give me ten dollars, too?”
“Only one way to find out,” Flo said. She was beginning to have fun. This was much better than grocery shopping.
So Edith came over and stood next to Flo and started barking, and then here came Sally Bensen in her ruffly apron and Ed LaLonde in his battered old slippers and blue cardigan.
Next it was Paul and Betty Early, and Paul had actually stopped washing his car to join in and he never stopped washing his car once he’d started.
But they all just stood there barking and barking and then the little kids joined in, some of them howling like coyotes.
And then—Flo could hardly believe it—one of the adults put their arm around another and started a kick line and then they all did that, all except the little kids, who thought it might be more fun just to run around all the adults.
Oh, it was a funny thing. Fun and funny.
Someone came out and filmed them with a movie camera; Flo hopes that footage still exists somewhere, all of them so giddy and fully entertained by this impromptu event.
Flo doesn’t guess that kind of thing would happen now, everyone so busy and locked inside and kind of scared of each other.
Why, they would call the police now, if someone stood barking in the middle of the street.
People are too serious now, they’re all too serious and kind of sad.
Well, God bless them. Times are hard now, they are harder than they were before because people are so against each other.
Oh, may that come to change. And may it happen soon, before people forget how it can be.
She hears the phone ringing and goes down to the kitchen to answer it.
A strange thing happens on her way down the stairs: everything suddenly goes black and white.
No color. She blinks a few times—no change.
But then the color comes back. Huh, she thinks.
I wonder what that was. The body is ever a mystery.
When Flo answers the phone, it is Teresa asking if she can stop by.
“Of course,” Flo says. And then, “Do you have a cold?”
“No,” Teresa says.
“Well, then…are you crying?”
“Not now. I was.”
“Why?” Flo squeezes the phone cord. She hopes nothing has gone wrong with Jim.
“I’ll come over. I’ll tell you then.”
Flo heads for the rocker on the front porch, which seems to be her and Teresa’s favorite place for talking. Right away, she sees Teresa coming down the sidewalk, her head lowered.
”What happened?” Flo asks as Teresa climbs the steps.
Teresa sits down in the other rocker. “I just…I sat this morning with someone whose death was very hard for me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Flo says.
“You know, I try very hard to keep professional, to not let my personal feelings get in the way of my care. But sometimes I’m more affected than usual by someone’s passing, and this was one of those times.”
“Who was it?” Flo asks. “If you can tell me.”
“A little boy. He was seven. A brain tumor. I sat with him and his parents, and when his breathing changed and his mother knew it would be very soon, she took his face in her hands and she looked into his eyes and smiled at him. She thanked him for being their son and for giving their family so many beautiful things to remember. She said, ‘Thank you for being such a special you, we love you always, now and forever.’ Then she asked him did he want to go, and he nodded, and she did not cry, she just kept on smiling, and she said, ‘Okay, sweetheart, you can go, you go in joy, and we will all be okay. You will live in our hearts forever and we will be with you again.’ And then the dad came up and embraced him, and the boy closed his eyes and he was gone. The mother turned to me and she said, ‘Did you feel that? This was a holy moment.’ I told her, ‘Yes, it was.’ She said, ‘I swear I felt his soul rise. And I knew in that moment he had decided for himself, and in that way he had grown up after all.’ ”
Flo didn’t say anything for a long time, and then she said, “Honestly, Teresa. I don’t know how you do what you do.”
Teresa nodded. “I know a lot of people feel that way. And it’s hard to explain. But the rewards are so great. It was a holy moment, Flo.
“I just think…there are now and there always were and there always will be such difficult times in life. So difficult. For me, the way to come to terms is not to look away. And if I can help someone, besides…” She turns to Flo and her face is earnest.
“Thank you for letting me come over and talk to you. I thought it would help just to be with you, and it did help.”
She smiles one of those false bright smiles people do when they’re hurting, and then she says she’ll be right back.
When she returns, her face is all splotchy. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just needed to cry—again. So I went into your powder room and cried a little.”
“Well, that’s just fine,” Flo says. “I think it’s a sign of a good friendship if a person feels she can go into your powder room and cry, then come out and tell you that.
It sets the stage for her knowing that if she should feel teary-eyed again, why, go ahead and bust out crying right in front of your friend. It will only make you closer.
“Why is it, I wonder, that so often it’s our weaknesses make us closer?
A friend can brag on something good that happened and you can feel happy for them even though you might have to watch yourself for a smidge of jealousy.
But when they show a weakness, why there we are right there for them.
And that’s how I am for you: I’m right here. ”
“I know you are.” Teresa sits back in her chair and takes a good look at Flo. “Are you eating all right?”
“I am.”
It’s true that she sometimes only has cookies for dinner, but for heaven’s sake, what difference does it make now?
Teresa’s expression grows serious, almost stern. “And are you thinking positive thoughts?”
“I have always tried to do that.”
“What I mean is, are you still thinking specifically that you want to live?”
“Oh, I see,” Flo says.
“What?”
“You don’t want me to die, too. But Teresa, it’s different. I’m ninety-two. It’s time for me to die.”
“Not necessarily. People live past a hundred all the time these days.”
“I guess some do. But I’m not thinking about whether or not to live. I’m thinking about living.”
Teresa sighs. “I shouldn’t be putting any pressure on you to be any way at all. It’s just that we’ve only begun being friends, and I want you to…”
Flo lets a few seconds go by and then she puts her hand over Teresa’s.
“Why don’t we talk about my favorite subject?” she says. “Now. Are you and Jim in love?”
Teresa laughs. “Well, yesterday he asked if I would like to come to his house for dinner. He said he makes darned good chili, did I like chili? I said I did. And so he invited me for tonight and said to wear my best chili clothes. But I don’t know, Flo…”
Flo says, “What don’t you know?” And she is a little cranky because one thing gets her going is when people turn away the possibility of love, especially when they’re lonely, and Teresa is lonely, you can see it plain as day.
It’s just so odd how sometimes the loneliest people are the ones most scared of fixing that loneliness.
But then Teresa asks in a tiny voice, “What are chili clothes?”
“That’s what you’re worried about? Mercy, just wear your dungarees and wrap a kerchief cowgirl-style around your neck. Maybe some red lipstick and blue eyeshadow. And if you like the chili, say, ‘Why, this is slap your pappy chili!’ ”
“That might be fun,” Teresa says, and Flo can see her eyes commence to twinkle. But then she says, “He is starting to go bald quite a bit in the back.”
“Have a good time with him!” Flo says. “And tell me everything that happens, unless it’s too personal. Although if it is personal, I might pay attention better. I like hearing details so personal they make you stop chewing.”
Teresa looks at her watch and says she’d best be going, she has to visit some more clients.
“Hold on,” Flo says, and she gets up and goes into her bathroom for her rosewater bathing solution.
When she returns to the porch, a little out of breath, she hands the bottle to Teresa.
“Here,” she says, “you take a bath in this before you put on your chili clothes.” She plops back down in her chair.
“This is brand new!” Teresa says, and Flo says, “I have more. Now, listen to me: if you take a bath in this he will be crazed by desire.”
“Ha ha,” Teresa says, but she is all serious.
“Ha ha,” Flo says back, just as serious.
Teresa starts down the steps, but then she turns around. “Can I come and see you tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here,” Flo says, and hopes it’s true.
She stares out at the street, but she doesn’t see it.
She sees instead the bluebonnets she grew up with in Texas, the piercing beauty of them.
She sees the breeze moving through willow trees like it’s combing the trees’ hair.
She hears her mother calling her home; her mother used to stand out on the back stoop and bang her wooden spoon against a saucepan, and didn’t Flo come a-running like there’d be something new when she got there.
There was never anything new. Only a bath with the floating Ivory and then clean pajamas, same as always.
Still, the call to home. The turning back of bedclothes to receive a tired body, that last letting go before sleep.
She wonders if there’s anyone else who feels a communion of spirit as they are drifting off, if anyone else feels what you might call a presence helping to persuade you into rest. Not that Flo ever needed much persuasion.
She has always gone gladly into sleep, for the promise of the new day.
It’s funny, Flo thinks. All of us waking up every morning ignorant of all that may befall us.
Befall or enrich or enlighten or who knows what.
It’s no surprise to her that especially as she got older she began to feel more acutely the need to be careful.
As if you could control anything. Life was a bucking bronco.
If you got on to ride, you took your chances.
She thinks about Teresa getting ready to go to Jim’s house for dinner, and she hopes with all her heart that it goes well.
She wants so much for Teresa to understand that the love in the world is for her, too.
She wishes she could give her a kind of confidence she doesn’t think Teresa has ever had; she wishes she could give her that, same as handing over a plate full of food: Here. Take it.
So much of a person’s life can be bound up with trying to get things, when it turns out that the best thing is giving, and Flo doesn’t think she did enough of that in her life.
Sometimes it was just pure laziness, sometimes ignorance, but mostly, she realizes now, it was a kind of doubt that she should give something: a gift, kind words, an offer to help.
What if that help wasn’t wanted? What if she was seen as interfering?
What a foolish fear! She wishes more than anything else that in these last days she can give something.
You got to give. It’s like miniature stars thrown over your shoulder: little pieces of light that can land and change the atmosphere, even if you don’t see it happen.
You got to try. She wishes she had been bolder in this life.
Maybe she should have on her tombstone: Here lies a shy woman ever in love with the world. She should have shown it more.