"The Dance of Romance" a short story by David Appleby

"The Dance of Romance"

a short story by

David Appleby

Other Short Stories by David Appleby on The Reading Life

Author Bio

Author Bio: 

David Appleby is the author of "Moon Alley," a novel written in the form of connected stories and cited by an amazon.com's 'top 10 reviewer as "a solidly unique voice...and a highly recommended first novel," and was praised by 'Book View Ireland' for its "pleasing symmetry of structure and convincingly drawn picture of a once-thriving area."

His new book is titled, "Love Sketches," a collection of short stories which explores the "sensuality of romance and the varieties and vagaries of love." One of the stories in this collection has been anthologized in "Short Breaks: The Very Best of Shortbread Short Stories," published by Discovery Press, Scotland. It has also been recorded as an audio narrated by the distinguished British actor, Paul Jerricho.
The author, a recipient of a PEW Fellowship, is a graduate of Temple University

"The Dance of Romance"

by David Appleby

I pulled my white tank top over my head, wiggled my arms through without a problem, and reached into the dresser for the alphabetical list that I had been updating as needed. I had created an alphabetical list of my medical conditions and made it a point to periodically review the list, hoping to remove a condition or disease, not add one. Thus far I’ve only added to the list; it appears at this point in my life only time is subtracted. We learn late in life that life has always been about time—not wealth, not status, not prestige—simply time, nothing more than that. Of course that’s a rather profound insight, but then again I am a professor of English Literature.

I unfolded my legal-sized sheet and sighed hopelessly. A=arthritis (both thumbs); B=BHP(enlarged prostate gland); C=cholesterol (high) D=dry eye (severe); E=erectile dysfunction (hopeless); F=blank space; G=blank space; H=hernia (double); I=intermittent claudication (both legs), and so on for six more letters of the alphabet. I had nothing new to add on this particular morning so I dropped the depressing document on top of my short stack of clean underwear and closed the dresser drawer. My despair level remains where it was yesterday, I told myself, pretending that was a net gain for the day.

And then the most remarkable thing happened. I looked at my reflection in the dresser mirror and in a moment or two I realized for the first time that I bore a distinct resemblance to Pablo Picasso. Despite my fears of melanoma, I had attended a baseball game yesterday and sat in the sun for the full nine innings. I awoke with a deep tan, and now with this white tank top, well, I think this is what has caused me to notice that I seriously resembled Picasso!

I interpreted this sudden revelation to be my new lease on life, a small gift of time that had come my way. I’ll explain what I mean by this a bit later.

Of course, I had a basic knowledge of Picasso, the artist. But in past research for an essay on American ex-pat writers living in post-war France, I had also learned much about Picasso, the man. Few American writers living in

Europe over the decades did not seek out Picasso, and for good reason. What I had learned was that he had been throughout his life the ultimate seducer of women. And the truth was Pablo Picasso wasn’t a happy man unless he was in love and this became the second revelation I had while looking into the mirror. I was not a happy man. Like Picasso, I needed to be in love to be happy. I needed a romance. I needed the ‘dance of romance,’ as I called it, that sweet prelude to love.

I had seen numerous photographs of Picasso during my research, and I do not exaggerate when I tell you that I more than merely resembled him—bald on top, a ring of white hair along the sides and back of my head, a white, tank-top undershirt, and a solid set of dentures, my glowing, deep tan—I had become, at age seventy, a dead ringer for the great man. I examined my profile, left and right, and then my full face; I tried a gleeful expression; I affected a sad, doggy-eyed look, and then a look of surprise. I studied my clean shaven face, my rather large ears, and my mischievous eyes. I practiced Picasso’s sly smile that I remembered from one of the photos that he had taken with Jacqueline . . . or was it Françoise Gilot? Ah, yes, it was Marie Therese! Yes, deep into his seventies, Picasso continued to be romantically involved with a beautiful girl. Throughout his life Picasso continued the romantic dance that led to his love liaisons with beautiful young women. What a man! I beamed.

I knew then and there that I would use my Picasso resemblance to bring the girls a bit closer. This is what I meant by gaining a new lease on life: as Picasso did in his later years, so would I: I would see to it that from this moment forward, time (my old age) would be irrelevant vis-à-vis the lovely, young things to whom I had become invisible.

* * *

As a young Assistant Professor I had been known as the faculty Casanova—though fortunately, as a young man I in no way resembled that gruesome figure. No, I was given that moniker by several of my colleagues who were convinced that I had been bedding my TA graduate students two-at-a-time throughout my career. This was of course, untrue. And though I permitted my scandalous reputation to gain strength over the years, I nevertheless received my promotions, and not too many years after I had published several important papers on the Victorian Poets—to say nothing of my numerous conference appearances, and a book that brought serious attention to the department and the college—I was rewarded with tenure. A few retirements later, one or two deaths of senior faculty, and my Department Chairmanship was tendered. From that day to this, I haven’t published a thing—in fact, I haven’t written a damn word in years, though most of my

colleagues continue to believe that I’m still deep into completing a major re-interpretation of Tennyson. (The very partial manuscript rests in the bottom desk drawer in my office.)

Yes, I diligently promoted the illusion that I was still an important scholar, and not yet over the hill, not merely hanging on. I was rather good at playing this game, a game which is played in every college in America by at least one professor who should have retired years ago to make room for new blood. And with equal skill, I had successfully perpetuated the fraud that my Casanova reputation was yet valid. About five years ago pretty much everyone caught on to both lies, and now at age 70 I find myself one semester away from forced retirement. With the girls, I too had become an invisible man, another elderly man drowning in a sea of youth.

* * *

I drove to the Gap and bought a French sailor’s T-shirt, wide rimmed at the throat, with blue and white horizontal stripes. I looked in the dressing room mirror and swooned at my Picasso pose, assured that I was back in business. I would pose like Picasso, be as confidant as Picasso, and wear typical Picasso-type clothes; I would bring my acting skills—all professors are actors, you know—to my late afternoon graduate seminar in the American Novel, 1950-1970.

* * *

I deliberately walked the campus mall from one end to the other, pausing at those key spots where the female students congregated, but despite my new look, no heads turned to ‘check me out,’ as the saying goes. I stopped at the bell tower, the gathering place for the girls from the School of Dance, and as before, not one looked my way. I bought a latte at Starbucks and received my change with the usual indifference. I practiced my Picasso pose—head tilted close to the shoulder, my thick lips slightly parted, eyes glistening (thanks to Visine’s Dry Eye Relief), and allowed for wisps of white chest hairs to poke over my French sailor’s T-shirt. Still there were no takers.

True, I had grown accustomed to being invisible on campus; let’s face it: a university campus, like all of life, exists for the young. What I wanted was one last chance to push the pause button; I knew my alphabetical list was destined to grow—today, tomorrow, each new day threatened me. At seventy you simply ratchet your thoughts back to the past, for you have so little of a future; each time I reviewed my alphabetical list, I became consumed waiting for the other shoe to drop.

* * *

Her name was Ginger Clarkson, my twenty-three year old, comely, and achingly desirable teaching assistant. In my prime, Ginger and I surely would have been scandalously linked, the subject of gossip and whispers hidden behind hands held close to the mouth: “Did you hear that she and Professor . . . what’s his name, in the Eng. Lit Dept?”

Ginger had English-major written all over her—precisely the type of girl that I had been drawn to throughout my career; the lovely graduate student so star-struck, and eager to be made ‘authentic’ by a short, torrid affair with her brilliant professor-mentor. It’s a story that is so utterly trite, it barely merits mention. What does, however, is this: a study of literature is not exactly a healthy thing for a young woman—in fact, I believe that some warning label should be attached to the course of study, perhaps one similar to that given to cigarettes: Caution: Literature can be hazardous to your health. It has been known to cause depression, misery, and the long term malaise associated with romanticism. This warning should have been tattooed to Ginger’s forehead.

Ginger had acquired her mournful expression from the tragic Victorian novels she had devoured as an undergraduate, and it handsomely complimented her strikingly wistful personality. Her soft brown eyes had enslaved me from the start, and yes, that was a factor in my offering her a teaching assistantship. I flirted with her from that first day, but to no avail. Once my conditions, ailments, and diseases had grown to include the letter P= (pacemaker), I simply gave up my efforts to bring truth to my phony Casanova-like reputation. And yet, despite my age and health realities, I always felt in my heart that my Ginger was, for me, that incredible rarity: an NVN woman. (NVN=No Viagra Needed.)

Yes, I was ready to reclaim my long-lost reputation, and end my campus invisibility. I hurried to the classroom, convinced that my Picasso moment was near.

I arrived at my seminar to find Ginger standing at the door. She wore her familiar dark blue skirt that dropped at her knees; my breath quickened as I drank in her slender legs, her small breasts, her lazy bedroom eyes. She lifted her thin, sleeveless arm and pointed to the classroom. My students were inside reading, comparing notes, chatting on cell phones, dozing. Several students turned and looked my way, and with familiar indifference and insouciance, returned to their secretive texting.

“We thought you were going to bag it today,” Ginger said, lowering her vanilla arm. “They thought,” she indicated the students with a lovely toss of her head, “that you were ill again.”

I held my head to the side, grinned, and willed my wet dark eyes to dance.

“What kind of get up is that?” she asked, pointing to my French sailor’s T-shirt, my baggy shorts, and my sandaled feet. Like Picasso, I wore no socks.

I looked her up and down with deliberate slowness. If I had a cigarette, I would have lighted it, and then passed it to her. “You know, I always feel good when you’re around,” I said softly. I watched her eyes move down to my baggy, khaki shorts. “I like being with you, being near to you.” I paused, as required. I reached into my repertoire of some years ago. “I must confess, I continue to be drawn to you, to this . . . underlook that you possess. So French, it’s kind of . . . well, I find it intoxicating.” I tried to remember where I had read that—a short story . . . but the author? I became momentarily distracted by my own senior moment. She raised her arms from her sides, turned her hands palms up.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Come on, Ginger, how can you fail to see the resemblance?” I asked.

“What resemblance? What are you talking about?” she asked. Her forehead grew creases.

“I bare a distinct resemblance to someone you must recognize,” I said. “Think.”

A moment passed. And then another. Finally she said, “You look like the guy who drives the ice-cream truck. Sells Popsicles and frozen chocolate bars at the corner of Benton Hall. He wears something just like that,” she said, pointing to my French T-shirt. I detected her snicker, quick and short, but a snicker no less.

“Do me a favor,” I said as my pacemaker kicked in. “Take today’s class.”

* * *

I returned to my office to pick up my unfinished, dust-covered manuscript on Tennyson. On the way to the faculty parking lot I looked at the girls lolling about the bell tower. I circled in front of one Amazon army of gabbing cell phone users who moved swiftly into the student service center; I sidestepped a clot of four girls enthralled by a tale being told by a fifth that included multiples of, ‘So like, I’m standing behind him, and like, I’m like, ‘Do you have Polly-Sy with Dr. Tillson?’ And he’s like, ‘Who?’ I’m like, Duh.’

And as I walked by the library a group of students congregating on the steps turned around and looked at me. I slowed my pace, expecting some giggles or even outright ridicule. Instead one girl smiled at me and said, “Excuse us for starring at you, but did anyone ever tell you that you look at lot like Henry Miller?”

An annoying rushing noise swept into my right ear. “I’m sorry?” I said. And as I turned slightly so that my left side was closer to her, she repeated what she had said.

I hesitated—almost began to stutter—before answering, “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I get that all the time.” I walked closer to her. I read the spine of one the paperbacks she was holding: ‘Quiet Days in Clichy.’ I took note of her name tag ID that hung from a yanard.

“I’m majoring in Eng. Lit.,” she offered.

“Are you? Well, I’m happy to know that. Let me introduce myself.”

I walked her to her next class, and on the way, told her I’d be delighted to look at her paper on Henry Miller. Delighted, I repeated, simply delighted.

The moment I got home I Googled Henry Miller; (1891-1980), aged 88 when he died. His picture showed a ring of white hair, large ears, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. Another photo showed him playing pool with several bikini-wearing starlets. I looked in the mirror for a few moments. I removed the French sailor’s shirt, and put on a clean white shirt, and as Miller had in the photo, left the collar unbuttoned and combed my gray chest hairs upward. I studied my reflection. I was a man possessed with a new found happiness, a man reborn. I studied the new me for the longest time. “Yes, I do,” I told my reflection. “Yes, I do bear a resemblance to Henry!” I shouted out happily. I knew at once I had been given still another new lease on life. I could be back in the game. I could be doing the dance of romance with . . . what’s her name. “Oh, God, what did she say her name was? Damn these senior moments!”

I dropped the Tennyson pages into my bottom desk drawer and kicked it closed.

Happily, I removed the alphabetical list from my underwear drawer. I ran my finger down the page to the letter T. And there I entered: T=Tinnitus, (right ear, day & night.)

“Who cares?” I told the mirror. “I’m back in the dance,” I shouted. And then I slipped the list of ailments beneath my underwear and with newly found purpose, happily slammed the drawer closed.

End of Guest Post

My great thanks to David Appleby for allowing me to share this wonderful story with my readers.  I enjoyed this story a lot.   It is a very interesting commentary on human vanity.  And it is not really flattering to be told you look like Henry Miller.

I will, I hope, be posting more of his stories soon.

Mel u

"Give and Take" a short story by David Appleby

Today I am very happy to be able to share with my readers a very powerful short story by David Appleby

"Give and Take"

a short story by

David Appleby

Author Bio

Author Bio: 

David Appleby is the author of "Moon Alley," a novel written in the form of connected stories and cited byamazon.com's 'top 10 reviewer, Grady Harp,' (Los Angeles) as "a solidly unique voice...and a highly recommended first novel," and was praised by 'Book View Ireland' for its "pleasing symmetry of structure and convincingly drawn picture of a once-thriving area."

His new book is titled, "Love Sketches," a collection of short stories which explores the "sensuality of romance and the varieties and vagaries of love." One of the stories in this collection has been anthologized in "Short Breaks: The Very Best of Shortbread Short Stories," published by Discovery Press, Scotland. It has also been recorded as an audio narrated by the distinguished British actor, Paul Jerricho.
The author, a recipient of a PEW Fellowship, is a graduate of Temple University

 

When Channel 6 interrupted her soap opera to forecast a flood warning for parts of the Philadelphia viewing 
area, she didn’t do what she always did whenever such bulletins were issued. She didn’t pick up her baby and the baby bag containing bottles, formula, diapers, and numerous jars of Gerber’s baby food, and hurry over to her mother-in-law’s house around the corner, at the top of the avenue. This time the Channel 6 weather girl’s tone and gloomy maps had frightened her. This time she ran down into the basement and began stuffing rags and old bath towels on the window sills and open spaces where the outer wall met the floor.
It was mid-afternoon when the rain finally arrived, a heavy, pounding rain that quickly flooded the debris-clogged sewers and storm drains. The water rose above the gutters, and up onto the sidewalks in no time at all, and proceeded to inch its way to the cracked, red-brick walls of the small row houses just off the avenue. By the time he had gotten home from work his wife had already worried for hours that water might be rising in the basement. She worried about how they would now have to pay a plumber to pump the rainwater from the basement of their tiny row home.
But the first thing she said to him as he walked in the front door was: “Did you cash your paycheck?” And before he could answer, she followed with another question: “Did you buy money-orders for the overdue bills?”
“Sure I did,” he says. “I took care of it. I did it just like you said. I mailed the bills right then and there from the post office. I did it just like you told me.”
“I hope you didn’t forget to put the money-orders in the envelopes?” she asks.
“No, I put the right money-order in the right envelope along with the right bill,” he tells her. And to ease her worry, he explains how he did it.
“Give me the money-order receipts,” she says. And then, matter-of-factly, she mentions that she hadn’t gone over his mother’s house. She doesn’t tell

him why. Instead, she tells him not to go upstairs and disturb the baby who has finally fallen asleep.
He can see that she is having a case of the nerves. It’s the way she moves around the kitchen. From the sink to the cabinets to the refrigerator to the gas range, everything she touches she touches with jittery hands. She grabs for a pan, fumbles with it until it drops to the floor.
“I’m really agitated today,” she tells him.
He moves quickly, gets to the pan before she does, and says that she should slow down. “It’s a Friday,” he reminds her, “the end of the week.”
“One day is no different for me than the next,” she says. Her voice begins to crack.
“Why don’t we go over to McFadden’s Saloon tonight? he asks. He waits for her response, but when none is offered he calmly adds that the guys from work are taking their wives to McFadden’s tonight.
“They say that there is a nice little band that plays Irish music the whole night long. We could have a couple of beers and a pizza, or cheese-steak sandwich. Whatever you like,” he adds. He remembers to tell her that they could get in a little dancing. He tells her this exactly the way he had practiced it. Word for word, the way he had said it in his head on the way home from work.
She stares at him as though he has gone crazy on her. “What’s wrong with you?” She makes it sound like a question, but he knows she doesn’t mean it as a question. This is what she always says when she is about to start in on him. “Like, what I am supposed to do with the meat I’m defrosting?” she tells him. He knows this too is not a question.
But he answers her last remark as though it is. “We can eat our dinner here as usual, and then later tonight we can go over to McFadden’s for a couple of beers. My mother will watch the baby. I’ll call her now, if you want. It’ll do us both good to get out for a change,” he says.
“And like what should we do about the water that’s sure to be rising in the basement? I’m afraid to go down and look. She looks at the door to the basement, but doesn’t move from the kitchen counter.
He doesn’t go down to the basement, though he knows she would want him to. Instead, he walks to the parlor window and looks out at the brightening sky. “It’s barely drizzling,” he says. “Come look, he says with a forced laugh. The sun is coming out.” When she doesn’t join him in the parlor, or answer him, he calls to her again. “The water is rolling off the sidewalk and back into the gutter,” he shouts into the kitchen. “The sewers are taking the water. The water’s not even on our sidewalk. Come and look.”
But she does not go into the parlor. And she does not say a word from the kitchen.

He returns to the kitchen telling her again that they can get in some dancing. “It’ll be fun at McFadden’s. Everybody from work will be there tonight,” he repeats. “All the wives are going to be there tonight.” He opens the door leading to the basement and descends the creaking stairs. “Dry as a bone,” he yells up to her. And when he reenters the kitchen he repeats that the basement floor is as dry as a bone.
“This is just great,” she says. “This is just typical,” she tells him. “You want to go out carousing and boozing with your precious friends from work while we’ve got nothing but bills coming out of our ears.” She tells him this with her back turned to him, her eyes fixed on the meat that she had placed in the sink.
He knows the tone of her voice, knows that he should not respond, but does nonetheless. He says that he wasn’t planning on carousing and boozing, he just wanted to have a few beers with the guys from work. And to do some dancing. “Just to get out for once,” he says sharply. “That’s all.”
But she does not answer. He lowers his voice and says again that all the wives will be there. “A couple of beers after working all week, it’s no big deal,” he tells her.
Her attention is still on the meat in the sink. So he walks over to her and puts his hand on her shoulder and then lets his fingers slip down to her bare arm. He turns his hand over and lets his knuckles slide further down the inside of her arm. When their fingers meet he laces his into hers and whispers, “Come on. It’ll be fun. We can dress up a bit. Get us out for a few hours to do some dancing. All the wives are going to be there.”
“Easy for you to say,” she says sternly. She uncouples their fingers, pulls away from him. His hand drops from her wrist when she pulls away to reach for a dishrag. She pushes the rag across the sides of the sink, leaves it beneath the faucet to catch the dripping water, and suddenly grips the kitchen counter-top with both hands. She begins to rock back and forth, catching her breath. She is pressing her fingertips against the countertop with such force that her fingertips and fingernails turn pink.
Now what, he wonders?
“I wrack my brain day in and day out trying to figure out how to make the bills,” she says. “It’s up to me to figure out how to make ends meet. I have to figure out what to tell the bill collectors. I actually disguise my voice when they telephone their threats about how they’re going to repossess one thing or another.
“And then you walk in all bubbly and excited because it’s Friday, and all of your friends are going carousing and boozing. And we should just pick ourselves up and go along just like that. You come home and in five minutes you’re prepared to ruin my budget and everything else with it,” she says. “My

whole budget for the entire week gets ruined because you want to spend money carousing and boozing with your work-buddies. “You’ve got a case of beer in the house for that,” she snaps.
“Honey,” he says, “it’s a couple of bucks, is all. Ten dollars, not more, for the two of us to have a night out dancing. We can swing that, he says. I know we can. And it’s not just the guys I work with. All of the wives will be there, I told you.”
But it’s as though he has never mentioned the wives. She starts in again on his work-buddies. She tells him that his work buddies stop in at McFadden’s every day after work. She tells him that she knows that they are always late for dinner. “Do you know that they are short on the paycheck every Friday for what they owe McFadden for a week’s worth of drinking? Well, do you?”
This time he knows that she means these to be questions. And that she expects him to apologize again. Instead he asks her why she’s bringing that up. “You know I don’t do any of that anymore. I’m home right after work. No stops. No short paycheck on Friday. I told you I won’t do that anymore, and I don’t. I don’t care what they do.”
It’s as though what he has just said went in one ear and out the other, he thinks. She simply goes on, not swayed to his side one bit, he realizes. She reaches up to the top of the refrigerator where she keeps the mail. She pulls down a stack of envelopes held together by a thick rubber band. She waves the package of bills before his face. “Look at these,” she says. “This is what I deal with every day of the week.”
She removes the rubber band and throws it onto the counter-top. She shuffles the envelopes, one behind the other as she announces the contents without looking.
“Sears, $467.00 balance. All of it overdue, but they’ll take $28.00 a month. And J.C. Penny, we owe $877. Three payments past due, and we only bought the bedroom set four months ago. How about Wal-Mart,” she says. “They only got half a payment last month.” Her voice breaks and he watches the tears well in her eyes. He sees that she knows all of this without taking the statements from their envelopes. She’s memorized all of this, he tells himself.
He tells her quietly that they will all be paid, eventually. “You have to admit that,” he adds, hoping to soothe her. “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” you know. “It’s what everybody else does around here.”
She begins to cry. “We’re supposed to make these payments, plus the gas and electricity. And what about the telephone,” she asks. It’s back to the questions that only sound like questions but aren’t true questions, he tells himself
“They can see that we’re trying to pay our bill,” he says timidly. “All the stores know we’re making an effort,” he says. Her tears hurt him. He moves toward her, intent on comforting her. He doesn’t want to see her like this, he tells her.

He reaches for her hand, but she moves her hand away, and lifts the meat from the sink. She turns her back to him, and cradles the meat, sobbing. He takes a step toward her, whispers her name, and tells her not to cry. After she lowers the meat onto a tray in the sink, she spins around, and with both hands raised, tells him to not come any closer. “I got plenty to cry about,” she shouts at him.
“The monthly payments have to be paid from this paycheck,” she reminds him. “Like, we’re behind on everything this month. And what about the gas and electric? What about the telephone bill? We’re already behind on our telephone because you had the big idea to call your sister for her birthday instead of sending her a card. I asked you to send her a Hallmark. But no. Maybe she and her big deal husband can afford long-distance calls, but we can’t. A long distance call,” she says, shaking her head. Her voice chokes with sobs. “And you had to talk to her forever instead of just wishing her a happy birthday and hanging up before the phone bill ran up”.
He walks back to the kitchen window. He lights a cigarette.
She asks him if he has any idea at all what it will cost to pump the water from the basement. “Because,” she follows-up, “you were too cheap to go in partners with the other neighbors for that sump-pump.”
“It’s not raining anymore,” he says. “The basement is as dry as a bone.” No, it was you, he tells himself, it was you who didn’t want to lay out the money for the sump-pump. How many times will we get to use it, you said over and over. Because of you, he tells himself, because of you we’re the only house on our end of the block that didn’t chip in for the sump-pump.
“Did you say something just now” she demands? “This is just like you. This is typical,” she shouts from the sink. “I bet you’re blaming me again for that sump-pump business. Do you want to know something? I’ll tell you something. You leave this house every morning with a good breakfast in your belly and a full lunch under your arm. And then you come home to a hot meal, and a clean house, and clean clothes, and a kid who’s taken care of morning, noon, and night. You just take it all for granted. You act like it’s the easiest, most natural thing in the world. It’s like with all that I do you act like you’ve got it coming to you or something.” Her voice is cracking again. He turns to see her eyes fill with new tears. He sees that the expression on her face has turned from hopelessness to anger. He wonders what will come next. Will she throw something, he wonders?
“And what do I get for it? Like, you don’t care what I have to put up with. The aggravation. The phone calls from the creditors. All the bills. The letters threaten us, and say that they are going to do this, and do that to us if we don’t pay our bills on time.
“Do you know what the man from the second-hand store said to me? The man went and told me, ‘Lady you’re going to be washing your clothes in

the Delaware River if I don’t get that payment on Friday.’ He’s going to send the truck to repossess the washing machine. And then he says, in the future I better not look for credit from anybody. Future? What future? That’s what I wanted to say to him. What future?
The tears spill from her eyes, and roll down her face. She wipes her cheeks with the back of one hand, holds a can of DelMonte peas in the other.
“You don’t care,” she tells him through her sobs.
“But I do care,” he says. “You know I do.”
“My God,” she says, still crying. “Sears. J.C. Penny. Wal-Mart. The gas. The electric. And now the extra telephone bill because you had to call your sister long distance. We can’t even pay the rent in full,” she says.
She’s shaking. And she screams out how sick of it she is. “I’m goddamn sick of this, month after month,” she screams. “Sick of it. Sick of it all.”
And then there is the longest silence.
She wipes her face, but new tears flood her eyes.
Finally he says in his quiet way that he thought she’d enjoy getting out a little. “You always say that we never go anywhere,” he says.
She doesn’t say anything to this.
He watches her wipe her eyes with a paper towel. She stares into the sink saying nothing at all. She pokes her forefinger into the defrosting meat packet. She sprinkles it with meat tenderizer, pounds it with the bottom of a juice glass, and then swiftly opens the oven door with her free hand. She slides the tray of meat beneath the broiler, closes the door, and turns toward him.
She accepts the cigarette he has lighted for her. “We don’t have to go,” he tells her. “It was just an idea. It’s the end of the week. You know, a Friday after working all week. That’s all it really was,” he adds with a false laugh. “It was nothing, really. No big deal.”
He reaches for her thin pale arm and this time she does not move away. After a moment she takes a paper napkin from the holder, and blows her nose. He puts his arm around her shoulder and she responds by leaning into him. Her head comes to rest against his chest. They stay like this for a moment before she moves from him and edges toward the stove. He returns to the window.
She tells him again how hard it is for her to make it on his salary. She tells how she has to scrape and scratch to make ends meet. The bills come in week after week. The end of the month is the worst, she tells him. There’s no let up. No let up at all, she tells him again. She says this in a voice that is now soft, calm, and even. She has stopped crying.
She holds out the can of peas for him to open. “There’s no let up,” she says again.
He helps her set the table.
“It’s all on my shoulders,” she says at the kitchen table.

“I think you can forget about buying your uncle’s Chevy. Not until the color TV and refrigerator are paid off,” she says very business like.
“Do you know that we still have six more payments on the refrigerator? After all this time,” she reminds him, “we still have six payments left.
“If only you brought home a little more in your paycheck. Like, if you could get a raise. Or more overtime. Maybe get some more overtime.”
She begins to cut the piece of meat she has placed on his dinner plate. She cuts the meat into bite size pieces, and then pushes the pieces to one side of the plate to make room for the peas. “Do you want me to leave the skin on your potato?” she asks.
He empties the bowl of steaming peas onto their dinner plates, putting more on her plate than his own. He steps to the sink and kisses her cheek. He squeezes her shoulder. He does both without saying a word. She takes the baked potatoes from the oven, and cuts them down the center before moving them to the table. She makes an island on each dinner plate, and places the baked potatoes in the open space.
The early evening sun streaks through the kitchen window and onto the table where they are eating their dinner.
“Is it good?” she asks him.
“It tastes great,” he answers. “The meat is tender as can be.” He makes sounds that tell her that he is enjoying the meal.
“I made Jell-O,” she says. “It’s in the ‘fridge.”
“Really?” he says. He wears a smile big enough to make her smile.
“I have a can of Cool Whip behind the milk carton,” she tells him.
He notices that her eyes hold a sparkle. And as he eats the last bite of the meat she has cut for him he guesses that in the two and a half years that they have been married he has heard her complaints about the bills and the lack of money at least fifty times over. He has heard her tell about the bill collectors who tell her she has not paid this bill and that bill on time. He has seen her cry when she tells how they threaten to repossess their furniture. He has watched her tremble and cry when she tells him these things. He’s heard her tell how it’s all on her shoulders. He’s heard her say that she can’t take it anymore. About fifty times over he has heard her tell him these things.
He remembers that he had heard his mother tell his father these same things. He had heard these same stories from his mother’s lips at least a hundred times, he tells himself. And he remembers that he had heard this same story told by his neighbors and by his friends. He realizes that this story is being told in every kitchen on every block in the neighborhood. And in every kitchen a wife will tell her husband that he has to do better. He’ll be told to ask for overtime. He’ll be told that he has to get a raise so that she can manage the bills better.

She looks up from her plate and tells him that she is sorry about tonight. She tells him she would love to go to McFadden’s, but they simply can’t afford to spend any money this month. “My budget is down to the penny,” she says calmly. And then she says he was sweet to ask her along. “But there has to be give and take in a marriage. “After all, that’s what it’s all about,” she says.
He reaches into the fridge and passes her the can of Cool Whip for her Jell-O. He takes a can of beer for himself.
“You’re right,” he tells her. “There has to be give and take in a marriage.” He drinks the can of beer in two long swallows. He takes a second, and a third can from the fridge and opens each before he sits down.
He drinks the second beer a bit more slowly this time. He watches as she shakes the Cool Whip can vigorously, and then presses her forefinger against the nozzle shooting a spiral cone of white over her Jell-O. He tells her again that she’s right. “There has to be give and take in a marriage,” he repeats. “Everybody knows that. Even a dumb guy like me, he adds,” laughing.
She laughs along with him. And then she feeds him a spoonful of Jell-O topped with a generous portion of Cool Whip. He swallows it and smiles at her. She licks the spoon before offering him more.
Beneath the table his jittery fingers squeeze the empty beer can until it is twisted out of shape and crushed into the palms of his calloused hands.


End of Guest Post

End of Guest Post

Love Sketches on Amazon

Appleby's blog is HERE and is very interesting.  

I will be posting in the next few weeks a number of additional stories by the author and am greatly honored to be allowed to share these wonderful stories with my readers.   I will also do one of my "normal" posts on some of his longer stories.

Again my thanks to David,

Mel u

"Grave Yard of Romance" a short story by David Appleby

Today I am very happy to publish another wonderful short story by David Appleby.   Today's story captures in just a few pages a story that is almost an elegy to a marriage.   It is a very moving story about the endurance of love and of passion, even when the people involved have transformed radically.  

You can read another of his wonderful stories here.  

"The Grave Yard of Romance"

a short story by

David Appleby

Author Bio

Author Bio: 

David Appleby is the author of "Moon Alley," a novel written in the form of connected stories and cited byamazon.com's 'top 10 reviewer, Grady Harp,' (Los Angeles) as "a solidly unique voice...and a highly recommended first novel," and was praised by 'Book View Ireland' for its "pleasing symmetry of structure and convincingly drawn picture of a once-thriving area."

His new book is titled, "Love Sketches," a collection of short stories which explores the "sensuality of romance and the varieties and vagaries of love." One of the stories in this collection has been anthologized in "Short Breaks: The Very Best of Shortbread Short Stories," published by Discovery Press, Scotland. It has also been recorded as an audio narrated by the distinguished British actor, Paul Jerricho.
The author, a recipient of a PEW Fellowship, is a graduate of Temple University

"The Grave Yard of Romance"

She watched her husband slowly form a letter in the square and then another and another, and then he paused as if thinking, but she knew he was not thinking; she knew he was frozen, practically catatonic, the pencil locked between his gnarled, arthritic fingers that ceased to function at the fourth empty square of the Sports Today crossword puzzle. She thought to say something to him; she thought she should make an attempt to thaw him from his frozenness, but she thought better of it. It was too late for that she knew, for he had simply shut down, mentally and physically. It would pass, she told herself, as it always did though she realized his inertness had begun to last for longer periods of time than when she first noticed his vacant gaze, his longer silences, his immobility.
She waved the waiter to the table. “May I have another glass of Pinot Noir, please?” She reached up and placed her hand on the young man’s arm. “And will you bring another cup of coffee for my husband?” She smiled at him as she said this, and allowed her fingers the smallest lateral movement along his arm. Several minutes later her husband took a deep breath and looked up as if waking from a brief nap. She watched as he returned to his crossword without a word, and felt that he was uninterested in his surroundings and unaware of his brief escape to the placid terrain of old age; she believed he was no doubt unconcerned that she was now drinking her third glass of wine. She smiled as she watched the young man disappear into the restaurant, and then turned to her husband with what was left of her smile. “Your coffee will be here momentarily,” she told him. She saw him fill in the fourth square to complete the word across: T-A-M-P.
Yes, she thought to her self, tamp, as in tamp down soil and sand and . . . emotions. That’s what Dr. Ellerby had said. ‘Marie, tamp down your emotions.’

But why? Why tamp down my emotions? Why, because I’m ‘old?’ Is seventy old? And isn’t seventy the new sixty? Didn’t I recently read that . . . somewhere? No, it was on talk-radio, she quickly recalled, but what is his name? The host’s name, what is it now? He has such a pleasing, romantic voice. A radio voice, the voice of an actor. But what is his name? Oh, how I hate this, she sighed, forgetting names. But her concentration waned at once when she saw the waiter move toward her with his small round tray balanced on the tips of his fingers. She kept her eyes on him as he approached the table. Is he smiling at me?
He is smiling at me, she told herself, and then she smiled broadly in return as he nodded and placed the glass of wine before her and the coffee cup and saucer and gleaming silver pot to her husband’s side. Such a pleasant smile and such wonderfully white teeth too, she marveled, sliding her glance to his tanned face. And he, barely in his thirties, she surmised, while not once taking her eyes from his.
A young man’s flat stomach; clear eyes; smooth skin; a sun—kissed tan. Well, she mused, he works outdoors, after all. Day after day he works in this lovely sidewalk café in a city where the sun always shines. How pleasantly he smiles at me.
Does he see that I am without wrinkles? That there are no lines above my lips? No crow’s feet at my eyes? And does he notice that my skin doesn’t sag? Has he admired my slender arms, my clear hazel eyes, and has he noticed my chic French-cut hairstyle? How could he not? I saw him smile at me the minute we entered the café. His eyes haven’t left mine since. No, they haven’t, have they? And from the bar where he collected our wine and coffee, why I saw that he turned to me and smiled the moment our eyes met again.
She poured her husband’s coffee, and added the smallest amount of cream. She took a small packet of saccharine from her pocketbook and emptied its contents into the cup. Her husband had affected a faint grin, a grin still frozen in place, and she could see that his vacant eyes looked past her into the void. What was it, our little Caroline said last month? ‘Grandfather’s eyes are broken again, Grandma.’ Yes, Caroline, grandfather’s eyes are broken, again, she thought, as she looked into her husband’s moist, empty eyes.
The waiter brought her the check, and she reached for it before he had a chance to place it on the table. Their hands touched, and the waiter smiled and said, ‘Madam.’ She held the check and touched his hand and said ‘thank you,’ in return. I saw the way he looked me, she told herself as he walked to another table to hand another patron a menu. Yes, she thought, I know that look, know it well. She reflected for a moment more, and then sighed.
She stirred her husband’s coffee and moved the cup and saucer next to his newspaper. She knew the coffee would grow cold, and that he would return from the void to complain about the quality of the café, the lack of prompt
service, and the vagaries of vacationing in a foreign country. He would tell her of his need to return to the hotel for his afternoon nap. ‘It was one museum too many,’ he’d say before settling himself in the taxi and dozing off on the way back to the hotel. It was what he had said yesterday, though they hadn’t visited a museum all week.
Back at the hotel her husband stretched out on the bed. She removed his shoes and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, and then carefully drapped the coverlet over him. He breathed heavily and repeated what he had said in the taxi about the museum. She answered, “Yes, dear, it’s all very tiring, I know.”
A moment later he fell asleep.
She sat in the chair and opened her book and read two pages before closing it and turning to the window. She looked out on the sun dappled street and thought of the young waiter. She thought of his smooth skin, his sun-kissed summer tan, his clean cut face, his thick black hair. She saw romance in his eyes, and recalled how his eyes had lingered on hers when he smiled at her.
“Timothy Carlson,” she whispered. “Timothy Carlson is the host of that radio program,” she said confidently, remembering the name at last.
And then she reopened her book and read for the remainder of the afternoon before finally falling asleep in her chair.

End of Guest Post

Love Sketches on Amazon

Appleby's blog is HERE and is very interesting.  

I will be posting in the next few weeks a number of additional stories by the author and am greatly honored to be allowed to share these wonderful stories with my readers.   I will also do one of my "normal" posts on some of his longer stories.

Again my thanks to David,

Mel u

"Do You Know What Ava Gardner Said" a short story by David Appleby

Today I am delighted to be able to share with you a captivating short story by David Appleby.

"Do You Know What Ava Gardner Said?"

A Short Story by David Appleby

Author Bio

Author Bio: 

David Appleby is the author of "Moon Alley," a novel written in the form of connected stories and cited byamazon.com's 'top 10 reviewer, Grady Harp,' (Los Angeles) as "a solidly unique voice...and a highly recommended first novel," and was praised by 'Book View Ireland' for its "pleasing symmetry of structure and convincingly drawn picture of a once-thriving area."

His new book is titled, "Love Sketches," a collection of short stories which explores the "sensuality of romance and the varieties and vagaries of love." One of the stories in this collection has been anthologized in "Short Breaks: The Very Best of Shortbread Short Stories," published by Discovery Press, Scotland. It has also been recorded as an audio narrated by the distinguished British actor, Paul Jerricho.
The author, a recipient of a PEW Fellowship, is a graduate of Temple University

"Do You Know What Ava Gardener Said?"

by David Appleby

“So he asks me this: “Do you know what Dorothy Parker said when she was told that President Calvin Coolidge had died” I looked at her, waited for a response. But nothing came despite the fact that my entire face practically screamed out at her, begged her to ask what Parker had said. Oh, the hell with it, I thought; I may as well blurt it out. And I did.
“How can they tell?” is what Dorothy Parker said. There was no response at all. “He’s dead? How can they tell?” She continued to wear the same expression as she did when I asked the question. “Coolidge was a boring, do nothing President. Did nothing. How can they tell he’s dead? He looked like that when he was alive! She was my roommate, my ‘dorm-mate’ in college, my good friend. I reminded myself of this as her blank look turned to ice. A moment later she asked me a question.
She—her name is Melody—asked me this: “Would you like to be in my wedding?” Before I could react she asked me another question: “Would you like to be a bridesmaid?”
A bridesmaid.? I loved the idea. I loved the word, bridesmaid; actually, it was the maid part that I really loved. Well, not maid, but maiden, as in ‘fair maiden.’ I immediately formed some visuals . . . King Arthur and his court, fair maidens in gowns, walking in a line, on display. A nice touch to it, bridesmaid. Of course, Camelot. A fair maiden of Camelot carrying her lady’s flowers. Me in a gown, too. Maybe, most of all, me in a gown.
“Oh, Melody, I’d love to be a bridesmaid in your wedding.” I explained that my imagination had run to King Arthur, “And me in a gown carrying a bouquet of flowers ‘for my lady in waiting’ and, “by the way, Melody, do you know what Richard Harris said when he was a bit tipsy and slipped from his horse and fell in the mud during the filming of Camelot?

Melody. Her dumb look. Her block-of-ice face.
“Richard Harris said, ‘Oh, shit! Thanks a lot, Cam-e-lot.’”
Melody. Her dumb look. Her block-of-ice-face.
And then she shocked me. And I almost fell over. “I want my wedding to recreate the opening scene of Roman Polanski’s, ‘Tess.’”
I wanted to faint but I was too excited. “Oh, Melody! What a beautiful idea. We all wear white. The opening scene. Oh, my God. We all carry wheat stalks and wear white and . . . .”
“And dance in an open field. Yes.” Melody’s wide smile thawing it’s way across her face.
“We don’t carry flowers. The girls in the film carried wheat stalks,” I repeated.
“Yes. No flowers. Just me, I have flowers in my hair. Just like Nastassja Kinski in the movie. And we’re all a bunch of virgins dancing in the meadow. The three men watching us are my boyfriend, well, fiancé at that point, and his two buddies; William is such a nice guy, the other is a dirt-ball, but that’s they way it goes. The minister will be way up front and he’ll walk his way into the meadow.
“Virgins?”
“Yes, virgins. What the hell do you think all the white signifies anyway?”
“Well, white and green, the fields all green. You know fertility and life and . . . .” Who are the other girls, by the way?’ I sneakily put my hands behind my back and crossed my fingers. Why I did this I wasn’t sure.
“Well, of course Ramona and Janice,” Melody responded quickly, splaying her fingers and ticking off two at once. “Three girls I work with, and four girls from the sorority. And you. That’s eleven, counting me.” I held my pinkie finger for number eleven. “One of the girls, Elisabeth Colbert, she’s also in my art league, is the eleventh. She’s really a back up in the event one of the ten—not me, of course—can’t make it, quits, or becomes ill. I want ten of us in the wedding party doing the dance.”
“Wow.” I thought for moment. But I couldn’t resist saying this. “You don’t look like Nastassja, Melody.”
“Fuck you, Nancy! Nobody looks like Nastassja Kinski. Not in that movie, anyway. Damn you!”
“I’m just saying, Mel. And this virgin thing. You’re not a virgin, you know. And I don’t think I am either.”
“Well, I’ll put on my virgin face and my white dress and you can imitate me. OK?”
“The flowers in your hair. White.”
“Of course.”
“No flowers for me?”

“No flowers for any of you guys. We’ll practice the dance. Jesus, Nance! Are you in or not?”
“I’m in.” I said, straining to hide my joy.”
* * *
You see, it comes back to this. I majored in art history. Melody was a painting major, the two of us opting for the old feminine standby in college. She’s a pretty good painter, covers the fields—watercolor, oil, acrylic—and unlike many painting majors, she knows how to draw. So to all of that add graphite, pencil, charcoal, and well, you get the picture. She’s a success. She’s had a couple of ‘one woman’ shows and has begun to build a little bit of a reputation in Bucks County, Pennsylvania as a post-impressionist, Bucks County style.
She’s also a bit spoiled. Comes from a Main Line Philadelphia family, old money, and that allowed her to do her junior year at the Tyler School in Rome. Now she’s marrying into another old line WASP family. Her boyfriend, (he hit on me about a year ago—before he met Melody, but he was drunk at the time, so that hardly counts) is a patented dork. But he’s an investment banker dork, and that counts with Melody. With it all, I like Melody a lot, and consider her a good friend. On the other hand I don’t exactly have a big batch of friends either. So she and I are going on six years now. We know one another’s ways.
I teach a couple of survey courses at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and write a movie review column for a dying newspaper, (but aren’t they all dying?) and am now syndicated to several other papers. (Yes, they are all dying.)
So why all the background info? Well, when you’re in your twenties you really don’t have anything to say about life, you don’t know anything about life, having gone to college is all you know about life. You haven’t really lived. You studied. You made friends And then you graduated. In your twenties, let’s face it, you don’t have anything called ‘life,’ in your life.
I know half of the girls, ‘fellow-maidens,’ in Melody’s wedding, and all are college friends in their mid to late twenties, as is Melody and myself. To the best of my knowledge, none of the five girls is a virgin, vestal or otherwise. And according to Melody, same thing with the others. That, as I said, includes Melody. I’m not sure about myself. Sounds strange, I know. But as Damon Runyon would say, ‘a story goes with it.’
I had been invited to a party at Melody’s mother’s house on the Main Line. Devon, to be exact. A lot of drinking, of course, and all of it supplied by her silly parents who by the way permit their children to call them by their first names. So it was not a surprise to hear Melody call her mother ‘Nicky,’ and her newly divorced father, ‘Smedley.” I mention this to note that this is what might

be called an ‘open household.’ Melody’s mother, a cosmetically skinny fifty year old, had given Melody the key to the liquor cabinet before the party had gotten under way, and in no time, she and her ex-husband went out for the night. In short order, the boys from Princeton and Haverford College helped themselves to the liquor cabinet contents. Before the night ended, I had passed out; was it a Mickey, as my parent’s generation called it, and since retagged by my own generation as a ‘date rape’ drug? Or was I simply as drunk as the rest of them?
So, was I? Or, did I? That is the reversible question. Of course, the next morning I awoke in my dorm bed with a ferocious hang over. I made a small suggestion to Melody, asking about a guy named William. Melody told me I was crazy. “My friends are the most honorable people I know,” she groaned into her own hangover.
I didn’t tell her that I had found a few streaks of dried blood on my inner thigh. A touch more on my panties. And I was weeks from my period. I also took note that Melody knew only her own kind of people. And then I dismissed it all, fearing self-importance built on a doubt. And mostly I simply did not feel ‘different.’
But then, there was the blood.
So I bring my doubtful virginity to this recreation of Roman Polanski’s ‘Tess.” Yes, me, a questionably chaste girl in white. Not necessarily a bridesmaid; not necessarily a bonified fair maiden, either.
* * *
We met early one Saturday morning in the open meadow of Nockamixon Park in Bucks County. We found a dirt road fenced on either side and wide enough for the girls to walk three or four abreast. From beyond, a hillock, a wide open space, a fence further away that rose and dipped along an outcropping, lovely and visible. Melody looked at me; I looked at her and smiled and nodded. It was perfect for the opening scene. We couldn’t have chosen a better location.
I convinced Melody that since we were maidens, virgins all for the day at least, we should all have a ring of flowers in our hair. She was too happy to tell me again that that idea made no sense to her. So she approved it as a wonderful idea, not remembering that she had nixed it earlier on. We all met that Wednesday at a costume consignment shop on South Street, and had no trouble fitting ourselves into long white cotton dresses that looked very much alike, that is to say, the dresses were plain and simple, as they were in Polanski’s movie. The men would wear white shirts, black floppy ties, dark colored trousers. Melody’s fiancé, she said, had found a suitable straw hat.
The wedding was scheduled for the following Saturday. No rehearsals necessary.

Don’t get me wrong. I was very truthful when admitting that I do like Melody, and quite a lot. Whatever I said of her, add that she is stuck-up, ritzy, and tends toward obnoxiousness, but it’s all genuine. So when we assembled at her father’s house in Buckingham to change into our white cotton, Victorian dresses—newly laundered, thanks to ‘Nicky’s housekeeper who had been put to the task—Melody, oblivious to all of this, gushed: “Oh, they’re so . . . . white and fresh-looking.” I winced. But I also assumed that I would play director, and get everyone in order and in character. I had assumed correctly. “Christ, Nancy, I can’t think straight,” Melody said as we were dressing. “When we get to the hill will you see that we get the dance started? I figure we can all sing Ring Around The Rosie and hold hands or something.”
“Jesus, Melody. You saw the movie with me at the Temple Film Society.”
“I forget it now. I’m too nervous, plus I’m marrying this guy, you know.”
“That’s a goddamn nursery rhyme, Tess,” I laughed. I saw her eyes well up, and I instantly put my arms around her. She was getting married. Room mate. Dorm mate. The first of us to get married. It counted for something. She was beginning her life. I held back my own tears.

I recognized him in an instant. The boy I had been with the night of the Main Line party, Melody’s party. Several years—three exactly—had passed, which is nothing, life-changing event or not, for what’s three years when you’re in your twenties, and have nothing in front of you but your destiny? I shivered in the sun as he approached. I signaled for the dance to begin. I wanted to get away, be on the move somehow. We girls formed a circle, holding hands and began to frolic into a skip, humming a tune we all knew. We paired off, locking hands, the three men outside the circle, watching and waiting. He, William, one of them. Soon they joined us, and immediately he positioned himself to dance with me. Melody and I partnered and as we improvised our romp we naturally danced away from one another, moving in and out of what was left of the circle, William loosely moved into Melody’s vacated space and folded his arms behind his back to began the most curious dance in front of me. He looked silly as he attempted to follow my movements—when I spun around, he spun around; when I back peddled, he sashayed forward, and as I glided back to the girls, he glided with me. I wanted to dance though my mounting nervousness and hide the small tears that were welling in my eyes. He smiled at me the entire time, and as the dance slowed and everyone broke into laughter

and supreme gaiety, spontaneously, we girls surrounded Melody, enclosed her with hands held tightly above her. And in this way we side-skipped her to the minister. Her fiancé was waiting there. I looked over my shoulder and saw William angle his way through the knot of girls to take his place up front as best man to the groom. In short order he removed something from his vest pocket. It was a pair of wedding bands. He arranged them in the palm of his hand. The ceremony began with Melody reading a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; her new husband-to-be read one by Dante Rossetti.
I had watched William smiling throughout. He lifted the rings from his palm and passed them to the bride and groom as they readied for their vows. My thin sheet of anger had no staying power. I realized it had existed at the time, but that it had also been built on a doubt from the start. Standing there in the meadow I thought back to that morning after, and yes, I did not feel different. I felt stupid, not despondent; not frightened. Just stupid.
Melody turned to find me among the girls. She smiled at me, a tender expression capped by the glistening of her eyes. I felt warmed by her glance my way, finding me, and realized at once how much I cared for her. I was swept by her obvious happiness, and allowed a tear to fall.
William kissed the bride quickly, hugged his friend, and walked into the crowd of virgins. He headed toward me. I wanted to half-smile, but that didn’t work. So I met his smile with a pliant glance as he approached. He pointed to the side and said, “Look, the caterers are setting the table.”
“Good,” I answered, my stupid to his stupid.
We walked to a table and each of us took a bottle of water. Folding chairs had been placed at a long table. He took two and we walked to a tree and we sat together in the shade.
“I tried to call you after that night, tried to reach you the next morning. I called from the airport. The phone rang and rang, but no answer.”
Ramona, I thought. Her habit of pulling the plug from the wall.
“You were zonked out cold,” he went on, opening my bottle first, then his. “Do you remember?”
“Oh, I remember all right.” I felt a spasm race down my arm. My right hand became inert, and I immediately seized my arm and pulled it quickly toward me, tipping my water bottle. “Sorry,” I said, for some water had splashed on his leg. “Why were you calling?”
He brushed at the water on his trousers, offering me a “No problem.” My heart raced. Here it comes, I told myself. He proceeded. “I called because I wanted to check on you and find out if you were all right. We both had a lot to drink. We were laughing like two nuts, trying to kiss but couldn’t find one another’s lips. Do you remember?”
I didn’t remember. “I was that bad?”
60
Do You Know What Ava Gardner Said?
“Both of us. Finally we got on target. We were sprawled on the floor in the upstairs hallway, then we sat up against the wall. I was worried I’d throw up on you.”
“Jesus!” My ability to move my fingers made a slow return to my hand and I switched the water bottle to confirm this. It worked, but my stomach crashed, as if my nerves were trying to find a new home, from heart to hand to stomach. He continued, speaking tentatively, saying things that were clearly a preface to something else, something more important. “You want to tell me something?” I said, turning to him fully. “Do so then. I’m a big girl. Can’t you see, Mr. Best Man?” His slight smile, his serious eyes. “I’m listening,” I added softly.
“I telephoned that next morning from the airport to apologize to you. Apologize for what I did. How I behaved.” He looked down and away. I did the same, feeling flushed. I could feel the crimson wave roll from my neck to my face. My pounding heart had returned. In the next moment I felt that I was going to cry. I wanted get up and run. He put his hand on my arm as if he had anticipated my desire to bolt.
“I know this is awkward for you—if awkward is the word, somehow I think not. But it feels so that it’s something like that but more. I want to tell you all of this, Nancy.”
He paused, drank water, a long swig. And then looked down as if speaking to his shoes. “You were really tipsy and kissing me like crazy, and we had pinned ourselves to the wall. And then I did something I should not have. I put my hand up your dress while you were kissing me and you pulled away suddenly and said, ‘Stop! Don’t!’
“I pulled my hand back and felt the blood seeping through the couple of band-aids. I looked at my finger and the blood had already moved to my wrist. I ran into the bathroom to get a towel and when I got back to you—it was less than ten minutes, not more—you were stretched out on the floor asleep.”
“You were bleeding?”
“Yeah, I had cut my finger when I was rinsing out some wine glasses. It took forever to stop the bleeding. Finally is seemed ok, and I had about three good-sized band-aids on it. And then when I did that” he took a deep breath, looked to the tables, “when I went up your dress and you recoiled, I felt the blood in the palm of my hand as I pulled my hand away. But I want you to know that I stopped because you told me to stop. I called you the next morning because I wanted to tell you that I’m the guy who takes no for an answer the first time it’s given and obeys it immediately. That’s why I did what I did, pulled my hand away, because you said so. My bleeding had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even know I was bleeding at that point.”
My tears came on schedule. I cried softly, I held my free hand to my mouth. He put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Nancy, I’m so, so sorry. Please

know that I’d never be unkind to you; I’d never behave toward you in a way that would cause you to disrespect yourself or me.”
I wiped my tears, knowing that I’d have to think about that last comment. But the look in his eyes, his entire expression told me all I needed to know. I thanked him for being a gentlemen. He showed me where he got five stitches that night that he left me and drove to the hospital to have an ER doctor close the deep cut on his finger. He scar was noticeable, and I touched it with one finger.
We returned to the long table, he carrying my folding chair as the gentlemen that he is. As we walked I said to him, “Do you know the name, Dorothy Kilgallen?
William turned to me. “Kidding? Sure, I did a paper for my honors class in American Social History on gossip columnists. She was a big deal, a big celebrity, and even had some questions about the Kennedy assassination. Yeah, what about her?”
“Well, I wonder if you know what Frank Sinatra said about her. Do you?”
“Hmmm. No.”
“He said he’d offer a reward for anyone who found Dorothy Kilgallen’s chin.”
We laughed out loud, a unison laugh, as I called such. I zoned in on him and was convinced that his laugh was genuine—no lip service in that laugh, I told myself.
After some minutes of silence he said. “Do you know what Ava Gardner said when someone told her that Frank Sinatra had married Mia Farrow?”
Oh, my God. Did he actually say that? I stopped, flurried my lovely white dress, my fair maiden gown, and like the virgin I was, coquetted myself shamelessly, flashing my Maybelline eyelashes his way. “Tell me what Ava Gardner said.”
“Ava Gardner said, ‘I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy.”
My mind raced to Roman Polanski’s classic film, ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’ Mia Farrow in her boy-cut hairdo; long, skinny arms, and she so gawky in her sexless, skin-and-bones figure. Wow!
I gave William a quick kiss on the lips. He returned one of his own just as quickly. Both of our kisses precisely on target.

End of Guest Post

Love Sketches on Amazon

Appleby's blog is HERE and is very interesting.  

I will be posting in the next few weeks a number of additional stories by the author and am greatly honored to be allowed to share these wonderful stories with my readers.   I will also do one of my "normal" posts on some of his longer stories.

Again my thanks to David,

Mel u