CORONACH FOR EVE

(From Daily Rhapsody)

By

 Larry Eugene Meredith           

A letter arrived between two bills and four advertisements. Please Forward written just above her name.

Her name was misspelled – Eva Jerdanbanks instead of Eve Jordanbank.

Still it was a letter and she felt a curious excitement. She looked at the envelope, turning it over twice and holding it toward the light. The return address told her nothing, some distant place. Lillian Neufield was a stranger’s name. She closed the front door and reread the envelope while crossing the living room. Her dog wobbled across the room and rubbed its muzzle against her calf. It tried to jump up succeeding only it bumping her arm. The ads and bills slipped from her hand. The dog snapped its teeth at one floating by in the air and bounced it off its nose. The rest scattered across a rug already littered with old mail and magazines.

She ignored the attempt for attention and the dog crept off to a warm corner and pretended sleep. She took the letter into the kitchen, leaving the rest where they fell. She shoved some newspapers off a chair, sat down at the table and stared at the return address.

“Lillian Neufield? Lillian Neufield? I don’t know any Lillian Neufield.”

She gave a little shrug. Her dressing gown slipped off one shoulder and half way down her arm. Her skin was dark and speckled with brown freckles. She let the gown droop. A safety pin held the yellowed strap of her bra. The metal was rusty and left a streak from sliding back and forth.

She held the envelope to the light again and opened it as if expecting a trick snake would leap out into her face. She torn the corner, slid her finger in and slowly ripped the flap. She pulled the sheets of paper from the envelope between her index finger and her thumb. Spreading the pages out on the kitchen table she saw one was a form.

But it didn’t look like a come-on for another pre-approved credit card.

“Now what in the world?” She asked.

The dog heard her speak and came ambling over to see if she was ready for company, but she only stroked its brown ear in an absent-minded way.

She saw eight words 

NAME

all in big bold print

ADDRESS

  SPOUSE’S NAME

down the length of paper      

OCCUPATION

CHILDREN

each followed by blank lines. 

HOBBIES

  TRAVELS

AWARDS

She read each word twice.

She tilted her head and chuckled.

She puzzled over it.

She read the other paper.

“Hello, classmate! It’s time for our reunion once again!!! (Doesn’t time fly?) Your Wilmillar High School Graduating Class is getting together to relive old times. Please fill in the accompanying questionnaire with information about yourself and return. We will be preparing a booklet so we can know what we’ve all been up to these last few years.”

It stated the time, place and cost of the reunion dinner. It was signed Lillian CLARK Neufield. She laid this sheet down beside the form.

“My twenty-fifth class reunion?”

She reached over and picked the telephone receiver from the box on the wall. She had to stretch the tangled cord before dialing. There was a faint ringing on the other end. It rang ten times. She counted. At the eleventh ring she hung up.

By the wall clock it was nearly seven o’clock. When Jeanette called it was usually between seven-thirty and eight on Tuesdays. Jeanette’s husband attended some lodge meeting every week and she sometimes called to chat. She’d just have to wait to see if Jeanette called tonight.

“I wonder if Jeanette got the reunion notice?” she said to the dog.

They had been best friends all their lives. Jeanette had married and moved some distance away, but they still talked to each other by phone regularly. Jeanette was one of the few old friends that did call.

Jeanette was the only old friend that called regularly.

“Lillian Clark? Now I remember her. Valedictorian.” The dog twitched an ear at the sound of her voice.

She stared at the phone, sipping a cup of lukewarm coffee and chewing on a piece of coffee cake. She bit off tiny crumbs from the edge of the cake and took nearly an entire half-hour to eat the small piece. It was all she ate for dinner. She did not feel like cooking just for herself. She bought a boxed dinner for her boyfriend at the diner where she waitressed and took it to him on her way home from work. She took him a meal most evenings, either from work or sometimes from a nearby McDonalds, taking it to where he cleaned a small office building. Not allowed inside, a security rule or something, she would meet him in the parking lot and hand the meal out the car window. He would lean in to kiss her on the cheek and then she would go home.

They never went out to dinner. They seldom went out at all. He worked evenings and she worked days, and his weekends were seldom free.

Sometimes he came to visit on Thursday, if he didn’t have to work or he didn’t fall asleep or he didn’t have a headache. She once asked him to telephone every night and he swore that he would, but he forgot his promise and sometimes he would call and often he wouldn’t. She would wait in her small dark kitchen and when he didn’t call she would go to bed and cry, and when he did call she would go to bed and not cry. If he called and she wasn’t at home, he would be angry and yell at her and if he did come on the following Thursday he might pout in the corner and not go to bed with her. She knew his anger proved he loved her very much, and if his wife would consent to give him a divorce he would marry her.

She kept waiting patiently for when he would be free. He told her he divorce when his children were grown. He had two boys in Junior High School when they first met. The boys were in Senior High when he made that statement. The boys were away at college now, but his adopted daughter was only three. He had adopted the girl three years ago. “For the kid’s sake,” he said, but would say nothing else about the child. He never told her where she came from or why he felt obligated to adopt her. But he doted on the child like she was his own.

She smiled at his kindness.

Seven-thirty came and went. Jeanette could call any second. She wanted to ask about the reunion. Was Jeanette going? Did she remember Lillian? Eve took her plate and placed it in the sink. Even though she had not made herself a dinner in days there were several dishes in the sink. She sat down at the table and twirled a strand of long brown hair in her fingers.

Eight o’clock arrived. The house was quiet, a bit chilly, damp in the kitchen. The sun had set and she sat in the shadows. The dog, which had fallen asleep, breathed softly against her leg. She waited for Jeanette to call and thought about Thursday.

By eight-thirty it had grown dark and she shifted her feet back and forth. It was Tuesday and Jeanette usually called on Tuesday. She picked up the phone, stretched out the cord and tried the number again. There was still no answer. Maybe Jeanette went to her father’s for a visit. She dialed the old number from memory.

A tired voice answered.

“Hi, Mr. Harvey,” she said. “Is Jeanette there?”

Jeanette was not there. Her husband was on vacation. They went to New England for the week.

“Oh. Well, if you should hear from her, tell her Eve Jordanbank called.”

She hung up the phone. The cord re-tangled into a tight knot. Her fingers twiddled her hair. She stared at the strand and saw some gray hair against the brown. She decided to wash her head.

She went upstairs, snapped on a light and slipped off her dressing gown. It dropped in a heap by her feet. She removed her underwear and flung it in the direction of the bed. She paused naked in front of the mirror. She had always had a good figure. If her face was not quite beautiful, it wasn’t a bad face. Long and narrow with a slightly hooked nose, but even so, when she smiled seemed pretty enough, despite a couple crooked teeth. She always had boys fawn over her in high school. She wondered what her old dates looked like now. She absently ran her finger down a crease that had deepened along her cheek. She patted under her chin where the flesh had grown looser. She stared at her eyes, which were sunken, the flesh beneath puffy and slightly darkened. She was tired was all. Her stomach bulged above the top of the bureau. She didn’t notice.

She picked up a tube of shampoo and went into the bathroom and turned on the water. As she knelt, leaning over the side of the tub, the warm flow caressing her long locks, she dreamed of Thursday night when Skipper would come and take her to bed. She would cook a dinner. They would eat by candlelight and he would take her to bed. He could never stay late, of course, only a few hours, but she didn’t care as long as he took her to bed and didn’t pout. She knew he would stay longer if it weren’t for his wife. It wasn’t fair. He loved her more than his wife. He was going to divorce his wife someday and marry her.

As she bent further, to rinse beneath the surge, the telephone rang. She turned off the taps and ran through the hallway wrapping her hair with a towel as she went. The dog came panting up the stairs, plopping its paws carefully on each step. Eve tripped over a floorboard that was slightly uneven accidentally kicking the dog’s snout. The dog whined and drooled.

Eve answered the telephone.

“Hello? Skipper, how’s my deary-dear?”

Oh, he was fine, just fine, but he wouldn’t be calling her again until the weekend. He was going away for the rest of the week. His boss was taking him on a fishing trip. Wasn’t that nice of his boss.

Yes, that was nice of him.

They were going off the coast of Maryland in a charter boat. He’d get back Saturday evening. He might call her then. He might drop off some fish. She could clean and cook it for the next time he visited.

She told him of the class reunion. Could he go?

No, he couldn’t go. He did not like the idea of her going without him. She would flirt with other guys.

No, no, she wouldn’t.

Well, what if he called her that night?

Well, he’d know she wouldn’t be home.

Well, he might want to hear her voice.

Well, she would think about going or not.

Well, he did not want her to go.

Well, why didn’t he tell his wife it was another fishing trip and come?

Well, he just couldn’t take her, what would people say.

Well, why should they say anything?

Well, a guy like him? A janitor and older and…well, people could be nasty. People would talk about her. People would call her names.

His consideration for her feelings proved he loved her.

She kissed the receiver and he did the same. They hung up.

She stood with her hand atop the phone, shivering, standing naked in the hall, dripping water on the floor and unconsciously stroking her breast.

He wouldn’t be coming Thursday.

She went into the bedroom and finished drying her hair. Afterward she walked naked downstairs. She ignored the mail scattered on the floor, but got the reunion form from her kitchen table. She took it upstairs and sat at her dresser staring at the questionnaire.

She probably wouldn’t go. She did not want to miss Skipper’s call if he called and have him be mad. Still, she would like to see some of those she had gone to school with, see what they were doing now, what they looked like. She would ask Jeanette what she should do.

Go or not, she would send the form back. She wanted to receive the booklet and find out what had happed to the others. Another thing she knew she was going to do. She was going to send her information back late with hope it arrived too late to be printed in the booklet. She didn’t want to be in the booklet. She couldn’t think of anything to put down after her name and address and occupation.

Her dog came over and lay by her leg. She stroked its fur and realized how long she had the dog. She had the dog before she had Skipper. It was an old dog and getting feeble.

At ten o’clock she went to bed, and with no Thursday to dream of, she thought if the dog should die she would be all alone.

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