Just Like New Times

It was one of those dreams that left him wishing it could have been longer. Better yet, it left him wishing it wasn’t a dream at all. She looked and felt just as he remembered her, from the fresh-linen scent and baby-soft feel of her skin, to her soft, sexy voice. The dream was short–too short–but sweet. They were in bed, his bed, in the high-rise apartment building where he once lived, where they spent much of their time together during the year and a half they dated. It was the most vivid dream yet–and the best one yet–of this girl that he had been dreaming about a lot since they broke up. They were just about to make love. And then he woke up.

Danielle had just turned twenty-one when they met during the Carter administration. She was a college student still living with her parents. Derrick, twenty-six, was living the care-free life of a single guy who worked for the county court system.

She had arrived late at that singles mixer in the “social room” of a local apartment complex. He had been there for over an hour and was about to leave. “Zero prospects,” he had groused to a friend he met there. Then, when she walked in with a couple girlfriends, he changed his mind. She was tall, a few inches shy of his five-foot-ten, with legs a mile long and a helmet of light brown hair that dropped just below her shoulders. He didn’t take notice of her eyes– brown, mesmerizing, seductive–until he got close. Wearing tight yellow slacks, heels and a white blouse, she was huddled with her girlfriends when he tapped her on the shoulder. “Hi,” he said, when she spun around.

Amused, surprised, outraged–her face conveyed all those emotions during the few moments she looked at him, not saying a word. Finally: “Hi.”

“Sorry if I startled you,” he said apologetically, “I’m Derrick Carlin.”

She glanced at her girlfriends and giggled. “I’m Danielle.” She left out her last name. “We just got here.”

“I know. I saw you come in when I was on my way out.”

“You’re leaving?”

“WAS leaving.” He let the meaning of that digest a moment. “Look, not to monopolize your time, but can we talk a little while?” He pointed to a sofa against the wall. “In private?”

She looked at her girlfriends. They nodded. “Well, okay.”

Not all women would agree to talk privately with a guy they had just met only seconds after walking through the door into a meet market. Derrick was pleasantly surprised. It’s not that he lacked confidence; it’s that he knew nobody would mistake him for one of the heartthrobs of the era–John Schneider, David Cassidy, Burt Reynolds, Robert Redford, et al. He was one of those “average” looking guys, distinguished in his own way as all of us are distinguished in some fashion. It was obvious that he took care of himself. His lean athletic build said as much. After all, he put in over one-hundred miles a week (weather willing) on his bicycle, down from twice that much during his racing days. He was a walking billboard for the fitness benefits of cycling. Even so, he wasn’t too fussy about his looks. He let his wavy, light brown hair hang halfway over his forehead and ears with minimal combing and shaved every few days, when he “felt like it.”

“I hope your girlfriends don’t mind me corralling you like this,” he said.

“They’ll get over it,” she said, giving him a wink. “I mean, we all came for the same reason.”

“Which is?”

“Which is the same reason that I suspect you’re here, to meet the person of your dreams.”

He chuckled. “I detect a mix of sarcasm and seriousness in your tone. Am I right?” Her wide grin told him the answer. Then he continued. “Okay, now tell me which is there more of, the former or the latter?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s probably an even split.”

Like Danielle, he sat sideways on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other. “I like women who possess a comic sense of cynicism. You know, we might have a lot in common. Do you ride bikes?”

“Not since I was a kid.”

“Do you watch football?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Hmm…okay, let’s see. Did you vote for Jimmy Carter?”

She laughed. “Now you’re getting personal. But I’ll answer anyway. Nope. Jerry Ford was my guy.”

He drew a weary smile of resignation. “All right, give me another minute. I’m sure that common ground exists between us somewhere along the line.”

She sighed and patted his shoulder. “We’ve already found it, Derrick. If not, you wouldn’t have approached me and I wouldn’t have agreed to sit here with you.”

It took a few moments to sink in, to know what she meant, to know that common interests and that mysterious element called chemistry could be mutually exclusive. As they continued talking, he did find common ground insofar as things they did and liked. She exercised regularly (running) and read a lot. She body-surfed in the summer, went sledding in the winter. She liked going to the movies, dining out (who didn’t?) and watching TV cop shows. One thing she didn’t like was the game-playing that went on at meet markets. They had that in common, too.

Which is why, when he asked for her phone number, she didn’t hesitate in jotting it down, including her last name, Weisner. And why he didn’t wait long in calling and why she didn’t put him off when he asked her out.

It was mid-winter, a time for cuddling, sipping steaming cups of hot chocolate and sledding. Great times, fun times that carried over into the warm months. There were those long weekend trips to Ocean City and New York and that weeklong trip to Myrtle Beach where they rented bikes. She enjoyed the bike riding so much that she purchased one shortly after returning home, a green Trek hybrid. “I haven’t had so much fun since I was a kid,” she was wont to say.

But, like all relationships, things either move forward in a “serious” direction or die. Which is what happened after eighteen months of fun times. Danielle wanted to continue, wanted to see if they could get close enough to possibly make a life together. Not Derrick, who had wished that such potential was there, but didn’t see it. In all those months, neither of them had said ‘I love you’ even once. There was plenty of mutual respect and fondness and the sex was pretty good, sometimes great, especially when Danielle dressed for the part. Sometimes she’d put her hair up in pigtails and wore a short skirt, replete with high socks and loafers, conveying the image of the sexy prep school girl. Other times, she’d dress like a French maid, wearing a frilly dress with spiked heels, stockings and garters. Also, from what he remembered, she climaxed fairly quickly, the way most guys could if they didn’t hold back. And she wasn’t shy about it either. He had sometimes wondered if the apartment next door heard her in climax, so loud, clear and unmistakable was her release.

But that euphoric feeling of falling in love never happened, and Derrick realized that one of them would have to initiate the break that he saw coming. He felt bad watching Danielle cry. “We just need more time,” she said, choking back sobs, “and I’m willing to give it more time. We haven’t been together that long. Maybe our feelings will deepen with more time. Not to get maudlin, but maybe the best is yet to be.”

But Derrick felt it was time for both of them to move on. They did have periodic phone contact, all of it initiated by Derrick. He wanted to meet with her again, but she kept putting him off. In fact, not long after their breakup, Danielle began dating a commercial airline pilot named Bob Fugate whom she eventually married after they moved to San Diego. For Derrick, hook-ups and breakups followed, including one live-in liaison and a marriage that failed.

The dreams about Danielle began around the turn of the millennium. It confused him, because out of all the women he had been with, including those he had fallen in love with, Danielle got top billing in his nocturnal life. On occasion, Linda, Arlene, Cathy, Robin and the rest would creep into his subconscious. But it was Danielle he dreamed about the most. Not only that, his dreams about her were the most vivid and visceral. Danielle really did look like Danielle, not some other person or a composite. Even in his sleep, he could smell her lovely scent, feel her baby-soft skin and see the sheen in her Breck girl thicket of hair. The frustrating part came when he awoke, just as they were about to make love.

The dreams became more frequent as the millennium wore on. There was dialogue around the same theme–Danielle asking why he couldn’t love her and Derrick insisting that he did and then Danielle asking why he wanted to end things if that was true. Danielle would then become elusive, dodging Derrick’s attempts to reconcile, to make thing right, to do things and say things that proved he loved her. He was always chasing her, literally and metaphorically, never quite getting where he wanted to go.

He dreamed about her so much that he thought that breaking up with her might have been a huge mistake. Then again, maybe it wasn’t her he missed so much as that time in his life, those care-free days when life was simpler and devoid of responsibilities except to himself. The only thing he was sure about was that he wanted to see her, if for no other reason than to see what she looked like in middle-age. He hadn’t seen her since she turned twenty-two. In fact, the last time they had even spoken by phone was a brief New Year’s greeting during Clinton’s first term, a year or so before Danielle left Maryland for San Diego. Brief it was, too. “Happy New Year to you too,” she had said. “Sorry, gotta run.”

She wasn’t on Facebook, although some of her relatives were, including her brother Joel who had been just fourteen when Derrick began seeing Danielle. Sometime during Obama’s first term, Derrick sent him a private message just to say hello and to ask if Joel remembered him. Yes, he wrote back, then told him that Danielle was married, living in California and didn’t mess with Facebook, all of which Derrick knew. “Tell her I said hi,” Derrick messaged back, and that was that.

Danielle’s avoidance of Facebook didn’t surprise Derrick. She’d been a somewhat reserved, private person when he knew her. Every few months, he Googled her name in hope to find a link to his long “lost” girlfriend. About a year after the message to Joel, he found one on Amazon Kindle, a romance novel she had self-published under her maiden name, Danielle Louise Weisner. He figured it had to be her–he could find no other person with that name on the Web. And when he clicked the ‘Look inside’ icon and read a sample of her book, “When Jimmy Was President…,” he had no doubt. It was a first-person account of what the female narrator described as an “extraordinary time in my young life,” set during the Carter administration. Her voice came through loud and clear, the words she used, the rhythm of those words and the sentiment. There were fifteen reviews also, mostly four-star ratings. He couldn’t resist buying the download.

It took but a few pages of reading to realize that this was a thinly disguised, “fictional” memoir of their time together. What did they call those kinds of novels? Roman a’ clef? The names were changed–Nora and Grant were the heroine and hero–but the setting and circumstances were all too familiar to him–the way they met and the subsequent goings on, replete with sex scenes; nothing too graphic, but lovingly described: “Our first tango happened on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Grant’s apartment. It began with a kiss when we were fully clothed, sitting on his balcony high above the street, and ended in his twin-sized bed, our bodies entwined, naked and craving more.” Yes, that’s the way he remembered it also.

Some of it was either embellished or total fiction. Grant was a “handsome intern” and Nora an ambitious English major in college who one day hoped to write “either the Great American Novel or, being more practical–but not much–I might swing for the journalistic fences to one day write for Time or Newsweek.”

Danielle had majored in criminal justice, minored in English, if Derrick recalled. She did read a lot and wrote poetry. But if her ambition had ever veered toward a full-time writing career, she had kept it from him. Through his Google search, he learned that Danielle and her husband ran a couple businesses, a pet rescue service and vending machines. And Derrick, a “handsome intern?” He laughed out loud at that one. If only that had been the case and he had become a doctor instead of a cog in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of local government. He laughed harder when she mentioned the time her brother Joel (Alvin in the novel) walked in on them when they were fooling around and Danielle, practically naked, dove under the covers.

Derrick teared up when he read of Nora’s frustration over her feelings not being reciprocated: “I loved him but never told him. I couldn’t, not when Grant didn’t feel for me what I felt for him. In time, he might have, if he’d given us more time. But he didn’t.” Derrick could hear Danielle’s voice in his head as if she was speaking to him in person.

“If only I HAD given it more time,” he said to himself, shaking his head at the memory. Those dreams he kept having had to mean something. The possible reasons persisted: he missed his youth, he wanted something he couldn’t have, etc. What he wanted was the Danielle he knew back when Jimmy Carter was president, the girl who had just turned twenty-one, young and nubile and so into him. And now, in this first year of the Trump presidency, she was pushing sixty and he was already into that senior decade of life. He knew she didn’t have kids, unlike him who had a grown son. Was she still married? Google searches failed to answer that one. Of course, Joel would know.

Which is why Derrick once again messaged him through Facebook. “From what I remember,” Joel wrote back, “you always did have a keen sense of timing. Lol. Danielle is divorced. Bob bought her half of the businesses and she will soon move back to Maryland to be close to her family. Our sister Emily, our mom (our dad died some years ago) and myself still live here, as well as Emily’s two daughters. Give me your cell and I’ll have her call you. Well, if she wants to. Not to rehash unpleasant memories, but she was pretty upset when you guys broke up.”

Yes, Derrick remembered vividly how upset she was. Apparently, Danielle had found love again before it all soured, just like his own marriage. Would she call him? He didn’t think so, based on that New Year’s call when she had blown him off the phone. Her novel ended after Nora began dating a Scott Andrews, presumably the character for Bob Fugate, Danielle’s future husband. There was no reunion with Grant, no second acts with him.

Derrick kept Daniele in his thoughts as he went about his business. He looked forward to retirement, looming just over the horizon. Only a few months to go and then he’d be free to pursue his passions and interests without having to work them around a work schedule. He’d take longer bike rides, go to museums, travel and spend more time with his two young grand-kids. His agenda included female companionship. Marriage? He didn’t think so. He’d become comfortable being single for over fifteen years. Romance? For sure. He left the door wide open for intimacy.

His office threw him a little retirement party on his last day at work. No gold watches, just a catered lunch, wine and good cheer. He had just given the obligatory retirement party speech, when his cell went off. “Hi Derrick. This is Danielle. Is this a good time?”

He nearly dropped the phone. “Um, ah, sure.” He stepped out of the conference room and into the hall, his heart racing. “Are you in town?”

“Just got in a week ago. I’m staying with Joel and Nancy until I can find my own place. So how the hell are you?”

“Couldn’t be better. In fact, you caught me at my retirement party.”

“Oh, well, I won’t keep you. I can–″

“No, that’s okay, I’ve got all the time in the world from now on. By the way, I enjoyed your little novel.”

She laughed. “You actually found it?!”

“Google led me to Amazon and then to When Jimmy Was President. You write very well. Thanks for making me a handsome intern.” He heard her guffaw over the phone.

“At first, I thought astronaut. But it didn’t seem to fit, so I settled on intern.”

“And the way you described the first time we made love…For me, it was almost like looking at a video of us doing it.”

She sighed. “Those were the days, my friend.”

He was going say ‘we thought they’d never end,’ but thought better of it. After all, they didn’t end happily. “Well look, I hope you’re amenable to having lunch or something. I’d like to see you.”

“I could send you a selfie.” Pause. “Just kidding. I’d like to see you, too.”

“Great.”

“But let me give you a little head’s up. I’ve put on some weight since you last saw me. Not a ton of it but you’ll notice. I still exercise, though. My Bally gym membership is still good here. I’d also like to get a new bike. What about you? If I know you like I knew you, I’d bet that you’re still in great shape.”

He didn’t want to brag. But yeah, he knew he was in great shape for a guy in his sixties. “I’m still at it, bike riding and doing weights in the gym. I look about the same. Well, except for the wrinkles and graying hair. Don’t expect a handsome intern.”

*****

She wasn’t the woman of his dreams, the woman he went with all those years ago. But then, Derrick didn’t expect to see that woman when she walked into Veloccino’s coffee and bicycle shop, their agreed meeting place. Her hair was shorter, her hips wider, her thighs, as he could see through her tight jeans, thicker. No matter, he thought she was still pretty, especially her eyes, still beautiful and devoid of the deep crow’s feet wrinkles around them that show on others her age, including him. Her brown hair was still mostly brown, with just a few flecks of gray. And that smile, that smile that brought out her lovely cheek bones, lit up his joy even more upon seeing her.

He met her just inside the door of this unique place, a bicycle shop that served coffee and sandwiches that patrons ordered inside and then took their order out to the tables and chairs to a patio at the rear of this late nineteenth century, wood-frame building, painted a canary yellow. Weather permitting, of course, and this warm, partly sunny, early June day was ideal as ideal could be. Billowing clouds drifted across an azure-blue sky.

“Danielle, wow, I can’t believe it!” he gushed. He reached out to hug her and she hugged him back.

“Because I’ve gotten so fat, you mean?”

“Oh, you have not!” he said emphatically, watching her grin and feeling her self-deprecation was a defense mechanism of some sort. “You’re very pretty. Always were, always will be.”

“Well, thanks for the compliment.” She stepped back and gave him the twice over. “You look in great shape, Derrick, just as I surmised you would be.” She looked up and swept a hand over his hair. “And you’ve still got all your hair, gray or not.”

Each ordered a latte and a croissant at the bar, then stepped outside on the patio. A few cyclists were also there, munching on their goodies, still in their spandex after their ride through the surrounding terrain, rolling with hills.

Danielle took a few sips of her latte. Then: “So, you come here often?” She leaned forward and patted him on the bare knee that stuck out of his khaki shorts. “I know, that sounds like every pickup line you’ve ever heard.”

He nodded. “Actually, I do, normally after a group ride like these folks. This place began way after you left Maryland.”

“It’s a unique concept. I’m not sure if they have places like this in San Diego, although I’d think they must.”

“I’d think so, too. California seems to set so many cultural trends.”

The small talk segued into more personal matters. She asked about his son and grand-kids. He asked about her family, her sister Emily, her brother Joel and Naomi, her aging mom that thank goodness still had a sharp mind, despite her age-related arthritis. They touched on what happened to their failed marriages without going into great detail. Derrick had just a cursory interest in that anyway. He did want to tell her about his dreams and wondered how she’d react. Maybe she had similar dreams. At the very least, she’d been thinking about him. Why else would she write a whole novel based on their past relationship?

After a couple nibbles on his croissant and sips of coffee, he said, “Look, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about my dreams. Dreams about you and me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Do tell.”

“The dreams are variations on the same theme,” he revealed. “I’m chasing you, wanting to reconcile and get back together but can’t because you elude me. Some of the dreams are weirdly contradictory. I tell you I love you but you deny it because I’m also trying to end the relationship. Weird, like I said. But I guess that’s the nature of dreams.” He told her about his best dream, the one where they were about to make love before he woke up. “Waking up was frustrating, but at least I was getting closer.”

After listening intensely, she took a sip of coffee. “So, what do you think it all means? I mean, you couldn’t be obsessed with me after all this time, could you?”

He loosened the top button of his blue, long-sleeve shirt. “Maybe it’s for the same reason that you wrote a Roman a’ clef novel about us. Maybe we both miss that time, that special time when we were young and hadn’t yet made serious commitments to anyone and all that follows. In your book, Nora calls that time ‘extraordinary.’ Not saying I’m on the right track here, but–″

“No, I think you are.” She drummed her slim fingers on the iron table. “Look, I miss that time also–my writing is a dead giveaway. But we’re no longer the same people. It’s been almost forty years.”

“Right, I know.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Nora confessed that she loved Grant, but wouldn’t tell him because he didn’t feel the same way.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so…” He hesitated. “Okay, so did you ever…love me, Danielle?”

She looked away, blinked and sighed. “You read the book, that should tell you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know, and I’m surprised I’m getting so emotional. I cried while writing those parts of the book when Grant couldn’t reciprocate and especially when he broke up with Nora. She was terribly upset. As you know.”

“I’ll have to confess that I cried too, reading the part when he broke up with her. Because I well remember that time when we were in your room…” He shook his head. No need to rehash what was difficult for both he and Danielle. This was supposed to be a “happy” meeting.

She wiped her eyes and chuckled. “Hey, I’m over it, I’m just overly sensitive these days. Yes, we were in my bedroom, on my bed, fully clothed as I recall, and you were telling me that we had…’plateaued,’ I think is the term you used, and I was crying my eyes out. I created a different breakup scene for Grant and Nora but all the emotion was there.”

Her memory was spot on. Plateaued was exactly the word he used when they were on her bed and she was sobbing and almost pleading with him to reconsider, to give it more time. And if he had, what would have been the outcome? Armed with the wisdom that comes with experience, they might have gotten closer, might have left that so-called plateau and climbed higher. Of course, he lacked such wisdom back then. All he could do now was speculate–not a healthy exercise. Moving forward was the thing to do, not rehash the past or lament over what might have been. He kept those thoughts while watching the cars pass on the old secondary road that stretched north, close to the Mason-Dixon Line.

Danielle watched the cars also before turning back to him. “So maybe you’re thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Which is what bike you should buy?”

She laughed. “No, but that’s a good question that I’m hoping you can help me with. Actually, it’s figuring out where we might want to go from here. Your dreams and my book are about a past life that we both know can’t be recaptured.”

“Alas, no.”

“But I hope we won’t have to wait another forty years before we see each other again.”

He reached across the table, took her hand and squeezed it. Then he reached into the deep pocket of his shorts and pulled out an envelope. “I’ve got a surprise.”

She stared at the envelope, bulging with something inside. “If that is what I think it is, I might cry again.”

He nodded and took out the dozen color photographs of their time in Myrtle Beach. “You and me both.”

Derrick moved his chair next to hers. They laughed, not cried, flipping through the pictures of their Kodak moments. “Gawd, I couldn’t fit into that swim suit again if I tried,” she said.

“And look at your hair,” he said. “Still a shag girl in the late seventies, when shags were on their way out.”

“And look at YOUR hair. You know, this might be the first time I’ve actually seen your ears when your hair wasn’t wet.”

Of the next photo, he said, “One of my faves.” It showed Danielle lying sideways on their hotel bed, her head propped up on her elbow, wearing nothing but panties and a bra. “Damn, you were hot.”

“Were. That’s the key word here.”

He paused and drew her a mock look of admonishment. “And still are, damn it. I’d love for you to pose for me like that again. I meant what I said. You’re still very pretty.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “Oh crap, there I go again.”

“Stand up.”

“Why?”

“Just stand up.”

She did, and when she did, he stood and wrapped his arms around her. “Now, any problems with us kissing out here in public, the way Grant and Nora did in that crowded supermarket? By the way, I thought that was one of the more poignant scenes in your book. I loved it.”

“Thanks, I thought so, too.”

He pulled her to him, closed his eyes, and for the next few moments, he blocked out the world around them, the same as Grant and Nora had. He felt something, something important, something visceral, just as he did in those dreams, and he sensed she felt the way he did. This was no dream that he’d awake from, only to feel frustrated because it wasn’t real. No, this was the flesh and blood Danielle Louise Fugate nee’ Weisnser he was necking with and savoring every moment of it. When they parted, he said, “You know, you still smell good. Just the way I remember.”

She reached up, stroked his light stubble and gazed into his hazel eyes. “And you still FEEL good. I never did forget the firm contours of your jacked body. It felt so good getting naked with you. And I imagine it still would.”

“No need to imagine when you can actually do it.”

She looked around to see if these cycling people were looking at them. A few were, smiling in an endearing kind of way. Mostly younger folks, they apparently thought it was cute the way these oldsters could neck out in the open.

She pressed closer to him. Then she spoke close to a whisper. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t been to bed with a man since Bob and I separated and that was nearly two years ago. In other words, I’m kind of horny.”

He grinned. “Well then, you’ve come to the right guy. Do you feel comfortable getting intimate with me after all this time?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Fair enough.”

When they sat back down, Derrick said, “I’d like to think that we could make like Nora and Grant in their first tango, our bodies naked and entwined and craving more.”

She chuckled. “A guy who remembers what he reads. I’m impressed.”

“I remember only because I lived it with the author of those tender words. That Sunday afternoon in my apartment,” he said wistfully. “I could no more forget that time than my own name.”

She nodded, then placed her hand over his. “But you know that there’s only one first for anything, including tangos.”

“But the dance is the same, only the sequence is different. We could call it our first tango of the modern era, or something to that effect.”

“I could write a sequel.”

“There you go.”

*****

Danielle didn’t know about a sequel. In fact, she wasn’t sure about Derrick. Oh, she thought he looked great, better than a guy had a right to at his age. He looked his age, but then he didn’t. His wrinkles and the gray in his stubble said he was past sixty. But that body! Had she seen a photo of him from the neck down, she’d swear he was much younger. Bob, her ex, should look so good. Hell, SHE should look so good. There I go again, putting myself down, she thought. Derrick told her that he thought she was still pretty. Did he mean it? He sounded sincere, and he had always been honest with her, honest enough to tell her on that day, that day she’ll never forget, that he thought they should part ways because the relationship had gone stale. She didn’t want to get involved with him again, only to be hurt again. Yes, she was older; but she knew as well as anyone that affairs of the heart are not age-dependent.

She was on her way to his “new pad,” as he had called it, a white clapboard, renovated bungalow in Ashton Heights built in the nineteen-twenties that he could afford “no problem,” thanks to a “hefty pension” and social security. She had just put over three-thousand miles on her artic-blue, 2014 Subaru Forrester, driving from California to Maryland. She wasn’t yet old enough to collect social security, nor did she enjoy the luxury of collecting a pension, a rare thing these days, unless you had worked for government. Fortunately, her divorce settlement gave her enough of a financial cushion to last while she looked for a job and a place of her own. Hurting financially, she wasn’t.

While she lived in Maryland, she’d known Ashton Heights only in passing. It was a shaded, older county neighborhood, one that had been kept up thanks to a strong improvement association. Derrick’s house, like many of the houses there, had a front porch and a lawn big enough for a badminton setup but small enough to where you didn’t need a power mower to cut the grass, front and back. “Perfect for a single, old guy like me,” he had said.

It was the type of house and area that she might look for herself, she thought, pulling in front of 817 Beachfield Drive. It even had a small driveway where Derrick parked his current vehicle, a Toyota Rav 4. She wore a striped blue and white blouse over white slacks and casual summer shoes, something between a sneaker and a sandal that strapped over her bare feet. It took only seconds after she stepped onto the porch and rang the bell for Derrick to answer. “I’m a bit early,” she said, glancing at her watch. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, dinner should be ready in a few minutes,” he said. “I hope turkey cutlets, fresh asparagus, zucchini and backed potato agree with you.”

She patted her tummy. “Can’t wait. I skipped lunch today.”

He offered her a glass of wine after she stepped into the living room. “That would be great. Chilled Zinfandel?”

“You bet.”

She put her purse down on one of the two comfort chairs and looked around. She liked the Oriental scatter rugs over the hardwoods, the exposed brick fireplace and the bookshelves that covered one of the walls. When he brought her glass, she asked, “So what did you do with those huge speakers you used to own? I’ll never forget them.”

He pointed to the small bookshelf-sized speakers on stands that flanked a small component stand that held just two audio components, a receiver and CD player. “It was tough letting them go, but it made more sense to downsize.”

“No TV?

“In the bedroom,” he said.

When he went back into the kitchen, she peaked into the dining room. The table was all set, with a pitcher of what looked to be iced tea sitting in the middle. Feeling a bit tipsy from the alcohol on an empty stomach, she eased herself down on the sofa. She sat there for a few minutes, thinking back to their relatively brief time together, “when Jimmy was president.” The world had changed so much since then, and she had changed along with it. The college girl whose major concerns back then were keeping her grades up and making weekend plans, had become an older woman approaching the gateway of old age, looking for work post-divorce and keeping her health up. And this evening, she found herself in the home of an ex-boyfriend who knew she hadn’t been to bed with a man for almost two years. Did he still find her attractive as he let on? Words alone weren’t enough to convince her; he’d need to show it.

She watched him bring in the serving trays from the kitchen. “Can I help?” she asked.

“Just in consuming it,” he said. “Come on in.”

Wine glass in hand, she joined him at the table. After pouring iced tea into their glasses, he mentioned how long it had been since they last had dinner together. “It must have been in seventy-nine,” he said, “the year we broke up. But I can’t remember where.”

She didn’t hesitate in refreshing his memory. “You’re right, it was in seventy-nine, the third Saturday in May and at one of our favorite places, Dante’s.”

He stopped cutting into his turkey cutlet. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Quite sure. And the only reason I remember is because you broke up with me the following Saturday.” She could detect a slight wince, as if he was hurt. “I wouldn’t have brought it up had you not asked that. Sorry.” She could tell that he still felt bad. “Hey, cheer up. It’s all water under the bridge.”

He drew a lame smile, then resumed his cutting.

They ate in silence for a few moments. Then she said, “Anyway, we had some great times at Dante’s, especially when we doubled with Fred and Judy.” She took another sip of wine. “Have you been in touch with them?”

“Haven’t seen them in years. Fred, I kept in touch with for a little while, but then he seemed to lose interest in maintaining the friendship. We were friends until we, you and I, were no longer together. He seemed to think that three was a crowd, with me being odd man out.” He shrugged, then forked into his zucchini.

“I can relate,” she said. “It takes something like divorce to know who your REAL friends are as opposed to those people who were mere hangers on. There are only a couple people in San Diego that I’m still in touch with since Bob and I split. Sometimes, I think of all the people that have drifted in and out of my life, some I was once close to.”

“Mine, too,” he said. “But I’m hoping that one person who drifted out of my life will drift back in and stay awhile.” He drew her a warm, loving smile, then sipped his wine while keeping his eyes on her.

Danielle knew that drift wasn’t quite the right verb; it was more like she was pushed out of Derrick’s life by Derrick himself. But correcting him would only spoil the mood and contradict what she had said about their breakup being water under the bridge. She hoped to drift back in also, at least that’s how she felt at the moment. “Well, we’ll take things as they come,” she said, not fully understanding what that meant but bereft of anything else to say. She’d been only half-kidding about writing a sequel to her novel. She’d bring back Grant and Nora as middle-agers and entitle it, When Donald Was President. Of course, she’d need some juicy, real-life material to make it work. She hoped it wouldn’t end like last time. But maybe it would and this time it would be Nora who pulled the plug. She laughed to herself. What was she doing, thinking so far ahead?

“Danielle, you seem lost in thought. A quarter for your thoughts.”

She chuckled. “A quarter? I thought it was a penny for your thoughts.”

“Inflation, you know.”

She laughed and gave a knowing nod. It brought back memories of Derrick always making glib comments like that. “I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“And I’m glad you haven’t lost your appreciation for it.”

She hadn’t. But did it seem like old times? Hardly, because time had moved on and they had both moved on with it. Yet she couldn’t deny the wistful longing that suddenly embraced her like a blanket, soft and comforting. “‘Time may change me but you can’t trace time,'” she sang. A Celine Dion, she wasn’t. She could carry a tune, but that’s about it. Still, moments like this compelled her to sing, if only a line of lyric that she remembered from her youth. “Changes, David Bowie,” she said, responding to his curious look.

“Ah, you’re right,” he said. “It sounded familiar but I never would have placed it. Sounds like you’ve been thinking about our own changes.”

She nodded as she cut off a piece of turkey. “I have. I mean, I wrote a novel based on where we were all those years ago. Or at least based on my memory of it. The thing about memory is that, as time passes, it alters what actually took place. If we had videos of some of our adventures, I’d bet that what we actually did and what we said, would differ from the way we remember what we did and said.”

He nodded as he swallowed a sip of wine. “You’re right. But I’m hoping for future adventures with you, adventures to create new memories. But no expectations. Just having you here, sharing an evening meal like this, means a lot to me.”

Meant a lot to her, too. If it didn’t go any further than this, if they didn’t become intimate tonight, that would be okay. However, truth to tell, she did want more, did want to end up in his bed, did want to feel his naked body against hers. She hadn’t lied about being “kind of horny.” Not kind of, she was. She had that gleam in her eye, the same gleam she had years ago when they were in her room and she wanted to fool around and couldn’t wait to take him inside her, even when her parents and siblings were home. In fact, they usually were home during those weekday night “dates.” She’d put on a piece of clothing he liked, usually a sexy dress and dimmed the lights. Sometimes, she’d put on the radio, tuned to a classical or “easy listening” station. She wanted to experience that again. Or, at the very least, a reasonable facsimile thereof.

When he rejected her offer to help with the dishes, she said, “Well then, as they say in those corny old movies, how about if I change into something more comfortable?”

He straightened up and flashed her a beam of a smile. “Oh, that would be great. In fact, I’ll change with you. If that’s okay.”

“Like you had to ask.”

After he put the dishes in the sink to soak, she followed him upstairs to the master bedroom, a cozy, carpeted space with minimal clutter. He had a twin-sized bed tucked against one corner of the room, which included a night table, desk and dresser, with a smallish TV on top. The bed reminded her of the one that she had in her room when they were dating, same size but with a headboard. She eased down on the edge of the bed, placing her hands between her thighs. Then she said, “Look, I’ll admit I’m kind of nervous. But it’s a good kind of nervous. A nervous excitement I guess you can call it.” She drew her full mouth into a shy, young girl kind of look and giggled.

He nodded and sat beside her, draping his right arm over her. “I get it. After all, it’s been a long time since Jimmy was president. Speaking of which, what would Nora and Grant do in this situation, meeting up in Grant’s bedroom decades later?”

She did a half-turn to face him. “I’d know what I’d want them to do, and that’s make passionate love to each other.” Then she kissed him on the mouth.

He began to rub her leg. “I’ve heard that life can imitate art. Or is it the other way around?”

She reached under his blue, V-neck sports pull-over shirt and began to rub his chest. “They’re interchangeable, really. Life provides our muses for creativity. In turn, art can fuel the passion to turn words into reality.”