First Love

by Donna Poole

“At least it’s not forty below,” Randy said.

“It’s not a balmy eighty degrees either,” Clarissa retorted.

He laughed. “Where do you think you are, woman? Florida?”

She sighed. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever be snowbirds like some of our friends are.”

“Don’t suppose.”

For some reason his cheerfulness, usually so endearing, irritated her today. Perhaps because he’d insisted on taking their daily doctor ordered walk outside downtown instead of in the college gym. She didn’t like slush seeping through her old boots and getting her toes wet. She didn’t like the wind chill. And she really didn’t like these walks; she didn’t think they were helping his health or hers. How could they? She walked turtle speed, clinging to a cane with her right hand and to his arm with her left.

He stopped in front of the candy store window decorated with cupids and hearts. “Want some candy for Valentine’s Day?”

Clarissa sighed again. “You know what the doctor said about candy. And if we were going to cheat on our diets and eat some you wouldn’t want to buy it here.”

Randy squinted at the price on a displayed box of chocolate then whistled. “People really pay that for a half-pound of candy?”

Yes, and people our age retire. And people our age go to Florida in the winter. And people our age have enough money to buy new boots when their old ones wear out.

She didn’t say any of it out loud though. What good would it do? His old, family run hardware store was Randy’s life. It made less money every year, and sooner or later he was going to have to face the fact that it needed to close the way so many other businesses in town had.

Sooner or later; what am I saying? It’s already later. We’re seventy-seven years old. We have no retirement money left. What we saved in the more prosperous years is gone now keeping that store open. Pretty soon we’re going to be back to eating pork and beans and boxed mac and cheese on alternating days the way we did in college. What’s he thinking?

She didn’t ask Randy what he was thinking. She already knew his long-range plan. He wanted to die behind the counter of that hardware store of his with his boots on, family proud until the end. The faded sign, hanging by only three screws, read, “Randy Sanger and Sons, Hardware.” But the sons had long ago left the small Michigan town to live their own lives in other states, and she and Randy understood. This little town was dying; the hardware store was dying, and she and Randy were dying. And they’d never get to retire, or be snowbirds in Florida, or spend any time together.

Quit being so dramatic, she told herself. We aren’t exactly dying yet, just getting older. I think our love is dying though. I can’t remember the last time we did anything fun together. All Randy does is work, go to church, and fall asleep in front of the television.

Clarissa sniffed, pulled her arm out of Randy’s, and dug in her pocket for a tissue.

“What’s wrong?”

But before she could answer Randy walked on ahead of her and stood looking in the window of the new hardware store in town, the one that carried everything he couldn’t afford to keep in stock. This store was on the main street in town; his was down a side street. This store was one of a chain of thousands of successful stores across the United States.

Clarissa caught up with Randy and linked arms with him once again. She investigated his face as he stared in the window. Would he see it? Would he realize he was waging a losing battle and finally sell the store while they could still salvage a bit of money? Oh, they’d never be snowbirds in Florida, but maybe they could sell the store and their run-down house and find a nice apartment where they could enjoy time together in their last years.

Randy lifted his chin. Clarissa knew that stubborn sign; she should after fifty-seven years.

“You know what Bud Smith said to me yesterday at my store? He told me he’d never give a penny to this chain store. He said he’d rather wait three weeks for me to order him something than pick it up here in an hour. He said Mom and Pop places are worth supporting, and he’s right!”

“Randy Sanger! Do you love that store more than you love me?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. His face had a dreamy look, and he was staring at the street.

“A man never forgets his first love,” he said.

Clarissa turned to see what Randy was staring at. A beautiful older woman, tall, erect, with silver hair and no cane was sliding into a car. No scoliosis hunched her back like it did Clarissa’s. She adjusted a fur cape and smiled at an elderly man who bent and kissed her like they were young lovers.

Is this the first sign of dementia? I’m his first love! He never even dated anyone else, as far as I know.

But Randy was certainly looking at her like a man in love. Clarissa was too hurt to be angry.

“Okay. Who is she?”

“What she?”

“The woman you’re staring at!”

“What woman? Clarissa! The car, look at the car! Don’t you remember?”

She looked. The woman was getting into a vintage, perfectly preserved yellow VW Bug from the 1960s. It had a black convertible top.

“Don’t you remember?” Randy asked again.

“How could I forget?”

They looked at each other, laughed, and decades disappeared. Once again, they were college students in their twenties, standing in a car dealer’s lot after hours, staring at the same VW Bug they’d looked at so many times before, a yellow convertible with a black top.

They’d both wanted that Bug more than they’d wanted anything. They’d turned their meager college tuition budget inside out, upside down, and sideways trying to figure a way to get it, but it was as impossible as flying to the moon. Instead, every night when they got off work, they went and looked at the Bug. Until it sold. That night they went home and to console themselves added a piece of cheese to their toast topped pork and beans.

Now, back on the street over a half-century later, they stared as their dream car drove away.

“How much do you suppose it’s worth today?” Clarissa asked.

Randy shrugged. “I’m guessing fifty grand.”

She sighed. “I’d have guessed more, but still a bit out of our budget, huh?”

He laughed as they headed back to their rusty old minivan. “A bit.”

He helped her get in, put her cane in the back, and started to shut her door.

“Hey wait. Did you think when I said, ‘A man never forgets his first love,’ I meant the woman getting into the VW?”

She nodded.

“How could you think that? You know you were my first love. You’re my only love. You’ll be my last love.”

He grinned at the shocked look on her face and got into the van.

“What? I still have a little romance left in me. I took Valentine’s Day off work. Thought we’d get lunch at that little Italian place and then play Scrabble. You still like to play Scrabble?”

She nodded and reached for his hand. “That sounds lovely. So, Bob’s working alone that day?”

“Yep. Told him he’s gotta do it.”

“But this is his first Valentine’s Day as a married man. Maybe you should just take a half day off and let him take the other half.”

Relief washed over his face. “You wouldn’t mind? I was wondering what we’d do after we played Scrabble. I get kind of bored just sitting around watching TV.”

I was wondering what we’d do after we played Scrabble.

Clarissa shouted with laughter that turned to tears and back to laughter.

Randy Sanger, you’d be the most unhappy, bored, retired man on the planet. Wouldn’t that be a lot of fun! No, thank you.

She kept laughing and crying. Alarmed, Randy pulled the van over to the side of the road just as the rusty muffler fell off. He got out, picked it up, and threw it in the back of the van.

“Good thing I know a good store where I can get clamps to fix that old muffler,” he said. Then he patted Clarissa’s shoulder. “Are you okay, honey? I really do love you; you know.”

“I know.” She sniffed. “But I almost forgot.”

“You almost forgot?” His voice went up an octave. “You aren’t getting that old timer disease, are you?”

She couldn’t resist teasing him. “I might be. Will you still love me?”

“You know I will! I love you more than anything. Even more than my hardware store.”

She smiled at him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, honey.”

“It’s not Valentine’s Day yet!”

“It is for me.”

The End

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author.