Phyllis

She introduced herself as Ms. Parks to the class, but I already knew her as Phyllis. Phyllis lived with her parents who the summer before had moved into the apartment next door to my estranged father. That was the very same summer in which my beloved mother favored my sister to travel around the country with her, my mother being a school teacher herself. Phyllis completed her teaching internship my senior year of high school, graduating to full-fledged teacher as I graduated into becoming a full-fledged college student. Within six months of my graduation from high school, my parents buried the proverbial hatchet which allowed my emasculated father to move back in with mom and sis. But moving away and having my nose buried in books (most of the time!) I lost contact with Phyllis as there were plenty of college girls to eclipse the infatuation that had filled me with lust and love for the long haired, big breasted teacher to be.

That was more than thirty years ago. I had attended my first two high school reunions, ten and twenty year, but had skipped the last, tired of the arrogant cliques that still remained despite the years. There were two people I had always hoped to see again, Margret Olroyd and one Ms. Phyllis Parks. At the last reunion, I was sadly informed of Peggy's passing, succumbing to cancer. I was only comforted by the additional news that it had only been two months from discovery to death. However that alone had pretty much put the final nail in the coffin as for me attending any further high school reunions. I guess Peggy's death that became the precipitous event that led me to finally accept the truth —there are no such things as a way-back machine.

And so it went until finally, I retired from the working world. Unlike my parents, my own wife had made our trial separation permanent. Our daughter and son had since married, inconveniently moving to opposite ends of the country —daughter living in Boston while my son headed to Phoenix with his mother. Thus I found myself, after all the years, stuck in the flat lands of the Midwest.

Retirement is an interesting phenomena. Viewed for years as something of an idealistic panacea, its benefits hadn't taken long to wane. Oh, for sure I enjoyed not having to get up every morning to shoulder the drudge of another day at the office. I certainly enjoyed having a house to myself after all the years of raising a family and two years of a divorced, out of work sister who finally found her white knight and rode off with him into the blessed sunset. But having the house to oneself meant doing all the things that were once shared -meals, dishes, laundry and house cleaning, not to mention the yard which the ex had filled with ubiquitous gardens. i.e. weeds to pull, shrubs to trim and train, flowers to divide and care for. Yes, I stayed busy all the while seemingly accomplishing little with my new life of leisure.

There I was, languishing in leisure as summer put forth its final heat wave of the season, when an old friend encouraged me to volunteer at one of the local schools to read once or twice a week to children struggling with their words. Eventually he pursued me and in mid August I found myself doing just that. The young principle, cut just the summer before from his final pro league team, hired me Johnie on the spot. An interesting young man of whom I would later find out that all the young teachers nicknamed Clark Kent because of his chiseled face and heavy black framed glasses.

It was a rather large grade school. Times were tough forcing the district to consolidate three schools into one. I was glad that my schedule only called me in twice a week as the noise of youth was rapidly fraying the last few nerves left to me. Women seem to fair better than men in either ignoring it all or just absorbing it all in a motherly fashion. I suppose that was why of all the retirees volunteering at the school, only women chose to drive school buses —those reverberating yellow metal coffins of screaming mayhem. God help us all!

Basically this was how the school year passed and largely without incident. I met many new people I even made a few friends; had a parent or two try to set me up to meet either their single mother or grandmother. God, was I getting that old? 'Thanks, but no' I kindly declined though I wished for a companion to add a little noise to house every now and then. And I suppose that would have been the end of it if not for the long haired woman who stopped in at the school office to pick up an ailing grandchild as I myself was signing out to leave for home.

Sometimes you know them for who they were almost immediately. Other times, even when introduced, you never really quite place the old with the new. In this case, there was something in the way she moved, something in the way she placed her one hand on her hip while the other signed out poor little sick boy, Ricky Taylor. The glossy brunette hair had now turned gray, losing much of its velvety sheen. But it wasn't dry or thinning as some of the women's hair seemed to do after years of bleaching and coloring. I was taller than her now. She was still relatively as thin as she had been. On the other hand, I had put on a few pounds directly below the expanding barrel chest. She wore glasses while I sported newly laser corrected retinas. Amazingly, she still seemed as gay and alive with energy as I remembered her thirty years prior.

"Oh poor boy," I heard her comfort the ailing child as she turned toward the door of which I continued to open to both.

"See you Monday," I called back to Renee at the office desk, smiling back at me as always, waving as I stepped out into a beautiful cloudless day. Oh if only Renee were single!

I followed the woman and child out to their car parked inappropriately in the reserved 'Staff ONLY' parking lot. It was one of those new German SUV's with automated this and automated that. Someone had money to burn!

"You take care Ricky," I called out as the woman closed his door before walking to the back of the vehicle as its rear hatch closed all on its own.

"Forgive me," I asked as I tilted my head to one side, summoning the gray haired woman's attention, "but have we met? I don't mean to be rude but there's just something in the way you were standing at the desk, signing Ricky out that brought back a long forgotten memory." Careful, boy, I warned myself. Mustn't be too free with age related recognitions.

Standing upright in perfect feminine posture, the woman turned and looked at me full in the face. Searching every movement, I could not divine her thoughts.

"Well, I don't know. Are you from around here?" bright eyes inquired without any sense of resentment of being bothered by the questioning.

"I grew up here, graduated from high school but moved away until just a few years ago when, after my parents had died, I moved back into their house."

"What year did you graduate?" she asked.

"Sixty-seven," I answered, almost ashamed at the antiquity of it.

"Really! That was the year I interned at the old high school that burnt down. What class were you in?"

"Yours. . . . Phyllis?" I asked leaning toward her, cocking my head slightly seeking affirmation.

Call it what you will, but there is something I find strangely enjoyable when I have someone lost for an answer. The licking of her glossy red lips, the quick twinge of nose and slight raising of her glasses begged me to reveal myself.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I. . . ." People sometimes form sentences which are left unfinished with the express purpose in extruding information lost to them.

"Don't recognize me? That's okay. It has been a long time and I suppose I've put on a few misplaced pounds and then there is this," I said pointing to my well-groomed white goatee. "I suppose I could tease you and tell you were I sat and in which class. Or I remind you about the time when a certain young boy got caught flashing a Playboy centerfold while you were up at the board with your back to us as Mrs. Ryan just happened to look in through door window checking up on how you were doing."

I watched as the woman raised a hand to her mouth, drawing a deep breath as she cried in her sing-song way! "Oh my God! Yes, I remember that. Are you Brian? Ummm, give me a second. Brian Biggins?"

I suppose I had it coming. I had teased her memory instead of just being mature and up front with who I was. Brian Biggins had been a fat little turd who, now looking back on it, had always been strangely popular. Ever and always, he was quick with a joke or some witty sarcasm that often had even the teachers smiling at him. Unlike myself, he had gone on to become a prominent local land developer who's wealth had made him arrogant and totally suspect of even his best of friends.

Just smiling to her, holding out my hand, I finally confessed laughing, "No, not so fortunate. Ron. Ron. . ."

"Ronnie! Ronnie Kucera! Oh my God!" she screamed again in apparent delight. "How are you? Do you teach here? What have you been up to?"

"Oh I'm retired" I confessed, shaking my head no. "No, no. I just come here a couple of times a week to read to kids who are struggling with their words. And you? You still live around here?" I asked, greatly desiring a miraculous healing of little Ricky so I could scoot him off back into the school and have this lively woman all to myself.

With a sad face she answered me, "No, I'm just here visiting my daughter and her husband. I live down in Florida. My husband and I retired down there."

"You're married?" I asked trying desperately not to let on my disappointment.

"I was. David died last year when a drunk teenager ran his car up over the curb and into the table where David and I were eating. I never even got knocked off my chair but David..."

I watched as the brightness in her face was eclipsed by the memory of her loss.

"I'm sorry. I truly am. I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Ron, it was good seeing you but I suppose I should be getting Rickie home and in bed. Is there a way I can get in touch with you? Are you married?"

"Not any more!" I confessed with an inappropriate smile. "Here, let me give you my cell number. I don't have a home phone any more. If you're free, I'd love to take you to lunch sometime, or better yet, a night out up in the big city?"

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I had driven home as giddy as a high school boy knowing his choice of femme fatale had accepted his offer to escort her to the prom. These sorts of things only ever happened in the movies, or at least to other people, never me. And Phyllis looked great. Why had I stopped my regiment of exercise and diet after the wife left? Genetics had still kept me in the game but athletic was now only looking average. Still, on those rare occasions where I actually bothered to look at myself in the mirror, I turned away from the thought that all the good days were just about over.

Would she call or had she merely been polite? And here it was, Friday night. Would I have to struggle through another weekend alone or would the gods favor me and allow me just one more opportunity to enter the dance?

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I had finally given up and run out to get something to eat before returning to the house for another brain numbing night in front of the fifty-inch flat screen. After both wife and sister had finally vacated the premises, for a brief expanse of time I allowed wicked women into the house to dance for me on that very same stage. But all were either too young or took their clothes off too fast. They also neglected appreciating the art of arousal via breast lust. Rather it was one second strolling around the house, the next fucking wildly in anything but a realistic, identifiable way. Was I so strange to want some semblance of normalcy?

And so there I sat till I could take it no longer, turning it all off before rising to stand in front of the window, looking out on the world as it passed me by. The mini mall across the street was a hive of activity between the best BBQ in seven counties, a carry out only pizza hole-in-the-wall and a most convenient discount liquor store. But my driveway was dark and empty. 'How did one go about rekindling the fire?' I pondered.

As I was about to turn out the lights and retire to the back bedroom only to turn on yet another tv so as to numb me into dreamland, Phyllis's rented SUV, or one just like it pulled deep into the drive. I remained standing in front of the large twelve foot window till the SUV's lights went out and its driver side door popped opened. Sure enough, it was my long haired, big busted, beautifully dimpled face Ms. Phyllis Parks; only her last name had changed over the years. Racing to the side door, I flipped on the outside light and went out to greet my guest.

"What are you doing here? I waited for you to call but then thought that you thought it best just to leave things be." Sometimes I cringed at the way I think about things and the way I always seem to be of the habit of revealing them.

Half hanging her head, Phyllis spoke as she drew nearer, "Well what I didn't tell you this afternoon was that my flight back to Florida was scheduled for tonight. And truthfully, that was where I was and where I was headed. And though you might think ill of me for saying this, frankly, I was ready to leave after spending ten days with my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I love her to death. And her husband is a sweetheart if there ever was one. But it was just time to leave."

"Does your daughter know..." I asked, not purposefully leaving my sentence short, and yet, doing just that.

"Does my daughter know that I missed my flight? No." It was a pitiful 'No' that tapered off in a quiet sense of lostness.

"Phyllis . . ." This time I caught myself thinking it better to move her and the conversation inside. "Would you like to come inside? Can I offer you something to drink?"

Phyllis had pulled into my drive shortly after ten. Now it was nearly one and that long awkward silence we had both been starving off finally raised its ugly head. We had laughed. We had pulled out old pictures and swapped countless stories especially those dealing with spouses and children and now grand children. We had even talked a little about politics and religion before the awkward silence loomed up before us and seemingly refused to go away.

I remember King Arthur of Camelot singing the question, "What does a man do when a woman is thinking -for they don't do it often?" Then he confesses, "Oh my mind is at war!" And so too was mine. Phyllis arrived wearing a sharp blue-gray matching suit jacket and skirt complete with a white, button down the front, blouse. If she had stood with brief case in hand, she could have easily been mistaken for some high falutin business executive or perhaps even a higher falutin politician. To use the word grandiose would not have been out of character. But after a second glass of Italian wine, Phyllis had discarded the jacket and loosened one more button of her blouse before relaxing in my father's favorite easy chair. Behind her was an old pole lamp with a dim 60W light bulb that illuminated her being as if being captured in some Dutch Reformation still life.

While Phyllis talked I took the opportunity to observe and record everything about her. That once shiny brunette head of hair was now in fact a mixture of brown's and grays. Somehow it seemed to suit her perfectly. She had arrived with it neatly tucked up tightly behind her, again in that professional woman's way. I liked the new Phyllis. Her eyebrows were thin but right for her face and the style of glasses she wore complimented them both. The crow's feet which sprang out from the sides of her eyes made her smiles more real and her tears more painful. The vertical creases at either side of her mouth still accented every pursing of the lips. Only the slightest increase of fullness beneath her chin gave evidence of age, and then probably only to me. The upper vermilion her mouth now wrinkled when she talked. That too I found strangely appealing, pondering -always pondering- whether or not she would allow me to kiss those lips. And if and when she did, would it be as good as I had, oh so many years before, imagined it would be?

There were times during our conversation when Phyllis would absentmindedly scratch the back of her neck as she looked down to one side in some deep contemplative ruse. That was when I was able to assess as to whether or not the years had been kind to her breasts. Though her blouse was of luminescent white, I could discern no pattern of lace beneath, no seam, not even much of an indentation from a shoulder strap. And having only the two top most buttons unfastened, I, sad to say, could discern little cleavage. But there was no hiding the fact that it was in there. Nor was there much pretense to the fact that Phyllis's breasts had filled out, if not indeed, grown further since our school days. I searched the mental archives but drew a blank as to what had been previously observed and mentally recorded other than being proportionately large and often cloaked behind sweaters and the fashionable blazers of that time.

"So I thought, what the hell, it wasn't like there wasn't anything desperately waiting for me back home. I know, I should have called or at least texted you. I guess my impetuous nature hasn't lost any of it impetuousness over the years. I find it seriously helps me from growing old or being scared to explore another facets of life. And that is very important at this stage of the game, don't you think, Ron?"

I was glad that Phyllis had dropped the familiar name of youth, 'Ronny.' There were other hints subtly dropped along the way that gave me hope that per chance this impetuous girl-woman might spend the night! And if I played my cards right, maybe, just maybe she'd even spend it under my sheets.

"I couldn't agree more. However, in admitting that, I will have to confess that I haven't been very impetuous of late." I laughed a sad sack laugh before adding, "There hasn't been any reason to." I looked up at two bright eyes that were leaning forward in my father's old chair. Was this an invitation?

"Maybe you just need to look around a little harder to find something new to get excited about!" There it was again. Surely this was an invitation.

Standing to my feet, Phyllis rocked forward with two arms wrapped about herself as I drew close to her. Smiling a queer little mischievous smile, turning her head ever so slightly as she looked up at me, I leaned down and slowly brought my lips close to hers. "I've always been attracted to you," I heard myself confess.

"I know," she replied, this time with a widening of that mischievous little smile. "Why do you think I took the chance and came back?"

My eyes widened as I looked breathlessly within her own. Slowly she closed them and pressed her lips on mine.

There are times when two pair of lips are just made for each other. I've kissed countless women over the course of my life but only three of them perfectly matched my own in a way that no others had ever achieved. One was a summer fling just out of high school —Denise. The other was at the end of a three days stay at an old college friends home after which she kindly drove me to the airport to see me off —Diane. The third now had her hand behind my head, tenderly injecting her passion into me. The kiss lingered forever, long enough to make the position uncomfortable. We parted slowly as eyes opened equally as slow before pursuing their search for answers. Only centimeters apart, our breath mingled as head positions began randomizing, seeking both optimization of placement and permission.

I suppose if I had been younger, I would have pushed her back in her chair or dragged her off on to the floor and had my way with her. Perhaps if she had been younger I still might have done it. But there was a maturity about all of this that told us both that there was no need to rush. This was no affair of youthdom. This required neither of its participants to be home before midnight. Besides, that hour had long come and gone. Nor was there any conflicting thought of explaining the lateness to an awaiting spouse. We were both consenting adults. We were both, for-gods-sake, consenting senior citizens. We were both free. For the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to feel free; to be free with a woman who was so ardently there for me —just me; a woman who had dared to change the direction of her life, without any selfish manipulation on my part, just to take a chance on me. The mere realization of it made me stumble back away from her. "What?" she begged before the mischievousness of her demeanor exuded a shy smile.