The Naked Girl in Our Garden

I married a woman I didn't love; in fact, could barely stand to be around. Old men like me dream of a passionate May/December marriage that will bring back the fire of our youth. But ours was a December/December marriage. A union between two dried up, worn out people whose time came and went and are now just waiting around, I guess, for the curtain to fall.

Her name was Marion and I met her on a cruise to the Bahamas. My son and my grandkids were always joking about how my mind went to the Bahamas. So I decided to follow it just to see what was in the Bahamas.

As with life itself, the journey was more fun than the destination. I enjoyed watching the other passengers on board. Nothing lifts a man's spirits like seeing how unhappy some of his fellow humans are, meeting the walking horrors they marry, that sort of thing. I was in a good mood by the time we reached Nassau.

Then Marion got on the ship for the return trip. They put us at the same dining table because we're both from Tulsa and are senior citizens. There was chemistry between us from the start, but not good chemistry. We could sense the inevitable, like two people being swept along in a river who cling helplessly to each other.

It's like this. I would rather hear a woman's voice than abide the silence of an empty house. Marion's mediocre cooking was still better than my own. Even her sardonic remarks about my looks proved that I was still alive and another human being knew it.

Neither of us smiled during the marriage ceremony that took place on board ship the night before we got back to Miami. They offered us a honeymoon suite but we said hell no. We demanded a room with two full-sized beds and Marion said on our wedding night, you so much as come within three feet of me and I'll squeeze your balls so hard tears will run down your cheeks. That set the tone, I suppose, for our marriage.

Marion's first husband had just given up and died. It was the only way he could escape her. He had dabbled in oil futures, and the thing about oil is that even if you only dabble in it you still become filthy rich. It's like falling down, you just let yourself go and there you are.

I guess he didn't care that the woman who'd in a sense done him in got everything. A nice Tudor-style home set on two acres south of downtown Tulsa; an estate that if you have to ask the price you can't afford it.

I sold my own home in a less fashionable part of Tulsa and handed the sale money to Marion. In return she made me the primary beneficiary of her own estate. Then we settled into a grim endurance test to see who would outlive the other and reap the benefits of our deal with the devil.

But still I'd lie in bed and wonder. Is this all that's left for people our age? Must we accept this cheerless life with no hope for anything better? I would think of Marion sleeping two rooms down from me. Does she not, in the depths of the night, also wish for more?

Marion was hell on wheels, a bear to live with, but I always say give the devil her due. The woman could garden like billy-be damned. She'd throw seed on the ground and next thing you know it's the Garden of Eden. But of course Marion did more than throw seed. Her specialty was azaleas but she was an ace when it came to dogwoods and roses and day lilies and all the rest of that stuff.

We humans believe that if it's worth doing it's worth overdoing, and so it was with Marion's garden. It started small, then became an acre, finally an acre and a half of greenery. Of course she rarely lifted a bony finger or got dirt under her manicured nails. The landscape company did all the work.

We have a big bay window that overlooks Marion's garden. One April morning I was standing looking out that window when I saw a naked girl in the garden. I was sipping coffee and wondering if it would rain and wishing two o'clock would get here so I could start drinking bourbon.

But I was stone sober. And there was a young girl walking among the pink azaleas. You couldn't see all her body at first but there was no doubt in my mind that she was stark naked, not even wearing shoes.

She finally came down a path where you could see everything the good Lord gave her and the good Lord gave her plenty.

But she wasn't a male fantasy. If she had been, she'd have had enormous breasts, maybe longer legs, or flaming red hair. That's how we men are. But as I watched her I decided that she was just right, a woman who was greater than the sum of her physical parts, if that makes sense.

Her ample breasts didn't overshadow but rather complemented her well-rounded hips, and her legs not only got the job done but added to the overall image of a woman most fair. The whole greater than the sum of the parts.

She began to pick some yellow coreopsis that were coming into bloom, smiling as she did so but you could see a trace of melancholy in that pretty face. Even from a distance and with my old man's eyes there was no question about it.

It was as if being in our garden helped ease her sorrow. But hers was not a devastating problem, I think, not as if she'd been left at the altar or lost her credit card. She just emanated a sort of regret about life in general.

Being a man I wanted to see her butt, and when she turned back toward the azaleas it was just where it always is. A round womanly derriere. Her waist was not as narrow as I'd hoped. Hers was the sort of body where a woman says, okay, this is who I am and I'm fine with it.

But how the sight of that naked girl lifted my spirits! It was an unexpected gift, one you enjoy all the more just because it came out of the blue. I grinned and walked into Marion's study where she was sewing and watching some worthless program on TV, as if there's any other kind.

Marion looked up to me in the doorway and I said with a chuckle, "There's some girl walking around in your garden and she's taken all her clothes off."

The woman looked at me as you would a spider, not a big scary one but one that you'd squash without thinking twice. "Don't bother me," she said. I got that a lot from Marion.

"It's true."

"Kiss my ass." I'd never kissed Marion's ass, and shuddered at the thought of doing something so revolting.

She continued, "It isn't even noon yet, John. Surely you're not drunk already, are you?"

"No, and there really is a naked girl in your garden."

"Go away." She went back to her sewing; case closed, meeting adjourned.

I returned to the bay window and the girl was still out there, now with a colorful bouquet, which added to the overall aesthetic of the scene, making it more charming than just a naked girl parading around. Even I had to admit that.

Like most of us I have no idea who lives in my neighborhood. Could be a bunch of squatters from New Caledonia for all I know. But I decided to approach the girl and tell her it was okay to visit the garden.

I wasn't going to mention that getting naked in it was fine by me. That would be implicit of course.

But she ought to know that someone was watching and appreciated the fact that she'd chosen to brighten up Marion's garden with her nude body which as far as I'm concerned put those azaleas to shame when it comes to natural beauty.

I walked though the kitchen out onto our flagstone patio and she was just disappearing out of sight at the far end of the garden. A glimpse is all I had, then nothing.

And you know what? I didn't walk back there to see how she'd gotten in, or even look to see if she'd left footprints. You don't question miracles like having a naked girl in your garden. Best to say that was nice, it made my day, and let it go at that.

From then on I had a new hobby, Looking for the Naked Girl. I spent hours watching the garden. Even if I were busy with something else, I'd glance out there occasionally because you never know.

This pleased Marion no end as it meant I would annoy her less that usual. Keep looking, she said with a condescending grin, I'm sure you'll see something.

I saw the girl again at dawn a week later, and just before dusk two days after that. The next time was another overcast morning, when she came within twenty feet of the patio.

I studied her at leisure, examining all aspects of her nude body. She had light wavy brown hair, shoulder length, in no particular current fashion. Her pubic mound was covered with a dark bush that was just as nature intended, no big deal.

She looked remarkably soft and feminine, and after careful observation I realized why. This girl never went to the gym. She never jogged or exercised, had not built up her muscles the way many girls do. Hers was the body of a woman who's not expected to do any heavy lifting in life, just be the apple of a man's eye and give him children.

The next time I saw her, a strange feeling came over me that took a while to puzzle out. And then it hit me. I was in love with the naked girl. And I haven't loved a woman in thirty years. Not Celeste in the last ten years of my first marriage, and certainly not the old crone who slept two rooms down from me.

By now I didn't want to actually meet the naked girl and realize that she had all the foibles and irritating habits as the rest of us. I loved her just as she was: an ideal woman to worship from afar. In her I could invest traits of purity and intellect and joy and she would have those qualities. Just try to find them in a real human, I dare you.

A few nights later a lightening storm woke me at midnight. I lay there in the darkness thinking of the naked girl, and just like a thunderbolt the idea came. A realization so appalling, so unbearably dreadful that it had to be true because that's how life is.

I knew in which bookcase to look to find what I needed. So there I was a little later sitting at the desk in my den, staring at the answer. As the pure cold truth of it sank in, I began to laugh and cry together.

"A good trick, God, oh a real humdinger!" I cried. "You really got me with that one, you old futzer! I'll give you credit, Old Man, you've one helluva sense of humor, pardon the expression!"

I'm not sure why, but a woman will still fix breakfast for a man whether she likes him or not. Marion was waiting with cereal and coffee and fruit the next morning when I staggered into the breakfast nook, all bleary eyed and wishing I were dead.

Even she noticed. Marion had finished breakfast and was on her second cup of coffee when she said, "Not that it matters, but what's bothering you?"

"You really want to know?"

She shrugged. I took a deep breath and stared out into the garden, thinking that life is a bottomless pit. Just when you think you've hit rock bottom you find another layer to sink through.

"Marion, I'm in love with you."

A look of distaste crossed her face. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Not a line you read in the romance novels, but it's what she said.

"The naked girl in the garden is you, Marion."

The woman looked at me in silence for a few seconds, then said, "At last. You've gone completely off your rocker and I can have you committed. Hallelujah."

I took out a photo from a pocket in my robe. "This is the girl I've been seeing out there for a month. Look at the photo."

Marion took it and saw what my eyes had viewed in horror just a few hours ago. Two girls in bathing suits, each with one arm across the other's shoulders, smiling into an old Kodak camera. The writing on the back said:

Two crazy sisters! Marion and June, August 1954

"The taller girl, which is you, is in every way the girl I've been seeing. Her face, hair, her figure, legs, it's all you. And the thing is, Marion, I've never looked at your old photos and had no idea what you looked like as a young woman. I don't know what made me look in your photo album, but when as I saw pictures of you I knew it. You are the naked girl in our garden."

"I'm married to a lunatic. Not only are you old and ugly, John, you're a complete lunatic."

I looked at the woman more closely than I ever had before. The sagging cheeks; the countless lines and wrinkles; her watery eyes and gray hair. Was there something, anything, still left there of the naked girl? Why had I made the connection?

"Marion, the girl in the picture is beautiful. What happened to you?"

"What happened? I got old, you damn fool!"

"No, it's more than that. Tell me!" I couldn't believe it, but I actually took the woman's hand. The first time we had ever touched each other.

Marion looked down at the two girls in the photo, and a trace of a smile crossed her face. The first time I had ever seen her smile.

She looked up and out into the garden. After a long pause she spoke. "I was eighteen then. Life was going to be so wonderful. I was so sure that I'd always have a man and kids to love and that I'd always be happy."

"But life sometimes doesn't work out that way. Someone breaks your heart. Another betrays your trust, a third stabs you in the back. People that you love die, one by one. A career you thought you loved, after a while you don't care and then start to hate it. I think that's how you get old, John. It isn't just the years that make you old, it's life itself."

I blinked in surprise. Such profound words, coming from her? What next?

Marion fixed me with a poignant look. "Wasn't it that way with you, John? Isn't it that way with all of us?"

The truth, the weight of those words somehow bent me down. It was worse even than knowing that my beloved naked girl had become an old hag. Like I said, there's no rock bottom in life. You just keep sinking.

I let out a sigh, but then Marion gave a slight gasp. In a quiet voice she said, "Holy Mother of God."

"What?"

"She is out there," Marion whispered, "the naked girl. I see her. And dear God it is me." Marion's face went pale; a deathly pale.

I looked up and saw the girl walking near the coneflowers, that wistful smile on her face. We moved to the bay window for a better look. She was standing only about twenty feet away, in the shade of a dogwood tree. And the girl was looking straight at us.

Looking into her eyes was like looking at eternity. Never in my life have I felt so unnerved. She motioned to us with a warm smile.

"Come enjoy the garden!"

We heard those words but I don't know if they came from her. The voice was like a distant echo, faint and pure, that came from nowhere and everywhere. It was a command that we could not ignore. Come enjoy the garden.

"What is she?" Marion cried, her voice breaking. "She can't be real! What's waiting for us if we go out there?"

"What's waiting for us if we stay in here?" I said.

Marion gave me a long look. Then, her voice now calm, she said, "Let us go, then." She took my hand and as an afterthought she picked up a blanket from the sofa. Together we walked out into the garden.

My heart was pounding. Is this how you die? I thought. I swear I expected an angel chorus or, just as likely, hell fire and brimstone to greet us. But I felt only the sun on my brow and grass under my now bare feet.

I looked down and the strong young hand that was somehow mine held another equally smooth hand. I looked over to Marion and watched all her years and life's heartbreaks melt away like frost on a sunny morning. In a few seconds I was gazing into the eyes of the naked girl in the garden. It really had been Marion all the time.

A smile was on her face, and I knew without looking that my paunch was gone; that my skin was soft and firm; and that my manhood was once again thick and limber.

Marion, now eighteen and glowing like the maiden she was, said, "Come with me, John."

We walked to a part of the garden shaded by a tall post oak tree and bordered by roses. She spread the blanket, reclined on it, and held out her hand to me. She was offering me her kisses and her body.

What would you give to be eighteen again? To make perfect love to a woman for the first time ever and to feel that electrifying thrill throughout your body at her every touch, her every kiss? To feel coursing through your veins the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, in the words of the poet?

What would you give to feel that supreme ecstasy yet mixed with bittersweet knowledge that age brings? To enjoy that fierce sexual intensity all the more because you know how soon it fades?

Such was the gift bestowed upon a cynical old man and woman who didn't deserve it but were nonetheless given an afternoon that was somehow August 1954 again. Marion and I made love, talked, made love, explored the garden and made love again, luxuriating in the brute animal vitality that surged through our naked young bodies.

For a few precious hours I got to know Marion as a fresh-faced girl who treasured the world around her. How she loved to laugh! And she was everything I had imagined my naked girl to be: innocent, droll, and so affectionate. An enchanting creature.

Of course we knew we had that one afternoon of youth and no more. But the knowledge was not bitter, just as knowledge of death does not prevent you from enjoying life.

The sun began to set; too soon it was over. Marion took my hand and said in a quiet voice, "It's time to go in now, John."

We walked onto the patio and approached the door. Believe me, death and what lies beyond hold no fear for me now. I walked through that door and felt my body sag and creak and moan as I became seventy-one again. I looked at Marion, once more the old woman I had married.

And we both began to cry like babies. We fell into each other's arms and cried for our lost youth and our wasted years and the way we mortals are forever held in the clutches of the most cruel heartless bitch of all, time itself.

But the bitch's victory over us was not complete. I looked deep into Marion's tired old eyes and saw that yes, the young girl was still there. As long as I had Marion, I would still have the naked girl in our garden.

Her face wet with tears, she put her arms on my shoulders and said, "John, we can't be young again. But maybe we can do a better job of being the age we are."

And we did. After that day, we stopped drinking so much, dressed better, and exercised every day. We began a healthy diet and lost some weight. Marion colored her hair a bit, a perfect mix of gray and her natural warm brown.

But far better than any change in appearance was how that afternoon changed the way we saw life and each other. After making love to that delightful girl in the garden, I could not help but cherish what now remained of her in Marion. To my great relief she felt the same toward me. You could see it in our eyes: love but just as important, respect and compassion for each other. It brought us together as a man and woman.

And eventually it happened. My manhood that had been soft and dormant for over a decade rose up one night and demanded satisfaction, which Marion was happy to provide. Afterwards she whispered, "Don't go. Stay here tonight in my bed." I have lain with my wife every night since then.

We're far from perfect. We still have days when we're cranky and snap at each other. But often when that happens the naked girl in Marion says, "Let's go enjoy the garden."

We walk through it, holding hands just as we did on that impossible afternoon, and smile at the secret we share. At how some part of you must always stay young, even into old age. And how sometimes miracles happen and you regain that youthfulness even if you have spent many decades lost without it.