Why did he have to stand right there, right in the doorway tapping his foot? Didn’t he realize we were in the middle of a poetry reading? Couldn’t it wait, whatever it was?
The instant the intent young woman finished reading her prize-winning poem about a child buried in a still-ticking Mickey Mouse watch, the man stepped out of the doorway and into the room.
“Does anyone here have a blue Subaru parked out front?” he asked.
There was no response until a full minute later when I flung my white wool scarf around my neck, grabbed my coat, and pushed my way out of the crowded room.
“I apologize,” I said, trying to walk in step with him, “but I’ve lost my keys. They may be locked in the car.”
“Oh, great!” he exclaimed in dismay, lengthening his strides as if he were racing to reach the car before the sun disappeared into the horizon. “Do you belong to the auto club?”
“No,” I said, stopping abruptly, forcing him to turn back and face me. As he did so, I took one of his hands into both of mine. “And neither should you,” I added. “Auto clubs, why, auto clubs are …”
My voice drifted off as I tenderly stroked his hand and recalled my Brownie troop sitting cross-legged in a circle as we listened to our leader describe how to make name tags from macaroni and tree bark. In my vision, each Brownie in the circle was gradually replaced by one of those sleekly curved, oversized sedans from the 1940s. “This auto club will now come to order,” honked the head auto, prompting the others to stop flapping their hoods.
“What?” the man asked me, withdrawing his hand. “What did you say about auto clubs?”
“Just this,” I replied. “Don’t you think life is too short to spend any of it fretting?”
“But you’re blocking my car, and I’m late for a meeting!”
“Of?”
“Of?” he repeated the word as if I had addressed him in Swahili.
“A meeting of what?”
“Oh,” he exclaimed, understanding. “The Daniel Boone Club.”
“My point exactly,” I said. “How far would Daniel Boone have gotten if he had fretted?”
“Interesting,” he admitted after a pause.
Just then, we arrived at the Subaru. Living only blocks from the site of the poetry reading and not owning a car, I had walked over. My purpose in joining the man had been to teach him about tranquility and spontaneity, both of which he obviously lacked.
“You think that car is blue?” I teased.
“What color do you think it is?” he asked, a slow smile forming under his tidy mustache.
“Turquoise,” I said without hesitation.
“You’re obviously color blind,” he advised.
“Or perhaps you are,” I countered. “Say, why not skip that Daniel Boone thing and buy me a cup of coffee?” I tilted my head toward a rectangle of yellow light across the street.
“Well …” He sounded unsure.
“Haven’t you ever done anything on impulse?” I asked.
“I run a high school computer lab. What kind of example would that be?”
It turned out he hadn’t done anything on impulse during his first 27 years, but he began that night when he playfully touched my nose after Ellie, proprietor of the Irish Hill Café, brought us bowls of steaming mint-carrot soup and glasses of dark beer. When she shooed us out a couple hours later, we walked to my place and sat on opposite sides of a rickety kitchen table drinking coffee until the sun came up.
We called in sick and proceeded to the hall of justice, where we stood witness for a couple we’d never met, and they did the same for us. Later, he bought me a pearl ring, and I gave him huge jars of finger paint in primary colors. After supper, we packed my books and clothes into cardboard boxes and threw everything else in a dumpster. I moved into his apartment, of course.
We were good for each other, he and I. To my surprise, he cooked rather well and enjoyed it. I kept our home tidy, and after we found an ancient sewing machine at a yard sale, festive pillows and curtains brightened the place, often in shades of blue.
Most evenings, we walked in the neighborhood holding hands, sometimes stealing a kiss, and once taking home a scrawny, ownerless puppy. We kept a game of chess going at all times, went to a lot of movies, and read The Wind in the Willows to one another. Our gentle lovemaking was like two clouds gracefully gliding through one another.
My husband soon resigned from the Daniel Boone Club and began attending poetry readings with me. Our lives seemed interwoven perfectly when, just days after our third wedding anniversary, he told me that he was considering an unsolicited job offer from one of the largest corporations in town.
“But you’ll have to wear suits,” I exclaimed miserably. “And navy-blue socks. You’ll have to work late and wear a beeper and start eating meat again and read computer magazines.”
“I already read computer magazines,” he reminded me.
“But you won’t have time to read anything else,” I said.
“It won’t be that bad,” he insisted.
“It will,” I predicted.
The theme at the next poetry reading was “our universe.” An earnest young man was halfway through a sonnet laden with alliteration and double meanings when I noticed a fretful woman standing in the doorway. She wore a navy-blue suit and had long red fingernails, the kind that are glued on, and she was unconsciously tapping them against the wall in a jittery rhythm.
“It’s all right,” I whispered, leaning over to kiss my sweet husband goodbye.
“Does anyone here have a blue Subaru parked out front?” the woman in the doorway asked.
Nudging him, missing him already but knowing that our destinies must diverge, I whispered, “Honey, that’s your cue.”
By Nancy Gall-Clayton | Jeffersonville, Indiana
Nancy lived in Louisville from 1969-2009