By Marlene Samuels

It was 1980 and although I’d been in the Ph.D. program for one week, I spotted him on day one. His good looks and muscular physique were total contradictions to that academic “geek” stereotype. Without a doubt, I was smitten. Our first year we’d had five classes together and most days, we waved to one another from our library study carrels. Occasionally, we’d see each other in the library coffee shop. When that happened, one of us approached the other asking, “Mind if I join you?” Those encounters resulted in coffee breaks that far exceeded our intended thirty minutes.

Both of us had full-time jobs while completing coursework at an extremely competitive university. We also hoped to maintain a social life, hardly an easy endeavor. Dating anyone whose aspirations weren’t aligned with our own was nearly impossible. Could we expect them to comprehend the stresses grad students faced? Also, there were budgetary constraints. Sure, neither of us was destitute but neither were we in the market for Michelin-star dinner-dates.

Our long-anticipated summer break was one week away. “Any chance you’d be up for barbecue dinner with me, maybe Tuesday?” Don asked as our statistics seminar was dispersing. “There’s this place I’ve been going to since high school and amazingly, it’s as good now as it was when I was a kid! Besides, it’s probably equidistant from each of us.”

“Sounds fantastic!” I said, desperate not to sound as giddy as I felt about his invitation.

“Ahh, that’s right, the quarter’s over Monday. Celebrating Tuesday is brilliant!” I added, then obsessed about how dumb that must have sounded.

“Excellent, why don’t we meet there at 6:30? Parking and traffic after 6:00 is a breeze. Did I mention it’s casual?”

“Are you a clairvoyant? I was just about to ask you.” On my way home, I’d convinced myself he probably thought I sounded like a moron.

All week and weekend, I agonized over what to wear. I selected outfits, laid them on my bed, changed my mind, then picked new ones. Invariably, I returned to what I’d chosen first but, it was complicated. What if it’s hot? June in Chicago can be hot and humid. What if it rains? What if the restaurant is overly air-conditioned or there’s none at all?

 With one day left, I settled on a chic, casual outfit: a cotton-knit pink and white striped midriff top that revealed the slightest portion of my naval besides, it looked fabulous with my Navy-style bell-bottom pants in crisp summer white. I’d accessorize the ensemble with platform sandals in fuchsia plus a matching straw handbag. Hadn’t I seen this exact outfit in May’s Glamour Magazine?

I slid behind the wheel of my Volkswagen Beetle feeling exceptionally sophisticated. My timing proved flawless and I found parking one block from the restaurant. Don was already in the lobby waiting for me when I arrived. He’d checked in with the hostess who seated us at a banquette against a wall of the expansive dining room.

Huge slabs of ribs, three types of sauces, pitchers of sangria, sides of baked beans, coleslaw, and french fries appeared before us like magic. Don had described the place as casual, however every table was set with a white tablecloth and white napkins. What an odd choice, I remember thinking, given the menu. We ate with our fingers, savoring the “finger-lickin’ good” food, and delighted in the fiddle and banjo players roaming among the diners. 

The food was amazing yet incredibly messy. But Don was the true delight. It was impossible to avoid smearing sticky barbecue sauce on my cheeks as I gnawed the ribs so any time he looked down to manage his own meal, I rushed to wipe my face with my fingers-tips and my fingers onto the napkin lying across my lap. It was critical for me to be prepared in case Don reached across the table to hold my hand, Why risk waiting until the end of the meal for staff to deliver their promised lemon-water bowls and clean napkins?

Sensing we’d attained maximum satiation, waiters cleared the table then delivered two finger bowls — a half-lemon floating in each, plus two fresh napkins alongside. I was immensely impressed. Once we’d cleaned up, waiters cleared the table again and left the bill. “How about we split the tab?” I offered, proof of my independence.

“Why don’t I get this one since I picked the restaurant, right? You can pick the next place then you’ll get the tab. Fair?”

“Sure, I’ll go for that. Thanks!”

Don settled the bill and then asked, “Any interest in a quick ice-cream-shop stop?”

“That does sound perfect.” I was elated by how well the evening had been going until, that is, we made ready to leave and reached for our napkins. Don placed his on the table. In the lightning-bolt moment of my year, I thoroughly understood why only a total lunatic would wear white pants to a barbecue joint. And clearly, I was one.

There was no napkin on my lap for me to place on the table. Where was it? I looked on the banquette without luck. Then I spotted it on the floor under the table. To my horror, it became clear that sometime during dinner, my napkin had slid from my lap. Throughout our meal, my constant fingertip wiping had been decorating my adorable white bellbottoms. We left the restaurant and to my relief, Don walked behind me. Mortified, I carried my handbag low in front of my thighs. 

“I had a great time but so sorry I’m going to have to pass on the ice cream,” I mumbled. “Uh, I just remembered I have a final to study for.”

“Really? I thought the quarter ended yesterday?”

I’d aced all my finals yet despite my academic brilliance, I never did get my turn to choose the restaurant and pay the bill for a second dinner date with Don.

©  2023 Marlene Samuels

Marlene holds a Ph.D., from University of Chicago. A research sociologist by training, she writes creative non-fiction by preference. Currently, she is completing her book entitled, Ask Mr. Hitler: A Memoir Told In Short Story.  She is coauthor of The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, and author of When Digital Isn’t Real: Fact-Finding Off-Line for Serious Writers. Her essays and stories have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and online.  (www.marlenesamuels.com)

By Virginia Amis

I sometimes think about what happened on that winter day in 1966.

The day’s air stung my ten-year-old cheeks even though I’d bundled up with a hat and scarf.   I stood on the sidewalk, facing the front door of our bungalow, watching my mother mouth words without sound, giving me the message she wanted me to understand.  Baby was nearby, so she did not want to open the door and let in a cold draft.  She must have thought her instructions were simple enough.

Twenty minutes earlier she’d sent me on a mission in our Pittsburgh neighborhood, handing me several small envelopes she told me were thank-you notes.  On them were written names in her lovely script.  No postage needed; I was her stamp.  She could have given the job to my brother, older by nearly two years. But he was unreliable.  The last time she sent him to Johnny’s neighborhood store to buy bread five minutes before closing, he argued for three of those minutes that he’d never make it on time.  He didn’t and we did not have toast the next morning.    

“Take these to all the people whose names are on the front,” she’d said to me in our warm kitchen.  I knew them all.  It was a small neighborhood.  “Knock on their doors and hand them to whoever answers.”

My mother was proper, always writing thank-you notes for any gift or kindness received.  She made us write them, too.  None of my friends had to write them.

I set out on that gray morning feeling important for the mission trusted to me.  At each house, I knocked on the door and waited for someone to take my delivery.  It was a simple task to complete until, at three of the houses, no one answered the door.  I went home, knocked on our front door and telegraphed my message to my mother by waving the three envelopes in the air and shrugging.

I thought I understood her response, mouthed through the window in the front door.  “Put them in the mailbox.”  She said it twice.  I can still see her mouth exaggerating the words.  She even pantomimed how that would look, pretending to slide the notes inside.  I nodded and set off to complete my task.

At the end of the street, the blue mailbox waited.  I dropped the cards inside and returned to my mother’s kitchen.

“How’d it go?”  she asked me.

“I did what you said,” I told her.  “I dropped the last three in the mailbox.”  The hot chocolate in the pan on the stove smelled good.  I hoped I could have some. 

“You what?”

I froze.  The tone of her voice signaled warning.  “It’s what you told me to do.”

She placed her hands on each side of her face, now twisted in horror.  “I told you to put them in the mail slot, not the mail box!  The mail SLOT in each front door.  I can’t believe you mailed them!  They don’t have stamps or even addresses!  They are going to lay in there, never be delivered!  I said mail SLOT!”    

She turned away and I tried not to cry.  A moment before I’d felt so pleased with myself.  I couldn’t wait to goad my brother about my success in completing the mission as I sipped on my hot chocolate reward. “See,” I had planned to say, “I can finish a job.” But all pride had vanished.  I sat lower in the kitchen chair, dripping snow boots on the linoleum below me, my cold chin on my chest.  I wanted to disappear.  I really didn’t care if the notes stayed in the mail box.  Who cared about stupid thank-you notes anyhow?  My only concern was how long it would take for my mother to tell my brother and other siblings how I could not do anything right.  I could hear her voice in the living room doing just that and my older brother’s laughter in response.

Several decades have passed since that winter morning in 1966. Since then, I have enjoyed a successful career as a litigator representing many clients in difficult cases.  My reputation for attention to detail and organization has brought them to my door.  People appreciate that I listen closely. 

I listen because I want to understand. Understanding is important.  I don’t ever again want to misunderstand.

©  2023 Virginia Amis

Ms. Amis has published stories in Perspectives Magazine, Reminisce Extra, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 Scribes Valley Publishing Anthologies, Beyond the Norm, Where Tales Grip, and Story Harvest, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, For Women Who Roar, several Writing It Real Anthologies and in 101words.com.   Her characters are inspired by family, the extraordinary people she has had the pleasure to meet and by the beauty of natural surroundings near her Pacific Northwest home.  

By Virginia Amis

We mingled in groups, some whispering, others laughing openly, then catching themselves.  The banquet room windows allowed a view of oak and spruce trees growing on undulating hills where paths wound and disappeared.  Someone remarked that the weather was beautiful on this chilly November day, especially so given the event.

I looked at the sky.  Clear, only a few clouds.  No rain.  There should have been rain.

“Everyone, everyone.”  She waited patiently for the crowd to quiet.  “May I say a few words?”  The woman who was shouldering so much grief stood erect before us, her bare muscular calves tensed to prevent her from falling, her lower back leaning on a table laden with photos and fresh brightly-colored flowers.  We politely took our seats at white-clothed round tables.  All of us, except one.  He was the only one I wanted just then.

* * *

Growing up, we thought we had invented fun, playing for hours with simple toys on warm summer days.  One afternoon, my little brother and I competed against each other at jacks.  I was pretty good, acing onesies, twosies, foursies and so on.  I loved gathering them, holding them so tightly they left imprints on my palm.   My brother, not as good as me but just as competitive, played with fervor.  He liked holding on to the jacks he’d won, too.    

Weary from a morning of laundry, vacuuming and dirty dishes, Mother watched our sidewalk play from a webbed lawn chair whose straps pressed against her thin thighs, leaving crossroad imprints when she stood to check on another child who slept on a blanket underneath an oak tree.  My brother and I knelt in the soft grass, leaning over the sidewalk that served as our playing surface.  Bounce, snatch, bounce, again and again, until our knuckles were scratched and all the jacks were gripped in our small hands. 

“I used to be pretty good at jacks,” my mother said.  We looked up at her.  I thought she was joking.  We had invented jacks.

“Let me show you a different version.”  She rose from her chair and kneeled beside us.  We stretched out our legs and tolerated the interruption.

Taking the jacks into her hand, she bounced the ball and laid all down on the sidewalk, except one.  We gave her confused looks.  She tossed the ball into the air again and laid down another.  With the next bounce she laid down a third, continuing until all the jacks were on the sidewalk.

“Reverse Jacks!’ she beamed.  “You leave one behind each time you bounce.  When I was a girl, we said we were leaving them in heaven.”

My little brother could not wait to try, even though it was not his turn.  My mother chanted as he played.  “One. . .two. . .three. . .”  until his hand was finally empty.

“Your turn,” he said.

My chin quivered.  I shook my head. 

“What’s wrong?  Take your turn!” 

“I don’t want to leave any behind,” I yelled.  My mother made me apologize for my rudeness and for waking her sleeping baby. 

My little brother looked at me, confused.  “Then, I’m the winner.”     He scrambled to his feet and left to play ball with the boy next door who was calling him over the hedge.

* * *

As his wife spoke, I looked at my remaining siblings and they looked back at me.  We were probably all thinking the same thought.  There used to be more of us.  Now, three had been left behind.  Which of us would be left behind next?  Wiping away tears, I remembered how my little brother and I used to play jacks.  He loved reverse jacks.  I did not.

I did not want to leave any behind.

©  2023 Virginia Amis

Ms. Amis has published stories in Perspectives Magazine, Reminisce Extra, 2019, 2020 and 2021 Scribes Valley Publishing Anthologies, Beyond the Norm, Where Tales Grip, and Story Harvest, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, For Women Who Roar, several Writing It Real Anthologies and in 101words.com.   Her characters are inspired by family, the extraordinary people she has had the pleasure to meet and by the beauty of natural surroundings near her Pacific Northwest home.