Deja vu All Over Again

by Larry Brill

  “Then we’ll get you a date.”

  “Leave me alone. Now I hate you, too.” Eppie tried to roll away, but he stuck a foot out to block a wheel. Frustrated, she said, “Who do you think you are? You’ll get me a date? I don’t need your help getting me a date.”

  So maybe that was the wrong way to phrase it, but Eppie did need his sympathy. All he needed to do was plant the right suggestion in the right ear. He could think of a couple of perfectly reasonable guys who were too shy to ask a girl out, guys who were fun enough and, more importantly, respected him enough to listen to him. He could convince them to ask Eppie to the dance and wouldn’t embarrass her when they got there.

  Eppie pushed with all her might, finally getting the wheel over his toes. He grabbed the handles and tugged to slow her down. “I didn’t mean get you a date, like, you know, it would be hard. Like I said, I’d take you to the dance myself—wheelchair and all.” That is, if he weren’t going to the prom with Jules instead, of course. That was understood. She understood, right?

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  What was he saying? What did Eppie think he was saying? He didn’t know, so he said, “Sure.”

  “Evans, you’re not doing this just because you feel sorry for me, right? I thought you were my friend.”

  Nate turned Eppie so that they were face-to-face. He was making a mental list of several unattached boys he could hook Eppie up with for the prom, starting with Mark O’Leary, the class valedictorian. He was pretty cool when he didn’t have his nose in a book, and did a hilarious imitation of Principal Conklin when he loosened up.

  “You know I’d never do it because I felt sorry for you. No, I know better than that.”

  Eppie searched his eyes. “Okay then.”

  “Okay.” The feel-good excitement after standing up for her and staring down the bitchy girls and their asshole boyfriends was back. Nate Evans to the rescue.

  “Okay, then. Evans, I’d be happy to be your date for the prom.” When Nate was slow to respond, Eppie said, “That was what you were asking, wasn’t it?”

  Not at all. But he swallowed hard and said, “Sure, it’ll be a blast.” Then he thought about Julie, and something really gross rose from his belly and grabbed him in the throat. And it didn’t taste so good.

  “Great.” Eppie did a slow circle in her chair and rocked her shoulders to music in her head. Nate had spent enough time with her over the last three years to see that, for someone who spent so much time showing so little emotion, the girl could beam when she wanted. Too bad she kept it to herself. The good feeling slowly returned. Nate the White Knight.

  Eppie asked what he would do about Cooper. Everybody knew he was going to ask her.

  “But I didn’t ask Julie, did I?” Technically true. How was he going to explain it to her? Maybe she would understand that he had gotten caught up in the moment. He could deny it and Eppie could pretend, but it was a sympathy date. Maybe he could make it up to her afterwards. Maybe, but he was in deep doo-doo. He hoped Eppie would come to her senses and turn him down. Someone was going to wind up with a heartache, but watching her wave her arms over her head and smile, as happy as he had ever seen her, he decided it wasn’t going to be Eppie.

  Nate knew he didn’t have a clue about what he was doing but tried to convince himself this would be fun. When Eppie’s mom pulled up in their station wagon, he bent down and kissed her. He intended it to be a quick, nothing-special peck on the cheek, but she leaned into his face, and her lips followed his as he pulled back. It made for a lingering kiss, like a kiss that meant more than it did. He glanced over at Mrs. Johnson, who was scolding them with her look, but Eppie shrugged and smiled.

  The whole scene left Nate unsettled for many reasons, but mostly because, as thrilling as it was to kiss a girl, and a pretty one like Eppie, all Nate could think about was Julie Cooper. And as he waved at Eppie one last time, it occurred to him that he had just kissed a girl he never intended to date and screwed up the chance to kiss the girl he wanted most.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  What Would Dr. Rachel Do?

  “It occurred to me…”

  Julie cringed. “I hate it when you say that.” She had her back to Carla and poured coffee into two large mugs at her kitchen sink. Carla usually followed up that phrase with something that made Julie think about things that were best left unthought. It was three months after the New Year’s Eve debacle with Russell.

  “It occurred to me on the way over here that the kids in our freshman class the year you and Russell had your first date are probably all married with kids of their own by now.”

  “Come on. Don’t be silly. It hasn’t been that long.”

  “Okay. So they’re getting ready to graduate. How about you and Russell? I think that puts an interesting perspective on how long your relationship has been dragging out, though, don’t you?”

  “Interesting, yes. That’s about all.”

  Carla slid a book across the kitchen table as Julie set the coffee in front of them.

  Dr. Rachel, Dating Coach. “Dating coach?”

  The Fifty Dumbest Things Women Do to Ruin Relationships. Carla tapped the title. “She has one for every decade. This one is for women fifty-plus. And we’re obviously not talking dress sizes here.”

  Annoyed, Julie looked down on the book. “Do you really think I need this?” It wasn’t a question; it was pure rejection.

  “It was either this or set up an intervention like they do with alcoholics. I thought you could use some expert advice. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you’re going to take Russell back.”

  “It’s been three months. Look, Carla, that whole New Year’s Eve mess? I’m over it and so should you be. Besides, he’s been sweet and apologetic. And he’s been trying really hard to make up for it.”

  “He stood you up on New Year’s Eve.”

  “I explained that already. He was a little tipsy and he lost track of time.” He was drunk, actually, and in retrospect, Julie blamed herself for being too angry to take his car keys and keep him from driving home.

  “And you didn’t even get your ring out of the deal.”

  “And he was so excited about getting the Super Bowl tickets.”

  “Not as exciting as getting an engagement ring.”

  “He apologized.”

  “He should have proposed.”

  “You’re the only one who thinks so.” Julie shook her head.

  “After he got your hopes up and all.”

  “You’re the one who got my hopes up. I know better than to listen to you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking that if Russell doesn’t move in with you, some cat would. And then another and another until you’re up to your tush in whiskers and fur balls.”

  Only Carla could get away with a comment like that, tapping into her uneasiness about growing old without someone to share those years with, and make her smile in the process. But Julie knew there was more truth in what Carla said than she would admit to anyone else.

  “We needed the break, that’s all,” she said. “It was a good thing. It gave us a chance to evaluate where we’re going, and it made me realize how much I missed him.”

  They’d had a fight on New Year’s Day and it left her with a grudge she held longer than the line of cars trying to get onto the Bayshore Freeeway at rush hour. She’d avoided bringing up that she had expected a marriage proposal, but she couldn’t make him understand how much he hurt her. He accused her of overreacting but didn’t bother to put up a fight when she told him she wanted a break, and that made her hurt worse. Then, after time began to thaw the frosty truce that followed, he was back.

  Russell sent roses on Valentines Day when she told him she had something “better” to do than a dinner date with him. Vindictive? Maybe. Cautious? Definitely. “Better” was a day at the aquarium in Monterey and dinner alone on Cannery Row. It hurt when she leaned back in her chair, took st
ock of the other customers and accepted the fact that she was the only person in the restaurant with a table for one. That was when she knew being a couple with Russell reminded her how much she wanted someone male in her life again. Working near him each day and going home alone most nights reinforced how lonely she had been before they had begun dating. A girl could only do so much with Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and binge-watching Downton Abbey. The only good thing about it was that, with Ben and Jerry on her hips, she had taken up jogging again.

  Russell shocked her when he gave her a little gift to pass along to her daughter, Tiffany, on her birthday. That was sweet. What kind of guy remembered your daughter’s birthday? A good guy who missed her. That was important.

  Carla said, “And that’s another thing. Why is it that whenever you don’t have time for Russell, he goes out of his way for you? He turns sweet. And he sure has been persistent. Like the harder he has to try, the better he likes it.”

  “He’s sweet most of the time. You just never get to see it. So I think it’s time to patch things up. He’s taking me to dinner at the Grandview tonight. Romantic, don’t you think?”

  Carla started to say something, thought better of it and pushed the dating book in her direction.

  Yellow sticky notes clung to pages throughout the book. Julie flipped through them. Carla said, “I marked a few things that got me thinking. You’ll recognize them. They are so you.”

  “There must be two dozen or so here.”

  “Only eighteen, actually. But out of the fifty dumb things women do, that’s not too bad. If this were a midterm, you’d flunk in a good way. Unless I decide to grade on a curve, in which case, we have a problem.”

  “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Page twenty-three, if memory serves me. You have a problem,” Carla said.

  Julie snapped the book shut. “Well, it’s easy for you to read this and say ‘Oh, that is so Julie.’ You don’t know what it’s like to be single at our age. You’ve been married for thirty-something years.”

  “She has three whole chapters about that. But right now I don’t have time to fix myself. We have to fix you first. This is your life I’m messing with.”

  “Messing is right,” Julie replied, though the way Carla’s eyes twinkled, it was impossible to be annoyed.

  Julie opened to a page Carla called to her attention. According to Dating Coach Rachel Rowan, PhD, she, Julie, needed more spine.

  Guys are simple; unfortunately the good ones don’t just fall out of the sky. Even if they did, they’d get lost on the way because they won’t stop and ask for directions. Regardless, don’t be afraid to give your guy a gentle nudge so he knows where to go.

  “I’m not certain Russell is the nudgeable type.”

  “If he is, I’m sure you’ll find a way to do it. I have faith. And you need to start with dinner tonight.”

  “Let’s get through the school year,” she repeated. She stroked the cover of Dr. Rachel’s book and mused. She might have time to get through a chapter or two before Russell picked her up for dinner.

  Chapter three, page twenty-seven. Julie lay on her back that night and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. Did it apply to her? Did she even care? What would Dr. Rachel say? She snuggled her head deeper into her pillow while she tried to form images in her mind’s eye from the patterns in the popcorn ceiling. The moon was full and glowed brightly around the edges of her window blinds, illuminating the room.

  Chapter three, page twenty-seven. Dr. Rachel warned that one of the most common of fifty stupid things women do at her age was to treat sex like finding an oasis after wandering for years in the desert. She wrote:

  The trap that mature women fall into is that they are too quick to trade a few minutes of OMG! for years of Aaaargh!

  She went on to advise Julie to take enough time to get it right. She hadn’t planned on a sleepover. Maybe it was the full moon. Maybe it was the way Russell wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled that erotic spot behind her left ear at her door when they returned from dinner. It was a spot she didn’t know existed until he came along. Maybe it was the way he looked at her and lied about how good she looked even though her neglected hair badly needed a cut and color. Maybe it was his words or his touch, but whatever the reason, by the time the night was late and they were wrapped in each others arms on the couch, there was no way she would let Russell go home without a fight.

  She needed more OMG! in her life.

  Julie swiveled her hips and got out of bed. She went to the window and raised the blinds. The light bathed her naked body and she felt warm and loved. And happy. The man in the moon must have known; he winked at her as if they were sharing a secret. What did Dr. Rachel know? Russell was too calm, too stable ninety percent of the time to be an Aaaargh! kind of guy, and she loved him for that. He said he was too boring for his first wife, and his second marriage was an impulsive mistake that he wasn’t going to repeat. So Dr. Rachel would be pleased to know that they would go into it with eyes wide open.

  “What are you thinking?” She loved the sound of his voice. It was deep and soothing as a back rub.

  “Not much,” she answered. “Just enjoying this.” She turned toward the edge of the bed, where he took her hand and guided her to sit next to him. “What about you? What are you thinking?”

  “Hawaii.”

  “Hawaii?”

  “What would you say to spending a week or ten days together in Hawaii as soon as school lets out?”

  She would say, “How fast can I pack?” It was the kind of trip she always wanted, a trip she would have taken long ago if kids and jobs and commitments and finances would have let her get away with it. The most exotic trip she had taken in thirty years was to Disneyland (twice) when her kids were little. The only trip out of state was two weeks in the car on a drive with her mother and the children to Yellowstone. The closest she had come to a tropical vacation was the distance she could swim out from the beach in Santa Cruz.

  “I’m not sure I can afford a trip like that,” she said. It wouldn’t be prudent, but it would be fun. It could be romantic.

  “No problem. I’ve wrangled a speaker’s slot at the West Coast Region’s Secondary Education Leadership Workshop. They’re holding it in Maui this year. Imagine that. I’ll be on a panel with Superintendent Fox, and the school district is footing the bill for the stay.”

  “How did you manage that?” She really didn’t care. It sounded a lot less romantic when he put it that way.

  “I’ll be tied up for a few days with the conference. I thought we could stay on for a few more and snorkel, do the luaus, sit in a beach chair and sip those little drinks you like with the umbrellas in them. And we could get to know each other even better.”

  “Better than what?”

  “What better way to find out if we belong together twenty-four-seven?”

  He tugged her hand and drew her to him. She lay down and put her head on his chest. It sounded practically romantic. Or maybe it sounded romantically practical. Either way, it sounded wonderful.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Back to the Future

  Sit up straight.

  Eat your peas.

  Don’t come home late.

  Clean up your room.

  You are not wearing that to work.

  Being mothered was not the kind of life Nate considered when he ran away from his life in southern California to move back home with Mom and Dad at age fifty-five. It came with the territory. That territory being his old bedroom. When did a mother stop mothering? Probably never, he decided. Regina Evans even criticized him for the length of his hair.

  It was too short.

  “I miss those long locks, the way you used to wear it.”

  In a concession to the reality of getting a job and having to be an adult now, and after spending an afternoon with the latest GQ magazines, Nate went hip short cut with a flip-front that spiked up from his forehead. He had spent an hour, dazed by choices in the be
auty aisle at Safeway, before rejecting the hair color choices just for men and went with a Lady Clairol chestnut flavor that, if the woman on the box was not lying, had the color of his youth. His first attempt was a dismal failure of the orange variety. Like any guy, if the box said let it set half an hour, Nate assumed twice that long would look twice as nice, right? So the second attempt ended in a shoe-polish look. In the end, he went to a stylist, handed her a picture from his GQ magazine and a box of hair color that had been pummeled out of frustration and revenge. “Do this.”

  Regina shook her head and asked him to let his hair grow out. “Just a little. For me? You look so, so Republican,” she said.

  “Mom. Everybody wears it like this.”

  She sniffed. “If you want to be like one of those nasty boys from Fox News, sure. What happened to that sweet little liberal I raised?”

  He looked at his watch. If he left now, he could take his time and get to the new job easily. It wasn’t much over a mile away. He had imagined this day a dozen times since Eppie convinced him to apply for it. He was dying to find out if reality could compete with his fantasy. He swallowed the last bit of coffee. Let the adventure begin.

  Regina smiled and reached for her son with both hands. Nate steeled himself against the inevitable two-handed pinch of his cheeks and kiss on the forehead. Instead, she grabbed the ends of his tie not yet knotted and pulled it from around his neck. “You aren’t going to wear that to work.”

  “What’s wrong with this?” he asked the fashion police.

  Charlie sat across the breakfast table from him and pointed with the crust from an unfinished piece of toast. He thought better of making a comment and shrugged.

  “If I have to explain it to you, you’re hopeless.” His mother pointed to the design on the tie. “Really? The Three Stooges?” The contorted faces of Moe, Larry and Curly stared at Nate from the fabric his mother dangled in front of him with disgust. Regina marched to his bedroom and returned a minute later with his funeral tie, a solid black number.