Return to Wilder

by Carl Hamlin

  The two women made small talk for a while, and then Jessica drove back to the farmhouse. She decided to stay there for the rest of the day to read, the way she liked to spend most of her time away from Chicago. She had ordered food meant for convenience, not for her figure. She allowed herself this one annual week of bad habits in the form of cold cut and cheese sandwiches accompanied by a large bag of potato chips and cola that was not labeled “Diet”.

  She also admitted to herself that the morning’s conversations had made her more inclined to avoid many more contacts. Most of all, she was not in the state of mind to encounter the man who lived across the road, and whom she had not laid eyes on since a Grange picnic when she was twenty-two and had just graduated from Purdue.

  Jessica had undergone a political transition while at the university, one that resulted in her holding a worldview that was quite different from that of her parents and most that lived in and around Wilder. When Mark pulled into the Grange hall parking lot to attend the picnic, she made a condescending remark regarding the sentiment expressed on a bumper sticker on his truck.

  That conversation continued for several minutes, and grew spirited enough that Helen had wandered over, interrupted the event, and guided Jessica toward the plate of brownies she had brought. That was the final of several such incidents that took place during her college years.

  After that memorable spat, Mark had gone away for four years in the Navy, and had returned to become a police officer in a small city eighty miles to the north of Wilder. At the same time, he went to college on evenings and weekends to earn a degree in criminal justice, followed by a Masters in business administration. He would return to visit friends and relatives on occasion, but his visits never seemed to take place when Jessica was back home.

  Things were different now, and she tried to put that fact out of her mind by reading. However, the plot to her book was unfolding to reveal that the heroine was having to admit to herself that she actually cared for the man who operated the nearby trading post, even though she had proclaimed her dislike for him. Jessica put the book down on her lap and began to smile. Mark Walters could be a good guy, she admitted. He had certainly carried a flame for her since the sixth grade. But she had only gone to that prom with him because no one else had yet asked her. That was sometimes the case with girls who were just too attractive. She supposed she scared them away. However, she did like Edward Howard, and she was the one who had suggested they sneak away to his car for a few quick kisses. If only he had asked her to that damned prom before Mark.

  Jessica slapped herself on the side of the head. These silly comments and memories were taking her too far back in time. She had moved on, had a high-profile life and career. Mark needed to move on, too.

  She chomped down on her sandwich stacked high with bologna and cheeses, grabbed a few chips and washed it all down with a glass of cola. However, the caffeine was not enough to keep her awake very late into the evening. She typically rose at 4:00 A.M., and she began to nod off before finally going upstairs to bed.

  Jessica had not set an alarm, but she woke at 7:00 and decided to attend the church she had gone to with her parents. It was a small congregation, and through her visits, she had been able to maintain her familiarity with most in attendance. In any case, they all knew who she was.

  After the service, she waited outside to meet up with a classmate who had been one of her friends. The willowy blonde Beverly Winfred suggested they stroll a block away to the only restaurant open on Sunday in the small town.

  As they walked, Jessica listened to Beverly tell of the breakup of her marriage, the departure of her husband for another state, and how she had taken back her maiden name. Jessica also enjoyed hearing the latest in the lives of Beverly’s two young adult daughters, one of whom was soon to give birth to a first grandchild.

  As they dined on their salads, Beverly abruptly changed the topic of conversation. “Jess, have you talked to Mark since you’ve been home?”

  Jessica looked down and laughed. “Good grief. No, and I don’t plan on that happening.”

  Beverly shook her head. “That’s too bad. You know, people here still talk about you to as the couple meant to be but kept apart for no good reason.”

  “There’s a very good reason. I never felt attracted to him. I mean, not in that way. We were good friends. Pals, I guess, until that prom happened.”

  Beverly nodded. “It’s funny how everybody has always assumed more than really was.”

  Jessica sighed. “As kids, we were together a lot, and we had a lot of good times partying and going to movies and stuff in high school. But that was just being part of a bunch of good friends. It’s too bad that Mark seems... I don’t know, disappointed. It’s not my problem. It’s nothing I can solve. Mark was a great-looking guy, and he did have a wonderful personality and he always was a trustworthy and responsible guy. I know all that.”

  Beverly laughed and flashed a grin. “Jess, he is still all of those things. He is still a hot-looking man. And as far as I know, he still has all those other attributes. So, I hope you understand why people here still talk about it so much.”

  Jessica leaned back and tossed up her hands in exasperation. “After three decades it seems ridiculous to me that anyone would still care about a couple of star-crossed lov….”

  Beverly leaned forward to whisper to her friend whose face was flushing. “Jessica Lynn Marin... do you want to complete that sentence?”

  Jessica could not look at her friend for a moment. “Bev, sure, there was this energy between us.”

  Beverly took a sip of lemonade and giggled. “Sexual energy?”

  “Ah. Perhaps on his part.”

  “Come on, Jess. Didn’t you ever want him to wrap those strong arms around you? Haven’t you ever wondered about what it would be like with Mark?”

  “Beverly, I mean, who doesn’t?”

  “You mean, who doesn’t fantasize about hitting the mattress with a hot member of the opposite sex who you know would give anything to have you?”

  “Ah, things just turn out the way they turn out. Bad prom or no bad prom.”

  Beverly started laughing again. “He told me that he almost gave you a spanking that night.”

  Jessica felt a wave of fury. “He has no right to be saying-”

  Beverly continued to laugh. “Remember when we did ‘Kiss Me Kate’ for the senior play, and he had to spank me?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “That was not so bad. He even confessed to me that he enjoyed it as much as I did.”

  “Oh, Bev! I don’t want to hear any more about this. I am so embarrassed that he said that to people.”

  Beverly fanned her face. “Oh, how fate twists and turns. Maybe life would have turned out so differently if he had spanked you that night.”

  Jessica leaned back and folded her arms. “Different is right. I would have had him arrested.”

  Beverly pulled out a tissue and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. “I doubt that. Everyone would have thought you had it coming. He would have been acquitted on grounds of justifiable ass-whupping.”

  Jessica finally broke down and began laughing. “You are hopeless, you know that?”

  “Well, with the two of you across the road from each other, it will be hard to avoid him. How will you handle it when you do see him?”

  Jessica shook her head. “I suppose my goal is to not agitate him, or lose my own temper. After all this time, there really should be no basis for us to get into some silly tiff. We can just exchange cordial greetings, I can ask how he enjoys what he’s doing... stuff like that. It doesn’t sound so difficult does it?”

  “Are you asking me, or yourself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you trust yourself to not stick a fork in some tender place?”

  Jessica leaned forward. “I won’t if he won’t.”

  Beverly shook her head. “That sounds more like a warning, a threat, or a chall
enge. Perhaps a dare, even.”

  Jessica found herself pausing to consider the comment. “Maybe I should just speak slowly. Of course, my intention is to completely avoid the man.”

  Beverly looked at her friend with a skeptical smile. “And what do you plan to do for the rest of today?”

  Jessica leaned back and smiled. “I’m going to do what I always spend a lot of my time doing when I come back here to that quiet house all to myself. I read. I still love those romance novels. They just take me away to another time and place, when life was simpler. More difficult, I know, but simpler.”

  Beverly nodded as the two began to rise from the table. “Do any of those books have a character of a dashing pilot who lives in a small-town and seeks the heart of his childhood crush?”

  Jessica leaned over and kissed Beverly on the cheek. “Stuff that nonsense right now. Send me a picture of your new grandchild.” Jessica walked to the door, then turned and smiled and teasingly shook an admonishing finger at her friend.

  Leaving the restaurant, she walked slowly past the stores that were such a part of her earlier life. Some of the names were different, and some had closed and been replaced by other businesses.

  She came to a storefront that was empty, with a “For Lease” sign emblazoned on the window. It had been a variety store during her teen years, and she had worked there as a clerk. Aside from the grocery store that Helen and her husband now owned, it was the most universally patronized store in Wilder. Anything that was not food or better sold at the hardware store was for sale there.

  That hardware store was next door, and was still a hardware store. The owner from her teens had passed on, and the store was now part of a chain.

  The hardware store was where Mark had worked when she had toiled next door. The two would see each other frequently, sometimes taking breaks together at the front doors and having a bottle of soda, often with two straws. Jessica was always aware that when they would return to their jobs, Mark would tend to linger. She was also aware that he would turn to watch and enjoy the view of her walking away. She would admit to herself that she was flattered by that attention. After all, Mark was the boy all the other girls wanted. The other girls.

  Mark would only ask a girl out for a special event where having a date was obligatory. Everyone knew why. Jessica knew it in her heart better than anyone else. No one ever suggested he did not like girls. He just liked one girl above all others, and the others could never measure up.

  Mark Walters was spending a relaxing Sunday afternoon straightening up the hangar, making room for a second plane. It was hard for him to concentrate on the tasks at hand, considering that he had seen Jessica walk through her yard and go into the house.

  He was taken by how attractive she looked gliding through the sunlight in her denim skirt. He was one of the few inhabitants of Wilder who had not regularly seen her on her morning news program, although during his tenure as a police officer, the Chicago station she worked for was considered the primary network affiliate in that region.

  His work schedule was not exactly compatible with watching morning programs. He was usually either already on duty if working days, and in the middle of sleeping if he had been on the night shift.

  He was happy for Jessica and her success. He was pleased that she looked as youthful as when she had graduated from Purdue.

  That was not the case with him. In spite of being fit, strong and lean, the job of being a police office had taken a physical toll, the auto crash aside. He had wrestled large, drunk men to the ground, fallen and broken a leg leaping over a fence in pursuit of a mugger, and been struck by a car that slid on ice while he was assisting another motorist. His joints ached and his shoulders and knees felt every change in the weather. And like many at fifty, some signs of arthritis were setting in around his six-foot frame.

  He made no pretense of still being that jilted young man. But Jessica was home for her annual homecoming, so those in Wilder who knew of the past, and that was many who lived there, could not resist the urge to speculate. In their memories, it was the match that should have been.

  After all, he had been the most handsome boy in the class, the best liked and an outstanding student. And Jessica was... Jessica. Nothing more needed to be said.

  Mark was in a no-win situation. People asked him about Jessica, and then the conventional wisdom became that Mark was talking to everyone about Jessica. He felt like a politician being asked the same question repeatedly by reporters, then being asked why he was speaking so much about that issue.

  He could feel eyes trained on him. He wondered how he would function in public during the next few days.

  Mark would have been relieved to be seen speaking cordially to his old friend in public, to be seen smiling and laughing, then walking away having happily reminisced. That would hopefully set the chattering to an end. It just had never happened that way.

  Mark and his parents had moved to Wilder when he was in the sixth grade. He was unhappy at being ripped from his friends at his Ohio elementary school, but his father had the opportunity to purchase the local grain elevator, and that was that.

  The first day of life in Wilder brought him into contact with the pretty little girl across the road. They became fast friends, riding bikes through the small town and taking part in pick-up ball games at the school grounds.

  In junior high, things changed. They still remained friends, but relationships began taking on different meanings. The kids began to develop budding feelings for each other, and it was not long before Mark was seeing Jessica in a different light. Then in high school, when she was a cheerleader for the basketball team, he would have a hard time concentrating on the coach’s instructions during a time out when he could glance across the gym floor and see Jessica twirling and leaping in that little cheerleader’s costume.

  Jessica was hardly unaware that the other girls from the seventh grade on flirted with the boy with the pitch-black hair and piercing eyes. She just didn’t see him in that way. They were pals. She enjoyed his company. As they traveled though the high school years, they would travel in groups. She relished his teasing sense of humor, and even tried to set him up with a friend of hers who was a couple of years younger.

  It all came to a head that fateful night in their senior year. Mark summoned up the courage to ask Jessica to the prom, and she accepted. He was on top of the world.

  But unknown to him, Jessica had developed a crush on a boy who had moved to Wilder at the beginning of senior year. He also asked her to the prom, one day after she had committed to going with Mark. She confessed to Edward Howard that she would have gone with him, if only.

  The night of the prom, Jessica excused herself for a while. Fifteen minutes later, Mark’s best friend confided to him that he had gone to his car to find some breath mints, and had happened upon Jessica with Edward, kissing in his car. They had not noticed him, but the truth had been revealed.

  Unfortunately, another boy had also seen the betrayal, and did not possess the same discretion. Word got around, and when yet another boy asked Mark about the rumor, he simply left the dance and drove home.

  Two previously inseparable friends never spoke for the remainder of their final school year. Through mutual friends, each learned that the other felt that each was being unreasonable and owed the other an apology.

  Mark left for the Navy right after high school. Three times while on leave, he had encountered Jessica when she was home from Purdue. Each encounter resulted in some petty squabble over anything but the night of that prom. She made a disparaging remark about a conservative theme to a bumper sticker on his truck.

  Knowing that he was assigned to an aircraft carrier, she asked how much fossil fuel was wasted in a day. There was always something to make him take a deep breath and walk away before saying or doing something that would have embarrassed his parents.

  It was a side of Jessica he had never seen and did not want to admit existed. She had humiliated him, and then felt aggrie
ved that she was left to fend for herself. He did not want to admit that she could be so self-centered. Perhaps that trait was what enabled her to succeed in her career. She had to always look out for her own interests in such a cutthroat business. To perch yourself in front of a television camera each morning required a healthy dose of ego. Perhaps something had simply emerged in her that he had never managed to glimpse before.

  During his time on the police force, one of his fellow officers had put together that he had come from the same hometown as the news hottie Jessica Marin who had just become the new morning program host. The questions from his buddies cascaded upon him. “Yes, we grew up across the road from each other. No, we didn’t date, we just ran around together. Of course we never did that. No, I never took her out on a date. No, we were just friends. Yes, she was always a real babe.”

  When he was away from Wilder, he would think of her from time to time. He thought of how he missed the girl she used to be.

  He knew of her annual returns to her home, and did not question that she really did care about her old friends and acquaintances. He did not blame her for seeking such a convenient refuge from the pressures she must face each day in such a high-profile profession.

  Of course, she had changed. So had he, and it was relatively easy to put her out of his mind under normal circumstances. Having her again living across the road was hardly normal circumstances.

  If everyone would just shut up about it all and refrain from finding entertainment from a far-gone day, it would be much easier. Yes, he had momentarily felt anger that night. He had wanted to go find her and wallop her royal behind. Perhaps he should not have confessed that sentiment a couple of old friends, but he was certain those brash comments would never find their way to Jessica’s ears. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt or embarrass her. He wanted bygones to be bygones.

  Jessica dragged the old lounge chair from the garage into the back yard so that she could read and sunbathe, as she had often done on Sunday afternoons in her youth. She knew which spot in the back yard was relatively concealed from passing motorists. She had her bikini on, and it was fitting quite well on a figure that many a twenty-year-old would have been happy with.