McDonalds Marathon -- Another Meeting

I didn’t think I should put this on the blog, in case Alice might read it.  I don’t know if she ever will, but you can’t be too careful.  But I have to get it down. 

 Karen and Nikki were excited when I told them I was going to have lunch with an Author.

“Maybe she’ll come to Girls’ Night In,” Nikki suggested. “I want to meet her.”

“Do you like her stuff?”

“Actually, I’ve never read any.  But I’ve never met a writer.”  I looked at her.  “Except for you.  Sorry, Charlie.”

“That’s better,” I said.  “We’ll have to be careful.  She might put us all in a book.”

Karen thought that would be neat.  “Maybe years later some biographer would figure out what characters were us.  ‘The beautiful Countess Whoever in Whatever was based on her great friend . . .’ Of course, if it was me, it would be, ‘The worn out soccer mom.’”

I suppose the character based on me would be the quiet librarian with a vivid imagination.  Nikki would be the American woman married to a charming European.  I couldn’t imagine what she would do with Ed.

At lunchtime, I walked over to Emily’s office.  I was nervous.  Alice had seemed very nice at the lecture, but maybe she was tired of fans.  She probably has groupies.

“Do I look all right?” I asked Emily.  I don’t know what looking all right to meet an author was.

“Sure, come on.  She won’t bite you.”

Alice was sitting at her desk.  She looked up and smiled and I thought of Duke when he sees the leash being picked up.  “Oh, hi!  I was just going to see if you wanted to go to lunch.”  She looked at me.  “You must be Charlie.  Emily’s told me a lot about you.”

(I said a prayer that she hadn’t told her about the blog or if she had, Alice hadn’t read that I had compared her to a Lab puppy.  Or that I’d wondered if she might be a prospect.)

“Oh,” I said.

“Nothing bad, of course.  She says you have a blog.”

Oh, no, I thought.

“I haven’t read it yet.  I didn’t want to get any preconceived ideas before I met you.”

Thank you, Jesus!    

“Of course, you probably have some preconceived ideas about me.”

“Now, be nice, Alice.”  Emily said.

“Oh, I wasn’t going to ask you what they were.  But whenever I meet someone, they always say I wasn’t what they expected.  I never know whether that’s a compliment or not.”

Alice had an arrangement of sentimental Victorian dog and cat pictures on her wall, and the opening of Little Women written in calligraphy.

“I got that at Louisa May Alcott’s house in Concord.  I could quote it when I was a kid.”

“’It’s so dreadful to be poor,’” Emily sighed.

“You have to look at your hands and sigh again.”

“I have cousins named Meghan, Joanna, Bethany, and Jim.” I said.  “His name is really James, and we called him Jamie until he figured out why.”

“That is so cool.”

“And my mother’s name was Louisa.  Most of the women in my mother’s family had literary names.  In fact, my grandmother was named Alice after Alice in Wonderland.”

“I was named after my great aunt, but people keep giving me Alice in Wonderland stuff.  But it’s nice to have a thing; people have less trouble finding presents for you.  I have some old Alice pictures, but I didn’t want to put them up here.  It might be a bit much.”

By then we were in the hall.  I saw that Alice had taped literary cartoons on the door.

We had lunch at a pizza place around the corner.  Emily and Alice both had classes and I had to get back to the library.  “It was great meeting you,” Alice said.  “Maybe we can do dinner and go someplace fancy.  Or lunch again.”

“That would be terrific,” I said.  We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses and I wrote down the name of the blog for her.

As soon as I got back to the library, I got on my blog and deleted the entry about Alice.  I didn’t want to scare her off.



McDonald's Marathon -- An Interesting Prospect -- And a Bonus!

One of my favorite writers is here as a guest professor this semester.  Her name is Alice Barrett and she is best known for her short stories and novels, which, as one critic says, “put a feminine/feminist spin on Updike and Cheever.”  Her office is next door to Emily’s.

Emily and I went to hear her lecture.  She is in her early forties and bounces around like a Labrador puppy.  She says “terrific” a lot.  It seems funny to say that she’s cute, but there’s something about her, an exuberance that you wouldn’t expect if you just knew her writing, which is about WASP angst and love affairs and acting out.

Emily thinks she’s neat.  “So many writers are into being all miserable or angry.  But she’s so open and friendly.”

“Do you think she might be a prospect?”

“I don’t know if she’s gay, straight, bi or whatever.  There’s not that much biographical material on her, just short paragraphs at the end of her stories.  Basically, they say that she’s from Connecticut and that she and her two cats are ‘academic migrants’, getting writer in residence and guest professorship gigs.  She’s usually in her office at lunch time.  Come over and I’ll introduce you.”

I’m going to meet an author!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Memories of Joanna

Alice Barrett

Joanna’s beauty was not the kind that “hit you slap in the eye” as his grandfather used to say.  She didn’t wear makeup and her hair hung to her shoulders, often tied back in a tail, the tail of a sensible workhorse, not a spirited pony.  But there was something about her.  It seemed that she was above the tricks women used to attract men, and that gave her an air that one might eventually describe as beauty.

It was only gradually that he noticed her.  She was one of his wife’s friends, a voice on the telephone or a fellow guest at parties.  She listened more than she talked.  Sometimes, hearing his assertively extroverted wife’s end of a phone conversation, he wondered how Joanna, or whomever she was talking to, ever got a word in.

It was a party, though, that brought her to his attention.  He had wandered out to the patio to escape the noise and found her sitting on the glider.

“I suppose we should be mixing,” he said.  “Isn’t that what parties are for?”

Joanna smiled, “I’ve found that people don’t mix much unless they have an agenda -- to make business connections or hook up.”

“Hook up?”  He knew what it meant.

“Get laid.”  There was a slight smirk on her face, as if she knew she’d surprised him.

“So I suppose neither of us wants to do that.”  He had given her an opening, but either she didn’t see it or she was pretending not to.

“Did you ever know or read about people who say the only person at a party they want to be with is their significant other?”  she asked.  “Why bother getting dressed up or using the gas?  You can talk to them at home.”

“Food,” he said.  “And drinks.”  (And the chance to see women in their special occasion clothes, although he only thought that.)

“I’m not into drinking. This is diet soda.  But food, yes.  In fact, I’m going to get some now.  Can I bring you anything?”

“Oh, no thanks.”  Later when she didn’t come back, he realized that had been a mistake.  He would have liked her to come back.

After that, she kept popping up in his life -- her voice on the answering machine with a message for his wife, a chance meeting with her husband at the drug store.  And her name keep recurring.  An investigative reporter was (it seemed) constantly being interviewed about her latest book on a celebrated murder.  The convenience store clerk’s nametag said “Joanna” next to a unicorn sticker.  He started keeping a Joanna count and briefly wondered if he should include JoAnnes, but decided not to.

And then, damn her, she got into his head, a place where she had no business.  He was happily married with four children and two dogs.  But there she was.  He imagined having conversations with her – well not really conversations, because she didn’t say anything.  He could always imagine his wife’s replies, which he supposed was a good thing.  Joanna was probably (he couldn’t say for sure, of course) the kind of woman who, in his grandmother’s words, “wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”  Joanna would probably just look at the bird, as if daring it to say “boo” to her.

He even dreamed about her.  That was annoying.  He disliked dreams,  the good ones as much as the bad, since they offered happiness that didn’t exist.  And they came uninvited.

He would wait it out.  It had happened before. The last time was with his wife, and he’d fixed the situation by marrying her.  That was not an option.

So he went to the mega bookstore that also sold music as well as coffee and books, feeling oddly nervous and a bit guilty, but pleased with himself, like a child who has thought up a clever bit of mischief or a teenager sneaking the first cigarette or beer.

“May I help you?” asked the young clerk, probably an English or history BA, who told people she was “in retail.”

“I was looking for a Bob Dylan album.  Would that be in Folk or Rock or Alphabetically by Artist?”

“Are you looking for a particular one?”

“Well, the one with ‘Memories of Joanna.’”

The young woman went to the computer behind the desk.  After several minutes of frowning and shaking her head, she finally smiled.  “Oh . . .  Here it is.  But it’s Johanna and ‘Visions of’, not ‘Memories.’”

He bought the CD anyway, but didn’t open it for weeks.


Alice Barrett grew up in various Connecticut suburbs.  She currently lives with her two cats in various academic and literary institutions.  Her works include the short story collections Rather Bad Behavior and Meeting for Drinks, Going to Brunch and novels The Cod and The Wit of Our Words.

           

 

McDonald's Marathon -- Emily Has a Past!

 

Janet talked to one of the couples at Epiphany, who asked around, and it turns out that everyone thought Emily was on a break from men and just liked hanging out.  Emily was not pleased.  “Maybe it is the Reverse Katharine Hepburn Syndrome.”  She looked crestfallen.

I felt funny acting like a therapist, but I had to try.  “Well, how many men have broken your heart?”

“Just my graduate school boyfriend.  We had an understanding that we’d get married when we got our degrees, but he decided he ‘wasn’t ready to be tied down’.  I was afraid I’d missed my chance and would never get married.  One of my friends said that if I felt that way, I needed to go to a woman’s support group, so I did and I fell in love with the group leader.  Her name was Michele.”

“What happened?”

“We went out for a while and then a new woman in the group fell in love with her.  I was heartbroken until I realized that that was Michele’s thing, hitting on new members.  I still felt bad and I told myself that she didn’t know what she was doing.”

I snorted.  Even I am not that innocent.

“Well, we were all so open and liberated that I stayed in the group with both of them, but it worked out because she’d done it to another woman, Wendy, who was still with the group and she and I hooked up.  We bonded over how badly she’d treated us and how guilty we felt that we were jealous.  Anyway, we were together for three years and then I got my degree and got the job here.  We tried to keep up the relationship, but it didn’t work out, especially when Michele saw that Wendy was alone.  I don’t blame Wendy; she couldn’t help herself.  None of us could.”

“What did you do?

“I was so busy trying to get tenure, I really didn’t have time to find anyone else.  Wendy and I are still friends.  She finally got fed up and told Michele that she didn’t care if it meant she was bourgeois, neurotic, and possessive, she wasn’t going to put up with any more crap.  She and Michele were living together and Michele always had someone after her.  Wendy says she didn’t think she was doing anything, but she wasn’t discouraging it, either.”

We both snorted.

Janet told someone who told someone who told someone that Emily wasn’t just interested in hanging out.  So now when she gets invited for coffee, she gets more than coffee.  And I don’t mean a cookie.
 

 

 

McDonald's Marathon - Emily's Progress on the Road to True Love

Emily’s still getting together with us on Fridays, since she hasn’t met anyone yet.

“I tried the Unitarians, but there were all these middle-aged guys who had just been dumped or left their wives and were trying to prove how cool they were.  I didn’t even tell them I was a Lesbian.  It just would have encouraged them.”

She had had a little better luck with Epiphany, Kate’s church. “Everyone was very welcoming, but all the women seemed to be in couples.”

“Well, maybe they have friends they’re trying to fix up.  And you never know.  Not all relationships are as wonderful as they seem.”

I felt very sophisticated and worldly saying this, and then I remembered that “worldly” isn’t usually a compliment.

“Maybe Janet can talk to someone and find out what’s up.  She loves that sort of thing.”

Then we got down to the real business.  Missy gave me a double fondue pot for Christmas, and I’d made cheese and chocolate fondues

McDonald's Marathon - Move Over, Miss Woodhouse

 

You can’t find a cup of pumpkin spice tea or anything else anywhere, although there are plenty of eggnog and candy cane lattes.  I don’t have to mentally block out the Christmas decorations at the mall.  I may even watch a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel, and I’ll address the Christmas cards while I do.

Emily came to her first Girls’ Night In at Karen’s.  She brought a bottle of wine and cookies shaped like turkeys and cornucopias.

“How was Thanksgiving?”

“Well, the food was delicious and my nieces and nephews were fun.  But  . . . well, you know.”

“Did your parents give you a hard time?”  Emily is gay.

“Oh, they’re cool with my ‘Lifestyle,’ as my mother says.  My father keeps asking me when I’m going to meet a nice girl, and my mother says, ‘Woman, Bruce.  Emily needs to meet a nice woman!  You make her sound like a damn pedophile.’  She really tries, bless her heart.   

“This year she took me aside for a Real Serious Talk.  She said, ‘Honey are you sure you’re gay?  Maybe it’s the Reverse Katharine Hepburn Syndrome.’”

“What’s that?” Karen asked.

“That’s what I said.  She said, ‘You know how everyone knew Katharine Hepburn was a Lesbian except Katharine Hepburn?  Maybe everyone knows you’re straight but you.  I don’t care one way or the other.  I just want you to be happy.’”

“Where did she hear about that?”

“She read this short story about a straight woman who tries to help her Lesbian friend find somebody.  And they end up together.  It’s called ‘Reversing Katharine Hepburn.’  It’s pretty funny.”

We must have looked concerned because she said, “But don’t worry.  I don’t want to break up anybody’s marriage.”

That was a relief, but later I wondered if Emily was just being kind and the real reason we didn’t need to worry was that we didn’t do anything for her sexually.  But, I told myself, we would always be friends.

“What do you think is the problem?”

 “For years I was really too busy to seriously get involved or even look, but now that I’m back in business so to speak, I don’t have any customers.”

“Have you tried yoga classes or women’s support groups?” Nikki asked.

“Or church?  I can ask Kate if there are any prospects at Epiphany.  Or the Unitarian Church;  people were always hooking up at my old church.”

 I didn’t add that they were also unhooking, but that was a minor point.

“Meeting people isn’t the problem.  I’ve met women and we go to the movies or a concert or something, but when they ask me in for coffee, all I get is coffee.”

“Have you tried asking them in for coffee?”

“Yes.  And that’s all they want.  But we’ll go to the movies again or get together for lunch.  It’s not that they don’t like me.  At least I don’t think it is.”

This was beyond all of us.  If a man asked you to the movies and you invited him in for coffee, you knew what was coming.  Not that I’d had any experience, since I got married so young,  But I read.

Then I got an idea.

I never really liked Emma Woodhouse, but perhaps I can do her job more efficiently.  “Maybe we can help.  We must know some women you haven’t met.  But it will have to be after the holidays.  In the meantime, you can start going to church.  I have to warn you that Epiphany won’t be Christmassy until Christmas Eve.  With the Unitarians you never know.  You can try both if you want.”

“Well, I might as well.  I’ll tell my parents that I have some friends who are matchmaking for me.  That should hold them until the new year.”  Then she looked concerned.  “Do you think I might need a makeover?  Do you think I’m clueless?” 

Nikki took charge.  “Of course not.  Anyway, we’re not the ones to ask.  But we’ll find someone to ask if necessary.”

January is so boring.  It will be nice to have a project.

McDonald's Marathon -- An Urge for Spicing Pumpkins

Fall is my favorite season.  School starts, then Halloween arrives, then Thanksgiving, all leading up to Christmas.  And Cilla and I both have birthdays in November.   The only problem with fall is that you know what’s coming next.

On Saturday, I got out everyone’s winter clothes and put the summer ones in garbage bags until I could decide what to do with them.  We had just had the first prediction of frost and the college radio station was playing wistful Autumn songs.  Ed says they're annoying and if he wanted to be depressed, he'd watch TV ads for animal shelters .  I tell him not to be such a curmudgeon;  the point of the songs is to get pleasantly bummed out. 

On Monday, I had lunch with my friend Emily who teaches English at the college.  “I see it’s turtle time,” she said.  “You know, your turtleneck.”

“Oh yeah, I got them out on Saturday.”

“How do you get anything done on Saturdays after your debauches on Friday night?”  Emily loves to hear about our Girls’ Nights In.  She jokes (I think she’s joking.) that my stories are the only excitement she has in her life. But since her specialty is early American literature, maybe she isn’t.

“I guess I have a high tolerance.  They say that that’s a sign that you could be an alcoholic, but nobody in my family ever had a drinking problem, so I’m probably okay.”

Emily nearly choked on her pumpkin spice tea.  “Bless your heart, Charlie. You think you’re such a wildwoman, but I think your idea of heavy drinking is two glasses of wine.”

“Three glasses,” I said with dignity.  “And we have cocktails.”

We would love to have Emily join us, but before she got tenure, she usually had to go to some English Department thing so she could schmooze and politic.  And now that she has it, she’s free to live the life of a madcap bachelorette and to try to meet somebody, so she can’t be sitting around with three tired out old married ladies on Friday night.

“You know you’re always welcome, but we don’t want to cramp your style.”

“Maybe I will come after Thanksgiving.  I’ll need something after a weekend with the family.”

“Will you be able to hold out until Friday?”

“My mother is going to send me home with lots of food, so I guess I’ll be all right.”

It made me sad that a holiday with your family could drive you to drinking and eating, especially when you don’t have to cook.

Starting Today -- A McDonalds Marathon!

 

 

The McDonalds and company are back!  But are you confused about what's going on?  Catch up with an eighteen-day Meet the McDonalds Marathon, as Charlie, Karen, and Nikki try to help a friend fine true love.