Combustible L.D. Zane
Grace and I met six months ago. Mutual friends who had been conspiring to get us together finally succeeded. We decided to meet at a popular local diner for coffee. I arrived early and sat on a fake leather bench in the cramped lobby with others who were waiting to be seated. I nervously tapped my feet on the floor. The anxiety of this first date must have also shown on my face. A middle-aged lady sitting next to me to my left asked, “Blind date?” I turned toward her, sheepishly grinned, and answered, “Yes.” “That’s how we met, almost ten years ago,” she said, and motioned with her head to the man sitting to her left. The hostess called their name. As they stood, she looked back at me, smiled, and said, “Good luck.” I gave a half-hearted smile in return and mouthed the word, “Thanks.” Although Grace and I had no idea what each other looked like, other than vague descriptions our friends gave us, we instinctively recognized each other when she walked through the door. She had a smile like Annette Bening, and that was all I could see. It was six p.m., the height of the diner’s dinner trade, but we managed to corral a window booth. Grace and I bonded and trusted each other immediately. We talked over coffee for five hours. I left the waitress a generous tip for allowing us to rent her table. Now in our sixties, Grace and I decided we didn’t want to go through life alone anymore. Two months later, she moved into my apartment. One night, as we lay in bed, Grace asked, “How would you describe our relationship, Lewis?” She has a knack for asking these weighty questions at the most inopportune times. It’s always when I’m ready to fall asleep. Somehow, she knows that’s when I’m most vulnerable. “What?” I asked incredulously as I rolled onto my right side to face her. She had already turned off her lamp. My eyes squinted as I tried to focus on her, aided only by the broken bands of light from the street lamp sifting through the blinds behind her. Once, as I was falling asleep, Grace pondered aloud if I thought people with short-term memory loss could remember those lost memories, say ten years later, when they would become long-term ones. I was speechless considering her bizarre idea, while she quickly fell asleep. “How would you describe our relationship? It’s a simple
question.” The muffled sounds of midnight traffic rose from the street two floors below our apartment. Perhaps for her the answer was simple, but not for me. I was no more prepared to answer that question in my sixties than when I had to answer it forty years ago in my twenties. “Not at this hour, when I’m exhausted and want to sleep. And why would you ask that particular question now?” “Because this is the perfect time to talk—when we’re together and have no distractions.” She’s right, partly. With our schedules, it’s probably one of the few times we get to talk to each other. I still work a fulltime, modified, second-shift job. I rarely get home before ten p.m. and, by then, I just want to vegetate. Grace is retired, but teaches both a day and evening English as a Second Language class on a volunteer basis. “You mean other than attempting to get some sleep before I have to wake up in six-and-a-half hours?” I asked. “Well, that’s an hour longer than me. I’m up at five-thirty.” “That’s out of habit and your choice, Grace, not mine. Good night,” I said as I rolled back facing away from the window. “And where are you going?” “Hopefully to sleep, please?” “You’re not answering my question, Lewis.” “I thought I just did,” I mumbled into my pillow. “I heard that, and it’s not the answer I was looking for.” Lord, help me. Exasperated, I turned on my nightstand lamp, rolled over once again to face her—like a dog learning a new trick, propped my pillow up against the headboard, and sat upright. “Christ. You really want to know?” Grace is a pebble compared to my boulder-like build. She inched closer to me, reclined, placed her left hand under her head as a prop, and said, “Yes. I really want to know. And don’t bring Him into it. I asked you, and He’s not going to help you answer the question.” I’m Jewish. Grace is Catholic, and she doesn’t take kindly to me using her Lord’s name cavalierly. “Why?” “Why He’s not going to help you?” “You know what I mean, Grace. Why do you want to know?” “Because by knowing what you think and feel, I believe we can make our relationship better, stronger.” “Okay. That’s a valid point, I guess.” I was doing my best to appease her. That may have been her goal, but from what I know about
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