Ben Morgan qualifies for the Regional Amateur Seniors Golf Playoff out of town, leaving his wife, Ginger, to attend her High School Class' Fiftieth Reunion alone. Once there, immediately Ginger runs into her old steady boyfriend Gregg Hutton.
Ignoring my husband Ben’s cholesterol restrictions, I had decided tonight’s celebration was to be special, so after a hurried shopping excursion, I stood at the kitchen sink busily preparing vegetables for the tossed salad to go with the frozen baked potatoes, the garlic bread, the burgundy, and the expensive New York strip steaks - my Benny’s favorite dinner.
Behind me, and quiet as a mouse, he sneaked through the door from the garage, silently propped his golf clubs against the counter, grabbed me, and declared in his best vampire voice, “I hah-ve goot news! Bah-t first, I mah-st bite you!” He bent me backward over his arm and nibbled my neck, sending goose bumps racing to my fingertips and down to my toes.
“You’re crazy, you know that, don’t you?” I giggled, looking up at him from my laid back position.
He flipped me up and spun me round, pride shining in his black vampire eyes. “It was wahn-derful! You should hah-ve been there! Babe,I shot a seventy! The balls found the cups-” He gestured. “PLOOP! Like they were magnetized.”
“Hm-m-m! And were they?” I wriggled out of his embrace to cover the bowl of undressed salad with clear plastic wrap, and slide it into the refrigerator.
“Ginger, honey, you’re not one bit impressed, are you?” His broad shoulders seemed, suddenly, to droop, his victorious mood melting into one of furrowed concern as he leaned against the counter. “You don’t resent my golfing, do you, Babe?”
“En contraire! I’m delighted!” I shot back from inside the refrigerator. On closing the door, I quipped, “Besides, it keeps you from under my feet during the day when I’m trying to get things done.” I watched the hateful furrows fade as I reached around him for a paper towel. “It also guarantees peace and quiet around the house when I need it. You should hear some of my friends talk about their retired husbands! Why, either they try to completely take over the running of the household or they become immovable television couch potatoes who find it overexerting to lift their feet for the vacuum cleaner. No thanks, I prefer being a golf widow, myself.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind if I were to qualify for the Regional Amateur Seniors Play-off? I’d be out of town for a while, maybe several weeks.” He watched my face closely for any hint of displeasure.
“Now, Ben, didn’t you already qualify? Just today?” I planted a kiss squarely on his plainly plump and luscious lips. “Congratulations, darling!” I reached for the phone beside the kitchen door and handed the cordless hand unit to him. “Now, you’d better call George before you burst, and tell him you’re going, too.”
I stopped halfway through the swinging door into the dining room. “No, I’m not psychic! Betty called not an hour ago and told me the good news. George called her from the club.”
His deep vampire voice cooed after me through the flapping door, “Incredible wah-man of my life, I lah-ve you!” There followed a brief series of “beeps” and then, “Okay, George, it’s all set!”
Early Monday morning, Ben tossed his golf clubs and one suitcase into the trunk of the car and left for the playoffs.
In the afternoon, my daughter, Beth, arrived with my two ‘angels’, Cody and Katie, to keep me company while Ben was gone. Beth left almost immediately to run the first few of many errands that I expected would likely keep her busy most of the coming two weeks. Naturally, I understood.
But by the following Friday my nerves were frazzled. Fire engines had been running through my house, ceaselessly, for almost a solid week, and this morning they were making such a racket that by noon I had a pounding headache.
“Honk! Honk! ER-rrrrrr! Look out, Gramma!”
“ER-rrrrr! Honk! Cody, wait! Gramma, make Cody wait!” Katie wailed.
Beth was out again, but the children would be napping soon, and they were having so much fun, I didn’t have the heart to quiet them. Instead, I slipped out the front door and trotted down the long walk to the mailbox.
Shuffling through the usual bills and advertisements while walking back I found an envelope addressed to Virginia Cummings Morgan. It had been forwarded twice and bore three post office cancellations. Why, I hadn’t been called ‘Virginia’ in years!
I ripped open the envelope and read the form letter: “Dear Graduate of Wayne High School, you (and your spouse) are cordially invited to attend the Fiftieth Anniversary Reunion and Celebration of the Class of 1958 at the Marriott Hotel on -”
Next week? Scanning the rest of the letter quickly, I thought immediately of my best friends from high school, Lucy Pratt and Mary Ellen Stuart. I could see them in my mind’s eye like it was yesterday, and I wondered if they would be there. Then I chuckled to myself as I pictured my old steady, Gregg Hutton! How would he have changed?
Every young high school girl’s dream man, Gregg had been our star football quarterback. While a college education for me had been monetarily out of the question, I heard many years later that Gregg had finished university and taken over his father’s business, though I had no idea what it was nor where it had taken him. Shortly after my own graduation, Ben and I met, married three months later, and moved away. Lucy, Mary Ellen, and Gregg soon became just pleasant high school memories.
Seeking our roots in retirement, Ben and I had come home two years ago.
Prompted by the letter I held in my hand, my headache vanished and new energizing thoughts raced through my mind. What a treat it would be to see old friends again. How would they look? What would they think of me, now? Tonight, I thought, I’ll call Ben and talk to him about the reunion then just before we say “goodbye” I’ll bring it up. Smiling confidently, I folded the letter, stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans and re-entered my own local fire zone.
I waited until ten o’clock that night to call when I knew he’d be in and getting ready for bed, but I was totally unprepared for -- and dismayed by -- the operator’s cordial request that I leave a recorded message for room four-oh-five. I asked that he call home when he came in, then I read until one o’clock.
The last three thoughts I had before falling into an exhausted grandparental sleep were totally incompatible: One, where was my Ben and what was he doing at this late hour? Followed closely by two, the deliciously enchanting idea of seeing Gregg Hutton again and, however unlikely, having him be swept away, once more, by my mature beauty and gracious charm. And finally, three, had Ben and I, seemingly within shouting distance of each other for almost fifty years, been on too short a tether for too long a time?
The next day, when the telephone jangled I ran to answer before it awakened the children from their afternoon nap. “Ginger, honey,” Ben began, “I’m sorry I missed your call last night. The ‘boys’ threw a little spur-of-the-moment-get-together and, well, you know how it is!”
“No, Ben, I don’t know how it is,” I said, coolly. “I waited for your return call until one a.m. but never mind that, I have some news. There’s to be a fiftieth class reunion of my graduating class next week. You’ll be back in time to go with me, won’t you?”
After an audible groan, I heard, “You don’t really need me, do you, Babe? If I’m lucky, I’ll move into the finals. Wouldn’t that be great? Of course, if I wash out, I’ll be home sooner. What day is the reunion, anyway?”
“It’s Tuesday night. At the Marriott.” I was feeling truly miserable, now.
“At the Marriott, my, my! The playoffs will end next Friday. Maybe I’ll bring home a trophy for the mantle. Wish me luck, Ginger?”
There were distant voices and laughter in the background.
“Of course, I wish you luck, Benny, you know I do.” Oh, so rejected, so dismal!
“Truthfully, Ginger, I don’t like school reunions, never have, I thought you knew that! If you want to go though, by all means, go, sweetheart.”
One voice close by urged, “Be-en! Everybody’s waiting.”
“Ben,” I tried to sound casual, “who was she?”
“She? Oh, that’s one of the assigned caddies. Look, Hon, I’ve really got to go. Can’t hold up the game! Bye, now!”
I didn’t ask about his standing. He didn’t ask about the grandchildren. And he didn’t say, ‘I lah-ve you!”
That evening at dinner I told Beth about the reunion letter, and mentioned in passing that her Dad didn’t think he’d be home in time to go with me, so I guessed I’d just skip the whole thing.
“You’ll do no such thing!” she insisted, “Of course, you’ll go!”
“Alone? Unescorted?”
“Mom, this is two thousand and eight not nineteen-fifty-eight! Of course - alone!” And with that, it was settled.
I stopped just outside the wide double doors to the Marriott’s ballroom, butterflies in my stomach. Through the opening, I saw a multitude of tables, bedecked with red and white rose buds, our school colors, in crystal vases.
Chattering strangers, wearing small paper nametags like the one the door usher had just stuck on my best blue dress, were milling about holding glasses of elixirs, which were being dispensed at an overcrowded refreshments bar.
He came towards me from out of the crowd like a homing pigeon, the heavyset, balding man in the dark business suit with his arms open wide. “Ginger, Ginger Cummings! You haven’t aged one iota! Let me look at you!” He held me at arms length, admiring me, then he crushed me to him and I smelled the unmistakable stale odor of smoked cigars about him. The name tag read “Gregg Hutton” all right, no mistake about that!
“Um, Gregg!” I stammered, pulling away, a lie on my lips. “You’re looking good.”
“Yep, this is what success can do for you, Ginger, darlin’!” He patted his expansive waist and I saw the glitter of a large diamond ring on his little finger and glimpsed the Rolex watch. “A ‘mil’ a year net profit for the past four years. Not too shabby!” He steered me through the crush of people towards the bar. “What’ll you drink?”
I thought he’d expire when I asked for mineral water.
“There’s my new bride over there, that perky little redhead. Isn’t she a knockout?” His mouth formed an upside down smile. “You know, Ginger, I’ve got kids older than she is!"
Feeling nothing but sadness for this swaggering, rich and overbearing man, I nodded, “She’s lovely.”
Then, I watched him paste back on his party face.“But, hey-” He coughed.
"-tell me about you!”
Proudly, I talked for five minutes about Beth and Johnny, her husband; about my grandchildren, and about my Ben - before I realized he really wasn’t interested at all in what I was saying.
I think we were both terribly grateful when we saw two women plowing their way towards us through the crowd and I heard, “Is that you, Ginger? Ginger Cummings?”
Gregg said, “So long, Ginger, good seeing you!” and I watched him stride quickly away.
“Lucy! Mary Ellen! Oh, my goodness, I’m so glad to see you both!” I said, as we hugged. "Can you imagine? That...was Gregg Hutton!"
Lucy asked, wide-eyed, "Then your husband didn’t come either? I saw you standing here with - and I thought - I mean - "
“Ben's out of town - on business,” I lied.
“Mine’s working late,” Mary Ellen volunteered.
“Nasty cold!” Lucy quickly offered.
We tossed a doubting glance back and forth, round and round, until I finally confessed. “Golf.”
“Bowling.” Ellen sighed.
“Baseball -” Lucy snickered. “- on TV.”
After that, fifty years fell away as we joined hands and sought out a quiet corner for an old-fashioned gabfest.
It was a little after eleven o’clock when I paid the taxi driver and entered my quiet house. Much too exhilarated from the evening’s activities for sleep, I kicked off my shoes and padded down the hall past the living room towards the kitchen for a snack.
I was really missing Ben, now. We always talked for a while after an eventful evening. “Unwinding time” we called it.
“Psst!” The sound came from the living room; from the sofa facing the television set where a classic Bela Lugosi vampire movie, sound muted, was flickering on the screen.
The coffee table held a large bowl of popcorn, an ice bucket containing a tall bottle of mineral water, and two glasses.
“I lah-ve you! I mah-st bite you!” the sofa said softly, “Bah-t first, we talk - eh?”
Tuesday. Benny had washed out.
“Ben, oh, Benny,” I whispered, rushing into the room. “You’re home!”
--Published in Mature Years Magazine, Summer, 1999 (Story's dates changed.)
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Ignoring my husband Ben’s cholesterol restrictions, I had decided tonight’s celebration was to be special, so after a hurried shopping excursion, I stood at the kitchen sink busily preparing vegetables for the tossed salad to go with the frozen baked potatoes, the garlic bread, the burgundy, and the expensive New York strip steaks - my Benny’s favorite dinner.
