PIT 2/21: Two Down
Points In Time
Westlake Village, California
July 3, 2009
2:22 PM
I found myself standing directly behind the – to say the least, ‘heavyset’ lady in the ‘day before the ‘Fourth of July,’, slow moving ‘check out’ line.
Her back still to me, I watched as she pulled a copy of ‘The Enquirer’ from the magazine rack alongside the check out counter.
“Oh, Jesus! Damn British royalty! Who really gives a shit?”
Apparently a lady that does not care what people think of her appearance, also not caring who was standing close enough to hear what she had to say.
Something about the ladies voice and mid-western dialect hitting a chord of distant remembrance.
“Excuse me…” lightly tapping her on her shoulder “...you wouldn’t happen to be from Chicago?”
“Turning. Staring. The ladies eyes opening widely. “Oh, my, God!”
If one were able to draw a beautiful, startling green-eyed face on the moon….
Incredulously, “ ‘Mitchell’?”
Stranger coincidences had happened. Case in Point: Evie Dorfmann and Marsha Lipensky on...
5/17/86
12: 40 PM
Elysium Fields
Mitchell and Marsha, nee Goldman, Lipensky, until moving to Southern California in the early seventies were both native Chicagoan’s.
Marsha, a graduate of ‘Roosevelt High School’ on the near north side of Chicago, graduated at the age of seventeen.
On this day; near twenty-five hundred miles from Chicago. ’thirty-three years since graduating from Roosevelt High School.
The one other person in the pool, a middle aged, dark-haired, dark complected woman who was standing chest deep in the water with her head held back accepting the mid-afternoons sun…
Upon hearing Marsha’s voice...
“ ‘Marsha’?” The woman called. “ ‘Marsha Goldman’?”
Hearing her name called… Hearing her ‘maiden’ name called….
Westlake Village, California
July 3, 2009
2:22 PM
“Turning. Staring. The ladies eyes opening widely. “Oh, my, ‘God’!” Incredulously, “ ‘Mitchell’?”
If one were able to draw a beautiful, green-eyed face on the round surface of the moon….
“Mitchell?”
She hadn’t seen nor spoken to him since...
Chicago, Illinois
11/22/63
The intercom on his desk buzzing. As though asking for one minute, holding a finger forward, “Yes, Ida?” Looking at Mitchell, “This’ll take a couple of minutes, but I’ve got to take this call.”
“That’s okay…” Mitchell said, thinking, What do I do? I love Elizabeth! But my kids! “...I’ve got to use the bathroom anyway.”
Nodding his head, the attorney motioned for Mitchell to go ahead.
His mind in a state of turmoil, coming from the attorney’s office, hesitating a moment, looking at Elizabeth, “I need the toilet,” he said, thinking, What do I do? Rushing from the room. I love her! But my kids!
Westlake Village, California
July 3, 2009
2:25 PM
“Mitchell?”
She hadn’t seen nor spoken to him in forty-six years but other than about twenty fairly evenly distributed pounds, attractive silver- gray hair and a few wrinkles on his face...
“Mitchell?”
“Elizabeth?”
Her beautiful face and startling green eyes pretty near what he remembered. However the attached scenery far…Knee length shorts at least two sizes too small. Sleeveless blouse – no matter the temperature should ‘never’ be sleeveless . Elizabeth’s viable body ‘very’ far from the body he at the time wanted nothing more than to spend his life making love to.
“Ma’am?”
“Oh…” turning back to the young man behind the
counter “...yes.”
Amazed at running into her. Embarrassed at the remembrance of deserting her all those years ago.
“Hold on…” I said “...I’ll help.”
Stepping before both carts, Mitchell began to help unload Elizabeth’s assorted groceries that included three bags of assorted chips , three containers of sour cream and a half dozen ripe avocados , along with two bottles of ‘Sauza Tequila’, one ‘Johnny Walker Black label’ Scotch, two bottles of ‘Stolichnaya Vodka’ and three bottles of tequila mix.
As the prices were being punched into the counter register, “You planning on some kind a party or ‘something’?”
“Yeah, for the golf tenement tomorrow. ‘Tiger’s going to play tomorrow, you know and we got twelve people coming .”
‘Tiger’? ‘Golf tenement’!
“You live in ‘Lake Sherwood’?”
Looking at the register slip.“Yeah…” standing back so she could lean forward to write a check “... above the eighth hole.”
Fucking fancy!
“Need help to your car ma’am?”
“No…” I said “... figure me up and I’ll help the lady.”
...Elizabeth pushing my much lighter cart and me pushing her ‘much’ heaver cart, I followed Elizabeth’s big ass to a black ‘Bentley’ convertible.
Hoisting two heavy cartons containing the eight bottles into the trunk , thinking: Wow! Lake Sherwood above the golf course and a ‘Bentley!
Placing the three large grocery bags into the trunk, “Got time for for some coffee?” she asked.
A ‘Starbucks’ three shops down. “Sure!”
3:05 PM
Ordering two of their frothy, sweet, ice coffee drinks –me paying, we sat at one of the cafe tables on the outside patio.
Still staring at me. “Amazing running into you here, of all places.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
Quiet for a minute or so, until…
“So, when you left the lawyers office…” she asked bluntly as though it were only yesterday and not forty-six years later “...you go home.”
“I called from the lobby and asked Marsha if I could come home, and if it
wasn’t for Kennedy getting shot at the same time, I don’t know if she’d have wanted me to.”
“But she did.”
“Yeah.”
‘You two still together?”
If I say ‘no’, is she going to want to get together again, because I sure as hell don’t want to!
“No, Marsha and me got divorced in ‘eighty-six’.”
Feeling I had to explain. “Look, Liz, if it wasn’t for the kids I would have gone through with it. And for all these years I’ve felt really bad about the way I Ran out on you.
“You know, Mitch, when you ran out, I had the feeling you weren’t coming back and I was actually relieved.”
Said sarcastically, although I had no right to be sarcastic. “You were ‘relived’ when I didn’t come back?”
“Yes! I think you guessed that I had… uh, ‘do’ have a weight problem that I was fighting then and still am. And I knew you ‘liked’ to eat, and...
“Yeah, I figured when I’d seen you eat ‘nothing’ but salad with vinaigrette dressing.”
“And it wasn’t ‘only’ that, Mitch. But I’d been offered a job by ‘IBM’ that I’d been considering and when you didn’t come back… Actually I was relieved both because I wouldn’t have to suffer through watching you eat those…” smiling “...fucking french fries. So...”
“Yeah. After you quite there was a rumor that you went to work for ‘IBM’.”
“So that next Monday – The first work day after Kennedy was killed, I told ‘IBM’ I’d take the job and gave ‘Transco’ a two week notice. And also changed my phone number, just in case you tried to call me.”
‘You have no idea how badly I wanted to, to explain and to tell you how sorry I was…” hesitating “...and also to say that I still loved you.”
“I figured! And hat’s why I changed my number.”
Quiet as sipping frothy, sweet icy coffee through thick straws.
“So, ‘IBM’…” I asked “...they train you for sales?”
“Well, yeah, but for something else also.”
“For ‘something else also’?” What’s that mean?”
“Advertising.”
“ ‘Advertising’?”
“Yes. Back then IBM was trying to build a female work force, and back then I didn’t look like this…” lifting both breasts from beneath and letting them drop, as though to show her weight gain “...and I was looking pretty… ‘Shit’’! I was looking ‘great’ back then and was hired to do ‘presentations’, and to hold ‘seminars’, and after a year of tough training I was sent to London as their ‘PR’ – ‘Promotional Representative’.”
Impressed. “ ‘London’! Really!”
“Yeah, and then to France.”
“You speak French?”
“I learned. Not too great, but good enough. But was ‘really’ shitty with Italian.”
“Italy! You were there in Italy too?”
“Yeah, for three years and that’s where I met ‘Frank’. ”
“ ‘Frank’?”
“Yeah, my husband.”
“So you’re married. “
“Yes, for twenty-two years now.”
“Frank an ‘IBM’ guy?”
“No. Frank’s a U.S. diplomat.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’d been assigned to the Italian embassy for a couple of years before I met him and…” lifting and dropping her breasts again “...I was still looking pretty good back then…”
About to repeat, ‘then’, but caught my tongue in time.
“...I was still looking pretty good then, and let me tell you this! The ‘Brits’ food is really shitty, and French food became a ‘God damned’ challenge too me. But Italian food?” Sipping some coffee “I was able to hold it together for our first year… For ‘Frank’s and my first year’, but then ‘things’… ‘Pasta’! Fucking pasta did it for me.”
“How long were you in Europe?”
“Got to London in ‘64 and was sent to France in ‘79 and transferred to Italy in ‘84 and when Frank was transferred back to ‘DC’ in ‘93.
“I asked… I’d been in Europe for twenty-nine years and when I asked to permanently come home, and knowing Frank was in DC, they gave me a ‘training’ job in Virginia and Frank and me were there until he retired in ‘99 and we moved to California a couple of years later, and as Frank is a ‘golf nut’ so ….”
“Lake Sherwood over-looking the eighth hole, huh?”
“Yeah. Pretty costly up there, but Frank and me had owned our homes in Italy and Virginia, that we sold, so we have more than enough, to say nothing of both our ‘retirements’.”
Wonder why she’s telling me all this? “The Bentley?”
“Our twentieth year anniversary gift to each other.”
“Nifty gift.”
“ ‘You’? You said, you and Marsha have been divorced since…?”
“ ‘Eighty-six’.”
“You re-married?”
“No. Just living the life of a happy bachelor.”
“Live around her?”
“Yeah…” nodding my head “right her, in Westlake.”
“For how long?”
“Closed on my unit in ‘eighty-nine’, so about twenty years.”
“ ‘Unit’? You in a ‘condo’?”
“No. Guess you’d call it a one story townhouse, but I’m on the lake.”
“Sounds nice. You got a boat.”
“Yeah, matter of fact…” my shopping cart alongside our cafe table “...I’m stocking up on gin…” motioning to the basket “...so my friend, ‘Milt’ and me’ll have enough for martini refills if we find a couple of ladies that would like a Fourth of July cruise around the lake tomorrow night.”
“You do that much? Pick up women and give them a boat ride?”
“Yeah…” spreading it a little thicker than necessary to kind of catch up with her bragging “...sometimes the ladies even insist on buying milt and me dinner.”
“And after the boat ride?”
“Milt and me are next door neighbors. So we’ll tie up on either his dock or mine and then, after another martini, … if the ladies want to…”
Finishing our sweet, frothy ice coffee drinks. “Maybe...” Elizabeth said “... you’d like to take me for a boat ride some day.”
“For old times sake?”
“Yeah.” Standing close to me as we stood. “For old times sake.”
Pushing the basket towards where I’d parked – which was no where near the Bentley. “Yeah, I’ll give you a call.” I called over my shoulder.
But never did, and never ran into Elizabeth Herzon, or whatever her married name was now.
Next PIT2/22: Missy & Mona
