PIT3/6: Reunited
Points In Time
Westlake Village, California
March 17, 2010
12:15 PM
“So, if you think your Marsha is sincere with all she’s told you, and if you’ve still got feeling for her… and I think you do, I’d say give her a call and see what the two of you can work out.”
Sighing, “Believe it or not, Milt, that’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
“So, you going to call her?”
“Yeah. Yes, I am.”
“I’ve something I’ve been holding off telling you.”
“What’s that?”
“Figured you’d know when the sign goes up.”
Sign? Thinking he knew what his friend meant. His heart sinking. “Sign?”
“My kids want me closer. They want me to move to ‘Palm Springs’.”
“My, God, Milt…” coming as a complete surprise “...what the hell am I going to do without you?”
Standing, moving from the table…
“Call Marsha!”
“Still don’t know what I’m going to say but, okay. I will.”
“Let me know what happens.”
“I may need your coffee pot after.”
“You got the gin?”
“Always!”
12:23 PM (Pacific Standard Time)
Standing, moving from the table, going to his desk at the far side of the room.
The bit of paper with Marsha’s phone number right where he’d left it two mornings earlier… ‘Shelldrake 6-707-2986’.
The mid fingers of his right hand nervously tapping alongside the telephone…
What the hell do I say?
Ask if everything she told me is true ? What’s she going to say, ‘no’?
His fingers tapping an unknown melody. The melody no melody at all. but ‘SH 6-707-2986’ over and over in his mind until...
12:27 PM (Pacific Standard Time)
His index finger slowly tapping ‘S H 6 707 2986’
2:27 PM (Central Standard Time)
From the time Marsha had contacted Mitchell approximately fifty-eight hours earlier— afraid she would miss his call, she’d done little but pace throughout her second floor duplex apartment.
Sleeping was as hard for Marsha as it had been for Mitchell and she had consumed so much strong coffee she’d found herself sitting on the toilet near constantly.
‘Marcie’s Manicures’!
1987 Forward
Day after day, weeks into months, months becoming years, listening to customers.
Marsha loved to talk, but what was more important, Marsha had learned to listen, which— besides giving a really good manicure is why she had an overabundance of repeat customers, and for weeks and months and years Marsha had heard a seemingly never ending barrage of complaints about the husbands of her customers — and not one had a lowly real estate salesman for a husband; rather bankers and stock brokers and, so it seemed, big money earners and the more she heard of the ‘ass holes’ and ‘bastards’ the more she began to realise what she had lost in Mitchell…
‘Especially’ when her husband, ‘Stanley Jacobson’, the — at the time of their marriage, fifty-six year old boy that had remained a boy, had entered into his narcissistic, physically abusive period and after a number of slaps and a punch or two, then eventually spitting three broken teeth out of her bloody mouth certainly helped Marsha’s fond remembrance of her violence free marriage to Mitchell.
It was true ! It had taken Marsha five years to realise what she had lost in Mitchell, and those same five years to bring forth the courage, and the words to see — God willing, if there was a way to regain what she had thrown away…
‘If’ he was still alive… ‘If’ he had not remarried… ‘If’ he would even listen to her’… If he would listen to the heart-felt words of apology and remorse she had rehearsed within her mind a million or more times.
And within those five years and the millions of times Marsha had rehearsed her words of confession and love…
Marsha’s love of the boy she had known and for the man he had become had grown to beyond ‘any’ love she had ever known or even imagined.
So much so...
Marsha Goldman Lipensky considered killing herself If Mitchell — ‘if’ he was still alive, ‘if’ he had not remarried… And if he would not listen to her, Marsha had considered killing herself.
12:27 PM (Pacific Standard Time)
...His index finger on to the phone, slowly tapping ‘S H 6 707 2986’
2:27 PM (Central Standard Time)
On the far north side of Chicago, in her second floor duplex apartment, sitting at the kitchen table with a never empty cup of coffee at hand…
...Startling her, the telephone rang.
Startled when the phone suddenly rang; her body jerking forward, Marsha’s hand involuntarily grabbing at the phone…
Knowing she was on the line.
Though he hadn’t said a worn, Marsha ‘knew’.
Neither knowing how to simply say, ‘hello’.
The phone silent for five long moments.
“Marsha?” His heart thumping.
Her heart thumping. “It’s me, Mitchie.”
‘obligatory conversation’
“How are you?”
“Fine! You?”
‘obligatory conversation’
“ ‘Fuck it’!”
The ‘fuck it’ confusing her. “That a good ‘fuck it’ or a bad ‘fuck it’!”
“So far a good one, Marsha.”
All caution now thrown to the wind.
“Marsha, I’m calling because I want to believe what you told me yesterday is the truth.”
“Mitchell, it is!”
“You know, since you’ve been out o my life, in those twenty-four years I’ve never had an argument… Not with ‘anyone.”
“Believe me, Mitch, once that… ‘ass-hole’ was out of my life, I haven’t either, and never want to.”
“My life is pretty simple. My best friend…”
“Male or female?”
“ ‘Male’... Milt lives lives next door and, just to let you know, I’m living exactly where I want to live and have ‘no’ intention of ‘ever’ moving again.
I get a call from an old customer every now and then and sell ‘maybe’ four properties a year and have no money problems. Matter of fact, other than some shit that comes with old age, I have no problems at all, but something ‘Professor Higgins’ said…”
“ ‘Professor Higgins’?”
“From ‘My Fair Lady’.”
“Oh.”
“He said: ‘Let a woman in your life, and you invite eternal strife’…. Marsha, my life is just fine! But as it turned out, since talking to you yesterday, it seems that I miss you…”
She’d been holding her breath. Exhaling now.
“...So, ‘please’! What you told me yesterday… ‘Please’ tell me now. Was what you said yesterday the truth?”
‘Yes, Mitchie. ‘Everything I told you is absolutely true . I love you and miss you and am unbelievably sorry for the way I’d treated you.”
The line silent.
12:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time)
A silent minute passing.
60 long seconds passing.
2:45 PM (Central Standard Time)
“Any reason you can’t come now?”
Breathing...
My God, yes! “If you want me to…”
My God, yes! “I do! When can you be here?”
Marsha’s heart still thumping. “Tomorrow soon enough?”
The thirty-one years of marriage …
The twenty-four years of divorce…
The past fifty-five years vanished.
The past years of hate and hatred vanished.
All long gone, no parental interference.
No particular financial problems.
The life long spectre of Stanley Jacobson scrubbed from the mind of Marsha Lipensky.
Life for Mitchell and Marsha starting anew.
Marsha’s heart still thumping. “Tomorrow soon enough?”
The urge to see his Marsha, to hold his Marsha again… “If you think you can beat the traffic, why don’t you see if there’s a flight out this evening.”
The urge to see Mitchell. To hold Mitchell… To love Mitchell...
“I’ll check around soon as we hang up.”
“I can’t wait to see you Marcie.”
“ I’m seventy-three, after all, and it’s been twenty-four years since you’ve seen me, so there’s been a few changes.”
“Yeah. And I’m still two years older, so there’s a few changes for me, too.”
“Okay, so long as you won’t be...” about to say ‘disappointed’, but knew he wouldn’t be “...surprised.”
“Yeah, you too, honey.”
‘Honey’ “Okay, Mitchie. Let me call around to see if I can catch a flight.”
3:22 PM (Central Standard Time)
“Hi, Mitchie!”
1:22 PM (Pacific Standard Time)
“Hi, baby! So?
“I checked ‘United’ and ‘American’. Both all booked for
tonight. Best flight to ‘LAX’ tomorrow morning. ‘American’ LA 5173, arriving 11:45.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Think you’ll recognise me?”
“Of course! How much could you have changed?”
“I’m a woman. How much could any woman change in twenty-four years?”
Remembering his thoughts of the, as of that time, unknown appearance of Barbara Longford, and while expecting so much worse, was not in the slightest disappointed whit her common semblance.
Knowing Marsha had ‘always’ had ‘a thin thing’, he doubted she’d have allowed herself to gain ‘too’ much weight.
As far as that ‘thin thing’ regarding himself?
“You…” Marsha asked “...you’ve changed much.?”
Two loosened belt notches in twenty-four years. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
Knowing that Mitchell had always been pron to easy weight gain — witch ‘truly’ did not matter…
Okay…” Marsha said “... so I guess we’ll both find out tomorrow morning.”
“See you tomorrow, baby.”
“Mitchie…”
“Yeah?”
Not said as a simple statement. “I love you!” More so as an ‘emphatic’ statement.
“Marsha…” no less emphatic “... I love you, too.”
Reluctantly breaking the connection, sitting back his eyes closed, Did I just do the right thing? Do I ‘really’ want this?
Standing, going onto the deck. Looking at the vacant, calm water. Then onto his party boat secured to the dock… Fuck it! “Yeah!” I want my wife back.
“Milt!” Going to the six foot high privacy wall between their units. “Milt!”
“Yeah, Mitch?” Hearing him, coming outside. “So?” he asked.
“I talked to Marsha.”
“Yeah? So?”
“She’ll be here tomorrow.”
“That’s ‘great’, Mitch! I’m glad you did it.”
“Got to run out for some stuff. You need anything?”
“No. But if you’re still in the market for a martini?”
“Nah, think I’d better stay sober for a few days.”
“Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Milt.”
3:58 PM (Central Standard Time)
The reservation with ‘American Airlines’ for tomorrow morning’s flight to Las Angeles made. Thank you, God! Marsha Lipensky felt her life beginning again. And for that new beginning, called her beauty shop to see if they could squeeze her in this afternoon to have her hair done.
1:58 PM (Pacific Standard Time)
Two beautiful rib-eye’ steaks sitting on the bottom, walking the aisles dropping groceries for tomorrows dinner with Marsha into the basket. Looking ahead, Mitchell saw her at the far head of the aisle apparently heading towards aisles to his left.
Making a quick ‘about face’, going in the apposite direction, turning to his left — for no other reason than because he just didn’t care to ever see or talk to her again — doing all he could do to avoid Elizabeth Herzon, or whatever her married name was, checking his groceries at the check out counter, Mitchell left the store as quickly as possible.
6:16 PM (Central Standard Time)
Back from the beauty shop: For an old broad… Marsha thought...you’re looking pretty good.
March 18, 2010
12:o5 AM (Pacific Standard Time)
In bed. Before sleep coming.
Yeah, mid-seventies is old but it’s all in the way one feels and looks and, other than occasionally forgetting what I’m talking about in mid-sentence and occasionally needing a bathroom every half-hour or so – still having most of my hair, although it is now more gray than black. My face is... for some unknown reason my face is fairly wrinkle free and, other than some hanging flesh beneath my chin and more of a belly than I’d like, I think I look pretty much as I did last time she saw me.
Next: PIT3/7: Home
