PIT3/10: Noticed

Points In Time

Westlake Village, California

March 18, 2010 

2: 50 PM

“Ever since I picked you up at the airport, there was something about you that was different.”

“Yeah. I’m a seventy-four year old broad with white hair that you hadn’t seen in twenty-four years.”

“Actually, yes. But more than that…”

“What?”

“Strange, I’ve been looking at your face all of my life…”

“Except for the last twenty-four years.”

“Yeah. But that doesn’t matter, because now I know who you kind of remind me of.”

“ ‘Godzilla’?”

“ ‘Sophia Loren’.”

Warp speeding – at three miles per hour, passing the south- eastern point of Westlake Island, cars can be seen beyond the southern shore line on Trympho Canyon Boulevard, a quarter mile distant.

Flattered! Flattered that he’d even put her, even in the smallest way within ‘even’ the stretch of his imagination with as timeless a beauty as Sophia Loren – no matter her age.

“Sophia Loren? You ‘think’ I look like Sophia Loren? Come on, Mitchell! In your dreams!”

“Didn’t say you ‘look like her’. I said that there was something about the way you look now that reminds me of her.”

Finding it difficult to comprehend the newfound, never expected beauty that – emotionally and physically Marsha sees and feels as the boat slowly – feeling more as though drifting than under projected power, no matter how minute, moves within the splendour of Westlake Lake.

Closing her eyes, Sophia Loren? Taking a deep breath of the purely clear mountain air. Thank you, God! Looking at Mitchell in profile, Thank you, God.

Putting both arms about his neck, pulling his upper body close, her voice warm in his ear. “Ain’t got Sophia’s boobies…” licking the inner ridge of his ear, causing a pleasant shiver along his spine “...or her figure…” her tongue and voice gently pulsing within his ear, that circulates downward where – seventy-six or not, he feels the pleasant sensation of blood escalating the cells of his penis “...but whatever I got, I promise you, baby, is yours.”

Sexual innuendo?

Holding the sides Marsha’s head within both hands. In the bright, unfiltered daylight he sees the slight lines of age emanating from the outer corners of her eyes and nostrils and mouth along with a few fleshy folds of loose skin within her lower neck and upper chest.

Her face gently held captive between the palms of Mitchell’s hands… Thank you, God, he sees the absolute beauty of this older woman…

At close distance, in bright, unfiltered daylight Marsha also see slight lines of age etched in the flesh to either side of Mitchell’s eyes and alongside his lips and a tab of loose flesh beneath his chin, as Marsha Lipensky sees the absolute beauty of this older man.

3:13 PM

The breeze slowly propelling the buoyant boat a few degrees to starboard – in a direction other than the somewhat straightly forward motion they’d been travelling, as Marsha and Mitchell’s eyes study the faces of two people that in a roundabout way had grown old together.

Faces but inches apart. Eyes but inches apart. Words need not be spoken.

Within the set of the others eyes, seen within the thirty-one years of marriage, most often the set of their eyes had been thin slits portraying anger, portraying hatred.

At this time...

The pain that had been their lives for the thirty-one years of marriage…

All that had happened in the past now the mortar that would inexplicably bind them, literally ‘Till death do they part’.

Within the depth of the eye-set of Marsha, the eye-set of Mitchell words need not be spoken.

There were no words! No words with a need to be heard, nor spoken.

Intense eye contact broken, turning the wheel to port, Mitchell brought the boat back to whatever haphazard course they had been travelling.

3:21 PM

Passing a long, yellow brick ‘L’ shaped two story structure on the port side.

“This is the Landing Business Centre. Second floor are all offices. Street level some high end show rooms and a couple of very nice, trendy women’s shops – that you’ll love, and three restaurants.

We’ll tie onto one of their docks and grab a bite to eat and…” she never drank in the past, but “...you like wine now? Or maybe something stronger?”

“Yes. Wine. One of the habits Stan got me into.”

The serious mood broken as the buoyant little boat continued on the somewhat straightly forward motion they’d been travelling.

Laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Her elbow poking onto his side.

“Oh, you’ll meet Milt… Milt’s my best friend and next door neighbour; you’ll meet him later, but he’s got me hooked on coffee.”

“Coffee?”

“Well, it’s not really coffee. But it comes in his beat-up old coffee pot.”

“Tea?”

“Martini.”

“Martini?”

“Yeah. Milt’ll mix up a batch of martinis in his old coffee pot…”

“In a ‘coffee pot’?”

“Yeah. He found the old pot his wife used… She, uh, Miilt’s wife passed away about eleven years ago….Then we’ll take his boat or this…” patting the cushioned seat to his left “...and go cruising for chicks.”

“For ‘Chicks’? Young chicks?”

“ ‘Please’! Milt and me have our scruples and you’d never believe how many horny old ladies come to the Landing to have dinner and cool off that are only too happy to join a couple’a good looking elderly gentlemen like Milt’n’me for a cruise around the lake and a martini, or two.

By the way…” Mitchell continued “...when I say ‘old ladies’ I mean ladies about our age.”

“Which is kind of old.” Marsha said.

Anyway, we’d put the coffee pot into a ‘Igloo’ filled with ice, so whenever Milt or me...”

“Or the chicks you picked up.”

“Yeah.” Any time any one wanted a re-fill, they got one.”

“Guess it would take only one… Don’t know your pal, but sounds like he makes one hell of a martini.”

“Half a bottle of gin and a jigger of vermouth and there you go.”

“And the old ladies?”

“By the time we, or ‘they’ found us, they’d already had dinner and maybe a drink or two all on their own. Then sometimes we’d even get stuck with them and had to take them home til one of them was sober enough to drive...”

One of those mind flashing thoughts now flashing through Mitchell’s mind: Marsha told me she married the guy she’d been giving blow jobs to since she was fifteen, so…

“Sometimes we’d even get stuck with them and had to take them home til one of them was sober enough to drive… And sometimes that took all night,”

“Take them home, ‘strictly’ to sober up, of course.”

“Of course! me’n’Milt are perfect gentlemen.”

Not in the least upset by this because…

Flashcard thoughts flashing through Marsha’s mind…

He’d been a bachelor for the last twenty-four years and deserved to live as he pleased and fuck whomever he pleased.

And seeing how good Mitchell looked for his age, and if his friend, Milt, was only half as good looking; considering this beautiful place and the lake and the boat and, whatever women they did pick up were certainly old enough to take care of themselves and to make their own decisions, and if they wanted to get fucked they weren’t hurt or left stranded to find their own way home…

...Also extremely glad to hear that Mitchell was not interested in young women, because… if he were, what am I doing here?

Sincerely stated. “You and Milt sound like a couple of really good guys, waiting for the women to sober up.”

Which Mitchell could not decipher as a ‘snark’– which it was not, or a sincere complement, so let it pass.

3:32 PM

Pointing, “What’s that?”

The boat, now at the narrow, furthermost eastern point  of the lake slowly turned to port to bring them back to  the landing.

Coming nearer, Marsha saw a thick steel cable with flashing lights and floating red markers attached every yard or so, running end to end across the lake, and below an angled concrete wall leading downward about twenty feet forming a huge concrete catch basin.

Shifting into neutral, stopping what little forward motion there was, Mitchell let the boat drift closer so Marsha was better able to see.

“Marcie, Westlake Lake is a man made lake and we get the overflow from Lake Sherwood…” motioning slightly upward to the west “... and like the song goes, ‘It never rains in southern California’ “...but wen it does, baby, sometimes it ‘really’ rains causing mud slides that take hillside home away, and sometimes they even have to shut Pacific Coast Highway because of falling boulders and mud slides.

So, on the rare occasions when Lake Sherwood overflows, we’ve an aqueduct going from Lake Sherwood to Westlake. And when Sherwood floods the water runs downward to us, overflowing into the basin…” pointing “...and if the basin overflows the water runs to Lake Malibu …” motioning to the east “...and where it goes from there? I don’t know.”

Taking the motor from neutral to forward, the little boat straightened course heading to the Landing and ‘The Landing Restaurant’ for lunch.

3:52 PM

Considering the direction the late afternoon breeze usually comes from– turning the wheel further to port, the boat made a wide semi-circle approaching the Landing’s dock from the west letting the breeze ease the boats starboard side along one of six finger piers, allowing the docking of one boat to either side of a pier.

“Hey, mister…” standing “... you’re pretty good at that.”

“I’ll show you and four or five times out…” taking the fore and aft lines along as he stepped from the boat to the pier “… you’ll be able to do it, too.”

“Not that smooth.”

“Sure you will!”

Dropping two half-hitches onto the deck cleats, then holding his hands forward to help Marsha off the boat.

At five feet, seven inches tall, never slumping, Marsha had always walked standing straight up.

At this time on this mildly hot weekday afternoon, about half the tables on the extended three restaurant patio were occupied and as Marsha stepped from the boat.

Okay, possibly no one else noticed the resemblance of Marsha to Sophia Loren… It was enough that I noticed, and true or not…

I’ve felt true love for Marsha early on and hatred had muffled that love for many years, but now…

I had loved Elizabeth and Lita and certainly Barbara and still think of Susan each day–even though she is now in her seventies, ‘if’ she is alive.

Thinking about it, I’d say the happiest times and the saddest times of my life were when I loved someone.

As Marsha stepped from the boat, people at tables that were looking towards the lake in the direction of the docks turned to look at this regal appearing, beautiful white haired old woman wearing jeans and a short sleeved chambray coloured blouse.

The women at most of the tables turned away, but Mitchell knew the eyes of the men followed…

I couldn’t be prouder than if I were actually walking alongside Sophia Loren, holding her hand.

Coming from behind the hostess stand. “Afternoon, Mitch!”

“Audrey, hi!”

Looking about. “Milt not with you?”

“No, not today.”

“Same table for you and the lady?”

The moment of truth.

Marsha’s heart beating a bit harder, as…

“Same table for you and the lady?”

The moment of truth...“My ‘wife’.” Mitchell said.

Her heart slowing, Marsha’s eyes becoming watery.

“Audrey, this is my wife, Marsha.”

“Let me tell you, Marsha, this old guy of yours sure knows how to pick beautiful women.”

“Marsha, this is Audrey, the boss here.”

“Hi, Marsha...” holding her hand forward “... Glad to see you’re here to maybe slow this old man down a bit.”

“Shhh...” Mitchell whispered “...she doesn’t know I’m an old man.”

Shaking Audrey’s hand. “Believe me, I know exactly – to the day, how old this guy is!”

Taking two menu’s from the hostess stand, Marsha and Mitchell followed Audrey to a table set for two alongside a railing facing directly outward, where there was a small fleet of seven foot long sailboats sailing in a pretty near a precise line.

“Same for you, Mitch?”

“Know what, think I’ll have a gin’n’tonic today.”

“You, Marsha?”

“God, it’s good to be back in California…” taking  Mitchell’s hand “… and with this old guy… Think I’ll have a margarita.”

Leaning beyond the rail, pointing to a nautical appearing structure at the end of the pavement and docking area. “The yacht club holds sailing classes for kids, even if their parents are not members.”

“We wouldn’t happen…”

“No. Membership’s just a little too rich for my blood, and besides, our boat is thirty-three years old and it’s the wrong kind of boat.”

“Fuck ‘em, then. I love ‘our’ boat.”

Something really neat about a beautiful old woman that still knows how to say ‘fuck’.

PIT 3/11: Catching Up