Suzanne: A Drive in the Country and Meeting Eileen
On the first Saturday in November, Annie and I picked up the car and drove to Beacon, one of those Brooklyn-on-the-Hudson towns you read about in The Times. And we had fun wandering about.
While we sat at an outdoor table finishing our lunches—salad for Annie, a burger for me—Kerry texted:
{Kerry: Hey. Are you on the road today?}
{Suze: Yeah. Annie and I are just finishing lunch in Beacon. What’s up?}
{Kerry: Nada. Just bored. I always get depressed when I remember we’re gonna change the clocks and it gets dark early.}
{Suze: Think of how we California sun-worshippers feel!}
{Kerry: Bullshit. You come from San Francisco and wouldn’t know the sun if it slapped you across the face.}
{Suze: LOL. Gotta go. Annie is getting jealous.}
What? Am I flirting?
{Kerry: Good thing you don’t have pictures of me to show her. Then she’d really be jealous!!}
{Suze: How do you know I don’t????}
{Suze: Don’t worry. I haven’t shown them to her…She’s already steaming.}
{Suze: LMAO. Kidding! She’s just pissed that I’m ignoring her. See you Monday.}
Okay. Not flirting.
“What was that about?” Annie asked. “You were texting like it was with George Clooney and hiding it like I was Amal.”
“Just Kerry.”
Annie and I finished our lunches and coffees and wandered through a few shops and a gallery before getting the Camry and heading home. It was a beautiful drive down the parkway even if the peak leaf-changing had passed. As on our trip from California, Annie and I shared driving duties—it was nice for both of us to get a chance to drive and feel free of the restraints of the City—and she was driving. I asked whether she’d like to meet Kerry.
“I imagine I’ll meet her one of these days,” she said, glancing over from the driver’s seat. My bare feet were gripping the dashboard just above the Camry’s glove compartment as I looked at the wooded area passing by. Without looking at Annie I said, “We’ll be nearly right next door when we bring the car back. She sounds lonely. I’ll see if she’s around.” Annie told me to go ahead.
{Suze: Hey. I’m bringing the car back to my Aunt. You want us to stop by before we do. You can meet Annie and she can tell you the deepest secrets of my life???}
I waited for about ten minutes, bouncing the phone lightly between my hands.
{Kerry: I could really use a break. I’m tired of outlining poor Mrs. Palsgraf and wondering what that guy was doing carrying a box of dynamite. Do you have the address?}
{Suze: No.}
She texted it to me and I plugged it into my phone.
{Suze: Got it. Thanks. We’re about 20 minutes away. Does that work?}
{Kerry: See you then!!!!}
I gave my Aunt a quick call, telling her we were stopping at a friend’s house nearby and that I would let her know when I would be dropping the car off.
Kerry’s Mom answered the door. She was stunning. About my height, 5’7″, and wonderfully curved. She had fair skin and amber hair, which she kept above her shoulders. That hair had a slight wave to it and seemed to frame her high cheekbones and round face. With eyes that were blue but not cut-like-a-diamond blue. Quiet, restful blue that I could imagine turning into something very treacherous. And that’s just what I got in a single glance.
She had, perhaps, spent a little too much time in the Sun when she was young—and she was hardly old when I met her, no more than her late forties—and there were some wrinkles beside those eyes and on her neck. For some reason, I noticed her neck. And I remembered how I admired Kerry’s that day I introduced myself to her.
Her Mom was wearing a nice yellow shirt without a collar, blue jeans, and a pair of Asics trainers. No jewelry other than what I recognized as a runner’s watch. She paused for a moment upon seeing me and after asking who was Suzanne and who was Annie she hugged each of us and led us in. Annie and I, in turn, said, “Hello Mrs. Neally,” and she said, “Please don’t remind me that I’ve gotten old. Call me Eileen. I guess I should be glad that you didn’t call me ‘Ma’am.'”
She was no “Ma’am.”
Kerry’s house sat on a small lot, close to its neighbors. It had a brick-facing, and when we entered the dining room was to the left and the living room to the right and a staircase to the second floor in the middle. It was nicely decorated and maintained but in something of a time warp. But it was a home in which people lived and after glancing around I told Mrs. Neally—it would take a while before I could bring myself to call her “Eileen”—that I loved it. Unlike my much larger house in California, it had life and unlike my house in California, it was a home.
Kerry came in and asked us what we wanted to drink and the four of us went into the kitchen. I’d had enough coffee for the day and don’t drink soda so I was glad to get an iced tea, with Mrs. Neally insisting on cutting a slice of lemon for it and for Annie’s.