On the third day of her first semester, Bobbi was getting ready for what her dormies said was a ballbuster of a chem course when Joanna came running into their room wrapped in a towel.

 

“You gotta see this.” Joanna grabbed her hand and pulled.

 

“I got chemistry, Jo.”  She pulled away and went for her books.

 

“No. Come with me.” There was really nothing to do.  Jo was bigger and taller than Bobbi, a mismatched pair through high school that Bobbi’s Dad called Mutt and Jeff although nobody in the St. Francis class of 1969 knew what the heck he was talking about.

 

One hand on the towel, Jo used her other hand to pull her through the dorm room door, down the hallway, and right to the big windows at the end of the hall. “Look,” she dropped her friend’s hand.

 

Bobbi saw another sunny Florida day that would make her a sopping mess by the end of the day when she collapsed in her room.  Another girls’ dorm was across the creek and the boys had three dorms off to the left and they all looked like they were built as barracks during her father’s war.

 

“What?” Bobbi said.  

 

Jo hitched up her towel and cinched it tight. “Down there.”  She pointed to the grassy swatch of territory that began at the dorm and ended at Creekside.  An army-green pup tent was pitched right in the middle of the summer-browned lawn.

 

“It’s a tent.  So what?”

 

“But whose tent? I ask you.  Whose?”

 

“How am I supposed to know.  Am I in charge of tents at the U?”

 

“No, but…”

 

The tent flap flew open and a guy’s head poked out.  He had lush sun-streaked hair and she was beginning to get a strange feeling when the guy looked up and saw her.

 

“Oh my God. What’s he doing here?”

 

He scrambled to his feet.  He wore a T-shirt and shorts.  He smoothed the shirt which was a bit wrinkled and then looked up again. “Hi Bobbi,” he said.  

 

She couldn’t hear him as the big windows were shut to keep out the gathering heat.  Her heart beat faster as she raised her hand in greeting. “Hi Paul,” she mouthed to the window.

 

Some of the other girls in various states of undress had gathered. Linda pushed her barely covered chest up against the glass and looked down.  She ran her fingers through her blond hair. “He’s cute.” 

​

One of the other girls who she didn’t know yet said, “He is cute. Is he a surfer?”

 

“He was.  And he’s not supposed to be here,” she said, first to herself then she raised her arms, pounded on the glass and shouted, “You’re not supposed to be here.  You’ll lose your scholarship!”

 

He shrugged.  

 

“Is he your boyfriend, Bobbi?” someone else asked and all she could do was nod.  

 

“He’s not…” she began again.  “Someone open the window.”

 

Linda cranked open the window.  What passed in Florida for a cool morning breeze swept in.  “Paul,” she yelled out the window.  “What are you doing here?”

 

He smiled. “Hey Bobbi. How you doing? I’m coming up.”

 

“You can’t. It’s not allowed.”

 

“You can meet in the lobby,” Jo said.

 

“Is he your boyfriend?” Linda said.  “I don’t have a date for Saturday’s game.”

 

Paul disappeared around the building.  “Oh God no,” Bobbi said. “Is he your boyfriend?” Bobbi wanted to take Linda by the bra strap and strangle her.  She’s forgotten all about chem class.  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Bobbi said.  “I gotta get down to the lobby.”  She turned around.  Linda stood in her way.  “Not my boyfriend.”  She moved past Linda and sprinted to the stairway.  She shouted over her shoulder. “He’s my husband.”

* * * * *

Husband.  That was the word on Bobbi’s lips when she awoke.  That dream again—damn.  She looked over at the clock and gasped.  Lunch with Carol!  She had showered after aerobics class and dressed before stretching out on her bed “just for a few minutes.”  Should have known better.

​

The elevator was at the far end of the hall so she took the second-floor stairs.  Take your time—stairs are the enemy after 65.  Slowly, cane at the ready, she made her way down and  shouldered open the first-floor door.  The sun-drenched lobby illuminated a fountain surrounded by a flower garden and she noticed other people in the room and someone was calling her name.

 

“Bobbi!”

 

A woman with gray-streaked short hair, a sweater around her shoulders, sat in one of the comfortable chairs that surrounded the fountain.  

 

She returned the wave and knew exactly who this woman was.  Carol.

 

“You were expecting someone else?” Carol took her hand and looked through thick glasses.

 

Bobbi slid into the adjacent chair and sighed.  “Your hair looks nice.” 

​

She primped her short hair.  “My glam chemo look. Did I tell you that the cancer center has its own hair stylist?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Chemo brain.  I repeat myself a lot.  Why so late?”

 

“Took a nap after morning chair aerobics.  Had a crazy dream.”

 

“That’s what we get, Bobbi.  Dreams, and tuna surprise for lunch.”

 

“Again with the tuna surprise?”

 

“Again.”  She jerked her thumb at what they called the food court at Sea Wind Villas. “They never tell us what the surprise is.”

 

“Food poisoning.”  They laughed together.

 

It was the early-to-lunch crowd and she and Carol liked to sit and watch, naming names, talking about which of the women may have slipped into which of the men’s rooms last night. It was always a guessing game because by the time sneaking into rooms had begun, Bobbi usually was snug in her room, watching what the kids call streaming channels and there were a million choices.

 

“That dream again,” Bobbi said.  

 

“The tent?”

 

“The tent. It always seems so real.”

 

“It was, wasn’t it?”

 

She had to admit it was, a big part of it.  Fifty-five Septembers ago, a handsome boy had once traveled 357.5 miles to see her during that first week of college when she was only thinking about getting to chemistry class on time.  She scolded him for endangering his and possibly her college scholarship and sent him back on the bus the next morning.  They kissed madly and deeply at the station.  He waved to her from the Greyhound window.  

 

“We phoned a lot during the next month or so.  I flew up for the last football game in November.  He told me all about the Gamecocks.”

 

“The Gamecocks?  Sounds slightly salacious.”

 

“It is, or was, I guess.  Paul’s friends always said it with the accent on the ‘cocks.’  Ah, freshmen boys.  They still had panty raids on his campus.”

 

“You time travel to 1959?”

 

“It was 1959 in 1969.  Freshmen had to wear beanies during registration.” 

 

“You’re kidding.  Kids are getting naked and tripping balls at Woodstock and 18-year-old Gamecocks in Columbia wear beanies and go on panty raids.”

 

“The Deep South, what can I say?  A few weeks later, I got a pair of skimpy panties in the mail.  Carolina Red.  Big black lettering: Gamecocks with Cocks capitalized.”

 

“Did he snag it in a panty raid?”

 

“God no.  The price tag was still on it.  Give him some credit.” 

​

“OK, I’ll give him some credit.  But what was he like?  Was he nice to you?”

​

The first time she dreamed the dream, she cried into her pillow. a thousand tears. It might have been the boy—his name was Paul—or it might have been her dead husband—his name was Jim.  Paul had broken her heart or she had broken his—they were only 18.  Jim broke her heart a dozen times, mostly without meaning to, just the way men do.  The kids too, all three of them, their visits tapering off with time, as they moved away from Florida to make their own memories.  They were all heartbreakers.

​​

“It’s more memory than dream.  He did hitchhike to campus and pitch a tent outside my dorm,” she said.  “Not sure where he got the tent.  Caused quite a stir.  He was a handsome boy.  He spent the night in my room and my roomie—she was my best friend from high school—was kind enough to go elsewhere.”

​​

“You shoot off any fireworks?”

​​

She laughed.  “There were fireworks that night at Disney Resorts.  People might have heard me all over the hotel.”

​​

“Great memory.”

​​

“God love you.  Those visions hang on, don’t they?  Doctors lie about old age.  You forget something and they say Alzheimer this and Alzheimer that.  It’s not the forgetting that’s the problem.  It’s the remembering.”  She paused.  “I was reading a book of stories by Jane Campbell, Cat Brushing, it’s very sensual.  Anyway, it was her first published book when she was 80.  One of her characters talks about the ‘persecution of remembering.’  The character, I can’t remember her name, says that we remember so much and late at night ‘remorse bites hard.’ ”

​​

“Cheery.”

​​

“Not supposed to be.  You ever felt it?”

​​

A shadow passed across her friend’s eyes and she composed her mouth in a grim line. “Of course,” she said quietly.

 

 “Sure.”

​​

“You want to talk about it?”

​

“No.”

​​

“OK, but you would think our imaginations would be in tatters by the time we get to Sea Wind Villas.  But here we are, talking about the past.”

​​

“You ever see Paul again?”

​​

“That November, I took the bus to Columbia for the last football game of the season.  Stayed with him in his dorm which was a definite no-no.  Went to the game and then an all-you-caneat buffet place that didn’t like the students coming in and scarfing down all the food.  We cruised downtown after.  Went out into the sticks and drove by a tent revival—see a lot of those in South Carolina.  We parked and went in.  Preacher up front chided his audience about this and that.  Halfway through, he asked if there were any couples in the congregations who wanted to get married in the eyes of Jesus.  Paul pulled me up there and I was too buzzed to resist.  The preacher came over, peeked down my halter top, and put his hand on my forehead the other on Paul’s.  

​​

“Do you believe in the Lord God as your savior?” he asked.

​

“Paul said yes. I nodded.”

​​

“The preacher told us we were married in the eyes of the Lord.  He had strong hands and gave us a little shove and we fell into the arms of some of the preacher’s people and they showed us a donation plate and asked for money to do God’s work.  Paul dug into his pocket, grabbed some change and dumped it on the plate.  He took my hand we ran out of there into the night.  A beautiful fall night with lots of stars.  Paul wrapped me in his arms and said, ‘Bobbi, we’re married now.’”

​​

" 'Not in the eyes of the church we aren’t.'

​

'This was a church. Sort of.'

​​

'Not our church.'  I told Paul to be sensible.  Told him this tent revival was a carnival religion, all show.

​​

“I may have hurt his feelings.  His eyes looked so funny.  He said that Catholic priests put on a show.  He had a point.

 

“I told him I was getting cold and he slipped my arms into his high school letter jacket and led me back to the car.  His friends joined us.  Paul said let’s go dancing to celebrate and we went to one of the 3.2 bars.  Paul danced with a succession of women and I just watched.  There was something off about him.  We’d smoked a joint in the car but he was flying high on something else.  He came over and pulled me to the dance floor.  Showed me how to do the Carolina Shag and I caught on pretty quick.  I started dancing with another guy and looked up to see Paul hanging all over this other girl.  He just wasn’t there, you know.  We got back to the dorm at 2 a.m. and had to slip in the back door—the guys propped it up with a rock on weekends since curfew was midnight.  The R.A.’s didn’t make a big deal of it.  We got to Paul’s room and he was all over me and I pushed him away, told him I was on my period.  For a second there, I saw daggers in his eyes and I thought something bad was going to happen.  But his face went from some sort of madness to the look I was used to, friendly Paul, Paul the boyfriend, Paul the guy I’d known since eighth grade.  He turned and stormed out of the room.  

 

“The next morning, I found my own way to the airport.  Was a bit rattled when I finally got back to my dorm.  Jo said I looked like shit and what happened and I said I got married and she laughed.  I didn’t have the energy to tell the story but the next day in the cafeteria, the girls asked me about my trip and I told the whole story and I could tell they were worried about me.  Jo put her hand on my forehead and said I was burning up and took me to the student clinic.  Next thing I know I’m in the hospital with pneumonia and I miss all of my classes.  I am sad and pissed off at the same time.

 

“My parents come to pick me up and take me home early for Thanksgiving.  I had to call all of my professors.  I was just a basket case.  I didn’t go back to school in December.  The week before Christmas, Mom brings me a letter.  ‘Who do you know at Fort Jackson?’ ”

 

“Nobody,” I said.  She handed me the letter.  It was from Paul.  He addressed me as his ‘Dear wife.’  He then wrote he’d got draft number five in the Selective Service Lottery on Dec. 1 and didn’t like school anyway and had joined up the next day and now was in basic at Fort Jackson.  His last line: I guess this is goodbye.  He signed it ‘Your Devoted Husband.’ ”

 

Carol grabbed her hand. “You’re not going to tell me he got killed in Vietnam?”

 

“I am not.  It was worse.  He came back a junkie.  It was my senior year and I was walking on the beach in Daytona with my new boyfriend and a car went by that looked familiar.  A guy got out of the back seat, while it was moving, tripped and rolled in the sand, beer flew out of his hand.  Spring break, you know, not unusual.  You can drive on the beach there, or at least you could back then. Guys sitting up, swigging Bud, driving their convertibles with their feet.  Guys trying to be cool for all the girls who were also trying to be cool.  Paul stood, brushed the sand away, staggered, and looked right at me.

 

 “He yelled: ‘My lovely wife!’  Almost got hit by a car and stumbled over to me.  My new boyfriend gave me a strange look.  Paul wrapped me in his arms.  Reeked of beer and sweat.  He tried to kiss me and his beard scratched my face and I pushed him and he fell on his ass.  He got right back up and stared at me with those dagger eyes I saw in the South Carolina dorm that night.  My poor boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend by the end of the day, walked over to challenge him.  Paul looked down at Lloyd who was about six inches shorter but muscular.  Both seemed ready for a fight.  Paul just looked down at him, shook his head, and stumbled off, splashing through the shore break like he was going somewhere.

 

“The last time I saw him was at the 25th high school reunion, 1994.  He asked me to dance, told me he had met his second wife at an NA meeting, said he got his shit together working with fellow vets at the VA.  I was a little drunk and wanted to kiss him right there, not him in his 40s but his 18-yearold face, that lovely face.  But it didn’t exist anymore.  I looked over at our table and saw my husband flanked by two of my female classmates who never gave me the time of day in the hallowed halls of St. Francis.  I told Paul I had to rescue my husband.  I squeezed his hand and let go.  As I walked away he said, ‘We’re still married, you know.’  I kept walking, showed him the back of my hand and was just about to respond with ‘ No we are not.’  But the words caught in my throat.  I turned to him and said, ‘I know.’  He smiled.  He was missing a couple teeth but it was still a beautiful smile.  I got to our table, shooed away those she-devils, took Jim upstairs and had my way with him.  Several times.” 

​

She paused.  Saw Jim’s face as it was that night, and then his still-life face in the casket at the front of the church.  “I miss him.”

 

Carol took her hand.  “I miss my crazy Richard.  Went too soon.  It still stings.”  

 

The lobby loudspeaker crackled into life. “Ladies and gentlemen, luncheon will now be served at Sea Wind Villas Food Court.”  There was a lot of shuffling and squeaky rollator wheels.

 

“You ready for tuna surprise?” asked Carol.

 

“No,” Bobbi said. “What about Mickey D’s?  I love those little burgers with the shiny cheese and tiny onions and pickles and ketchup.  We used to get ‘em for fifteen cents.”

 

“Gosh you’re old.”  She gripped Bobbi’s arm. “Let’s get it delivered.” Carol plucked her phone from the mostly empty spaces of her bra, punched in a few buttons and made the selections.

 

“And two chocolate shakes,” Bobbi added. “Large.”  

 

Carol punched a few more keys, clicked off the app, and slipped it back in her bra.  “Fifteen minutes.  Want to eat on the patio?”

 

Bobbi nodded, used the cane for leverage to stand.  They took each other’s arms and walked into the sunshine. 

​

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