Spinster ch2

Spinsters – Chapter 2


As it was I didn’t have to call him; he called me.  I woke up to the phone ringing the next morning at 9:00.  I’m a late night person and had stayed up reading.  I also love voice mail and had no problem letting it record the message for me. 

I live in an old Victorian farmhouse.  It doesn’t have all the gingerbread work on the outside, but it has 11 foot ceilings, a wraparound porch, and beautiful old oaks that keep the temperature down in the summertime.  It was still pleasant and I had nothing planned for the day, so I took my time waking up.  Coffee – that’s the first order of business on any day, but today I had time to make the good stuff.  I took the gourmet coffee out of the freezer and poured beans into the grinder.  The rich, earthy scent of coffee filled the air.  That and the noise of the grinder finished the job of waking me up. 

It was a beautiful morning.  There was a slight breeze, the humidity was low, and the sun shone in the window lighting up the bright yellow cabinets of the kitchen.  I had stripped off dark wallpaper and painted the walls white when I moved in.  I had to get a feel for the house before doing much, but knew I couldn’t live with the darkness.  After I had been there for a while, I decided to paint the cabinets and put in a terra cotta floor.  The chair rail and wainscoting were also yellow.  Some tasteful stenciling accented the high ceiling and the décor was sparse.  I didn’t like a lot of clutter, at least not in my kitchen.  A six by three foot bar divided the kitchen from the dining room, and was covered with homemade soap that was setting.  I noticed when I came in last night, that the scent of lavender had spread through out the house. 

Ten minutes later, after all the morning essentials, and holding a cup of coffee, I walked outside to get the paper and sat down on the porch swing.  Polly, my yellow lab, followed me out.  She was about 8 years old and had finally calmed down after acting like a puppy for years.  She had also been the only constant in my life for the last 8 years.  The relationship with my family was strained, men had come and gone (a few at least), I had bought a new house and then been laid off.  A new job came fairly quickly, but there were a few tense months.  I rubbed Polly’s silky ears for a minute before she turned around three times and lay down at my feet. 

“Well girl, what are we going to do today?” 

Polly looked up at the sound of my voice.  She always appeared to be listening to me, tilting her head from side to side. 

“Well, what do you think?”  She barked in response to my voice.  “I thought so, stay home, do a little laundry, read.  Sounds good.”  The longer you live alone, the more you talk to your plants and animals.  I talked to them a lot!

I set my coffee down on the little table I kept by the swing and opened the newspaper.  Politics, another steroid scandal in major league baseball, local man kills pregnant girlfriend; nothing ever seemed to change.  I flipped through the sections and pulled out the science magazine that came in the paper every Saturday.  I am such a geek, I thought.  I was halfway through an article on the latest space shuttle mission, when the phone rang again. 

“Well, it’s time for another cup of coffee anyway.  Come on girl.”  I gathered the paper and walked across the porch to open the door.  I had left my phone and my keys on a table beside the front door, when I came in last night.  I grabbed the phone on the fourth ring as I held the door open for Polly. 

“Hello.”

“Laura?”

“Yes.”

“This is Greg, . . . from Research, at work.”

“Of course, how are you?”

“I’m fine.  How are you?”

“Fine.  I’m just enjoying the beautiful morning, before it gets too hot.”

“It is nice out,” he said. 

We had been talking at work for a couple of weeks.  Flirting a little.  This was a surprise, though.  It’s so hard to “do it again” when you get older.  It’s easier to just flirt and fantasize.  I really didn’t think either one of us would take it any further.  But, if I was going to try again at 45, he was exactly what I would be interested in.  Of course, just having a good friend that was male would be great.  I had worked primarily with men in my last job and missed it.  I really like men as people, not just sexually.  I seem to “get” the way they think better than many women.  Unlike Julie, who was heterosexual, but didn’t like very many men as people.  I don’t think she had ever had a man in her life that was just a friend.  I, on the other hand, seemed to always be “one of the boys.” 

“Umm, Laura, I know this is last minute, but are you free tomorrow afternoon?  There’s a Jazz concert at Brandenburg Park and I thought we could go and maybe have a picnic and enjoy the music.” 

“That sounds nice.  Who’s playing?,” I asked. 

“A group called the Belltones.  They’re actually pretty good.  I heard them last year when I was in Chicago on business, and the guy who plays the sax is amazing.”

“What time does it start?  Do you want me to bring food?”

“It starts at 4:00, and I can just pick something up on the way.”

“Tell you what, I’ll bring the food, you bring the drinks.  That is unless you expect fried chicken.  My mom was the last one in the family that could fry a decent chicken.”

“Well, is your mom free?”  . . . “Just kidding,” he said quickly. 

“I can give you her number, but leave early to pick her up. She lives in Florida.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll stick with the daughter,” he laughed.  “Oh, can you hold, I’ve got someone on the other line.”

“Sure.”  Personally, I think Call Waiting is a rude feature, but most people don’t seem to mind it.  I just hang up, if they’re gone too long.  He was back quickly though.

“Laura, that was work.  I’ve got to go in for a little while.”

“On Saturday?  What’s up?”  I asked.

“I can’t really say, but have you read the paper this morning?

“I was reading an article in the science section when you called.”

“Well, look over at the third page of that section.  That will give you an idea.”  He paused, and then said, “Can I pick you up about 3:00 tomorrow?”

“Why don’t I just meet you there?  There’s no reason for you to come all the way out here.”  Actually, I just have this thing about always having my car.  I am way to independent, I thought. 

“Okay.  In the parking lot then about 3:30?”

“Sounds great.  I’ll see you then.”

“Great.  Talk to you later.”

I hung up the phone and reached for the paper. 

As I walked back toward the kitchen (and the coffee pot), there were warring thoughts in my head.  I was thinking about the science article that Greg mentioned, but distracted by the thought of I can’t believe he called me!  Some things never change.  Part of me always feels like ‘junior high’ when a new man appears on the horizon.  I’ve always said “no one over 18 should be required to date, it’s too humiliating.”  Of course, I guess I could have said no. 

I poured another cup of coffee and added half-and-half.  It was one of the few luxuries I allowed myself calorie-wise these days.  Where is that article that he was talking about?  Here we go.

LOS ANGELES – Within the last
24 hours five cases of a new H5N1
virus have shown up in the United
States.  This appears to be the same
Influenza virus that has been spread-
ing through East Asian communities
in China, Hong Kong, and Korea. The
World Health Organization is parti-
cularly concerned about the virus
showing up in Hong Kong, because of
its use as a major departure point for
people traveling to other parts of the
world. 
    The five individuals in LA are all
in the Intensive Care Unit.  Influenza
can be a deadly illness.  It causes up to
30,000 deaths in the US each year. 


The article went on to describe the symptoms of influenza and to urge people to seek medical care when they exhibited these symptoms.  One thing they did not say was whether or not the sick people had contracted the disease by exposure to birds or other humans in the Far East.  If the virus had mutated and was now able to be spread easily between humans, we might have a rough road ahead of us this year.  Everyone hated to say the word though.  Could this be the beginning of a pandemic? 

Pandemics happened, and we were due.  There had been three in the 20th century: 1918, 1957, and 1968.  The one in 1918 being the deadliest, killing 40 to 50 million people worldwide.  The other two had killed “only” 2 million and 1 million respectively.  I actually remembered the 1968 “Hong Kong Flu”, but I didn’t remember how much it had affected us in the US.  I refilled my coffee and headed to my computer to access the internet.