Fourth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2006)
Fiction
— First Place
Autumn
Moon
By
Wayne Scheer
(continued)
I caught a cab back to my hotel and thought of Claudia. Even in the dark
pants suit she wore, the outline of her body looked, if anything, more
sensual than in her younger years. As Claudia's young, naked body flashed
before me like out of sequence film fragments, I squirmed in the taxi's
back seat. Mercifully, the cab pulled in front of the hotel.
In my room, under the sobering hotel light, I stared into the mirror as I undressed. The reflection looked familiar — long, unkempt gray hair, a white-speckled beard that probably covered a road map of wrinkles. Despite all that, I wasn't displeased with how I had aged. My body remained thin and vaguely muscular, only ten pounds heavier than when I wrestled in high school. Ellie still thought me sexy.
Ellie. For the first time in the past few hours I thought of the woman I had married two years after breaking up with Claudia. In fact, we began dating only a couple months afterwards. Early on, I wondered if it was a kind of rebound relationship. She, too, had recently broken up with a man she had met in college and moved in with soon after graduating. But after celebrating our twenty-seventh anniversary, such thoughts faded into the past like lyrics of an old song.
I checked the clock and saw it was after three in Madison. I remembered that Ellie had just completed a twelve hour shift at the hospital, so she'd be home by now.
"Hey," I said, relieved to hear her voice. "I just got back from the funeral."
"How was it? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. It was — you know — emotional."
We talked a while about the shock of Doc's death, the first friend my own age to die since Vietnam. Ellie told me about her day and about the wedding arrangements for Julia, our oldest. "If we get through this still speaking to one another, it'll be a miracle." I laughed, and asked if she heard from Eric, who was a junior in college.
It felt good talking about our life.
No natural segue in sight, I asked, "Do you ever regret not going to medical school? Do you feel you settled being a nurse?"
"What brought that on? That's a twenty-five year old discussion. Before Julia was born."
"I know. The funeral. Doc dying so suddenly. I guess I'm reevaluating." I made a conscious decision not to tell her about Claudia.
"Well, I don't regret anything, except maybe not joining you at Doc's funeral. You sound strange."
"Oh, no stranger than usual."
"I miss you." Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if we were in bed, our heads sharing the same pillow. "I'll miss you tonight."
"And I'll miss you." I regretted reserving the morning flight back to Madison, but the evening flight had been booked. "I love you." My voice cracked.
"I love you, too. But you sound so sad. What are you doing tonight? Did you meet anybody you knew from the old days? People who taught with Doc?"
"No," I lied. "Some of Doc's family. I might get together with them for dinner."
After I hung up, I felt terrible about lying, but telling Ellie over the phone I was going to have dinner with Claudia, whom I had once talked about much too much, would have only worried her. I told myself I had lied for her sake. But that wasn't completely true.
I tried taking a nap but couldn't sleep. My mind wandered to the time Claudia gave me head while driving home from visiting her parents. I tried reading, but all I could think about was how foolish I was being. Claudia probably just wanted to have dinner and catch up on old times. It was just dinner with an old friend, for crying out loud. I decided to go for a run.
On my way back, I stopped at a drug store and bought a pack of condoms.
Showered and dressed, I still had more than an hour before I had to be at the restaurant. I had never cheated on Ellie, despite the temptations on a college campus. I had thought about it, sure, but not recently. Was that a sign of maturity or was it me again choosing comfort over risk? Ellie would never have to know. Claudia probably had a meeting in Bangladesh tomorrow. I'd never see her again.
But would a one-night stand be enough? Was sex with an old lover all I wanted? Or was it Claudia's sense of adventure and her passion for her career that I hoped to grab on to like a drowning man to a life preserver? Did she represent a lost past, and would I ever be satisfied after I tasted what could have been?
I checked my cell phone for Doc's number. His sister answered. We talked about Doc and then I asked if she knew where Claudia was staying.
I called, and one of the women I had met earlier answered. After polite small talk, she put Claudia on the phone.
"I can't make it for dinner," I told her. "I'm sorry." I tried making up a story about catching an earlier flight home. Instead, I blurted out, "I'm still not strong enough to be with you."
"I see," she said.
Afterwards,
I took a walk in the humid night air. A bright autumn moon dominated the
evening sky, a harvest moon, reminding me that although it was late, winter
was still a long way off.
