Edna Mayfield (heavily revised)

"Well! Hey there, yourself," he called back.

"Your rent's due. How 'bout tonight?"

"Sounds good. What time?"

"I'm famished, starved really! I just have to wash my hands, so I'm basically ready when you are."

Jordan Douglas thought of all the papers to be graded piling up on his desk, the lectures to prepare for next week, and he sighed, then said: "Fine, let me take this stuff upstairs. Be down in five."

When he came down he found Edna Mayfield standing by the rear of the Porsche.

"This is a '73 S, I take it?" she asked.

He nodded, not really surprised by her knowledge of the model.

"You haven't seen Stanton's cars yet, have you?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Well, c'mon then," she said excitedly. Edna Mayfield grabbed Jordan Douglas by the hand and pulled him back to the garage. She entered a code on the concealed keypad, and the lone garage door rolled up and out of the way.

Jordan Douglas laughed with joy at the sight. Another huge wooden space, again completely of cypress, the geometric stained glass windows an echo of other motifs around the main house, the massive wooden beams and finally, the low indirect lighting that switched on automatically as the door finished opening. A red Ferrari Daytona Spider stood at the front of a small pack of museum quality sports cars that were crowded into the garage. A cream colored Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing popped into view, it's blazing red interior inappropriately elegant; a silver-blue Alpha Romeo Montreal, a Maserati here, a Lotus there. And in the very back, lost in a dimly lit corner of the museum, a dark green Porsche Targa.

"That's his 73 S," he said wonderingly. "I remember it, you know? On campus."

"Yup," she replied -- with a bubble of laughter lurking just under the surface. "His pride and joy."

"This must be some kind of weird for you," he said as he looked at her.

"Took some gettin' used to, that's for sure. But I did some checkin' up on you while I was away. You'll do."

He turned, looked at Edna Mayfield and smiled. "I'm glad," he said. "Honored, actually."

"Well, okay. I'm ready for dinner," she said.

"All right. Your choice, Taco Bell or Burger King."

She laughed gayly. "You drive, I'll navigate." It was a challenge, a dare he had to accept.

Across town they pulled into a drive-in hamburger stand, one of the few remaining postwar originals, she told him after they ordered. "Best goddamn rings west of the Rockies," she continued. The carhop walked out a few minutes later and placed a tray heaped with burgers, onion rings, and drinks on his partially rolled up window. They talked about the college and his classes, students still flirting with the professors and professors still getting caught up in sloppy romances, all the while happy as they dug into their burgers. They laughed at stupid agency tales and legends, moaned about the folly of politicians. They were, in short, very relaxed with one another, enjoying each other's company.

"I haven't been here in ages," Edna Mayfield said. "This place was here when Stan and I were first dating. Tastes like they haven't changed the grease in the fryers since then, too."

"Yeah, but this chocolate malt is the best. I can feel my arteries clogging as we speak."

"Next month, okay? When I feel like gaining twenty pounds."

He laughed. "I have to wait a month?"

"You can find your way," she said, suddenly wary.

"I meant with you."

She sighed, looked away. "Jordan, I appreciate the compliment, I really do, but I'm old enough to be your mother."

"I plead ulterior motives," he grinned. "I simply wanted to be seen driving around with the prettiest gal in town."

Edna Mayfield reached over and took Jordan Douglas' hand in hers. "That's very sweet, Jordan. But I'm too old for that kind of foolishness, and you're too young." Open conflict seemed to dance across Edna Mayfield's characteristically unreadable eyes, and he was amused.

"Told you that first day, Mrs Mayfield, I'm not much on conventions."

"So, salty boat shoes? You have a boat?"

"When I moved back to the Bay Area. My dad's actually. After he passed I couldn't think of letting her go, so I moved aboard."

"What's that like?"

"Not bad for a bachelor, unusual community atmosphere all around. Interesting, I think. Not your usual nine to five lifestyle."

"You liked it, then?"

"I did, yes. I should say I still do. I liked sailing up to the delta, towards Sacramento, and I went outside a few times, sailed down to Monterrey Bay."

"We used to drive over to Half Moon Bay, up over Skyline Drive and down to the little artichoke stands along Highway 1. Did you ever make it to Alice's Restaurant?"

"Most every Sunday."

Edna Mayfield smiled at that, then reclined the seat as far as it would go and looked out the car into the deep blue sky above. "Such a beautiful evening," she whispered. "I miss him so much. Hated to see him reduced to such frailty. You just can't imagine."

"Yes, Edna, I can," he whispered back.

She turned and looked at him, willing him to continue.

"We were stationed in Ecuador. I was seconded as commercial attache, Emily worked for State. Leftist guerrillas hit a diplomatic convoy headed to the airport to pick up Vance. She was killed that day, but it took her weeks to pass."

Edna Mayfield suddenly remembered the incident. Remembered Emily Douglas and the baby she carried, the outrage in D.C. And just as suddenly she recalled Jordan Douglas, his ancient grief spread over tabloids and network newscasts.

"She was so young," he said quietly. "Like all of us were, I guess."

"And I am so old," she said to herself. The words echoed around Edna Mayfield's memories -- even through the walls she had erected to keep so many of them away.

They sat in silence for a while, awash in their respective grief, and storm clouds gathered over distant mountains, then moved down the valley towards the city. Lightning lit their way on the drive home.

◊◊◊◊◊

October 21st

Jordan Douglas sat on the patio off the east side of his room, watching evening overtake the valley. He was reading, or at least trying to reread Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, preparing for a lecture on Social Darwinism in the early 20^th-century. He was still far too busy with classes, and was considering the college's offer of a tenure-track position in the wake of Olin Tomlinson's death. Too, he had been looking after the main house after Edna Mayfield departed a few days after their brief evening out. Gone to Norway to visit relatives, or so she said. Edna Mayfield had given him the keys and the codes, hopped into a taxi and been gone in a heartbeat.

In today's mail he'd found a letter from Norway, and he'd set it aside -- for a time -- when distractions would be few. After two more hours he set aside Spengler's brooding missive, took up the letter he assumed was from Edna Mayfield and slowly knifed the envelope, carefully setting it on the table by his side.

He took in the writing on the page, its elegant, finished form awash I subtle femininity. He read Edna Mayfield's pleasantries and banal descriptions of ancient stave churches and crystal-hued waterfalls diving through autumn foliage to the ice-blue waters of deep fjords. Still, he smiled at the imagery as he flipped to the next page.

The words on this page were from someone in deep emotional conflict, and though the handwriting on the surface was the same elegant script, the words no longer reflected the casual wanderings of an idle tourist. Edna Mayfield now described the wanderings of her heart through the barren landscapes of her husband's life and death, the triumphs and the betrayals of their careers in public service. She described the enduring love she had for her husband, and for their children. She threw into the light of day Jordan's oblique reference to some form of tryst with her, and here Jordan Douglas sat bolt upright in his chair, for it soon became apparent she had not dismissed the idea out of hand.

She drifted through needs to protect the memories of her marriage from meaningless diversions, the feelings of her children and their certain sense of betrayal should their mother carry-on a disreputable affair, and Jordan's own very tenuous standing in a small-town college community. Yet she expressed an affection for him, indeed, a strong attraction. Her confidence seemed to build again as she continued, and she ended by asking him to think about her words and feelings as he might those of a close friend.

Edna added she'd be home in a few weeks, and to keep himself well until her return. Douglas set the letter aside and picked up the envelope and noted the post mark, then lifted the paper to his nose and smiled again. Her perfume suffused his senses, and whether deliberate or accidental he did not care. He closed his eyes as he felt cast adrift in so many memories, so suddenly, and he felt he was tumbling in a ragged surf when he pictured her in his mind.

He thought of Stanton, his friend and mentor, and the times he'd seen them together in D.C. He thought of Ecuador and his own loss, and now her's. Stanton had belonged to her, yet the old man had been a part of his moral universe too, and he found it difficult to separate the two. He thought of the mornings he and Stanton played squash or tennis, and the mornings over the past several weeks when he saw Edna coming back from an early morning run... How alike they were, how attuned to one another they must have been. How remarkable it would be to cut through time -- like an arrow -- with someone like her by your side.

Social conventions aside, he wondered if she was ready for her own second verse.

"And what about me?" he wondered. "Am I ready for her, and everything she is?"

◊◊◊◊◊

He'd felt light-headed for days, almost giddy with adolescent anticipation as the assumed days of Edna Mayfield's return came -- and went, and it was already late in the evening when he accepted defeat, knew this was not to be the day. He rubbed his eyes as he looked at the pile of ungraded papers on his desk, then jumped at the sudden knocking on the door below. He flew down the stairs and opened the door to see Edna Mayfield standing there, silhouetted by the bright lights of a taxi in the driveway.

"Jordan! I'm so glad you're home! I don't suppose you have any small change about? All I have are some traveler's checks and a handful of Krone." Jordan walked out to the old yellow cab and paid off the cabbie, then picked up Edna Mayfield's bags and carried them towards the main house.

"Oh, put them down, Jordan! I'm starved!" she said, a sudden smile flashing across her face. Jordan took out his house keys and placed the bags inside the door and returned to the driveway. As the taxi backed out the drive he walked over to Edna.

"So, how are you? What would you like to eat?" he said as he hugged her.

Edna Mayfield stood looking at Jordan Douglas in the receding light. Her eyes bore into his with feral intensity, and she took both his hands in hers.

"I feel a great need for a chocolate malt and onion rings," Edna Mayfield said as she grinned. "I've been thinking about that for at least a day."

He grinned, felt in his pockets and found his keys as they walked to his car, and they drove in silence to the old drive-in. After they ordered she reclined the seat and looked up at the coming stars -- and she reached over, took his hand in hers.

He let her drift, let her set the agenda, but the feel of her skin on his was unimaginably full of nether currents. He held her to his own -- all the while wanting desperately to hold her, the pull she exerted now absolute. They picked at their food when it came, still in silence, then she turned to him, asked him to take her home.

And still they sat in silence, her hair lifting in the slipstream. Stopped at a light, he looked at her, at her upturned face, her closed eyes, and he took her hand and carried her fingers to his lips.

They turned into the drive, the headlights of his old Porsche lighting the stone, and her pale yellow Cadillac, on his way back to the garage. When he stopped, when he'd switched off the ignition and the lights, he felt her eyes on him and he turned to meet them.

"Thanks," she said lightly, gently.

He smiled as gently. "You betcha...would hate to fall behind on my rent."

"You received my letter?" she asked.

"I did."

"And?"

"I've been counting the minutes ever since."

"I feel like a teenager," she grinned. "All addled by the silliest hopes and dreams..."

"I know."

"Yes. I thought you, off all people, might understand. You know, I miss Stanton so, but I think he'd understand, perhaps even approve."

"I think he'd be jealous as hell," he said, smiling. "I've never seen a more pure love than his for you."

She turned to him, looked into his eyes after this unexpected thrust. He does understand, everything, she thought. "And yet," she breathed, "I'd love nothing more than to fall in love with you."

And with that, she led him to the garage, to the stairs that led to his room. She seemed to float up the stairs, leading Jordan in casual flight among clouds of their own creation -- within the heady glow of forgotten anticipation. He looked at her as she drifted up the currents of their finding, took in the sweet elegance of her every move, the subtly restrained sexuality of her movements. Cast adrift by her off-white suit, the bone colored blouse, stockings, and pumps, the random twinkling of jewelry, the soft cloud of Chanel he drifted within, he followed her now -- in a trance of her making.

As they reached the deep glow within her vaulting space, she flipped off the lights and turned on Jordan Douglas. There was nothing forced or hesitant about their lovemaking; he thought it more an acknowledgment of the obvious, a part of who they might become.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said as they lay together after, her smile demure, full of understanding. Yet her soul radiated curiosity, questions about the why and the what of things to come...

Yet he hesitated. "Until I saw you again, until we went on that first drive, I thought my life incomplete, somehow wanting of a conclusion. I think I'd given up on the idea of ever finding someone like you."

"Someone like me?"

"Yes. Like you, and only you."

"What does that mean, Jordan?"

"When I look at you, think about you, my world turns upside down. Everything is chaos until I think of you by my side -- and then everything falls into place, makes perfect sense."

She lay on her side, propped her face on her hand as she looked at him. "Perfect sense? How? Symmetry -- between the past and the present?"

"I suppose, but after I read your letter, all that evening I drifted among memories of Stanton and Emily, and then of course, you. What hit me hardest, I suppose, was that we wouldn't be here -- you and I, together -- right this minute, without our universe unfolding just the way that it has...and yet, despite all the odds against that happening -- here we are. I don't like resorting to cliché, but right now it feels like everything before this moment happened for a reason; everything's that's happened has led us right here, right now. And I feel this moment is the most important of my life."

"Important? Why do you say that?"

"Because when I read your letter I felt joy again, in my heart, but not from a purely selfish point of view."

"Selfish?" she wondered aloud.

"I think I fell in love with you again the moment I saw you, when you were standing in the door waiting to show me this room," he started. "Of course I knew who you were. Of course I was reluctant to get you involved. I just couldn't imagine violating your need for privacy, being interrupted by a reminder of Stanton's past, yet I felt a certain joy then because, I think, I could see a circle rejoined."

She didn't blink an eye, she just continued to look at Jordan's face, the weight of loneliness falling from her spirit as he spoke. "You loved him too, didn't you?"

"Yes, I suspect I did, perhaps in the way a son loves his father. He always seemed such a wise soul, careful to avoid the excesses and abuses of power. He was a rancher, and he was a philosopher, and -- I think he always believed in the promise of this country."

"Wait a minute! Did you say you fell in love with me -- again?"

"Edna, every red-blooded heterosexual male in Washington D.C. was in love with you. I just got with the program and fell in line with everyone else."

"Oh, piffle," she said, smirking. "All that bullshit about 'brains and beauty', like someone's sexuality is their single most defining trait..."

"That's what's so stunning about you, Edna. It's always been that way, too."

She looked away, feeling almost disappointed now.

"I think I understand how you feel," he continued -- as seriousness clouded her eyes. "The miracle of you, your curse too, I suppose, has always been your beauty, yet how it complement's your intellect. Men have always been drawn to you, but often to your beauty, and yet you used that attraction to draw men closer, to draw people to your arguments. Even so, I assume you could never be sure what was left after those encounters. Did men take you seriously because of the positions you advanced, or because they were drawn to your beauty -- and didn't really give a damn?"

She lay on her back just then, looked up at the ceiling. "Stanton and I talked about this all the time, the very same thing. It feels like you and I are replaying conversations we had..."

"I'm sorry, perhaps I..."

"No, no. I love it that you see into me the way he did, that you know me the way he did."

"As I know you understand my feelings for Emily, and all that came before. Yet what I've thought about most since we met, since we sat eating onion rings and burgers, is that life now is for the living. I don't think I've thought of much else, really. And yes, though you are a little older, all that means is time is precious now -- to both of us now. It's not the simple commodity we used to take for granted when we were kids."

"No, I suppose not," she said, smiling as a thought ran through her mind.

"Sorry you asked?" he replied.

Edna Mayfield took his hand in hers and kissed it, all the while feeling a tenderness well up in her soul. She turned, rested her face on his chest, listening to his heart beating away, still smiling gently at random thoughts running through her mind's eye.

"So," he continued, "things seem pretty clear to me. I hope my feelings are clear, but then again I'm usually fairly transparent."

"Oh, did I hear a statement of feelings in there, somewhere along the line?" Edna Mayfield asked coyly.

"Wasn't there? Why, Mrs Mayfield, I love you."

"Oh, I see," she said in mock seriousness, then her cares seemed to fall away. "I never expected to feel this way again, not ever. I think I've been dead ever since Stanton passed, actually." He felt her move closer now, her body conforming to his. She held him close, breathed in deeply. "Thank you," she said at last, "for helping me find my life once again."

She fell asleep on his chest, listening to the quiet, steady beat of his heart.

◊◊◊◊◊

November 21st

Edna Mayfield waved excitedly as her youngest daughter, Tracy, bounded out of the arrivals concourse. Tracy ran up to her mother, fell into her embrace, yet Edna was shocked at the change she saw in her daughter. Older now, more mature in an unexpected way. Something had happened, changed, yet she was happy.

Tracy remained her secret favorite; Tracy the romantic, the poet at heart, her soul always attuned to other people's feelings. And she had Edna's looks, too: not quite as tall, slim but well-proportioned, and the same long, flowing copper colored hair that revealed her Nordic-Scottish ancestry. Academically, Tracy had always been something of an enigma to her parents; rarely performing to expectation but making almost perfect scores on the SATs and ACTs. She'd applied to Stanford, but from an early age wanted to get away from the west, to go back east. Harvard took her, so did Dartmouth, but the small town girl went to Cambridge to live in the heart of a big city. Though she had yet to declare a major, she'd been interested in history for many years, just like her father, yet she loved to paint -- like her mother.