Nostalgia Read Free Page B

wrong. Why
pretending?
Nothing was wrong.
    What’s so attractive and so frustrating about the Baby Generation is that insouciance; the assumptions they make and get away with; that time in bed when she burped to my climax, as I turned away snickering on the one hand and almost in tears on the other, she remained as calm as ever.
    —Anything in the news? she asked now.
    I reminded her about the XBN reporter Holly Chu.
    She shuddered, then mused,—I wonder what it would be like to be eaten alive?
    —I could show you…
    I moved closer, put my hand on her hip. She smiled, eyes closed.
    —It would be painful, for one thing…Come on…
    I kept trying, mostly because it’s the required form for a twosome. I’ve even convinced myself that it was for her sake that I humiliated myself.
    —I would put up a fight, I think.
    —So did Holly, but she got torn and eaten all the same. It’s the hunger.
    But she was in dreamland now, turned on her back, those La Divina lips slightly ajar as she snored a soft melody, the smile not entirely gone. Beautiful. The sleep of the innocent, where memory doesn’t hide in the basement.
    And here I was, eyes wide open.
    —
    It’s not that I stalked her, regenerated old man yearning to ravish and possess firm young flesh. It was she who came to me. Proposed to me, yes. Should I have been wary? I was, but as that old quip says, there are some offers we dare not refuse, whatever the dangers. She could have been on the other side of a fire and I would have walked through to meet her if she had called. The flesh yearns, the hormones leap. Well, sort of.
    I was tending to the barbecue at the annual Fairlawn Summer Picnic when she came walking over, swinging,plump breasts ripe against a yellow shirt closed only at the bottom, tight shorts, bare feet. Two beer bottles nestled close to her abdomen. Everything about her said G0. Baby.
    —Have a beer, Doctor—you look roasted.
    —I must be!
    I laughed, sweating more than her bottles, forehead dripping like a leaky faucet. I took the beer, flicked the cap open, and had a swig. With the fumes from the fire, I was practically marinated. This was one defect I had postponed attending to. It was embarrassing. And here was a girl as fresh as a morning flower.
    —How—you know I’m a doctor—what kind?
    —Word gets around, she teased, with a gleaming smile, leaning on her back foot.—You’re a life-giver!
    She was tall, with appealing grey eyes and an earnest look.
    —I don’t believe I’ve seen you around here—you are?
    —Joan Wayne. I’m visiting my sister—she’s at number 63.
    I must have gaped. I’d never
physically
met both someone and their actual biological sibling—or mother or father. Everyone has their family, to be sure, but more often these days they’re simply characters in a story, the planted narrative. The created memory and the virtual past. (Isn’t all past virtual?) But this one had a real flesh-and-blood sister—Meg from 63, a straggly blonde and golf coach, who waved vigorously—encouragingly?—from the softball game in progress.
    Someone shouted,—Joanie, come take up your position!
    She had deserted the game—just to hand me a beer? What had she seen? An older man—distinguished looking, may I flatter myself?—roasting over a fire while tending hotdogs and burgers for the neighbours in a well-meant but futile attempt to get to know one another.
    —I must go. Well, bye!
    —Bye. Nice meeting you.
    Joan left, then moments later turned back and grinned.
    —Would you like to meet for a drink after?
    —Yes. I’d like that.
    —What’s your number?
    I told her and she walked off. Oh how she walked. What she said, how she smiled, what she offered in that movement of the buttocks. Why haven’t we, with all our advances, been able to stop that sharp ache in the heart, that
physical
hurt that signals that the mind has been laid to waste? I looked at her beside me now, the straight posture, the full body; the