Spare Change Read Free

sputtered, “You mean to say you’re undecided?”
    Olivia wished she didn’t have to say anything, she wished they could go
on day after day, week after week, year after year, never asking any more of
each other; never mentioning the one thing that ruined every relationship. She
found it virtually impossible to look into his eyes with what she had to say,
so she fixed her gaze fixed on a single truffle—a truffle that had fallen from
the edge of the plate, a truffle that stood as alone as she herself. “I’m
sorry, Charlie,” she mumbled tearfully, “if I were going to marry anyone it
would be you, but I’m simply not a marrying woman.” As the words fell from her
mouth, she could feel her heart breaking, shattering into a hundred million
pieces, each smaller than even a grain of sand. She loved Charlie more than
she’d ever loved any man before. Why… her heart was screaming, … why
does falling in love always have to end this way?
    “Not a marrying woman?” Charlie repeated, “What’s that supposed to
mean?”
    “I’ve never been one to fit the mold. Cooking, cleaning, babies—it’s
just too much dependency, it smoothers a woman and takes the fullness of life
from her.”
    “Babies?” Charlie echoed, “Who said anything about babies?”
    Her answer was one she had stored away in her head, it hadn’t been
called upon for years, it had grown old and dusty and obsolete, but she hauled
it out nonetheless. “I realize that given your age, babies might not be a thing
of foremost concern, but,” she sighed, “who knows what might happen in the
future…”
    “I’m sixty-eight! Why, it would be impossible for me to father a
baby! Besides, I wouldn’t want one—not even if it came in a solid gold
wrapper!”
    “You’re certain?”
    “I only want you. I want us to sleep in the same bed and make love. If
you don’t want to cook, we’ll eat in restaurants. If you don’t want to clean,
we’ll sweep the dirt under the rug and get on with our life.”
    “No children?”
    “Children? Absolutely not!  I’ve got one and he’s no bargain.”
    “You’ve got a little boy?”
    “He’s hardly a boy. Benjamin’s thirty-seven—old enough to know he ought
to visit his dad now and then; but he doesn’t. I haven’t seen him for over
fifteen years.” 
    “Grandchildren?”
she asked; her eyes lovingly locked onto his face.
    “Benjamin and Susanna have a son,” he answered
wistfully. “The lad’s name is Ethan Allen; but I’ve never even met him.”
    T he following Friday Charlie
slipped a diamond ring on Olivia’s finger and much to everyone’s surprise, it
stayed there. And, as if that weren’t enough of a shocker, Olivia then
announced she was going to give up her job of thirty years and move to
Wyattsville. “I’ve heard tell it’s a wonderful community,” she told her
friends, “and, Charlie has an apartment on the seventh floor of a building that
does not allow children.”
    The announcement generated an endless amount of gossip among Olivia’s
friends and co-workers. The girls in the typing pool suggested he might be
after her money, or worse yet, be planning to take out a sizeable insurance
policy then do her in. “What do we know about him?” they’d ask each other, but
the answer was generally nothing more than a furrowed brow and a shrug of the
shoulders. 
    Herbert Flannery, dumbfounded by the turn of events, went out and
bought himself a powder blue convertible then took to coloring his hair
shoe-polish black.
    Mabel Cunningham, a woman who had known Olivia since high school
claimed she’d heard rumors of Charlie being a philanderer.
    “Not likely,” Francine Burnam said as she stuck a pacifier into her
grandbaby’s mouth; her daughter had recently divorced a ne’er-do-well husband
and returned home to mama with the infant and two toddlers.  “Olivia’s too
smart to be taken in by someone like that,” Francine sighed wistfully.
    Even the boy who bagged groceries