The Love of My (Other) Life Read Free Page A

corner of the sign, and waltzing white-haired people entwined in each other’s arms enlivened the other corners.
    I had painted them after my most favorite charges: Mr. Woolstein, caneless, with his leonine mane of white hair, holding Mrs. Leibowitz in his arms and twirling her over the floor. I imagined that they had cherished a secret, unconsummated flame for each other during their decades long lives, both of them remaining faithful to their marriages while a private tenderness lay dormant, a seed not ready to shoot forth tendrils. Now in the third acts of their lives, they were emancipated into their new, old love.
    Come to think of it, was it this very poster that had broken the impasse, that had unlocked the block that prevented me from painting for the last few years, since David had left me? Perhaps. Other signs advertised Bible study, youth groups, and homeless breakfasts, but they were crudely finished. They were not in the same league as my dance poster.
    My dance poster was almost real art.
    My boss, Reverend Thomas Pincek, swept past me. “Tessa, welcome, welcome. We have a full house waiting for you today. You’re such an angel, you’re packing them in!”
    “Thanks, Rev,” I said. “Sorry I’m late. Where’s Mrs. Leibowitz? She was feeling under the weather last week. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
    The rev pursed his lips. “Don’t know. Stop by her apartment later if you like. Mr. James here isn’t getting his meals-on-wheels. I told him you would fix him up!” Reverend Pincek clapped hunched-over Mr. James on the back.
    Mr. James, who was more than ninety and exuberantly decrepit, coughed and nearly fell over.
    But the rev didn’t notice; he was already bustling away to solve twenty other problems for his flock.
    I helped Mr. James reconfigure into his walker.
    “C’mon back to my office, Mr. James. We’ll call for you. You look sprightly today, are you working out?
    Is that a six-pack beneath your cardigan?” I poked my finger at an oblong moth-hole in his faded blue sweater.
    Mr. James, whose mind was still as sharp as a scalpel even as his body degraded around it, cackled joyously. “I do one-armed pushups so I won’t lose my girlish figure.”
    Then we were laughing together as I guided him through the pews, where were seated a crowd of waiting old folk, toward the tiny, cramped office in back with my desk and a couple of metal folding chairs.
    Mr. James coughed—his emphysema was acting up today—but he beamed at me with bright eyes and a big, gummy smile. I was reminded of why I stay in this job for which I was never trained and get paid too little to pay my rent. No matter how much I’ve screwed up my life, no matter what I’ve lost and where I am in my creative process, I always feel uplifted by the appreciation of life the elderly so often display.
    Reverend Pincek careened to my door with his secretary and two volunteers in tow. “Only two hours, Tessa. Tithes are down and we don’t want to take advantage of you. We can only pay you for two hours.”
    “I’m here to help, Rev. Money’s not my main priority.” But even as the words were emerging from my mouth, I had a flash of myself as a homeless person. I was wearing Mr. James’ ragged sweater and standing beside Brian… . I smacked my head.
    The rev was speaking, which helped me tear myself away from the image. He said, “Right now, it’s ours. I’m praying for some earthly angel to make a big donation, else we’ll lose some of our social programs. There’s a lot at risk: the soup kitchen, Harlem outreach. Even eldercare.”
    ● ● ●
    Reverend Pincek’s words still rang in my ears three and a half hours later as I exited the church and closed the door behind me. I’d solved Mr. James’ meals-on-wheels problem, helped Mrs. Anders with her Medicare forms, set up a Gmail account for Mr. Blonstein so he could email his grandson, negotiated with a pharmacy for regular delivery of Mrs. Vaccaro’s