The afternoon in the office was unusually quiet. Most of the staff was off today to stretch the coming Monday Labor Day holiday weekend, and I felt almost alone in the tombs. I logged in at 6:45 this morning and had had uninterrupted time to catch up on documentation and status reports.
Socially, financially, and personally, it was the best of times.
Remembering the times was mostly thinking of Jules and how she changed from the formal business attired, briefcase-carrying consultant into the warmer, softer, and far more feminine woman that she was when away from her professional realm. The general business attitude in Florida was much more relaxed and fashionable than Charlotte had been and she became a big Miami Vice TV fan so she could see how Florida women dressed in that fantasy world. Jules became a different person and I fell in love with her many times over again.
There were few general meetings she attended where she did not get at least one serious inquiry about her consulting services, and she quickly learned that Ph. D. competence and “eye candy” appeal can work together nicely. She was not a flirt; quite the contrary. “I can look good and talk about business at the same time. I don’t care which one sells the job,” she said.
And, oh, my, did she look good!
Jules is in the 'voluptuous' category; not overweight for her five feet seven inches; a little top-heavy, but very nicely distributed. By far the most noticeable thing about her is her abundance of curly, black hair. Not just a lot of hair, but a gargantuan mass of almost unruly hair that looks like a bad costume wig! The overall effect is that she is spectacular and people stare at her to see if she is real!
She is at home in any situation and refers to her Dr. Juliette Capulet professional persona as “that other woman.” She is a bit of an exhibitionist and her summer not-at-work attire is always very short shorts and the top half of a T-shirt, and little else. She is always distracting, even after all these years, and I have never met anyone who has anything to offer that Jules does not have many times over.
I also know she is smarter than I am, but I never question why she married me. I know she loves me and I love her. She is my world and life has been more than perfect.
By 3:45, it was obvious that I had lost my momentum for doing paperwork and was in no mood to be working. I logged out with,” Disturb me before Tuesday, 8 AM upon your own peril.”
Jules had a long massage in the afternoon and was in a laid-back, post-massage mood after the two-hour session. She had showered and was wearing shorts and the top part of a T-shirt, and was barefoot. She was setting the table for dinner.
During dinner, I told her about the nostalgia attack, and that led to a long session of remembering and discussing good things about those two years.
“It was the best time of my life,” she said.
“Mine, too. There was something really magic going on with all of us ...almost mystical...”
“Remember when Freddie’s friend, Jo Jo, was there that Saturday when we had the group with us? The really special feeling started then, and the pot had nothing to do with it. Well, not much. Remember JoJo asked us to hold hands when we were sitting on the floor in a circle and we did even if it did seem a little corny. We all did and no one said anything for a long time and it started getting a little weird. Then Freddie started saying, “be now...be now...be now..” and we all joined in and everything started feeling...connected… and before it was over, half of us were crying out of pure happiness. We were all in the longest 'now' of our lives.” She was silent for long minutes.
“I don’t know what happened then, but that 'now' was the only mystical moment of my life,” she whispered and fell silent for a full minute before continuing. “Remember how much we disliked being in Florida the day after Freddie left?” she asked rhetorically, and then breathed deeply to push the memory back into a safe place.
We sat in silence for a long while, remembering.
The reverie was broken when Jules said, “She set our minds on fire.”
And then, in an almost chilling mood change, said, “I have work work to do,” in a dismissive, Dr. Capulet voice, as she left for her upstairs office to be lost to the task for the evening; not to be disturbed.
After cleaning up after dinner, I watched an old movie while grooming Baxter, and thinking about Jo Jo and Freddie and Jules. When I do that, I get the past and present mixed up because the past seems to be now and the present seems to be an anachronism of some unknown origin. The present should not be here.
In my life, that experience gets better as time passes because it was about the unique group of people Jules and I found and fit into so perfectly. Flashes of memory of sitting and talking overnight that Saturday when whatever it was that happened, happened.
Memories of the sweet aroma of cannabis in the air; of sitting on the floor leaning back-to-back with Jo Jo, one of the backup singers for the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band; memories of Jules lying on the floor with her head on Freddie’s lap; of Sue Ellen’s bare feet in the air, heels resting on my knees; of Brenda laughing and losing control and infecting us all with uncontrollable laughter. And the flood of empathy as Mona's laughter turned into tears of happiness, and we began crying with her. That is how it was. Maybe.
And later, of walking on the beach at two A.M. with Jules and Freddie while wearing only our naked birthday suits and it felt so natural. Freddie between us, arms around our waists, and ours around hers. She was singing the lyrics from Tweeter and the Monkey Man; the new Traveling Wilburys’ Bob Dylan song, and Jules and I joined with the chorus. Three naked people, walking arm-in-arm and singing and being perfectly at ease with it, repeating the same song over and over.
We were “high on life” and the moments were burning white hot as we wrote the memories into our very beings.
Always the most vivid and the last real memory was of Freddie's farewell party on Longboat Key and her goodbye kiss that still remains the longest and most memorable of my life, not even to be interrupted when Jules put her arms around us, kissed Freddie on her cheek, me on my neck, and held us both tightly for hours and days and forever.
Freddie's leaving was a turning point for us all because the magic disappeared with her. Within a month of her announcement, Bobby quit his job and he and Sue Ellen moved to Portland, Oregon, following Freddie. Jerri and Gene Warner moved up to Tampa, and Rachel left the phone company and moved back to Phoenix the following weekend. Woody and Brenda quit their jobs in Sarasota and moved to Portsmouth, Virginia. The week following Brenda's departure, I gave my work notice and three weeks later, Jules and I left Sarasota and moved ourselves to Columbia, South Carolina, where she continued her consulting job and I began the MBA program at USC.
Mona was the only one of the group who remained. The night before we left, Jules and I got a take-out and had dinner with her in her small house on Anna Maria Island. She was utterly heartbroken when we parted and that is the way I remember her.
Jules told her, “We both need a goodbye kiss, okay?”
Both were intimately offered. Mine was open, free, and salty with her tears. Jules said Mona filled hers with passion and tears.
Our last memory of it all was the sound of Mona’s sobbing as we left. We both still wonder if she made it through her grief.
That short, wonderful time changed my life. We have seen Brenda a few times since, but have not heard from any of the others since then. I think no one wants to spoil what was and to live with the unchanged memory of each other.
I am left with the feeling that something monumental in my life was left unfinished and is waiting to be rejoined.
Bittersweet, the memory.
It had been a critical mass of personalities and I started writing about it once, but life interfered and I put my notes aside. No one would have cared, but it would have been about Freddie. Maybe it will be some day. I know Freddie was different in some way that affected all of us. I don’t know how or what kind of difference, but there was a magic in her that awakened something in us.
Back in the “now”, whatever that means, I went to bed at midnight, still feeling out of place and time.
I had just finished shaving after breakfast when Jules, still semi-dressed, came downstairs. “Coffee. No talk, just coffee,” she said in a monotone.
We went out and sat on the deck surrounded by woods filled with birdsong.
“We should have gone with Freddie,” she said after drinking half her coffee.
“I have believed that since we left Florida,” I responded.
After a long pause, “Damn,” was all she said.
finis
Author’s Note: Portions of this appear in a different context in the novel, Hunter’s Junes 680 pp, available on Amazon.com
