It was known in the neighborhood that Raymond Murphy made the best martinis, which didn’t come without nightly practice. And with the way Dorothy cooked, nightly martinis were essential. She was a terrible chef, often pouring browned beef over broiled cauliflower and Velveeta cheese. Raymond would clock out of work, racing traffic to get home. After surveying the state of the kitchen and planting a soft kiss on the crown of Dorothy’s mountain of curls, Raymond would shake a round of martinis. He finished off the glasses with skewered olives before pulling their favorite records down, either Joni Mitchell or Stevie Wonder.
The record player had been a delayed wedding gift after they’d moved from Montana to Oregon for Raymond’s first real job. Once he cashed his inaugural paycheck just two weeks before Christmas, he headed straight to Woolworths and bought a Harman Kardon 44 speed player, along with a single speaker and a thread of wire to connect the two. For almost three weeks, he tried and failed to wire the two together. On New Year’s Eve, Dorothy insisted they play their new Frank Sinatra collection and had music playing in under two hours.
Thirty years of bliss. Raymond always one step behind Dorothy. When they first met, Dorothy, only eighteen, was chain smoking on the patio of a jazz club in the freezing Montana snow. He watched as she stubbed her cigarette out and walked right up to a group of men, challenging them to cards. The loser would have to buy the next round of drinks. Raymond had never seen a woman take cards so seriously. In fact, Raymond had never seen a woman take anything so seriously.
As she stalked off toward the bar, condemned to buy the round, she passed Raymond. Her intense eye contact drew a nervous smile from him. She leaned in close, so close Raymond could smell the tobacco still clinging to her wool coat, whispering, “Play until the end—win or lose.” She pulled back, and Raymond, to this day, swears she winked as she walked on. He was helpless, forcing himself into the next hand and losing just for a reason to buy her a drink. They played until it was just the two of them, as the winter alpenglow began seeping through the snow-laden clouds. Raymond proposed only one month later, and they were married by the time the last frost thawed.
After the move to Oregon, Raymond and Dorothy fell into a routine. Raymond worked until five, Dorothy taking care of the house and spending their new stable income on decorating and redecorating the house, filling and refilling her closet with new dresses. They were determined not to let domesticity slow them down, each day full of drinks and smokes and late nights with new friends. Children were added to the mix, two in just four years. Their evenings became rotations of feeding, bath time, story time, and just barely making it to bed
