From Then to Now

By Mitzi Mensch

From Then to Now is a novel within a novel. Maggie figures that, with events being so old, it is safe to tell all. Figuring wrong is her first mistake. Downloading the manuscript onto her grown daughters computer is her second mistake.
Andrea is dismayed to discover Maggies infidelity in her first marriage and shocked to learn of her grandmothers cloistered pregnancy and forced adoption of her newborn daughter. She uses the Internet to find the people mentioned in her mothers story, more to satisfy her own curiosity than to bring her mother peace.
From Then to Now spans six decades and addresses changes, both individual and societal, in attitude, perception, and awareness. These changes, triggered in part by outside world events, bring about personal understanding achieved only after loss is experienced and enlightenment has been attained.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524640279

Mitzi Mensch

Mitzi Mensch was born and raised in New England and attended college in Vermont. An island girl at heart, she moved to Hawaii, where she has lived long enough to be kama`aina.

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© 2016 Mitzi Mensch. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/21/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4028-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4027-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915435

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter One: Cream of Wheat

Chapter Two: Georgia

Chapter Three: Samsonite Suitcases

Chapter Four: Hawai`i

Chapter Five: Florida

Chapter Six: Texas

Chapter Seven: Sisters

Chapter Eight: Buffalo

Chapter Nine: New Year’s

Andi Writes

Aaron Has His Say

"A woman who is not disillusioned at thirty has no brain.

A woman who is disillusioned at twenty has no heart."

George Sand

CHAPTER ONE

CREAM OF WHEAT

That’s it, I said to myself as I sat down to my nightly dinner of Cream of Wheat. This has got to stop! I thought. I’m acting like a baby, a fifty-four year old baby. I spooned the thin gruel into my mouth as the six o’clock news ended and I turned off the TV. I had to snap out of this funk. What was the matter with me? I was a successful real estate agent, I reminded myself, not to mention a best-selling novelist for heaven’s sake.

I ate Cream of Wheat thirty-four years ago because it was all I could afford. It kept my stomach from rumbling at night. I was living in Hawai`i then too, but in a fourth-floor walk-up in Waikiki, not in Bluestone, the most gracious town house complex on the Windward side, as now. I’d been a newlywed way back in those days, married to an Army captain, a helicopter pilot who was flying gunships in Vietnam.

Officers’ wives don’t get allotments, Maggie, Percival had told me in 1967 and I didn’t know any better.

So I ate Cream of Wheat. I bought powdered milk and watered the liquid down to stretch it. Then watered down the Cream of Wheat. My average gross salary from my temp jobs was three hundred dollars a month and one hundred seventy-eight of it went straight to my landlady. Plus there was that extra twenty dollars a month for the covered parking stall to keep Percival’s shiny red Corvette clean and dry. Plus there were the monthly dues for an Associate Membership in The Officers’ Club which Percival insisted I maintain so that we could go there when he was home on R & R.

It’s important to keep up appearances, he’d told me.

I look out of my Bluestone town house window to the view of the golf course as darkness descends. Not having to cook for anyone, or having anyone to cook for, Cream of Wheat is easy. Then it had been a necessity. I felt a new book brewing as I remembered my past.

Percival had left me in Hawai`i, at the new Outrigger Hotel, with two hundred dollars, and instructions for its use, when he shipped off for his second tour of duty to Vietnam.

Be sure to get the ’Vette washed, waxed and serviced when you pick it up from the dock, he’d admonished, as though I wouldn’t. As though I was an imbecile and had to be told everything, over and over.

I already said I would.

First thing.

The car, obviously, was his most important concern while he was gone.

With that two hundred dollars I was expected to pay the hotel bill and take care of the car. Then I had to find an apartment, put down a security deposit, pay first month’s rent and get a job.

How ’bout base housing? I’d asked him before he went. Now that I’m a military dependent shouldn’t I be able to get base housing?

If Hawai`i was my duty station you could, he’d explained condescendingly. But it was your idea to come here, not the Army’s.

Well then can we look for an apartment together before you go? I had asked him one evening as we dressed for dinner at Trader Vic’s and the Don Ho show later.

Can’t you do that after I leave? He brushed off my request, buttoning his aloha shirt in front of the full-length mirror, running his hand over his growing paunch as though to smooth it down. At least I’d talked him out of the matched outfit idea. I might be a newcomer, or malahini, as I’d already learned to say, but I wasn’t a tacky tourist.

"Well -- yes -- I can. But I’d really like you to help me, I called from the dressing area. I don’t know my way around and besides, I’d like it to be someplace you like too. I mean, you’ll be staying there too, when you’re home on R & R."

I’ll like it. As long as it has covered parkin’. Don’t worry, Darlin’. Besides, I don’t want to ruin our honeymoon doin’ stuff like that. Are you almost ready? he asked, running a brush needlessly over his military haircut. Reservations are waitin’ on us.

How do I look? I asked, emerging from the walk-in closet, twirling around seductively in my new form-fitting spaghetti strap holoku. I made sure he forgot his disappointment over not having garments in the same floral print.

You look great! He slipped the strap from my shoulder and I had to remind him of the reservation.

So we spent lavishly and had fun during the honeymoon, eating out, seeing shows, island hopping, staying at the King Kam on the Big Island and the Waiohai on Kaua`i, but I ate Cream of Wheat for the duration of his tour.

He should have known better. I didn’t. I was twenty-one years old, with a brand new secretarial certificate, fresh out of my parents’ home. He was twenty-nine and had been in the Army for seven years, been married twice before. He’d lived life. He must have known that two hundred dollars wouldn’t make it.

I rinsed my bowl and spoon, put them in the dishwasher. With just me to wash for, I only turned it on once a week. I headed for the room I had set up as an office. It also held my weight bench.

So many years have passed, I thought, as I warmed up with thirty pound bench presses. It must be safe, now, to write the story of my first marriage. That’s it. That’s what I’d call it, My First Marriage. My daughter likes to hear me tell of when I was her age. Andi -- or Andrea -- as she now insists, says it makes her understand me.

I only know you working, Mom, selling real estate and taking care of me and the house. I wish I could have known you when you were young. In your pictures you’re so cute -- with your pixie haircut framing your little face and your eyes so big and bright. I’ve always wished I was tiny and petite, like you. I think we would have been friends if we could have been the same age together.

Would she have been my friend, knowing the things I did? I sure never would have wanted her hanging out with a friend who was like me. I switched to leg extensions, aware of the groan in my hip. And I certainly wouldn’t have approved of her if she had lived my life as I had.

Andi is older now than I was when I first married. She is secure in her marriage, sensible. I could really feel the strength in my back with that pull-down bar. A network analyst, for heaven’s sake, setting up computer systems in Miami. If she wasn’t long and lanky like my second ex-husband I’d think she was switched at birth. I just figured out how to attach a file to my e-mail -- with her help.

Oh, is that what that paper clip is for? I’d asked, cell phone headset plugged into my ear as she walked me through the process. I still couldn’t figure out how she could hear me when I wasn’t talking into anything, but it did make it a lot easier to have my hands free while she told me what to do. Somehow I seem to have accumulated all these modern methods of technological communication without comprehending how any of them worked.

Just click it, Mom. See, now you can show that perfect listing on the Big Island to your client in Kahala and neither one of you has to leave Oahu. Or even leave your house.

How clever. This machine is so smart! But not as smart as you are, Andi… ree… aah.

See, Mom -- there’s hope for you yet.

My daughter is my best friend even though she’s totally together and I’ve always been the flake. She can hear the truth. Local Life had been a huge success and I had simply told the truth in that one. I could do it again.

I finished my weight routine with butterflies and lay there on the bench, my excitement about my new writing endeavor growing.

My parents are dead and probably Percival too. I haven’t heard from him in years. So the story of My First Marriage can be told. And I’m planning to tell it the way it really happened. No excuses or apologies.

CHAPTER TWO

GEORGIA

Buffalo was cold the winter of 1966-67, as it had been cold every winter of my life. Miniskirts had just come into fashion and pointy-toed spike heels hadn’t gone out. My feet were like ice blocks as I trudged from the bus stop to the title company office where I was a secretary. I took off my mittens, then my gloves, and rubbed my reddened knees in the coat room to warm them before heading to my desk. Always punctual, I had ten minutes to go before starting time at eight-thirty. I picked up the paper in the break room and turned to the classifieds, hoping to find a secretarial job that was fun, exciting, challenging. I didn’t know then that Private Secretary starring Ann Sothern had been nothing more than early television entertainment. All the jobs I saw advertised seemed just as boring as the one I had. Moving beyond the ‘Help-Wanted -- Female’ category, I spotted an ad that struck me as better -- ‘Riders wanted to share expenses to Miami.’

Miami sounded warm. And it had beaches. The challenging, exciting job was there!

My parents were perturbed, to say the least, when I showed them the ad I’d cut out and told them of my plans as we sat at the table after dinner that night.

"Maggie, don’t be a dumbkoof -- you’ve got a good job right here in Buffalo." My father, still in his tweed sports jacket that he wore to conduct his real estate business, reminded me of the position he’d arranged for me, fortifying himself with a swig from his highball.

Meggie, my mother said, calling me her version of my name, you have a home, right here with us, until the day you get married. She stamped out her Chesterfield in an ashtray and smoothed an errant hair back into her French twist. She set her translucent flowered tea cup in its matching saucer, her tacit sights for me clearly set. The job and my childhood room could both be given up as soon as the dentist I’d been dating popped the question.

Darrell is a good man, Dad added to the obvious as I marched resolutely to the phone.

His practice is new, but it’s growing, Mom implored, following.

I could feel her eyes through the back of my head, disapprovingly measuring the length of my skirt. I picked up the receiver.

And he’s applied for membership in our country club, she continued to cajole, clutching my hand with the newspaper clipping.

I’m sure he’ll be approved, Dad decreed, at my side.

Of course, I retorted. You’re on the Board. I shook my mother’s hand free so I could dial.

Meggie, think about what you’re doing! Mom grabbed the ad from my fingers.

Maggie, we have plans for you! Dad puffed on his pipe, plunged his finger down hard on the telephone button. You dial that number, young lady, he threatened, and you’re buying yourself a one-way ticket.

Darrell will be devastated! Mom remonstrated.

Darrell, his practice, the country club, your plans, I huffed. "What about me? What about what I want? Maybe I don’t want your life -- or the one you’ve picked out for me. I wanted to be a stewardess, remember?"

You, my father jeered, "don’t even meet the height and weight requirements, my little snigglefritz."

Besides, my mother reminded me once again, as she always did, being a stewardess is so temporary. You can only do that until you get married. Then you have to quit. Being a secretary gives you something to fall back on, just in case you ever need to work.

I figured I could at least see a little of the world before I settled down.

All that flying is dangerous, my father cautioned. Airplanes crash. You know how upset you were when that Hellooo… Baby! singer and those other rocking rollers went down.

As devastated as I’d been, I was sick of him throwing that at me all the time as a reason to be grateful for my safe and secure position at True Title. Besides, the name of The Big Bopper’s song was Chantilly Lace and it was rock ‘n’ roll. I dismissed his warning with a wave of my hand as he muttered under his breath, "Too soon old, too late schmardt." His put-on German dialect, a remnant of his heritage, may have been fun when I was a little girl and he sat me on his lap Sunday mornings to read me The Katzenjammer Kids from the funny papers, but I was sick of his silly names for me, his idiotic sayings and his inability to keep up with current times.

"I didn’t even want to be a secretary and now I am one. And I went to that upstate version of Katy Gibbs just to please you. I stayed home, rather than go to New York where all the muggers are. I live in the same frilly room that I’ve had since I was in a crib. Well, I have news for you. I want my own life. And I plan to have it!" I dialed the number that would change everything.

What do you know about this young man? my parents grilled as I hung up the phone, arrangements made.

I don’t need to know anything about him. He’s just a driver. I’m a rider. I’m sure there’ll be other riders going and the girls can share a room.

But why is he going to Miami? How old is he? Is he a good driver?

He’s going to Miami to take a job as a waiter. He’s taking a year off from college and saving money. He’s twenty-one, same as me. I don’t know how he drives, but I’ll let you know if we make it.

Their faces dropped in dismay.

"When we make it," I said, softening my response.

They breathed a unison sigh.

I’ll make it. Don’t worry.

But I couldn’t erase the worry that easily.

I didn’t actually meet Marvin until he pulled up in the circular drive in front of my parents’ home. He wasn’t bad looking, short but quite fit. The reason was obvious when he opened the trunk. I hardly had room for my two white Samsonite suitcases, the graduation gifts I had wheedled out of my parents, amid his barbells. I cringed as he wedged the shiny new luggage in, not wanting it scratched on its very first trip. My parents, as was their custom at every occasion, had intended to add to the china and silverware patterns in my hope chest so my place settings would be complete as their reward for my sticking it out at Buffalo Secretarial. I had insisted on the suitcases and they’d finally capitulated when I convinced them that a wedding required a honeymoon and a honeymoon required travel and travel required luggage. As a result of my chicanery they became unwittingly complicit in abetting my wanton wanderlust.

My parents, bundled up in their overcoats, were right behind me to meet this hooded-sweatshirt stranger who was spiriting their daughter away.

Would you like to come in for coffee? Mom invited, wringing her suede leather-gloved hands as Marvin closed the trunk.

Oh, no thanks, I don’t drink it.

Well, how about breakfast? Dad expanded on her invitation, his breath billowing white in the chill morning air. It’s not good to take off on an empty stomach.

Their delay tactics didn’t work.

I already had my protein shake, Sir, Marvin politely replied to my father whose idea of breakfast was bacon and eggs.

At least the weather is okay, said Dad, moving beyond mealtime, looking skyward, hands in pockets. No storms predicted. You never know in March, though. Keep your radio on for any changes in the forecast. You do have a radio, don’t you? he asked, peering through the window of the Pontiac Bonneville convertible.

Dad! Stop worrying. I’m all grown up now. Remember? How embarrassing! I fought against shivering in my light-weight spring coat.

She’s never been out of the Northeast before, my father told Marvin, making it even worse.

Never been away from home, my mother added to my humiliation.

She pecked me on the cheek as I got in the passenger side. Ugh. Thank goodness she didn’t do that very often!

My father clapped Marvin on the shoulder as he did his golf buddies and his clients, often one and the same. Drive carefully, he instructed.

Thank goodness we were out of there!

So who else is coming? I chirped as we headed toward the thruway, expecting to pick up the rest of the riders, plural.

Oh, it’s just us, said the stranger beside me as we squealed onto the entrance.

Just us? I figured everyone would want to go to Miami.

No one else answered the ad.

I was the rider, singular. Who was this guy? What was I doing? Where was I going?

But I put those questions aside as I settled down for the drive through Pennsylvania, my mother’s childhood home. With my grandparents dead long before I was born there had never been a reason to visit Miller, farther east in Pennsylvania Dutch country. They talked kind of funny there, my mother said when I used to ask her about the olden days when she was a little girl. Her mother would tell her to ‘Throw Daddy up the stairs his hat.’ They said to ‘Outen the light.’ When the doorbell broke on one of my grandparents rental properties they put a sign up until it could be fixed. The sign read ‘Bump the door. The bell don’t make.’ I think it kind of embarrassed her. She never talked much about her girlhood. I wished we could detour over the back roads so I could see the hex signs on the barns she always talked about, painted to ward off evil spirits. But Marvin had a route laid out and a timetable to follow.

Marvin was in the Engineering program at Rochester. I told him about the dull job I’d just quit and how I’d always hated being cold.

Preliminaries out of the way, we rode in silence.

As Marvin continued southward it was as if viewing the change of seasons through slow-motion photography. By the time we hit Virginia the snow was gone and it was spring. Traffic was lighter than anticipated and Marvin, checking his watch, agreed to a stop. We were a half-hour ahead of schedule. We parked to pet the new colts sticking their noses at us from behind wooden paddocks, accepting the grass we held flat in our hands, letting us caress their velvet noses.

They’re vegetarians, he noted. Just like me.

Weird. He was definitely weird.

Roadside motels were engaged in a price war. The signs advertised six dollars, then five dollars, then four dollars.

Maybe if we keep driving we can find one for three, Marvin suggested.

But I’m tired. And we are halfway, I protested.

We stopped for the night in North Carolina.

One room okay? asked Marvin, not really asking.

Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

But the idea was to share expenses. That was the plan.

How could I disrupt his plan? I handed him two dollars as he headed to the office.

He came back. It’s four dollars for one bed, five for two.

I put up the extra dollar.

I’ll take this bed. You can have that one, I pointed out firmly as he worked with his weights.

We could have saved money, he reminded me from the floor, grunting with each press.

I wasn’t exactly a virgin, but the only one I’d ever been with was my steady boyfriend, Bruce, from high school. Darrell had certainly tried his hardest, but my mother’s admonition to get the ring on my finger first rang in my ears every time his incisors came near mine. Or maybe it was her approval of his status that dissuaded me. Anyway, his antiseptic kisses left me cold. And his touch repelled me. Fingers that probed in people’s mouths never probed in me. And, Marvin, even with his muscles, didn’t do a thing for me either. Working out was weird.

I had my first taste of grits for breakfast. Not bad. Kind of like Cream of Wheat.

Through the Carolinas and on to Georgia, we rode with the top down. The warm wind whistling by made it impossible to talk. And it served as a good excuse not to have to, since we didn’t have anything to say to each other.

Hey, my friend, Molly, and her husband, Gino, are living on an Army base in Georgia, I yelled as we passed the ‘Welcome to the Peach Tree State’ sign. Maybe we could stop and see them, I suggested.

I should have known by then that Marvin wasn’t about to change his course for my benefit.

In Jacksonville he managed to find a three dollar room.

I handed him two dollar bills, figuring he should take the hint and chip in his share for the second bed.

The grimace he made with each grunt was gruesome. I was not at all sorry to say goodbye when we hit Miami and I handed him my portion of the gas money, an amount arrived at as a result of his careful calculations derived from the scrupulous records he wrote in his notebook at each and every stop.

I rented a one bedroom furnished apartment near the beach using savings I’d withdrawn from the bank account I’d had since third grade. All those birthday and Christmas checks my parents had provided to teach me the value of money were paying for my escapade.

But we thought you were saving that money. You know it’s always good for a girl to have something of her own -- even after she gets married, my parents counseled when they called.

Yeah, I know, I know. You grew up during a depression. But times are good now. I’m not going to hoard it. This is my money. You gave it to me. I can do anything I want with it!

And when it runs out you’re not getting a cent from us! Dad retorted.

I don’t want your money. I can make my own.

My father made a scoffing sound.

If you had a husband you wouldn’t have to make your own. You’d have a husband to support you, Mom reminded from the extension. And a little something to fall back on, just in case…

Why do you keep pressuring me to get married?

But, Meg, you were so excited when your friend, Molly, got married.

"I was excited -- for her. I mean we’ve been best friends since Kindergarten."

Well it was a beautiful ceremony, even though it was kind of long with that Catholic mass that nobody could understand.

Latin is nice to listen to even if it is a dead language. It’s the root of all Romance languages, I informed my ignorant mother.

I kept thinking their knees must have been sore, I mean, with kneeling so long at the altar.

They’ve got calluses from all the practice.

Lapsed Catholic that he was, Dad snickered.

A protestant ceremony is much more practical. And the Presbyterian Church is lovely.

So you’ve got the place all picked out.

It doesn’t hurt to maintain our membership.

Like we ever go.

Last Easter. Don’t you remember the flowers?

Yes, Mom, the lilies were lovely. I know you were chairwoman of the altar-decorating committee.

Well, I made some good contacts with florists doing that. And didn’t that help Molly out with discounts for her wedding?

Yes, Mom, it did. Now can we drop the wedding talk?

Dad sighed with anticipatory relief.

Don’t act like you weren’t happy about her wedding. You threw her that beautiful shower.

He groaned as the topic continued unchanged.

I had to. I was her maid of honor. All our friends from Buffalo Secretarial expected it and so did the girls from high school.

And you went to that lovely farewell party at the club when she and Gino set off for his Army base in Georgia.

All the girls from BS were going, Gina and DeeDee and Nancy. With Hertha and Linda and Ginny from Orchard High it was like a reunion.

But she sounded so happy in her thank you note. Don’t you want to be happy? Like Molly?

Mom, why are you so up on Molly and Gino all of a sudden? You were so opposed to them dating when she was in eighth grade.

But he was a junior in high school. He was too old for her then.

And so now that he’s a college graduate and an Army officer the age difference is all right?

I heard the click as Dad disconnected from the mother-daughter exchange.

Now that they’re in their twenties, Mom sallied forth with her treatise, uninhibited now by her husband’s listening ear, it’s okay. What’s wrong in the teens is right in the twenties. And yes, he’s given up the motorcycle jacket and that ridiculous ducktail for a military uniform and a decent haircut. This will prepare him for a good job. He’s showing himself to be husband material.

My mother was always talking about ‘husband material.’ Bruce, an aspiring auto mechanic, had never been what she considered ‘husband material.’ Her ecstasy was all too evident when that had ended. With Bruce finally out of the picture she was determined I should find someone ‘right.’ Darrell fit the bill.

Meg, don’t you want a husband?

Maybe someday. Not now. Stop pushing me!

When are you coming home? She changed the subject. Slightly.

"Why would I want to come home? I just got out of Buffalo!"

Don’t you want a home?

Yeah, in someplace where I’ll never own a snow shovel!

Don’t you want to be married?

I just want to be free!

So there I was -- free in Miami. Free of parents, free of Darrell, free of a job, free of Marvin. I was free of any past or any future. Any source of income, any friends. I bought the paper to check the help-wanted classifieds and went to the beach. There sure were a lot of wrinkled, over-tanned old people every place I looked. I guess it was cheap to retire in those run-down hotels. They sure had a lot of nerve letting their sags and bags hang out of their shorts and bathing suits. Yuck! The lifeguard gave me the once-over from his tower. Aha, a young person! I smiled back before I covered my face with the newspaper and settled down to some serious sunbathing. As I worked on my tan I wondered, now what? What should I do with my new-found freedom? When I flipped to my tummy I turned to the travel section and noticed the ad for a Nassau vacation. Why not Nassau? That’s what! I’d never been to a tropical island and it looked like one.

But it’s spring break, warned the lady in the travel agency. Even if I can get you a flight I’ll never find you a room. She was almost as old as my mother.

That’s okay. Just get me on an airplane, I answered vaguely as she searched for a seat, while I perused the rack of brochures, picking up the one shoved to the rear, for Hawai`i. Waikiki, with Diamond Head as a backdrop, looked even better than the Bahamas. But it was too far away. I put the glossy three-fold back. Nassau was only a short hop.

All the college kids will be there. The hotels will be jammed, she warned as she filled in the flight number on the ticket.

I’ll find my own room, I assured her as she handed me the envelope.

There would be lots of people -- people my age, thank goodness. That would make it so much more fun!

I played hearts on the plane with my seatmates. It was my first plane ride.

Where are you staying? Ben and Gus, college roommates, asked.

Oh, I’ll find someplace when I get there.

You mean you don’t have reservations?

It makes it more exciting this way. I don’t like to have everything planned out ahead of time. Heading for the unknown adds to the intrigue.

Ben dealt again.

You could stay with us, Gus invited.

I laughed.

I mean if you don’t find someplace.

Gus and I collapsed platonically together in the bed across from Ben the first night there after the three of us spent the evening pub crawling down on the main drag, singing ‘If I had the wings of a dove’ over and over till the tune stayed with me all through that hazed slumber and I awoke singing it in the morning, my head still swirling from all those rum punches.

By noon I found Brett at the beach and moved beyond the college boys. Brett was an Englishman who was working as a piano player at the gambling casino. Charming and worldly, he reminded me of Danny Kaye with his impish grin and good looks, but not ‘husband material,’ definitely not ‘husband material.’

No strings, he insisted, after our first night, as we lay on the beach soaking up the sun.

None.

I was on vacation. Or on ‘holiday’ as he called it. I rolled over so he could untie my bikini top and rub baby oil mixed with iodine on my back.

I listened to him make beautiful music on the keyboard at the casino, show tunes from West Side Story and South Pacific, tourist favorites, interspersed with calypso ballads of the islands, rhythmic beats sounding while I lost money faster than I knew it was possible at the roulette table. When I ran out of cash I stayed in Brett’s cottage behind the casino where I napped until closing time. Then we hit the out-of-the-way after-hours places the tourists never found where he jammed until dawn with musicians from around the world, playing the jazz he really liked, improvising on Miles Davis and John Coltrane, staying true to Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Brett’s friends included Wolfgang from Germany and Ivan from Russia, their girlfriends, Inger from Sweden and Franny from France. Needing a common language we all spoke French. Or they did. I found myself wishing I’d paid more attention to Mrs. du Bois during that one year I’d taken when I was a freshman. I’d never really believed the things they taught in school had any value in the real world. Beyond greetings and salutations my contributions to conversation were non-existent. At least the music was loud. I hoped it hid my ignorance.

Brett taught me how to order scotch on the rocks. Just say ‘over,’ he instructed. "And order by name -- like ‘Cutty’ or ‘Teachers.’ That way you’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about, ducks. Not like some hick from… where’d you say that