Chapter 5

Monday night after work, I stopped at a bar and bought a six-pack to take home. I needed something to do to keep from thinking about her. It didn’t work. Halfway through the last can, I fell asleep and dreamed about her all night.

Tuesday, I woke up late, hustled through my before-work routine, and barely punched in on time. Loni was already at her work-station with a stack of folders when I walked past. Another busy night.

Fred was on his good behavior, grumbling his usual complaints, gabbing about sports, and telling bad jokes. It’s his way of getting through a though shift. He let us alone at break.

As soon as I sat down across from her, Loni said, “I made something.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll show it to you tomorrow. I hope you like it. Plus, I went shopping.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see. Don’t ask so many questions. You’re too impatient. That’s going to make me impatient.”

Lunch with Fred centered on one of their many spirited arguments about sports. Loni knew the stats for players I had never heard of. She was more of a sports nut than Fred, taunting him when “his” teams lost or one of “his” players was ejected from a game.

“You’re wrong about New York, Loni, but that’s nothing new. I’ve been trying to educate you since you were five, and you still don’t know anything.”

“You were the one who didn’t know who hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium,” Loni huffed.

I rang her doorbell at nine Wednesday morning. She answered it in a pale pink dressing gown, a creation of lace, satin, and gauze, and high-heeled sandals dyed to match. She shrugged off the gown, letting it fall to the floor to reveal a matching short top, patches of the same pink satin covering her nipples when she stood still. The short pants were made of the same materials. She model-strutted the length of the living room. The backs of the top and shorts were sheer, almost invisible against her skin.

I followed her upstairs, stopping halfway to rip off my shirt while she gracefully shed her top. At the door to her room, she loosened the sash that held the shorts above her hips, and walked into her room wearing only her sandals. When she reached her bed, she sat on the edge and removed them.

“Let me show you what I bought,” she said. She rolled to her nightstand, pulled out a small package, opened it, and read the folded paper inside. “Over 99% effective if used according to package directions. Odor-less, taste-less, guaranteed non-irritating to sensitive tissues. Stays ready in the applicator for up to one hour.” She put everything on her nightstand. “My periods are always short, so I’m nice and clean again, and now we don’t need condoms.”

Many of our mornings were spent like that. Sometimes, we’d prepare and eat lunch in the nude, and then go back to bed, barely making it to work on time. Fred stopped teasing me about my shit-eating grin. Loni and I were a couple, spending much of our off-work time together. Camilla became very fond of me, and my parents fell in love with Loni.

I knew she would leave town at the end of the summer. As work buddies, we talked about college a lot. She was anxious to go, excited to pursue her dream. I didn’t want to miss her, but I knew I would.

We both wanted to go to the beach before she left for school, so we took a week for ourselves. As we listened to the the Beatles sing “Ob La Di, Ob La Da” on a transistor radio on the hot sand, she brought up the subject of her departure. “We need to talk about college again. I’m leaving in three weeks.”

“I know.”

“I’m going, Mark. I love you, but I’m going.”

That was the first time either of us had used THAT word. Knowing that our relationship had an expiration date, we had an unspoken agreement to avoid saying it and to try to not to feel it too strongly. “This doesn’t have to be the end,” I said.

“You know that long-distance phone calls and letters don’t really work, don’t you?”

“They can.”

“Don’t do this, Mark. Don’t make it hard for me to go. We can be in love this week, but soon I’ll leave, and you may never see me again.”

We made love morning, noon, and night in our motel room. We kissed and held each other as much as we could. We walked the beach by moonlight, our arms always around touching.

It was the summer of ‘69.

We wrote to each other pretty regularly that fall, calling when we could afford it. Loni came home for Thanksgiving, having turkey at noon with my folks and ham in the evening sitting next to me at her mother’s kitchen table. We visited some friends, and late that night, I took her home.

“Will you come up to my room with me?”

“Your mom is home.”

“She knows what we mean to each other.”

Somehow, we kept the noise down. Both of us knew it might be the last time we made love, so we savored every moment.

She put on a robe to walk me to the door, kissing me long and hard on the threshold. Then she stepped back. Tears were brimming in her eyes. “I’ll always love you Mark, but we can’t be together. Your life is here. I must go.”

“I love you, Loni.”

“Remember me, but don’t look back.” She closed the door.

It was the summer of ‘79. Years ago, I reconnected with my high school sweetheart. She grew up to be a wonderful woman, and we fell in love again easily. Monique and I were old friends whose new love grew stronger every day. By 1979 we had been married for nine years. We had a beautiful daughter and a handsome son, both of them gifted in many ways. Life was good, filled with absolute love, happiness, and devotion.