SURPRISE!

                                                                            

                                                                            

When I read that Barney was coming to Detroit to do a seminar I tucked away the problems with Charles.  Through the years I became very adept at compartmentalizing problems that I just could not deal with at the time. There was enough for me to worry about without my throwing what to do about Charles into the mix.

The three weeks between when I found out he was going to be in town  days  seemed to drag by so slowly that that I thought his arrival would never happen.  It wasn't that I didn't have anything to do or that I had time to worry about seeing Barney again after more than three years.  My friend, Claire, had talked me into making custom after-five dresses for her wealthy friends.  One with thousands of hand sewed sequins had to be finished.  There was a baby girl due to be born and her room with miles of ruffles certainly could not be late and it was time to make sample costumes for two Ice Show costumes I had no idea of how to make. Actully busy was good.

If I was going to surprise Barney by just showing up at the seminar I needed to get enrolled.  This one was to be at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit.  This a group of seven connected skyscrapers built in 1977 on the Detroit River and very upscale. He had definetly moved up in the world with his speaking engements from the small hotels and conference centers he used to be booked into.  Lucky for me he had given me a free pass years ago so I sent it in using the very silly fake name of Kelly Green.  My confirmation and registration forms arrived the day before the event.

I have to admit that I am the world's worst shopper.  If the economy depended on me to keep it afloat it was certainly out of luck.  I had no idea of what to wear, certainly did not have time to go look for something or make something for myself.  A typical Interior Designer I was not.  Most of them dressed to the hit, drove around in expensive cars, wore a lot of jewerly and proposed very expensive decorating to their clients.  I showed up at a new customer's house in my Bronco II usually in jeans and looked like I was ready to work.  Maybe the way I dressed was the reason I had so much business as they realized they would have to pay a "gold-bangled decorator" more money.

When in doubt about what to wear you should always wear something you love and something you feel great in.  My closet did not have too many things that were sort of dress up to chose from.  As silly as it sounds I picked out my favorite outfit which was a Liz Clairborne red print western skirt and blouse and a pair of boots.  I must admit I got lots of interesting looks when I walked into the RenCen but I felt like a million bucks.

I turned in my registration papers with some information about myself and why I had chosen to come.  The only things on the papers that were not totally true was my name and and why I was interested in investment stratagies. If Barney looked over the registration papers before he started the siminar and saw my real name it would ruin my surprise.  I also chose the least conspicuous chair in the room not that all that worked out so well.

Wow!  When he walked out to the podium after a very glowing introduction it felt like the first time he walked up to the table when we were in college.  He was still as handsome as ever with that beautiful smile and the voice I heard in my head often.  The only thing different was a slight graying in his hair that only made him look more dashing.

To my total dismay the very first thing he did was to call to on everyone one at a time to introduce themselves to the group of about fifty people and state why they had come.  I tried to listen to everyone he called on to see what they had to say so I could come up with some reasonable excuse to be there other than to just see him.  Somehow when he called out "Kelly Green" I almost did not stand up because I did not remember I had used a fake name. Finally after he called my name a second time I stood up, said I was Kelly Green and wanted to learn what investment stragies were since I had no idea. Everyone laughed and he literally could not stop laughing or smiling.  I breathed a sigh of relief as it was obvious he recognized me.

After I sat down he managed to carry on in a very professional manner but there were probably more smiles than he usually flashed during many of these presentations.  He would also stop and ask Kelly if she understood things he was telling us.  I always replied in a positive manner with a smile.  Finally there was a break for refreshments.

I wandered out into the hallway and got a cup of coffee.  One woman came up and asked where I had gotten my darling outfit and not wanting admit I had ordered it from Speigel's catalog I told her it came from Saks.  Always wondered if she went looking for it.  Barney was conversing with several of the other people but kept inching his way closer. I managed to put some distance between myself and the other people and when Barney walked up I just said SURPRISE!  He told me that was an understatement and that he was having a hard time getting through all his speeches.  He also said he had planned on trying to find me the next day and not to jump up and leave when the seminar was over.  I told him I had gone to all the trouble to get there and would stay although I did not think I was learning anything. 

When it was over I hung around looking at brochueres and chatting with some of the people.  One man who appeared to be making a pass told me what a pretty name I had.  I think I got rid of him by being not very friendly and that I was just lucky my parents did not name me Chartreuse.  Barney walked up just as that gentleman made a quick exit. He wanted to know why I used a fake name and I just told him it was all part of the surprise.  He also wondered why I had not called since I had all his information from the ad in the paper. Now what fun would that have been to which he answered that it was difficult to keep lecturing and figuring out that it had been three years, four months and six days since we were together in Philadlephia. 

By the time everyone had cleared out it was really getting late.  I had to decline a trip down stairs to the bar and a trip upstairs to his room.  There was probably a limit as to how late I could come home from an Interior Design seminar. I did wholeheartly agree to a late breakfast the next morning and spending the day with him since his plane did not leave until 4:00 that afternoon.  With a kiss and him saying it was more than he could really hope for in my showing up I drove home wishing I could have stayed.

But there was tomorrow.

Something I Really Should Have Known

Wonder what the odds would have been for me picking up the newspaper that particular evening and actually looking through it and seeing the ad for Barney's seminar?  It had been three and a half years since I had heard from him.  Even that letter took a year to arrive and by that time his contact information had changed.

Needless to say our relationship was perhaps a little different.  It was probably a good thing that we had not communicated in three and a half years as it gave me the time and the space to divorce Dennis and start a new life for myself and the boys.  Things I needed to do by myself without a third party involved.

All of Barney's contact information was in the story about the seminar.  He was still in California but in a different town than the last one I knew about.  It would have been very easy to pick up the phone and call him but maybe a heck of a lot more fun to surprise him. Hopefully it would be a happy surprise if I showed up at the Seminar.  I had three weeks to decide which seemed like an eternity. 

Perhaps I need to digress a bit here. Things had become interesting between Charles and I over the course of the last several months.  My fault for not paying attention or for not admitting that there was a lot I had failed to see before I jumped into a relationship without knowing at least some background.  I knew some basic facts about Charles like how he grew up poor, his business, his children and his ex-wife.  I knew the only vacation he had ever taken out of the country was to Columbia which I thought was strange.  I also knew that he smoked marijuana but figured that was just a habit left over from the 70's. I had actually never tried marijuana, Afterall I grew up in Muskogee. I did once with Charles, got sick, did not like it and never tried it again.  He never smoked it in front of me or the boys.

Charles always had plenty of money.  I surmised that his toupee shop must have done very well as he and his business partner lived very well.  We had a lot of $100.00 dinners at the best restaurants in Detroit, took weeklong ski trips in Northern Michigan and lots of flights back and forth to New York. He was very nice towards both Wes and Wally.  Roller skating together a couple of nights a week and meals at home with the four of us plus Wes's assorted girl friends were always fun.

We had been dating about a year when Charles bought the house behind Wally and mine and it just seemed logical that we should move in with him. It was the late 1980's and everyone was living together.  I guess I was stuck in the 1960's as I really did not feel comfortable living together and not married.  There were times when I would hear Wally stumble in trying to explain to his friends who Charles was.  Usually he mumbled something like "my Mom's friend".  I did not feel like The Mother of the Year in those moments. 

There is really nothing I can complain about in the way Charles treated the boys or me. He decided that Wally needed a bigger bedroom and I needed a sewing room so we were building those in his huge basement. He bought $9.00 a pound cheese for Bowser, our dog, which made the dog adore him. He was a very sharp dresser, extremely neat around the house and a pretty decent cook although nice restaurants were his thing. To make myself feel a little better I actually paid half of his house payment without being asked. But as hard as I tried there were several bothersome items.  His daughters were not overly happy with me being with Charles even though they were grown and lived else where. The house did not feel like home as it was his and decorated in his minimalist style.  But there were other things.

 There was the Corvette. Charles decided to buy a red Corvette but to pay for it he made three $9,000 payments - in cash.  He explained to me that if you paid cash for something over $10,000 it was reported to the IRS.  I let it go at that as I had never seen him use a checkbook except at the shop. But slowly I began to think about the amount of money he and his business partner seemed to have and things were not adding up in a reasonable manner.  The question of where the money came from nagged at me.  I could not see how his toupee shop made the kind of money I was seeing.  Why was the only real vacation he ever took without the family was to Columbia. Drug dealer was the only thing I could come up with.  I didn't think drug dealers liked art museums, snow skiing or any other things we did.  Guess I watched too many movies or television shows where they were really bad looking dudes or I was just my usual naive, stupid self.    

It is much easier to get into a bad situation  than out of the relationship.  Being the most non-confrontal person on the planet there was no way I could just ask him or acuse him. I guess it is always easier to get myself into a mess than to get out of one.  It was also easy to do the Scarlett O'Hara bit and put off thinking about troubling things until tomorrow. I think through the years I had become a master at that.  But I did have a good business even though I never charged enough, a couple of very great friends, an awesome dog and a two pretty cool boys. Life is never all bad.  There are always bright sides to everything. Until now there were only a couple of people who ever heard this story. It was not one of my proudest moments and showed how easily I could fall into really stupid situations.

When I read that Barney was coming to Detroit I could stop worrying about what to do about Charles and enjoy the time I would be able to spend with him.  There was no doubt in my mind that he booked the seminar in Detroit in hopes of us finding each other just as we had several times over the last twenty-three years. 

The New Year

To all of my faithful followers that have noticed a lack of my stories for the last month I want to take the time to let you know they will return.  The interesting thing about writing for me is that you need to be in a special place to get the words to flow out.  This year more than others it has been hard at times. 

Perhaps if I wrote fiction it would be easier as I could just make stuff up.  Trying to tell a true story is more difficult.  Throwing myself back in time and realizing some of my big mistakes, wondering why I made some of the dumb decisions I made and realizing that perhaps I left a trail of hurt or disappointment in people I cared about is hard.  Digging up old wounds is hard and those stories do not come easy. 

When I discovered what a blog was when Marshell and I took a trip across the country made me realize how much fun it was to write.  I had so much fun although I cringe now when I go back and read some of them.  I have learned a lot in the process of writing over two hundred stories.  The worse speller in the world had gotten much better,  I found I have a love for new words and my high school English teacher would be proud at times that my grammar has improved somewhat.  It has also been fun to leave everyone in suspense at the end of each story.

This year it has been more difficult to get into that special place where current events make it hard to concentrate on past ones. Everyone has seen a great change in life in general.  Change is difficult to accept.  The COVID has made us make or in a lot of cases resist the fact that things are not and maybe will never be the same as before.  What we heed to stop and realize is that we have spent a good part of our lives making changes we never thought we would.  Are you doing what you always dreamed you wanted to do?  Did a marriage or a love affair pan out to be what you imagined?  Life changes happen everyday, some for the better and some for the worse. Change can be for the better or for the worse whatever you want to make of them.

Back in February before there was any information about COVID I was in the middle of a run of a play when I realized I was really having trouble breathing.  Since I did not have a doctor I went to a small rural hospital that had no clue.  I tested negative for pneumonia and strip throat but my oxygen level was low so they would not let me go home.  I had lost all sense of taste and smell, had a dry cough and trouble breathing.  They could not figure out what was going on and after two days of actually no treatment I pulled out the IV and went home.  It was a few weeks later that all the information came out about the COVID and I knew that was what I had.  I tried several times to get tested but was refused a test as I was not running a temperature.  So Marshell and I began our quarantine which we pretty much are still doing.

Slowly all the things I was involved in disappeared.  No more Garden Club, Friends of the Library or Bunko. Little Theater lasted awhile until having all those people in the cast together became not a good idea. No visits to see my children or my grandchildren for months.  I had one friend who had been with me everyday during the time I was really sick was my only social interaction except for phone calls to other friends.

It should have been a great time to dash out a lot of stories as I rather enjoyed the time at home and not dashing out the door several times a day to go do something.  Somewhere along the line the long term effects of having COVID popped up.  When you hear the word "Recovered" that is a laugh.  In July I retained nineteen pounds of water in a couple of days.  I broke down and went to the doctor which showed really bizarre things in a blood test.  I went through tests for congestive heart failure which was pretty stupid when my cholesterol was 120 and my blood pressure runs 120/70.  It also showed I was positive for rheumatoid arthritis, not hardly.  There are other things that pop up which I sort of ignore as I know it is the after affects of having COVID.  But I have to look on the bright side and consider myself very lucky that I am still alive when thousands are not.

This Christmas was very hard to get into the decorating mode. Being in rehearsal for a play that was to take place the first of December caused me to not have time to create my yearly Christmas cards. I missed wandering through the stores for the perfect gifts.  I am not an online shopper but did manage to find some things from small retailers to order.  We saw the children as they are stricter about wearing masks and social distancing than I am.  But for other holiday activities I was happily at home but still found it difficult to put words on a page.  There will be other years for all the usual holiday activities.  Staying well means there will be other years to go to Muskogee and see friends and celebrate our wedding anniversary. There may also be a good chance to write the next story as it is a really good one.

Last year was a tough one for everyone.  We all had to make changes in our lives that have been difficult to accept, some much more dramatic than others.  With the dawn of the New year here I am sure everyone is hoping things will go back to the normal we were all used to.  That may not happen and perhaps the best new years resolutions will be to accept the change and to be more kind, compassionate and forgiving.  There is a good chance that the "new normal" the pandemic forces us into will be much better then the old.  

I usually do not make New Years resolutions but this year I am going to accept the changes I can not do anything about and try to make the changes that will make the world a better place.

Happy New Year everyone!