The Trouble Way (30 page)

“
Theoretically, huh? That sounds interesting. I don’t want to be too forward, but maybe we can possibly be friends. You know, maybe dance once in a while. I love dancing with you. At least until you find someone permanent ... if that’s what you’re looking for; I don’t know.”

“
Well, I have something to tell you too. Maybe I’m jumping the gun too. On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t.

“
Now you can’t not tell me after saying that. What is it?”

“
I was married several years back and it was no bed of pansies. It lasted a little over three years. I was with, how should I put it diplomatically, a lunatic. Her name is Janis. We lived together for ten months and I spent the next two and a half years trying to get myself out of that bed of needles. So, I am leery about making too much of something too soon, if you get my drift.”

“
Lunatic is putting it
diplomatically
?” She smiled again.

“
Is it always so damned cold here?”

“
I’m afraid it is,” she said. “At least for several more months. You better get used to it, we’re barely getting started. This is Montana; winter lasts six months in a good year.”

“
It’s so damn cold, I had to get an engine heater for my VW so it would start in the morning,” Jake said. “I have a heavy-duty extension cord sticking out of my bedroom window to plug it in overnight.”

One by one, the band members started moseying back to the bandstand for their final set and Jake and his new, temporary-friend-
’till-something-better-turned-up, Annmarie, danced till they closed down the bar.

“
Would you like to join us for a late night breakfast?” Annmarie said. “We usually go to IHOP.”

“
Sounds like a plan, if you really think it’s okay.”

“
I think I’m pretty safe with three girls to protect me,” Annmarie said.

“
It isn’t you I was worried about,” Jake said. “It’s the Winchester man.”

She smiled and took his hand and guided him out the door.
“We’ll meet you there.”

The four girls walked to their car and Jake got in his VW and followed them to IHOP. It shared the same parking lot as Big Richards.

After the breakfast, Jake asked the waitress for a pen and wrote his phone numbers on a napkin and passed it to Annmarie. “Call me if you ever get the uncontrollable urge to dance again. I usually get Sundays and Wednesdays off and am usually at home. I put my work number on there too.”

“
Thank you, Jake. I’m sure I will. I had a lovely evening.”

Jake hadn
’t remembered many of the girls he had ever dated that used the word, “lovely.” Annmarie was the only girl he knew who could say “lovely” in such a lovely way. Her voice was a soft, warm, almost whisper, and it was melting his heart.

“
I was wondering if you would like to meet for coffee during my lunch hour. You said you are off on Wednesdays.”

Jake recognized that soft whisper voice immediately.

“I was wondering if you might have tossed my napkin away,” Jake said.

“
I put it in a safe place. I have lunch from noon to one. I was wondering if you would consider meeting me at the Deli on West Main and Higgins Avenue.”

“
Sure, I’d love to.”

“
If you don’t want to, I’ll certainly understand.”

“
No, I’d love to.”

“
I feel a little embarrassed to be calling you. If you would really rather not, I’ll understand. I’m sorry.”

“
I’d really, really like to meet you for coffee. I’ll be there at noon.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
I’m pretty sure. I’m not so sure that you are sure,” Jake said. “If you want to change your mind, I’ll understand. I know your situation.”

“
No, I don’t want to change my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking of you for the past two weeks. I told my best friend, Jan, the one with the long hair. She said to go ahead and call you. She said that, after all, it’s only coffee. So, I did.”

“
I remember Jan. So, I guess that settles it, as long as Jan said so. I’ll see you there at noon. I’ll buy you lunch, if you think Jan won’t think it’s stretching the propriety of it all.”

“
I think lunch would be lovely,” Annmarie said.

There was that word again. Her soft voice liquefied his heart.

“It is so nice to hear your voice,” she said. “Bye.” She hesitated for just a moment then hung up before he could rebuild his heart and utter a sound.

Jake sat motionless in his lazy-boy listening to Willie Nelson from the time Annmarie called at 9:00 until 10:30, then took his second shower of the morning, shaved again, slapped on a bit of cologne, and dressed.

He was at West Main deli forty-five minutes early, asked for a seat in a booth near the large windows at the front where he could watch for Annmarie, and stared out the window at the street for forty minutes. He saw her pull her white Honda Civic into the diagonal parking space across the street. She snugged the fur-lined hood of her white down jacket around her ears and walked across the street. Her face lit up in a wide smile when she noticed him in the window. She waved. His mind went blank and he completely forgot his truck driver wave and instead mimicked her feminine finger wiggle.

He got up to meet her and, to his amazement, she gave him a sincere hug.

“Ooooh, it’s so cold,” she said and put her cold hands in his and squeezed. She did not let loose of his hand, gripping his one hand with two of hers, until they were seated.

They both ordered soup and a sandwich and both had coffee with cream.

“I’m not sure how to explain this,” she said, “but I am feeling a little strange and don’t exactly know what to say.”

“
Well, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t feel like it,” Jake said. “I’m glad that you called and it’s really good to see you. I am not sure what to say either.”

“
Maybe we just shouldn’t say anything for the moment,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this but I am infatuated with you but I feel really confused about my situation.”

“
Why don’t we just have our lunch and get to know each other a bit. You know, be friends. There is no need to have to try to explain a bunch of stuff. And for a bit of information for you, I am infatuated with you too. I don’t think there was even a second when you were not on my mind since we danced. This is sort of a new experience for me. I usually don’t have such feelings for someone since, you know, the lunatic. And that’s been nearly ten years ago.”

“
My goodness. I’m so sorry,” Annmarie said and reached across the table and took his hand.

“
Why don’t we just consider this something special,” Jake said. “Something that is entirely separate from everything else in our lives, past or present.”

“
I’m not sure how that will work,” Annmarie said. “But I want you to know that I am not going to get divorced, no matter what. That is what has me so confused. I want to talk to you but I don’t want to lose what I have. Maybe the best way is to do what you say. Make this something that is just between you and me and forget everything else while we are together.”

“
I’m not sure how far this is supposed to go,” Jake said.

“
I don’t know either,” she said, “but I can’t think of any other way to do it. I am infatuated with you, I know that. And I don’t want to stop seeing you.

“
I think I can live with it. I don’t want to stop seeing you either.”

“
I’m so sorry, Jake. I know that isn’t fair to you.”

“
Well, you know what they say about life being fair. Why don’t we just see what happens and just enjoy the trip. Maybe things will just end of their own accord but I sure hope not.”

They spent much of the hour staring at each other and smiling. The hour passed quickly. Annmarie gathered up her jacket and purse, stood while Jake grabbed his jacket and they stood beside the booth, facing each other.

Jake was not sure what the proper thing to do in this situation. He knew what he wanted to do. She solved his dilemma by stepping forward and giving him a bear hug.

“
Thank you for coming to see me,” she whispered in his ear and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, I have to go.” She dashed to the door, leaving him to attend to the business at the register.

The phone was ringing when he put the key in his apartment door. He counted four rings and thought he would miss the call before he picked up the receiver to say hello.

“I just wanted to let you know I had a wonderful time today. Thank you so much for lunch. I hope we can see each other again sometime soon. I have to get to work now. Bye Jake.”

She was gone before he even had a chance to say
“slap-my-ass.” He sensed his heart softening yet again.

“
This is Annmarie, may I help you?” Annmarie answered in her professional voice. When she heard it was Jake, there was a change. “Hi.” It was the whisper voice that changed “Hi,” into a word that, if it were chocolate, it would be a silky smooth truffle.

“
Can you talk?”

“
Hold on just one second, let me close my door.”

Jake could hear the
click of her heels on a tile floor and the door close. “It’s so nice to hear your voice. I have to tell you, I am due in a meeting in a few minutes. How are you today?”

“
Pretty good. It is nice to hear your voice too. I won’t keep you. I was just wondering if the ‘Dancing Girls’ will be on the prowl tonight.”

“
I talked to Jan earlier today and she said that her husband is out of town and that she wanted to go dancing but it won’t be till tomorrow night. So, yes, Jake, the ‘Dancing Girls’ will be out, but not tonight. Please tell me you will be able to make it tomorrow night?”

“
Saturday night is good. What do you think, The Cabin again?”

“
That would be wonderful. I would love to see you again.”

“Well, I guess it’s set then,
” he said. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“
I have been thinking of you all week,” she whispered.

Annmarie used words like
“wonderful,” and “lovely,” in a way that made Jake feel as though he were a sexy man.

They had only been together twice, once at The Cabin when they met and the second time for lunch at the deli in downtown Missoula. Twice was enough for Jake, he was treading-water, over his head, deep in love with her. He hadn
’t even been to bed with her; something he thought was a requirement to being in love.

When he finally freed himself of the lunatic, he made it a priority he wouldn
’t fall in love until he had bedded at least a hundred women. He was determined to be sure he was experienced enough to know love when it came knocking at the window. Well, he wasn’t too far short of that goal, but this little affair with Annmarie threw everything out of kilter. All that experience didn’t offer shit in the way of guidance for the situation he found himself in.

It was not in Jake
’s nature to be late for anything. Well, it was his nature before he spent four years in the military. One entire weekend of raking grass for ten hours a day for “failure to repair,” – that is what being late is called when you are in the military – cured him of that particular sin; he had been seven minutes late for formation.

The down side of being early was that everyone else is late, and he had to figure out what to do with the down time. It usually turned out to be a bit spendy too, as in this particular case; he bought another beer to kill the time.

While he was homesteading his place at the bar, nursing his beer, he listened to the “cryin’, dyin’, or goin’ someplace” country songs pouring from the jukebox. Jake wondered if he would eventually get to sleep with Annmarie. Under normal circumstances – normal for him, that is – he would already have been in the sack with most of the girls he had met by the second date, max. If truth be told, in the majority of cases, it was the first date and was rarely the second or more. He thanked the stars in his galaxy – the same galaxy that deprived him of Annmarie’s exclusive love – to have been a charter member of the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. It was not only men that went to bed with women on the first or second date, it was a myth that the reverse was not also true, believe it or not. He did not consider himself anywhere close to a Don Juan. Usually, he found, it was the women who initiated the early sex. He discovered early on to merely make himself available. Women simply took advantage of his accessibility to jump his bones.