Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

“Someone should have diagnosed his high blood pressure years ago,” I said.

Becky laughed. “Maybe someone did. Another possible side effect of that medication is priapism.”

“What’s that?” Alicia asked.

“A condition that’s very hard on a man,” Becky said-with a straight face.

Alicia didn’t seem to get it. Or maybe she did, and that’s why she went home early.

Later, after the meeting wound down to a close, I stood talking to Marcy and Roberta in the lobby of the Cliffside. Becky and Sharon and several other women were nearby, all of us reluctant to end this year’s time together. At one point, I looked over my shoulder toward Claire Watterson, who was married to the president of the Bank of Las Piernas. Each year, at SOS meetings, she made a point of spending some time talking to me. I enjoyed her company, but tonight, she didn’t seem to be herself. Normally vivacious, she had been quiet and withdrawn all evening. I beckoned her to join us, but she shook her head and gave me a little smile, then walked farther away from the group.

I turned my attention back to the others. Roberta was telling us about her work as the director of counseling at a privately operated community services center. Most of her work was with the homeless.

“I’ve heard about the center,” I told her. “I remember that the business owners in the area went before the Planning Commission about it.”

“They were opposed to it at first,” Roberta admitted. “But we had help from some local philanthropists-including Helen-who convinced the commission that it was the best place to let us locate-right among the people we serve. Now that we’ve been there a while, they’ve accepted us.”

“I’ll have to come by and see it.”

“Sure. I’m leaving for an out of town meeting tomorrow, which makes my schedule a little hectic this week. But call me next week and I’ll give you the grand tour of the center-oh! I almost forgot to tell you! An old friend asked me to say hello to you…”

She stopped speaking and, looking over my shoulder, smiled broadly. When I turned around to see what had distracted her, I saw Lisa Selman strolling toward us.

Lisa was smiling, too. She had her father’s blond hair and her mother’s light gray eyes and dark brows. Her other features were clearly her father’s and yet not masculine on her, giving her a strong but pleasant face. Even though she was ostensibly there only to give her mother a ride home, she wore a modest but sleek black dress-one that was not at odds with the elegant evening wear of the women coming from the banquet. She looked poised, sure of herself. A woman, I realized. No longer the adolescent prankster I was introduced to in the mid-1970s. An adult.

I go through this every time I see her, which is usually no more frequently than once a year. If those were the only moments in which I received a reminder that time was advancing, I don’t think it would bother me much. Unfortunately, I get these reminders more frequently than I get membership renewal notices from my local public television station.

“Lisa! You’re looking great,” I said, and gave her a hug.

“Hello, Assemblywoman Selman,” Roberta said, smiling.

We chatted for a while, then Lisa said, “Give me a call, Irene, and we’ll make plans together while I’m here. I’m staying at my brother’s place.” She wrote the number on the back of a business card. Her smile changed slightly as she handed the card to me, and I saw a hint of her old mischief in it. “No room at my mom’s place-she’s renting my old bedroom to a college student.”

“You could have stayed with me,” Marcy said. “There’s still plenty of room. The couch folds out into a bed.”

Lisa laughed. “Mom, even the attic at Dad’s is better than that old sleeper sofa.”

They laughed, but I wasn’t so comfortable with the memories she had evoked. Andre had a three-bedroom house. Back when I was dating him-when Lisa was about twelve or thirteen-Andre used one bedroom for an office and slept in another. The third was reserved for Jerry. When Lisa visited, she stayed in an attic room that was finished, but had no closet. “He doesn’t want me here,” she once told me with a shrug, as if it were an accepted fact of life.

Marcy suddenly realized she had left her purse in the banquet room, and went back to get it. As one of the other women began to talk to Lisa, Roberta turned to me and said, “I’ve got to be going. I just wanted to let you know that seeing you has really made a difference in Lucas Monroe.”

“Lucas Monroe?” I said, puzzled. “I haven’t seen him in years. Not since before I went to work in Bakersfield.”

She looked troubled. “Really? He claims-well, maybe he was mistaken.”

“He claims what?”

“That he saw you about a month and a half ago,” she said. “While you were waiting for a bus.”

LUCASMONROE= The Man on the Bus Bench. Try as I might, it was impossible for me to completely accept that equation as the truth.

Lisa, Becky, Sharon, and others overheard Roberta mention his name, and remembered him. Roberta glanced around at their expectant faces and looked uneasy.

“Roberta…,” I said, then shook my head. I couldn’t make sense of what she had just told me.

She put an arm around my shoulders, keeping her voice low as she said, “Look, he wants to have his act together when he sees you.”

I pulled back a little, looking at her face.

“Don’t worry,” she said, misreading my distress, “he’s cleaned up, and I get the feeling that the things he wants to talk to you about are important. I suspect that when he makes his case this time, he wants to do it right.”

“Is Lucas a lawyer now?” Becky asked, making us both aware that we were still within earshot of the others.

Roberta looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get going. Good-bye, everybody! It was good to see you!”

“Wait,” Lisa called as Roberta reached the doors. “Will we see each other before I go back to San Diego?”

“Sure, if you can meet me for lunch tomorrow,” she said. “I’m traveling to a meeting in Sacramento tomorrow night.” Lisa nodded in agreement, and Roberta left. Lisa extracted similar promises from several of the others as we walked out of the hotel.

As its name suggests, the Cliffside is built above the ocean, and outside, the salt air was damp and cold. The others hastened their movements. I needed the coldness, the briny smell, and found myself walking more slowly than the others. Their voices eddied around me, surging bits and pieces of conversations passing me as the women moved on to their cars, leaving me standing on the steps of the Cliffside, until the only remaining sound was the whispering of the sea below the cliffs.

I heard it beneath a chorus of relentless self-accusation.

“IRENE?”

I turned to see a tall blonde standing behind me. “Oh-hi, Claire. I thought everyone else had left.”

“They have. I was going to call a cab, then I saw you standing out here alone. Are you all right?” she asked.

I nodded. “How about you?”

“I-I need a favor, actually. I wonder if I could get a ride. My car is in the shop, so Ben was going to pick me up this evening, but I guess he’s fallen asleep. I’ve called, but I just keep getting the answering machine.”

“Maybe he’s on his way over here. I’ll wait with you, if you’d like.”

She shook her head. “At first I thought he might be on his way, but it’s been too long. And he doesn’t answer the car phone in his Jag.”

She literally meant “his Jag,” as in “his and hers.” Ben and Claire Watterson had matching Jaguars. This proved they were frugal-they could have afforded a chauffeur-driven limo. And she wanted a ride in my drafty old heap? Right. Cab fare, even all the way across town to their mansion, could have been paid for with about two minutes’ worth of the interest on Claire’s pin-money account. So I figured that Claire needed a favor, but it wasn’t a ride.