Marilyn Kaye - Better Late Than Never

There were photos of student activities, teams, and clubs, but she didn't know what Rick had been into in high school. Except Nancy, of course. Which was why she got very excited when she accidentally hit on a picture of a boy and a girl in formal clothes with a caption that read Rick Lasky and Nancy Chiswick.

There was always the possibility that there had been another couple named Rick and Nancy. Even so, this felt right. She remembered Rick talking about Nancy's golden hair. This photo was in black and white, but she could see that the girl's long, straight hair was very blond.

She was more interested in the boy. He had straight hair, too, but it looked like a deep brown in the picture. It was almost as long as Nancy's--you never saw hair that long on boys nowadays, except maybe on some hippie-type rock stars. He was thin, but he didn't look unhealthy. How did he die? she wondered.

He was wearing a tuxedo, but not an ordinary one. It looked like there was glittery stuff on the collar and cuffs. And underneath the coat, he wasn't wearing the white shirt and black tie you'd expect to see--he had on a T-shirt. Maybe it was some kind of fashion statement. Or maybe it reflected Rick's sense of humor. He had a great smile, and even though she couldn't actually make out a twinkle in his eyes, she felt very sure it was there.

Normally, Amanda wouldn't find this whole look attractive--she preferred guys who were more manly and athletic in appearance, like Ken. But there was something very appealing about Rick Lasky, something that stirred her.

She looked at Nancy again. Amanda had to admit that she was pretty. Not as pretty as Amanda, of course, but she had a nice face. The gown was awful--all fluffy and puffy--but she could see that Nancy had a good figure. She wore a corsage of roses, which Amanda assumed were red. Naturally, Rick would have given her her favorite flowers to wear.

It must be a prom picture, she thought. Was this the prom where Nancy broke up with him?

Now she had a last name, if this really was her Rick in the picture. How funny that she was now thinking of him as "her" Rick. She went to the back of the yearbook and looked up Lasky, Richard in the index. There were four page numbers after his name.

The first one directed her to a group photo of some club called Celestial Turnings. Reading the caption under the picture, she learned that this was a literary magazine that featured creative writing by students.

She'd always thought students who were in this type of club would be nerds--brainy types who didn't know how to have fun--but these kids didn't look bad at all. Rick looked even cuter than he did in the prom picture.

The next picture was the standard senior class photo--head and shoulders, dark robe with one of those flat tasseled things on his head, fake background of blue sky and clouds. Rick had pulled his hair back into a ponytail for this one, and this gave her a better view of his face. Small ears, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes. Brown, or maybe a very dark blue. Warm, soft eyes. She felt a little flutter in her--in Ken's--stomach.

The third photo was the one taken at the prom. The fourth was the same as the class photo, but enlarged, covering almost the entire page. And bordered in black. Under the picture, she read, "In Memoriam: Richard (Rick) Lasky, 1950-1968."

She remembered he had died during his senior year, just after the prom. An overwhelming sadness came over her, and she felt an almost uncontrollable urge to cry. Which was ridiculous--all this had happened more than 40 years ago. And it wasn't as if she actually knew him--he was just a voice, that was all.

She went back to the computer and entered his name and the school's name into the search box. She was rewarded with an article from the local newspaper. An obituary.

Richard Lasky, age 18, killed in an accident on the highway. He'd been on his brother's motorcycle, she guessed. That was why he didn't like talking about it.

For the longest time, she just stared at the report. Then she went back to the dusty room. On another shelf, she found bound copies of other school publications--directories, newspapers, theater programs. And Celestial Turnings.

She searched the issues published between 1965 and 1968 and found two short stories and several poems by Rick. The stories were a little too wordy for her liking, but the poems were nice. One in particular.

It was called "Nancy," and it was a love poem.

I want to dive into the blue ocean of your eyes

And swim to your heart.

If you want me to stay, I will live and breathe as part of you and ask for nothing in return. But even if you don't want me to stay, I will not leave. I will simply drown in a sea of my own tears.

Now she really wanted to cry. To be loved like that--how unbelievably beautiful. Nancy couldn't appreciate this. She didn't deserve him.

I do, she thought. She took the magazine to a photocopy machine.

Later that evening, alone in Ken's room, she read the poem over and over again. And each time she read it, she felt it more and more. And she fantasized about someday when a boy would write a poem like that for her . . .

But why fantasize?

She turned on Ken's computer and opened the word-processing program. Then she retyped Rick's poem, making one change--the title. She printed it out. Then she folded it carefully, put it in an envelope, and on the envelope wrote the name that was now the title of the poem. Amanda.

JENNA WAS HAVING SUNDAY lunch with her father in a real restaurant, the kind with cloth napkins. "How's your chicken?" Stuart d her. "Delicious," she replied. Of course she'd eaten chicken before, many times, but she'd never had it like this, in a sauce with small mushrooms.

Her father was eating some kind of fish. There were a lot of little bones that he had to keep picking out, which would have driven Jenna crazy, but he didn't seem to mind. A man like Stuart Kelley, who had once lived alone on a beach for a month and had fished for his own meals every day, wouldn't be bothered by a few bones. His life had been so amazing!

"Did you really work on an African safari?" she asked him.

"Only for a couple of weeks," he said. "And it wasn't one of those heavy-duty hunting safaris."

This was something else she liked about him--he didn't brag about everything he'd done. He was matter-of-fact about his adventures.

"Good," Jenna said in relief. "I don't like the idea of killing animals." She looked down at her plate. "I eat them, though. I guess that makes me kind of a hypocrite."

"I feel exactly the same way," Stuart confided, and once again, Jenna had that warm, happy feeling she'd been experiencing a lot lately. They had so much in common!

She had one worry, though. How could a man who'd been living such an exciting life suddenly move here and settle down with a regular job and a family? Because that was now her fantasy, and as hard as she tried to let her natural pessimism and distrust have an impact, the stories kept playing out in her head. A house with a yard. A mother, a father, maybe a dog, maybe even a little brother or sister …

"Stu? Stu Kelley?"

A red-faced man in a bright Hawaiian shirt had stopped by their table. Her father rose.

"Arnie! Good to see you!" The two men shook hands.

"What's it been--ten years? More?" the man asked. "How long are you in town for?"

"I'm not sure," Stuart said. He turned and gave Jenna a wink. "Depends on how things work out."

"What are you doing these days?"

"Not much. I'm between jobs at the moment. The money's running out, though, so I have to start looking around."

Once again, Jenna felt a rush of admiration. He didn't have much money, but he'd scraped together enough to take his daughter out to lunch in a restaurant where you didn't have to stand in line at a counter. She made a mental note not to order dessert.