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The Happy Couple
by Jason Skipper
Later
we found their
notebooks, learned their
secret and how
they did it. How they
set aside an hour every
single night for love.
It was the thing we
never discovered in all
of the years they knew
each other. That every
night from nine to ten,
Joy and Lucinda kept
this time.
Early on in junior high,
the hour consisted of
phone calls. Lucinda
whispering quietly from
phone in the kitchen,
where every so often she
grabbed a juicebox from
the fridge. Blocks away,
Joy laying on her bed
beneath its canopy,
always on her back with
her head hanging over
the side. Their parents
rarely raised an
eyebrow, and it was
incentive for the girls
to keep straight A’s and
avoid doing the things
kids pull to get such
privileges removed.
Later in high school,
when they went to the
mall or parties, they
always went together.
And when they went, they
ditched their friends.
So their parents
wouldn’t suspect, they
simply said they met the
gang out. But usually
the gang was just each
other. They always met
before nine o’clock, and
never came home before
ten. They kept
priorities in line and
got into a fantastic
college.
Of course, in college
they were dormmates.
Lucinda wanted to be an
attorney and Joy wanted
to focus on elementary
ed. To make this happen,
they protected their
time. They never had to
explain their
friendship. Theirs was
an era when people got
it. But the nine to ten
o’clock thing was a
detail none of us
realized or caught on
to. We knew something
was different – they
avoided evening classes,
didn’t go to any
concerts, steered clear
of joining organizations
whose meetings required
evening attendance – but
no one pinned down this
detail. Joy and Lucinda
already knew what most
of us would later learn:
how easy it is to keep a
limited number of
friends when two people
have each other. For a
while, we would knock on
their dorm room door at
nights, but no one
answered. When one of us
later said “Hey I came
by to see if you wanted
to hang out,” Lucinda
would say, “We knock off
early. Soccer practice.
You know how it is.” We
nodded and said, “I
understand.” They lead
our school to repeat
championships in their
junior and senior years.
After graduation, when
Joy secured a job at
Lincoln Little
Elementary and Lucinda
passed the bar exam,
they bought a
fixer-upper Victorian in
a cul-de-sac. It had a
broken doorbell and
small knocker that they
could ignore. That first
year they spent most
evenings in their living
room on the sofa,
shoulder to shoulder in
the television’s light.
At nine the game show
Lucinda was sort of
addicted to ended, dying
out to applause and
commercial. Sometimes it
started with a finger
along the neck or thigh.
Some nights they found
themselves in the
kitchen on the
countertop or white tile
floor; and other times
it was the bedroom on
the dresser or in the
closet. Sometimes they’d
be in the backyard,
watching the orange sun
set behind the
eight-foot fence. At
home the hour was often
easy to keep.
Sometimes not so much.
Lucinda would be in her
study on the phone with
a client. The clock
would chime and Joy
would show up in the
doorway with her hand
out, saying, “Let’s go.
Let’s go.” And Lucinda would
say, “I’m sorry. We’ll
have to pick this talk
up later.” By the time
she hung up, the sound
of Joy’s footsteps from
the wooden stairs echoed
throughout the house,
heading for their room
to close the blinds and
turn the sheets. Or for
the shower, to get the
water running warm.
Either way, Lucinda
followed, freeing her
blonde hair from its
ponytail and combing her
fingers through the
length of it, shaking it
loose and unbuttoning
her blouse.
When they were outside
their home and in
separate locations
around town, time
pressed harder. There
were parties to attend,
either with the other
attorneys from Lucinda’s
law firm or with people
from the elementary
school where Joy taught
first grade. We knew
they had similar digital
watches, but didn’t know
they were synchronized
to vibrate at half-past
eight. The ladies would
down their drinks, say
good-bye, and go.
Whether Joy was at the
Mexican restaurant where
the teachers sometimes
went for cheap
fruit-flavored
margaritas, or Lucinda
was at the black-tie
affairs where the
partners gave awards,
when the watches tickled
their wrists, that meant
time to split. Sometimes
they left in the middle
of conversations, and we
would later ask, “Did I
say something
offensive?” Other times,
say at smaller parties,
they would be in the
middle of a game, like
Trivial Pursuit or
Twister, and Lucinda
would have to empty her
half-filled pie or leave
her group to topple. An
electric tinge of guilt
ran through them when
they left, quickly
replaced by an antsiness,
rushing to get home.
They sped through quiet
suburban neighborhoods,
arriving finally to the
driveway with their
doors half-opened. They
rushed through the house
when they arrived and
called “I’m home!”
Waiting for the other to
call back, “I’m over
here!”
Sometimes they went out
together, but still they
kept their hour. They
would leave dinners
early, whenever the
dinners ran late. Even
if they were out with
their parents on special
occasions or with high
school friends they
hadn’t seen in years.
Joy would turn down
coffee and dessert,
saying decaffeinated and
sugar-free kept her up.
Lucinda feigned
headaches that even
codeine couldn’t fix.
Lucinda always brought
cash just in case, to
put down if the waiter
was slow to bring the
check. And when they
could not make it home,
there was the car. There
were movie theaters, at
films no one would see.
After a while, they
started turning people
down outright, stopped
answering the phone
after 8:00, no matter
the reason. Eventually,
the invitations stopped
altogether. Lucinda was
free to enjoy her shows.
During Joy’s
thirty-fifth birthday as
they sat in the light of
a candlelit cake,
Lucinda joked and said,
“We’re getting to be old
maids,” to which Joy
responded by blowing out
her candles and saying,
“Far from it.” By this
time, their friends and
people they had known
were all divorcing and
trying to be young
again. The
responsibilities of
child-rearing aging them
quick. Everyone
eventually turned inside
themselves, or if they
were lucky, the person
they were with.
And what of the evenings
apart, when they were in
separate towns and
states and countries –
those nights that
arrived much later in
their lives? Those times
when great distances
came between, be it some
outdoor retreat with the
school-kids or if
Lucinda traveled away.
When phones were
available, they talked.
And when they couldn’t,
they kept notebooks with
green covers and blank
white pages and metal
spines. They wrote
letters to each other
that they read aloud
when they returned,
always in the hour
between nine and ten.
When they grew older,
these notebooks became
central to the hour. Not
always but sometimes
they sat in chairs on
opposite ends of the
bedroom, writing
letters. Every kind
imaginable. They would
want to get up, cross
the carpet, and touch.
But in these hours they
restrained, sat in their
chairs, as if sketching.
Lucinda with her knees
drawn up to her chin,
her white ankles and
toes poking out from
under her jeans. Joy
with her pink flannel
pajamas and red toe
nails. Sometimes they
wrote nothing, and only
imagined what they would
write. Sometimes they
drew. Neither spoke,
only breathed, and even
that with some
restraint. Every few
years, they exchanged
the notebooks, and then
they wrote responses to
what the other had
written years before,
and then they exchanged
and responded back. This
way, they continually
evolved toward each
other, staying young as
the years passed by.
Later on in their lives,
on one autumn afternoon,
Joy came home to find
Lucinda sitting at the
kitchen table, staring
out the window. A ripped
up tissue was balled
inside her fist. They
picked two plots on a
hill, planted an apple
tree and tended it. When
Lucinda did die, Joy
continued with the
letters in the
notebooks, and she
sometimes spoke across
the room to the empty
chair. She asked
questions and listened
closely. Joy missed
Lucinda's touch but not
her presence because it
was everywhere in that
hour. We almost forgot
about them entirely.
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