MONICA

 

       There was a certain mystery to the night as David Anderson stared out of the window of the old switch shack on East 6290. The sounds of people from the town below him flowed up in the night in waves . . . some words even under­standable at that distance. The warm day had cooled as evening de­scended upon his lonely night's work-place. When darkness came the sounds became clearer.

       David worked the Three-To-Eleven Shift at the Utah Copper open pit copper mine at Bingham Canyon . . . informally called The Copper by most people that worked there. For several weeks he had been stationed on the East 6290 Level Switch where occasional trains either made their way into or out of the pit area. His job was to signal the trains and change the manual switch onto tracks dictated by their destination, which he learned of by phone from the other switches down the line. This was an unusually slow station, so he usually only left the seclu­sion of his shack no more than three or four times a shift; and when he did it was for only a few minutes while he signaled the train operator through. All the rest of his shift he had only to stay awake and alert for the phone to ring signaling an on-coming train. For most people the Switchman job was a boring one and it had been for David until he was assigned to East 6290. East 6290 was located on the steep hillside almost directly above the jail and straight across from the Carr Fork road intersection. This was the place where most of any action that took place in the town occurred.

       Bing­ham Canyon in those days was still alive with stores, shops, apartment houses, boarding hous­es, several taverns and the Bingham Mercantile, the only mercantile store in the city run by a notoriously corrupt Greek family. The Merc, located about fifty yards up Carr Fork Canyon from the Intersection, was fa­mous because of the reputation of its owners, the family of John Kistanis, a Greek who ran the store with an iron hand. It was the only well sup­plied store in the town with groceries, mercan­tile goods, hardware and clothes. It was also the only store in town that allowed (and encouraged) credit from its pa­trons.

       Everyone knew old man Kistanis cheat­ed his patrons by over pricing his goods. He was especially cruel to the Mexicans, Indians and Puerto Ricans that lived in the town. The way he work­ed it, these people who usually didn't under­stand English anyway would go into his store, charge everything they bought, and then at the end of the month be beholding to the Greek. He had it worked out so he would make them sign their checks over to him and when it came payday, he would tally up all the charges, add on his credit fee that usually made up most of the rest of the per­son's check and give them the change. It was a terrible scam for the people that were into him with their debt, but no one did any­thing about it.

       Right across the street and in plain view of where David stood back of the 6290 Switch Shack was the equally famous Carr Fork Tavern. At the time, it was about the most frequented bar in the upper part of town. Its main entrance was on Main Street. Another entrance opened to the side on Carr Fork Road. Both entrances were clearly in view from the switch shack. Inside the Carr Fork Tavern an old Chinese cook had a corner of the bar where he cooked and served Chinese food that was the best food in town. On the other side of the room was the fifty-foot long 1800's-style bar with its huge mir­rors, its mahogany wood frame and hundreds of bottles of all sorts stacked on shelves next to the mirror. The mirror was pasted with money from every country in the world, posters from bygone days and other memorabilia from tourists who frequented the bar during its heyday. In the rear of the tavern and all down its center, were high tables that people could sidle up to and drink their beer or their bootleg liqueurs. In the back were a couple of old pool tables where the sharks from town did their pool and bet­ting. Upstairs was a card room that was entered only by permission. Public gambling was illegal in Utah but it went on in the town unhampered by the law like other things such as prostitution. Along the bar one could see the men and women who always hung out there and usually kept the same seats. It was a place with color, ambience, and a favorite stopover of tourists.

       Across the street next to the City Sheriff’s office and jail another popular bar and pool room nestled against the steep hillside. Only its roof was visible from the East 6290 Switch shack, but most of the sidewalk like that in front of the Carr Fork Tavern was visible from the switch above. Farther up the Main Canyon road and the first building above the Intersection stood two large boarding houses/apartments on either side of the road. Most of the residents of these buildings were Puerto Ricans and Mexicans and their families. Up until the late 1960’s these buildings were the last to remain in the Main Canyon and were there until the Copperfield Tunnel just past these buildings was abandoned when the mine expanded. These buildings and their adjoining sidewalks and the tunnel portal were all visible from David’s viewing platform on the East 6290 Switch shack.

       While sitting inside the shack next to the window facing the town, David continued to listen to the night sounds below him. At one point he heard light, shrill laughter . . . an unusual type of sound from the street. After it went on for a few moments, he got up and went out of the shack so he could get a view of the town below. It was not uncom­mon to hear shouting or loud voices from the city since two of the most popular bars were located near the Carr Fork intersection. David liked to try to figure out what or who was causing them. But that night, the shrill laughter he heard was most intriguing.

       Positioning him­self on the deck of the shack in the dark leaning against the back of the building, he had a clear view of the busy street below. While watching the activity from his viewpoint, his mouth watered at the thought of the egg foo young the old Chinaman in the Carr Fork Tavern prepared, which was a favorite of his. He loved going in there for that and the occasional beer he had while he ate the Chinese food. More than that, how­ever, David dreamed of seeing Monica walk­ing along the street where he had seen her the first time, and wondered if the laughter he had heard earlier was hers. He could easily recognize her if she was on the street. Even in the dark he could tell her walk­ing a mile away, he thought. Her grace and manner were so distinguishable he believed he could pick her out of a crowd of dark haired women of her same height, dressed all the same, if they were just walking even a long distance away. 

       David first saw Monica well over a year before while he was cruising up through Bing­ham to go to work with the rest of the guys in his car pool. She was walking up the street about to cross at the intersection of Carr Fork Road. She had stopped to look for traffic just as the car in which David was riding passed her. Some­thing in her glance captured David's attention and seized his mind like he had been hit by a rail car. The other guys laughed and jeered at him when he craned his neck trying to look out the back window at her. Someone made a snide remark about David fancying a Puerto Rican girl. That got all the other boys laugh­ing, but David didn't care, he just gracefully composed himself and quietly committed to himself to find out all he could about this beautiful girl and see where that took him.

       A week or so after David first saw the Puerto Rican girl, whose name he later learned was Monica, he had gone to the Carr Fork Tavern for a quick Chinese meal before going to work.  Although by then he had learned the girl's name and where she lived, he didn't know any more about her. He wasn't even thinking about her when he walked out of the tavern, but when he did, he spotted the young lady briskly walking up the street towards him. He wanted in the worst way to speak to her but did not have the courage as she passed. When she passed him her black eyes caught his and almost paralyzed him with their intensity before she looked away and continued up the road. He guessed she was about eighteen years old, younger than him, but plenty old enough anyway. But more than that, he was caught by her beauty. Her expression had not changed when she passed, however. It was as if he didn't exist to her even thought he had clearly made eye contact with her. David continued to watch Monica as she walked up the street, across the intersec­tion and into the Bingham Merc when he lost sight of her. He froze in his spot although he wished later he would have followed her into the store. Once again he committed to somehow find out more about her.

       David never saw Monica again for sev­eral weeks, but he had already started an investiga­tion into her life. From some other young men he worked with that lived in the town, he continued to learn bits and pieces about the girl’s past and her present situation. The information he learned about this young woman mystified him more and added to his fantasies about her. Know­ing more about her drew him closer to her. In his investigation David learned that Monica had arrived in Utah sometime in the summer of 1950. She was twelve then and had emigrated from Puerto Rico with her parents. He was surprised to know that she was the oldest daughter of Juan Betancourt, a man he once worked on the Track Gang years earlier.

       Like most of the other ethnic groups that lived in Bingham, the Puerto Ricans in Bingham pretty much kept to themselves and didn't make much of a presence in the town. They never seemed to frequent the bars and were hardly ever seen in the eating establish­ments around town. Most of the Puerto Ricans who resided in Bingham lived in the boarding house/apartments just across from the jail. The Mexicans lived all over town, but were usual­ly in groups made up of several families. The Native American Indians that worked at the mine lived in the upper section of Carr Fork and the Japanese lived in "Jap Camp" just above the portal of the Copper­field Tunnel in the town of Copper­field. All the ethnic groups except the Greeks and the Italians took abuse from the commu­nity. They were given the worst places in the town to live and were accused of everything that happened in the town . . . at least that was how it appeared from the visible and sometimes brutal actions of the Bingham City Police. From that perspective, the Indi­ans were all drunk­ards, the Mexicans and Puerto Ricans were not to be trusted because they all carried switch blades and would cut your guts open at the drop of a hat, and the Japs were totally un­trustworthy for what they had done to the Americans during World War II. One story or another was always going around town how someone killed an­other and how someone had gotten badly cut up in a fight with a Mexican or Puerto Rican. Stories about police brutality were almost as bad. One story had it that the Italian Sheriff had once caught a Mexican who was drunk and fighting in a bar and had beat him so bad that the Mexican had to be hospital­ized for two months. This was typical of the alleged police brutality stories that went around town. To David, who like most of the Whites that worked at the mine and lived in the Salt Lake Valley, it was all disgusting.

       When David began his investigation into the life of Monica, he learned she lived with her father and mother and several younger children in the second apartment house up Main Street near the Copperfield Tunnel. David had known Monica's father, Juan Betancourt when he worked with him on the Track Gang some years back when he first started with the Copper. David had made friends with Juan, and had found him to be quite a colorful character. He heard all the stories about Juan, but didn't believe all of them. One story was that he had a reputation in town for drawing his knife on people in fights in which he was involved. It was also rumored that he came to Utah from Puerto Rico to escape being put in jail there for killing a man he worked for on a fishing boat. Juan was a tough little man serving as Water Boy for the track gang, but not someone to mess with; that was certain. During the time David worked with him he learned to respect the man for his integrity and was convinced that for the most part, Juan was a trustworthy man of some character. However, it had been years since David had any contact with Juan, and now that his daughter was eighteen he wondered what the con­sequences would be if Juan knew he was attracted to his daughter and was trying to learn everything he could about her.

       Because of the caution David had of Juan and the rest of the Puerto Rican com­munity in Bingham, David took it real slow with Monica and never let on that he dearly want­ed to meet her. Rather, he hung around town in hopes he would get a glance at her. He went into town early and frequently, hoping to pass her on the street, even though it meant he had to drive alone to work. To get more information about Monica, David casually talked to people he could trust and eventually learned quite a bit of what he wanted to know:

       He learned Monica had not finished high school be­cause she was taking care of her younger siblings due to her mother's death a couple of years before. He learned she liked to dance and was surprised to learn she often went to the Mexican dances at the old church part way down Bingham Canyon. This was un­usual because the Mexican and Puerto Ricans rarely mixed in the community. In Monica's case, she had several Mexican girl friends who invit­ed her to these dances. David learned most of what he could from his Mexican friend, Henry Galvin who went to these dances in Bingham occasionally. David hoped Henry might invite him to one of these dances sometime, but knew that was a long shot since few whites ever went to the Mexi­can dances. There were several stories going around town that on a few occasions whites had crashed these dances and parties only to find them­selves cut up for their efforts.

       David had a natural interest in the ethnic groups in town and those he worked with at the Copper, but he had never really gotten close to any of them, except with his friend Henry. Most all of the scuttle buck of the town could be learned by the Switchmen, like David, that manned the dozens of railroad switches in the pit and haulage areas of the mine. Each of these switches was linked with an old crank-type, party-line phone system. If one wanted to hear the latest dope about the town and its members, the Switchman had only to pick up the phone, push the button and listen in. And since most of the Switchmen were not very busy, they all gossiped about everything al­most the entire shift. There was an unwrit­ten rule that the chatter stop when someone wanted to signal a coming train, then it would start again immediately after. David worried about his investigation of Monica getting out over the company party lines, so he became more and more cautious while it continued.

       Another item that David learned about Monica was that two years after her arrival in Utah, her mother died. Since Monica was the oldest child, her father had apparently taken her out of school and given her the job of taking care of her five younger brothers and sisters. She had been doing that until recently when her father remarried and released her of that burden. Since then, she had taken a job in a woman’s dress shop in Bing­ham rather than go back to school. That explained why David saw her on the street occasionally; she must have been going back and forth to work. There wasn't much else he learned about Monica except that she didn't seem to date a lot and her only friends, apparently, were the Mexican girls he had seen with her on the street a couple of times.

       After learning all this, David still ached to get to know her better. In many ways she still remained a mystery to him and his fantasies ran away from them­selves every time he thought about her. That night while David stood on the switch shack platform, leaning against its peeling painted wall, he hoped above all other hopes that the laughter he had heard was Monica’s. If it was not her he wished that she would walk out of the apartment house where she lived so he could see her again. In fact, every woman he saw at a distance, he tried to make out was her walk­ing along, but all his hopes that night were dashed as other women’s strides down the sidewalks turned out not to be hers.

       David had been alternately standing and sitting outside his shack for over an hour listen­ing to the voices of the people down town and watching the movement of people in the street. He hadn't had one call from another switchman for train traffic during that entire time. It seemed there had been a derailment some­where out on the switchback east of his shack and traffic had been rerout­ed down through the pit to the 6040 Tunnel. He expected he would likely be able the stay out there looking over the town the entire shift. A couple of times during his stand leaning on the guard rail at the edge of the embankment, David thought he saw Monica walking down the street, but it hadn't been her when he was actually able to get a good look at the person. Once when he heard laughter again, he imagined it to be her. He thought with her grace and beauty, she must also have a wonderful laugh. It was almost 10 p.m., close to the end of David's shift, when he was finally able to pull himself away from his perch behind the East 6490 shack. The phone was ringing for him and he realized it was time for him to get back to the real world. His shift finally ended that night at eleven, and as usual, he had enjoyed an interesting time watching the foot traffic below in the town, had signaled only one train during the entire shift, and knew he had another chance to see Monica from his perch at the East 6290 Switch or down in town the next day.

       David's assignment on this switch lasted only two more months. After that he was transferred to the 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. shift and the 6040 Tunnel Switch down in the lower pit area well away from the city lights he had come to enjoy so much. David was disappointed with the new assign­ment in some ways because he had enjoyed being where he could watch what went on down town. But the job on the 6040 Tunnel Switch gave him a lot of visibility and chanc­es for advancement that he did not have in other locations, so he justified the move and was satisfied with it for the time.

       A year went by before David saw Monica the next time. It had started out as a long shot for him, but it was a grand meeting that he would never forget. One of David’s coworkers on the night shift had casually complained that his wife would be dragging him to a Mexican wedding reception of his wife’s friend in two weeks, and that he hated going to those kinds of events because they got so wild with the dancing and booze. When David asked who was getting married, the man said it was some gal that worked for his wife in the dress shop his wife owned and operated in Bingham. There was only one shop like that, which David knew about, and he figured it had to be the same place where Monica worked. And, it was also likely that Monica would be going to the reception. Learning that, David thought how nice it would be if he could wrangle an invitation; and if so he might just be able to meet and even dance with Monica. That was definitely a long shot and David knew it.

       Three days before the wedding, David while riding to work with his friend Henry Galvin, leaned that Henry had been invited to this same Mexican wed­ding reception his coworker had mentioned and that he was going alone. David figured this had to be his break, so he asked Henry if he could go with him since he wasn’t going to be taking a date. Henry questioned David about his motivation, and on hearing the story and since the groom was a distant cousin of Henry's he agreed to see if it would be all right to bring David along. Henry made the arrangement the next day and the night of the reception, they drove up to Bingham carrying presents for the married couple.

       David hoped he might see Monica at the party even after Henry explained that this was strictly a Mexi­can-type reception and it was unlikely that any Puerto Ricans would be attending. What Henry didn’t realize, until David told him, was that the bride had been working at the same dress shop where he knew Monica was employed. The reception was underway when David and Henry arrived, and just as his complaining coworker had mentioned, it was already a wild party with tons of food and much booze. A small three-piece band was playing and several people were already dancing. Shortly after David and Henry arrived he saw Monica come in with a young Mexican fellow he did not know. He asked Henry if he knew the guy, and Henry said it was another one of his distant relatives that lived in upper Carr Fork whom he did not know too well.

       For the next hour David milled around the hall taking food that was offered him and watching Henry dance with several Mexican girls who came alone to the reception. However, all the time he was keeping an eye on Monica and the young man she was with in hopes that he might be able to find an opening to ask her for a dance. At last his chance came when Monica's companion walked out of the hall for some reason and she was left standing alone along the side of the room. Getting up all the courage he could muster, David took the opportunity to go over and ask her for a dance. He wasn't sure she understood what he had asked when she just looked blankly at him and said nothing, so he reached out for her hand and motioned to­ward the dance floor. Knowing that Monica had been in Utah for several years made David wonder why she had not answered him. Surely, she must be able to speak Eng­lish, he thought. But he let that go figuring Monica got his message when she gave him her hand. 

       David imagined that people were watching him when he and Monica went to the center of the floor, and that made David quite ner­vous. But he tried his best not to look too proud at dancing with the most beautiful girl in the hall, and all eventually seemed to be okay. During the dance, Monica seemed rather neutral with David. She neither smiled nor changed her expression while they danced around the floor. The Latin music was hard to dance to, but David had good rhythm, so he finally caught on. He noticed that Monica followed him well despite the difficulty he was having. She finally seemed to relax. He even imagined one time that she was actually enjoying the dance, even though her hand that he was holding still seemed to tremble a little and felt slightly clammy to him. When the dance was finished, David wanted to go for another round, but he sensed a slight motion from her to leave the floor, so, reluctantly, he thanked her for the dance and walked her to the side­line. Monica nodded and smiled, but said nothing, quickly joining the crowd of girls that were standing near the food table. In a short time David noticed that Monica had again joined her escort so he figured his dancing with Monica was through.

       For a long time after his dance with Monica, David tried to remember every detail of the experience. He thought of those piercing black eyes that captured his atten­tion months ago when she passed him on the street. They seemed the same that night . . . pene­trating his very center like they were trying to learn more about him. Was she interested in this gringo? Or was it just the way she always looked. David also remembered the smell of Monica's hair when it brushed by his face dur­ing the dance. Smoke was heavy in the hall, but the odor of her hair was distinct and different. He wondered if it was a little of the residue re­maining from the place where she lived. Coin­cidentally, David had gone to Monica's apart­ment once a few years before to pick up a bottle of Puerto Rican rum from Monica's father Juan Betancourt with whom he worked at the time. He had asked Juan to bring back some rum from Puerto Rico when he returned from a vacation there. The smell and general ambience of the apart­ment house had lingered with David for a long time. It was a pungent smell apparently stemming from the food being cooked in the various rooms, and from the people in the rooms that seemed crowded into those little spaces they called apartments. The smell of the apartment seemed to come back to him as he danced with Monica. He guessed what he smelled on her hair was this mixed with some perfume she had put on for the occasion.

       When David had reached out his hand to Monica before the dance, he remembered looking at her hand when it touched his. Her fingers were delicate and small. He remem­bered, too, that her hand was slightly sweaty. He believed she must either have been nervous or was just warm from the heated stuffy old hall. He re­membered a change in her grip when he took her off the dance floor. It was like she was thank­ing him for the dance, though he wasn't sure that was her message.

       He remembered while he was dancing with her that she seemed taller than he had first imagined she was. Her father was very short and thin, but he remembered when he had met Monica's mother years earlier when he went to their apartment that she was much taller than her husband. He guessed Monica to be about five foot seven or eight inches tall, still short to him, but tall for some­one of her ethnic group. Above all, David noticed this young woman's presence. There was some­thing strikingly mysterious about her looks and her temperament.  He couldn't put his finger on anything specific, but he more than noticed it, he felt it. The closer he got to Monica during the dance, the more he felt this connec­tion with her. It was a strange feeling he had never felt before . . . like he knew her before or something. She was not a stranger to him. He knew they had connected somewhere in the past and he hoped even more after dancing with her that some miracle would happen for them to be together again sometime in the future.

       David had no further contact with Monica during the next year, but he never forgot his experience of her on the dance floor. During that year he remained on the Graveyard Shift and had several new jobs. Working that shift made it inconvenient to spend any time in downtown Bingham like he was able to when he worked Day Shift or Afternoons. On a couple of occasions when he was leaving work in the morning he saw Monica from his car walking to work, but he never attempted to make contact because he was with his carpool friends at the time.

       David got married in 1953 to young wom­an who lived in the valley and his life­style radically changed after that. His fantasy for Monica also fell into the background. While he continued to work at the Copper, once in a while he would see Monica and all would be renewed in his mind, but it was usually quite temporary. For all practical pur­poses, David was forgetting all about Monica. Down deep, however, he never really got over her.

       In 1954 David was drafted into the mili­tary service and left the area for two years. Just before he left he sold his car to Juan Betan­court, Monica's father, but never saw her or spoke of Monica to Juan. He thought it best not to get back into that kind of a situation now that he was married and was also going away for some time. When David returned from the service and came back to his old job at the Copper in 1956 many things had changed at the mine and in the city. The first day he returned to Bingham he was aghast to discover so much of the town had been excavated away or demolished by the ex­pansion of the mine. The Copperfield Tunnel was gone and all the buildings in Carr Fork had also been bulldozed down along with many of the build­ings in the lower part of Bingham. The board­ing house and apartment where Monica lived was only a foundation and a pile of bricks. Even the Bingham Merc no longer existed. Some of the bars re­mained, but most of the ones he had fre­quented were nothing but rubble. Cop­perfield as a town no longer existed since the tunnel was no longer in use and some of it had been destroyed by the open pit operations. The copper company had made offers to pur­chase all the houses and buildings in the city and a few people were still holding out, but most of them understood the writing on the wall. Soon there would be no Bingham City the way David had known it for those several years he worked at the Copper before his induction into the Service.

       While David was happily married and by that time had two little boys, he never seemed to get over the interest he had for Monica. Going back to work after his release from the Service only brought that all back to him, but now he was certain she did not even live in the town any more. Several months after he returned to work, he learned that Monica had married just after he went into the Army and had moved with her Mexican hus­band to West Jordan. So from that time on, every day when he went to work passing through West Jordan, he al­ways stayed alert in hopes that he might see her again; but he never did.

       David never mentioned any of this to his wife. They had a good thing going, he thought. No use muddying the waters with a fantasy that really did not exist for him any­more. So he never spoke and only rarely thought of Monica, especially when his wife was around. He did hope that he would see her again sometime, mostly to feed his curiosity about how she might have changed or what she might be doing. But while the years rolled on the picture he had carried in his heart for Monica eventually faded and al­most died. In 1966 David left the Copper to find a life in other places. Many times during the next few years he thought briefly about this woman who had infected his heart back in the 50's, but she progressively received less and less of his attention.

       Over twenty years went by while David experienced his life and life's trials. His first marriage had lasted only seven years. His two boys of the marriage went with their mother who soon remarried. And then a cou­ple of years later David remarried only to have this marriage fall apart after twenty years. During that twenty years between the 1960's to the mid 1980's.  David moved away from Utah and traveled extensively with the next company that employed him as an Engineer. When he quit this company he then re­turned to Utah taking up a new life as a single parent with two of his youngest children from his second marriage.

       One day in the late 1980's David was picking through some old documents he had saved containing writings and poems he had done in high school and during the time he worked at the Copper. In these documents he ran across a forgotten short story that he had written about Monica while he sat in the East 6290 Switch Shack above the city in Bingham Canyon. When he read the story he was strangely elated and his long aban­doned memo­ry of her was rekindled. He remembered that it was just after he had first seen Monica on the Bingham Can­yon road that he wrote this little piece on her. He only knew her name at the time and had seen her sitting on the porch of her apartment with another girl he imagined was her sister. At the time, David did not have a clue as to the impact this young woman would have on his life. Influenced by his writings from his recent high school experi­ences, David had written the piece in a ram­bling, romantically surrealistic style. While David read the piece over and over again, much of what he had forgotten was dramatically brought back to him:

 

 

MONICA FROM THE TOWN

 

      That night when I saw her I was think­ing: I would relish any sound I heard from her, any look I would get from her or any pin-prick of attention.

      When I saw this Puerto Rican girl and her sister sitting on the step that night outside the dim lit hall I could tell they were both very beautiful and very young.  They are there, sitting under the sign that says, "Rooms & Apart­ments."

      If I could be there with them instead of in this perch high above the city I would say, "Any sound from you would make me happy.” It would be more that I could hope for.  I would relish that moment.

      If I were there, people would say, "Who's that with you, Monica?" Frightened to be with me she would go to her room and her sister would leave too. Despite that, I would want to follow her into the apartment, but wouldn’t. I know the walls in the apartment are green and that would make it very dim when I go to see Monica. I’ve been there before. I know the smells and the sounds, but it would still not be okay to follow her in. But if I were in there to see Monica, I would be see­ing and listen­ing to all the people. All the time the people's kids would be running in and out and onto on the road trying to get themselves killed or run over.  I would be thinking these people have too many children up here so they don't care any­more. In my fantasy Monica would say, "They are like that. They are like that always. Surely they are the same as everyone, aren't they? We cannot help that they are like that,"

      I would finally leave, but I would hope that Monica would call out as I leave, “It is all right. I hope you will come again someday." 

      From farther away I see her again on another day sitting on her step . . . always seeming like she is waiting. It is Sunday; only there aren't any bells here. I am up here again above the city where it does not feel like Sunday. Here, I am sit­ting on an ancient tree watch­ing her. Watching her is like I am dreaming. Always I am seeing her, this Monica as I have learned to call her. Who is it really that I am seeing there? Of this I am cer­tain.  She knows that I am there but I will never know her, I am sure. But I will not forget what she means to me.

      No, one cannot forget Monica.

 

       David remembered all of the things he had seen those nights that he stood outside his shack and pondered the sights of the town below. He remembered how children would run down the street dodging cars but never getting hit. He remem­bered how women would sit on the steps of the various apartment houses. He thought how time was a factor in all that they did and all he did. It was during these times that David dreamed of visiting with Monica and thought how it would be to interact with her and other members of her family. He re­hearsed talks he would have with her if he ever got to know her. He visu­alized seeing her in various con­texts and situations. But all of them were dreams until he danced with her at the Mexican wedding reception.

       There is no way one can understand the random and mysterious accidents and occur­rences in one's life. David was certain­ly not prepared or even in the least part ready for what would be happening to him about two years after he had read again that old paper he had written about Monica. Read­ing it seemed to spark an almost invisible interest in her again. And again he started to look for her everywhere he went. In a kind of unconscious quest, he lost himself in his search for Monica . . . not actively, but rather in an intensely passive manner. He would find himself staring at women on the street as he walked along. He would be especially intent on looking at any Hispanic women who came into his view. It didn't matter if he was in his home town, out of town, in the Mall, or in a gro­cery store. Any­where there were crowds of people, David kept up his watch. He didn't even know what he was looking for, but somehow he was driven to look; and always it was in hopes of seeing Monica again. He knew from looking at him­self in the mirror how much he had changed. How would he possi­bly be able or recognize Monica even if he did by chance pass her in the Mall, on the sidewalk or in a store?

       One or more occasions in the quest for his past, David saw women who some­how gave him a start like he recognized something that had been in his memory of Monica. It might have been the way a woman was wearing her hair, or the way she walked, or a feature of her face or her poise. Always after that surge of adrenaline had passed he would criticize him­self for being so frivolous. But it never stopped his quest . . . somehow he felt he was getting closer to meeting Monica again somewhere around home or in his travels.

       One day he was at the airport getting ready to go on an extended business trip when he overheard a woman talking at the next ticket counter who had an obvious His­panic accent. Taken aback by this he found himself staring at the woman trying to recog­nize some known feature or a movement he might recall from what he had memorized in Monica after dancing with her in Bingham that night many years ago. But again he was disappointed, failing even to pick up the slightest clue about Monica in this woman.

       In the women David captured in these visual and sensual analyses, he always tried to compare what he guessed was the woman's age with the perceived age of the woman he was looking at. Monica would be approxi­mately fifty six years old now, just two years youn­ger than he. What would a Puerto Rican wom­an that age look like, he won­dered? Would she still be slim and beautiful as her mother was when he met her that time he picked up the rum from Monica's father? David concluded that if he were ever going to be able to find Monica again, he must be ready to read any clue he remembered from the times he had seen her when she was eighteen. He just knew there would be things about her now that would have remained despite the almost forty years that had passed.

       One morning in mid-January, 1992, David had awakened early like he always did to get ready for work. For several days now he had felt uncomfortably burdened with something. He wasn't sick yet he didn't feel well. It was like he was depressed over something, but he could not identify any­thing that he thought could be related to depression. The only thing he could think might be caus­ing this strange feeling was loneliness. That was something he would conclude was possi­ble for him in his present situation. After all it had been almost ten years now since he was divorced for a second time and though he had been involved in several relationships with women in that period, none of them had left him feeling de­pressed. At his current age he was ready for some new kind of relationship in his life and maybe he was feeling something from that need.  His two youngest children, both now in college, were still living with him. They were get­ting older and were feeling and acting out their own independence. Maybe it was his time to step right and get into some new adventures.

       Sitting there on the edge of the bed that morning, David had the hardest time even getting motivated to take his morning shower. So he just sat there an extra-long time listening to the morning news. While he was listening something came on that trig­gered a reaction in him. It was so dramatic it totally distracted him from the subject that was being discussed on the radio. All at once he felt relieved from whatever burden had been holding him for these past weeks. He felt like something was going to happen, but didn't have a clue of what it would be. Like he had suddenly been physically lifted out of this strange feeling he had, he got up, made his bed and got ready for his morning shower.

       When he showered, David felt even more awake and alive like something new was about to happen to him right then. He noticed himself whistling a little later. He hardly ever whistled, but here he was walking along from the parking lot to the office whis­tling some­thing. He felt a little foolish while he walked along and stopped what he was do­ing. About an hour later, the receptionist in the office walked by his room and asked if that had been him whistling a little bit ago. He confessed it must have been him but he had not been aware of it.

       Those feeling he had experienced that morning continued throughout the day, but nothing new showed up for him. Again the next day and even the next, these feelings persisted. People he worked with mentioned he seemed different, and his kids said the same. At the store one night, David noticed someone staring at him. When he got eye contact with the person, she seemed embar­rassed and covered it by saying hello to him. Days and days later he still felt the same yet nothing new had happened. So finally he just surrendered to the feeling and let it be what it was, forgetting about it having to mean something.

       Over a week after he had decided to let the feeling just be, he was on an extended business trip to the small resort town of Red River in Northern New Mexico for OCO, the company he was currently working with. He had gone there with a woman who like him was a subcontracting consultant for the same company. Neither he nor the lady had ever had an op­portunity to work together. They were hav­ing a great time at their work and were spending every evening together eating out and talking about every­thing under the sun. The woman, Cathy, was married, but they were still having a great time together and enjoying the new friendship they were devel­oping. One night while they were eating at the Sundance Mexican Restaurant in town David was caught by the seemingly familiar actions of a woman that was waiting on a table across the room. He could only see her from behind but there was something haunting­ly familiar about her. She walked back into the kitchen before David was able to see her face, so he returned to the conversa­tion he was having with Cathy. He was no­ticeably shaken by the event, but did not let on to Cathy that anything had happened.

       In a few moments, the same woman was filling water glasses at tables and came to David's and Cathy's table to fill their glasses. She was standing right next to David before he even noticed her. When he leaned back to give her room to fill his glass he noticed some­thing in the woman's eyes that he definitely had seen before . . . a certain sparkle and depth . . . he did not know what it was, but it completely cap­tured his attention. The woman also must have noticed some­thing familiar about David because she just stood there not filling either of their glasses, but rather staring back at David. David finally broke the spell for both of them by saying, "Don't I know you from some­where?" The woman just nodded with acknowledgment and said with a slight Span­ish accent, "I was think­ing the same thing."

       Just when she spoke, David glanced at the woman's hand holding the water pitcher and again was struck by some­thing familiar in the shape of her fingers. Embarrassed by his distraction with her hand, David stood up and reached out for the woman's other hand. She was doing the same and extended her hand to his. Again their eyes met and a long silence ensued. Breaking the silence again, David asked her what her name was. When she said, Monica Alvidez, David almost lost his bal­ance; he was so shaken by her reply. "Are you the person who used to live in Bingham Can­yon, Utah back in about 1950?" he asked. With a strange and nostalgic look she nod­ded in the affirmative, and then said, "Yes­. . . I . . . I lived there with my father for many years. Did we meet there sometime? You look familiar to me, but I don’t remember your name if we met."

       “I only met you once at a wedding reception in Bingham,” David answered. “You were with someone, but I asked you for a dance and introduced myself to you while we danced. My name is David Anderson, by the way.”

       Embarrassed in having left Cathy out of the conversation, he introduced Cathy to Monica who extended her free hand and shook Cathy’s. By then, David was in shock at all that was happening especially in light of the strange feeling he had been having for a week or so that something important was going to happen to him. Now that it had happened, he didn't really know what to say or do. Monica seemed the same, and soon recov­ered by excusing herself saying she had to get back to her customers. Before she could get away, David took her hand again and asked her permission to meet him after she was through with her shift. She accepted and suggested they meet in the bar in the next room since it stayed open later than the restaurant. They set a time and Monica returned to her work.

       David didn't say anything for several minutes after Monica left the table to re­sume her duties. Cathy honored his silence and waited for him to recover to speak to him. David spoke first, but his voice was broken and unsteady. In the next few mo­ments he related briefly to Cathy the where he had first seen Monica and eventually had taken the oppor­tunity to meet her. His tone and way of describing this short acquaintance with Monica was very emotional and it showed through terribly clear to Cathy. She realized there was much more to what he had to say about the relationship and suggested that they finish eating and get out of the restaurant. She said they would go to hers or his room in the motel and continue the conversa­tion until his time to return to the restaurant rather than sit at the table any longer. Since it was still early he agreed; they asked for the check and then they immediately left the restau­rant.

       On the way back to the motel, David felt a surge of emotion he hadn't felt in years. Within a few hours’ time, he would be talking with Monica. How many years had it been? At least forty he thought. How time had flown. What would they talk about after so long? He could converse endlessly about all the places in the world he had been and all the experiences he had enjoyed and not en­joyed in his life, but that did not seem like the thing to do. Would any of his life be of any interest to a woman who was waiting on tables in a small resort town in Northern New Mexico? He thought not. Instead, the conversation must be about her, he thought. He must think of some meaningful questions to ask her. His mind was reeling from all he had to think about and during the entire trip back to the motel, he hardly spoke a word.

       Cathy tolerated his silence until they drove up in front of the motel and got out, and then she just took David's hand and led him into her room and showed him where to sit down. He seemed to her to be emotionally jam-packed and she couldn't wait to have him release some of it. She knew that they had grown close enough so that she would be able to talk to him about this very private matter, and she hoped he felt the same way. There had been something very special that had occurred between Cathy and David during their week together and Cathy had all the confi­dence in the world that they were about to have a meaningful and profound conversa­tion about this woman they had met.

       During their evenings together that week David and Ca­thy had connect on several very personal issues about their separate lives. Cathy had shared a good deal about her past and private things in her life and her marriage, and David had done the same with her. During their silent ride back to the motel Cathy had thought how much she had come to like David and how interested she was in talking with him about this exciting thing that had happened tonight; she felt a little emotion about it herself. She was really looking for­ward to their conversation.

       David slumped down in the couch where Cathy had led him; she sat down across from him on the settee. For a while they just stared at each other, and then with no introduction, David just started to talk:

       "The only time I had ever spoken to this woman we saw tonight was when I danced with her some forty years ago at a Mexican wedding reception. She’s Puerto Rican, but was attending the reception of one of her Mexican girl friends with whom she worked. I was working in the mining company at the time and had seen her in the street a few times. At the time she was living with her father and siblings in an apartment in the mining town. I met and worked with her father on a labor gang at the mine some years before I met his daughter. At the time I met him he and his family had just recently emigrated from Puerto Rico. It was years later that that I saw her for the first time walking along the mining town street. I was only nineteen at the time and fell hope­lessly in love with her. She was eighteen. A year or so later I still hadn’t met her, but learned she would likely be attending a wedding reception of a Mexican girl she worked with. I had a Mexican friend whom I knew was attending the reception, so I asked if he would take me along. We went and she did come to the reception, but with a friend. I waited until her companion went out for a smoke or something, and then I went over and asked her to dance with me. We had only one dance that night. Her friend came back and I didn't want to get into trouble with him since I was practically the only white person in the hall. I introduced myself to her and spoke to her during our dance but she said nothing to me that I recall. Tonight was the first time I had heard her voice. Since she didn’t speak to me when I asked her for a dance, I wasn’t even sure if she spoke English at the time. I never had a chance to find out. Later I heard she got married and left town. After that I lost track of her completely.

       “After several years, having gone through two marriages that I mentioned to you the other day, I had almost forgotten her until one day I found a composition I had written about her just after I saw her in along the street in this old mining town where I worked. The docu­ment was a sort of surrealistic piece that some­how got saved with some old poems that I wrote some time in the early 1950's.

       "Somehow I knew something big was going to hap­pen, Cathy. I didn’t know what it was, but my body knew and had been causing me to act strangely for days. Two weeks ago I woke up feeling different than I had ever remembered feeling before. I thought at first I must be sick or depressed, but that soon left me and for days I went around whistling and acting strangely. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I thought it had something to do with loneli­ness. I soon came to realize that something good was going to happen; I didn’t know when or how, but it was really a strong feeling that possessed me. After a while I wrote it off, but now I know that it was real. I had forgotten all about it until I saw Monica tonight. Have you ever experienced any­thing like that?"

       David was wound up like a spring. Cathy hadn't had a chance to get a word in, but it hadn't mattered. She was sensing what was going on with David. She had experienced things like that in her life before she met Will, the man who became her husband a couple of years before. Like David, before she met Will, she knew some­thing was going to happen to her. She had been single for eighteen years after divorcing her first husband. She had known loneliness and the depression that being alone can bring on. Her thoughts were paralleling David's while he ram­bled on.

       The almost completely one-way dia­logue continued for over an hour before Ca­thy had a chance to comment to any extent. In that hour she learned a lot about David and about the interesting conflict he had experienced inside himself about this mysteri­ous woman. She was anxious for him to close the loop with this Monica. What an interesting, obscure name, she thought. She was anxious also to know what this woman had done with her life and why she, a Puerto Rican woman, was waiting on tables in a Mexican restaurant in a rather unusual, domi­nantly Mexican American com­munity. Was not this rather unusual? Did Mexicans and Puerto Ricans ever mix? David had men­tioned that in Monica's earlier years she had friends that were Mexican. The last name by which she introduced herself was certainly not Puerto Rican either. She must have mar­ried or is married to a Mexican man. What would that do to David if Monica were happily married? Was she wearing rings? She had jewelry on, but did she have on a wedding ring? Cathy wanted in the worst way to find out all these things, but she would just have to wait, it seemed. David wasn't even getting close to winding down.

       At long last David did wind down and Cathy was able to start asking questions about this situation. David seemed ready now to open up to a two-way conversation and seemed anxious to hear any suggestions Cathy might have about what he should do tonight when he met Monica again. He wanted the meeting to go well, and the way he was feeling right now, there was no hope of that. He didn’t even know if Monica was married or if she had any desire to discuss all the things David wanted to bring up with her. David was eager that the conversa­tion with Monica would give him some closure to the enigmatic fantasy he had creat­ed and held on to for so many years. He was ready to hear Monica's side of the story. He wanted to know about her life. He only wanted to tell her in some unobtrusive way how he had felt about her all his adult years…what he had experienced when he saw her on the street for the first time and how he had felt dancing with her that one night. He wanted to know why she had recognized him tonight and had she expe­rienced similar things about him. Did she really remember him? Or was her apparent shock at seeing him embar­rassment over knowing that she had seen him sometime in her life and was not able to re­member. But, she had re­mem­bered him somehow. Wasn't that strange?

       Talking with Cathy about all his fears and concerns seemed to calm David. While the hours rolled on and the time became closer for him to return to the restaurant to see Monica again he felt much better. Cathy was great in this exchange, he thought. The more time he spent with this strange and powerful­ly insight­ful woman, the more he loved her. There was something very special about Cathy that he had only experienced before with a couple of other women in his life. Unfortunate­ly, neither of these women had been his wives. He just never felt that bond of friendship with his wives like he had felt with these other women and now was feeling with Cathy. He loved having this con­versation with Cathy and wished now he had spent more time earlier in the evening in discus­sion rather than just talking himself about his experiences with Monica.

       The more he talked with Cathy the less he feared getting back together later with Monica. He was glad Cathy had sug­gested going to her room and talking this matter over. Cathy made some herb tea for David just before the time he would be leaving to go to the restau­rant. While they drank their tea, David again went silent. It was a calming silence for him this time. He had completely gotten over the obsessive feeling he was experiencing several hours before and was now ready for whatever may come of the evening with Monica. David had let go of all of his fears. He didn't even have any questions that "had to be an­swered." Cathy had suggested that he go to the meeting with Monica without any expressed or implicit expectations, and he was really ready to do just that. It was a strange and unusual freedom David was experiencing. It was almost spiritual . . . yes, and ethereal feeling he had about this important event that he had known was going to happen was at his doorstep. He still didn't know what it was going to be like, but he knew instinctively it would be impor­tant. He had no feeling about it being good or bad for him, he was just open to its most profound expression.

       Cathy and David embraced when he was ready to leave. He held her and she held to him for a long and endearing moment. He felt her body next to his and loved the warmth and power of it. She had truly given him a gift of herself by spending these last few hours with him totally absorbed in his emotion­al crisis. He would be forever grate­ful to her.

       It was not a one-way parting of thanks. Cathy was thinking much the same as David. It had been wonderful experience for her this past few hours to reflect on what he had said in the context of her own life's experiences, which in many ways had paralleled his. In her younger life she had gotten into a brief relation­ship that didn't go very far because of her own unwillingness and inability to see the importance of it for her. Like David, she had let it slide into her back­ground, had hidden it behind her more short-range values and had allowed incidents and activities that seemed important at the time to overshadow this important visitation to her life. She, too, did not want to let go of this moment and by embracing David had pro­longed it some. She really would have pre­ferred that David not leave her at all that night, but that was just not in the books for her. Now with David's parting, she was now feel­ing free and unburdened by her past. She had not made any closure on her own person­al issues but she understood them a little better. She would get to a phone and call her husband before the warmth of her feel­ings was taken over by her fatigue.

       The drive back across town to the restau­rant was nothing like it had been leav­ing there a few hours before. David turned on the radio and actually became interested in a few minutes of a talk show discussion. He felt free and excit­ed, but ready for what was to come, no matter what it turned out to be.

       Monica was waiting for him at the table in the corner of the bar's seating area. The ambience of the place even made this more palatable for David. The bar was place that imbued warmth and charm with its Spanish décor and soft brown, red and yellow colors. She stood up when she saw David and sig­naled to the waitress to come to the table, asking at the same time if David would care for something to drink. They waited for the coffee they ordered to come by filling the time with a little idle chatter about the nice restaurant, good food that was served and the beauty of this small resort town and it surrounding moun­tains.

       David took the lead by asking Monica if she remembered him and their brief acquain­tance forty years ago. She had remem­bered and even recalled the dance where they had offi­cially met for the first time. For a few mo­ments the conversation centered on the dance and why she was there in the first place. She went on to say that she had known the young bride at her work and had asked the Mexican friend of the bride’s to take her to the party because she didn't know anyone there. She explained that she knew quite a bit of English at the time she had met David, but was embarrassed to speak to him because of her difficulty with the lan­guage.

       David told a little bit about why he was at the dance and how excited he had been to see Monica come in. Then he con­fessed to all the things he had done to learn more about Monica. She laughed at hearing this but she surprised David even more when she told him that after the dance she had done the same number on him . . . finding out all she could about this strange white boy that had danced with her. She even remembered the time that David came to her house to pick up the rum and how her father had said that David was a friend of his, but that was long before they met at the dance. But she did remember how much her ailing mother had enjoyed the electric blanket David gave to her father in exchange for the gift of rum her father had provided to him. Monica also knew when David had married and when he left the Copper to join the Army.

       David was totally amazed at all Monica knew about him. It seemed that in those early days of their identification of each other she had been impressed by him in much the same way as he had been of her. The only difference, David had been a little ahead of Monica in his little quiet investigation into her back­ground.

       The two of them were obviously hitting it off with these parallels about that short period of their lives during the early 1950's. Both were less willing to get into their feelings of the missing forty years and what each was feeling now they were to­gether. They both were learning a lot about each other despite that. David was happy to learn that Monica was no longer married. She felt the same learning that he, too, was unmar­ried. David learned the reason that Monica was working in the restaurant was that she was half owner and had been given the chance to buy into the restaurant from an old Mexican friend that moved back to New Mexico from Utah to set up this business. Monica had saved some money and wanted to invest it in the restaurant and her partner needed the money, so they made the deal and both moved to New Mexico at the same time. David also learned that Monica had only been married once. Her marriage had lasted about ten years and two daughters were born of that marriage. Both daughters were now married and were living in Nevada and San Francisco. David learned of the hardships she had endured with her husband. He was a Mexican who was living in Bingham when she met him. They were married and had a party something like the one she and David had attended when they first met. The fellow she married, soon after she was pregnant with their second child, started drinking heavily and stepping out on her. By that time, she was living in West Jordan. All her family had moved out of the Canyon by then and was spread out all over the valley. 

       After many years of beatings and abuse from her alcoholic husband, Monica filed for di­vorce and her husband left town never pro­viding her with any support and completely abandoning her and her children. She totally lost track of him after he left Utah but heard that he had gone back to Mexico. Monica struggled as a single mother, but had done well with them with the help of good jobs and good neighbors in West Jor­dan. Once she had gone back to school and want­ed to go to college, but had only man­aged to get her high school diploma. But she had a high regard for educa­tion and her daughters had done extremely well in school. Both of her girls had degrees from the University of Utah. Even after the girls were out of the home, Monica continued to work toward going back to school someday and had taken the ownership on the restaurant as a way of someday hav­ing enough money to do that.

       After talking steadily for some time, Monica suddenly stopped and asked David to tell her about his life. So David gave a brief sum­mary of his life and his marriages and divorces, his children and travels and his current situa­tion. A long silence came over both of them when David finished his part of the description of his past forty years. Neither had said a whole lot about the important things that involved them both. As David sat there quietly thinking about how he could tell Monica some of these things about his feelings for her, he again started to experi­ence the self-doubt that he had experienced earlier in the evening. He wanted to tell Monica how he was feeling right then but was afraid he could not express himself that well so she would understand. Re­hears­ing it in his mind only seemed to make it worse and he began to feel helpless and lost. Only a few seconds had passed since he said anything but it seemed like an hour and David was feeling pressured to continue.

       "I am so happy that we ran into each other tonight," Monica broke into the si­lence. "I didn't know what to say when I saw you. I immediately recognized you, but was afraid to say that I had. It was almost like I knew beforehand that something was going to happen. You know, David, for sev­eral days I have been looking carefully at every­one who came into the restaurant. I didn't know what I was looking for or who, but something kept me alert like I had been told to expect you. But what was funny, I hadn't for one minute thought about you. In fact, I will be frank; it had been years since I even had you on my mind. And yet tonight seemed so natural, I am amazed; and . . . David, I must tell you, I am very happy we have met again."

       David completely welled up inside hearing this from Monica. When he was again able to talk, he expressed to her how he had felt for the past weeks that something was going to happen to him. He recalled to her how he had felt a few days ago like he expected something was going to change in his life and how he also had been looking at everyone as if he was expecting to meet someone he knew. Finally as best he could and coming completely from his heart, David expressed to Monica how happy he was to see her and how emotionally touched he was, like a life-long dream had just come true for him. Knowing that it was becoming very late and that the bar was soon to close, David spontaneously asked if he could see Monica the next day. She said she would be happy to and suggested he come to her house up on High Road for dinner the next day. She said she needed a day off and would have time to prepare a nice dinner for him. He willingly agreed and they set the time for their next meeting. David wrote down her address and departed while she walked him to the exit.

             When he got back to the motel, David found a note on his door. It read:  I don't care how late it is, please come see me before you go to bed . . . Cathy. He laughed when he read the note. That little scoundrel, he thought, she couldn't wait until morning to find out how things went for me. I love that crazy lady. I wish I would have known her years ago; we could have had such a life together as friends. I'm going to do every­thing I can to continue to be her friend. And I'll start tonight by letting her know what happened between Monica and me.

       Cathy wasn't asking for a long con­versa­tion like she and David had enjoyed earlier in the evening. She was just sincerely hoping David would come by a few minutes and let her know how things went. David could see Cathy was ready for bed and when he came in, she told him she didn't want him to stay long. She said she had been reading anyway and that he hadn't kept her up. They spent a few moments together talking about David's experience, decided on what time they would get together for break­fast, and then David left for his room.

       After working together at the mine where he and Cathy had been consulting with the Mine Management over layoff issues, David and Monica met as scheduled that next evening. She was out of her res­taurant uniform and was dressed in a simple but beau­tiful flowered dress that reminded David of the night he had seen her come into the old church hall in Bingham for the wed­ding party. All those old memories came back again for David when Monica reached out her hand and welcomed him into her home. It seemed to David that he was being welcomed into the past rather than into a new moment in his life. For the first couple of minutes he could not take himself out of that memory of him look­ing at everything he had experienced with Monica before . . . her hair, the smell of the apartment she lived in lingering with her, the way she was dressed and especially her eyes. They still had that same dark black depth and sparkle he had remembered from years before.

       When David gained his composure and returned to the present he began to no­tice other things around him. He had observed coming in that the home Monica was living in was a small old house possible of the 1950's vintage. Inside the place was more modern, but not flashy. Monica had photos around of her daughters and their families. There were a few memorabilia around in the tiny front room, a few books and the furniture seemed nice but not very lavish. There was an old photo on one of the tables of Monica's mother that must have been taken just before she died.

       Monica asked David if he would like to sit down while she finished preparing din­ner. He asked what he could do to help her and instead of sitting followed her into the kitchen. Dinner was almost ready, so in a very few minutes they were sitting at the small dining table across from each other. Monica poured each of them a glass of wine, lit the candles and they quietly enjoyed their meal. Monica had prepared what she said was one of her favorite meals passed on to her from her mother, Carne Guisado, a type of beef stew that David relished for its unusual flavors and spices. Not a whole lot was said during din­ner. David insisted on helping her clean up, but she refused to do the dishes right then; and in­stead, took David's arm, escorting him to her small couch in the front room. When they sat down, Monica slowly slid her hand from under David's arm, reached up with both hands to his face and turned it her way so she could gain eye contact with him.

       Surprised by Monica's obvious assertive­ness, David obliged her while she sat there quietly looking into his eyes in the pierc­ing, question­ing way. Then before he said anything, she spoke, "David, I want to know why you are here in this faraway place, and why you were anxious to find me. I know it was not an accident that you and I have found each other again. I want to know all about you and what you are feeling now."

       David was quiet for a moment and a little embarrassed that he had not asked the same question first. He was thinking that he wanted to know the same things she had asked him and that she should start first. She laughed, gripped his hand harder and then said very firmly that he would be first. David thought for a moment what he was going to say, again frightened a little about saying the "right" thing, then he re­membered the conversation the other night with Cathy. He knew that he simply had to surrender to his heart and let come out what would come out, and forget about it having to be "right." That opened it up for David and he began to talk. 

       His answer to Monica flowed back and forth from things he remembered to feelings he had harbored for years about Monica. He talked about his two marriages and said that there had always been something missing in them. He talked about other shorter relationships he had experienced with other single women after his second marriage ended and how they had developed and given him so little. David went into detail about waking up a few weeks back and feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. He explained how it had not known what it was or what to do about it. He recalled for Monica the times and days he stood at the East 6290 Switch shack and scanned the town of Bingham below hoping he would see her. He talked about sitting on one of the dumps at Bingham one night dreaming about this mysterious young woman he had seen on the street shortly be­fore. And he told her about creating a surreal­istic piece of prose that described Monica and her sister sit­ting on the steps of the apart­ment where they lived.

       While David let go in an emotional dialogue that really said what was in his heart, Monica listened, hardly ever taking her eyes from his the whole time. Several times her eyes filled with tears at things David had to say. She seemed to live every moment of the experiences David described, just like she had been there with him. She loved hearing about how someone had cared for her so dearly and for so long, and her heart poured out to David when he de­scribed the distress he had experi­enced in his life. She noticed, however, that David never talked about that distress in terms of failure or terrible loss; rather she noticed that he talked of each in terms of the experi­ences and what he had learned from them. She had never heard anyone express things in that way, and it made her think of her own situations.

       Monica had for most of her life con­sid­ered herself as the victim of circumstances in which she had been involved and over which she felt she had no control. When she was brought to Utah and had been up­rooted from her village in Puerto Rico, she felt like she had been the victim. Then again when her mother died and be­cause she was the oldest of the children and had to be the mother of the other children, she had again thought of herself as a victim . . . not being able to finish school, and losing out on that opportunity. Later in her marriage, when her husband started to drink and became violent, she believed she was a true casualty of her circumstances. Hadn't she done everything she could to save her marriage and taken his abuse longer than she should have? She truly felt that life had dealt her a difficult and unfair blow. But now as she listened to David talk about situations not very much different than hers as "opportunities" for learning she thought about her own situation and wondered if there really were things she had learned that benefited her life from these awful situations she had endured. Had David had just pushed that entire emotional trauma into his background and avoided dealing with it or had he really had some­thing going for him­self?

       After David had domineered their entire evening with his stories of his life, he now felt embarrassed and a little stupid. It was very late and he hadn't heard anything of what Monica might have wanted to say or of what he wanted to hear from her. She was begin­ning to look tired and he was run down him­self. The dilemma was solved, however, when Monica in her strangely persuasive way sug­gested he leave and that she would talk about herself at their next meeting that she sug­gested should be soon. David had three more days of work at the mine, so he concluded that what Monica was saying was right and that he should be going. 

       When David was putting on his coat on to leave, Monica reached up and put her hand gently on the side of David's bearded face, then reaching her other hand around his neck, pulled his head down towards her and kissed him fully on the mouth. David was a little surprised at the move, but responded by wrap­ping his arms around her in a gentle but long caress. Feeling the fullness of Monica's body against his, David was warmed and emotional­ly caressed inside. She felt good to him, and it all felt very right. Walking out of the door he suggested they get together again soon and asked when Monica would be free. She responded that she was working late the next three even­ings, but suggested they get together at the restaurant for lunch the next day if he could make it. She suggested that he bring Cathy. He said he could make it and would ask Ca­thy, and then he left for the motel.

       David's head was reeling while he was driving back to the motel. He wanted very much to be able to spend some time with Cathy now. He thought it would be great to express his concerns to her and get her help in finding some answers. He hoped there would be another note for him when he got back, but this time there was none. He looked down two cabins from his to see if Cathy's lights were on, but she must have been asleep be­cause her place was dark.

       Feeling rather sheepish and guilty about leaving Cathy the night before to go to dinner alone and fend for herself, David apol­ogized profusely when he came by at seven to pick her up. Cathy said she had enjoyed being alone and that she had gone out to a phone to have a long conversation with her husband. Her book had taken up the rest of the evening and she said she needed the time alone. He had no need to apologize, she said, but in almost the same breath, she anxiously asked how things had gone for David the night before. In the short time they had getting to the mine office where they were working, David briefed Cathy. There wasn't much time to comment, so she didn't try. Cathy knew they would have several hours together on the long ride back to Albu­querque on Friday, so she let the mater just drop.

       In the next two days, David saw Monica briefly during two luncheon engage­ments. Cathy came to the first one, but did not come to the second. There was hardly time for David and Monica to complete all they want­ed to and both were feeling pretty stressed out that the door between them had only opened a slight bit. David was sure he was not going to be coming to this part of the country again for business, so if he was to see her again soon, it would mean a spe­cial trip for one or the other of them. In the same way, Monica was feeling badly that the time had gone so fast and that there had been so little time with David. She knew with the busy season coming up at the restau­rant, there would be little time to get away, at least for two or three months. They both realized that their best option to continue their relationship was to write and call, so they discussed that as an option and commit­ted to talk to each other on the phone at least once per week and write as often as they could.

       Both David and Monica had talked in this last meeting about how they both en­joyed having this time together. During this last hour they had been together they had gone for a walk down High Road and back to the restau­rant. The restaurant was just not a private place to have the kind of conversation they both wanted, and the walk down the snow-packed street on that sunny early after­noon was a perfect option. They ended their walk by embracing and holding each other for a long period. It was not enough, but both of them knew it was all they had to give right then. Both wept during their last embrace while they stood next to his car. When David finally got into the car started the engine, neither spoke . . . they had said it all in their embrace. As he drove away from the restaurant he saw Monica in his rearview mirror her hand up in a simple wave goodbye. David had a hard time seeing through his tears as he drove back down the canyon road to the office. He was too numb to think about anything, so he just attempted to get his emo­tions together and be ready to go back to work to say his goodbyes and leave. He managed to get fairly composed, but was still a little un­steady when he finished climb­ing the stairs to the office meeting Cathy and the Mine Officials for their last conference.

       David and Cathy wound up their business and left the area about two in the afternoon. It had been a successful business trip, but he was glad it was over. It was to be about a three hour drive back to the airport in Albuquerque and Cathy volunteered to drive the first half of the trip. She wanted David to have as much freedom and time that he might need to wind down without having to deal with driving the mountain roads. The first few miles of the trip were cov­ered pretty much in silence, and then David finally broke through and started to talk. His first inclination was to talk about the awesome relation­ship that had developed there between him and Ca­thy. He started by openly expressing how he felt about her and conveyed his thanks to her for the gift she had given to him in listening and being willing to discuss this very important matter regarding Monica. He did that, and while he talked he was reminded again of the other similar rela­tionships he had experienced with other women in his life. Some of these women were now out of his life and he hoped that would not happen with Cathy. The experi­ence he had enjoyed with Cathy was some­thing he hoped he would have many other chances to repeat, and that she would not become a distant memory in his life like some of the other women he had known had be­come.

       Cathy at first quietly listened to him, but she also had some things to say about what she had gained from their relationship. There had been so much other stuff going on that she had not taken the time to say her piece. "You know," she finally said, "when I mar­ried my second husband three years ago, I married my best friend and we still remain best friends. Like you, I too, had never had a best friend of the opposite sex before meeting Will. But strangely enough, I thought with marrying Will I had ended my chances of having another good friend who was male. But what I have discovered in you, David, is that I can do that. I can have an­other man friend who does not get in the way of my other best friend and husband. If I am really to be your friend, it will never interfere with my mar­riage, and I am glad of that. You can, if you want, continue to count on me as a best friend and I will support that friendship and honor it as best I can for as long as I am needed. You are more than just important to me, David; I have come to love you in a very special way this past two weeks. And while I cannot speak for you, I sense that the same love I have for you is mutually felt by you to­wards me." David was touched by Cathy's pro­nouncement and thanked her for being honest with him about her feelings. He then told her truthfully about how he felt about her. The sharing of these feeling was a wonder­ful few moments for both of them. It was a time that neither of them would forget in a long while.

       David had left Monica's side with many questions about where their relation­ship would go and how it should look. In his thinking about it during the last few miles of their trip to the airport David rolled over every option he could think of in his mind and expressed openly to Cathy how he felt inse­cure and con­fused about this new revelation that had occurred with Monica. When David began to express these concerns and displayed his hope­lessness, Cathy jumped right in with a sharp reprimand for him to get off that track. She didn't want to hear any more of his victim stuff. Her reprimand was like a blinding in­sight to David and he immediately saw where his behavior was taking him. How fragile his awareness had been, he thought, and he became embarrassed that he had allowed himself to do that. Cathy wasn't through, however. Her reprimand was over and what she wanted to hear from David was where he really was at a feeling level so she hit him with, "What was your experience like with Monica? And what do you want it to be in the future?" Cathy was great at this sort of process. She knew how to be a facili­tator of another person's growth and aware­ness, and she knew the key to that process had already been opened with David a couple of nights before. The questions came from her heart. She didn't need his answers, but she sensed that he would be served by articu­lating them. She was right, of course, and David immediately took the bait.

       When David began to answer Cathy's ques­tions, things began to become clear for him. All this concern he had experienced before sudden­ly faded and he was able to see the reality before him. All that old stuff that happened back in the 1950's was just a step­ping off point to prepare him for what he had expe­rienced this past week. All the old histo­ry was nice to remember, but it was all yest­erday's news. It would never come back again for him. Now he had a fresher experi­ence of meeting and being with Monica in a real situation and he truly wanted more. He had experienced fear with her; he had touched her and held and kissed her twice. And that, too, was now behind him and did not matter anymore. He had expe­ri­enced some great things and he was grate­ful. His heart had been touched by this wom­an, and he was changed. He was now a new person; not the one with a dream and a fan­tasy, but a reality that was solid and of flesh and of heart. His decision for the future should now be based on that; and where they went was something that would be deter­mined in their own moment.

       For the next two hours, Cathy kept grilling David about what he wanted and what he was willing to do to get it. David struggled with the answers over and over while Cathy continued to be at the wheel well beyond their halfway point. At first David's answers were weak and hollow and he knew it, but when Cathy kept at him, he became clear­er in his commitment to his future. Cathy was doing well keeping David on track on this matter, but the effort was having an equally empowering effect on her. Each answer he gave, she complemented it with her own, silently processing her own life and future. She was getting more than her fair share of insight into her own life while David's was unfolding before her.

       When they finally approached the airport, the eve­ning traffic jam brought them both into the reality of their current moment. They had a plane to catch and were nearing the airport. It was time to switch gears. They arrived at the terminal just in time to rush down the concourse when the second call was being announced for passenger load­ing. When they got into their seats they both fell quickly into a deep and thoughtful silence. When the plane came to its cruising altitude, Cathy reached across to David whose eyes were still closed, grasped his hand and gave it a good squeeze. He wasn’t asleep but her message was clear to David as he patted her hand with his free one. Nothing more needed to be said. The two of them were thankful for their shared gifts of love and companionship these past few days and they both knew they had grown from it. David and Cathy parted company on the plane when he exited in Salt Lake and her flight was to continue to Denver. He kissed her again before he reached up a retrieved his carryon bags, then without any more said, he walked down the aisle with tears welling in his eyes. He wasn’t sure he would ever see this wonderful friend Cathy again.

       The next few months flew by for David. His work and the children kept him busy as ever. He had several short business trips that took him out of town a few nights, but none were extended like his January trip to Red River. When David could get time with his children he told them all about Monica and the strange string of events that led up to his having time with her in New Mexico. They approved and encouraged their dad to do something about this relationship that they could see meant a lot to him. 

       The letters between him and Monica flowed regularly. They were a mix between news of their activities and feelings for each other. The bond between them seemed to grow with every passing week. Their phone calls were few . . . there didn't seem to be a great need to talk to each other right then; their letters seemed to be enough. Most of what each of them needed to say was said in their letters. Talking over the phone seemed to confuse them more and cause them to act unnaturally. It was like they had to be some­one they weren't when they talked over the phone. As time went on, the phone calls became less frequent and both were satisfied that they were going that way.        

       Their communication through letters be­came very sensitive and revealing. Both had written the other short poems full of meta­phors of their lives and their experienc­es. They shared these experiences in varying ways. Much of their experience was dreamy and mystifying. In one letter David wrote to Monica he said, ". . . I touched your face in a dream and I felt the warmth of it in my hand even after I woke up." In one of Monica's letters she said she was walking home from the restaurant where they had walked the night before David left and she felt his pres­ence near her. So real was her experience that night that she said she reached out her hand expecting David to take it.

       In a strange chain of events, just like had happened earlier, suddenly they were sensing this aura of surprise around them­selves. David would find himself looking at things intently like he expected something or someone was going to appear in front of him. Monica would find herself in such deep thought that she would be startled if the phone rang or someone said something to her. Neither shared these strange happenings with the other.

       One day in June, over two weeks since Monica had started to experience these curi­ous feelings, she unexpectedly felt like staying home from work. She wasn't sick, but just didn't feel like putting in the effort to get ready for work. She puttered around the house finding things to do to delay herself from get­ting ready for work. She straightened her bookshelf for no reason. She put things away that could have waited. And on a couple of occasions she stopped in her tracks and said to herself, "You have to get ready and go to work." But then she would start on something else. At about eleven that morning she heard the door on her mailbox close. It was time for the mail to be delivered, but she never stayed home to wait for the mail. She normally went home at noon to pick it up. The noise of the deliv­ery startled her and she felt almost afraid to go to the mail box to see what had been delivered. She wasn't expecting anything from David because she had just the day before received a communica­tion from him. It was very unlikely that she would get another letter the next day. Finally she dragged herself to the mailbox, took out the single letter and brought it back into the house.

       When Monica examined the letter on the outside she couldn't identify who had mailed it. It was in a business envelope and looked offi­cial, but she didn't know anyone from Texas who would be writing her. She turned the letter over and over several times trying to figure out what was inside, but couldn't come up with a clue as to its con­tents. Puzzled now even more, she walked over to the recliner in the living room with the letter and sat down leaving the letter sitting on her lap. Finally, she picked it up and opened it. It contained a letter addressed to her starting with a formal, "Dear Mrs. Alvidez..."

       It was a long letter from a Texas business­man who had recently retired and wanted to buy her interest in the restaurant. He men­tioned that he had spoken to Monica about this matter over two years before when he was visiting the area on a skiing trip. He apolo­gized for taking so much time to get around to writ­ing this letter saying that his retirement had been delayed a year. He men­tioned that he liked the restaurant the first time he saw it. He also liked the town and always wanted to hold an interest in a restau­rant like this. He ex­plained that he really wanted to own the res­taurant outright, but had decided to get into it this way and work there for a year before he went into it full bore. He had already talked with Monica's partner and arranged to buy his interest out and Monica's partner had agreed if Monica was willing to sell her share. He had also made arrangements to have Monica's part­ner manage the restaurant for a year while he got his feet on the floor of the business. Everything now was hedging on Monica's willingness to sell her half of the interest in the restaurant.

       Monica sat dazed reading the last part of the letter over and over again. While she sat there the feeling of tightness and the weight she had felt on her for some time seemed to fade and go away. She even noticed her lip curl into a sly little smile. Was this what all that emotion and strain I’ve been feeling was about? she wondered. The gentleman had written his private business phone and asked that Monica call collect to him if she was at all interested and wanted to discuss the situation with him. Monica sat looking at the letter a few more minutes then she swiveled the chair around to the phone and dialed the man's number. The phone rang twice, and a man answered, "Hello. Is that you Mrs. Alvidez?" Shocked at the answer she got, she squeaked out a quiet, "Yes, how did you know?"  "I just had a feeling it might be you," he said.  "Not too many people call me on this private line, and I knew the letter to you had about enough time to get to you. Thanks for calling me so promptly." Monica wasn't surprised at his comment given all the other strange things that had happened to her lately. Monica composed herself to a more business-like manner and began to explain that she had thought over his proposal and would like to have some time to think things over and talk to her partner before she made up her mind. She tried not to sound too excited about the possibility, but she was sure the gentleman was reading right though her. He agreed that she do that and did not put any pressure on her to make a decision right then. She was re­lieved, asked him a few questions about when she had met him and why he was anxious to buy her and her partner out, then she hung up.

       When Monica returned the phone to its carriage, she let out a sigh that almost caused her to faint for lack of oxygen. She hadn't even allowed herself to hope that there would be miracles like this happen that would allow her the freedom to make a new start in life. She knew someday that she would get out of the business, but this was almost too much to expect . . . especially in light of recent events with David. Even though things were getting real serious with her and David, she hadn't even allowed herself to think about any grand possi­bilities like this. In their letters they had both mentioned many times how nice it would be if they both lived in the same town again. But neither had ventured any real possibilities that this could occur in the near future. Now may­be it was possible after all. Monica was so over­whelmed at the thoughts of all of this she just laid back in the recliner and cried until she couldn't cry any more. She had reacted in the only way she knew how to.

       Her crying seemed to relax Monica and about the time she had closed her eyes and pushed back on her recliner to think, the phone rang. It almost caused her to jump out of her chair and she grabbed it almost before the ring was complete. It was her partner wanting to know if she was okay. Before she had a chance to respond he explained that he didn't want to butt in but had noticed the past while that she seemed to be acting strange and wondered if she were sick or was there was something he could do.

       Getting her composure and apologiz­ing for acting so strangely, Monica gave her partner a brief synopsis of receiving the letter and the call she had made to its author. Ask­ing what he thought about her selling her half of the business was hard for Monica, but she thought it best to get right down to this ques­tion. To her surprise her partner seemed happy for her and somehow relieved.  He, of course, had already had a similar con­versation with the person who wanted to buy them out and he hadn't said anything for fear of hurting Monica's feelings. He, too, want­ed to get free of the business and the offer the man had made to have him continue as manager for the first year had seemed a perfect way for him to get things put together before he completely pulled out of the business.

       Monica's partner explained to her that he had already considered asking her if she would be interested in the kind of deal the man had proposed, but that he had not gotten around to it yet. He apologized for his delay, but she understood. It all had hap­pened so fast for her, that she, too, was feeling a little skittish. Now that they were both a little at ease, she ex­plained that she was not sick and had not been, and that as far as she could tell, her screwy behavior was just due to tensions she was experiencing because of some major changes taking place in her life. She wasn't even able to explain them, but one thing he could depend on was that she was all right now that the offer for the buy-out had happened. Monica then suggested that she come into to work and they could discuss this new situation in more depth. She said she would get ready and be there in twenty minutes.

       Within an hour they had a plan and a price they would take for the restaurant and a cou­ple of options they would consider should the man not want to negotiate. That con­cluded, they called the man with their propos­al. The man said he was excited about the proposal and would have his attorney get in touch with them with a final written offer. He also said that within twenty-four hours a partial payment check would be in the mail for them with an Earnest Money Agreement enclosed.

       Monica couldn't wait to get home and call David with the news, but was terri­fied at how to put it to him that she wanted to move to Salt Lake as soon as the deal was closed. She was so excited about all the possi­bilities the sale of the restaurant held for her and even him that she could hardly stand it. She had been wishing for and opportunity like this for some time. Years back when her children were going to school she had at­tempted to get into college herself, but get­ting her high school diploma was all she was able to do under the circumstances. At the time she vowed some day she would get back into school and get her college degree. Her mother had always encour­aged her chil­dren to go to school to better themselves, but none of her brothers or sisters had completed more than high school. Monica in her earlier years had not even done that since her moth­er died and she became the "mother" to her brothers and sisters and had quit school. Then she got married soon after she turned nineteen holding her back again from getting her high school diploma until she was over thirty.

       Monica's hopes now were drastically changed. With the money she would be get­ting from the sale, she could move back to Utah where she had always loved to be and she could at last do more than be a slave to her circumstances. This opportunity had also raised her hopes that something more tangi­ble could now happen between she and David. All at once, whole new possibilities seemed to be opening up for her. She had never felt happier in her life, except, perhaps when her oldest daughter, Marie, had given birth to Monica's first grandchild. She might even be able to see Marie now. Monica was flying with her new found hope. She had to go home right away and call David. Then she remem­bered that David would be working for a couple more hours. Better that she wait and call him when he got home from work. She would use the office phone and call him and remain at work for the evening.

       Waiting for evening to come was torture for Monica, but finally the hours went by and she was on the phone with him. David was surprised to hear Monica's voice in the mid­dle of the week. Most of their phone calls had been on the weekend. David was not com­pletely surprised at what Monica told him. The last couple of days were just like before for him. He knew somehow that something important was about to happen. He had felt it coming for several days. David was amazed at how clear things were becoming for him and how ready he was to commit to something like the oppor­tunity for them to be together. Everything was falling into place. It was like he had planned it that way. He recalled the long conversation he had a few weeks back with Cathy and how she had encouraged him to be open to all possibilities and to allow things to happen rather than force them all the time. He thought it more than a coincidence that his son had recently moved into an apartment and was making his own way now. His move had opened up a space in his little home so he could even have another person living there comfortably with him and his youngest daugh­ter. This daughter had even been talking about moving out and living on campus while she attended university. He had attempted at the time she mentioned it to encourage her to continue living at home for economic reasons, but now he might be open to her moving out too. The wheels were turning for David while Monica told her story and talked about her desire to move to Salt Lake.

       At one point of the conversation, David said to Monica, "I want you to con­sider moving into my home with me when you come to Salt Lake. We can see how that works for a while and if it seems like too much for you, or me for that matter, we can work out an­other arrangement. But moving in with me would solve a lot of problems for us, and we could work out any others that are generated when you are here. I have a spare room now that my son has moved out and we can set you up there if necessary." When David made the suggestion about Monica living in a separate room in his house, he hadn’t really thought this through. But as he said this, he considered it the best move for the moment since they hadn’t talked about this option before and this needed to be a separate conversation. She thought the same thing when he invited her to live in his home, but she, too, thought it best to wait for a better oppor­tuni­ty to work that out.

       The sound of the offer was frighten­ing to Monica in some ways, but with all the other things that had happened this past while, it seemed to fall into place that she move in with David. But it did occur to her that she was being given a propo­sition to live with a man that she really did not yet know very well. But it seemed so natural that the situation was developing the way it was. Without thinking about it much more, Monica said she would seriously consider the offer, believing, really, that it was a very good idea.

       When they hung up their phones, both David and Monica were totally inundat­ed with questions in their minds. Things were falling into place almost too fast and like Monica had said, they seemed "very natural," but there were still unnumbered questions to be re­solved and they were all out ahead for both of them. David was satisfied with the offer he had made to Monica and he was totally committed to having the rest of the scenario play itself out.

       It took, another two months for things to work out for Monica to be ready to move to Salt Lake. The by-out had gone very smoothly when the buyer came the very next week to New Mexico to make final arrangements. He want­ed to start working in the restaurant within twenty days of making the deal. He had paid Monica cash for his settlement with her and because of it she felt richer than she ever thought she could be. Over the years that she had been part owner of the restaurant, its value had increased significantly. If she never worked again, she would be set if her money was properly in­vested. But that was all out ahead of her too.

       During this interim while Monica was closing out her deal with the restaurant, David had several conversations with his children about the implications of him having a woman living with him about which he knew so little, and had only really known through his brief few days in New Mexico and through the communications they had shared those past few months. Much to his delight, his children were very supportive of his move and his daughter went the next step in arranging to move out to the campus housing, which she had wanted to do for some time anyway. She had friends at school that lived in the student housing and they all wanted her to move in with them. David agreed with the move and then started making plans to remodel some portions of the old home so it would be more livable for his new live-in companion.

       When the time came for the move, David flew down to New Mexico so he could assist Monica in getting ready for the move. She picked him up at the airport in Albuquerque and they had the next three hours driving back to Red River to get reacquainted. They had fun driving up to Monica's moun­tain town. On the way they stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Taos that Monica had heard about. They laughed like children at every­thing and both felt younger than they had felt in years. Not a whole lot was said about how they were going to manage life together; it just didn't seem appropriate right then. They had a move to organize and a lot of work to do to get ready for that. A rental truck was ar­ranged for and the plan was that they would finish the packing, taking a day or two to do that, use another day loading the truck, then drive on to Salt Lake with her car in tow behind the truck. David had things arranged on his end for her to move right in.

       It was late evening when Monica and David arrived at her house. They were both exhausted from the drive and all the sleep both had lost the few days before this while they went about all their organizational things. When they went into Monica's house it occurred to Monica that in all the letters they had ex­changed and the conversa­tions they had over the phone, they had never talked about inti­mate things. They had talked about everything else, but never the implications they were about to experience with living together and possibly even sleep­ing in the same bed. What's more, they hadn't even discussed the arrange­ments for the next couple of nights at Monica's house while they got ready for the move.

       Once they had staggered into the house amongst all the boxes that Monica had al­ready packed, their moods changed from the lightness they had felt coming up from the airport, to a more sobering, serious mood. For a moment, they both just stood there looking at each other. Then they fell into an embrace that seemed to take all the worries and stain away. When they finished their embrace, Monica took David by the hand into her bedroom that he had not yet even seen. Then as if it had already been arranged, she said to David, "Here's where we will be spending the next couple of nights. I hope you won't think my bed is too hard. The bathroom is over there," she said waving in its direction.  Please make this your home." At that she left his side and went in the other room to get his suitcase. David walked over to the bed and patted it then sat down somewhat bewildered by her actions and the things she just said. The bed was hard, he thought.  Monica scurried back into the room with the suitcase placing it at his feet and turned to the closet where she took out her robe. Neither spoke while this was going on and David continued to sit on the edge of the bed and watch her every move. She acted as if this was something she had been doing for years. It was not that she was ignoring his presence, because she kept look­ing at him when she would pass, each time acknowledg­ing his presence with a wily smile or nod, so casual like she had done this a thousand times before in front of him. Monica threw the robe on her dressing chair and began to dis­robe.

       David watched her, warmed by the sen­sation of this strange and exciting woman disrobing in front of him, but he still remained as if glued and silenced on the bed. Once completely naked, Monica put on her robe, not even tying the front closed. Then she walked into the bathroom emerging with two fresh towels, pointed to them, then set them on the toilet. Before David could speak or react, she came over to the bed, took his face in both hands and gave him a passionate kiss, then said, "I've laid out some towels if you want to take a shower. I will join you there after you're in if you like." With that, she laid his suitcase on the dresser and sat down on the bed next to David. Almost as if he was programmed, David got up, disrobed and walked to the shower. David's head was still reeling when Monica slid the show­er door back and joined him. His first reac­tion was to notice how beautiful she was and how wonderfully propor­tioned and smooth her brown body was. It was a little embarrassing for him since his pot was not slimmed down as much as he would have liked it to be.

       As gentle and poised as he had al­ways dreamed Monica would be, she took the washcloth and soap and almost ceremoni­ously washed David from head to foot. He did the same to her and then they embraced and stayed in the shower until all the hot water had run out. As if shocked now into the reality of their situation, David and Monica stepped out of the shower, toweled each other off, and then hand in hand, retired to the bed and its clean, cool sheets.

       Nothing could have been more per­fect, David thought while they lay cuddling under the cool sheet. Still, neither of them had said much since they entered the bed­room earlier. There just wasn't a whole lot either of them could say. These past few moments together in the shower and now in bed had been so powerful and sensual, David had lost all hope of being logical or calculated. He had been satisfied with letting things go where they would go . . . something that was very unusual for him.

       They laid there for some time in each other's arms quietly touching and massaging each other back, arms and faces. Time seemed not to exist, but rather just paced them while they got to know each other in this intimate way. All that they were doing was masterfully, sexual and sensual, but nether seemed to be driven to culminate these activ­ities by have sex. Neither was afraid, nor did either of them have expectations for themselves or the other per­son. The natural flow of things was heart­warming, soothing and beautifully executed. They were at last experiencing happiness they had longed for for years and both felt deserving of it.

       The exhaustion they had both experi­enced seemed to capture them both when they went to sleep in each other's arms. Neither woke or stirred for hours. Then the sun coming over the top of the drape hit David and woke him up. It was already late morn­ing. Monica was still resting on his arm like it was some­thing she had done all her life. He didn't know it, but she had been awake for some time just lying there quietly, not to disturb David, wait­ing for him to stir from his deep sleep.

       She spoke first startling him with her, "Good morning. Did you sleep well?" He turned his head to hers and without answer­ing kissed her long and tenderly. She was determined to get things underway, so she threw back the covers exposing both of their nakedness, jumped out of bed and shot into the bathroom. When she came out par­tially dressed, she signaled him to follow her saying the bathroom was free.

       Things flowed smoothly the next two days while they finished her packing, went out to dinner, acted like kids in love and made love together in her bed. Like they were operating on the same agendas they talked at length about their sexual histories. Neither of them had experienced any sexual relations with anyone for sever­al years. Monica's tubes were tied after the birth of her second daugh­ter so she wouldn't get pregnant by her hus­band again, so, essen­tially they were both safe and ready for any sexual contact they may be entering into.

       At last everything was ready for their departure. Friends had come to assist in load­ing the truck and the two new friends and lovers now were ready to be on their way to Salt Lake. The two of them would have about ten or more hours together while the truck lum­bered north . . . much time to talk about things that they had not talked about before. Both expressed for the first time their concerns about living together and tried to look at all the alternatives they had to work with should their being together not be for the best. But the way things stood for them in the present moment, they were feeling very good about the arrange­ment. Monica kept think­ing about something that she had learned from David several weeks before, that there was something to be learned from every experience, and that thought was comforting to her, relieving her from much of the worry she might otherwise have. With most of the heavy stuff out of the way in the early part of the trip, they soon began to enjoy the ride and each other's company. Both had great expectations for their future together.

       Everything that could possibly happen with two people who were in major transition hap­pened in the next few months of David's and Monica's life. If something could go wrong or be embarrassing it happened. If there was a chance to have some fun and be ultimately crazy, they experienced it. If things could go flat, they collapsed. Or if things could be wonderful they were. Overall, however, the magic that had brought these people together continued to hold them in place. There seemed to be no end to their mysterious connectedness. Monica would be thinking something and David would say it. David would go on a short consulting trip and Monica would know he was going to call her at a certain time. Something new would happen in Monica's life and David would have already anticipated it.

       Monica challenged her dream and when the next semester rolled around at the University of Utah, she en­rolled full time. She took all the courses she could cram into her schedule, and was a dedicated learner. She consumed her work of learning and added it to her life. She practiced what she learned.

       David and Monica were married in De­cember in the winter of their lives. They creat­ed a Latino-style wedding party in an old church and invited all their friends. Monica located the two Mexican women that had been her friends in Bingham years before and invited one of them to be her Maid of Honor. She paid for her father and step mother to fly back to Salt Lake from Puerto Rico to witness the wedding. All of hers and David's children and grandchildren rallied around and supported their new rela­tionship. Cathy and her husband Will few in from Denver and attended the wedding. The Latino party with its varied mix of ethnic groups was a new experience for many of the attendees, which made it all the more fun and intimate.

       When the wedding reception party was underway and the music was reeling through the hall, Monica was busily making sure that everything was perfect. David had slipped away to talk to his old friend Henry Galvin whom he hadn't seen for years. During one of the songs, David looked across the hall and saw Monica standing with her back to him while she was talking to someone. He was moved to walk across the hall and ask her to dance.

       Monica turned to David when she heard his voice. Her expression did not change when he asked her to dance like she did not under­stand English. David smiled at the gesture and reached out his hand to her, at the same time pointing to the dance floor. When the dance started, David sensed a slight familiar smell to her hair as it brushed against his face. Monica made contact with David's eyes, but did not change her expres­sion while they danced. When the dance ended, David stood on the floor hoping Monica would want to have another dance with him. Taking the subtle hint, Monica put her arm around David's waist and gave him a little squeeze. Like before, almost forty years to the day, Monica under­stood exactly what David was thinking. This time, however, she ac­cepted and they dance several more dances before leaving the dance floor. It had all come around to this.

 

                             The End