By
Don Abdul (c) 2011
PART TWO: In the Beginning
….It had been hard to tell exactly what the problem was but despite the fact that Shirley had been lucky in life generally, she gradually sank into despair. Not even her blessings of a healthy son who had just gone off to college, a loving husband, relative wealth and a great group of friends could ease her suffering.
She even saw a shrink once who had explained to her that she was merely going through a mid life crisis. She was familiar with the phrase but she hadn’t realized just how difficult it was to deal with. Things got so bad that when her husband who was a petroleum engineer got a lucrative job offer in Nigeria, they had both agreed he should take it. Since their son had gone off to college and would be spending his vacations travelling the world, they also decided to put up their bigger home for lease while Shirley would find a smaller property where Jack, her husband could come home to when he was on vacation stateside.
It was actually a separation through the back door and they both knew it, but Jack loved her too much to stand in the way of what she needed. He knew that she needed to work through the crisis on her own terms; he simply wanted to be there for her when needed him, which most likely would be when she was done sorting herself out.
**********
One lovely summer afternoon a couple of months after she moved into the new house, she was strolling as usual when she came across a very handsome black youth in his late teens, or so she had thought at the time. He had stopped and starred at her as she walked on by, and although she fought so desperately to resist the temptation of turning around and looking right back at him, she lost control, and then dropped her little purse just to see what would happen, and also to give herself a plausible excuse to turn around and go back without giving away her true motive.
She had only gone a few yards down the road when he caught up with her and said in his very smooth matter of fact voice, “excuse me ma’am but you dropped your purse back there.”
‘Oh my God!’ Shirley thought as she stopped dead in her tracks; her eyes roamed over his gorgeous body as she drank in his awesome physique. He was 5’10” tall and looked very fit. He had been jogging in his sweat pants and sleeveless t-shirt that showed off his awesome biceps.
Feeling hot and speechless, her situation became even more awkward as she quickly realized the flaw in her impromptu plan; she had baited the young man but she hadn’t figured out how she would play it if he walked up to her like he just did, and she was quite flustered by it too. She willed herself to be calm but it didn’t do much for her shaky voice as she thanked him and took the purse from him. Her first instinct was to snatch the purse and then run off like a silly school girl, but he made that impossible by holding on to his end of it as he regarded her beautiful mature face.
Shirley recovered much of her composure first and pulled at her purse a little harder saying, “Ahm... thank you for fetching my purse… Mr….” it worked, and he let go of her purse so suddenly she lost her balance. He rushed forward and caught her just in time. His strong youthful arms were around her waist and her face a mere couple of inches from his. The warmth of his hot breath turned her legs to jelly, and if he hadn’t been holding her she would have spilled on the ground for sure.
“Careful pretty lady,” “And whatever did you mean thanks for fetching my purse?” he asked mimicking her New England accent.