Epilogue

Part One

            I set my cup of tea on the windowsill and leaned forward a bit, looking down on the rain-drenched London street scene six floors beneath me. The rain had been falling steadily since eight o'clock that morning, as I'd noticed after shutting off the alarm clock next to me, and it didn't appear as if it would be stopping any time soon. Pedestrians hurried along below, concealed beneath a plethora of various colored umbrellas. A few unlucky souls had been caught in the rain without anything to keep over their heads, so they were the most frantic of all, dodging drops for cover.

            "Hmph…summertime in London," I murmured, pulling the sides of my sweater closer around me. Just looking at all that rain made me ache all over.

            I heard the bathroom door open behind me, and then Mary Ann said, "Well, I guess I'm off, Laurie."

            Turning around to face my colleague, I smiled. "You have a nice flight home, Mar."

            Mary Ann adjusted the lace collar on her blouse in the mirror. "What time are you leaving?"

            "Midnight," I said, glancing at the two plane tickets on top of my planner. "Pamela's supposed to meet me here at around five o'clock once her exams are through."

            "I hope she did well," Mary Ann continued, reaching for her purse and jacket. "She sounded a little frazzled on the phone the other day."

            "She'll be fine. You'd think after all these years of living with two college professors she'd be used to a thing like that."

            "And her Auntie Mary Ann, too!"

            "Oh, of course--how could I forget? The person who convinced her to go on this money-sucking year abroad!" I laughed. "I'll be sure and tell her that her advisor said hello."

            "Do, indeed…You take care, then, Laur."

            "You too," I replied, looking at the wall clock. Three-thirty…Pam would be calling me in about an hour or so.

            Mary Ann closed the door behind her, and after a moment, I walked over and secured the chain lock. Now I had nothing in the world to do except finish reading through the lecture literature I'd collected over the past few days. All in all, things had worked out just about perfectly for me that week!

I'd known it would end up that way months and months ago when Mary Ann and I made our plans to attend the International English Honors Society conference in London. The last day of the four-day event fell on May 18th, a Thursday, the same day that Pamela finished her study abroad semester at St. Priscilla's College just outside of London. I'd arranged to keep the hotel room for one additional day so Pam and I could fly out of Heathrow together that night. And now, for the first time in a long time, I had some much-deserved free time to myself without any hassles to worry about. I wasn't going to teach any summer courses at Dominican for the first time in nearly ten years, which would be a nice break.

I sat at the writing desk in the corner of the room, moved my laptop computer to the side, and flipped through the upcoming blank pages in my planner. Mini-calendar, birthdays and anniversary page, time zones, zip codes, area codes, copies of my spring syllabi from work, business contacts--A, B, C…

And there on the very last page of the Z section, paper-clipped over Cora Zeiger's old address in Bolingbrook, was that old photograph from so many years ago. The white edges around the print had gone yellow ages ago, as did the marks from the scotch tape I'd once had on the back of it, but otherwise I'd tried keeping it in the best condition I could.

Could it really have been thirty-three years since then? I stared down at a very young Laurie and Paul smiling back up at me from the mists of time. God…I could remember the very moment that picture was taken as well as I remembered what I'd just eaten for lunch! We had been on that plane from New York to California, and Paul had hidden behind a copy of Life for the first two shots Ringo took… I was so young then! It was almost like looking at a picture of the college kids and realizing rather wistfully just how long it had been since I was twenty-one.

That picture had graced the busy pages of my scribbled-in planners for over twenty years now. I'd kept it covered up pretty well--everyone at work and at home knows that they are under penalty of death if they mess with it! The only time anyone had ever taken a peek at the contents was when Pamela was about four years old. We were at Jewel picking up a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, and Pam was playing with my planner as I wheeled her along in the shopping cart. She was busily digging for the pocket calculator I kept in the side pocket when she came across the picture.

"Mommy, who's this?" she asked.

"That's one of my old friends," I'd said calmly, expecting a berage of questions to come spouting out of her. By the time I got the words out of my mouth, though, she had already found the calculator and was busily punching the numbers and reading off "One…two…three…five…six…eight…Mommy, there's no ten button…" I really don’t think she even remembers it anymore, since it was only mentioned in passing.

I closed the planner and looked again at the clock. The green numbers shone a bright 3:37. Now what would I do for the next hour and a half? I'd just realized that I had nothing to keep myself occupied with!

Scrounging through my purse, I found a few pound notes and figured I could go down to the book shop in the lobby and find a magazine or newspaper to keep myself occupied with as I waited for the phone call. I shut off all the lights, remembered to pocket my room key, and went down to the ground floor to buy some reading material in the little store.

The book store had a long rack of international publications available for purchase, and I flipped through the back issues of People magazine stacked on a lower shelf of the display--and then I saw Paul's face on the cover of one of the issues from about a month earlier.

Yep, there he was, arm in arm with Heather Mills, his new love. I'd remembered receiving a couple emails from Pam telling me that Paul had some new girlfriend, and now it was pretty much confirmed. I'd laughed heartily as Pam typed in the little angry faces in the subject -- >:( . She'd had a bit of a crush on Paul since she was about eight years old and I'd found her dancing around the living room to my Beatles records, and this was not good news for her. I, on the other hand, hadn’t given it much thought. I was in the middle of grading final papers and reading the cumulative essay exams the senior English majors took a few weeks before graduation.

I bought the issue, planning on giving it to Pam for her collection once I met up with her, and hurried back upstairs just in case there was the slimmest chance that she might be calling me early. Sure enough, I was rushing down the hallway when I heard the phone in one of the rooms ringing--probably mine!

Unlocking the door and flinging it open so hard I was sure I'd left a dent in the wall, I dove across the bed and picked up the receiver before the caller would get impatient and hang up. "Hel-hello?" I breathed. Christ—I had to slow down in my old age or I’d snap a bone!

"Uh…Mom?"

"Yeah, it's me," I said, glad to hear Pam's voice again. "I just had to…come running back in here to answer the phone…what's up?"

"I just finished my exam on the Romantics," she said quickly. I could tell she was on a lousy pay phone in those dorms again; the connection kept cutting out every few seconds.

"And? How did we do?"

"Well, I'm sure I passed…whether or not I'll be making high honors this semester is another issue altogether," she said. "Maybe I'm overreacting…I think maybe I got a B."

"Hey, that' s fine," I said. "That syllabus you showed me was pretty hefty. How did your Shakespeare class go?"

"Oh, I'm sure I aced that one."

"Great…so, are you on your way?"

"Um…yeah--could you hold on for a minute?" she said.

"Mmm-hmm."

I heard the muffled sound of her hand cupping the receiver and dull tones of her talking to someone else near her. "Sorry," she said a moment later. "Someone was asking me something…Uh, what time were we supposed to meet?"

"Five."

"Oh…uh, well, um--god--you didn't make reservations for dinner or anything, did you?"

"No, honey. Actually, I figured you'd be worn out from cramming all night and hit the sack as soon as you got here. It might do you some good to get a little rest before the flight--you know how little sleep you get on planes."

"Oh, okay…'cause I want to bring someone over there for you to meet."

Ohh go-o-od…I could just tell what she was getting at from her halted speech! She'd done this a few times before. She had a new boyfriend! Leave it to Pam to fall in love with someone during her last month in a foreign country!

"All right, love--bring him over."

"How did you know it was a him?"

"Honey, I’m your mother--I can just see the look on your face right now," I explained. I really could! She probably had the phone cord twisted around her arm as she fidgeted with it nervously. "Just bring him with…as long as it isn't Mr. Welsh what's-his-name from Great Expectations that Michelle's in love with."

Pam snickered. "Oh, yeah, right. Like I'd dare steal Ioan from her," she muttered. "She'd kill me first and ask questions later…no, it's not him…So, I should be there in about forty-five minutes, okay?"

"That's fine. I'll be here."

"And maybe we could go to dinner somewhere…nice and quiet?" she said more like a question.

"Sounds like a welcome relief. See you in a little while. Just ring the phone when you get here and I’ll head on down to the lobby."

"Okay; bye."

I hung up the phone and sighed. I really didn't want to spend my evening meeting yet another one of her boyfriends. She'd had some halfway-polite ones during high school and college--but she'd also dated some of the students in my Composition classes that I wished would fall off the face of the earth! Now that has to be the strangest thing in the world: having one of your students show up at your house two hours after class to pick up your daughter for a date!

And I ended up spending the remainder of my hour of free time choosing a nicer outfit from my suitcase and trying to do something nice with my hair. I'd recently had it cut short, the blonde ends curling just below my jawline, and there wasn't a thing I could do with it! I'd been used to longer hair for such a long time. After a while, I just abandoned my efforts and pushed it back with a headband. Hell, it wasn't like I was going to dinner with the Queen.

Continue to Part Two

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