Episode Eleven

…previously, from the Hobbomock Chronicles

The persistence of the human mind in maintaining its perception of the world, despite the changes that come with every new day, has been described as both the keystone to a rational life and the most pervasive hindrance to growth and self-development.

To make matters worse, (or better), there is an inverse chronological bias regarding the power of memories, i.e. the earlier in life, the stronger and more persistent. Stop anyone on the street and ask: ‘Tell me what you did on this day two years ago.’ You are not likely to need a lot of paper to write down their response. Now, wait for a different group of pedestrians to approach your station and ask: ‘What did you do on your favorite summer day before you went to high school?’ Be prepared to write.

‘We grow older…’ And we travel into our future in the most efficient circus-clown-car in the universe.  Memories and fond recollections of our past, prejudices and plain bull-headed ignorance, willful and otherwise non-productive fidgeting in the backseat, we’re hopelessly impatient to ‘get there’ yet always ready to jump out at the next rest stop we encounter.

Little wonder that people seem less inclined to change as time passes. A lot of energy is necessary to maintain the fiction of our past in the face of the reality of an approaching future.

 

Hobbomock
(1965)

“Allyson!”

Michael Stone stood in the doorway at an angle of welcome, holding the door with his left hand. His right extended towards his friend and dinner guest, inviting her into his home.

Allyson Ross repressed a laugh of relief. She’d been fifty-fifty on how seriously to take Michael’s invitation to dinner at his house on the East Side. Part of the fifty was grounded in a work schedule that left barely enough time to sleep and eat. The other fifty of uncertainly was inspired by the invitation itself. Arriving in the mail, it included, ‘Semi-formal dress’.

A month had passed since she’d given him a ride up from the beach house without him following up on his suggestion they get together. Given it was her first full year on the staff of the pediatrics department, she had little time for a social life.

Standing in the doorway, she was glad she indulged herself. Of course, getting dressed was disconcerting as she had to dig very far into her closet to find something to wear that didn’t shout, ‘No, I didn’t just get out of work!’

Wearing an actual dress, she studied his face. Always charming, Michael was one of those men for whom the border between suave and glib was poorly defined. His eyes betrayed his feelings, as he stared for ten seconds more than demanded of a host greeting a guest.

He was dressed the part as well. A surprising combination of black three-piece suit with, oddly, a bowtie.

“Come in. Your timing is impeccable. I apologize for not asking your input on decor that you so graciously offered the last time you were here.” Michael closed the leaded-glass and carved-wood door, nodding to the left of the central hall.

“I had someone come in and furnish the place. My only input was, ‘Make the interior look as it had when the original owners moved in.’ Quite the story behind this house. When we have an hour to spare, I’ll tell you all about it. Dinner is almost ready, but allow me to give you a Cook’s tour before we sit down to eat.”

Clearly enjoying the house, Michael walked with her down the central hallway. The formal living room was to the left. It had a tray ceiling and, to the left of the marble fireplace, a full height mirror, which doubled the impression of space. At the far end, an open door showed bookcases and a single desk. Obviously, a study. She could see the leather and brass furnishings in the reflections of the French doors to a garden. He waved upwards as they approached the staircase, “The house has four bedrooms and an excellent master bedroom, En suite, of course.”

“Of course,” Allyson watched for any signs of innuendo. Their friendship extended backwards in life to that curious neutral zone of pre-adolescence. Theirs made up for its seeming lack of passion with a sharing of their respective private lives that was quietly satisfying. For her, at any rate.

The trip through the kitchen showed it to be empty of people, yet full of activity. She turned to ask Michael about the preparations when he smiled and said,

“Shall we go into the dinning room?”

She was surprised at the formal dining room. The rest of the decor was obviously the work of a professional. Every room was impeccable in design and execution. And, as personal as a showroom in a high-end furniture store.

The dining room was different. There were two place settings at the end of the long table nearest the kitchen. Sliver and china reflected the restless illumination of the two candles dividing the one end of the table from the two thirds empty end.

Allyson felt a sliding pressure along her left leg.  Only then, she noticed her host standing behind the chair, nodding to her place.

Seeing his smile of laughter, she sat, grateful that her innate social ineptitude had missed an opportunity.

“Tonight,”

Allyson was surprised to see that Michael had taken off his jacket and draped a white linen cloth over one forearm. She wondered how she missed the transition but decided to play along. This was more consistent with the playful and attentive boy of her school day summers. Certainly more so than the overly confident financier who staggered, bleeding from the head, out of the basement of her family’s summer home less than two months prior.

“The fare will be seafood and the flesh of animals. Those, I might add, with the good sense to have evolved on dry land.”

She laughed as Michael, in the role of butler, shook out the linen napkin and waited. Her nod resulted in a brief, but very respectable imitation of Groucho Marx, as he let the white cloth fall into her lap.

“Very good, ma’am. Perhaps an aperitif before the main course?”

“That sounds lovely.” Allyson raised her own eyebrows, in a slight motion of non-verbal question.

“Edward, ma’am. Edward Fenton.” Nodding in acknowledgement with a degree of self-assertion that looked, for a second, like a bow, Michael turned and disappeared into the kitchen. Almost immediately, he returned with two glasses of sherry. Placing one in front of her and the other at the currently empty place next to hers, and returned to the kitchen.

Michael stepped into the dining room without a word and sat down.

“So, how was your day at the hospital?”

Pleasantly surprised at Michael’s commitment to a fanciful evening, Allyson, resolving  to play along, thought, ‘A somewhat formal dinner with a friend, revealing unsuspected levels of imagination if a play is what he wants, who am I to hinder the entertainment.’

“It was, as it often is, ninety percent boring routine, seven percent triumph and two percent tragedy.” She let the liquid bathe her lips but did not drink of the sherry.

“And the remaining one percent?”

Allyson smiled over the crystal half-moon and described a day in the life of a new pediatrician.

The evening was half silly, half passable amateur theater and thoroughly fascinating. Allyson could not remember being so caught up in a shared entertainment, since she was a girl dreaming of becoming a physician.

Through dinner, which was quite expertly prepared, there grew another pleasant contradiction to her perception of the man she’d known since girlhood.

Michael played the parts of the butler and host with a trueness to character that any writer would envy. Edward Fenton, the butler character, was so real in voice and mannerisms that, closing her eyes for a moment, as he cleared the plates after the main course, she had no trouble believing that Michael, a man she’d known since childhood was sitting, silently in his place at the table.

Finally, they moved to the living room. Fortunately, this part of the evening required of Michael only one speaking role. And yet, Allyson had a nagging feeling there was something different.

She noticed that Michael looked at their reflection in the ceiling-to-floor mirror more than once. He was many things, handsome and confident and self-assured. What he wasn’t, was vain.

Yet, there was nothing of a, ‘checking to make sure his hair looked good or his clothing hung correctly’ sense to her impression. It was more, ‘A general sense of wonder.’

Then there was a moment when she distinctly heard him say, “Thought I’d have more tolerance at this stage of the game.” The Michael she knew would never question his capacity for anything he chose to indulge in.

At the end of the evening, he invited her out to the patio to sit. Again, she noticed a subtle inconsistency. Michael seemed uncomfortable when, sitting on the bench looking at the night sky, she took his arm and brought it around her shoulders.

It wasn’t that he was distant or detached. In fact, in the course of conversation at the dinner table, she found herself saying, “I can’t believe you remember that, we couldn’t have been more than twelve.”

Michael was very intelligent. When setting a goal, he did not let anything or anyone stand in his way. One of the reasons their personal relationship stalled, after moving beyond badminton and swimming during the summer, was that he had definite plans for his life. They included having a wife and a family.

Unfortunately or not, she had her own dreams and ambitions. Allyson Ross had no desire to settle for being, ‘a part’ of another persons’ life.

She thought about the previous nine months as the newest physician in the pediatrics department at Rhode Island Hospital and smiled.

Michael, who she’d of sworn still had his eyes closed, said,

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing important. A little silly, in fact.”

“Now you totally have to tell me, seeing how you’ve Mona Lisa’d a simple mid-evening smile.”

Allyson fought the natural reaction of her face to frown in puzzlement. Another thing Michael wouldn’t have said.

Whether it was at the summer cottage or on the phone, catching up on life’s adventures. Michael was the best of listeners. Except this evening, he sounded genuinely interested in what she had to say.

And there was something odd about how he spoke, ‘No, not spoke‘ she corrected herself, ‘How he expresses himself‘.

There was an unmistakable joy in using words that that, on paper, would be unusual at best and, incorrect at worst. Yet when he used them it made sense. She thought about the first time she went to the Half Note in New York City and how much she enjoyed the jazz; once she stopped thinking and simply listened. There were three or four statements through the evening like that.

She decided that she loved solving a mystery almost as much as being a physician.