Ben was dozing and that was for the best. As I pulled the bed sheet up to cover his naked body, I felt powerless to stop the flood of emotion that engulfed me when I recalled the events of the past few years and I wept as the memories streamed thru my conscious mind.
The Philadelphia Story: Final Chapter
ONE:
After graduation, I remained in the Philadelphia area seeking employment. Chock full with two and four year colleges, I stood a much better chance of finding a teaching job than in Florida.
After my interviews at various campus locations, I spent time exploring the tremendous diversity of activities that existed within a few hours drive of the city. Melissa and I went clubbing on Delaware Avenue and spent New Years Eve in Atlantic City playing the slot machines.
With New York City close by, I attended my first Broadway show, "The Lion King" and did all the touristy sightseeing one associates with Manhattan. On a cold February day, I made the pilgrimage to Washington DC and was awed by the stark beauty of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Then was moved to tears by the tragic waste of so many lives whose names are enshrined on the wall.
Several months passed and not one offer from any of the positions that I applied for. I was just about to give up hope when one dreary Thursday afternoon with grocery bags in both arms, I was walking up the front steps to my apartment building and the doorman handed me an express mail envelope.
"Came about an hour ago." He stated.
Per Melissa's instructions to me, the out of town neophyte, I tipped the doorman.
"Always tip the doorman." She would say like a mantra.
Inside the privacy of my apartment, I tore open the envelope and read the enclosed letter.
"Dear Ms. Lowry,
The College of Liberal Arts is pleased to offer you the position of Instructor in the English Department..."
I gaped at the letter in wide eyed disbelief. My first job in the academic world and only a thirty minute commute from my apartment. The following week I met with the Dean and he outlined the course details and requirements.
"If you're available, I have a Freshman English class in summer session that you can teach." He stated and I accepted immediately.
With a two week deadline to prepare lesson plans and course materials, I worked feverishly and finished the day before the scheduled start of classes.
On my first day, the Dean introduced me to the faculty in my department. I taught both summer sessions and formed several social friendships with my colleagues. We went to a local tavern called the Rusty Whistle for happy hour every Friday afternoon. I wanted to continue the tradition that I started with Melissa in graduate school.
When the faculty was at full strength the size of our happy hour socials doubled. During our first social of the fall semester, I saw many new faces but one caught my eye. She was sitting at the far end of the table with a colleague I met last summer. Jerry waved his hand in a "come here" gesture and introduced the very pretty woman sitting next to him as Nadia.
"Nice to meet you." I said cordially.
I sat next to Nadia and discovered that she was from Russia and moved to the United States with her parents when she was in her early teens. This was her third year teaching Biological Sciences at the college.
Nadia's voice had the barest hint of an accent when she spoke and I told her so.
"I studied English in school before I came to the United States." She said with pride in her voice.
As Nadia's piercing blue eyes held my gaze, her cheerful but reserved manner gave her an air of gentility. With her peaches and cream complexion and blonde hair pulled back and twisted in a French braid, she made my pussy twitch.
The happy hour social was breaking up and Nadia invited me to dinner at the seafood restaurant next door. After we ordered, we talked as though we were old friends instead of new acquaintances. I listened with rapt attention as she recalled growing up in Russia.
"Everyday I had gymnastics training." She said with bitterness. Then lamented,
"I wanted to be a Ballerina and dance with the Bolshoi."
However, Nadia's parents wanted her to be a gymnast and compete in the Olympics. She remembered in detail the small apartment with the shared bathroom, the scarcity of food and waiting in long lines for something as mundane as toilet paper.
Nadia's parents were chemists but because they were suspected dissidents they rated far less than other people of similar stature. Even with the fall of communism and greater freedoms, they desired a better life and moved to the United States.
By the end of the meal, I felt like we were bosom buddies.
During the week, our paths crossed several times on campus and we both commented on the unseasonably warm weather. At happy hour on Friday, Nadia invited me to her parent's home on Saturday for a swim in their pool.
"My mother and father keep the pool open until the end of September." She chirped in a happy voice.
At first I thought it was odd that Nadia, who I guessed to be about twenty seven or twenty eight years of age, was still living at home. But, when I saw her home, I whistled thru my teeth. The large colonial style house occupied an oversized wooded lot in an upscale neighborhood of suburban Philadelphia.
Nadia gave me a tour of the house and I met her folks. I found them to be charming but with a sophisticated air and they possessed a command of the English language that rivaled their daughter's.