I see the potential for a follow-up to this, depending on what my readers think. Meanwhile, enjoy.
*****
It was the night before Christmas and all through the house...
Sorry, wrong story. Actually, it was the DAY before Christmas, Christmas of 1985 to be exact, and the "house" was a two-bedroom condo in suburban Baltimore. Melinda Everette lived here, still a sexy beauty in her forties and divorced for three years. She had a twenty-five-year-old son who was visiting from Los Angeles, California during the holidays. His name was Brian, a Stanford University grad who was making big bucks in finance.
Brian had a good friend, Wade Kimball, a Baltimore boy who hadn't done as well. He had graduated from a college that for years wasn't even accredited, and he worked at some low-level government job, another cog in a bureaucratic machine. Brian and Wade had been friends and neighbors since they were kids, a friendship sealed first by their love of sports and later through a shared sense of various things.
Melinda Everette didn't much care for Wade Kimball. Her distaste stemmed from his antics when he was a kid, the mischievous kid who crayoned on walls, set off firecrackers and engaged in games of peeping Tom. She also looked down on his alma mater, that dinky, stinky, poor excuse for a college where any dummy could get into and get through, and she also looked down on that government job that paid a pittance of what her super-smart son earned. In her eyes, he didn't "rate," hadn't "made it," failed to live up to the upper-middle class neighborhood where he grew up. Worst of all, she didn't like herself for being sexually attracted to this once mischievous kid who had grown into one handsome young man, what those of a certain age called a matinee idol.
He stood just under six feet, built like the muscular athlete he'd always been, a lacrosse player and wrestler in high school and college (apparently, even dinky colleges sponsored sports teams back then). "He's not too bright but he's fun to look at," she was wont to tell her girlfriends. She came of age in the nineteen-fifties, when male teen idols such as Ricky Nelson, Troy Donahue and Frankie Avalon graced the covers of the era's media magazines. Melinda thought Wade looked like a cross between a young Warren Beatty and James Dean, with his mane of wavy brown hair, intense blue eyes and puckered lips, often drawn into a bad-boy kind of smirk.
Melinda hadn't seen Wade for a few years, and didn't expect to see him the day before Christmas. She was out, doing last-minute Christmas shopping, while Brian and Wade were hanging out, tossing a football around before repairing back to Melinda's condo to drink hot chocolate and look at a box of old photos, some of which contained pics of the boys in days gone by.
Brian was no slouch himself when it came to sports. He wrestled in high school in a couple weight classes below Wade, and placed third in the state in his senior year. Unlike Wade, Brian never lifted weights, though what he lacked in strength, he made up for in speed and technique. One photo showed Brian standing on the wrestling mat wearing his maroon singlet, with the ref raising his arm in victory after one of his matches.
Brian knew that his mom wasn't too crazy about Wade Kimball. He didn't know about her hots for the guy, a well-kept secret from her son and Lisa, her older daughter then married and living in Colorado. He also thought that Melinda's bad feeling toward Wade had softened. If not, there's no way he would have brought Wade back to the condo. Brian was ignorant of something else, too; that is, the sexual reciprocity that Wade felt toward his mom. She had been one of Wade's older woman fantasies when he was a teen. Where she saw Wade in the image of James Dean and Warren Beatty, Wade saw her in the image of Bonnie Franklin, who starred in the TV sitcom, One Day At A Time, and perhaps even a young Debbie Reynolds. He was just fifteen when that show premiered, and Franklin's cute, wholesome looks not only stoked his young, raging libido but conformed to his image of a significant other.
Those unique dynamics created the perfect storm when Melinda returned from her shopping to find Wade and Brian on the white carpet, the box of photos beside them. She wore a green pleated skirt, white blouse and tan fleece-lined boots. Still wearing her suede overcoat, she blinked her pretty green eyes, looking a bit shocked. She knew that Brian was going to see his old friend that day but never thought he'd bring him back to her place.
Wade spoke first. "Hello, Mrs. Everette . How've you been?" He noticed that she still styled her light brown hair in the way he remembered. In front, it swept across her forehead, with the rear tucked against her lower neck and a barely visible part that she wore slightly off center. Her hair was still so thick a bird could nest in it.
She clenched her jaw, nodded and slipped off her coat. "Wade..." That's all she said before going to a hall closet to hang her coat.
Wade looked at Brian and shrugged.
"We've just looking at old photos," Brian said, raising his voice so his mom could hear.
Melinda came back into the living room. With hands on hips, she said, "I see."
"Before that, we tossed the football around," Wade said. He watched Melinda nod and then slip out of her boots. Her legs, dressed in pantyhose, still looked smooth and shapely. Her face had aged but not too much. She still looked remarkably young for a woman sliding into middle-age.
Wade was waiting for her to ask about his parents, the way she once did when they were neighbors and Wade came to visit. But she didn't. Instead, she turned her back on him, stepped over to a table by the door, and began to go through her mail.
Wade could see that Brian looked uncomfortable, if not embarrassed. "Look, I think I've worn out my welcome," Wade whispered. "Time to go."
Brian nodded, then stood up. "I'll walk you to the elevator."
When Wade stepped toward the door, he said, "Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mrs. Everette."
She turned around to face him. "Nice seeing you too, Wade," she said, with a pained expression and even a slight grimace, as if it was difficult for her to say even those few words of civility.
Once out in the dim hall by the elevator, Wade said, "She still hates me." He grinned in an effort to mask his hurt from Melinda's coldness. But he knew that Brian could see right through it.
Brian tucked his hands inside the pockets of his corduroy pants. "She doesn't hate you, she just...look, I'm not sure what's eating her but I'll find out."
Brian waited until Wade got on the elevator, then went back in to confront his mom. She was still going over her mail. "Mom, are you okay? Wade thinks you hate him. I knew you weren't crazy about him but had thought you got over most of that." He smiled to humor her.
She didn't smile back. "You know how I feel about Wade Kimball. How I've felt about him since you both were kids. Hate him? Too strong a word. I just don't care for him. If you want to stay friends with him, fine, that's your choice, although I'm not sure what you two still have in common. But, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have him in my place. Understood?"
Brian followed her into the small kitchen. "Mom, I can respect that, but you've got to know he's changed. He's a college graduate, working a respectable job and no longer doing bad things."
