| A story I told her, on the telephone once, about a friend of mine decades ago, when I was still in my twenties, and Tru herself was a small girl. . . . The friend was someone I knew for a few short years, someone I cared about, and then her husband was transferred and I never saw her again. Life goes on, as they say. She was pretty. No, lovely, really. High cheek bones, with clear, even features, and dark hair tied loosely and falling down her back. She was more sophisticated than I was then, and better educated. I think she was a few years older too. Kate had traveled young, coming from a military family, her father an officer, a trainer of other officers. When we met, we were both young married mothers living in a small country town about forty-five minutes from the city. We had each moved there with our families, in that misguided desire of the early 70s to recapture the charm of a simple life. Of course we lived as outsiders whom the local people mistrusted. But we were earnestly - and futilely - determined to become part of the community, spending our dollars in the dusty little stores, banking locally instead of in the city, and becoming active in the public school, which is where we first talked with each other. Honestly, it was at a PTA meeting. |
