When, in the late very, very pre-pandemic summer of 1984, we arrived in Waterville, Maine, She, who grew up here, took her Los Angeles teaching skills and went right back to work while I walked the streets in unseasonable clothing.
Torn from the full throttle life of Hollywood, I found myself in a land full of autumn in a sleepy, little college town on the Kennebec, where every day felt like Sunday, and nights were as quiet as the bathroom in a Louisiana funeral home.
She, with her six pairs of glasses and countless books and papers to grade, felt at home, but I had been for decades an active shopper from a city, where even on Sunday, you got to go out and buy “stuff.”
Thirty-eight years have roared by with all the fury of a runaway train, but just last night, fueled by a supper’s icy Stella Artois, happy days flowed back in a warm Technicolor dream.
It was Christmas again, and we found ourselves in the South Portland Mall — Maine’s cathedral of STUFF!
With silver bells tingling, we pushed through the double glass doors and found ourselves surrounded by beautiful, happy caroling people scuffing along through drifts of brightly colored discarded masks.
We made our way past Kay’s old friends, the smiling gorgeous women in the cosmetic circus.
“Oh my god,” they gushed, “welcome back. We thought you guys were dead.”
We skipped on through other doors to the grand plaza, where we bought a scarlet wool rug at the Pottery Barn, and stumbled across to the glassed-in happiest toy store in the universe, The Apple Store.
“J.P. and Kay, thank God you’re alive. We all thought you were dead.”
Dropping my purchase of two new laptops and four of the 13 Super Max phones into our electric carts, we journeyed on to Williams Sonoma with its scented interior full of old friends who greeted us.
“Oh my god,” they chortled, “Look who’s here, girls. We thought you guys were dead.”
“No,” She chortled back. “We survived. ”
“All 10 variants?”
“Yes, and all 10 boosters,” I added.
“Didn’t you love Moderna’s strawberry flavored booster? That was my favorite, I had it six times,” another squealed.
“And Pfizer’s chocolate super booster that wiped them all away?” She sang.
It was the same at each of the old shops where we had made friends, even as we came to our favorite glorious food court, with egg rolls and soba at Sarku Japan, and chocolate-chipped Rice Krispie treats at Mrs. Field’s Cookies.
And Santa was there in Toyland. “You’re both alive, come sit on Santa’s lap.” We did: She on the left, I on the right. And the elves gave us candy canes.
But morning comes with the scrape of the snowplows, and reality scratches at our beds. We often dream of one more outing to go whistling in the graveyard of memories.
But it’s a longer drive now for old flesh and creaky bones, and at $4.25 a gallon and no potty stops along the way, it’s just a dream.
Rick and Elsa had the better lines, “We’ll always have Paris.”
As for She and I?
We’ll always have the mall.
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.
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