CHAPTER NINE

Half an hour later, Felicia met me at Millie’s. I was wired after three quick cups of coffee that had seen fresher hours. I was busy taking notes and flipping through the diary. Felicia smiled at me with sparkling eyes, and I could swear that my heart skipped a beat.

Men love different parts of a woman’s anatomy. I personally notice first the eyes, then the hair, and then a sincere smile. All the rest of a woman is, of course, noticed and adored, but those first three can win me over. I study eyes carefully. Most men couldn’t care less about a woman’s eyes, but they are extremely important to me.

As I observed Felicia, I estimated her height to be around five-seven and her weight to be one-twenty, on the slimmer side. When a man is suddenly attracted to a beautiful woman, he has a hard time looking too long at her. Staring into her eyes for a prolonged period is almost impossible. It has something to do with rejection, I believe. We don’t want the other person to know we are interested in them for fear of their rejecting us. What’s more, I was still reeling from an emotional breakup with my ex. I had no problem making love to a woman for the sake of sex, but I was still shell-shocked when it came to anyone really special and attractive.

“So, Felicia, what is so special about the Wise One, Miss Lolita?” I asked, with my notebook at the ready.

“Well, sir . . .”

“Oh, please, just call me Lou. All my close friends call me Lou.” I smiled and looked into her wonderfully amazing gray eyes.

She smiled and said, “Okay then, Lou,” and then she hesitated and looked back at me, apparently studying my standard brown eyes. Two seconds of silence can be a lifetime. I waited. I melted.

“Oh, yes, Miss Lolita. She is like a full-time shrink every day. She is so full of knowledge and positive energy. She knows what to say at precisely the right time. She reminds me of the sign hanging above her bed every day. It is so inspiring. It reads When it’s all over, all said and done, what impact will my life have had on this world?”

I had heard the words before. As I wrote her words in my notebook, it made all the sense in the world. I read the saying to Felicia, making sure I had it just right: “When it’s all over, all said and done, what impact will my life have had on this world?”

“Yes, that is it,” she said. “It is very inspiring to me and many others in the home.”

“Well, if interpreted correctly, it is a very powerful motivator. Is it her own statement?”

“Yes, indeed,” Felicia said. “She has many. But this is something she has lived by her entire life.”

“The way I understand that statement,” I responded, “it means that we must maximize our lives each day, be all we can be, knowing full well that we will be leaving this world and being remembered after we are gone for as much good as possible. Did we make a difference, an improvement, or did we just pass through, only taking up space in the world?”

We spoke for over an hour. I got to know more about Lolita and also more about Felicia, who, remarkably, was unattached and available.

“So, how could someone so cute be unattached?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.” She giggled.

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

Then with tears in her eyes, she said, “I’m actually divorced. Lolita convinced me to divorce Harold almost two years ago. It was a very bad time in my life.”

I found out that Felicia and Harold had been married when she was twenty-four, and remained so for less than a year. He was a construction worker who stood six-three and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. He would drink after work, heavily, and then he would beat her out of jealousy, until Lolita convinced her to get an order of protection and divorce the creep. She still hadn’t dated again.

Felicia looked more attractive to me as the minutes ticked away. I knew it wasn’t the liquor, because I hadn’t had a drink for days—and after hearing about Harold and his drinking problems and anger issues, I almost swore off alcohol forever right there and then. I knew drinking could be destructive, and that it made whatever depression I felt even worse. There was no benefit in heavy drinking except to deaden all pain and reasoning for a short time, but then it only seemed to compound my sadness.

Lolita was right. There was no substitute for a caring, loving woman who would be your best friend and partner in a lifelong relationship.

As we talked more, I learned that Felicia drove a red Mini Cooper vehicle, which is great on gas, though she admitted it looked like a clown car. She rented a studio apartment because she couldn’t afford the high rents in town. She was a Scorpio, while I’m an Aries, which was supposedly like fire and water, but I discounted that.

Her smile told me that she liked me. There are telltale signs in a woman’s body language, facial expressions, and laughter, sometimes nervous but cute nevertheless. They laugh nervously at stupid things we say out of our own nervousness. If all this could be played back on video, it would make for a good comedy. But every new relationship goes through such awkwardness. She told me how she loves to sing, mostly behind closed doors, and that she is shy by nature.

“Getting back to Lolita,” Felicia said, “she is so philosophical, and most of the nursing home staff stops by every so often for advice, or merely to spend time with her. They admire her for her advanced age, of course, but also just for who she is—her personality.”

She confirmed what Emily had told me earlier that day, that Lolita’s family had owned a huge farm. As a child, Lolita had many chores to fulfill around the farm before and after school each day. Her father died at an early age. Lolita used to get fairly sick and would take weeks to get better. What we call routine sickness today was major to the people back in those days.

Lolita’s uncle, the doctor, had an office, but he spent his days making house calls or making rounds at the hospital.

Lolita was a teacher for a few years, loved dancing, and was a big fan of the motion pictures. She frequented the theater, which was still in use today, though it had been completely renovated.

Felicia asked me if she could look through Lolita’s diary.

“Lolita has shared this with me over the years,” she said, as she carefully paged through it. “It is filled with so much history that it’s like you are magically transported back in time as you read it.” Felicia made a few points about different sections of the diary, but I was largely tuned out to what she was saying. Oh, sure, I heard her voice and even some of her words, but mostly, I was looking into those magical, sparkling gray eyes that had me mesmerized. Where had this woman been my whole life?

I studied this woman as I tried to formulate in my mind the character, the heart, the sensitivity of Felicia. Here was a wounded woman being observed by an equally wounded man, a man with a heart that had been split in two. No doubt this fine woman, with such a loving heart, had lost all motivation to allow a man to get close to her.

I looked at her silky, long, black hair with perfectly trimmed bangs, which contrasted beautifully with her olive complexion, and those unique eyes, such as I had never seen before. I kept saying “yes” and “that’s amazing” as she talked, while secretly stealing in-depth scans of the entire woman. I made special notes, etching deep in my brain pictures of this woman for later retrieval. It lasted perhaps ten minutes before I was shocked back to reality.

“Lou, didn’t you hear what I said?” Her voice was higher-pitched than usual and startled me to attention.

“Excuse me, I was thinking of something I had to do.” I lied and hoped my smile was convincing.

“I was just making a point about the 1923 murders Lolita mentioned here. She doesn’t like to speak about them much because she knew all the girls very well. She used to dance with them after school a few times a week. It was a very painful time, and Miss Lolita told me once that all the women were deathly scared that they could be the next victim of the vicious Hagerstown madman killer.”

The fear, according to Felicia’s conversations with Miss Lolita, went on for years because no one was ever apprehended for the killings. The diary told about the pain and sadness of the teachers and students as one death turned into two and then three.

Felicia and I exchanged cell phone numbers, and she agreed to meet me for dinner at eight o’clock that night at a little Italian restaurant called Maurino’s Authentic Italian, right in the center of town. I was ecstatic inside, but I maintained a cool, calm exterior.

Felicia went back to work. I had told her to remind Miss Lolita that I would see her the next day, and would like to discuss some of her diary with her.

My hotel was a few blocks away. The Cosmopolitan Inn Suites is located on Route 40 Dual Highway and Cleveland Avenue. Gloria had assured me that a suite would be waiting for me no matter what time I got around to checking in; it had been booked from the day before and was available indefinitely.

The Cosmopolitan was not the finest hotel around but had reasonable rates and offered all suites. The hotel was only a few years old and not in the historic section of town. But all the major sites in Hagerstown were only a few blocks away except for Elizabeth’s Farms. The farm and creamery were located several miles outside of Hagerstown, and had been a family-owned business for many years. I would be visiting the farm the next day just before seeing Lolita again.

Once again, I thought about how attractive Felicia was. That smile and those gray eyes just kept popping into my mind. Felicia’s eyes were not only unique in color; they were so alive with life and excitement as she spoke and when she smiled. I was far from an expert on women, at least respectable women, but I felt Felicia might be attracted to me, too. Then again, I’d been wrong before.

Sure, I had made love to many women, or maybe it wasn’t love but rather just animalistic sex. But respectable women like Felicia—well, they are rare. So I was unsure exactly how to read the signals she was sending. Miss Lolita was right: I was a wounded animal acting out accordingly.

A fine woman must be treated differently from the women I would regularly see for a fling. My only thoughts about Felicia were to hold her in my arms, look into her eyes, and softly kiss her full lips—nothing more, nothing too fast, and nothing that would offend this extraordinary beauty.

It is amazing, that intense emotion that works on the mind. It won’t let you forget if you are very attracted to a person, especially in the very beginning of a relationship, when it is almost impossible to concentrate on other things. The brain just keeps tapping away in your head like the flashing of a strobe light, and the thought I kept having was Felicia, Felicia, gorgeous gray eyes, awesome smile, twinkle in her eyes . . . .