Love at the Center

AN INTERESTING story was developing down at the Washington Regional Medical Center for Exercise. The boy who runs the machines was falling in love with a black-haired nurse. Black-eyed and black-haired, olive-skinned, muscular, vivacious. She is in here every afternoon putting in forty-five minutes on the StairMaster, then working out on the weight machines. Most of the habitués are older people, recovering from heart surgery and strokes, overweight housewives, retired college professors, or the doctors from the hospital themselves, always running on tight schedules and looking at their watches and being beeped.

So it was a light and vibrant thing to have this flirtation going on. I’m one of the housewives, but I wasn’t always this way. I used to be a reporter for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. And a lesbian. Then I gave it up for a stockbroker and moved up here with him. It’s okay. Sometimes I miss the city and my women friends. Then I drive down there and stay a few days and maybe get high and lie around someone’s French Quarter apartment flirting with young women and feeling evil. Bobby doesn’t care. He’s not that sure of his sexual orientation either. You can bank on that. That’s his favorite expression. You can bank on that.

Well, I’m fifty-four and my trips to the South happen less often. I’m into health. One hundred and forty pounds, five feet six. It looks better than it sounds. I have this muscular physique. I never appreciated it until I started working out with weights. You wouldn’t believe how I muscle up.

Well, back to the love affair that was about to happen. It hadn’t happened yet. Nothing had happened except that every time the nurse came in the door this beautiful young man would brighten up. Shine, beam, shimmer. It was spring in the Ozark Mountains and, except for the pollen in the air, it was paradise. Daffodils and black-eyed Susans, dogwood, violets, apple trees in bloom, all the dogs barking, mourning doves walking the yards in pairs, rainy afternoons and brilliant sunsets. Who wouldn’t fall in love if they needed to?

Andy Buchanan was the boy’s name and he wasn’t a boy. He must have been at least twenty-five. The black-haired nurse was named Athena, if you can believe that. Athena Magni. On the day things heated up I was on a treadmill at the back of the room. There are three treadmills in a row facing a large window that looks out on the street and two more in the back of the room. Usually I get one by the window and watch people coming in and wave at children who stop and look into the center as if they had never seen old people exercising before. But this day the treadmills by the window were taken and I was on one of the ones at the back.

The retired head of the English Department was on the one beside me. We were discussingJohn Fowles when I saw Athena come in and sign in on the sign-in sheet. Andy came out of the office and stood beside her, very close in the narrow space between the sign-in desk and the office door. His face was lit from within. She laughed and tossed her coal-black hair and then she went into the dressing room to change into her leotards. Andy stood smiling after her. I turned and met the English teacher’s eyes and we started giggling. He is sixty-seven years old and he only has one leg. We got to laughing so hard his good leg almost slipped off the moving belt. He had to grab the handrails to keep from falling.

“Hero and Leander?”

“Romeo and Juliet. With a name like that she’s Greek or Italian. If he’s Baptist and she’s a Roman Catholic, we’ve got problems.”

“Come live with me and be my love.”

“But at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot drawing near, et cetera. What role do you want?”

“The chorus, or the soldiers on the watchtower.” He moved the good leg to a new position and slowed the treadmill down. His name is Doctor Wheeler and he always exercises in his coat and tie, which completely cheers me up even on the bleakest day.

A few minutes later Athena came out and climbed on a StairMaster. As soon as she was sweating, Andy walked over and handed her a cup of water. They weren’t four feet away. I could hear every word they were saying.

“You haven’t been in lately,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“My married sister was in town. She lives in Little Rock.”

“I dreamed about you last night.”

“You did? What did you dream?”

“I was going along a line of girls and talking to each one. You were at the end.”

“At the end?”

“Yeah.”

“What did I say?”

“You just held out your hands. Like you wanted to be friends.”

“No one ever dreamed about me before.”

“I bet they did.”

“They didn’t tell me.”

Long, long pause. Doctor Wheeler coughed, then coughed again. I didn’t look at him.

“I’m trying to get up to forty-five minutes at level six.”

“That’s too high. Do it longer at a slower speed.”

“Longer than forty-five minutes?”

“No, that’s plenty long. You ought to try the new Exercycle. It’s a real workout.”

“This is all I have time for. I don’t have time for this.”

“You been busy at the hospital?”

“Have we ever. You know night before last when the moon was so full?”

“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

“It was the closest the moon has been to the earth in a hundred years. We had twenty-one babies born that night. We had to put beds in the hall and the surgical ward. The whole place was crazy. It was the strangest thing. All afternoon we barely had a patient. There was one girl in labor. Then, about five-thirty, they started coming in. We had interns delivering babies. You should have seen it when it was through. There were twenty-one babies in the nursery. People were taking pictures of it. There was a story in the paper. Did you read it?”

“No. I’m sorry I missed that.”

“I’ll bring you mine and let you see it. God, this is getting harder.” She was pumping her legs up and down. Her black hair was flying. Her black eyes were flashing. Andy stood beside her holding the cup of water. She reached down and took the cup and drank from it. She smiled a smile to light up heaven. I turned to look at Doctor Wheeler. He was shaking his head, his good foot moving on the treadmill, his artificial foot resting on the side. “I have a friend whose daddy is eighty-eight years old,” I said. “He’s going out with a girl who’s thirty-seven. You tell me what is going on in the world and I’ll stop being mean. I’ll never have another vindictive thought. I’ll be for letting the Haitians in. You name it.”

“Vast metaphors all around. Fields being sewn. Lilies springing up. Fin de siècle. End of a world. Or else, it’s all just funny.”

“It’s funny all right. It’s hilarious.”

“What do you do when you aren’t in here, Virginia? If I might ask.”

“Nothing. I’m married to a broker at Merrill Lynch.”

“I’m explicating the cantos.” He laughed again and got down off the treadmill and straightened up his tie. Then he went off to the dressing room.

Two weeks went by and Athena didn’t return to the center. Andy was asking about her. He asked me several times. “Why don’t you call and ask her where she is?” I suggested.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I don’t know her number.”

“It’s bound to be in her records.”

“We aren’t supposed to call people. It’s soliciting.”

“Write her a letter. Tell her we miss her.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“She could have broken her leg. Maybe she’s on vacation.”

“That’s probably it.” He put his hand on the rail of the stationary bike and bent his head to see how fast I was peddling. “That’s good. You’re going fast.”

“One of the old jocks told me the other day he saw a television program and some tacky television starlet said she had a twenty-one-inch waist from doing the Exercycle. I don’t want a twenty-one-inch waist, I told him. You know what he said?”

“No. What?”

“He said, Of course you do. The gall of the man. He’s the one that always wears the baseball cap. Who is he, anyway?”

“He’s a football coach.”

“I knew it. They all look alike. Well, listen, are you going to write to her or not?”

“I might. Okay, I will.” He walked away and began going from machine to machine talking to the patrons. He was especially nice to anyone who was really old or just beginning. What a darling young man he is. And now Athena has disappeared. “Andy,” I said, when I was leaving. “You have the nicest manners of any young man I have met in years. I’d like to meet your mother. Tell her that the next time that you see her, will you please?”

“When I do.” He blushed and threw his arms back as he does when he pretends to be astounded that someone has stayed on the treadmill for twenty minutes, getting their pulse up to normal for the first time in twenty years. You see a lot of that at the Washington Regional Medical Center for Exercise. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking it.

On Wednesday afternoon the mystery was solved. I got to the Center about two o’clock and was just climbing on the Exercycle when Athena came in the door. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon and she had on black tights and a long white T-shirt that said Venice, Arkansas in black letters. On the back were the names of the registered voters of the town. There were forty-seven, including four men who were in the armed services.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “We’ve all been worried about you.”

She climbed on the Exercycle beside me. “I’ve been working nights, taking care of this nice old lady who’s dying. She knows she’s dying but she doesn’t even care. She’s had an exciting life. That’s all she says to me, how exciting her life was and how she didn’t miss anything. She’s over a hundred and all her family and friends are dead so she doesn’t care if she dies. She has this nice house on the mountain and she’s in this room with paintings all around her.” She got down and adjusted the seat on the Exercycle, then climbed back on. “Anyway, she used to run around with painters and she ran the Spoletto Festival in Italy, you know, for music. She’s so nice to me I’m ashamed to take the money, but she’s loaded. Anyway, I’m staying there at nights only she made me take a night off. She said young people aren’t supposed to spend spring nights by deathbeds. She’s as clear as a bell. She’s over a hundred years old. I feel honored to get to know her.” Athena turned up the heat on the Exercycle, bent over the bars. I speeded up beside her. “I’ll tell you more about it later,” she said. “God, this feels so good. I’ve been missing this.”

“Your parents let you stay there at night?”

“I don’t have any parents. I live with my cousin.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They died when I was four. I’m used to it. They were in a car wreck, coming home from a fair. It’s okay.” She flashed that smile at me and hard as I tried, I couldn’t register pathos or pity. A beautiful young couple late at night on one of our one-lane roads, from Tontitown to Springdale, say, a truck on a curve. It happens every Saturday night up here. It happens still.

“It’s really okay,” she said. “I can barely remember them. It was my dad’s fault. I guess they were having a good time.”

Andy emerged from the office and spotted her. His face lit up, and he hurried across the room and put his hand on a StairMaster to balance himself. “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “I was thinking of calling the cops.”

“I’ve been working overtime. Trying to save some money. I’m losing weight, but don’t worry. I know it’s just muscle turning to fat.” She was laughing. She always started laughing when Andy talked to her. Shimmer, shimmer, shimmer. Like water on a pond. Go on, Andy, I was thinking. Ask her out. Go on and do it.

“It looks good to me, but you’re right. It’s only temporary. Well, we’re glad to have you back.”

“I know. The deal is to be healthy, right, not thin.” She giggled again. Gave him that Greco-Roman smile. Andy returned the smile. You could have tanned yourself in the radiance.

“Can I get you some water?” he asked.

“He’s been worried sick about you,” I put in. “You should take him to a movie for all the pain you’ve caused him.”

“I will,” she said. “Have you seen The Distinguished Gentleman, with Eddie Murphy? It’s at the Springdale dollar movie. You want to go?”

“When?”

“Tonight. I was going anyway. You want to go?”

“Sure. I get off at six. What time does it start?”

“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to change machines.” I got off the Exercycle and went across the room to the rowing machine. Where was Doctor Wheeler when I needed him? Wait till I told him this.

I never found out what happened at the movie. Because the world is full of surprises, pebbles thrown into the pond, concentric circles. It’s not just the little surprises either, like my friend Brenda’s cherry tree bearing fruit for the first time in years, not just every child that’s born and so forth. Take the headline that greeted me the next morning on the front page of the Northwest Arkansas Times. LOCAL GIRL LEFT FORTUNE.

Mrs. Rosa Neely Parker, age 102, of Fayetteville and Key West, Florida, died last night of natural causes, leaving four million dollars in bonds and property to a young woman who nursed her in her last days. According to Bass Howard, attorney for the estate, the will is airtight. Miss Parker leaves no legal heirs other than the designee. The young woman, Miss Athena Magni, of Fayetteville, is currently employed by the Washington Regional Medical Center and lives with a relative, Mrs. Stella Magni, of 1819 Maple Street. She is a graduate of Fayetteville High School and the University of Arkansas School of Nursing. Miss Magni told this reporter she didn’t want to talk about it. She said she had taken the night off at Miss Parker’s request and blamed herself for not being there when Miss Parker died.

Internment will be at Kitchen’s Funeral Home on Spring Street with burial Monday afternoon at the National Historic Cemetery on Spring Street. Miss Parker will be buried beside her maternal grandparents. This will be the first funeral at the historic cemetery in many years.

Mourners are requested to send donations to the music department of the university in lieu of flowers.

I called Doctor Wheeler. “What should we do?” I asked. “She lives with a cousin who works for Tyson’s. She’s not prepared for this.”

“Bass is a good man. A good lawyer. I’ll call him.”

“Ask where she is. They won’t answer the phone.”

“Maybe she’s at the funeral parlor.”

“At eight-thirty in the morning?”

“Four million dollars. Rosa owned a de Kooning and an O’Keeffe. I saw them once.”

“You knew her?”

“When she first came home to live. At first she traveled quite a bit. Then she stayed alone. No one saw her. I haven’t thought about her in years.”

“We should go see Andy. He’s madly in love, completely smitten. They were going out last night.”

“Four million dollars. Even after taxes it will change her life.”

Miss Parker hadn’t just left Athena money. She had called Paris and told them Athena was coming. She had called Italy and told them what to do. She had called the Emerald Travel Agency and gotten Annie Smithson to make reservations and arrange cars and hotel rooms. She had a young man waiting to meet the plane in Paris.

She had left Athena a letter with instructions of where to go and who would be waiting at each place and assurances of how safe she would be. She had left a package wrapped in shiny white paper with blue ribbon. It contained books to read on airplanes. “This is to ease my dying,” the letter said.

If I can think of you discovering the places I discovered when I was your age, then I am already in heaven. As for death, I do not fear it. I have been practicing sleeping for many years and have always considered it a blessing. When I was young I could not sleep more than five hours a night. Now I will get the rest I lost back then.

You have brightened up these last days. Live a long and happy life. Thank you for sharing a premonition of it with me. Yours in praise and wonder, Rosa Neely Parker.

That was all. We went to the funeral and Athena told us the plans. She kept her hand on Doctor Wheeler’s arm, saying, “Well, no more bedpans or staying up all night eating junk food. They didn’t bat an eye when I told them I was leaving. They can get plenty of people to work for what they were paying me.” She held up her head and I saw the thing that Rosa must have seen, the incipient thing. She would make it in the big world. She was already shedding her provincial manners. What had she dreamed all these years that made that possible? What movies had she seen? What books had she read?

“Take our phone numbers and call us if you need us,” I said, and gave her a piece of paper Doctor Wheeler and I had prepared.

“Thanks,” she said, and stuck it in her purse.

Then she was gone. It’s funny how at a place like the center one person going off can leave such a hole. A couple of chubby girls from the music department started coming in and we were all pulling for them as they tried to lose weight for their auditions in the fall. At least they knew about Italian opera and could discuss it with Doctor Wheeler.

The center started a program for nine-to twelve-year-olds and that was a diversion for a while, only most of the kids who came in were morbidly overweight and it was hard to stay interested in them.

It wasn’t like having Athena come bounding in, light and youth coming into a place where most of the people were beginning to dim. Even the most brilliant ones like Doctor Wheeler were like flashlights on the last week of camp, like batteries getting damp and undependable. I did the best I could to cheer things up and started wearing bright shirts and even putting on makeup and lipstick before I went to exercise.

As for Andy, he dimmed too, but I thought it was a temporary thing. Soon he’ll be starting to make plans for the Fit-for-Life run against Springdale and that should keep him busy. He’s like a moon that’s good at reflecting light. Sooner or later someone will be coming in that door to illuminate his face.