My mother's friend, Myrtle, was a Cambridge shop girl.
She was in her thirties when I first met her - chubby and just over five feet tall with dark hair and a bright smile. She wore oversized, black rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the corners and always a touch of red - lipstick, scarf, shoes or purse. She tended to sparkle and she chattered non stop and mindlessly. She worked in an upscale department store in Cambridge, selling ladies wear or as she said with a giggle and slight blush, undergarments and foundations. She had a blatant crush on my daddy and took to batting her eyelashes and smiling shyly at him at every opportunity, cupping his hands in her's when he lit her cigarettes and gazing at him with a starcrossed and lost expression that we found endearing and slightly comical. For heaven's sake, Myrtle, my grandmother would snap at her, Act your age! And Myrtle would sigh and pout at the reprimand but she was never deterred.
Still single and aching for a home, a husband and children, Myrtle dated an intriguing variety of men. She found them through personal ads, lonely hearts clubs, church groups, blind dates and matchmaking friends. Each new man was cause for hope and celebration but there were rarely second dates - her eagerness to please was wearying, her chatter wore them out, her very nature and childlike innocence put them off. Be yourself, my grandmother told her with a scowl, Stop trying so hard! And tears would well up in Myrtle's eyes at this verbal slap, her hurt feelings spilling over with her tears. Nana immediately relented, drying her tears and chiding her gently for being overly sensitive and too tender hearted. Be patient, dear, she would say kindly, The right man will come along when you least expect him. And Myrtle would raise her head and wail with despair at the prospect of dying a virgin.
In a perfect world, the right man would've come along, met the shop girl and swept her off her feet in a daze of romance and flowers and candlelight dinners. Reality, however, is less kind and the right man never materialized for Myrtle. More and more time passed between first dates until they stopped altogether and little by little, Myrtle aged, saddened, and gradually came to accept that a shop girl she was and would always be. She hated being a realist and dreaded being alone and old but she kept her bitterness mostly to herself and concentrated on being the best shop girl she could be. When her mother became ill, she moved back home to be a caretaker in a small walkup apartment in Brighton, just over the Cambridge line. She barely noticed Twice A Week Walter, her mother's home health nurse who came each Tuesday and Friday, a chubby little man in white scrubs and hospital shoes with a perpetual smile and Paul Newman blue eyes. He looks a little like a Christmas elf, she confided to my grandmother, And sometimes he brings flowers. Nana raised an eyebrow and looked at Myrtle closely. For you? she asked casually and Myrtle shook her head, Oh, heavens no, for Mother. My grandmother paused and then asked, Are you sure? Myrtle gave her a startled look and laughed self consciously.
She was in her thirties when I first met her - chubby and just over five feet tall with dark hair and a bright smile. She wore oversized, black rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the corners and always a touch of red - lipstick, scarf, shoes or purse. She tended to sparkle and she chattered non stop and mindlessly. She worked in an upscale department store in Cambridge, selling ladies wear or as she said with a giggle and slight blush, undergarments and foundations. She had a blatant crush on my daddy and took to batting her eyelashes and smiling shyly at him at every opportunity, cupping his hands in her's when he lit her cigarettes and gazing at him with a starcrossed and lost expression that we found endearing and slightly comical. For heaven's sake, Myrtle, my grandmother would snap at her, Act your age! And Myrtle would sigh and pout at the reprimand but she was never deterred.
Still single and aching for a home, a husband and children, Myrtle dated an intriguing variety of men. She found them through personal ads, lonely hearts clubs, church groups, blind dates and matchmaking friends. Each new man was cause for hope and celebration but there were rarely second dates - her eagerness to please was wearying, her chatter wore them out, her very nature and childlike innocence put them off. Be yourself, my grandmother told her with a scowl, Stop trying so hard! And tears would well up in Myrtle's eyes at this verbal slap, her hurt feelings spilling over with her tears. Nana immediately relented, drying her tears and chiding her gently for being overly sensitive and too tender hearted. Be patient, dear, she would say kindly, The right man will come along when you least expect him. And Myrtle would raise her head and wail with despair at the prospect of dying a virgin.
In a perfect world, the right man would've come along, met the shop girl and swept her off her feet in a daze of romance and flowers and candlelight dinners. Reality, however, is less kind and the right man never materialized for Myrtle. More and more time passed between first dates until they stopped altogether and little by little, Myrtle aged, saddened, and gradually came to accept that a shop girl she was and would always be. She hated being a realist and dreaded being alone and old but she kept her bitterness mostly to herself and concentrated on being the best shop girl she could be. When her mother became ill, she moved back home to be a caretaker in a small walkup apartment in Brighton, just over the Cambridge line. She barely noticed Twice A Week Walter, her mother's home health nurse who came each Tuesday and Friday, a chubby little man in white scrubs and hospital shoes with a perpetual smile and Paul Newman blue eyes. He looks a little like a Christmas elf, she confided to my grandmother, And sometimes he brings flowers. Nana raised an eyebrow and looked at Myrtle closely. For you? she asked casually and Myrtle shook her head, Oh, heavens no, for Mother. My grandmother paused and then asked, Are you sure? Myrtle gave her a startled look and laughed self consciously.
I think my grandmother may have been the only one who was not surprised when Myrtle and Twice A Week Walter eloped to Las Vegas the following year. The announcement was made with a flurry of postcards written in splashy, bright red ink. The shop girl found the right man as soon as she stopped desperately searching - all she had to do was get out of her own way.
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