Dora Jean

Dora Jean's retirement party went off without a hitch.

After better'n forty years of school teaching, she got a cake and a plaque and, providing she was frugal and watched her pennies, enough of a retirement income to keep her and her cat fed.

She shyly thanked everyone for their cards and good wishes, hugged her fellow teachers, erased the blackboard one final time and walked home to her tiny but cozy little nest above the old hardware store. Here, home with her cheerful chintz curtains and comfortable chairs, she and the cat, a wiry old tom she called Alfie, she was most at ease. She slid out of her low heel pumps and put them neatly away, changed out of her prim sweater and matching skirt and hung them in the only closet, tucked her only string of pearls into the little heart shaped jewelry box she kept by the bed. With Alfie twining about her ankles, she slipped into her favorite old house sweater and paint stained overalls, found her fuzzy slippers and padded into the small pullman kitchen to put on the copper tea kettle and finish the morning's crossword puzzle.

Well, Alfie, she said, thoughtfully nibbling on the end of her faithful ballpoint pen, Can you give me an eight letter word for “the end of times”? No? How about “He who was looking for an honest man”, also eight letters?

When the kettle whistled, she poured tea, cut a small slice of lemon pound cake for herself and a slim wedge of cheese for the cat.

I can't say you're much help today, Alfie, she told him, Have you been keeping up with your studies?

The cat regarded her solemnly but had nothing to say.

No matter, Dora Jean shrugged and being very careful to keep her letters well inside the little squares, neatly filled in DOOMSDAY and DIOGENES.

After washing and dryiny the tea things, she curled up with Alfie and the rest of the newspaper, read it front page to back, watched an hour or so of the BBC, and was asleep and dreaming by nine.

Forty years of a habit are hard to break though, and she was up, bright eyed and alert by 6am the next morning, halfway through the day's lesson plan before she remembered she was retired and had no place to go. This was a disagreeable thought, she told herself, so determined not to give in to idleness or worse, self-pity, she unpinned the wall calendar from the back of the door and laid it out on the kitchen table along with the “Dartmouth After Dark” page of the paper.

Bingo, she read aloud, a scrabble club and a book club - this made the teacher in her smile -

there was volunteer work at the provincial hospital, meals to be delivered for the shut-ins,

A Green Thumb Society, two bridge tournaments, a Ladies Auxillary Knitting Circle, an All Welcome Dance at the Legion Hall. She could learn to quilt, take piano lessons, discover the secrets of gourmet cooking or be a part time dog walker.

She had circled the book club when she saw the announcement of the Canadian Armed Forces Reunion for a regiment whose name she knew immediately.

Now that, Alfie, she told the cat, might be worth dressing up for. I knew so many of those boys. And in her small, precise handwriting, she added the details to her calendar and circled the date.

I'll have to buy a new dress, she mused, maybe even a new pair of shoes. And I wonder if I still have the beaded evening bag......

She got the new dress and a pair of glittery heels that she was absolutely certain were much too young for her but found she couldn't resist. She had her hair cut and highlighted and got her nails manicured, found her beaded evening bag and borrowed a wrap from a friend. She dabbed perfume behind her ears, checked her lipstick, tightened her mother's pearl clip ons one last time and feeling like an aging Cinderella, headed out the door.

Good night, Alfie, she called to the cat, Don't wait up!

It wasn't until the taxi delivered her to the door of the Legion Hall that she realized she'd forgotten not only her reading glasses but her change purse.

Oh, bother, the driver heard her say as she fished around in the evening bag, I'm so sorry but I seem to have left my glasses and money at home. Let me run inside and I'll find a friend and borrow enough to pay you.

The long suffering and cynical driver would have none it and it was at that moment while she was doing her best to persuade him that fate noticed her and stepped in. A tall and slender stranger in evening clothes and white gloves materialized at her elbow, spoke softly to the driver and handed over an American ten dollar bill. She gave him an uncertain smile when he offered her his arm but, as she would later tell friends, there was something in his eyes.

A damsel in distress, he said kindly, may I see you in?

You may, sir knight, she said, a little shocked at her own boldness, and slipped her arm through his.

And will you dance with me? he asked.

I will, kind sir, she replied and almost giggled, I would be most pleased to do so.

Getting a little impatient, fate decided to up the ante at the sign in table when Dora Jean and the stranger stopped to register and get their plastic name tags. Each gave their name to a smiling volunteer - they had to raise their voices a little to be heard over the music and the chatter - and then they turned to each other and exchanged the tags so each could pin one on the other. Dora Jean saw it first but the stranger was quick to follow and their hands froze in mid-air.

Jed? she could barely whisper, Jed! Oh, my God!

His eyes widened in shock and recognition. Dora! he exclaimed, Good God Almighty, Dora Jean!

I knew it! she declared, I didn't know I knew it but I did! I saw it in your eyes!

You're thinner, he smiled at her, but every bit as pretty as the last.....he didn't finish the thought, just tucked her arm over his.We're going to catch up if it takes all night, he assured her, but first we're going to dance.

Most people knew the story of how they'd been childhood and then teenage sweethearts until the war. Jed had been sent to France and one thing led to another and instead of coming home, he'd met the woman he was to marry and moved to the United States. Dora Jean had heard nothing but rumors and speculation for years - she knew he came back once a year for the reunion but had never tried to see him – it hadn't seemed the proper thing to do now that he had a wife and children. The stories turned darker as the years passed. There was talk of trouble in the marriage, of alcohol abuse a general sense of unhappiness, and finally a deadly disease. She couldn't remember where she'd heard of his wife's death and though she thought briefly of sending a note, she didn't have an address and feared stirring up talk if she'd pursued it. Somewhere in between all those years, she'd consigned the youthful romance to lessons learned. She didn't exactly forget, but she didn't exactly dwell either.

Life is too short and too precious to cry over, she told Alfie, We were very young and it wasn't really real.

Fate, on the other hand, plots and plans and weaves complicated webs and less than a year after the reunion, they were married. It wasn't for very long, Jed died a few short years later and Dora Jean followed soon after that.

But I have an idea that the time they had was worth the wait.