The Winds of Change

by Julie Stahl

Marilyn felt in turn hope and despondency as she sat by the window and watched the cars drive by out on the highway. It was getting dark and the makes and models became increasingly more difficult to distinguish. As she always did, she looked for Jack’s car. Tim said that Jack still loved her, but he never called and she suspected that he hadn’t read any of the dozen letters she’d written to him over the last several weeks.

She got up and walked into the kitchen. On the refrigerator were photos of Jack. The table in the corner and the chairs belonged to Jack, as well as the plates in the cupboard. His presence seemed to be real and everywhere. Yet he had never once stepped foot inside this apartment, even once driven by to her knowledge. The days came and went and weeks became months, and Jack had not come back into her life. 

Marilyn looked at her watch. Tim would be here soon. She opened the oven door and pulled the foil back from the roast: almost ready. She returned to her perch by the bedroom window. By now it was dark. The cars on the highway were speeding dark blurs following in the wake of their big, bright eyes, illuminating each other momentarily and then receding again into anonymity. She watched as a truck turned off the highway and drove down the lane to stop in front of her house. 

Marilyn greeted Tim at the door. He kissed her cheek and handed her a bottle of wine.

“White Zin, my favorite.” She thanked him. “Make yourself comfortable.  Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.” She poured out two glasses of wine.

“Thanks,” Tim said. “Did you get a movie?”

“Yeah, I did. A comedy.”

“Great, I could use a few laughs.”

“What’s the matter?” she inquired. She sat down next to him on the couch.  “Bad day?”

“I’m just tired, I guess. I haven’t had a day off in almost fifty days. I need a break.”

“Why don’t you put your foot down, Tim? Tell Jack you need a weekend off. There’s no reason he can’t cover you for a change. He can stick around town for one lousy weekend.”

Tim was quiet, and looked away from Marilyn. She let the matter drop and sipped her wine slowly, savoring the flavor. Tim drank his quickly. He had two before she finished her first. Well, he’s a big man, she told herself. He stood at well over six feet, with broad strong shoulders and muscular legs that strained against the fabric of his jeans. He’s rather good-looking, she thought, not for the first time. His dark hair and moustache and tanned skin contrasted handsomely with his light blue eyes. She had noticed that he didn’t often look at her directly with those eyes. She wondered why now. A mutual friend of hers and Jack’s and now Jack’s employee, Marilyn had known Tim for several months. She knew he was shy with women, but she was a friend, a pal, not someone he might ask out on a date. There was no need for him to be shy with her.

They talked casually over dinner about their jobs and family. Tim was careful not to bring up Jack’s name, though certainly he must have noticed Jack’s pictures on the refrigerator and more prominently, in the gilded frame by Marilyn’s bedside when she gave him a tour of the apartment. There was no doubt that she still carried a blazing, brilliant torch for Jack. Still, Tim seemed not to notice, at least not in any obvious way. As he watched her prepare dessert he teased her about the way she carefully followed the recipe.

“Do you always do exactly as you’re told?” he asked.

“No, not at all.” Her reply bordered on defensive. “But I’m not the world’s best cook. I can follow a recipe and if I do, it usually turns out okay.” She paused. “I suppose you don’t need a recipe. You can just whip up anything with no instructions whatsoever.” Now her voice carried playful sarcasm as she watched his face out of the corner of her eye.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I can.” He proceeded to tell her how he had worked for two years as manager of an exclusive restaurant in Hawaii. “I was in charge of making sure every dish was prepared just right, overseeing all the planning of the menu, the buying of food, and the preparation each evening. It was my job to see that every entrée we offered was of the freshest, highest quality. Nothing left that kitchen without my approval.” He sighed rather wistfully. Marilyn pictured him moving from counter to counter, tasting something from each cook’s prep area in advance of the final product being served up to a hungry and well-to-do customer sitting just beyond the swinging kitchen door. “It was a great job,” he admitted. She laughed.

They moved back into the living room and started the movie. Marilyn noticed Tim had begun to relax, whether from the wine and the food or her company or some combination she couldn’t be sure. The movie was good and very funny. She laughed out loud, freely, and it felt good. It occurred to her that it had been a long time since she’d found anything to be humorous. She was glad Tim had come over. By the time the movie was half over, they both had tears rolling down their cheeks and her sides ached from the sustained laughter. They had only to look at each other at this point and they both burst into hysterics.
It was late when Tim got up to leave. The empty wine bottle stood on the coffee table. Their laughter had subsided and the only sound was the whirring noise of the tape rewinding in the machine. Marilyn flipped on the porch light and through the window she saw that it had begun to snow.

Tim thanked her for dinner. “How about doing it again next weekend?” he asked. “Only this time I’ll cook for you. What do you say?”

Marilyn hesitated for a moment. What the hell, she thought, what could it hurt? “Sure,” she said. “That would be lovely.”

“Okay, I’ll call you this week.”

She watched from her window as he drove down her street and onto the highway, till his red taillights disappeared past the trees that bordered it.

The week passed slowly. On Wednesday Tim called and they scheduled dinner for Saturday. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. She was surprised to realize that she was, too.

Saturday rolled around and Marilyn arrived at Tim’s shortly before 7:00.  His apartment was clean, though sparsely furnished. For a man in his mid-thirties, she wondered that he hadn’t acquired more possessions. A pleasant aroma filled the air.

“It smells wonderful in here,” Marilyn said.

“That’s the Beef Wellington. Should be ready in about half an hour.” Tim helped her off with her coat.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had Beef Wellington before. Even when I was in England.” She followed her nose into the kitchen.

Tim grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He offered her a glass of wine. “Let me show you the place,” he said, and motioned her to follow him. A few minutes later, they came to rest at the dining room table in the corner of a spacious room by the window. A vine-like plant hung down directly over her from the ceiling, one of many throughout the apartment. Each room, including the bathroom, housed at least two.
Tim seemed in high spirits tonight.

“So did you have a better week at work?” she asked. She recalled how down and tired he’d been when he’d showed up at her house last weekend.

“Yeah, I did. We did a bunch of maintenance on the lakes this week. The only way up there is by helicopter. The scenery was breathtaking. In fact, we videotaped the whole thing. I’ll show you some of the footage after dinner.”

Marilyn smiled, but didn’t say anything. He’d said “we.” She knew somewhere in there Jack was included.

She changed the subject. “Can I help you with dinner?”

Tim didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. “Sure,” he said and got up from the table. She followed him into the kitchen.

“You can make the salad if you like.” He pointed to the counter by the sink where all the ingredients were laid out and handed her a large wooden bowl. She chopped lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado while he busied himself with tending to the main course. In a matter of minutes dinner was ready.

“Go sit down,” he told her. “I’ll serve you.”

She did and he brought out two heaping plates of Beef Wellington, salad and freshly baked bread. He filled up their wine glasses and lit a candle in the middle of the table before sitting down with her.
“How romantic,” Marilyn observed. “You’ve got this down to an art.”

Tim laughed and raised his glass in a toast. “To the winds of change.” He looked into her eyes carefully and deliberately as he spoke. For a moment neither of them moved, then Tim threw back his head and swallowed his entire glass of wine. Still with her glass raised in the air and untouched, Marilyn watched him pour himself more and commence eating. Then she took a swallow and smiled with amusement. I could learn something from this guy, she thought to herself.

Dinner was delicious and Tim promised to give her the recipe. “Better yet,” he said, “I’ll show you how to make it, walk you through it from beginning to end.”

“I don’t want to sound sexist,” said Marilyn, “but I don’t know many single men who are good cooks. Whoever marries you is going to luck out in that department.” Then she added, “Come to think of it, I don’t know too many women my age either who are really good cooks.” She grinned. “Myself included.”
“We’re a product of a time-conscious, immediate gratification world, I guess. It’s quicker and easier to just stick a frozen dinner in the microwave. And thanks for the compliment.” He winked at her, then rather off-handedly he said, “I was married actually.”

“I had no idea.” Marilyn’s tone reflected her surprise. But then why shouldn’t he have been? “When?”

“I was very young. Nineteen, specifically. It lasted just a little over a year.”

“What went wrong?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Marilyn felt stupid for asking, intrusive. 
He seemed to sense her regret, and shrugged his shoulders. “I hadn’t learned to cook well enough yet, I guess.” His answer wasn’t flippant, just funny, and somehow she was relieved he’d said that instead of launching into a dissected account of why his marriage had failed. They both laughed, at ease again.

Tim got up once or twice during the meal and retreated momentarily into the kitchen. Each time he returned he attentively freshened her drink and offered her more to eat. When they’d finished their dinner he cleared away the plates and produced from the oven a baked Alaska.

“I’m really overwhelmed,” Marilyn said. “You’ve gone to so much trouble this evening.”

“Not at all,” he protested, waving her words aside with his hand as if they were smoke in the air. “I love to cook and most of the time I have no one to cook for. It gives me a chance to experiment on a new victim.” He made a mock-menacing face.

Marilyn laughed. They took their coffee and moved into the living room.  A pale brown, mottled pile carpet covered the floor. They seated themselves on the only piece of furniture in the room, a dark brown geometric-patterned couch made of a tightly woven micro-fiber. Tim stretched out and kicked off his shoes, inviting Marilyn to do the same. She was wearing low black pumps to match her black dress pants and cream-colored blouse. She slipped off her heels, enjoying the feeling of freedom, and went one step further, peeling off her knee-hi stockings. She wriggled her toes in the carpet. 

“Much better,” she told him. She felt warm and comfortable inside. They sat there drinking their coffee and just relaxing for a minute or two. Suddenly Tim recalled the videotape he’d mentioned earlier in the evening.

“Hey, I want to show you what we did up at the lakes this week.” He seemed excited; she guessed he was proud of the work they’d done. He got down on the floor in front of the television set, sitting on a low coffee table against the wall opposite the couch. A video camera was wedged beneath the coffee table and he pulled it out and pressed a few buttons. A tape emerged from its insides and upon inspection he pushed another button and it disappeared again from whence it came. He lay the camera back down on the floor and fiddled around behind the television for a minute, pulling loose some wires and plugging in others. Then he picked up the remote control and returned to the couch, sitting beside Marilyn.

Tim pushed a button and with a burst of bright light the screen awoke. He pushed another button and a green light on the side of the video camera appeared, and a humming sound signaled the beginning of “the show.”

On the screen appeared white mountains and snow-filled air, with Tim’s voice narrating.

“We’re in the helicopter.” Tim spoke now over the voice on the tape.  “The lakes are just over that ridge. It snowed the whole time.” He sat on the edge of the couch.

Marilyn remained still, trying to relax. She felt her limbs stiffen, defying her conscious effort to the contrary.

Tim’s voice on the tape was casual and intermittent, pointing out what lay outside the windows of the helicopter. The snow coming down made it hard to see much of anything that wasn’t either large and looming, like the mountains, or close by. The whirring sound of the chopper blades was loud and monotonous.  Soon they were moving downward and the camera tilted to the side with the movement of the helicopter as it dropped in descent. Now snow-covered evergreen trees could be seen jutting forth from the hillside.

“Pretty soon you’ll be able to see the first lake,” Tim told her in real time. Sure enough, in a couple of minutes they flew over a good-sized body of water, introduced by the invisible Tim as the first of the three lakes they were to visit this week. The helicopter dipped down even further and flew around to where the landing strip was supposed to be. It was covered in snow and only the approximate area was located. The massive winds that the chopper created sent snow flying everywhere. Marilyn stared at the screen as it became hypnotically white and busy. As they centered over the pad in the midst of the frozen fury, the camera paused.

“We had to stop it here for a minute while we got out,” Tim explained. “The copter never really landed. The pilot just got close and we jumped out. Then he came back for us later.”

Marilyn glanced from the television screen to his face as he spoke. He wore a look of animated enthusiasm.

The snow-covered ground alternated with bits of sky on the screen as the camera was apparently jostled around. Marilyn felt a twinge of motion sickness as she stared at the television. Then the camera steadied upright and came to rest on Jack, bundled up in ski jacket and gloves, directing the camera to move closer. Tim heard a sharp intake of breath at Jack’s appearance on the screen. He turned as Marilyn’s hand instinctively reached up and covered her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes as stifled sobs poured into her hands. Her body shook with the effort of her silence. Tim looked at her with dismay and then looked away in embarrassment. Fumbling with the remote control, he managed to stop the tape. Grey static filled the screen. He muted the roaring sound of nothingness one hears when there is no reception, and the room fell silent.

“I’m sorry, I –,” Marilyn started when she finally found her breath again. But Tim interrupted.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m the one who should apologize. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. That was a real insensitive move on my part. I should have realized…” His voice trailed away. He stood up and went into the bathroom, returning with a box of tissues which he set on the couch next to Marilyn. She took one and wiped her eyes, blew her nose. With her composure mostly regained she sighed and looked at Tim with swollen red eyes.

“I’m such an idiot, aren’t I?” she asked rhetorically. “Here I am, still waiting for Jack to come back to me, still clinging to this silly fantasy that I was his “true love,” that any day now the light will come on for him and he’ll come rushing back to my arms.” She was absent-mindedly pulling the tissue apart in her hands as she spoke. “But I know about this new woman, I know he’s out of town with her every weekend. I might as well face it. He isn’t coming back, not now and probably not ever.”

Tim said nothing. Instead he moved closer to her and put his arm around her. She laid her head wearily on his shoulder. After a few minutes, Tim spoke.

“I’ve been where you are before. I know how hard it is, and I’ll tell you something. I had back surgery a few years ago, and for almost six months I had to be confined to my bed. I couldn’t walk around, couldn’t get up and down. I couldn’t even get up to use the bathroom. I was like a little puppy with papers spread out on the floor. It was terrible. But to be honest, if I had to choose between going through that again, or going through losing someone I loved, the way you are now, I would choose the six months flat on my ass. Why do you think I’m not involved with anyone? Haven’t been for years now.”

Marilyn looked even more depressed than before. “If that was meant to be inspirational,” she said in a low voice, “it didn’t quite do the trick.” Yet somehow, knowing that she wasn’t alone, that someone else could really understand the sense of loss she felt and its significance for her, was comforting.

“I’m so tired, Tim. I feel as if I haven’t slept for weeks, months. Maybe I haven’t, I don’t know.”

“I know.” Tim nodded. “But Marilyn.” He gingerly reached out his hand and brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen forward on her cheek. “It does get better. I promise. I know.”

“I’ve been in love before. I know it gets better. But I’m tired of losing, of being wrong. And look at you – you’re living proof that one can only try and fail so many times before the desire to try again vanishes.”

“No, Marilyn.” Tim gripped her by both shoulders and turned her toward him. “The desire doesn’t vanish. Fear overrides it. I will get up the courage to try again and so will you. We all need to take little breaks, but we can’t ever stop believing in love and trying to find it. Granted, there’s a lot of competition…” He smiled as she grinned at him. “In the meantime,” he suggested, “concentrate on other things in your life. Your work, your friends, your interests. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that we shouldn’t rely on someone else to make us happy. If we do we’ll be disappointed time and again.” He paused, shrugging his shoulders. “We’ll always be postponing happiness.”

He looked reflective as he spoke again. “There’s no doubt that being in love can bring you happiness. But if that happiness isn’t grounded in reality, then it packs up and moves on, as transient as the wind.”

Marilyn looked at Tim with new respect. This man was different, in the way he talked, in how caring he was, and how compellingly thoughtful.

“Yes, I know you’re right,” she said. A clock chimed from the kitchen, twelve times. She stood up, smoothing over the wrinkles in her pants. “I should be going. It’s late.”

“I’ll get your coat.” He went to the closet and returned, helping her on with her trench-coat.

“Jack always used to say I looked like a spy in this. When I would wear it he’d call me Bond.” She laughed softly. The memory was a happy one.

“I’ll walk you to your car.” Tim opened the door and followed her out. The air was cold and clear. The snow predicted earlier tonight hadn’t yet materialized. At her car, Tim took Marilyn’s hand.

“You take care of yourself, Marilyn. Call me anytime you need anything, okay?”

She nodded. When she didn’t say anything, he added, “I mean it.”

“Thank you. I will.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. I think Jack’s a fool for giving you up.”

She smiled at him gratefully as he released her hand. She got in her car and started the engine. The car sputtered and grunted, reluctant to venture out into the cold winter night.

Tim bent over and leaned his head into the open window so he could see her face. “Let’s have dinner again soon, okay?” His voice was loud to compete with the revving motor.

“Marilyn smiled. “I’d love to,” she said, and lifting her face toward him lightly kissed his cheek. As he started to back out, she put her hand on his sweater and gently pulled it toward her. “Tim,” she said. He stopped and waited. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled too, and held her eyes for a moment. The kindness he reflected with those clear blue, sparkling pools was ever-present. He straightened up and waved to her as she rolled up the window and headed out of the parking lot. 

As Marilyn drove home little bits and pieces of the evening’s conversation floated through her mind. We’ll always be postponing happiness … It picks up and moves on, as transient as the wind ... What was that toast he’d made at dinner? “To the winds of change.” Yes, that was it. She glanced in her rear-view mirror and noticed she was smiling. Speaking of change, she thought, that’s a pleasant one. Then she drove home.