The Appearance

The Appearance

The sand swirled around his face and he pulled his bandana over his nose to filter out the dust. "Don't know which is worse, Rusty," the cowpoke complained to his nag as he adjusted his sombrero, "the summer sun or the dad-burn dust devils."

"Mr. Jackson, would you like another mocha frappuccino?"

Jolted out of the scene of the novel I was writing in my head, I smiled back at the young barista. "Sure, Melinda, holler at me when it's ready." Melinda took special attention to my coffee cravings since I was a daily regular at this Starbucks. It's nice when someone treats a seventy-year old man as a real person, rather than ignoring them or thinking of them as a bother.

Looking at my watch, I recalled that I needed to meet Lee in two hours. One thing I'd learned in the forty years since we'd married is that nothing was more important to Lee than punctuality. Once upon a time she used to be beautiful and full of fun. Now she was just as gray and pudgy as me and extremely ill-tempered. Continuing the joyless marriage seemed easier than a divorce, however.

Melinda called out "tall Mocha Frappiccino" and I paid for it at the register and brought it back to my table. As I was getting comfortable again, in walked the most beautiful young woman I'd seen in years. I watched as she ordered her coffee, paid for it and began to look for a seat in the crowded coffee shop. Seizing upon the opportunity, I motioned to her and smiled that she could sit at the vacant chair across the table from me. Seeming very self-assured, she gracefully eased into the seat and crossed her tanned and long legs.

She introduced herself as Monica and asked my name. As I looked into her young face as yet unaltered by the storms of life, I took an instant liking to her. Something about her long brown hair and the shimmer in her green eyes reminded me of someone I once knew.

"So, Mr. Jackson, what do you think of Senator Obama? Do you think he'd make a good president?" she asked out of the blue.

"Well, I frankly hadn't given it much thought. I got disillusioned with politics and haven't voted in years. Why do you ask?"

I watched her lips part to show beautifully straight white teeth (something I appreciate as a retired dentist) as she explained, "I'm a full-time volunteer for the state Obama For President campaign. Do you want to know why I support him?"

As I listened to her extol the virtues of her choice for president, I was carried back to the time I too was a volunteer for a presidential candidate. I was a local volunteer for Robert Kennedy's campaign and caught up in the idealism of youth. It was the same year that Lee and I had married, after meeting at a San Francisco Love-In in 1967. Back then Lee was even more idealistic and active in politics than I was. I sighed as the memories surfaced.

"Mr. Jackson, you sighed just now and you seem to have a far-away look in your eyes. What is it?"

"Well, Monica, you remind me of the days I was young and idealistic. I thought we could change the world, and I was madly in love with my new bride."

"What was her name?"

"Lee. But that was her middle name. She never went by her first name, as it reminded her of her grandmother. Her first name was actually the same as yours - Monica."

"So her first name was Monica and her middle name was Lee. That's a nice name: Monica Lee Lavelle."

"How did you know her last name was Lavelle? I didn't tell you that!"

Monica pulled out her driver's license and showed me the name on it, Monica Lee Lavelle, next to her picture. That was too weird!

"So you have the same name as my wife? What an unusual coincidence. Or is this some sort of scam?" I skeptically asked.

"No scam, George Jackson. Look at the birth date on my driver's license."

I peered at the license through my bifocals and was shocked by the birth date: July 10, 1945, the same as my wife's.

"What the hell is going on, young lady? You must have made up a fake driver's license with Lee's birth date. How could you be so old and look so young?"

She looked intently into my eyes as she flatly asked "why don't you recognize me? I'm Lee forty years younger. Don't believe it? Here, let me put my hair up the same way she was wearing it back in 1968."

Fascinated, I watched this woman transform into an exact image of a twenty-three year old Lee as soon as she put up her long hair. Why hadn't I seen the resemblance before? But wait, she couldn't be.

"Well, you look exactly like Lee did forty years ago. But that couldn't be!"

"Do you want more proof? Would you like to see my birthmark?"

Lee has a butterfly-shaped birthmark on the back of her left thigh, about mid-way up. "Sure, Monica whoever you are."

Deftly lifting up her skirt, Monica Lee showed me the butterfly birth mark. My jaw dropped as the skepticism drained out of my face.

"Okay. This doesn't make any sense, but I'm convinced."

"George, listen carefully. I've come to you this way to remind you of what you once stood for and to remind you how much you used to love Lee. She's still that same person inside that you married forty years ago. Why waste the last years of your lives together living without the love you once had?"

Suddenly she got up and walked toward the glass door. "Wait," I called with no effect, as she touched the door knob and was gone. Not through the door, but just disappearing into the light.