So many of my father's stories were generated in the context of his travels in his neighborhood, my neighborhood at that stage, for we lived blocks away from one another in those days, the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. I think both of us favored the area because it was reminiscent of the New York neighborhoods we had left to come to Los Angeles. I came here, willingly and excitedly, with the hope of being a television writer or perhaps voice specialist in some aspect of the entertainment industry. Dad came because his only child was here. I am sure I have mentioned before that my father was not crazy about Los Angeles, paradisal weather notwithstanding. This story is one among them although Fairfax Avenue is not directly mentioned in it. He made the best of having sacrificed himself for me.
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The lines to the cashier were interminable. Christmas Eve is no time to shop. There were now only three customers before me, though customer number one had filled the moving counter to capacity, and worse, she was preparting to write a check for the purchase. There would now be the inevitable search through her cavernous purse for identification, the clerical notations for security, and then the "double coupons".
The elderly woman in front of me reached up and smoothed an errant hair just over the right ear of her companion, an older gentleman who had so far remained immobile during this process we shared. He had his own checkbook precariously held in his palm. She examined him carefully for further imperfection and ran her hand along the side of his mouth, though I could not see any disorder there. She whisked whatever it was away, with a gentle flick of her fingers.
"You like him?" I importuned.
"Very much," she answered, her face brightening from what had seemed of questionable humor when she noticed my probing attention.
"Have you always liked him?" I insisted.
"For forty-five years," came the unexpected response from the seemingly inattentive gentleman.
"Yes," I offered, '"but does he like you?"
"I think so," came the reflective reply, and then she recovered, "I'm sure, I'm very sure." It seemed a kind of penitential response, but then she smiled. A few of the other customers were now listening avidly to the conversation. A smiling African American lady offered her experience to date, "I've been married for eleven years," she said proudly.
"No cigar," I said. "You have thirty years more to match these folks." The loving couple beamed, and we all moved up a notch. The lady ahead of us had completed the "double coupon" phase of her interminable transaction.
"How about you?" I asked the girl just behind me, young, maybe approaching thirty. She had been expressionless through our improvisation. Her hair was combed back severely and there was an air of privacy about her. But I took the chance.
"Don't tell me," I began, "you are recently married, perhaps three years?"
"Two," she answered.
There were two twelve packs of beer in her cart. "Your husband is a football fan?" I inquired. "A couch potato?" I added.
"No chance," she retorted. There was determination in her answer. "Not if I can help it," she posited, to me, rather glumly.
I thought of the gesture of the elderly lady brushing an imaginary spot from the mouth of her husband. There was love in the gesture. I looked for softness in the young girl's face. It might be there, but there seemed to be a difficulty in its manifesting itself. Her face was pale, and there appeared bluish rings under her eyes and to the extent she smiled, it seemed to be with reluctance. I felt a touch of sadness on this eve of the day of the Nativity. a day of new birth and hope and promise.
Deep in her eyes there was this tangible sadness, and unfulfilled aspiration. And she had so many years to travel still.
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