Cleora Louey-Comer

May 8, 1997

California

“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie,”
     “Damn it, DeEtta, There you go again. You’re not listening,” Sandy said in aggravation,  “I asked if you thought Rosie could win her first Emmy.”

With sweat running down her face, DeEtta looked at her best friend on the next stair stepper.  “I’m sorry Sandy.  I sometimes space out.  And yes, I hope she wins. I’m all for her,” DeEtta answered, lowering the speed on her own stepper.
     “Son of a gun, will you check it out,” Sandy exclaimed, pointing to the gym’s TV monitor, “Rosie won.”

Crying with Rosie, both women burst out in laughter as they looked at each other.

“It’s good to hear your laugh again. It’s been a long time. You haven’t been your witty self in a very long time.  You are all by yourself in your own lonely world. We have been worried,” Sandy informed her friend with a sad look in her eyes.

DeEtta was always everyone’s rock to lean on.  Everyone could always go to her depressed and she had them shaking their head in wonder and laughter.  Since her husband died two years ago, DeEtta had gotten quieter, more depressed and withdrawn within herself. She wasn’t the same happy-go-lucky person everyone knew and enjoyed.

“I think you need a new project to fill your time,” Sandy suggested.

As DeEtta got off the stepper, she looked over at Sandy and said, “I need something. Look at me. I’m in my thirties. I work out every day.  I eat right to stay in good hard shape, and for what? Here I am late at night, at the gym and crying with Rosie winning her first Emmy.”      

Shaking her head at her own self-disgust she added, “If it’s not the gym or Rosie than I have my nose stuck in a historical romance novel, fantasizing.  Those books have saved my life more than once.  However, I suppose it could be worse,” DeEtta added with a cocky smile.

As Sandy walked over to the water fountain, she asked, “Okay DeEtta, I’ll bite, how?”

“I could be older and illiterate.”

DeEtta, smiling at her own jest, leaned over and took a drink.  As she straightened up, she looked up to see a serious look on her friends face. “What?”

“I think what you need is a new man in your life.   Don’t give me that look.   Think about it. You’ve been keeping too much to yourself. This is the only place where anyone sees you anymore. We are just worried about you. We want our old DeEtta back.”

On a huff, she added, “I don’t know if a man is the answer. I’d be afraid I would do something stupid and want to bed the first man who turns me on.  God, the thought is tempting.  It’s been two very long years going without one.  I’m wearing my finger and dildos out. 

 “Go ahead and laugh but I’m serious,” DeEtta said when she heard Sandy laugh at her.  “You go two years without any kind of release and see what you do.  Anyway, who would want a woman my age?”  Sighing, “Sandy, it is real easy for you to tell me what I need.  Look at you with your long blond hair and big boobs and that tiny frame of yours.  What I would give to be as young as you again.”

Almost in tears from her laughter, Sandy held the door open for DeEtta. “DeEtta, have you looked in the mirror at all? You’ve worked hard to look good. Why you’re firmer than some twenty-year-old.”

“My plastic surgeon, Dr. Rosenthal, helped,” DeEtta admitted.

“Well, I bet I can count on one hand what gray there is in that long auburn hair of yours.”

“A good camouflage job,” DeEtta said mildly.

“I’m trying to be serious here,” Sandy said with a look of discouragement.  “You look great no matter what little help you’ve had.  I hope I have the body you have when I turn your age,” Sandy informed DeEtta.

DeEtta turned to Sandy in the parking lot and said, “You know Sandy, David and I did make a pack. If one of us died before the other, we wouldn’t hang around doing nothing and feeling sorry for ourselves.  I was to jump on my Harley and just ride across the country.  He was to just take off and find one Island after another, that he could spend his time surfing on."

 DeEtta took a deep breath to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. “It seems I got lost somewhere. I forgot all about our promise to each other,” she added as she walked to her car.

As DeEtta opened her car door, Sandy grabbed her arm and shook it. “I say go for it. What do you have to lose? Your children are all grown up and gone. You’ve no one to answer to but yourself. Come on DeEtta, I’ll move in and take care of your house while you’re gone.”

After making a decision, DeEtta told Sandy, “I’ll do it.  Let me know when you’re ready to move in. All I have to do is let my brother Zack know, pack my backpack, jump into my leather and I’m gone.”

As she gave Sandy a hug, she whispered, “Thanks Sandy for caring.”

One week later found DeEtta packed and headed down the road toward her new adventure.

RIDING DOWN THE HIGHWAY, CRUISING AT 65,

KNOWING WHAT IT FEELS LIKE,

TO BE FREE, TO BE ALIVE,

FORGETTING ALL YOUR PROBLEMS,

HAVING NOT A CARE,

“I never paid any attention to what that poem meant until now”, DeEtta thought as the wind took the tears from her eyes.  Taking a sobbing breath, she smiled as she told herself, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”

     So lost in her newfound feelings, while driving down the road, she didn’t see the car pull out of the parking lot in front of her.