So, We Meet Again

        Jarod hurried to answer the door, although he in no way looked forward to what stood behind it-–the cleaning service delivery person bringing back the blue blazer he hadn’t worn for decades.

     No reason for a blue blazer, or any formal attire for that matter, when you spent your entire existence piloting a fishing boat or contemplating the Atlantic Ocean off the back deck of your luxury condo. 

     The blazer, however, now made its appearance again as he prepared to say his final farewell to the reason for his undying love of Maryland’s Delmarva Peninsula.

     Ten years ago Jarod had abandoned the breakneck pace of his New York publishing empire to write what he swore to his few close acquaintances would be his contribution to the world of the “Great American Novel.”

     Shortly after arriving on the Delmarva Peninsula with his creative juices supposedly in supercharged author mode he had hit a dry spell, a brick wall similar to that which a long distance runner experiences after the halfway point.

    He figured he had coaxed enough young writers through their first efforts to know intimately the roadmap to great plot and character development, location creation and story formation to wrap them all up into a page-turning epoch certain to make the New York Times Best Seller List within six months of manuscript submission.

     Jarod’s life also had provided a ready supply of source material—graduating at the top of his class at Princeton, joining the prestigious Doaltinsin and Ferredy as one of its most promising young editors, marrying Harriet Blanchard, the beautiful daughter of his publisher and one of the most well-known socialites in Nassau County.

     He also had made a run at politics–vying for a New York State Senate seat suddenly abandoned by a man too impressed with the easy money of bribery and the easy extramarital sex available on many campaign trails.

     Jarod, however, quickly grew tired of the phony pretension of the cocktail-and-easy-pot circuit and the necessity to keep up appearances in a marriage to a frigid social climber more interested in her own ascendancy than to the needs of their union.

    After his attempt at political fame failed in a landslide loss to a highly-regarded reformer, Jarod found himself spending more and more time on his humble cabin cruiser on the Long Island Sound or on week long excursions in the Chesapeake Bay.

     His marriage in shambles and his Empire State ventures into “public service” on the rocks, he decided to make a run on the author’s life.

    After all, James Michenor and a number of others had found success in filling their lungs with the rarified air of Delmarva and their eyes with its beauty, then why couldn’t he?

     Jarod spent a year and a half fighting his spouse’s attorneys and the publishing company’s pitbull contracts experts trying to disentangle himself from the webs of the corporate spiderweb.

     After finally winning what he thought would be true peace and freedom he spent the meager savings and investments he had on renovating his rundown vessel and buying a condominium in the beautiful town of St. Michael’s, Md.

     After settling in, however, Jason soon discovered the glorious scribe’s life he had depicted for years in his publishing company publicity alot easier to obtain on his company’s websites and his own blog posts than in real life.

      He also found that the “muse” he believed had brought with him from New York seemed to have abandoned him on the shores of the southern Atlantic.

      Deciding to shelve his writing plans for the time being, he partnered with a local fishing “pro” and began running daily angling trips.

      During one of these excursions he started speaking with an attractive brunette who reignited a connection stored away for many years in his memory bank of youthful experiences before professional publishing and just after his graduation from Princeton.

     The woman came back for a second day of fishing and she, too, seemed to have a spark of recognition for Jarod.

     The couple left the boat after the second day and headed for one of the local pubs for dinner and drinks. They spent the night together discovering and rediscovering everything they had in common.

       She had introduced herself as “Joanie Newton,” but Jason discovered that she also had suffered a disastrous marriage. Prior to the marriage she had been Joan Montague.

         Could the fates possibly have intervened in Jarod’s life–for a change in the positive direction?

        Turns out that, after Jarod’s senior year at Princeton, he had vacationed with his family on Delmarva. While staying in the family condominium in St. Michael’s he had met an attractive brunette–you guessed it-Joan Montague.

        Their friendship blossomed into a torrid love affair that lasted that summer and continued long-distance during the following seasons and during the next summer in Maryland.

      Joan, however, decided to go into partnership in a local travel agency with John Newton of St. Michael’s, while Jarod pursued the offer he had received from Doaltinsin and Ferredy in New York.

      The couple had spent so many wonderful times together on Delmarva. Joan could not understand why Jarod could not find a way to establish himself in the publishing business in Maryland.

     At the same time, Jarod saw tremendous and expanding opportunities in New York, both for himself and Joan. He couldn’t see why she would close many doors on her future by choosing to remain in such a limited area.

     After a number of shouting matches, Jarod and Joan had a bitter breakup. They had not spoken since that time.

     A decade later the fates again had intervened to reunite them after living separate lives and miles apart. During that reunification, they had a hard time remembering the bitterness that had driven them apart.

    The story, however, had one last twist, the one secret that Joan had not revealed in their days following the fishing trip. She had received a  diagnosis, six months before, of terminal breast cancer.

     Jarod had rediscovered on Delmarva what had been absent from his life for a decade only to have it snatched from his grasp.