Christmas with Paisley

“Enjoy the holidays,” My wife told me.

“I am trying.” I added we should have gone to her parents. We’d had this discussion before, but we were now actually landing at San Francisco International Airport. I tried to remain positive as we made our way through the airport to collect our luggage. Overhead Christmas songs played and were routinely interrupted by PSAs wishing us all a safe, happy, and enjoyable holiday season as we waded through a sea of people.

The packed tram to the car rental area deposited us and about one hundred other holiday travelers in the dimly lit rental center. Two hours later we were on the road. “City sure has changed,” I said while navigating bumper-to-bumper traffic. I pointed out the direction of my now-deceased grandparents had lived. The children were teetering on the edge of sleep in their car seats. My wife scrolled through her phone replying to social media, informing everyone we had arrived. 

So much had changed. I chose not to visit home after college and I landed a job. My parents and I did not see eye to eye much and less so as we aged. Life at home had not been stable. Dad took off to have an affair while I was starting my junior year of high school. We marshaled on. Mom drank and so did we. A lot of things went sideways, and home hadn’t felt so homey. There was crying, yelling and doors slamming. I got out as soon as I could.

Another two hours and we arrived at my parents’ house west of the Berkeley hills in the valley. It looked to be a typical San Francisco Bay area Christmas. Days of gloomy grey skies and cool or bright blue skies with vibrant white clouds and cold. Some days of rain. No gloves and not many wear hats. A good coat and the occasional umbrella are all you need against the elements in the San Francisco Bay Area around the holidays.

“A week may have been too long,” I told my wife while considering our living arrangement for the next seven days. All of us are in the family room. My wife and I were on the pull-out couch, the kids on inflatable mattresses at our feet. My parents had given the guest room to a sibling who’d moved back home to live. We had plans to visit other family and friends in the area. It was going to be a busy week. I hung out as long as I could while we settled in then volunteered to run errands for my parents.

*

Alone in the car, my stomach growled. On a whim, I decided to go to the sandwich shop I worked at years ago. Probably torn down, I thought as I saw all the new construction that had been done since I had left. To my surprise, it was still standing. Wedged in the middle of a single-story brick-facing strip mall of seven shops across the street from the car dealership and movie theatre. The delicatessen looked the exact same as it had during my junior and senior years of high school where I spent a great amount of time working and playing.

I hadn’t stepped foot in that building in twenty-one years and when I did, I got a little misty-eyed recalling all the fun we had during and after business hours. Behind the long, chest-high dark brown wooden customer counter stood a trio of uniformed and hat-wearing workers. The combined smell of pickles, onions, jalapenos, freshly baked bread, and cooking meats and the gentle hum of the walk-in refrigerator and the bubbling of the fountain drinks were all just as I remembered. Christmas decorations lined the walls and a twinkling tree stood in a corner. There was even a sprig of mistletoe above the entrance. In line to order I put on my distance readers to see the menu on the far wall.

Then someone seated behind me said, “Tom?” is that you?” I turned around and nearly lost my breath. A familiar, petite woman of Polynesian descent rose from her seat in the dining area and approached me with arms opened wide. “Paisley?” I managed before folding her in my arms. She was warm, perfumed, and soft.

She hadn’t changed much, like me a few wrinkles, small touches of grey hair here and there but she was as beautiful as ever. We worked here together during the time before I left for the mid-west. She’d been in college and I in high school. I hadn’t been confident enough to ask her out, though I had no doubt she’d have refused had I worked up the confidence given the age difference. It just didn’t add up. But we were great friends who drank beer in the parking lot before going to the movies or bowling on Friday or Saturday nights.  

“One in a million,” I said when she asked what the chances of us meeting here like this were. We sat down at one of the booths. We lost track of one another in the years before social media. She stayed in the San Francisco Bay Area, married her college boyfriend, moved to Pleasanton, and raised a family.  When the kids were old enough, she worked at their schools and then she discovered her husband had been unfaithful. They divorced. She focused on her art career. I recalled she’d always been very artistic.

“Paisley,” I said, recalling the artistic pattern she liked so much she wore it on her name tag. It’s what we all called her. It’s what she wore. Paisley. It felt as if we had never been apart. We picked up right from where we seemed to have left off all those years ago and laughed about good times and old friends. She stayed in touch with a few and offered their contact information.

“You know I had a pretty big crush on you back then.” I admitted.

“I know.” she laughed. She said it would never have worked exactly for the reasons I thought. I wasn’t the only one who admired her, other co-workers also took an interest in her as well.

“That was a long time ago,” I said, “We’ve grown up since then,” I said and thought I saw a faint blush on her exquisite cheekbones. “Yes, you have,” she said. The world vanished. I still hadn’t ordered food, and she hadn’t taken another bite of her meal. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. “So, you’re married?” she asked.

I went into my story. Married after college, three kids, work at a law firm in Chicago and the weather and taxes were terrible. “I’d always wondered what happened to you,” I said. Never stopped thinking about you, I hadn’t said that last part, but I had wanted to. I wondered if had become one of those people whom she knew years ago, lost track of, and never heard or saw from again. I was drifting toward a territory and my head warned me not to enter.

But she said she’d always wondered what had become of me as well.

We decided to get together again while I was staying in the area. “I’d love to meet your wife,” she said.  

I placed an order to go, and we left together. She drove away and I sat in my car reading the texts from my wife asking if I was going to be much longer. Driving home my mind raced and I was thinking what life would be like if I, like my father, became an adulterer. It really shook up the family. I couldn’t do that. Could I? Risk what I’ve built for me on a possibility? My wife loyally stood by me during all the difficult years even when we had our troubles.

*

“You guys never hooked up?” My wife asked me later that night when I mentioned running into Paisley. “But you would have or wanted to.”

“I had a crush on her, of course.”

“Do you still have feelings for her?”

*

My parents agreed to watch the kids one night so that my wife and I could go out. We met up with Paisley and went bowling and drank beer like in the old days. We had a blast. Vicky told stories about me that I’d even forgotten. They were a lot alike, I realized. Into our second pitcher, my wife asked her, “Had, Tom been a few years older would you have dated him?”

“Of course,” she replied. “But it’s just one of those things that was never meant to be.” It was both painful and somewhat of a relief to hear.

If I saw a little something extra in Paisly’s goodbye, I’ll always wonder about it. But I’m happy and looking forward to going home.