Dinner & a Movie

Jameson Taft slid a small black comb gently through his thin gray hair as he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. His face was leathery and wrinkled, and although he had quit smoking years ago, thin lines had formed around his mouth and his lips were always puckered outward as if eagerly waiting a long-withheld cigarette. His eyes didn’t really have a distinct color—it was somewhere in between blue and grey and green. His wife had always said they were the color of springtime—whatever that was.

Taft put the comb down and began tucking in his white button down dress shirt into his black slacks. The shirt clung to his small frame like cellophane over a dish. Taking his belt off the towel rack, Taft looped it around his pants and tightened it as far as it would go. “Might need to adjust this after dinner tonight,” he mumbled to himself. Taft once again looked at his reflection in the mirror—a poor portrayal of how he saw himself. In his mind, he was a slick thirty-something year old man with good hair and a defined jaw line resting on smooth skin—devoid of any weathered attributes. Taft wanted so badly to break the damn mirror just so he wouldn’t have to look at some old man every time he took a piss or showered or shaved or anything else one might do in the restroom.

“I guess this is as good as it’s gonna get.” He clicked off the light switch, walked into his bedroom, grabbed his keys, and headed for the door.

After pulling out of the driveway, Taft reached in his breast pocket for his cell phone and dialed her number.

“Linda, I’m heading your way. Are you getting off work soon? Good. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”



Taft eased into a tight parking space at Weatherford Bank and parked. Linda emerged from the double doors, waving goodbye to a few co-workers as she left the building. She looked around for a moment, as if to make sure no one was watching—or maybe she was just looking for his car. She caught his stare from inside the vehicle and quickly walked toward the car. Linda was elegant, poised, pleasant, and an attractive woman for sixty-four, two years his senior. She could have easily passed for ten years his junior. Her rich, dark hair was normally up in a bun but today it fell soft behind her shoulders. Her legs seem to come up to her chest and her arms swaggered confidently when she walked.

Taft, on the other hand, had sweaty palms and his heart felt as if it were just about to jump outside his chest. He hadn’t felt like this in years upon years upon years. Of course, he was nervous! The man hadn’t been out with any other woman but his wife for over thirty years! Taft, why are you doing this? Why couldn’t you have just stayed home tonight—or called Jonah to play dominoes or something. Stupid, stupid, stupid—she tapped on his window, smiling from ear to ear. He looked started; she had interrupted his racing, discombobulated thoughts. He gave a sheepish half-grin, opened his car door and got out, unsure of what to do. She hugged him.

“How are you, Jameson?”

“I’m good. Doing good. And you?” That dumb, dim grin had surely leaked all his inward trepidation.

“Very well. Would you like to let me in the car?” She smiled back, but with a little more sincerity and a lot more ease.

“Of course, of course. How uncharacteristic of me.”

Taft hurriedly rounded the car, clumsily hitting his hip on the side as he cut the corner too quick. If Linda were deaf and blind she’d probably still pick up on the fact that he was anxious about tonight. He opened the door for her, still with that grin, as she walked from the driver’s side to the passenger side of the vehicle—not bumping into anything—and gracefully sat down. Taft got back in the car and started driving toward Forth Worth.

“Crazy, us going out again, after so long.” Linda said staring out the window.

“I know, I was just thinking about that earlier. What’s it been? Almost forty-five years?” Taft seemed pleased with his memory.

“Oh my god, please don’t talk about our age! I can remember just fine our relationship without remembering how long ago it was.”

“You know, you look just as pretty as when I first met you, sitting in Mr. Morton’s math class.”

“Well, Jameson, maybe you ought to get a better prescription for those glasses,” Linda blushed, rolling her eyes.

Linda and Taft, ages ago, had been high school sweethearts, but when Taft left for Baylor they fell apart. He fell in love with a nursing major, and Linda found her country cowboy at Weatherford Community Collegw — but divorced four years later. She looked over at Taft. His eyes were dead-set on the road. She realized that he hadn’t looked her in the eyes at all since he picked her up.

He’s probably thinking about her.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Taft murmured.

“If you want, we could go to Dallas, get a little further from town?”
Linda spoke softly.
“No, Fort Worth should be far enough away from Weatherford. God only knows what people would say if the two of us went to dinner in town. By morning, my phone would be ringing off the hook and my daughter would be banging down my door.” Jameson chuckled for the first time all day. “I can just picture it now…”

“We don’t have to do this.”

“I know. I want to, Linda.”

“About your wife—”

“—Please, I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

“Jameson.”

“I’m okay!” Jameson’s voice rose. “I promise,” he said much softer, reaching for her hand. She opened her palm for him and curled four fingers over his dry, cracked hand, caressing it with her thumb. They both smiled at each other, but soon looked away. The two struggled for conversation for a few moments but each off-topic, random comment left the other one quiet and soon silence encompassed the car for what seemed like hours. As much as Taft wanted to focus on Linda—his mesmerizing date—he couldn’t take his mind off of his wife.



Don’t blow this, Taft. She’s a good girl, and you’re a good guy. There’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing. You deserve this. For Pete’s sake, stop thinking about your dead wife! She’s been dead for six years now. But for some reason, you still call her your wife. Marriage vows state that a man and woman are bound in union until death. Well, she’s dead. The contract is no more. Why are you trying to make marriage immortal? Marriage is just a title. Taft’s mind was throwing sucker punch after sucker punch against his skull. But how can anyone expect to instantly relinquish years of love for someone, simply because a title is gone?

She put her hand on his as a tear accidentally slipped down his right cheek. He clenched his teeth, breathed deeply, and slid his hand firmly into hers, locking fingers like cross-connecting lines of patchwork.

“Maybe we could catch a movie after dinner?”

“I’d like that very much.”