to the screened-in porch. We can use those trays over there.” She pointed to the other side of the cabinet. “We’ll put them on our laps like we did when we started the tradition. It’s a lovely evening. You can almost smell the salt air coming off the bay tonight.” Delores set out a platter with meat, cheese, sliced tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and onions. “This is just like when we were neighbors in base housing.”
“Your four kids sat around the little kitchen table, and we put our plates on our laps in the living room.” Tootsie set about making her sandwich. “How are the kids?”
“Strung from here to hell,” Delores answered. “One in England, where he retired after getting out of the service. One in upstate New York. Third one is in Florida. She moved down there to be near my folks when they got older. My baby boy is finishing up his last year in the army. He says he and his wife are retiring in Arizona.”
“Do they ever get home at the same time?” Tootsie asked.
“Not since Jimmy’s funeral. I miss those days when they were little and I had to depend on you to help me raise them,” Delores said. “But enough of that. Let’s eat and talk about what’s going in your life since Smokey passed on. I missed getting a letter from you this month, but I’m not fussin’. I know you’ve been busy.”
Tootsie put her sandwich, her drink, and a fistful of chips on a tray and carried it out to the porch. “We should be trying to change our thinking and learn to take advantage of this new modern-technology world, where we can pick up the phone and call someone without paying long-distance fees.”
Delores followed her. “My hands go to sleep after I’ve written three sentences, but I just wait a little while and go back at it.”
“Gettin’ old ain’t for the weak,” Tootsie said. “But we could start calling every month instead of writing.”
“Yes!” Delores said. “First Saturday of the month good for you?”
“Sounds great. You’ve got my number.” Tootsie made a mental note not to forget.
Delores nodded in agreement. “Now tell me about things in your world. Are you driving that big-ass RV? You still got the same neighbors?”
Tootsie caught her up on everything, in between bites of the best bologna sandwich she’d had in years, ending with, “And now I’m on the road with those girls and Luke. I think there’s a spark, or ‘vibes,’ as the younger generation calls it, between him and Diana, but there’s also an age difference. She’s about six or seven years older than he is.”
“Pffft!” Delores threw up a hand. “What’s age when it comes to love? I was two years older than Jimmy.”
Tootsie leaned forward. “Maybe it’s lust instead of love.”
“Well, we lived through the free-love era, so we’ve done seen it all,” Delores giggled.
“Amen to that. I couldn’t wait to burn my bra.” Tootsie laughed with her.
“I would’ve been ahead of you, but I was busy settin’ out the logs.” Delores slapped her knee and laughed even harder.
Luke had looked forward to a walk in the nice brisk breeze all day, but now he wished he could go back to the campsite, crawl into his tent, and read until he fell asleep. Being around Diana brought out his awkward and shy side, and he didn’t like it—not one bit. He’d been more comfortable around her than he’d been with any woman he’d ever met, and then she found out his age. Now he was back to being that computer geek with a bashful streak.
The pungent aroma in the air was rotting leaves, and the cool night wind would turn downright cold before long, but he loved fall. He tried to find something to talk about, but nothing came to mind until he flashed on an image of Aunt Tootsie and Uncle Smokey’s marriage license hanging above the sofa in the old house.
“You’d never guess where they got their nicknames,” he said.
“Who?” Diana asked.
“Tootsie and Smokey.” A hard wind blew so many leaves from a pecan tree that it reminded him of snow.
“I never thought to ask. The names just kind of fit them. Surely that’s not what’s on their birth certificates,” she said.
“Tootsie’s is.” Luke kicked a rock out of the pathway with the toe of his boot. “Tootsie Arlene Green, now Colbert. Smokey’s real name is Samuel Luke Colbert. I was named after him.”