From somewhere in the depths of my purse my cell phone rang. I fished it out and saw my mother’s phone number on the caller ID. Flipping open the phone and raising it to my ear, I answered, “Hey Mom. What’s up?” “You will never guess who I’m standing in front of right now.” she said by way of greeting, skipping over the hellos and getting straight to the point. “Mom, you’re in the smallest town in America, it could be anyone, I’m not sure.” I had moved out of my hometown a half dozen years earlier, leaving town for college three weeks after turning 18 and never really looking back. After college I settled into a full-time job and started putting roots down about 40 miles away from my hometown.
“Well, Eva, why don’t you find out for yourself.” She must have handed the phone off because in the next instance I heard the unmistakable voice of Luke, my childhood best friend, partner in crime, and slightly misunderstood compadre. In his jovial voice I hear “Hey, what are you up to?!” Luke was in the military, a Green Beret specifically, back when they were the only ones wearing the distinguishing headgear. He had been deployed overseas for a while, so we had not seen him over the Christmas holidays as we had done every year since he and I had graduated from high school.
“Heeeyyyyyy! I didn’t know you were back in town!,” I exclaim in an equally excited voice. “Oh, I just got in a couple of days ago and am visiting Mom and Dad. I just ran into your Mom here in the Winn-Dixie parking lot and when I asked how you were doing, she said I should ask you myself!” “Well,” I replied, “I’m glad you did. What do you have planned while you’re in town? How long are you here?” I started asking in the rapid-fire succession that was our normal conversational speed. “So, I was talking with your Mom and I’d really like to see Uncle Tony while I’m in town, so I think I’m going to head over there after he gets off of work tomorrow night. Do you think you can make the drive into town to say hi?” I answered, “Of course.” “Ok, well, see you then. Talk to you later.”
I hear a shuffle as he hands the phone back to my Mom and says his goodbyes to her, setting a time for him to go over to the house tomorrow night. Mom comes back on the line with me, chuckling as she says, “Well. What do you think about that!?”
“Well, Eva, why don’t you find out for yourself.” She must have handed the phone off because in the next instance I heard the unmistakable voice of Luke, my childhood best friend, partner in crime, and slightly misunderstood compadre. In his jovial voice I hear “Hey, what are you up to?!” Luke was in the military, a Green Beret specifically, back when they were the only ones wearing the distinguishing headgear. He had been deployed overseas for a while, so we had not seen him over the Christmas holidays as we had done every year since he and I had graduated from high school.
“Heeeyyyyyy! I didn’t know you were back in town!,” I exclaim in an equally excited voice. “Oh, I just got in a couple of days ago and am visiting Mom and Dad. I just ran into your Mom here in the Winn-Dixie parking lot and when I asked how you were doing, she said I should ask you myself!” “Well,” I replied, “I’m glad you did. What do you have planned while you’re in town? How long are you here?” I started asking in the rapid-fire succession that was our normal conversational speed. “So, I was talking with your Mom and I’d really like to see Uncle Tony while I’m in town, so I think I’m going to head over there after he gets off of work tomorrow night. Do you think you can make the drive into town to say hi?” I answered, “Of course.” “Ok, well, see you then. Talk to you later.”
I hear a shuffle as he hands the phone back to my Mom and says his goodbyes to her, setting a time for him to go over to the house tomorrow night. Mom comes back on the line with me, chuckling as she says, “Well. What do you think about that!?”
* * *
I arrived at my parent’s house the next evening roughly an hour after I had left the office, still dressed in a smart-looking emerald green button-down blouse, black slacks and a pair of black pointed-toe boots. It was a far cry from my normal high school uniform of windbreaker pants and t-shirts, or a softball uniform that I had seemingly lived in for nearly half the year.
Since my office was not far from the interstate, I had made good time getting through the rush hour traffic and had somehow managed to make it to my parent’s house before Luke. I call it a house, but it was a spacious 2-bedroom, 2-bath apartment carved out of the front corner of the skating rink on the outskirts of town. It would be the first time that he had visited with us since they had moved into the space that previous October, after a hurricane and subsequent tornado had come through town and ripped the roof and siding off of my childhood home. Damaged beyond repair, many people stepped up to offer my parents a place to live, from unoccupied trailers and rent houses owned by friends and colleagues, to the surprising information that there was an apartment attached to the skating rink where I had spent many Friday and Saturday nights during my adolescence, including Luke and I hosting our joint Birthday Skating/Dancing Party there just weeks before the start of junior high.
When Luke arrived we settled into the living room. Mom in her rocking chair, Daddy in his Lazy-Boy Recliner, and Luke and I each sitting on a matching loveseat and sofa that had belonged to my grandparents throughout most of my childhood. It was one of the few pieces of furniture that was salvaged from our house after the storm and was every bit the autumn-colored floral print fabric that was all too abundant in the late 70s and early 80s. Since it was in my grandparent’s formal living room that was only used twice a year, it was still in immaculate condition. We started chatting, catching up on all the things that had been happening in our lives since our last visit more than a year earlier. We talked about how Mom and Daddy had come to live in the apartment, showed Luke the door from the utility room directly into the skating rink, and told him about our new tradition of opening up the rink and skating a few rounds to burn off Christmas dinner. The owners of the rink had long been clients of my Dad, relying on him in many emergency situations when the air conditioning system was on the fritz and they were hours away from opening up for what was sure to be a jam-packed skating session. As part of the rental agreement, since they would not accept monetary compensation and merely said they were helping out old friends in their time of need, Daddy would often work in the rink during the Saturday afternoon and Sunday sessions. A bear of a man, standing well over six feet tall and 250 pounds, Daddy was an intimidating figure, perfect to enforce quiet authority to hormone-laden adolescents who were looking to flex their manhood during the three-hour skating sessions.
When Luke asked what kind of work I was doing those days, I told him that I had left the floor covering industry, and was using my interior design degree as a designer and salesperson for a window covering manufacturer who had been serving the area for nearly 90 years. Working with both homeowners as well as design professionals, I would consult and sell various types of blinds, shades, and shutters.
I jokingly told the story of how just a few days earlier I was having a meeting with a small local architectural firm where a few friends from college had obtained jobs after graduation. When an upcoming project needed custom window treatments to restore the look and feel of the historical space, they passed my name on to Eric, the lead architect for the project and we had scheduled a morning meeting to review the plans and discuss possible options.
At the insistence of my boss and looking to gain a few bonus points with the clients, I stopped at a local coffee shop and grabbed a dozen assorted pastries and a to-go carafe of coffee since the meeting was the first of the day. I told Luke and my parents that the meeting had gone very well, and I had provided the design team with several viable options that would meet the needs of the project, said my goodbyes, and promised to follow up with some numbers for their project budget. During the meeting, their interior designer Emily had joined us to hear about the possible products and we had a few minutes to catch up and visit, since she had been a couple years behind me in design school and I would often see her around the design studios. I did not see Karl, another one of my classmates in our general design classes, before we all broke off into specialized instruction for our respective disciplines. Later that day, though, I did get a phone call from Karl, thanking me for bringing in breakfast and apologizing that he was not able to break away from his meeting to pop in to say hi. He then started laughing and told me that he had a story that I would get a kick out of. After I had left, Eric had brought the leftover pastries and coffee into their small breakroom. Karl walked in later and asked who had brought over the goodies, to which Eric replied with a shrug, “The Blind Girl.” Seeing the confused look on his face, Emily, in an exasperated voice, spoke up and clarified: “He means Eva. She came to talk about blinds for the historic restoration project.” “Ohhhhh,” was Karl’s reply, and then after a beat, continued. “You know she’s not the Blind girl, right? She’s the Deaf girl.” His joke fell a little flat in his office since neither Eric nor Emily knew me well enough to realize the extent of my hearing difficulties, but in my parents’ house, raucous laughter was coming from around the room. Luke was wiping tears from his eyes and laughing so hard that he was clutching his stomach because he was all too familiar with my hearing issues and my mother was just shaking her head with a smirk on her lips.
We moved on to talk about my recent home purchase, which at 23 years old, was quite the feat, especially coupled with the fact that weeks after moving into the home, I jetted off to Hawaii with two girlfriends for a weeklong visit. Luke expressed, with a little sadness in his eyes, that with all his deployments, he really didn’t have time to unpack boxes in his tiny apartment, much less have the time or want to purchase a home. His last deployment was just over six months in length and he was leaving for another three months in mid-spring. He said that he was looking forward to returning and spending the summer in North Carolina, where he was stationed between deployments, and would be finding a new apartment at that time. With a glimmer of mischief in his eyes, he said that he may have to call me to find out what types of window treatments he should use there. Mom perked up and said “You know Eva is practically a gypsy, I’m sure that she would have no issue jumping on an airplane to go visit you.” He turned and looked at me and said, “We may just have to do that.”
Since my office was not far from the interstate, I had made good time getting through the rush hour traffic and had somehow managed to make it to my parent’s house before Luke. I call it a house, but it was a spacious 2-bedroom, 2-bath apartment carved out of the front corner of the skating rink on the outskirts of town. It would be the first time that he had visited with us since they had moved into the space that previous October, after a hurricane and subsequent tornado had come through town and ripped the roof and siding off of my childhood home. Damaged beyond repair, many people stepped up to offer my parents a place to live, from unoccupied trailers and rent houses owned by friends and colleagues, to the surprising information that there was an apartment attached to the skating rink where I had spent many Friday and Saturday nights during my adolescence, including Luke and I hosting our joint Birthday Skating/Dancing Party there just weeks before the start of junior high.
When Luke arrived we settled into the living room. Mom in her rocking chair, Daddy in his Lazy-Boy Recliner, and Luke and I each sitting on a matching loveseat and sofa that had belonged to my grandparents throughout most of my childhood. It was one of the few pieces of furniture that was salvaged from our house after the storm and was every bit the autumn-colored floral print fabric that was all too abundant in the late 70s and early 80s. Since it was in my grandparent’s formal living room that was only used twice a year, it was still in immaculate condition. We started chatting, catching up on all the things that had been happening in our lives since our last visit more than a year earlier. We talked about how Mom and Daddy had come to live in the apartment, showed Luke the door from the utility room directly into the skating rink, and told him about our new tradition of opening up the rink and skating a few rounds to burn off Christmas dinner. The owners of the rink had long been clients of my Dad, relying on him in many emergency situations when the air conditioning system was on the fritz and they were hours away from opening up for what was sure to be a jam-packed skating session. As part of the rental agreement, since they would not accept monetary compensation and merely said they were helping out old friends in their time of need, Daddy would often work in the rink during the Saturday afternoon and Sunday sessions. A bear of a man, standing well over six feet tall and 250 pounds, Daddy was an intimidating figure, perfect to enforce quiet authority to hormone-laden adolescents who were looking to flex their manhood during the three-hour skating sessions.
When Luke asked what kind of work I was doing those days, I told him that I had left the floor covering industry, and was using my interior design degree as a designer and salesperson for a window covering manufacturer who had been serving the area for nearly 90 years. Working with both homeowners as well as design professionals, I would consult and sell various types of blinds, shades, and shutters.
I jokingly told the story of how just a few days earlier I was having a meeting with a small local architectural firm where a few friends from college had obtained jobs after graduation. When an upcoming project needed custom window treatments to restore the look and feel of the historical space, they passed my name on to Eric, the lead architect for the project and we had scheduled a morning meeting to review the plans and discuss possible options.
At the insistence of my boss and looking to gain a few bonus points with the clients, I stopped at a local coffee shop and grabbed a dozen assorted pastries and a to-go carafe of coffee since the meeting was the first of the day. I told Luke and my parents that the meeting had gone very well, and I had provided the design team with several viable options that would meet the needs of the project, said my goodbyes, and promised to follow up with some numbers for their project budget. During the meeting, their interior designer Emily had joined us to hear about the possible products and we had a few minutes to catch up and visit, since she had been a couple years behind me in design school and I would often see her around the design studios. I did not see Karl, another one of my classmates in our general design classes, before we all broke off into specialized instruction for our respective disciplines. Later that day, though, I did get a phone call from Karl, thanking me for bringing in breakfast and apologizing that he was not able to break away from his meeting to pop in to say hi. He then started laughing and told me that he had a story that I would get a kick out of. After I had left, Eric had brought the leftover pastries and coffee into their small breakroom. Karl walked in later and asked who had brought over the goodies, to which Eric replied with a shrug, “The Blind Girl.” Seeing the confused look on his face, Emily, in an exasperated voice, spoke up and clarified: “He means Eva. She came to talk about blinds for the historic restoration project.” “Ohhhhh,” was Karl’s reply, and then after a beat, continued. “You know she’s not the Blind girl, right? She’s the Deaf girl.” His joke fell a little flat in his office since neither Eric nor Emily knew me well enough to realize the extent of my hearing difficulties, but in my parents’ house, raucous laughter was coming from around the room. Luke was wiping tears from his eyes and laughing so hard that he was clutching his stomach because he was all too familiar with my hearing issues and my mother was just shaking her head with a smirk on her lips.
We moved on to talk about my recent home purchase, which at 23 years old, was quite the feat, especially coupled with the fact that weeks after moving into the home, I jetted off to Hawaii with two girlfriends for a weeklong visit. Luke expressed, with a little sadness in his eyes, that with all his deployments, he really didn’t have time to unpack boxes in his tiny apartment, much less have the time or want to purchase a home. His last deployment was just over six months in length and he was leaving for another three months in mid-spring. He said that he was looking forward to returning and spending the summer in North Carolina, where he was stationed between deployments, and would be finding a new apartment at that time. With a glimmer of mischief in his eyes, he said that he may have to call me to find out what types of window treatments he should use there. Mom perked up and said “You know Eva is practically a gypsy, I’m sure that she would have no issue jumping on an airplane to go visit you.” He turned and looked at me and said, “We may just have to do that.”