“I think so, but answer the question, will you?”
“Why? You want to take me out? I’m an expensive date, pal. I eat a lot, and I drink a lot.”
“Yeah, but at least you’re easy.”
“That’s true. I’m easy.”
“Seriously though,” I continued, “what are you doing New Year’s Eve?”
Ted let out a sigh loud enough for me to hear, and the tone of his voice became serious. “Nothing, probably. Not a goddamn thing. What about you?”
“Well, that kind of depends. On you. Do you by any chance remember my cousin Sarah? Sarah O’Connell? You met her at the barbecue at my parents’ house in July?”
“The blond?” Ted asked after a moment’s thought. “The skinny blond?”
“Well, I would have said the slender blond, but yes, the skinny blond.”
“Yeah, I remember her. Skinny but funny. Seemed like a nice kid. Why?”
“Well, I was with Sarah yesterday while I was at my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving, and she made it pretty clear she’d like to go out with you sometime.”
“She’s got good taste, that Sarah. That’s another thing I liked about her.”
“Let me finish, will you?”
“Sorry.”
“So, inasmuch as she doesn’t have a date for New Year’s Eve yet and you and I don’t have dates for New Year’s Eve yet, I thought that maybe…”
“You want to tag along with Sarah and me on our big night out? I don’t think so, John.”
“Ted,” I moaned in exasperation.
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, she has a friend. A very attractive friend, she says, and if you want to go out with Sarah, she’ll fix me up with her friend, and the four of us can go out together for New Year’s Eve. What do you think?”
“Why don’t you take Sarah, and I’ll take the very attractive friend?” Ted asked without any hint he was kidding. He must have heard me slap my palm against my forehead. “Sorry. Just kidding,” he assured me.
“Well, what do you say?” I asked.
Several seconds passed before Ted replied. “Yeah. Sure,” he said finally. “What the hell. Sounds like fun. I think Sarah and I could have a good time.”
“Great. So I can tell Sarah you’ll take her out New Year’s Eve?”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about?”
“Yes, Ted. That’s what we’ve been talking about. But I just wanted to make sure we were on the same track before I told Sarah you’d be taking her out.”
“We’re on the same track, little buddy. Just let me know the time and place.”
“I will, Ted. Hey. It just might be a fun evening.”
“For you maybe. You got the good-looking one.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?”
“You sure will, little buddy,” Ted replied with a drawn-out emphasis on the “sure.”
I ignored his implication of impending disaster. “Take care, Ted. I’ll call you in a couple of weeks, and we can sort out the details. Figure out where we want to go and all that. Okay?”
“You got it, pal. See you around.”
It rained all day on New Year’s Eve 1968. The weather forecasters had said the rain would start to taper off around five-thirty that evening and the skies would be clear by eight—good news for the hundreds of thousands of people planning to gather in Times Square to watch the ball come down and welcome in 1969.
Unfortunately, the weather forecasters were wrong. When Ted and I arrived at Sarah’s house at seven-thirty that night, a cold and penetrating rain was falling in sheets and showed no sign whatsoever of abating. In addition to the rain, fog was beginning to form, making the conditions just about as unpleasant as possible.
“This really rots,” Ted complained as we struggled to put on our raincoats before getting out of the car, me in the driver’s seat, Ted in the passenger seat.
“What rots?” I asked, wondering for a moment if Ted was having second thoughts about the evening.
“The rain,” Ted replied. “By the time we get to the front door, we’ll look like drowned rats.”
“Don’t worry about it, Ted,” I said with a grunt, finally succeeding in getting my left arm in the raincoat sleeve. “Sarah’ll love you no matter what you look like.”
“Yeah, right,” Ted grumbled. “You ready?”
“I’m set if you are.”
As if on cue, we threw open our respective car doors, sprang from the car simultaneously and ran up the brick walk to Sarah’s front door.
We reached her front steps in a matter of seconds, but not before we were both soaked, so we stood on her front porch for a moment, out of the rain, wiping the water from our faces and shaking it off our raincoats.
“Shit,” Ted muttered.
“What now?” I asked as I rang the doorbell.
“Nothing. Other than that I’m soaked.”
I was about to tell him to stop complaining when I heard the lock turn on the inside of the front door. A second later and the door opened, bathing both of us in the bright light from Sarah’s front foyer.
“Hi,” Sarah said cheerfully. “I thought maybe you’d be late, what with the rain and all.”
“Naw, it’s not that bad,” I replied, giving Ted a gentle push forward to signal him to enter first.
He took one step forward into the foyer and then stopped just inside the front door. In an instant, he transformed himself from grouch to charmer and, ever the shy one, wrapped a wet arm around Sarah’s shoulders, pulled her into his side and gave her a quick but firm kiss.
“Happy New Year, Sarah,” he boomed.
“Happy New Year to you too, Ted,” Sarah giggled, turning away and out of his grasp, “even if it is four and half hours too early.”
“And who do we have here?” he asked, still blocking the front door and oblivious to the fact that I was still standing outside on the front porch.
“Hey, Ted, any chance we can all meet one another after I get inside?” I interrupted, starting to push him further into the foyer so I could come in too.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “Sorry.”
“Hi, John,” Sarah said, still giggling at Ted and his boldness. She took my hand, pulled me inside and gave me a little peck on the cheek. “How are you?” she asked.
“Wet. How about you?”
“I’m fine,” she answered. She closed the front door, then turned around and looked at me.
“And now,” she announced dramatically, “I’d like you to meet my very best friend, Peggy Reilly.”
It was only then that I saw the woman who until now had been blocked from my view by Ted’s bulk. She stepped partly around Ted and toward me and extended her hand.
“Hi,” Peggy Reilly said. That was all. Just “Hi.”
She gave me a quick smile that faded as quickly as it had appeared. A smile that immediately made me wonder what kind of first impression I had made on her.
Apparently not great
, I thought as I shook hands with her.
But Sarah was right. This Peggy Reilly was beautiful. Truly a striking woman. She was tall, like Sarah had said. Tall and slender. She had thick, black shining hair that hung in gentle waves down to her shoulders, and the contrast of the black hair against her white skin only made her more striking. She was wearing a simple tailored black dress with a small string of white pearls around her neck. Again the contrast of the black dress against her white skin was wonderful. But the thing that impressed me most in the few seconds that her hand was in mine was her eyes. Her incredible eyes. They were brilliant, brilliant blue. Bluer than any eyes I had ever seen, and so clear and sparkling I felt like I could look into them forever.
“Hi. Nice to meet you,” I stammered.
“Nice to meet you,” Peggy replied.
“Let me have your coats,” Sarah interjected. “Then we can go downstairs, and you guys can make us a drink before we leave. What time are our reservations?”
“Eight-thirty,” I said, struggling to get out of the wet raincoat. “So we have a little time.”
The raincoat over my sport jacket was not an easy combination to undo. Ted had had time to get out of his raincoat while I was being introduced to Peggy, and he immediately handed it to Sarah. For some reason that put me under pressure to get rid of mine equally quickly, and I started to hurry. Seeing me struggle, Sarah tried to help me by grabbing the back of my raincoat while I tried to get my arms out of its sleeves without pulling my jacket off at the same time. Thanks to our combined efforts the raincoat suddenly came off, but when it did, it came off in a wide sweeping arc, hitting an umbrella stand to the right of the front door, knocking it over and sending four or five umbrellas skittering across the foyer floor.
The umbrellas hadn’t come to a complete stop before Ted added to my embarrassment. “Nice move, John,” he boomed again. “Why don’t you wreck Sarah’s house while you have a minute?”
But more notably, Peggy, who by now was standing a little apart from Sarah and me with her arms folded across her chest, also chimed in.
“Gee, Sarah, he’s not even cool.”
“You got that right,” I reluctantly agreed with a laugh.
I looked over at Peggy as I picked up the umbrellas one by one and put them back in the now upright stand and tried to estimate how much damage I had done to myself. She stood perfectly still, her arms still folded across her chest, taking in everything I was doing. Our eyes met, and she gave me a wink and a smile. And in the split second we stood there looking at one another, I realized her “Gee, Sarah, he’s not even cool” comment had been a test, and I had passed.
I looked at her for another second or two, smiled and turned towards Sarah. “You were right, Sarah,” I said.
“About what?” asked Sarah, as she finished hanging up my raincoat and closed the foyer closet door.
“About Peggy Reilly. She is beautiful.”
Peggy Reilly and I dated for twenty-one months. On Friday night, October 3rd, 1970, I took Peggy to Harry’s New York Bar in Manhattan and asked her to marry me. She said yes.
We were married on October 10th, 1971, at Saint Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church in Englewood, New Jersey, the church where Peggy had been baptized, had received her First Communion, and had been confirmed. The ceremony was to have been presided over by Peggy’s parish priest, who was, of course, Roman Catholic, and by my parish priest, who was Episcopal. But my parish priest never showed up. The ceremony was beautiful anyway.
Our wedding reception was at Tamcrest, an exclusive and expensive country club north of Englewood. Peggy’s mother had suggested the Knights of Columbus hall because that was all she could afford, but Peggy had a vision of her wedding day, and the Knights of Columbus hall wasn’t in it. So with her mother’s permission, she paid for the reception herself. Coming up with that kind of money wasn’t easy, and she almost came up short, but almost doesn’t count.
For two and a half years we lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Freeport on the south shore of Long Island. The apartment was only a two-block walk to the Long Island Railroad station, which was great for Peg’s commute into Manhattan and only a twenty-five minute drive to where I worked in Westbury, which was great for me.
In 1974 we bought our first house, in Huntington on the north shore of Long Island. A delightful old center-hall Dutch colonial with four bedrooms, a bath and a half, a small but adequate kitchen, a living room, a dining room, a beautiful sunroom, and a spacious addition to the original house that became our family room. We worked on our house constantly. We scraped, spackled, sanded, painted and papered. Together, we made our house our own.
In 1977 we had our first child, a daughter named Jennie, and in 1979 our second, a son named John.
Life was good. Together we built a life that made our families proud, and the Irish girl with the thick, black shining hair and the brilliant blue eyes became the center of my world.
Monday morning, July 28
th
, 1980, twenty minutes after nine.
“Good morning. North Shore Medical Group. How may I direct your call?”
Peg sat at the kitchen table, her third cup of coffee in front of her. John sat in his high chair next to her, happily sucking away at his bottle, Jennie across from her trying very hard to keep her crayon inside the lines on this her fourth picture of the day. Unwashed dishes were stacked in the sink, and a basket full of dirty laundry stood in front of the cellar door waiting to be taken down to the laundry room.
“Uh, yes. Dr. Edwards’ office, please.”
“One moment please,” the operator replied.
Peg was put on hold for several seconds and then heard another line start to ring. Once, twice, three times, five times.
She looked absentmindedly at Jennie, then at John.
What beautiful kids
, she thought as the telephone on the other end of the line rang for the tenth time.
Jennie with her light brown hair. Wavy. Wispy. Her chipmunk cheeks. Her excited little smile. Those beautiful big blue eyes. A china doll, her grandfather called her.
And John. The happiest little guy you could imagine. Big, square head. Super fine, pale brown baby hair lying flat on his scalp. Big grin. Big dimples. The perfect little Irishman. Ready to tackle the world and everything in it.
“God, I’m beat,” she said out loud. She picked up her coffee cup only to realize it was empty. She shook her head in exasperation and wondered how someone could listen to a telephone ring this many times without picking it up.
Finally, a voice came on the other end of the line. “Dr. Edwards’ office.”
“Hi. Good morning. This is Peggy Herbert. I’m a patient of Dr. Edwards.”
“Yes, Mrs. Herbert. How are you?”
“Well not too good, I guess. Which is why I’m calling. I spent most of the weekend on our couch, too tired to do anything. I’m not in pain or sick to my stomach or anything like that. I’m just exhausted. More tired than I’ve ever been in my life. Anyway, I was wondering if Dr. Edwards could see me today?”
“Oh, I don’t think today will be possible,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “But let me check.”
Peg could hear the woman sigh and “tsk” and “hmmm” as she scanned an already overbooked appointment book.
“No, I’m sorry, Mrs. Herbert. Unless this is an emergency, there’s no way Dr. Edwards could see you today. I can fit you in tomorrow morning, however. Say around eleven o’clock? Can you come in then?”