Herbert's Story Unfolds

With Trudy keeping Mr. Feinman busy, Laura Dell felt she had the perfect opportunity to spend a few uninterrupted minutes with Herbert. Not only had John William’s assessing comments made her feel she really needed to spend some time getting to know Herbert the person and not just Dr. Walters, the scientist, she was becoming increasingly concerned about his health.
“One too many Southern Pecans last night?” she said with a wink, trying to lighten the mood.
“Ah yes, not this time, but I wish that’s what had kept me up half the night.” Herbert winked in response, as if to reciprocate a special joke, shared by the two of them. “Instead, I’m afraid I was only busy pondering things that Sue probably wouldn’t even find interesting.”
“Well wait just a minute. We’ve have dozens of conversations, hundreds maybe, and I can’t recall a single one where I wasn’t the least bit entertained. Just try me.”
“Ok then, I have malignant melanoma, how’s that for entertaining.” He laughed as if it was comical, but the pain on his face sent a different message. Laura Dell didn’t know how to react. She was at first struck by the extreme bluntness from a man whom she had known to be nothing but gentle, if not always tactful.
“You have a what?”
“Malignant melanoma, a malignant tumor of melanocytes, several of them actually.” Herbert pushed back his linen sleeve so that she could see the array of bandages cascading down his left arm, as if in a waterfall of gauze.”
“So this has been what all your testing has been about then?”
“Yes, those doctors at the University Medical Center have been taking shavings for months. You’d have thought I was a sculpture by now. Aparently, all that time I was out digging in the sun, didn't do my skin a while lot of good.”
“And they are proposing treatment, I assume?”
“It’s malignant, and inoperable. I’m afraid we caught it too late.”
Laura Dell felt her stomach grow queasy, and she wondered if she was the one who needed the cane to support herself. Thoughts and worries began to ricochet like bullets in her head. Not this, not again, she thought to herself. Death, the old friend that she knew too well was not about to follow her to Chicago, in this new world of science, pleace, order. Not with her closest friend. With her father’s death, it had been sudden, unexpected. It had come as quickly as a summer afternoon shower, but the memory of it had lingered far too long. The night it had happened, her mother had been cooking spaghetti for the family; John William had been lounging in front of an episode of “The Cosby Show.” No forewarning, no preparation, just a sudden explosion in their little Siloam world that had shattered them to bits with just one telephone call.
“No, this just can’t be. I refuse to believe that there’s not some king of treat…”
“Laura Dell, can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.” The tears had come now, slow and steady, but they were only the brim of what lay behind her searching eyes.
“I don’t need any more doctors, any more experts. What I need is a friend, which I already have in you my dear. Just go on being that for me. That’s what I need the most.”
Laura Dell nodded with every word he said, in exaggerated agreement.
“That, Herbert, is something you don’t have to ask me for.”

***

Still annoyed by his mother’s surprise visit, Mr. Feinman hurried towards Laura Dell and Herbert. Laura Dell had just enough time to blot her eyes with her thick wool sleeve.
“Miss Dell, I have just received a complaint that there are animal droppings in various places across the museum, one little collection in the Cenozoic Time Machine room and another near the Stegosaurus exhibit. God knows where else.”
“Oh, yes Sir. I’ll get right on it.”
“I can only assume they are from that little varmint that got in a few weeks ago. I thought surely you would have found a way to exterminate him by now, but obviously, that hasn’t happened yet. I suggest you find a way Miss Dell.” Laura Dell and Herbert could see Trudy peering at them down the hall, and they wondered if Feinman’s reverting back to his old pompous self was an attempt to show off in front of his mother.
As he walked away, Laura Dell nudged Herbert. “It’s closing time. I can deal with that mess tomorrow. Why don’t we head over Dead Yellowhammer, my treat.”
“The very thing I was going to suggest myself, as long as it’s not a sympathy date, for an old, dying man.” Herbert said with a chuckle, but too soon for Laura Dell to enjoy any humor in it.
“No, no sympathy date. Actually, would you mind running with me to see John William off first? He wanted to meet me at the coffee shop next door before his flight home.”
“Yes, of course, but let’s not burden him with my news. I’d rather not have to explain things. It would make for a messy goodbye anyway, I’m afraid.”
“Our secret.” Laura Dell squeezed his arm tightly and closed her eyes as she breathed in the smell of Vick’s Save and musty cologne. Nothing could have smelled sweeter.

***

John William was surprised to see Herbert walk up with Laura Dell, and he was even more taken aback by the peculiar spectacle of his 22-year-old sister perched on the arm of this surrogate grandfather. He had hoped to say his goodbyes alone, but he was at least comforted in the fact that she wouldn’t be walking home alone. He noticed her swollen eyes and assumed she was more emotional than he had thought about his departure.
“Well Sis, don’t be a stranger. You know it’s just as easy to buy a plane ticket back to Alabama as it is for me to get one to Chicago.”
Laura Dell glanced over at Herbert, realizing that she could not leave him in this condition, not any time soon. “Yes, as soon as I can.” Herbert too considered John William’s request, but he didn’t want Laura Dell leaving Chicago any more than she did.

***

It was nice to be back at The Dead Yellow Hammer with Herbert. Although Laura Dell had treasured every moment with John William, but she was glad to have some time with Herbert, one-on-one.
The booth they had sat in the last time was occupied by a young couple that saw no need to hide their affection in public, so Herbert and Laura Dell opted for the corner table at the back of the room.
“Ok, friend. No sick talk tonight. Tell me something about Herbert, something before he became Dr. Walters.” This request seemed to charm Herbert into a trance.
“All right then, let’s see. 1945, that’s a good year to start. I had just gotten home from the war, ready to live life as a civilian for a change. As a welcome home party, My mother and father and the other neighbors had an ice cream social one night, for all the returning G.I.’s. All the women wore their best dresses and they had even strung up paper mache lanterns all across our back yard. I had been there an hour, just talking to my brother Jim, when I saw Malynne walk up. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen; Here eyes were so green back then---everybody said she looked just like Ava Gardner. ‘Ava who?’ I said.” Herbert laughed and Laura Dell joined him, glad he had slipped out of the previous sadness that had seemed to envelop him most of the day. She was glad to laugh too, but she knew the pleasantries of the evening would be short-lived. She dreaded going home alone. Then she wouldn’t be able to escape the thoughts of Herbert’s illness.
“So did anything become of your Malynne, or was she just one of the many hearts you broke in your youth?”
“On the contrary, we were married two months later.” Herbert fished into his pocket for his wallet and slid out a photograph, yellowed with age and slightly curled around the edges. He thumped it across the table to Laura as if it was a paper football. She glanced down at a handsome, young Herbert, wearing a tuxedo. His chest was broad and his arms appeared strong and able, no blemishes, no bandages, much too robust for the cane he now held. Malynne was just as he had described her, the very picture of a lovely war bride. She wore a simple tea-length white gown and an expression of grace and gentility. Laura Dell knew she must have been a wonderful person; she couldn’t imagine Herbert choosing anything less.
“Oh Herbert, y’all were such a handsome couple. And Malynne, she’s so beautiful. You both look so happy.”
“We were. We had no reasons not to back then. Those were the happiest days of my life, Malynne’s too. Laura Dell could have listened to Herbert talk forever, but before she could ask what had become of Malynne, Herbert interrupted her.
“That’s enough of the history channel for tonight. Let’s order. I’m starved.”
Laura Dell knew there had to be more to Herbert’s relationship with Malynne. What she didn’t understand was why he hadn’t told her the whole story.

***

When Laura Dell got back to her apartment, she was greeted by the monotonous red blink of her answering machine. She deleted the message halfway through, before it even ended. Her mother loved to leave her long, detailed messages that usually exceeded the time limit anyway. It was only 8 o’clock, and Laura Dell knew her mother would be up waiting to hear from her. Her mother picked up on the first ring, and Laura Dell could picture her, half-asleep in the rocking chair by the phone at home.
“Laura Dell? Well it’s about time.” Her mother was in no mood for polite conversation tonight.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just got home, and it’s been a long day.”
“Did you have to work late tonight or something? It’s half past eight already.”
“Oh, I’ve been off work for a while, just went to grab some dinner with a friend.”
“Oh really? Dating a nice Yankee already?
“Well, I went out with Herbert, but he’s no Yankee.”
“Is this the same old man John William told me about?” Laura Dell wasn’t sure just how much John William had told her, and she didn’t want to volunteer any new information. She knew her mother all too well to think that she would be pleased to find out her only close friend was old enough to be her grandfather.
“Yes, it’s the same Herbert that joined us for dinner the other night.”
“I see. So you two are very close, I take it.”
“Oh mother, he’s so wonderful, and it’s just so nice to have someone to talk to that cares enough to listen, that’s all.” But Laura Dell knew that that wasn’t all. She just wondered if it showed.