The separation that summer between Jeff and Eunice didn’t last long. Eunice knew that Jeff and Eric planned to wash and wax the Triumph on Sunday, and thought it might be a fun thing to do as well as a good way to be casual with Jeff in a way she couldn’t be at Meriwether. So Sunday morning, instead of going to church with her folks, she borrowed an old Chevy from her father’s used car lot. Knowing that washing the car was likely to be wet and messy, she put on an old one-piece sleeveless red playsuit that had been a gym uniform when she’d been taking phys. ed. in high school years before. The playsuit was both rather tight and short – she’d grown a little since those days – but it would let her show off a bit while being casual.

The guys were both surprised and delighted to see her get out of the unfamiliar car. Over the last couple of months they’d gotten used to seeing her wearing the dowdy cotton dresses that were considered “proper” at Meriwether; they made her look plain and drab. This time, though, the playsuit showed off that she had nice legs, if rather white from not being out in the sun. “Wow, Eunice!” Jeff said when he saw her. “You look great!”

It was clear to Eunice from his comment that he meant that he thought from his first glance that she really was shaped like a girl after all – not exactly a Marilyn Monroe body or anything, but much better than he had imagined.

“I don’t want to call this an old rag,” she smiled at him, glad to have gotten just exactly the reaction she’d hoped for, “but I figured we were going to get dirty working on the car, so I wore something I wouldn’t mind getting messed up.”

“You look just fine,” Eric said. “I’m glad you’re here to help out since I don’t know how much work we’re going to get out of Jeff. He’s probably going to be spending more time looking at you than he will washing the car.”

Cleaning the Triumph was not an easy chore. It took a lot of work with soap and water to clean off the sooty coal grime, along with some comments by Jeff about how there were some people over in Amherst that needed to switch to oil heat. “It’s cleaner, and you don’t have to mess around with stoking the furnace or dealing with the ash,” he said. “I don’t see why some of the people over there don’t get the message.”

Once the car was washed – and they did a thorough job on it – there was still a lot of finishing work to do, and it had to be waxed and polished. By now they had the top down for easier access and to make it easier to clean off the side curtains. They also had to do a major job on the interior, but after several hours it was close to spotless inside and out. “I don’t think Donna would complain about getting her clothes grubby now,” Eunice said as they finished up. “She complained about that all too much.”

“It doesn’t look like the same car,” Jeff agreed. “Eric, why don’t you take Eunice for a ride so she’ll have some idea of what it’s like?”

“Sure, how about it Eunice?” he replied. “That is, if you’re up for it.”

“I’d love to,” she smiled.

“Take your time and make it a good one,” Jeff told Eric. “I’ll get this cleaning equipment picked up and put away while you’re gone.”

Soon the two of them were out in the little yellow sports car, heading out into the open country east of town. The top was down, of course, and the low-cut doors made her feel as if she could reach down and touch the road. It was noisy but fun in the car, with the roaring wind rolling over her and making her hair blow around.

A few miles up the road they came to a small township park; Eric braked the car and pulled in, then shut the engine off. “Eric, is something the matter?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But Eunice, I need to talk to you for a minute or two, just the two of us, and this may be the last chance I get for a while. It’s something I’d rather you didn’t tell Jeff that I told you.”

“I suppose,” she said dubiously. “What’s this about?”

“I don’t know how serious you’re getting with Jeff,” he replied, “but it looks to me like it has the potential to get pretty serious, because I think he’s getting to like you a lot. I’ve been his roomie for three years now, and I think there’s a couple things I should tell you before the two of you do something that might not be the brightest idea.”

“Like what?”

“You’re aware that he drinks a bit, right?”

“I was with him a month or six weeks ago when he got some bottles up in Hawthorne,” she told him. “He told me about it then.”

“Well, maybe I’m just being an old fuddy-duddy, but I know what an alcoholic is. I mean, I’m talking about my brother, who drinks way more than he should, and is a mean drunk at that. It’s a big part of the reason why I don’t plan on going home this summer any more than I have to, and it’s why I’m very careful about how much I drink.”

“I knew that, or at least most of it. But I don’t think it’s that bad with Jeff.”

“He probably drinks more than you think. At least two or three a day, sometimes more than that. I don’t want to say he’s an alcoholic now but I suspect he has the potential to become one.”

“I don’t see that it’s a problem,” she replied. “I mean, my father probably drinks about that much if not more, and there’s no way you could call him an alcoholic. He just likes to have two or three beers in the evening to wind down. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him what you could call drunk.”

“I’ve seen Jeff feeling pretty good now and then, but I’ve never seen him falling on his ass drunk,” Eric replied truthfully. “Maybe I’m overreacting, but my brother gets involved. I just want you to know it’s something that concerns me that I think you should know about.”

“I appreciate you telling me,” she said. “But I’m not terribly worried about it. I’m not a prohibitionist or anything, and I don’t mind having a drink myself once in a while. Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” Eric said hesitantly. “I don’t know how to say this and again, maybe I shouldn’t but I think you ought to take it into account. I mean, I like Jeff. He’s my best friend, and I owe him a lot, but there’s another thing about him that irritates me, and it’s that he’s fundamentally lazy.”

“Lazy? I can’t say I’ve seen that.”

“Maybe unmotivated would be a better word to use. He is pretty shy, and maybe that covers it up a little, but he’s not the kind of person who will do anything he doesn’t have to, and even when he does he’s not going to be real serious about it. You know he has trouble with his grades, don’t you?”

“Well, yes. I’m sure you remember me helping him cram for his finals.”

“Jeff is not dumb, it’s just that his grades are something that he doesn’t feel like he needs to work at harder than he has to. Maybe it comes from the fact that he knows he’ll be walking out of college and into a job in the family business. It comes down to the fact that he doesn’t think he need the grades, so doesn’t work any harder than he has to just to stay in college.”

“You could be right on that,” she nodded.

“Oh, I know I’m right. The two of you wouldn’t be dating if I hadn’t pushed him.”

“Don’t forget, Donna pushed me, too.”

“I realize that. Look, I’m not trying to warn you off Jeff. He’s basically a nice guy and I like him a lot. He’s loyal and like I said, he’s not dumb. Maybe I was stepping out of line to tell you this, but I think you ought to have your eyes open before you go much further with him.”

“Thanks for thinking of me,” she replied honestly. “But I’m not sure it matters. I like the guy and I’m hoping we can get a little more serious this summer. I’m aware Jeff isn’t Mister Perfect, but then I realize I’m not exactly Miss Perfect, either. Despite the way you two have been teasing me about how good I look in this playsuit, I know I’m not good-looking and outgoing like Donna and I never will be. At least she doesn’t rub my nose in it.”

“The two of you seem to be pretty good friends yourself.”

“Maybe not quite like you and Jeff, but we get along, which is more than I can say about some of the girls I went to high school with. But right now, while I realize that Jeff may not be perfect, I’m thinking that he’s going to turn out more than adequate. I mean, he’s acceptable, and so far I’m comfortable with him. I hope he sees me in pretty much the same way.”

“To tell you the truth, I think he does. He may not have used those exact words, but he’s comfortable with you, which is more than I can say about any other girl I’ve ever seen him with, not that he’s done much dating or anything. He likes you, and you’re not threatening to him like Donna would be if the two of them were to get together.”

“You’re probably right,” she grinned. “I just don’t see him getting together with Donna, for example, where I can see you doing it.”

“It might happen, and it might not,” Eric replied. “I don’t want to sound cruel or demeaning or anything, but I think Donna and I have standards for each other that are way different than those you and Jeff have.”

“You could be right. I think Donna is closer to thinking she’s Miss Perfect and is looking for someone who’s pretty close to Mister Perfect.”

“That may be why things aren’t going as well with us as they are between the two of you,” Eric smiled. “But I’m not in any hurry, either. If it works out with us, fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.”

“I suppose it’s the same with us,” she agreed. “I guess all we can do is to wait and see how things work out. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jeff and I prove to be perfectly adequate for each other, and from where I’m coming from I can’t really ask for much more.”

“That’s good enough for me. I think you have a pretty good head on your shoulders and a pretty good attitude. I think it would be easy for Jeff to do a lot worse than you, and it would be easy for you to do worse than Jeff. But like I said, he does have some issues I thought you ought to be aware of. That’s about all I can tell you on it, other than to say that from here on, the two of you are on your own. I’ll try to not poke my nose in again.”

“I appreciate the warning,” she told him. “More importantly, I appreciate the fact that you think enough of me to think that you needed to warn me.”

“Like I said, Jeff is my best friend, and I want things to work out well for him. Enough of that, and we need to get back before he starts wondering. Would you like to try driving this thing back to town?”

“Sure! I was hoping you’d ask.”

In a minute or so Eunice was behind the wheel of the Triumph, and accelerating it up the road. She found the floor shift to be a little bit tricky and the car harder to steer than she was used to, so she drove it fairly conservatively. But all in all it was fun to drive up the country road toward the oil company, and soon they were pulling into the parking lot.

Of course, Jeff noticed she was driving, and asked how she liked it. “It is fun to drive, but I don’t think I’d want to drive it all the time. But on a nice day like today, it beats riding in a sedan.”

“Jeff,” Eric grinned, “why don’t you take Eunice for a ride and blow the carbon out of this a little bit?”

Jeff and Eunice were gone for a while in the Triumph; there was nothing for Eric to do but sit on the hood of the Nash and wait for them to return, not that he minded. It gave him a chance to think and he felt satisfied about what he’d told Eunice. He did have those concerns about Jeff – sometimes they even irritated him a little – but if she could live with them, so much the better. He’d watched them for almost two months, after all, and they seemed to have a lot going with each other. If he’d been able to put the two of them together and they could work it out, maybe so much the better. After all, a good woman could solve a lot of problems Jeff seemed to have, and Eunice seemed to be a good woman. Jeff could do a lot worse, and so could he.

The two of them pulled the Triumph back into the oil company parking lot, apparently none the worse for wear. Eric hadn’t been worried about that; he’d known for years that Jeff was a careful driver, rather conservative, and not likely to tear up a car by being an asshole with it. Jeff may have been lazy, but he had never been an asshole, which was part of the reason he liked him. Jeff turned off the key, then turned to Eunice; Eric watched as the two shared the most serious kiss that he’d ever seen them have. Yes, he thought. This might work out.

“You know, Eunice said, “over the years, I’ve come to realize that you were right. Jeff drank a bit, but he always kept it under control. Somehow, I realized he was just not the kind of person to let it get out of control. And yes, when you get right down to it, he was lazy as long as I’ve known him. I mean, he never left something undone if it needed to be done, but at the same time he was hardly ever looking for things to do, either. But I was right, too: it didn’t matter. In the long run we turned out to be more than just adequate for each other, but good for each other. I’ve seen a lot of people who didn’t work out anywhere near as well with each other, and Mark and Barbara are a good place to start that list.”

“Actually, you could start that list with Donna and me,” Eric pointed out. “It’s just that we never let things get quite that far.”

“Don’t you mean that you never let her get that far?”

“She had quite a bit to do with it, too. She could have gotten a lot further that summer if she’d been willing to be a little flexible. But she was the one who drew the line in the sand, not me.”

Friday, May 16, 1958

Phone calls between Wychbold and Amherst were long-distance, and therefore expensive, especially since Direct Distance Dialing hadn’t yet come to either of the two towns. That meant he had to call the operator to make the call; the expense and the trouble kept Jeff from calling Eunice and jsut talking with her each evening. If they did that, they realized it could get out of hand, but now he had something to talk about.

It took a moment to get her on the phone. “Why, Jeff,” she said when she realized who was calling her, “this is a surprise.”

“It’s nice to have someone to call,” he told her. “Look, I can’t stay on long, but are you doing anything tonight? I thought I might drive over after dinner.”

“Probably just watching TV,” she replied. “And there’s nothing much on but Westerns. I’d be happy to see you, Jeff.”

“It’s probably going to be on the far side of an hour,” he told her. “See you then.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

It was probably close to an hour and a half before Jeff parked the Nash in front of Eunice’s house. She was waiting at the door for him, wearing Bermuda shorts and a blouse. “It’s good to see you again,” she smiled. “Do you realize this is the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other in a couple of months?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he replied noncommittally. “So how are you getting along?”

“I’m adjusting to being home again,” she told him. “It’s taking some getting used to. I thought Eric might be coming with you.”

“No, he drove over to Meridian to see Donna. That’s a little bit of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Why don’t we sit here on the porch? I’d just as soon avoid the all the shoot-’em-ups on TV.”

“Fine with me.” They settled down on the porch swing, away from the door a little, and didn’t sit extremely close to each other – her parents were inside, after all. “So, Jeff,” she smiled after they were seated. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“I guess the big thing is if you’d be up for a trip over to the Detroit area on Sunday.”

“I might be. What’s this all about?”

“Eric is going to try racing the Triumph, and I’d like to be there to see it. It’s actually outside Pontiac, at a place called Waterford Hills. It’s probably going to be all day and into the evening before we get back.”

“He sure didn’t waste any time, did he?”

“More like a case of just in time,” Jeff smiled. “It turns out you have to complete a driver’s school before they’ll let you race, and this Saturday is the last chance he’ll have to go through it until fall. After Eric and I went to his brother’s house to pick up his stuff, we decided to check the place out, and we were lucky we did. Then we had to waste some more time finding a driving helmet for him, but I’ll tell you what, he’s about as set to go as he can be.”

“So let me guess. The reason he went over to see Donna is to ask her to come, too.”

“You got it. He’s going to have to be there Saturday, and he’s just dead sure Donna wouldn’t go with him to spend the night, even if he’s going to be camping out, which is what he’s planning. If she says yes, we’re probably going to have to pick her up on the way. That won’t be any big deal, since Meridian isn’t far out of the way.”

“Well, sure, at least if my folks don’t mind. It sounds like a different kind of date than just going to see some movie. I’ll go ask.”

She was gone for a couple of minutes before she came back. “Mom says it’s all right with her, and Dad thinks he’s crazy but says it’s all right with him. What should I take, and what should I wear?”

“It’d be nice if we could have some kind of a picnic lunch,” he replied. “They didn’t seem to have much of a concession stand when we were there. And I guess a cooler with some drinks. We need to take some folding lawn chairs too, at least that’s what the guy over there said. As far as what to wear, I guess casual but nice, maybe on the dressy side of casual. Eric tells me that a lot of the sports-car crowd has got money, and aren’t exactly what you call slobs.”

“If you and Eric want to work on the cooler and the drinks, I’ll do something for a lunch,” she smiled. “If it works out that Donna winds up going, maybe I could call her and have her make up something.”

“It sounds as if it would work,” he smiled. “I don’t think going to just watch the racing is anything I’d want to do if Eric weren’t involved, but I feel like I ought to go just so he knows he has a friend there.”

“Me either, but it sounds like fun. I think we’ll have a good time. I hope Donna decides to go. It’s been strange not to have her around all the time.”

“It’s going to seem strange to not have Eric around, too. He’s going to come back after the race, shift some stuff around in his car and take off for a while.”

“Where’s he going?”

“I’m not sure and I don’t think he is, either, other than to say he has a schedule of sports car races in the east. I mean, New York, New England, and around there. I’d guess if the race this weekend goes well he’ll hit a few of them. If it doesn’t, I’m sure he has some other ideas. It might be all right for him, but I guess I’m not quite that adventurous. I mean, I’d just as soon stay around home so I can be with you.”

“When you put it that way, I guess I’m just as glad,” she smiled. “But I’ll bet Donna won’t be very happy about him taking off like that.”

“I wouldn’t know, but you’re probably right, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t know how much she knows of his plans after next weekend, so if she does decide to go Sunday maybe we ought not to get into it with her.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” she nodded. “We’ll just have to take it like it comes. So are you getting settled in at home?”

“Pretty much,” he sighed. “I’m starting to get used to working again. It’s something to do.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not really. See, Dad already has people who do the regular jobs, and this is the slow season, so he has me doing odds and ends that don’t fall into anyone else’s regular jobs. It’s been like that since I was in high school. Sometimes they’re in the office, although not much, and sometimes it’s outside work. I spent today scraping paint on one of the buildings, and that job is going to take a while. Eventually we’ll get around to painting it.”

“Is it going to be like that after you get out of college?”

“No. At least probably not. Dad plans on having me in management somewhere, although he’s not sure where yet. There are a couple guys planning on retiring in the next few years, so I’ll probably get moved into one of those positions. It’s still a ways off, but I won’t have to worry about getting a job, and in the meantime Dad wants me to have a little experience with everything. So have you worked out what you’re going to do this summer?”

“Not really a lot,” she sighed. “I’m going to be helping Dad with the books down at the station a little, but I’ve done it before and it’s no big deal, even though I’m not getting paid for it. I didn’t want to just sit around all summer with nothing to do, so I went looking for a part-time job. It turns out I’m going to work at the Tastee-Freeze twenty hours a week. The schedule will shift around a bit, but I should know what it is well ahead of time.”

“That’ll be nice to know,” he smiled. “I wouldn’t want to drive all the way over here and find out you’re working. I’m going to be free in the evenings most of the time, unless something comes up, and it’ll be possible for me to take the odd day off during the week if there’s a good reason to.”

“We’ll just have to think of something,” she told him. “I don’t think we’ll have much of a problem.”

“Maybe a little,” he laughed. “If you’re working there, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go over to the Tastee-Freeze for a cone or something.”

“You might be right at that. But since I’m not working there yet, it sounds like a good idea now.”

In a few minutes they were in the Nash and headed over to the Tastee-Freeze, where they got cones and just sat outside at a picnic table, talking about one thing and another. It was close to sunset when Jeff pointed the Nash back towards Wychbold after a thoroughly pleasant evening. Eunice had hopes of plenty more like them this summer. While she wasn’t sure how much she’d enjoy the sports car racing this weekend, it would be a great opportunity for her to go somewhere with Jeff.

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