“I know. Poor kid. Too bad we aren’t seventeen anymore. I think we could have talked him into taking us to the movies tonight.”
“I never would have imagined you to be such a big flirt,” Jill said. “You must have had all the guys wrapped around your little finger in high school.”
“No, never. I would never have tried to pull a stunt like that in high school.”
“I would have.” Jill flipped her hair behind her ear.
“I can believe that. It’s just one more reason I’m glad you and I met now instead of then.”
“It’s much more fun being flirty now. Trust me, you saved the best for the second half of life.”
With more skill than either of us realized we could manage, we turned our little red convertible around and headed down the Avon River with the current speeding our journey. It seemed a symbol of how my life had been filled with so many years of paddling upstream, and now the current was hastening me forward into the fast-approaching second half of life. I knew I was going to be a different person. I already was.
“Look.” Jill giggled.
Evan was waiting for us on the dock.
“Hello,” Jill said calmly. All the silliness had subsided.
“I wanted to thank the two of you.” Evan reached out a hand to help us from the canoe.
“Why?” Jill asked, as if by playing coy she could deny that we were the sassy canoers at the bend in the river.
“They liked your girly stunt back there.”
I hid a smile. Those other “older” women who were punting with Evan were as young at heart as Jill and me. No doubt they wished they had rented the red canoe instead.
“They wouldn’t stop badgering me about the song.”
“Did you sing for them?” I asked.
“Yes, I did.” His wide grin revealed a crooked front tooth and a light heart. “They liked the song so much I was given the most tips I’ve ever received from a tour group. So thanks. Thanks a lot.”
We shook hands with grinning Evan. Generous Jill pulled out some money from her pocket and stuffed it in his hand. “Thanks for being such a good sport.”
“No, thank you, really.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” I asked. “Those people are going to tell their friends about Evan the Singing Punter, and you are going to get more special requests from tour groups than you can handle.”
“All right by me!”
We had left Evan and were back on the river walkway when Jill said with great satisfaction, “The dynamic duo strikes again! We may very well have changed the course of history for all the punters in New Zealand.”
“Not to mention setting an example of a stylish new mode for seating oneself in a canoe.”
“Our way worked just fine,” Jill said. “We didn’t tip over or anything.”
We topped off the waning afternoon with a little shopping and a lot more walking and followed it up with a wonderful night’s sleep at our B&B.
In the morning, Hika and his wife served breakfast in the sunroom, complete with homemade fig jam and scones. We took our time getting out to see what we could see. We were moving at a much more leisurely pace than how things moved when Tony and I traveled together.
The most comfortable part of the trip for me was the way I felt the freedom to be alone with my thoughts when I wanted to. I didn’t feel obligated to fill the space between Jill and me with words every moment we were together. That was refreshing, and I was processing a lot.
Jill seemed to be doing the same.
Our first stop was the town square only three blocks away.
“I love this Gothic Revival architecture.” Jill stood in front of the cathedral and took it all in. “Don’t you?”
I didn’t want to tell her, but my eye had wandered from the architecture and was on the familiar coffeehouse logo on a building in the opposite corner of the square. We had been served tea for breakfast, and coffee was sounding pretty good.
“Yes, wonderful architecture,” I said halfheartedly. “Are you by any chance interested in a little latte? A mocha, maybe? Or an iced tea?”
“It sounds good, but I’m actually more interested in exploring the insides of this church. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes, of course.” I felt frivolous for being more excited about standing in the presence of an American coffee chain store than I was about entering a historical landmark.
Inside, the cathedral was dark and calm. Several people were sitting in the pews, quietly observing or perhaps meditating. The deep black wood of the pews fascinated Jill; she kept running her hand over the smooth corners.
“It says here,” Jill whispered, reading to me from the tour book we were handed when we entered, “that the wood is from native trees called matai, and the rocks used to build the cathedral were from local quarries. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I was beginning to grasp the allure of this old church and agreed with Jill. It was a beautiful place. I followed her to the front pew where we sat quietly together. Jill bowed her head and folded her hands.
“I am so thankful for you,” Jill said a moment later, leaning close and whispering to me. “You have brought so much life back into my world, Kathy.”
“Jill, I feel the same way If I hadn’t met you, I’d probably still be hiding out in our apartment. I am so thankful for the way you’ve included me in your life.”
We both got a little teary as we exchanged a hug around the neck. Standing together, we slowly walked around the rest of the sanctuary and then climbed the 133 steps to the top of the cathedral. I was thankful for my few trots down to the Chocolate Fish and back during the past weeks. Otherwise, I would have been huffing and puffing much more than I was. At the top we took in an amazing view of the small city and the horizon.
“Look how blue the sky is. What shade would you call that?”
Jill looked and said, “New Zealand autumn. Has it been a while since you’ve seen a blue sky?”
“You remember how it is in Orange County. Lots of haze and smog. The sky is rarely a clear, deep shade of blue like this.”
“There’s Hagley Park.” Jill pointed to a green area accented by lots of huge trees. “Are you interested in walking back over there? Or does a visit to one of the museums sound good?”
“Either one, as long as we fuel ourselves with a latte.” I pointed to the coffee shop in the square that I’d noticed on our way into the cathedral. “Come on, my treat.”
Jill was still teasing me the next morning about my affection for what she called “popular coffee.” Our train to Picton left at 7:30 AM. That meant we were up at 5:30, packed and waiting outside for our cab ride to the train station before the day had barely opened its eyes.
I had barely opened my eyes as well and was lamenting that if we had the time I’d zoom over to the town square and see about getting us two ventis to “take away.”
“I’m sure they have some sort of coffee on the train,” Jill assured me. “It won’t be popular coffee, but it should help us wake up all the same.”
I gave an involuntary shiver in the early morning mist and tried not to think about a double espresso, or better yet, an Americano with half-and-half.
Closing my eyes, I saw. a row of dancing paper coffee cups with skinny little arms sticking out above the recyclable brown sleeves. They were dancing to a Ray Charles tune. That’s when I knew I was: a) overly tired; b) overly creative when it came to diverting my taste buds; or c) in need of a support group for California Coffee Withdrawal Therapy.
Once we were on the train, I asked about coffee and was told to listen for an announcement about when the tea car would open.
“ ‘Tea car,’ ” I muttered. “That doesn’t sound too promising for coffee.”
“You know how they say tea here, but it can mean lunch or a snack. I think that’s all it means. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have coffee.”
I settled back, watching the scenery roll by outside the large wi
ndow. Our train seats faced each other with a table in between us. Jill recorded her thoughts and some doodles in her journal. I started to enjoy the brilliant green foliage; the narrow, twisting streams; and the distant hills. The rolling terrain was dotted with white, woolly sheep and pockets of wildflowers.
As we traveled north, the sun came at us in the train car at such an angle we couldn’t see much of anything outside. The light seemed to expand and radiate in a wide burst. I felt as if we were traveling back in time to a place of ancient ferns and simple stone walls.
“What are those called, do you know?” I pointed to a clump of fern plants as we rolled past them.
“Those are pongas. The shape of the curly fronds out of the top is called koru. You’ll see that shape a lot in New Zealand art and designs.”
“I have noticed it a lot of places,” I said. “And what’s the story on the kiwi? Which came first? The bird or the fruit?”
“The bird. Definitely the bird came first. The kiwi birds don’t fly. Did you know that?”
“No. I don’t know anything about them.”
“They’re nocturnal and are nearly extinct, because they became such easy prey when settlers came with their domestic animals. The kiwi fruit is from China. The Chinese settlers brought vines to New Zealand that they called Chinese gooseberries. When the fruit did well here, they decided to export it and changed the name to kiwi fruit to identify it with New Zealand rather than China.”
We talked about the plight of the poor kiwi bird, and I began to understand why many New Zealanders referred to themselves as Kiwis in a sort of compassionate alignment with their dear bird.
As the train rolled into our first stop, a buttonhole called Rangiora, I said, “I feel sorry for any bird that can’t fly.”
The next thought that popped in my head was, Even midlife mama birds?
My immediate mental answer was, Especially midlife mama birds.
It was crazy enough that I was asking myself questions like a Maori proverb, but even worse was that I was answering. Besides, if the thought was supposed to be directed toward me, I was already flying. I was soaring.
A mellow voice came on over the speaker announcing that the tea car was now open for service. Passengers were encouraged to “purchase food, which may then be taken with you back to your allocated seats.”
Jill and I chuckled at the lengthy explanation.
“Would you like something?” I asked.
“Sure. I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea. With cream.”
I walked carefully down the slightly rolling floor toward the tea car and was the first passenger to step up to what looked like an ordinary counter at a deli or coffee shop. A clear case displayed wrapped sandwiches. A wire basket by the register offered individually wrapped oatmeal cookies. Behind the young woman who manned the counter was a large sign listing all the food options and prices. She didn’t look as if she was quite awake yet.
I smiled at the not-too-cheery blonde and said, “One coffee with cream and—”
“Milk?” she asked.
“No, coffee.”
“Coffee with milk,” she corrected me.
“Yes.”
“White coffee, then.”
“Okay. White coffee. And one tea with cream.”
“Devonshire tea?”
“No, just tea.”
“Not with scones and cream?”
“Just cream, please.”
“Right. The Devonshire cream tea, then. Scone or roll with the Devonshire?”
“No …”
“We only have the breakfast roll,” she said.
“Yes, I understand. It’s just that, all I want is—”
“I’ve got it. A breakfast roll and one Devonshire tea.”
“No.” I could feel the impatience of the waiting passengers behind me.
“And the white coffee,” she added.
I leaned forward and patiently said, “I would like one white coffee and just one cup of hot tea.”
“Of course it comes hot. We don’t expect you to have a personal microwave at your seat.”
I had no response to her snappy comment. Was she being funny? Was she insulting me? Was I on a hidden camera somewhere?
When I didn’t respond, she punched some buttons on the computerized cash register. “Sixteen fifty, then.”
“Sixteen dollars and fifty cents for what?”
“Devonshire tea, breakfast roll, and a white coffee.”
At a loss for words, I surrendered and handed over a twenty-dollar bill. Stepping to the side, I heard the next customer order with a New Zealand accent and all the right phrases what he wanted.
Another young girl who was behind the barrier to the tiny onboard kitchen reached around the side and handed me a large paper bag, telling me to hold it steady.
Returning to my allocated seat, I placed the large bag on the table.
“What did you get?” Jill asked.
“I have no idea.”
Jill laughed at my flustered response and opened the paper sack I’d brought back from the tea car. “Let’s see what they gave you.”
“I was trying to buy a single cup of tea for you, but I think I ended up with an entire tea party.”
Coffee and tea were in reinforced paper cups with lids. The package also held two large scones, a container with cream as thick as fresh butter, two squares of butter, four packets of raspberry jam, and a plastic knife. The breakfast roll was a long deli roll sprinkled with sesame seeds and packed with fried egg; round, Canadian-style bacon; sliced, grilled tomatoes; and something that looked like flattened hash browns.
Neither of us had any complaints once we started our small feast. Even the coffee was drinkable.
“Our sugar just started to come in elongated packages like this at Riverview, the retirement community where I work,” I said. “It’s been so confusing for the residents because they’re used to sugar in little rectangular packets.”
“What do you do at Riverview? You said it’s a retirement community, but what’s your position there?”
“It’s not very glamorous. My title is assistant, and that’s what I do. I assist. Some days I organize group trips to the Bowers Museum or to lunch at Mimi’s Café. Other days I change the bulletin boards in all the halls or help Mrs. Swensen carry her laundry basket back to her apartment.”
“Or give a manicure every now and then?” Jill asked.
“I’ve given a few. I like visiting the residents who have been there a long time. Some of them move over to the assisted living section of our campus, and I love it when I go to see them and they remember me.”
“What’s your favorite part of your job?”
I leaned back and wondered if anyone had ever asked me that. “The hours have always been great. I started part-time when Skyler was in elementary school, and I could always adjust my hours to fit around my family. That was a huge bonus.”
“But what do you enjoy the most when you’re at work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do. Just off the top of your head, what’s your favorite part of a workday?”
I said the first thing that came to mind. “I love being with stroke patients when they meet with their speech therapists.”
“Why?”
I didn’t feel as if Jill was putting me on the spot like a lawyer trying to uncover facts. Instead, she seemed to be turning over the soil of my heart like a tender gardener. She was preparing me for new bulbs that would burrow inside my thoughts and bloom in another season.
“I guess I like being around the speech therapists so much because I see how they give the patients hope. When you’ve spent your whole life depending on talking as your way to get your thoughts across, it’s horrible to have your voice taken from you.”
I was on my soapbox now and sat up straighter. “Most people think the worst part of a stroke is losing the use of an arm or not being able to walk without assistance. What no one understands is how debilitating it i
s to lose your words. If you can’t talk, people ignore you. They don’t try to interact with you. Your needs and your opinions go unnoticed and unheeded.
“Whenever a speech therapist breaks through with a patient, that’s when I say, ‘This has been a good day.’ Those are my favorite days. It doesn’t mean every patient has the ability to train his throat and mouth to form words again. Some of them learn sign language or learn to write short thoughts on a pad. One therapist designed a special board for Mr. Harris that had big colored dots. Red for no, green for yes, yellow for hungry … it was so great. I loved seeing Mr. Harris’s face light up when he discovered he could communicate again.”
I paused to take a breath, and with a shrug I added, “I get a little passionate about this, I guess.”
Jill grinned. “So, why aren’t you a speech therapist?”
“Because I only went to community college for three semesters.”
“So?”
“So, it takes a little more education than that to work as a speech therapist.”
“So why don’t you go back to school?”
“Because …”
I didn’t finish the sentence because I didn’t have a good reason. I hadn’t seriously thought through the option in a long time. So much of my life had been about helping out with Tony’s mom while she was still alive and then getting Skyler to college. Tony and I had worked hard to make sure she had the chance to go all the way through college and receive her BA. The past six months I had been focused on working as many extra hours as I could to pay for remodeling the kitchen. I hadn’t spent any time thinking about the remodeling I could do in my life.
“I don’t know; I don’t know why I can’t go back to school.”
“I think you should,” Jill said.
We left the topic out on the table, as the train rolled through a series of tunnels. My thoughts were experiencing the same light sensory changes of rushing through darkness into light and then back into darkness. First light, then dark. Light, dark.
Maybe I could go back to school … No, that’s crazy. I can’t do it … Yes, I can … No, I can’t … Why not?
We rolled through a long tunnel and emerged with the shimmering South Pacific Ocean on the right. The sand that lined the shore was dark as obsidian and littered with kelp. Not a person was in sight.