Two Pretenders

JoAnn Cobb pressed her nose against the glass door on the back porch, steaming it up as she watched a blue jay flitting about in the shadows of the nearby maple trees. The nasty but pretty-colored jay reminded her of a name she hated and the thought sent a shiver up her back, causing her to twist her head as if she had just bitten into a lemon! Jay! She had eventually, happily discarded that name sometime into her marriage.

Jay! Her late husband, Louis, had insisted on changing her name from JoAnn, to Jay.

“Jay!” she had humbly cried. “It sounds like a bird or a man’s name, and I don’t like it.” She remembered the argument so clearly. His excuse, by way of exclamation, was, ‘When you pronounce the letters JA, they sound like ‘Jay’. What’s the big deal?’ At least that was the story he tried to hand her.

She argued back, “Right. A man’s name. When the letters JA are conveyed as a word, not as initials, they do sound like Jay, and I hate it! You are the only one who wants to change it. I fear you have an ulterior motive, and I wish you would be honest with me and tell me what it is.”

He never did tell, and so it went. She relented as she had done hundreds of times, but, she refused to let anyone but Louis call her, Jay. The male-sounding name was actually what he had in mind; however, she didn’t discover until years later why he had insisted on the name change. Then she demanded he call her JoAnn, and he did, though reluctantly.

Another name came to her mind now, a name from a long time ago: Jo! It had been a special name given to her by Gabe Holland, one of the sweetest, kindest, most gentle people she had ever met. Gabe Holland, wow! She stepped back from the kitchen door. Now what made me think about him? Come to think about it, the background and connotation I bring to the situation must make me like or dislike it. Jo, Gabe’s special name sounds like Joe with the e, and, that was always acceptable . . .back then.

Sighing, she turned and took a last glance at the closed-in screened porch, which used to contain cold and hard wrought-iron furniture. Now it was empty. She then walked through the galley kitchen, glancing into the empty den off to the side as she headed into the dining room. The phone rang while she was thinking about the straight-backed, uncomfortable streamlined furniture that used to occupy it. So stiff and formal. She thought the phone had been disconnected, hence, she answered with a ho-hum attitude. “Hello.”

“Jo?” the male voice asked.

“I’m sorry, but you have the wro . . .n . . ., did you say Jo?”

“Yes, I did, Jo. This is Gabe Holland.”

Woah! This is too coincidental. I think of him. He calls! After all these years, he calls, just as I am ready to leave this house and head back to his neck of the woods. What could he possibly want? “Did you say Gabe Holland?” Of course he did, even if there was something wrong with my hearing, I remember that voice. The thing is that I heard him quite clearly, and a chill is running up and down my spine as I stall for time.

“Yes, I did,” he said matter-of-factly. “I know it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” His voice sounded almost as if he were laughing. He probably was if he were the same Gabe of old.

“Gabe, of all people, I wouldn’t have thought in a hundred years . . .. I suppose I should have known it was you. It’s been years since anyone has called me Jo.”

There was assured conceit in his voice. “Of course not, no one ever did and possibly no one else ever will.”

“Excuse me.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, Jo. This is your old friend calling, but I didn’t mean to come on so strongly. I really just called to tell you that I’m glad everything is finally settled about your inheritance, and that I’ll be here when you get here, in case you should need help from a friend.”

“How did you know?” Her back was up.

“Rusty Owen.”

“I suppose I should have known it was Grandpop’s old sidekick. Well, thank you, but with the children and Rusty, I think we’ll manage.” She had just said the understatement of the year. Her voice was cold and empty, like her house, lacking encouragement for any further conversation.

If he heard it, he ignored it. “I understand you are leaving there today, and I don’t want to hold you up, just wanted to offer my help if it’s needed.”

If it is needed! She wanted to shout, I am going to need all the help I can get! Instead, she spoke quickly. “Thank you again. Now I really must attend to some last-minute matters. Good-bye.” By quickly holding the phone away from her ear, she all but cut him off from anything else he might have wanted to say. She heard him speak her name before she cradled it. Then she leaned against the counter wondering why she had been so rude to her old companion.

Gabe Holland! I can’t believe it, do not want to believe it, don’t want him to be there in Kentucky waiting for me when I arrive. I’m not a child. I am not seventeen or even twenty-one. I am a forty-two year old widow with three children, and have learned with the Lord’s help, to take care of myself. I hope I won’t be needing him, but at the same time, I’m sure I will.

She thought about her life with Louis as she tolerated one last tour of her nearly empty house. A smile played about her lips when she glanced at his closed and locked bedroom door. He had been a good provider, but a domineering, word-abusing husband and father, and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. At least until after Dana was born, that is, and his friend Roger Eastman boldly came on the scene. Then it was like the end of one repugnant life and the beginning of another, which was just as repulsive. JoAnn no longer existed as a wife, a companion, or a helpmeet. She became his social escort but felt like she had been used as a doormat. From the time her son John asked her of confirmation regarding his suspicions about his father’s new life style, it had been downhill all the way, like crashing into one of the many ocean waves she could see from her bedroom window.