I hadn't thought of him for years. I hadn't thought of Tess for years, either.
"Tess, what's a married woman like you doing with Bob Branden's picture plastered on your refrigerator?" I asked.
"Ain't he the handsomest damned thing you ever saw?" she said. "And his voice! Wow! He can put his shoes under my bed any old time!"
"Tess!"
"Aw, you college-graduate prudes frost my ass!" she said.
We were all young then -- Tess, her husband, my husband, me -- even Bob Branden. It was when my husband and I lived in that big old triangular-shaped building, in a cramped, three-room apartment. We thought it was heaven. It was close enough to heaven; we were on the top floor. Our living room window, positioned right at the point of the building, looked far down to the street, where every thirty minutes in the daytime, and every hour-on-the-hour at night, a city trolley screeched around the corner.
There were just two apartments on that third floor -- ours and Tess and Don's. For the first ten months, it was Don who befriended us. We met him the first week, on the narrow old stairs. "We're in the other apartment," he said. "It'll be good for Tess to have someone next door." I looked forward to making friends with her, but when she and I passed on the stairs, or in the old hallway on the second floor, or even outside on the busy corner, she turned her back. Wounded and puzzled, I stopped saying hello.
Her mother Thelma visited them week-days after work and left right after dinner. One day, as she and I entered the building together, I asked, "Why, Thelma? Did I do something?"
"She's funny," Thelma said. "A good person, but funny. She's been trying for a kid for ten years. Don has a good job, but he gambles. They can't even adopt. They never can hold onto money long enough to put a down-payment on a house, or even to move into a bigger place. If you want to adopt, you have to have a separate bedroom for the kid. It's a pretty shitty deal. Don't worry, though, if you live here long enough, she'll come around."
I wanted to say that other people were unable to have children, but didn't go through life snubbing their neighbors, but I held my tongue. I really didn't care if she came around or not, or so I told myself.
Two days after our new-born and I came home from the hospital, and just as I was preparing for her first bath at the kitchen sink, I heard a loud rapping at the door.
"It's me, Tessie next door. Let me in. I gotta see that baby!"
"Jesus!" she said when she saw our daughter's plentiful hair. "You're gonna need me alright! Lucky you, I used to be a beautician. I'll save you plenty on the kid's haircuts!"
Forgetting all the months of hurt, I hugged her. "I'm so happy you came over!" I said. "But watch the language around the baby, okay, Tess?"
"Aw, poop! She's not even a month yet, you prude!" she said, "but yeah, I'll try."
And she did. She really did. Sometimes she slipped, and then would apologize to the baby. "I'm sorry, Moose," she would say. "Don't you use bad words, though, honey, or it'll piss your mother off." Why she called her Moose is a long story, which will be told another time perhaps.
My baby and I loved Tess, but it was as nothing to the love Tess had for my baby. It was almost sad to see, and I could have cried for Tess. Sometimes, when talking to my husband about it, I did.
We stayed there three years, through my husband's last two school years and through his internship. The baby and Tess and I spent most of our days together. They were fun days, because of Tess. She showed me a side of life I had not known, and the audacity of her language both shocked and delighted me. Upstairs on that top floor, in our private little haven, our doors were seldom locked, and during the day, the two apartments were almost one residence.
"You know, Tess," I said that last year together, "we are going to have to move away soon. You do know that, don't you, dear?"
"Don't you 'dear' me!" she said. "Just shut your damn mouth! Hey, Moose, baby, come on over to Aunt Tessie's place. Uncle Don brought home some nice candy. Want some?"
"No candy, please, Tess," I said.
"I told you to shut your damn mouth!" Tess said. "Sorry, Moose, honey!"
"He really was handsome, wasn't he?" I said as my husband and I prepared for bed.
"Who was?" he asked.
"Bob Branden."
"I guess so. What brought that on?"
"Oh, " I said, "I was just remembering."