Page 59 of Grown-Up Second Chance

“I was what they call a ‘working actor.’ Bit parts, walk-ons, touring shows if I had to do it. It sounds more glamourous than it is. After a while, hotel rooms, stages, and film lots all look alike.” He swished his line. “But it was steady work, paid the bills, and even let me amass a retirement fund. We sent our one child to college.”

“What did your wife do?”

“She was an agent. Worked just as hard as I did, if not harder. Suddenly, she dropped dead of an aneurysm. It took her before we had a chance to have the life we’d always planned. That’s when I made my decision to start living the life I wanted, not the one I’d had.”

“You didn’t like being an actor?” I asked.

“I did, at first. But no one tells you it doesn’t change if you don’t become a top star. In my twenties being on the road and deprivation were an adventure. At forty, it got old.” He shrugged. “But like I said, it gave me a comfortable living. But it wasn’t the glamor people think of when they think of acting.

“I’ve seen you and that writer fellow together a lot,” Mason continued. “Something there?”

“Joe? No, we’re just old friends. We grew up together near Butte.”

“I see.” The line made another gentle tack to the right.

When people say they see something, it usually means they understand nothing at all.

“Like you, I had my life. I was married for a long time. I built my own business.” I could feel the tension in my forearms building as I became more defensive about my past. “We weren’t blessed with children, but then, not everyone is.”

“I see I’ve hit a nerve,” he said, reeling in the line and making another perfect cast. “When I met my second wife about five years ago, I knew, impossible as it seemed, it was love at first sight at the age of sixty. We had had very different lives. She’d married a Mormon like herself, had five kids, and did well in one of those multi-level marketing things. But her husband became more and more conservative, and went down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. In spite of fierce opposition from church and family, she divorced him.”

“Sounds tough.”

Mason nodded. “But she was tougher. She re-established her own life and began to travel, something she’d always wanted to do. We met at a breakfast place in Sausalito, spent the day at Muir Woods, and haven’t left each other since.”

“Sounds like a romance novel,” I said. Life wasn’t like that for most people.

“It was, but that’s not my point.” He turned toward me, awkwardly bracing the rod against his foot and holding it with his right hand. “Life is too short not to be happy if you can. And finding happiness or love requires being open to possibilities, taking risks, being willing to confront your feelings and banish the ones that aren’t working anymore.”

He looked directly at me. “I have a deep feeling in my gut that you need to take a chance, Diane O’Sullivan.”

I was gearing up to lecture him with a thousand reasons why what he was suggesting was impossible when his rod bent, and he fumbled to hang on to it. I rushed over to help him as he lost his balance, seemed to stabilize, then stumbled again.

“Take this,” he said, thrusting the pole at me right before he hit the ground on his hands and knees.

I gripped the rod tightly.

“The reel!” he yelled. “Don’t let the line play out too much.”

I put my hand on the reel and forced it to stop. He struggled to his feet, then took the rod.

By the time he’d played the fish into his net, had me take a picture, then released the trout back into the stream, the essence of my defense had gone down the river.

I waved good-bye and continued my walk, my mind slowly chewing over the arguments he’d made for love.

Chapter Eighteen

I groaned as I lowered myself into the camp chair at our RV site.

“You sound like an old lady,” Kathleen said as she sat down next to me.

“I am an old lady,” I said. “And unlike you two, I’ve had a desk job for the past few decades.”

“That’s no excuse,” Liz said, looking like she’d just stepped out of the shower instead of finishing a mile and a half hike that dared to go uphill. “No matter what you do for a living, exercise is a critical part of your well-being.”

“Sadist,” I muttered.

“And she’s always spoken so well of you,” Kathleen said. “How about I make a pitcher of cosmos. Would that make you stop moaning?”

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