Gloria

PROLOGUE

After Mary Ann, it was pretty lonely for me.  Life in the Air Force went on as usual, and it was no particular effort for me to keep up with the training.  But something pretty and motivating had gone out of my life.  Life turned from color to black and white and gray. 

Then I found a Catholic Church close to downtown Denver that had a USO program on Friday or Saturday night.  I went down there a couple of times because I liked the Hispanic girls that frequented the place.  The main action was dancing with the girls.  But they all seemed to have boyfriends, and I did not find any ready or willing to be more than a brief dancing partner.

After one of USO functions, I was walking back towards the base along East Colfax when I walked by a cafe and looked in the window.  There was a young Hispanic girl working there that looked pretty interesting.  I went in a took a better look.  She was very pretty, and I guess I spent more than a few seconds staring at her.  Then I left, as I had to get on back to the base. 

 ~ ~ ~

A few days later I went off the base with some of my Air Force buddies, walking along East Colfax Ave towards downtown Denver, or maybe we were going to City Park.  We walked because none of us had a car, and I think walking was just something to do that didn't cost money, which was pretty sparse on an airman's pay.  We walked until we got just about to City Park, just past Colorado Blvd. when I saw the restaurant or cafe where I saw a that pretty girl working a few days ago.  I felt an irresistible urge to go in there and see if she was there.  I suggested to my buddies that we stop at the cafe and take a rest.  But my buddies wanted to walk on.  So I said I was going over to this place anyway.  A couple of buddies went with me. and the rest continued on their walk to wherever we were going before I decide to stop off here.  

We went in and seated ourselves at a booth, or a table.  Then I saw her over behind the counter.  She was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, then or now.  Young, maybe 16, long black hair, nice figure, and a very pretty face -- delicate features -- like a young Elizabeth Taylor, or Natalie Wood, only even prettier. 

She was a waitress behind the main counter, and we were at a booth or table, so she wasn't our waitress.  Still, my eyes kept roving her way at every chance, while trying not to be caught staring.  Before we left I asked our waitress what the name of that girl was, and she said she thought it was Gloria. 

I went in to that cafe several more times just to see if a second or third look was as good as the first.  Sometimes she wasn't there, and sometimes she was.  I sat at the counter so she could wait on me.  She told me that I had to order something, and that she couldn't just stop and talk to me because too many boys were coming in wasting her time there, and she might get fired for it.  In any event, the second and subsequent looks were even better than the first -- she was exquisitely beautiful.  And I knew she had an interest in me, because I would order a slice of apple pie and milk, and she would just charge me for the milk -- it was subtle, but it was enough to tell me she was pleased with my attention.

Then, before I ever got to have a real conversation with her her, outside the cafe, my leave came up and I went back home for two weeks, or maybe it was a month.  When I came back to Denver, the first thing I wanted to do was get back to that cafe-restaurant to see her.

After I got settled in from my journey, I went down to the cafe with a buddy or two in tow and we went into the cafe and sat at the counter -- I hoping she would be our waitress.  But she wasn't there, which was a great disappointment to me.  I recollect I asked one of the other waitresses about her, and was told she might be coming in later. 

We were there for a while, and when we were starting to leave, one of the waitresses suggested we wait awhile more, as she might be there soon.  So we waited a while more.  Then she walked into the cafe with a girlfriend, and walked right up to me and said hello.  I think the bells in heaven went ringing in my ears, flowers and hearts went floating by, and life turned from black and white to brilliant color.  Her smile was dazzling and inviting.  

We went to a booth to sit and chat.  I can't remember if it was just her and I at the booth or if my buddy and her friend were sitting with us.  I learned that her name was indeed Gloria, she was a high school student working part time because her parents wanted her to know the value of a dollar. 

She only worked after school.  She wasn't allowed to date.  She was 16 years old.  And she was Catholic.  She also told me she wasn't  Hispanic, but French.  I don't think I bought that French bit, because it was clear she spoke Spanish, and her last name was Hispanic, not French.  Whatever her ethnicity, she was an exceptional example of refinement and grace -- very fine boned, elegant, and quite beautiful.  Whatever her ethnicity was, it wouldn't have made any difference to me.  I appreciate beauty in any color or shade of ethnicity.

From that point on the name 'Gloria' had the most glorious sound -- like the angels in heaven singing it.  I don't how long we chatted, or what we said,  My eyes were busy drinking her in - almost giddy at her nearness.  She evidently enjoyed my interest and returned the fascination.  All too soon she said she had to go home, but that I could walk her part way to her house.  She was dressed very nicely -- expensive clothes and coat. It was cold outside to me, and I was shivering some, but she seemed unaffected by the cold.  Her house lay behind City Park, on the other side of the golf course, so it was a good long walk along Colorado Blvd. until it was time  for her and her friend to go on alone. 

She cautioned me not to follow her to her house because she would get in trouble with her parents, who wouldn't approve of me.  Before she left us, I reached my hand up behind her neck to pull her toward me for a kiss.  But she resisted and I let go.  She was was still smiling though, and touched my lips with her finger.  I was floating in the air just to be near her.  I watched her walk on until she stopped at a street corner, looked back at me and waved goodbye, and disappeared down a side street.  I counted the blocks from where I was to where she turned, so I had an idea what street she lived on.  Then I went over to the corner she turned on so I could see the street's name.

I don't remember if on that occasion she told me her last name, but eventually I learned it, and looked it up in the telephone book and matched it to a house on a street a couple of blocks further on down from the corner she turned on that first night walking her part-way home.  She never invited me to her home, or gave me her address, but I knew exactly where she lived. 

Since she couldn't date, the only way I could see her was to drop into the restaurant where she worked.  I remember so well telling her that I liked the Marty Robbins song "El Paso," which was a hit at that time, and being surprised at her retort that she detested that song.

I took Spanish in high school, and could read fairly well, but I could not follow a spoken conversation.  Once I wrote her a note in Spanish "Tu quiero," and she corrected me that it was "Te" quiero, not "tu."  So I apologized and told her in English that I loved her and wanted to marry her.

One night after her work shift ended we sat together at a booth.  She told me she couldn't see me anymore -- because I wasn't Catholic, and she did not want to go to hell on my account.  She also told me her family would not approve of her seeing an airman, and would not like her dating anyone who wasn't Hispanic.  She looked at me as if into my very soul, and told me she wasn't ready to marry now.  This was now the second time in my life I heard that my ethnicity, occupation, or religion might be objectionable.  

Marriage to Gloria was then my highest ambition, but it was also starkly clear to me that I was hardly in a position to support her on my pittance of an airman's income of $88 a month.  She also told me she would marry her childhood sweetheart when she was 18, and she showed me his picture.  Perhaps she had confided in someone about me and had been given a stern lecture or told to terminate our relationship.

Then she took my hand, said she had to make a phone call to her parents to come pick her up (evidently she got into trouble for walking home the time I walked her partway home.)  She led me into the cloakroom of the restaurant, where the pay phone was, and cautioned me not to say anything while she was talking on the phone.  When she finished her conversation and hung up the telephone, she turned to me, put her arms around my neck and planted the sweetest kiss I have ever known on my lips.

She told me not to follow her out, so her parents would not see me.  I waited a minute or two, then walked out as her parents car drove by with her in it.  I could see the girls inside looking at me and giggling.  I floated back to the base with that kiss burning on my lips.  If I wasn't a goner before, I was now. 

Maybe a week after bidding me goodbye, and then kissing me, I called Gloria at her house and told her how much I missed her and asked to see her again.  She had not shown up at the cafe where she had been working.  She suggested we meet at a Movie theater nearby.  I went there and waited for her.  After about an hour, she hadn't shown, so I called her at her house to see what the delay was.  But she just said she wasn't coming, and I should just enjoy the movie. 

It seemed pretty clear that her interest in me had waned.  Still, I could not get the kiss out of my mind.  Maybe she was eating chili peppers when she kissed me, but that kiss would burn on my lips for the next twenty years, and she would appear in my dreams almost nightly for those same twenty years.  Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of a dream where I was searching for her, and sometimes I would dream I had found her.  Whenever I would wake from such a dream, I longed to go back into that dream and never come out of it.

That was our last encounter, and I never saw her again after that, though I tried my best.  Another mis-adventure intervened in my life that took me away from Denver for more than a year. 

About a  year and a half later fate offered me a chance to make it back to Denver to see her.  It was during summer break my first year in college.  My brother had a car, a '55 Ford, that he had the engine bored out and larger pistons installed.  They had just finished putting the engine back together and installed it in the car.  I talked him driving it from Ruston, Louisiana to Denver Colorado.  We should have broken his car in first, before undertaking such a long trip,  As it was, we only made it to Denton Texas where the engine threw a rod. 

We had the downed car towed to a shop.  The news was good and bad.  The good news was that one of the mechanics wanted to trade a good running '54 Ford and $500  for it.  The bad news was that $200 was all that I had, and handing it over meant the trip to Denver was off.  I felt I had to help make my brother as whole as I could, since the whole trip was my idea.  So the mechanic accepted my brother's car and my $200 and we made a trade.  So we drove the newly acquired '54 Ford back to Louisiana, and I the trip to Denver, and Gloria, was lost.

I knew if I did not make it back that year, it might be too late, and she would be married before another year passed.  In fact, the very  next summer, in that '54 Ford, we made it to Denver.  I walked up to the house where Gloria lived, and rang the doorbell.  The guy answering the door, maybe her father or a brother, looked at me as if amused and said we should make deliveries to the rear of the house.  Somewhat perplexed, I asked if I might see Gloria.  He looked at me with kind of a sneer on his face, and said she was married and had moved away.   

That was hard news for me, and Denver seemed cold and lifeless afterwards.  The next day I left for home, never to return.  I sometimes wonder, in retrospect, that if I had not walked out of the cafe while her parents were driving by, whether she might have kept me as a secret boyfriend.  But I think -- in fact I know -- that I would not have been content to remain a secret -- I wanted to marry her.

~ ~ ~

EPILOGUE

I had often wonder what happened to Gloria afterwards - and how her life turned out for her - or if she even remembered me.  Some 50 years later I found her name on the internet in Classmates.com.  But when I clicked on the hyperlink on her name, it brought up another person who might have been a relative - perhaps a daughter.  A couple of years later, I sent a note to that person whom I presumed to be Gloria's daughter on Facebook.  I never got a response from that note, so I assumed it was a false lead.  Almost two years later, I located a person in Phoenix, Arizona that I thought might be Gloria.  I debated whether I should contact that person or not.  A few months later I decided there was no harm in trying, so I sent a little card to the address I found on the internet.  I wasn't sure that I had the right person, or that if I did, my card would be well received.

To my astonishment, I got a telephone call from that person -- it was indeed Gloria, and she was very happy to hear from me.  She said she did remember me, and still had a photo of me somewhere in her belongings.  We talked a couple of times for a couple of hours.  She said her daughter had told her about my Facebook note.  And though she had asked her daughter to send her the note, her daughter never did.  She also told me she had been divorced for about 15 years.

I told her I passed through Phoenix about that time to see some of  my relatives.  But, of course, I didn't know she was living there, or that she was divorced.  If I had, we might have gotten together, as I was also divorced then.  However, I saw in an obituary posted on the internet that a Gloria had a long term relationship with some older guy who died a few years ago.  Maybe that was related to her last divorce, and she wouldn't have been available if I had chanced upon her back then.  She confirmed that she was that Gloria.

She was all excited about me contacting her, and wanted us to get together, right now, and maybe even make love.  But I replied that I was married now, with two young daughters, who were my priority, and I wasn't available now.  So she asked me why then I had I sent her a card in the first place, and then said we shouldn't talk anymore. 

Well, these conversations were getting too intense anyway.  I didn't expect such a "fatal attraction" reaction.  My wife, nearly half the age of Gloria, wasn't all that thrilled with me sending that card in the first place, though she wasn't too worried about me running off with a woman nearing 70.  So that pretty much ended the "reunion," such as it was.

The funny thing is, a few days after that last telephone conversation, I had tuned into Tuner Classic Movies on my TV, and the 1956 movie "Around the World In Eighty Days" came on.  That was the same movie that I watched more than 50 years ago when Gloria stood me up at the movie theater.  It was déjà vu.  
 

Gloria had asked me during our conversations if we had gotten together, would we have stayed together.  I replied that I didn't know.  But after this déjà vu experience spanning more than 50 years, I think it is not in our stars to be together in this lifetime,  if ever.   

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- Simon Revere Mouer III