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The most remarkable thing about Marita were her eyes. They were deep blue; crystalline, sharp, piercing yet soft and dreamy. These were the eyes of a teenager. Marita was eighty years old.
John whistled as he pushed the bucket of mopping water across the floor. At five foot ten, slender muscular build, fairly handsome and only nineteen years old, John did not look like a typical janitor. For two years, he had been cleaning the buildings at Centerville Nursing Home. After graduating high school, John decided to give up education so he could work full time to support himself. After several jobs, he realized that a high school education was not going to get him far.
Working as a janitor at the
home did not pay much; but, it gave him spiritual gratification as he had
never before experienced. He no longer had family; his father abandoned
his mother before John was born. John never knew him nor did he care
to. His mother died of breast cancer during his freshman year.
He could never get over that.
It wasn't fair that the
woman who had struggled had to take care of him; a gentle, caring, loving
woman would die in the prime of her years. Was it too much for God
to give her more years?
John was an inventive young man who did not have the word boredom in his vocabulary. A self-taught electronics wiz, he often collected stereos, televisions and other electronic gadgets to repair and sell. This not only supplemented his income, it gave him something enjoyable to do and kept him occupied.
At Centerville, he learned about boredom. There were old people who were abandoned by their families. Old women prayed that children - anybody's children - would come and visit them so they could hug and play with them. Maybe that would make them feel wanted again; for here, they were abandoned. They knit, played card games and watched televisions day in and day out. If John's mother had lived to be their age, John would have taken care of her in his home. He would never have let her come to a place where she would be lonely. He sadly remembered her last days when he would hold her hand all torn up inside and she calmed him by speaking in the same soothing voice she had used when he was little.
"It's all right, John," she had said on her final day. "This is not a bad thing. We all have to pass on. One day it will be your turn and you'll be happy because we'll meet again. Remember that I will always love you, Johnny. This is not the end. You will remember and love me always, won't you?"
"Of course, Mom. Always," John had said with tears in his eyes.
The residents of Centerville loved him. He always came in with goodies and cheered them up.
"Hello boys and girls!" he
would call out making them smile and feel young.
These people were his family
and he loved them all but the one who interested him the most was Marita.
Her eyes, of course, were the first change he noticed. When he first started working there, Marita's eyes were dull with a grayish coating. They were kind of droopy and her vision was extremely poor. A few months later the gray coating disappeared. Her sight and the color blue both returned. As John became friendlier with her, she rejuvenated and gained strength.
"You know what, Marita," John told her. "You're not getting any older. You're getting younger!"
They both laughed at that.
"Why don't you go to a trade school so you can get a job at one of those fancy electronics repair shops?" Marita asked, gazing at him. He had on a tee shirt a size too small that revealed his pectoral muscles. Her loving gaze moved down his arms admiring the biceps, hairy forearms and the veins on his hands that stood out like swollen rivers with numerous tributaries. She never experienced romance in her youth. Her parents were strict Southern Baptists who forbade her from any sort of dating. At age twenty-five, she was paired with Ezekiel Martin, the most self-absorbed human being she had ever known. It was like she didn't exist. The marriage was a sham with Ezekiel, and how she hated that name, cheating on her with all the hussies in town.
Marita spent days reading romance novels and going to the movies. They did not have any children and that was fine and dandy cause Marita did not want any children with that man.
"Well, I hadn't thought of it," John said bringing Marita out of her thoughts.
"Oh, yes, it's a darn good
idea," she winked at him with an eye that was alive with love and feeling.
"You're good with your hands."
She held his hand and softly caressed it. "If you have a talent, you must
nurture it. Trees don't get big if they were neglected when they
were young. They had to receive all the nutrition they needed in
order to grow. Same goes with your talent. You gotta feed it.
You got potential kid."
She stared into his eyes. He looked into her youthful, blue eyes and right then he was sure these were the eyes of an eighteen year-old girl. They sparkled and called out to him. Come to me, John. I know you love me. He blinked and saw her wrinkled face and white hair. He almost recoiled in disgust until he noticed the warm smile. He moved in and hugged her. Marita felt his heartbeat racing. Her hand gently tapped his back as he pulled away.
"I'm gonna go for it," he said enthusiastically. "In fact I'm gonna go to one tomorrow."
"Good boy."
John enrolled in a trade school taking electronics classes. Since he already knew his way around most electronics components, he learned much faster than his classmates. Two months into it, he broke up with his girlfriend Sue.
"She just doesn't understand me," he told Marita. "She says I have no time for her, but I give her all the time I got."
"Young women these days are so impatient, John," Marita smiled sweetly. "In the olden days, women used to place all their will and energy behind their men. All great men had great women by their sides."
He glanced in her eyes. Just a glance, but it was enough for him to notice those young girl eyes. John had this strange feeling inside. Was he in some way attracted to this gentle, wonderful but much, much older woman? No, it could not be possible. He was only twenty and she was eighty. Nevertheless, those young girl eyes and the way she smiled and gently squeezed his hands were all doing something to him.
**************
John graduated after four
months at the school. That is about the time Marita grew teeth.
Her old teeth had all fallen out so she used dentures. The new ones
grew in in the same order as the original ones; the bottom front first
then the top front then canines and molars. These new ones took only a
week to grow in. She managed to hide them from John until they were fully
grown, often turning away when she spoke or covering her mouth with her
hand.
"How did you get those?" John asked, genuinely surprised when she showed them to him. They were real, pearly whites that were very pretty. She smiled, her eyes sparkling.
I love you, John,
something whispered in his mind.
****************
John got a job in a home
electronics dealership working on high-end amplifiers and receivers, digital
video disc players, large screen televisions and camcorders. He did
this in the daytime and still worked evenings at the Centerville home because
he really enjoyed seeing all those people. Especially Marita whom
he was fond of. Marita had grown stronger. Her back had strengthened
and straightened out. She walked a lot and exercised as often as
she could without drawing the attention of her fellow residents.
"What are today's girls like, John?" she asked, looking at him with girlish coyness.
"Oh, I don't know," John sat in the chair by her bed. "They're pretty fast. I mean they like fast food, fast cars, fast romances. They're always rushing in and out of relationships. I can't keep up with that."
"Do you like that in a girl," Marita asked. "you know, the fast life?" Was that her voice? John wondered. It sounded like the voice of a very young girl.
"Uh, not really," he mumbled. "What's happening to you, Marita. I mean, the eyes and teeth.."
"Oh, John," her voice trembled with excitement. "It's amazing what love can achieve. This whole world is based on love. Without love, we have no reason to exist. Without love we have no purpose at all. We believe that when we die we'll go to heaven. Heaven is the purest form of love. There a lion will lie with a lamb and a snake with a baby. It's amazing what pure love can do."
Three days after Marita had talked about love, she showed John her index finger.
"It looks just the way it did when I was a young girl," she proudly announced. "Here, see the shedding." From under the pillow, she pulled out a piece of dried out skin. She had molted! Marita had shed the skin off her finger in the same way a snake would. John felt his head spin. He swallowed hard.
"What's going on?" he asked swallowing hard. He was a bit scared but also excited.
"Take me home, John," she begged. "The time has come and I don't want to molt here. Please take me to your home." The voice did not tremble. It rang out clearly like that of a young lady.
The skin was crawling, rippling in waves. Her face seemed to move forward away from her head. A short cry escaped John's throat, but Marita leapt towards him with acrobatic agility and covered his mouth with a hand that was rippling with the shedding.
"Please, don't be afraid, John," she whispered. "Everything will be okay. Just take me out of this place."
He obliged. In the car, he could not bear to look at her. She lay down in the back seat, but from the rearview mirror, he could see her skin crawling as it tore of what must be new skin. He drove fast, sometimes not seeing what was ahead; but he drove on anyway. At home, he carried her into the house to the bathroom where he closed the door behind her. He wandered around in the living room aimlessly. If he were a drinking man he would have fixed himself a double. He clasped his trembling hands trying to calm them.
After what seemed like an eternity but was in fact about twenty minutes, the bathroom door opened and a beautiful young woman emerged. All she had on was one of John's shirts. It was unbuttoned. John gasped.
"Do you like?" She asked as calm as ever.
"Wow," was all John could say.
"Well, do I get a kiss or what?" when she smiled, her dimples showed. John was in her arms in a second. "You don't know how long I've waited for this," she said before kissing him passionately.
"You know something else I've waited a long time to do?" she asked after the kiss. "To be held in the arms of a man; to dance and be serenaded, to go out to a nice restaurant and feed one another, to take long walks by the lake. I've never been in love, John. Would you love me?"
"Y... Yes, Marita, but first I have to sit down and you tell me all that has happened because I think I'm losing my mind."
"It's okay, John. Let's
sit down and relax for a bit. Everything will be fine."
