Her jaw dropped! Never in a million years did she expect this from him. She was flabbergasted. A confused chuckle escaped and she closed her eyes tightly. Counting to three she opened them again. Still, he kneeled there before her, naked as could be.
Again, the chuckle. “What is this?” she whispered through quivering lips. Truly she didn’t know whether to shit, or go blind. “Boog? Really? What’s going on?”
He stood, having been crouched upon one knee for way too long for his age, and smirked at the bare-naked lady blushing before him. The wine cooler fizzed over and a stray, gray hair fell into his wide, uncertain eyes. Still, his dentures glistened, and he looked as happy, as a fox in a chicken coop.
“I think you should become my wife, Addie. We jive, baby, like peas and carrots. I need you to complete me.”
She simply pressed her lips together and shook her head. “You crazy, old fool! Together we must be more than a hundred-fifty years old. Come to think of it, combined we probably have less than ten years to live. We’re too damned old for such silliness.”
Boog waved the bottle in the air. “Hogwash!”
“Don’t you hogwash me,” she shot back. Her fingers shook, and she fumbled with the task of buttoning up her blouse.
“Dumpling. How great would it be? To share a room, instead of having to be wheeled back-and-forth halfway down the hall to each others’ rooms. We’ll wake up together, have breakfast together, just be able to sit together watching Reality TV, and game shows, and not have to worry about worrying about when it’s time to go. C’mon. I love you, Addie. I don’t like to see those aides dragging you out of here. If we were married…”
She tossed his flannel shirt at him, insisting that he get dressed. “They’ll be here soon.” and then his dungarees and suspenders landed against his bare chest.
“We’d be able to lock the door…”
“Boog! Get dressed.”
“Addie, please! Sleep on it. It’d be wonderful.”
“Maybe so, Boog. I just can’t imagine…”
“Imagine being Mr. and Mrs. Edward Fartmore.”
Addie’s brows lifted, and she crinkled her nose. She absolutely hated his last name, Fartmore. Really?
He grimaced, “Right. So imagine instead, Mr. and Mrs. Boog!” he smiled, and when he did an adolescent charm just exuded from him. Gosh. How she loved him.
“Boog? What about my kids? I’m seventy-two years old, I’m in here to die. They’ll never understand that an old lady wants to get married, just so that she could share a room and have sex with an old man, or so that she doesn’t have to commute to-and-from in order to accomplish it.”
“This is not about them.” It was at this moment that he produced the daintiest, diamond ring.
She started to believe in the absurd possibility, she really did. Biting her lower lip she grinned, and then other things factored in. He’d learn of her occasional bouts of incontinence, her obsession with that funny, little call bell, and her consistent nightmares, which is the reason for her little obsession!
“I don’t know, Boog.”
“Sleep on it, Addie. We’ll talk tomorrow. Promise you‘ll think about it.”
“I promise.”
At the gentle knock, Boog beckoned the aide to enter his room. He had just finished dressing and was red-faced, breathless, and sweating from the efforts, when the pretty girl came in to take Addie back to her own room. If they were married, Addie would be sleeping in that vacant bed, right here in his room and he would be able to hear her snores all night long. He smiled. She denies that she snores, but she does, louder than anyone he’s ever known.
“Night, Boog,” she whispered. It tore her in two to leave him.
“G’night, Addie.” It broke his heart to hear the loneliness in her voice.
They kissed each other goodnight.
Addie lay in bed later that night contemplating Boog’s offer. Thoughts, weighing the good and bad, banged around in her brain like a pinball machine, until finally she had a massive headache. Out of habit, she pushed the little, red button.
When the aide asked her what she needed, Addie began to laugh. She laughed harder that she had in many years. Instead of asking for pain killers, like she normally would, she said, “I need to call my children. I think they would want to know that their Momma is getting hitched!”
“Say what?”
“Yep! Boog asked me to marry him, and I’m going to accept. I’m going to be Mrs. Fartmore, of all things!”
Lossie Reeves is from Falls, Pennsylvania. She’s been published in Le Mot Juste, Writer’s Cauldron, Alchemy Literary Magazine Online, The Wild Child Publishing, and Weems Concepts.
This story was sponsored by
Camilla d’Errico: A character designer and artist who dances on the tightrope between pop surrealist art and manga inspired graphics. Explore her paintings, characters and comics: Tanpopo, BURN and Helmetgirls.
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18 Responses to “ADDIE AND BOOG • by Lossie Reeves”
Comments
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September 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 am
What a sweet story. We need more stories focusing on the lives and love lives of the elderly, especially since they are our largest demographic these days. If it wasn’t for the “head hopping” (switching back and forth from her point-of-view to his and back again) the story would be perfect. Switching POVs is distracting. But the story itself is adorable.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 am
Great feel-good story.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 am
I enjoyed this one. Hope I’m like that at 72 (it’s not long to go).
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:14 am
Very nice story, Lossie, it does make me sad though thinking that MY brother in law couldn’t be as loving and caring to my sister as Boog is to Addie!!! Addie has the perfect man, he accepts her even with her many little faults, Kudos to him!!
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:29 am
Very nice and moving. Thank you for this one.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:51 am
Nicely written, good characterization, but not much plot to it …
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:02 am
This is a very cute and sweet story. I’m glad she accepted his proposal. I noticed a tense change when he was talking about her snoring, don’t know if it was intentional or not but it took me out of the story a little.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 am
Very nice work, I enjoyed this.
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:22 am
Addie and Boog rock!
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 am
Really nice story. Sweet, but not so much that it puts you off. Just sweet and nice enough.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:12 am
Light-hearted top coating, but, underneath it showed the human need for love, no matter what age. Didn’t have a wow-ending, but still works for me. In the back of my mind, I was thinking Boog might die in his sleep and Addie wouldn’t have missed her chance to say “Yes”. Boog’s full name was a hoot!
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:18 am
Couple things about this one that took my rating down a notch or two. One, I suppose everyone “hears” voices of characters differently, but these two didn’t sound very old to me. Second, the name “Fartmore” just bothered me because it sounded so unrealistic, and this NOT being a fantasy/absurd/sci-fi story, it felt out of place. (Did a nationwide search through White Pages for “Fartmore” as a last name and didn’t get a single return. Maybe they all have cell phones). Finally, the story seemed to continue to hammer home points that I as a reader already “got”.
But I agree with Debra (#1) about the need for more love stories involving older characters.
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Havng been on earth a bit longer than Addie, I loved the story and her. I needed the pov change to remind me that he’d got his way. Well, off to try my luck…
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Agree with JC. The “Fartmore” thing was supposed to be a joke, I suppose, but it didn’t add anything and just rankled.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Boog is okay but not Fartmore? There are plenty of Crapps and Glasscocks out there.
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
“Boog” and “Fartmore” names had me determined not to like it, but couldn’t stop reading and enjoyed it in spite of myself — kudos.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Light-hearted and funny, but do agree that the name “fartmore” cheapened the story. A name that’s a bit more realistic would have worked better but well written.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Thanks everyone. I am so happy with all of your comments. I agree the “Boog Fartmore” thing can be distracting, but it just makes me giggle.