First Meeting Part III

Anna tossed her brown curly locks and laughed.  “You are incorrigible.”

“And you, my dear,” he lifted his beer and tipped it in Mark’s direction, “made him the luckiest man on earth when you agreed to marry his sorry ass.” 

Anna giggled and blushed. 

Mark laughed.  “Thanks a whole lot, pal.”  He raised his glass and clinked it to the beer bottle.  “But we all know you’re right.” 

Bill grinned and sucked down a big swallow of ice-cold beer.  “Ahh, man-oh-man, does that ever taste swell.”  His chair creaked when he sat back.  “So?” He caught Anna’s blue eyes with his dark brown ones.  “Who’s this dame you brought with you?”

“She’s not a dame,” Anna laughed, “She’s my friend from work.  Lois Allen.”

“She works at the Can?  Have I seen her?”

“Probably, she supervises the paper cup line.”

“She that dame gives all the guys the cold shoulder?”  Bill’s lifted his eyebrows and took another swallow of beer. 

Anna laughed.  “Well, yeah, but maybe she wouldn’t if any of them were worth a look.”  She winked across the table.  “Like you.”  She raised her glass. 

Mark laughed and raised his too.  “So the dames say, anyway.”  

Bill smiled and did the same.  Their glassware clinked together.

“So who says what?”

Bill turned his head towards the source of the husky female voice.  His fingers went numb.  He almost dropped his beer.  And his teeth.  Eloisa!   

The bottle clunked down on the table.

Anna, who’d been smiling up at her friend, startled and swung her gaze to Bill.  His olive complexion had gone pale with an undertone of green.  “Bill?”  She reached out a hand to touch his, still gripping the bottle so hard his knuckles were white.  

*Note: This account of how Mom & Dad met is my version of what Mom told me. The conversations are made-up and I've given their friends names because I can't remember their real ones. Also, the part about the picture is fictionalized, but based on a real picture Dad had in his WWII memory box, which as far as I know is still in there.

First Meeting, Part II

Part II:

“Hey, Schoppe.  Over here.”  Mark waved from a booth in the far corner of the club.

Upon hearing his name, Bill stepped inside, squinted through the smoke and, finally locating his friend and coworker, waved back.  He laced his way through the jam-packed tables.  He waved at Lon, the bartender, and Lon lifted a beer in his direction.  Bill nodded and Lon motioned at Jean to take it over to the booth. The leggy blond met Bill at the table and handed him the beer.

“Thanks doll,” he said with a wink.   

“You are always welcome, handsome,” she said with a smile and a toss of her beehive ponytail and a shake of her round backside.

Mark laughed.  “Don’t tell me you know all the girls that work here too.”  He tipped his glass up at the big man.

“Oh, Mark, don’t encourage him,” Anna said.  “Bill, you need to think about settling down.”

Bill bent down and gave Anna a peck on the cheek.  “Yeah, so you keep saying.  How about for now, I settle into this here chair?”  He pulled out one of the two empty chairs and settled his long legs under the table.  He took off his brown fedora, set it on the table and ran a big hand over his increasingly high forehead.  Soon he’s be bald with just a fringe around the back of his head, just like Grandpa.  And just like Grandpa, he didn’t really give a damn.  

*Note: This account of how Mom & Dad met is my version of what Mom told me. The conversations are made-up and I've given their friends names because I can't remember their real ones. Also, the part about the picture is fictionalized, but based on a real picture Dad had in his WWII memory box, which as far as I know is still in there.