Meeting JoAnne

 

Meeting someone from one’s past might bring back some happy memories, or some unexpected surprises.

Categorised as fiction, admittedly taking slight advantage of artistic licence, this story is based on a true event.

 

                              Meeting JoAnne

“Hello Michael.” I heard the voice despite my being in a semi dream-like state.   “It is Michael isn’t it?”
      I emerged from my little day dream to find that I was being addressed by a very attractive young lady. ‘Young’ of course is a relative term, and it depends for it’s validity on your starting point. This lady was perhaps fifty-ish, so from my point of view she was young. I sat upright on the bench where I had taken refuge, plastic shopping bags at my feet, while my wife continued to shop in the market. Like most men, shopping comes low on my scale of priorities, and with advancing years the chance to sit awhile was seldom overlooked.
        “I bet you don’t remember me.” she said with a smile; a smile so wide that it seemed to have entered her voice. She was standing in front of me, hands on hips, as she leaned slightly towards me. It was a pose perhaps more appropriate to a younger woman, and yet at the same time, it was one that said ‘this is me – what you see is what you get’.
      I took a good look. Without doubt this was a good looking lady though perhaps not in the beauty queen tradition. She was slim and very well dressed in slacks and sweater under a three quarter length leather coat. Her matching bag and shoes added a degree of elegance which was ‘topped’ with a full head of beautiful dark brown hair.

      “Do you remember me?” she asked.
      Fully awake now I hesitated. “I’m afraid I don’t,” I finally answered, though somewhat reluctantly. “But I must admit that there is just something familiar about you – but it seems very hazy…is it a long time ago since we knew each other?”
      “Do you remember that food company?” she asked, quietly now as she sat down beside me, almost graceful in her movements but strangely positive, “and you had to train me?”
      That really took me back. It had been my first job ‘on the road’, half a lifetime ago selling from a van direct to the shops; mostly tea and coffee but other things too, and after five years or so I was considered to be experienced enough to undertake the training of newcomers.
      I looked again at this lady, trying now to get a ‘fix’ on those days so long ago. “I don’t ever remember training a girl.” I said at last, convinced that she had made a mistake.
      She laughed at that, quite a strong laugh, even a little course for one so poised. “I’m JoAnne now, but in those days I was John.”  She turned toward me and my curiosity obliged me to do the same so that we were facing each other.
      “Well I’m blessed.” I said, remembering the shy young man who for a few months all those years before, had been in my care.
      “Well …” I said again, seeing her now with new eyes, and gesturing towards her in a vague sort of way, “How did all this come about?”
      “I always knew that I didn’t fit - you know what I mean."  It seemed that she had added an afterthought. "And most other people knew as well.” She was silent for a moment. “Some people were very unkind, and life wasn’t always nice for me. They used to laugh at me and make jokes, unkind jokes. But I remember you,” she was looking straight at me now – “you never laughed at me.”
      Then, almost without a pause she carried on. “It was my mother you know, the silly old sod,” I was a little shocked at her ‘insult’ but it was said with a smile, and softened by clear affection in her voice; “she said if I worked with a lot of men, it would straighten me out.”
      She laughed that laugh again. Now that I knew a little more about ‘JoAnne’ it didn’t seem so ‘out of place’ as before. “She was right in a way, but not in the way she expected;” she continued, and then paused again. “It made me realize that if I was going to survive I had to make some drastic changes – that’s when I decided to leave.”

      Yes of course! I remembered now, how puzzled we had all been at the depot when ‘John’ didn’t turn up one day, and we never saw him again. Even more puzzling, I was starting to remember more clearly, was that we never heard from him or of him from that day on. He had simply disappeared from our lives.
       “How did you do it?” I asked
      “Oh’ it was easy,” she smiled, and even though I now knew different, it was a feminine smile, “I went round all the second hand shops and bought lots of women’s clothes, changed my name to Joan, and said goodbye to John.”
      “Joan?” I enquired
      “Yes it was Joan at first, but then I thought Joan was a bit old fashioned so I became JoAnne … I got a job in a shop and I never looked back.”
      “And now?” The question remained unfinished, but JoAnne seemed to understand.
      “I am happy with my life, even though I’m on my own.”
      “Your mother…is she still…?” once again I could not finish the question.
      She laughed again, only this time it was more like a chuckle. “She never understood, the silly old bat,” – once more the affectionate insult – “but she never stopped loving me, and she didn’t turn me out. But just the same, I thought it best to get my own place.”
      “Is she well?” I asked the question again.
      JoAnne was quick to answer. “Yes, and still annoying me…she’s in a sheltered place you know…I see her most days…pushing ninety now.”
      “Did you…err?” I stumbled on my words concerned that I may be asking one question too far, “did you need…what about…the operation?” No sooner were the words out of my mouth I wished that I had not asked, but she didn’t seem to mind.
      That laugh again, this time louder than before and nothing like the shy young man I had known. “Oh’ I couldn’t be bothered with all that; I’m still intact. Underneath all this lot I’m just the same as I ever was.” She gestured at her female attire and then the tone of her voice changed slightly. “Except that now I’m happy.”
      “What made you stop and talk to me today?” I asked, wanting to change the subject, and also remembering my surprise that she had picked me out.
      “I’m not sure.” she answered “I saw you sitting there and I knew immediately who you were, and I remembered that you were one of the few who treated me with some dignity.”
      She stood up, preparing to go. “I suppose I just wanted to say ‘thank you’.” and as she said those words, she leant across and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
      She presented me with one more smile, and then a little wave of the hand, turned, and walked away, soon lost amongst the other shoppers.
      I had just been kissed by a man, and I sat for a moment or two thinking about it, uncertain and a little bemused, before I eventually allowed myself a contented smile. Nothing more than a spontaneous gesture of gratitude, I told myself; albeit slightly overdue.  Anyway, I mused, who would know; and after all, she was a good looking lass.
      “I think I can live with that.” were my final thought on the matter, as I settled back again to guard the plastic bags, pleased at the encounter but wondering if I would ever see ‘her’ again.