Back to the Night

My parents are an inspiration to me, even when they're not present.

Today's lunch date had all the key ingredients: a scenic road trip up Route 301 to Fredericksburg, a reliably creative restaurant, pithy and opinionated company and chocolate.

My favorite tennis player and I had been trying to arrange a lunch date since January, canceling twice for snow and once for last minute schedule conflicts. Today's plans had happened spontaneously after I'd gotten a happy birthday e-mail last Saturday.

Choosing as my soundtrack "Joan Armatrading Classics," I rolled up 301 listening to songs about every stage of a women's life - "Rosie," a young woman's song about not coming on so willing and strong to the boys, "Kind Words and a Real Good Heart" about the more mature realization that life can be indiscriminate and "Me, Myself and I" about the reality of needing alone time.

It's as timeless a record as I know.

My aunt and I met at Bistro Bethem but sat inside since she'd just finished a match in F-burg this morning (and had another at 5 p.m. today) and was looking for a cool sit-down for a while. The salad I ordered was as good as any I've had in ages with kale, snow peas, quinoa, radishes and smoked turkey in a delicate mustard vinaigrette. I'd eat it again tomorrow, it was that good.

As we ate, we caught up since it had been over a year since we'd last met.

She's a UR grad who's never quite accepted the Westhampton campus merging with the UR campus, even going so far as to suggest that her class' 50-year reunion be held at a house rather than on campus because she doesn't care for the way the place feels and looks now.

To me, it's just a labyrinth I do my best to navigate when I'm over there for culture.

Since I'd just seen my folks, she asked how her brother/my father was, leading to some great stories about his misspent youth. Apparently he was quite the Lothario before meeting my Mom (whom she referred to as his soulmate), including one woman with whom he broke it off and who still refuses to attend an event he's at because of it.

Talking about the news (she's as savvy politically as anyone I know) I brought up free-range parenting and the debate going on in D.C. about it. She regaled me with stories of accompanying her mother, my Richmond grandmother, to Thalhimer's and Miller and Rhodes to shop before her mother went on to her job at the telephone company at Grace and 7th Street.

"Then I'd take the bus home and walk eight blocks to our apartment," she remembered. These days, DSS would pick her up and throw Grandma in jail. Different times, we agreed.

Talking about my parents and their decades-long romance, she mentioned their still active sex life, something my Dad apparently shares with her on occasion. "They were doing it in the shower in Cape Henry!" she tells me and I didn't dare ask for details.

Most interesting of all our chatting was when I turned the tables on her and asked about her life and relationship of the past 20+ years. They still live together, but on separate floors and schedules. "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't." she admitted, surprising me.

She's still attractive, very fit (almost daily tennis), smart as a whip and dryly funny. When she said she was considering a dating website, I seconded the motion. They're not married, his health is precarious and she's still vital and energetic. How much life do you owe someone once the trappings of a relationship are long gone?

Neither of us was sure about the answer.

For dessert, I had pot de creme au chocolat with a piece of house-made nut brittle the size of my hand while she enjoyed strawberry sorbet. Asking about my plans tonight, it occurred to her that she had the perfect host in me to show her the new Richmond.

We immediately started making plans for her to come stay for a few days (after the tennis championships are over, of course) so I could reacquaint her with the city of her birth and upbringing.Maybe she'll meet someone interesting while she's here or maybe she'll just have a good time.

Since we don't get do-overs, it only seems smart to make the most of right now. That was the topic of my thoughts tooling back down 301...and probably hers as well.

Don't we all want to be still doing it in the shower when we're 82?