B

Chapter 2

I decided to find Nancy Ashton. Nancy Ashton. Its strange to be writing her name now. Strange that after nearly 60 years of her name on the edge of my thoughts I would be finally putting it on paper. Nancy. She will always be 25 to me, like the summer we met on the train to Chicago. We had two days together. And two days was just enough to know that I had met the woman I could hold forever. Nancy knew how to laugh. I first caught her eye mid-laugh. She was blowing a kiss to her mother out the window of the cab car. She was dramatic and breathtaking; she laughed at her own nerve and saw me watching. She blushed. She blew me a kiss. I was gone.

Turned out we were both headed to Chicago to find jobs. I was fresh out of grad school in journalism, she had finished a typing course and wanted to be a secretary. We talked books and authors, dreams and silliness. I have always been a shy man, even in my youth, and while age has certainly contributed to the ungainly proportions of my face, I was big-eared even then. Nancy didn't seem to mind. I can remember so clearly her gentle questions, my surprise when I made her laugh, the deep amusement of her eyes. We promised to look each other up in Chicago. We exchanged addresses. I never saw her again.

a) Not in person, anyway. Her name was written on every movie billboard in the city. She was apparently famous. I was embarrassed.

b) When I called on her two days later, the care-taker didn't know anyone with that name. Nancy Ashton didn't live there. I looked all over the city and never found her.

c) There was a fire in the building where she lived just days after we got to Chicago. I asked after her for months. I never found her.

d.) you come up with something.