Homecoming

By: RDV


After seven years, Tony, everybody’s dreamboat, returned to his hometown.
He had no sooner touched down the pavement when the news spread. Phone lines suddenly went haywire. The neighborhood waxed enlivened, like a withered weed receiving liberal amount of water for the first time in many days. Heads turned. Hands waved. Faces beamed, glorified. Girls who had loved him, in a long-ago time, peered through their windows. It was Tony, no less. He bore the same pretty face that kidnapped their hearts, broke them, returned them, only to kidnap them again, today, seven years later.


Candice, ironically the owner of such a suggestive name, wrung her hands, occasionally heaving them up to her chest. A cardiac arrest would’ve been the only result Tony’s return would bring her, provided she didn’t contract insanity first out of excitement and fear, the latter she couldn’t as of yet justify. She had loved Tony for twelve years. She was twenty-two years old. Tony, now twenty-nine, was of a marrying age. As a young girl, Candice had kept that love locked in herself, within that impenetrable safe inside her called secrecy. All the girls in the neighborhood didn’t do likewise. They fawned after him, openly. Depending on their luck Tony would respond with a meager flirtatious word or two. But he never saw any of them the way they saw him. He, too, was a person plagued by introversion and his thoughts were known to few.


Tony wrenched their house’s door open. Inside could be heard an exhilarated squeal, courtesy of his mother who single-handedly raised him. Love filled the air. And so did warmth all of a sudden.


From across the street, Candice felt herself touched. Tony was back, either temporarily or permanently. At any rate, he was here, and Candice would be fine. She had waited for this long enough. Often at night she would lay down, indulging herself in childhood memories when Tony, seventeen, she ten, taught her how to play ping-pong at the town’s clubhouse. It was the first time a considerable semblance of communication formed between them. In the following years they would become friendly. Tony would treat her like the little sister he never had. Affection was present; love too was there. But both weren’t deep enough. On the day of Tony’s departure, Candice appeared sad, as was apt. But none of that sadness ever gave hint to what was beneath the surface. There was depression and devastation, like a massive heartbreak she had no choice but to embrace.


The phone rang. Candice jumped up. Of course it would be Tony. He would announce his return, in the hope of pleasantly surprising her. They would have a laugh or more and she would be blasted off to the past, remembering and rejuvenating the girlhood crush.


“Candice, I’m back!”


“Heard it through the grapevine. So what’s up!?”


“Long story. Why don’t you come over for dinner for details? We’ll have a good time.”


“Alright then.”


“At seven. I’ll cook.”


She put the phone down. Her heart rate increased exponentially. She couldn’t tell if Tony had stopped, or intended to stop, treating her like the child that she was. Gosh, it had been so long ago.


At seven-ten she knocked on the door. Greetings were exchanged. Tony’s mother was assigned the task of entertaining Candice at the living-room while Tony applied his finishing touches on the meal. Both women chattered, with Tony cluttering on kitchen utensils.


“Tony’s wife, Linda, and their son will come over next week. I haven’t met either of them. I’m so thrilled and nervous.” Tony’s mother said cheerily.


A few seconds had to be let by before Candice could absorb the information. She smiled, but not in the way she purposed to.


“I didn’t know he got married.” Was all she could say.


“Honey, I didn’t know too until he told me this morning. And believe me I’m a proud grandma.”


“Oh, you should be. And a proud mother too, I trust?”


“You said it.”


The dinner commenced. Tony briefed the story behind his seven-year absence. He fell in love, for the first time. He said he always knew he had to go places before he could find the one. “It wouldn’t come to you; that’s what I always told myself. I was right. There never was a more amazing lover than Linda.” Candice smiled and smiled. Tony’s heart was never encrusted on his hometown’s ground. He was always restless, leaving no opportunity when he knew he could leave.


Because Tony was persistent, she told him about her studies, generally how she spent those seven-years far too removed from him. She had to make some things up in order to make her life seem more meaningful than it was. All along, in truth, it was all about waiting. Waiting for this return.


“To your studies.” Tony made a toast.


“To my health.” His mom replied.


“To your family.” Candice lifted up her champagne glass.


As they sipped, Candice knew that that she’d never be happy for him.