Frances

By the grace of God, I was living quite comfortably. I was now married with two children and another on the way. I was successful at work and had been able to provide a nice home for my family – everything seemed to be going well. I started real estate part time. I suppose I was never very good at it, but I enjoyed making the sale on those few I was actually able to close. However; it was never more than just a small supplemental income – a part time hobby.

This sales call was like most others, but I really held little hope of selling. The lady told me over the phone that she was looking for a smaller home, but was not really sure what she could afford. She said she had been on some hard times and needed to move down. Not being very good at screening potential over the phone, I made the appointment.

A lady drove up to our rendezvous. I double checked as she exited the car. Could I be remembering correctly? This face was all too familiar, but certainly not one that should have been pleasant to me. It had been so long! Surely she would have changed by now. Surely this was not the same person.

I smiled as she walked to the door where I was waiting. “Hello,” I said as I extended my hand to her. “I'm Steve.”

“Hello, Steve,” she said in response as she took my hand to shake. “I'm Frances.”

Frances! Yes! That was the name. I kept my professional face, but looked at her. Her neatly kept shoulder length blond hair was still done in the same attractive style that she wore in school – for many styles that may have looked corny by now, but on Frances, it was still beautiful. Her eyes were brown and as penetrating as ever, but contrasted wonderfully with her blond hair and fair complexion. She was still as shapely and slim as she was when she was in school. The years had been much kinder to her face than they had been to mine, but still I could read care written into her countenance.

I always had to admit she was beautiful, but she was not the type of woman for me, or rather I was not the type of boy for her. She first made that clear when I was in third grade. I remembered the day very clearly. Our driveway was the last stop for our school bus before it headed to school. I was the farthest from the school – the farthest out in the sticks. Frances lived much closer to town in a beautiful newly built home. She was the prettiest girl on our bus and she knew it. She carried herself aloof – certain that she was too high class to associate with people like those farm boys that got on the bus near the end of the route.

As I got on the bus on that particular morning, every seat was taken except one space in the seat where Frances sat. Being only a third grader, it seemed unthinkable for me to force my way into a seat with this fifth grade beauty, but the driver demanded that I find a seat, so I sat down by Frances.

Frances protested the moment she thought I might sit with her. When I actually had the audacity occupy that seat, her protests turned nasty. “Little boy! You are NOT sitting with me.” she repeated again and again. Although insulted, I dared not sass an older student – especially one with such an air of class as Frances. I sat silently and stared forward. I had no other place to sit, so I had no choice but to continue despite Frances' insistence.

When she saw that her words would not move that plain little farm boy out of her seat, she turned to more physical means. She tried pushing me first, but even though I was 2 years younger, the strain of farm work had strengthened me so that the dainty beauty from the nice house could not budge me. When I stayed in place in her seat. She turned to a more painful approach. She dug her fingernails into my forearm until it drew blood. It hurt, but the code of honor we were taught said a boy does not hit a girl, and admitting pain would prove to the other boys my age that I was a sissy, so I kept my stare forward and never responded to Frances' assault.

When she saw that I would not move, and would not respond to her punishment for daring to sit with her, she sat down, but continued incessantly telling me how ugly she thought I was, demanding, “Little boy! You are NOT sitting with me,” and continued talking to her friends about how insolent I was for sitting with her.

I did not sit with her again – she made sure to always have a friend closer to her own level in the seat with her before I got onto the bus. However; she always found a way to actively tell me I was beneath her. Maybe it was with a jerk of her head when I came close or a denigrating remark whenever she knew I was within earshot – anything to remind me that I was just a little farm boy from out in the sticks whose pants didn't even fit right and certainly nobody that should ever consider associating with her.

As we grew older we no longer rode the bus. Frances was a beautiful suburban girl, and I was just a common boy from the sticks. Since we no longer shared a bus ride, we no longer had reason to look at each other, but when I noticed her at school, I always had to look with grudging admission of her class. She was refined and beautiful and I ... well ... I was rough and plain – just what you would expect that farm boy from the farthest house from the school to look like. Eventually, Frances went her way, and I went mine – not that our paths ever seemed to be headed in the same direction.

Now, this day, Frances shook my hand and took my business card. Nothing in her face hinted that she remembered me – and honestly I had aged enough that I really doubted that anyone would recognize me even if they had reason – which Frances didn't have. The name on my business card stirred no recollection within her, so I stood looking at a beautiful, but unpleasant piece of my childhood in an eerie sort of anonymity. I knew her, but she did not know me.

I showed the quaint, run down house with as much pride as I could muster. Frances smiled as I spoke, but her face betrayed her smile as forced. With her disappointment so obvious, I stopped and faced her.

“Ma'am, Is this the type of house you're looking for?” I asked as politely as I could.

Frances' eyes dropped. She put one hand in the other in front of her and bowed her head for a moment. Drawing her mouth tight, she looked up at me. “To be honest,” she began, “I don't even know if I can afford it. Things haven't been going so well for me, and that's why I need to move down to a smaller house.”

“I see,” I said. “We can sit down for a moment and see how your ratios look if you'd like. That'll give you some idea of what the bank will think you can afford.”

“Can you please?” Frances asked with a humility and respectfulness I had never heard from her before.

“Sure,” I said as I motioned to the kitchen table.

I sat down and pulled out my calculator and notebook as Frances took the seat beside me.

“To be honest,” Frances said. “My husband left me and I know that's going to affect my credit. He's filed for divorce but it won't be final until next month. I guess I can buy a house now, but I don't make that much money.”

I paused for a moment, now secure in the fact that she had no clue who I was. I suddenly found a soft spot in my heart for this one who had never shown any mercy toward me.

I ran through her ratios with her and showed her what the bank would say she could afford – certainly nothing a fit human would like to habitate. She put her head into her hands as the figure was developed. I don't think she was crying, but her disappointment was evident. She shook her head without removing it from her hands, then raised her countenance to look at me again.

“I guess...” she said trailing off. She paused. I did not try to prompt her, but let her continue at her own pace. “I guess I can go back to my dad and take him up on his offer. He had a trailer that he rented out, and he said I could live there if I wanted to.” She shook her head and dropped her eyes again. Her forehead wrinkled in distress as she continued. “I really hate to move my kids into that trailer park, but I just can't see that I have much choice.”

“I'm really sorry,” I offered.

She lifted her eyes to meet mine and smiled at me – something that she had never done before so far as I could remember. “It's okay,” she said. “I know it's not your fault. You're just telling me the straight story, and that's really what I needed to hear – it's just not what I had hoped to hear.”

As Frances drove away, I searched my memory. Had I ever actually hoped to see her humbled? Certainly I resented her condescension, but had I ever actually wanted her haughty attitude to be brought low?

The answer I found to my question was not a comfortable one. If ever there was an attitude that I thought needed to be brought down a notch or two, it was that beautiful blond girl from that big house. But now, I realized I had just sat in anonymity – like a fly on the wall - and witnessed that very thing happening to her. I saw her after her dreams and her pride had come apart. Whatever my attitude might have been before, now, I found there was no satisfaction and no pleasure in seeing her so humbled. It was heartbreaking to hear that her husband had left her, and it hurt to think that she had to move her children into a trailer in some trailer park where she did not want to live. Knowledge that her dreams had been shattered and she had been humbled were more painful to me than her fingernails had ever been.

It was a strange feeling, but after our conversation, she was no longer that arrogant school girl in my mind. Instead she was a proud and beautiful lady whose aspirations and dreams were now gone. When I thought about it, her dreams were really no different than what I hoped for my family. For the first time I saw her as a feeling person just as I was, and I was actually ashamed of myself for my high school attitude toward her.

I apologized to God for any inappropriate attitude I may have ever had toward Frances as I put my car into Gear, then I prayed for Frances. I thanked Him again for the life and family I had. I searched my memory for anyone else I may have resented. I could not think of any, but the search was worth while – I never wanted to harbor that kind of resentment for anyone else. It was a true unexpected learning experience for me. No matter what I might have thought, I did not really want to see anyone brought down – I just never knew that before this day's appointment with Frances.