Will You Still Love Me When I'm 64‪?‬

“Will You Still Love Me when I’m 64?”
In 1960 Jackie Ryan and Joanie Callahan had been teenage sweethearts for five years. It was not a war that split them up, nor a lack of love, nor a Shakespearean conflict between their families. Instead, Jackie had his own dreams. He dropped out of college, hit route 66 and headed west to San Francisco’s Haight/Ashbury with the intention of putting his experiences in a book one day.
Forty three years later the prodigal (Jackie) had returned and was living in Massachusetts with his second wife Janis. He had taken a hiatus from an extensive stage career and was on the verge of publishing his first novel, “Buddy O’Brien and The Oak Street Chronicles”
While surfing the internet one morning, Jackie stumbled upon the Classmates.com website and discovered the email address of Joanie’s older sister, Cheryl. He writes to her and discovers that Joanie is also into her second marriage and is living only a few hours away.
As he learns more about Joanie from Cheryl, Jackie’s interest is more than piqued. Feelings, forty- three years dormant, begin to flood his senses and after two weeks of agonizing expectations, frustration
and increasing desire, their computers finally get in synch and Jo emails Jackie. They find each other irresistible and the mutual longing to consummate their innocent bonding of yesteryear builds and builds until a physical meeting becomes inevitable.
There is growing pleasure and delight as they bathe in the comfort and unrestrained intimacy they have found once again. But under the weight of the vastly different lives they have led, getting to know each other anew presents all sorts of obstacles and turns out to be a much slower and complex process, than they had anticipated. Issues arise that divide them to the core. Yet, each has a great need that only the other can fill. They try to do it all and they try to do it as right as they can. It is left up to the reader to decide whether they accomplish that goal or not.