Maggie Wingfield, RIP

I was walking out of a gallery on First Fridays, in full solo wander mode. Lots of people. Interesting art. No one to wait for or catch up to. I saw an old college friend, Linda. 30 years ago we had lived in back to back apartments on West Grace Street. Our kitchen sinks were on either side of the wall, and we would signal each other with water patterns. She was from exotic Northern Virginia, very urban with a German B grade movie star mother and a sweet daddy. She was friends with a real junkie, a fascinating alcoholic, a very handsome and brilliant man, a talented woman with Lupus, and a wild woman who went for two terms with the Peace Corps to Patagonia. We tried to stay in touch, but our child bearing was not synced. I started early, long before anyone I knew. Then Linda married a man who was climbing the corporate ladder, and they moved to the suburbs to raise children. Heck, she still has children in high school. Cripes.

So she sees me and turns to me with a solemn look. After the brief exchange of pleasantries, she asks if I saw the December VCU Alumni magazine. I hadn't.

She said, Suzanne, Maggie died. She was in San Francisco and she died. It didn't say how. I knew you needed to know.

I loved Maggie Wingfield. She was brilliant and wild and full of creative passion when we were both 19. Maggie had a mean streak and loved to make jokes about people who had flaws. But I loved to sit on the front porch with Maggie and call out to our friends on the street. She liked my painting, which I was at the time, for some reason, doing in my apartment instead of the studio. She was from Virginia, deep Southside, I think. She talked about her sister Maria (pronounced Ma.rai.ah) and her daddy, whom she loved. I think her mother was dead. Maggie was funny and smart and particularly admired Susan Sontag.

Maggie and me, making faces

Maggie was sexually ambiguous. She had an affair with a married professor and also with a woman in our building. I think she ended up preferring women, but we lost touch so I don't know. I also don't know anyone who knew her after she left town. I only saw her once, when I was working at the museum and she came to see some friends. She was incredibly thin and nervous. She told me that she was on a special diet and no longer had periods, because her body didn't need them, or something like that. She had on a fur coat.

I want to do something special to mourn Maggie. She flamed out, that girl. I hope she left plenty of provocative art and some great stories. I am sure I'm not the only one left standing in her wake, still watching.

Perhaps your soul is now at peace, Maggie. You were worth it all, and totally unforgettable. I love you still.

Love Story: Suzanne Hall and Joe Willis

It was December and my old Volvo needed some work. As I left it at with my mechanic, his wife introduced me to a dreamy man with a handsome old BMW. As I was leaving, I overheard her say to him, "She's nice, you should ask her out."

But nothing happened.

In January I was an usher at my church, St. James's Episcopal Church, and assigned each week to the same aisle. Every Sunday, this new dreamy visitor would come in and sit alone in the same place at the back of the church. Every Sunday, I would think of some casual thing to say after church, but he always left during the last hymn. I didn’t realize that he was in real estate and had open houses to coordinate.

Toward the end of the month he needed a date for a Saturday night ball game and couldn’t remember my name. He called the mechanic’s wife and she gave him my number. When I answered he said,” Hi, this is Joe Willis. I don’t know if you remember me.” I replied, “I’ve been taking your money every Sunday for three weeks!”

I already had plans that Saturday, but the next Sunday, I got a twenty in the collection plate!

After that, we had coffee. Next, we had lunch. And then he called to see if I wanted to “play” on Saturday. He picked me up and asked me where I’d like to go. “Let’s go find snow,” I replied. So we drove on Virginia back roads, along the Blue Ridge Park Parkway and ended up at the Peaks of Otter for a pot of tea in front a roaring fire with snow flurries outside! That lovely BMW served us well that day, although it had no heat. Fortunately, Joe had a lap robe and we forgave the mechanic. We came back through Charlottesville, had a romantic dinner and continued what our friends called the date that never ended!