Dreaming of Jennifer Jones

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, I had a dream about her. It was 1985, I was thirty years old, teaching at the university, deep into a Ph.D program in European history. In my shared office, grading papers, or something, I heard her talking to a professsor next door, plea bargaining for a grade. He asked her what happened on October 31, 1517. When she said "Halloween" I laughed out loud, she heard me, and giggled. That was our first conncection. When she left the office next door, I stepped out into the hallway, and spoke to her. I wish I could remember our precise words. The pretext was studying, and my alleged talent tutoring. She knew where to find me. She found me, at my basement graduate student cubby hole of an apartment, which I loved, and would happily inhabit today, if the house hadn't been torn down and replaced by a university shopping gig. She showed up wearing a "I heart love NY" sweatshirt, with both the red heart and the word "love" redundantly on the shirt. She didn't like that, thought the redundancy was stupid. She offered to bring the shirt back to me after washing it, which she did. I had it and wore it for years. I wish I still had it. She was eighteen, a freshman, cute face, large mouth, full lipe, short brown hair with bangs. Nice figure. A family girl with seven year old twin little sisters who came from a city two hours away, and had a VW bug on campus. She was adorable, and she liked me, as many ladies did and still do. We kept our clothes on. We sat next to each other on my tattered grad student couch, side by side, bodies in full contact. We studied a little. I looked at her, she looked at me, and I kissed her. I kissed her again. Then, she laid down on the couch, and I knew what to do. Our clothing never came off. When we were finished, she buttoned up her bra, and said that she had never kissed a thirty year old before. When we started meeting down in the college town bar and restaurant district she was obviously nervous, and obviously was trying to make herself look plain and unattractive, which was not possible. She mentioned the importance of finding a good husband. I knew we wouldn't last, and that she would leave the university in another three years with a degree and a fiance. It wouldn't be me. A few weeks later I saw her for the last time, walking with a young man about her age. She was on her way. In my dream, just the other day, she was there again, and still looked eighteen. All I can remember of the dream is that our exchange was warm and friendly, but I knew that she would again go away. I awakened wanting to be with her one more time, and needing to write about her. She would be fifty seven now, soon to turn fifty eight. My best guess is that she graduated, found her husband, had a family, and now has grandchildren. With a name like 'Jennifer Jones", googling her I assume would be impossible. I hope all that I assume about her is true, and somehow sense that it is. I cannot resist the thought that I, now sixty nine, and she, now fifty seven, would no longer be an innapropriate match, and that we haven't been for many years. At what point does a thirty year old eighteen year old brief romance grow into an age appropriate match? At thirty three and twenty one? That's getting closer, if nothing else. Maybe a bit later...maybe...Maybe I didn't miss out on her by as much as I thought. She just wasn't ready for me, back then. Maybe she will come to me in a dream, again. I doubt it, but..maybe.