Authors: Rosemary Fifield
“You’re
not listening, are you, Connie?” Greg’s words broke into her thoughts, and she
glanced at him. He was watching her with a small smile on his face. “I said,
I’m hoping you’ll come with me to Brad and Bunny’s place this Saturday. The
people I told you about? Marilyn knows them, too.”
“Bunny’s
in my dramatic arts class,” Marilyn said. “She’s wild. Let me rephrase
that—uninhibited. A natural-born actress.”
Greg
continued to face Connie on the seat, his arm stretched along the back, his
fingers inches from her hair. He reached further and twined one of her loose
curls around his index finger. “Will you come?”
Connie
gave him a quick, frowning glance. He had never been that demonstrative before;
was he doing that for Marilyn’s benefit? Turning on the charm?
“I’ll
think about it.” She gave him a pinched smile.
Greg
withdrew his hand. “Sorry. We can talk about it another time.”
“Have
you ever gone to one of their parties?” Connie asked, directing her question to
Marilyn.
“Nope.
Never been invited.”
“Well,
since Greg says they’re open to all comers, consider yourself invited.” Connie
glanced at Greg once more. “Right?”
“Whatever
you want.” He kept his profile to her and his eyes straight ahead, but she
could hear the forced pleasantness in his voice.
“Actually,
I’ve got plans for the weekend,” Marilyn said, her voice holding a certain
self-satisfaction. “But I want to hear all about it. I
know
you’ll have
a blast.”
They
rode the rest of the way in relative silence, with just the occasional
reference to something one of them observed outside the car. When they reached
the commuter lot, Greg went off toward his class alone, and Connie and Marilyn
headed in the opposite direction, clutching their books to their chests.
“Traitor,”
Connie said, keeping her eyes straight ahead.
Marilyn
laughed. “What? The guy wants to take you out.”
“The
guy wants to get in my pants. These are pot parties that his girlfriend won’t
go to.”
“You
control who gets in your pants.”
Connie
focused on the bare trees lining the sidewalk ahead, her annoyance with both of
them rising. “If he wants to take me out, he can take me on a real date.”
“Okay,
so then tell him that.”
“I
will.”
Marilyn
laughed again as she veered away to cross the street toward her first class.
“Maybe
you
should consider dramatic arts.”
Chapter Ten
Monday,
October 7
For
the first time since they had begun riding together, Greg would be available to
carpool with her on Friday. He told her on their ride home that Monday evening,
shortly before they reached the outskirts of Stoneham.
“Is
Candy going out of town or something?” Connie asked as she drove.
“I
never said I was staying with Candy on Friday nights.”
Connie
kept her eyes on the increasing traffic. “I know, but she’s your girlfriend,
so—”
“I’ve
got friends at Champlain and St. Michael’s. Male friends.” He sounded annoyed
at having to explain himself.
“Okay.
Hey, it’s none of my business. I was just making conversation.”
Greg
twisted in his seat to face her; she could see him out of the corner of her
eye. “You were making assumptions. Look, I want us to be friends. I want us to
be more than friends.”
More
than friends?
He
paused to let his words sink in. “But maybe that’s not what you want.”
Not
if it meant she filled in when his girlfriend wasn’t available.
“I
know you’ve got stuff on your mind right now,” he continued, “so, I don’t want
to push it. But I don’t go out with Candy anymore. I don’t see Candy. I don’t
even hang out with that crowd anymore.”
Connie
swallowed back her surprise. Even more surprising was her growing excitement. He
was actually interested in her? “I do want that.”
“Good.
And we don’t have to go to Brad and Bunny’s on Saturday if you don’t want to.
We can do something else.”
Connie’s
mind raced as she turned the car onto Forest Avenue. He was giving her a
choice. And suddenly, all she wanted was to please him. “No, that sounds like
fun. Really.”
“Okay.
Great.”
One
small thing niggled at her. Did she dare bring it up? She had to. “You realize,
dating means we run the risk of losing our carpool if things don’t work out.”
She put a teasing tone in her voice as she glanced at him. “You may want to
reconsider, with winter coming and all.”
Greg’s
serious expression transformed into a slow smile. “I’ll be sure to give that
some thought.”
Connie
swung the car into the Park and Ride and parked it in the empty space beside
Greg’s Mustang. Instead of pushing the car door open to leave, he turned to her
once more. “Are you planning any more guests for tomorrow?”
Connie
smiled. “No.”
“Then
how about if I pick you up at home? It’s silly for you to drive this short
distance.”
“Isn’t
that out of your way? This is closer for you.”
Greg
leaned toward her, his solemn eyes trained on hers. “Can you ever just say
yes?”
“Maybe.”
His
appealing face was so close, his expression so sincere. She impulsively leaned
toward him, closing the distance between them to gently press her mouth to his.
His lips were warm and soft and responded to hers with just the right amount of
pressure to make their first kiss a promise of good things to come.
His
eyes were shining with delight as he pulled back. “I’ll be at your house at
seven thirty. Okay?”
Connie
gave him her most demure smile. “Yes.”
***
Mornings
and evenings became Connie’s favorite times of day. She and Greg greeted each
other with a quick kiss in the morning and parted with a more prolonged one at
school or when she dropped him off at the Park and Ride on the days when she
drove. When they were parting on the street in front of her house, they kept
the good-bye to a chaste peck.
On
Friday he drove, and they stopped for pizza in Barre before he took her home. On
Saturday, he would pick her up at six thirty for the ninety-minute drive to
northern Vermont where his friends lived.
“I
don’t know when I’ll be home, Mamma, so don’t worry,” Connie said as she helped
clear the dinner table before he arrived. “It’s a three-hour round trip, so it
will probably be after midnight.”
Mamma
stood at the kitchen sink rinsing plates. “I do not sleep until you are home.” Her
expression was stern. “And you make sure he comes to eat tomorrow.”
“He
said he would.” Connie kissed her on her soft cheek. “He’s a gentleman, Mamma.
Don’t worry.”
“He’s
a man.”
Connie
smiled at her predictable harangue. “Did you date a lot of men before Papa?”
Mamma
swiped a sponge across the dish in her hand. “We knew each other since we were
children. There was no need.”
“So,
I take it he wasn’t always a gentleman.”
In
an instant, Mamma’s free hand grabbed the bar of hand soap and thrust it toward
Connie. Her dark eyes flashed angrily. “Wash out your mouth! Why do you say
that?”
“Because
you say bad things about men, like they’re animals. But the only man you know personally
is Papa.”
Mamma
set down the soap. “I know what I see. I know what they want.”
“It’s
not what Greg wants that matters. It’s what he does.”
A
knock on the kitchen door ended their conversation. Mamma hastily wiped her
hands on her apron and smoothed back her curly hair as Connie went to the door and
let Greg in.
He
was dressed casually in jeans and a denim jacket as fit the occasion, and Mamma
looked momentarily taken aback, no doubt expecting something more formal. But
when he extended his hand and gave her his winning smile, Mamma responded in
kind, her eyes lighting up with approval.
No
matter what she might say, Mamma wasn’t immune to a good-looking man.
Gianna
was out with David, but Angie and Papa were home, seated at the dining room
table, sharing one of the bruised pears Papa had culled from the store. Connie
brought Greg in to greet them. Angie’s wide-eyed reaction as she shook his hand
was priceless.
He
helped Connie slip a sweater over her peasant blouse, and
she
ushered him outside into the cold night air, anxious to have him to herself.
They kissed in the darkness under the stairs before heading for the waiting
warmth of his car.
***
Brad
and Bunny’s small ranch house, on an obscure country road, was unremarkable on
the outside. At least a dozen cars and pickup trucks, plus three motorcycles,
were parked, seemingly randomly, across the lawn and side yard.
Inside,
the place was everything Connie had imagined. The smell of marijuana hung heavy
in the air, and at first, she found it hard to see because the lights were so
low. Whining sitar music from a reel-to-reel tape recorder near the front door provided
a backdrop to the buzz of conversation. As her eyes adjusted, she realized the
rooms they entered were full of people with barely visible faces. Many stood in
small groups, some with drinks in their hands, but just as many were seated on
the floor, leaning into pillows or propped against the walls in spaces
surprisingly devoid of furniture. Yellow-green lava lamps and clusters of flickering
candles in glass candleholders on a few low tables provided the only illumination,
while blacklights mounted on the ceiling turned white fabric vibrant and caused
the psychedelic graphics on randomly placed artwork to leap outward into the
general duskiness. Here and there, small points of glowing red light were being
passed from person to person.
A
young woman in a long, tiered skirt passed by as they moved into what might
have been dining room. As the woman stepped into the glow of a nearby lava
lamp, Connie’s eyes were drawn to the soft fabric of her blouse where the
woman’s well-rounded breasts showed off their prominent, fully hard nipples.
Going braless was popular among college women, but Connie had yet to embrace it
herself. The clear sexuality of it made the practice seem inappropriate in a
school setting, plus she would never get out of the house that way. Here,
however, it fit the feel of the room and the people, and the realization filled
her with a mixture of exhilaration and momentary dread. What if this really was
everything she had feared? What if, for Greg, it was all about free love and
sex?
Greg
took her hand and led her into the kitchen, which was more brightly lit than
the other rooms. People there were standing, pouring beverages into paper cups
and reaching into bowls of chips or popcorn while they talked. Most of the
women were dressed similarly to Connie, with gauzy Indian tops or peasant
blouses, ankle-length skirts, and boots or sandals. The majority had long,
unfettered hair, some more wildly bushy than Connie’s on a bad day. The men
wore all types of smocks and tunics and a variety of loose trousers as well as
jeans. Many had long hair pulled back into pony tails or trailing down to their
shoulders, and several had full beards. Connie smiled to herself, thinking a
number of them could have played Jesus in
The Greatest Story Ever Told
.
She
and Greg poured white wine into paper cups and carried them out of the kitchen,
back into the dimly lit front rooms. They sat cross-legged on the floor, side
by side, their knees touching, and absorbed the wildly colorful, definitely
weird atmosphere around them. When a joint or a hash pipe came their way, they
both took a toke and passed it on. Before long, Connie was relaxed, slightly
high, and very hungry.
They
worked their way around the rooms, finding salty snacks but avoiding the baked
goods, then sat wherever they found room and enjoyed being together, taking the
occasional smoke when it was offered. People around them came and went, but the
size of the crowd never seemed to change, and they never connected personally
with anyone else in the room, including their hosts. Around eleven o’clock Greg
looked at his watch and stood up, then pulled her to her feet. She stood facing
him in the darkened room, slightly tipsy as she looked into his eyes. She and
he were almost the same height when she wore boots with heels, and kissing him
came naturally as they stood face to face. After a few minutes, he whispered,
“Let’s go,” and led her toward the front door. Most of the candles had burned
out, and she was thankful for his firm hand, for she could barely see the
bodies sprawled on the floor as he guided her around them. The shock of cold
air that hit her as they stepped outside brought a welcome clearing of her
head.
The
October night was clear and crisp, the temperature hovering around freezing as
the cloud cover thinned and moved away in wisps, revealing a brilliant full
moon. Greg deposited her in the Mustang’s passenger seat, then slipped in
behind the wheel to start the engine. He reached around to the backseat and
brought forward a striped wool blanket that he handed to her, then stepped out
of the car to scrape the light film of frost that was forming on the glass.
Connie unfolded the blanket and spread it over her lap, then pulled the remainder
up to her chin and settled in under its welcome warmth, content and at peace
with the world. She was dozing off when Greg returned to the driver’s seat, and
she woke to see him blowing on his fingers and rubbing his hands together.
“Damn,
it’s cold out there. Are you warm enough?” he asked.
“I
am.” She gave him a big smile. “Here, give me your hands. I’ll warm them up.”
She reached out and took his cold hands in hers, closing her fingers around his
and pulling them beneath the blanket, pressing them to the nubby sweater she
wore over her peasant blouse. “Wow, they really are cold.”
Greg
leaned toward her, laughing as she pulled him off balance, and covered her
mouth with his. Connie closed her eyes and let his kisses carry her to a
wonderful place where all she wanted was for him to never stop. To her
disappointment, he pulled back and withdrew his hands, placing them on the
steering wheel and putting the car in gear. “We need to get you home on time.”
Connie
settled into the warmth beneath the blanket once more, her eyes wide open as he
drove off the lawn and onto the gravel road. She suddenly realized she had no
idea how to get home or even where she was; if she had to describe her location
in an emergency, she wouldn’t be able to do it. A sudden, unexplainable panic
gripped her, but she mentally talked herself through it. She was with Greg. She
knew Greg after all these weeks of traveling together. She trusted Greg. She
had no reason to fear him or the fact that she had no idea where she was or how
to find help if she needed it.
She
drew a deep breath and watched for signs that might tell her where they were as
he drove to the end of the unmarked road, then took a right down another gravel
road. At least the full moon was illuminating what would have been totally
black surroundings on a different night, shedding its silvery light on trees
and rock walls and the occasional darkened house with a car in the driveway—all
still and lifeless, fake-looking in the odd light, but real, nonetheless.
Houses and farms were few and far between, but at least she wasn’t totally
alone as she rode through the night with a man who was basically a stranger.