Before she could decide whether to fight or yield, his hand was gone. She lay looking up at his stormy green eyes while he braced on both elbows, and their labored breathing pounded out the message of mutual arousal.
“Theresa, I’m going to miss you. But six months and I’ll be back. Okay?” His voice had gone even huskier with desire. What was he asking? The answer to the ambiguous question stuck in her throat.
“Brian, I ...I’m not sure.” She didn’t think she could make such a promise, if he meant what she thought he did.
“Just think about it then, will you? And when June comes, we’ll see.”
“A lot can happen between now and June.”
“I know. Just don’t ...” His troubled eyes traveled up to her hair. He soothed it back almost roughly, then returned his gaze to her amazed brown eyes, sending a message of fierce possession as absolute as that he’d delivered in his startling caress of a moment ago. “Don’t find somebody else. I want to be first, Theresa, because I understand you, and I’ll be good for you. That’s a promise.”
Just then Jeff’s voice boomed from above; the washing machine had brought the house to life at last. “Hey, where is everybody? Brian, you awake?”
“Yeah, just dressing. I’ll be right up.”
Theresa nudged Brian aside and leaped off the bed. But before she could scamper away he captured her wrist and pulled her back down. She landed with a soft plop, sitting on the edge of the bed. He braced on one elbow, half curling his body around her to look up into her face.
“Theresa, will you kiss me just once, without looking like you’re scared to death?”
“I’m not very good at any of this, Brian. I think you’d be a lot happier if you gave up on me,” she whispered.
He frowned, released the hand she’d been tugging in an effort to regain her freedom. But when it was released, it lay on the mattress beside her hip with the fingers curled tightly underneath. He studied it, then with a single finger stroked the backs of the freckled knuckles. Looking up onto her uncertain eyes, he said, “Never. I’ll never give up on you. I’ll be back in June, and we’ll see if we can’t get you past age fifteen.”
How does a person grow to be so self-assured at twenty-three, she wondered, meeting his unsmiling gaze with her own somber eyes.
His weight shifted. He kissed her fleetingly and ordered, “You go on up first. I’ll make my bed and wait a few minutes before I follow.”
That night they spent quietly at home. Patricia came over to be with Jeff. Margaret and Willard sat side by side on the sofa while Jeff sat Indian fashion on the floor and Brian took the piano bench, and the two played their guitars and sang. Theresa was curled up in one armchair, Amy in another, and Patricia sat just behind Jeff, sometimes resting her forehead on his upper arm, sometimes stroking his shoulder blade, sometimes humming along. But Theresa sat wrapped up with feet beneath her, and palms tucked between her thighs, watching Brian only when his eyes dropped to the fingerboard of his guitar or veered away to some other spot in the room.
She waited for the song she was certain would come sooner or later, and when Jeff suggested it, her heartbeat quickened, and she felt hollow and hot and sad.
Brian was playing his own guitar this time, a classic Epiphone Riviera, with a smooth, mellow sound and a thin body. She stared at the guitar cradled against Brian’s belly, and imagined how warm the mahogany must be from his skin.
My world is like a river
As dark as it is deep
Night after night the past slips in
And gathers all my sleep ....
The poignant words affirmed the melody, speaking directly to Theresa’s heart. Long before the song reached its second verse, her eyes had locked with Brian’s.
She slipped into the silence
Of my dreams last night
Wandering from room to room
She’s turning on each light.
Her laughter spills like water
From the river to the sea
I’m swept away from sadness
Clinging to her memory.
Theresa’s eyes dropped to Brian’s lips. They seemed to tremble slightly as they formed the next words.
Sweet memories...
Sweet memories...
His lips closed as he softly hummed the last eight notes of the song, and Theresa didn’t realize Jeff’s voice had fallen silent, leaving her to hum the harmony notes with Brian.
When the final chord diminished into silence, she became aware that everyone in the room was watching the two of them, adding up what seemed to be passing between them.
Jeff broke the spell. “Well, I’ve got packing to do.” He began settling his guitar into its velvet-lined case. “I’d better get Patricia home. We’ll have to get up and rolling by 8:30 in the morning.”
The guitar cases were snapped shut. Jeff and Patricia left, and within twenty minutes the rest of the household had all retired to their respective beds.
Theresa lay in the dark, not at all sleepy. The words of the song came back to beguile with their poignant message .... “Night after night the past slips in and gathers all my sleep.” She knew now what true desire felt like. It was tingling through each cell of her body, made all the more tempting by the fact that he lay in the room directly below hers, probably just as wide awake as she was, and for the same reason. But desire and abandon were two different things, and Theresa Brubaker would no more have gone down those stairs and lain with Brian Scanlon beneath her parents’ roof than she would have at age fourteen. Along with desire came an awareness of immorality, and she was a very moral woman who retained the age-old precepts taught her throughout her growing years. Knowing she would be disdained as “Victorian” in this age of promiscuity, she nevertheless had deeply ingrained feelings about right and wrong and realized she would never be able to have a sexual relationship with a man unless there was a full commitment between them first.
But the tingling, pulsing sensations still coursed through her virgin body when she thought of lying on the bed with Brian that morning, of his intimate touches. She groaned, rolled onto her belly and hugged a pillow. But it was hours before sleep overcame her.
__________
THEY HAD A LAST BREAKFAST TOGETHER
the next morning, then there were goodbye kisses for Margaret and Willard, who went to work with tears in their eyes, waving even as the car moved off up the street.
Theresa was driving to the airport again, but this time Amy was coming along. All the way, the car had a curious, sad feeling of loneliness, as if the plane had already departed. By unspoken agreement, Brian had taken the front seat with Theresa, and she occasionally felt his eyes resting on her. It was a sunny, snowy morning, its brightness revealing every colorful freckle, every strand of carroty hair she possessed. There was no place to hide, and she wished he wouldn’t study her so carefully.
At the airport, they each carried a duffel bag or a guitar case to the baggage check, then entered the green concourse through the security check and walked four abreast down the long, slanting floor that echoed their footsteps. Their gate number loomed ahead, but just before they reached it, Brian grabbed Theresa’s hand, tugged her to a halt and told the others, “You two go on ahead. We’ll be right there.” Without hesitation, he dragged her after him into a deserted gate area where rows of empty blue chairs faced the wall of windows. He took the guitar case from her hand and set it on the floor beside his own duffel bag, then backed her into the only private corner available: wedged beside a tall vending machine. His hands gripped her shoulders and his face looked pained. He studied her eyes as if to memorize every detail.
“I’m going to miss you, Theresa. God, you don’t know how much.”
“I’ll miss you, too. I’ve loved ... I ....” To her chagrin, she began to cry.
The next instant she was bound against his hard chest, Brian’s arms holding her with a fierce, possessive hug. “Say it, Theresa, say it, so I can remember it for six months.” His voice was rough beside her ear.
“I’ve l-loved being w ... with you ....”
She clung to him. Tears were streaming everywhere, and she had started to sob. His mouth found hers. Theresa’s lips were soft, parted and pliant. She lifted her face to be kissed, knowing a willingness and wonder as fresh and billowing as only first love can be—no matter at what age. She tasted salt from her own eyes and smelled again the masculine scent she’d come to recognize so well during the past two weeks. She clung harder. He rocked her, and their mouths could not end the bittersweet goodbye.
When at last he lifted his head, he circled her neck with both hands, rubbing his thumbs along the bone structure of her chin and jaws, searching her eyes. “Will you write to me?”
“Yes.” She grasped one of his hands and held it fast against her face, his fingertips resting upon her closed eyelid before she pulled them down and kissed them, feeling beneath her sensitive lips the tough calluses caused by the music that bound Brian to her, made him someone so very, very right for her.
She raised her eyes at last, to find his etched with as much dread of parting as she herself felt. Oddly she had never thought men to be as affected by sentiment as women, yet Brian looked as if his very soul ached at having to leave her.
“All right. No promises. No commitments. But when June comes ....” He let his eyes say the rest, then scooped her close for one last long kiss, during which their bodies knew a renewed craving such as neither had experienced before.
“Brian, I’m twenty-five years old, and I’ve never felt like this before in my life.”
“You can stop reminding me you’re two years older, because it doesn’t matter in the least. And if I’ve made you happy, I’m happy. Keep thinking it, and don’t change one thing about yourself until June. I want to come back and find you just like you are now.”
She raised up on tiptoe, taking a last heart-sweeping kiss she couldn’t resist. It was the first time in her life she had ever kissed a man instead of the other way around. She laid a hand on his cheek then, backing away to study him and imprint the memory of his beloved face into her mind.
“Send me your picture.”
He nodded. “And you send me yours.”
She nodded. “You have to go. They must be boarding by now.”
They were. As Brian and Theresa rounded the wall toward their gate area, Jeff was nervously waiting by the ramp. He noted Theresa’s tear-stained face and exchanged a knowing glance with Amy, but neither said anything.
Jeff hugged Theresa. And Brian hugged Amy. Then they were gone, swallowed up by the jetway. And Theresa didn’t know whether to cry or rejoice. He was gone. But, oh, she had found him. At last!
__________
AT HOME
the house seemed as haunted as an empty theater. He was there in each room. Downstairs she found the hideaway bed converted back to a davenport, and his sheets neatly folded atop a stack of blankets and pillows. She picked up the folded, wrinkled white cotton and stared at it disconsolately. She lifted it to her nose, seeking the remembered scent of him, pressing her face against the sheet while she dropped to the sofa and indulged in another bout of tears.
Brian, Brian. You’re so good for me. How will I bear six months without you?
She dried her eyes on his sheet, brought his pillow into her arms and hugged it to her belly, burying her face against it, wondering how she would fill 176 days. She experienced the profound feeling that seemed to be the true measure of love—the belief that no one had ever loved so before her, and that no one would ever love in the same way after her.
So this was how it felt.
__________
AND IT FELT THE SAME
during the days that followed. School began and she was happy to get out of the house with its memories of him, happy to be back with the children, schedules, the familiar faces of the other faculty members she worked with. It took her mind off Brian.
But never for long. The moment she was idle, he returned. The moment she got into her car or walked into the house, he was there, beckoning. The way in which she missed him was more intense than she’d ever imagined loneliness could be. She cried in her bed that first night he was gone. She found smiling difficult during the first days back at school. Brooding came easily, and dreaminess, once so foreign to her, became constant.
On the first day after he’d left, Theresa returned home from school to find a note pinned to the back door: “Bachman’s Florist delivered something to my house when they couldn’t find anyone here at home. Ruth.”
Ruth Reed, the next-door neighbor, answered Theresa’s knock with a cheery greeting and wide smile. “Somebody loves somebody at your house. It’s a huge package.”
It was encased in orchid-colored paper to which was stapled a small rectangle of paper bearing the terse delivery order: “Brubaker ... 3234 Johnnycake Lane.”
“Thank you, Ruth.”
“No need for thanks. This is the kind of delivery I’m happy to take part in.”
Carrying the flowers home, Theresa’s heart skipped in gay anticipation.
It’s from him. It’s from him.
She jogged the last ten feet up the driveway and catapulted into the kitchen, not even stopping to take off her coat before ripping aside the crackling lavender paper to find a sumptuous arrangement of multicolored carnations, daisies, baby’s breath and statice, interlaced with fresh ivy, all billowing from a footed green goblet. Theresa’s hand shook as she reached for the tiny envelope attached to a heart-shaped card holder among the greenery.
Her smile grew, along with the giddy impatience to see his name on the gift card.
His name was there all right, but hers wasn’t. The card read, “To Margaret and Willard. With many thanks for your hospitality. Brian.”
Instead of being disappointed, Theresa was more delighted than ever.
So he’s thoughtful, too.
She studied the handwriting, realizing it was written not by Brian but by some stranger in a florist shop someplace across town. But it didn’t matter; the sentiment was his.