Banjo Man

by Sally Goldenbaum

  Laurie shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. “But Ellen, you shouldn’t be—”

  “What? What shouldn’t I be, Laurie? Shouldn’t be in love? Dammit, I am fully capable of being responsible for my actions. I don’t need you to try to be responsible for them too. You’re going to have your hands full just taking care of Laurie O’Neill!”

  Laurie began to protest, but Ellen wasn’t finished. “You know, I wonder if it’s really me you’re judging or if you’re so mixed up about your own emotions that you’re condemning me because you feel guilty!”

  Laurie sat still, Ellen’s words hitting home with the sureness of truth. She felt the hot burn of tears on her cheeks. “Oh, Ellen, I’m so sorry. After all you’ve done—”

  In a second Ellen was beside her, her arms around Laurie’s shaking shoulders. Her voice was soft and soothing. “It’s all right, Laurie. It’s okay. I know it’s hard to sort it all out.”

  Laurie brushed away the tears with the back of her hand. “Maybe if I hadn’t met Rick so soon, if I just could have taken one thing at a time, it would be different. But now … now I want him so much, and I’m so confused!” She forced a laugh. “It was so much easier back in Father Leo’s moral theology class, wasn’t it? All the rules were there in that fat little book: what you do and what you don’t do.”

  Ellen laughed aloud at the memory of the elderly Franciscan priest who had lectured morals to them ad infinitum during their postulancy. “Remember this one—‘how far can you keep on doing what you’re doing before it becomes a don’t?’ ”

  “And ‘when tacit agreement becomes just as bad as the real thing’!” Laurie was laughing out loud now too. “Remember that crazy song we made up to remember who could marry whom and when?”

  A flood of hilarious memories engulfed the two women, and the tension between them was broken.

  Laurie smiled softly. “You know, there was something nice and neat and secure about that little book, though, having everything there in black and white. It’s too bad life isn’t like that, isn’t it?”

  Ellen heard the panic creep back into Laurie’s voice, and nodded sympathetically.

  “Well, I suppose it’s more complicated this way, honey. But as for me, I’m not much of a black-and-white person. I find that adding color to life makes it a lot more interesting. There’s a lot to be said for taking responsibility for your own actions, and using the good sense God gave you to figure out what to do with your life.”

  Laurie stood and walked over to the window. “Yes, I guess you’re right.”

  She drew her finger along the sill and rubbed the dust absentmindedly between thumb and fingertips. Her thoughts had sped elsewhere—to Rick. One thing was sure: Rick Westin would never fit into a neat, boring, black-and-white life. And that wasn’t what she wanted either. So the first thing on the agenda, even before she could figure out her love life, was to figure out who the heck she was!

  Biting her lip and mustering her courage, she took the first step.

  “Ellen, I’m moving out.”

  “What?” Ellen jumped up. “No, Laurie, you don’t have to do that. Just because—”

  “Just because I need to stand on my own two feet, that’s why!” She grinned and glanced at the closed bedroom door. “It’s not because of today, honest. At least not in the way you think. Ellen, when I needed you these past weeks to keep me from drowning in this big city, you were here, and you’ve been great! But I think I have to learn how to swim by myself, and the tide is right!”

  “Are you sure about this? You don’t usually make such snap decisions.”

  “Didn’t. This is the new me!” Laurie’s eyes sparkled. “And you can’t tell me it won’t be nice to brush your teeth without having to do it over someone’s shoulder, and to be able to open your closet door without first moving a suitcase and three shoe boxes.”

  Ellen laughed. “I guess we have been a little cramped, but I haven’t minded, Laurie. I really haven’t!”

  “I know you haven’t. That’s what makes you such a special friend. And I hope you won’t mind when I come pounding on your door when I get lonesome.” She glanced at Dan’s jacket lying across the back of the couch and laughed. “On second thought, maybe I’ll call first.”

  Ten

  Rick loved the idea of her moving out on Ellen … and in with him!

  He met her right after work Tuesday afternoon, and took her straight to his place.

  “No, Rick,” Laurie said, standing in the doorway, her fists pressed firmly against her waist. “No, you don’t understand at all.”

  “But it’d be perfect, darlin’.” Rick grabbed her hand and drew her into a warm, sun-drenched living room. “Look, just look at all this room! And there’re bedrooms all over the place, a kitchen big enough for cookin’ haute cuisine or Texas chili or collard greens—or all of ’em at the same time!”

  Laurie had barely had time to enjoy the wonderful look of his solid oak furniture and the mountain crafts that were everywhere in the room—the spinning wheel at the hearth, the wooden carvings of an old man and woman standing proudly beside the window, a dulcimer and old banjo hanging on the muted wallpaper next to a colorful Appalachian quilt—before Rick was dragging her to the back of the narrow Georgetown town house.

  He pointed enthusiastically through the kitchen windows to a small brick patio, completely surrounded by flower beds and neatly trimmed bushes. A wide rope hammock swung lazily from two trees, and a large mutt reclined beneath it. “See? It’s perfect! Man’s best friend. A place to lie your tired body down after a long day and let the senate dust blow away. A place to bring out a banjo and sing with the birds. A place to—”

  “Rick, no.” Laurie reached one hand up to stop the flow of words.

  “Wait, Laurie. Look at this!” And he drew her up a narrow flight of stairs, polished and smooth and covered with a fine old runner. Four rooms fanned out from the small hallway upstairs. “See? Just like I said. Why, we could put your things in here.” A lovely old four-poster bed met her gaze as he pulled her into the doorway. “We could move that bigger dresser in if you wanted or—”

  “Stop it!” Laurie’s laughter softened her words. Her eyes swept from the bed to Rick’s tall, wonderful body, and she mustered up all the strength she could find buried beneath her burgeoning emotions.

  “Rick Westin, this is silly, and you know it. I’ve got to find my own place.”

  A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he stepped back, pouting like a disappointed child. “Hm-m-m, you’re determined, aren’t you?”

  Laurie slipped her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Yep, I am, Banjo Man. And a lot of that determination I owe to you, for helping me feel so strong and good about myself.” She leaned against the smooth, worn bedpost. “It’d be so easy to fall back into having someone else make the decisions for me, care for me. But I can’t—I won’t. I thought you’d be proud of me.”

  He was … proud and excited by the new fire in her eyes these days.

  “Okay, darlin’. You win. But on one condition.”

  Laurie narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

  “That you at least let me help you move—and make sure the lock on your door is a strong one!”

  After two weeks of looking, the only apartment Laurie was able to find was on the fourth floor of an older building not far from the hospital where Ellen worked. A nurse friend was leaving town and wanted someone to finish out the lease. Ellen had begrudgingly arranged for Laurie to take over as soon as possible, listening halfheartedly to Laurie’s insistence that she needed to be alone.

  Alone. She hadn’t been alone since … since never, that was when. The thought at once terrified and intrigued her. And she had signed the lease in a moment of awful surrender to the future.

  One load was all it took in Rick’s sturdy Jeep to move her belongings: two suitcases—she had bought herself a number of new clothes—and a few stray pieces of kitchenware Ellen had insisted she ta
ke along.

  “You did say it was furnished, right, babe?” Rick asked as they struggled up the stairs with an assortment of boxes and a wild array of plants Rick had picked up at the farmers’ market.

  “Sparsely,” Laurie admitted, nibbling nervously on her lower lip. Then her face brightened, and she added quickly, “But that’s fine. I don’t need clutter. Just a bed, a few chairs. You know, the essentials.” She’d lived with much less for years; whatever was there would be fine.

  “Well, darlin’ ”—Rick kicked open the door to number 205 with the toe of his boot and took a cursory glance around—“that’s what you got … the bare essentials!”

  They stood together in the doorway and surveyed the tiny room. A well-polished hardwood floor reflected the shape of a patterned hide-a-bed and two chairs. Off to one side was a round oak table and chairs, and beyond that, on the other side of a divider, a tiny kitchen.

  Laurie stood silently for several moments, her head reeling with memories and sensations of times past. Slowly she took in the sunlit windows, the high ceilings, the old wooden molding edging the walls … the stuff of her new home.

  Rick was quiet beside her, one arm resting lightly around her shoulder, ready to sweep her away from it all should she but say the word. Beneath her thin cotton blouse he could feel her tremble, but he found her silence impossible to read.

  “Well, darlin’?” he asked at last.

  Laurie tilted her head back and met his eyes. She knew what he was thinking: that this was an awful place, small and empty and cold. How could she explain to him what it meant to her? That this tiny stark apartment meant for the first time in a life-time she could come and go as she pleased, that she could eat what she wanted, put her bed in the middle of the room if she wanted, and dance around it at three in the morning if she wanted! Her eyes crinkled at the corners and a lovely smile lit her face. “Oh, Rick, it’s beautiful.”

  Rick held his silence, watching her with a bemused smile as she walked slowly into the room, her head held high and her face aglow with wonder.

  “It’s mine … my apartment. My own apartment.”

  She ran her hands slowly over the oak tabletop, then walked over to the couch, then back to the kitchen, her tempo increasing with each step. “Rick, it’s going to be perfect—just perfect!” She raced to the windows. “We can put some of your plants here—and if I get a little rug for over there …” She spun around, her arms flying through the air and sending tiny dust flecks dancing in the sunlight. “It’s absolutely grand!”

  Rick caught her on the second spin and pulled her close, his eyes shining brightly. “Laurie O’Neill, you are something else. Each day you’re something else! What will tomorrow bring to my wild Irish rose?”

  She welcomed the kiss that slowly formed between them, the soft crush of his lips upon her own as he held her gently and pressed her into the warmth of his body. There was no fear left, for the feel of Rick’s body against her own was becoming as natural and welcome as sunlight.

  Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him back, eagerly, passionately. “You know, Rick,” she murmured, “I used to worry about whether I’d know how to do that right—about whether I’d get my lips in the right place, whose went where. It doesn’t matter if teenagers flub it up, but a woman my age should know about such things, and I wasn’t sure I did!”

  “Well, darlin’,” Rick said huskily, “you’ve been doing just fine! But if I, ah, don’t put some fresh air between us soon, I’m afraid we’re not going to … to get this place in working order.”

  Reluctantly, and with great effort, Rick settled his hands firmly on her shoulders and stepped back, taking in a lungful of air. “Now, Laurie, we need to make some sense out of this room.”

  Laurie watched him with emotions that swirled crazily through her body.

  He confused her sometimes, stopping short when she wanted nothing more than to press her body harder and harder against his and have him hold her there tightly. She craved all this cuddling and touching and kissing. Rick was like some exotic new food that awakened taste buds never used before, and she couldn’t get enough of him. And though he came to her eagerly, and never forced the issue of their sleeping together, he often pushed her away suddenly, inexplicably. Laurie was too shy to ask, but she sensed that pushing her away was something Rick Westin did out of necessity, not choice.

  Shaking her coppery hair to clear her head, she glanced around the room. “Well, Rick, there aren’t a whole lot of choices.”

  “Of course there are!” He flopped down on the hide-a-bed and surveyed the room with exaggerated concentration. “Now, first, what kind of decor would interest you, madame?” He lifted one thick brow and tilted his head.

  Laurie laughed. “Oh, early attic, I should think.”

  “Marvelous choice! And I know just the way to do it!” Rick leaped off the couch. “Of course! It’s a terrific idea!”

  Laurie stepped back curiously. “Oh?”

  “A housewarming! That’s what this place needs.”

  “A housewarming?” Wandering into the tiny strip of a kitchen, Laurie mulled over the idea.

  “Sure,” Rick insisted, his dark eyes flashing. “Next best thing to a house-raising!” He leaned his long frame against the chipped edge of the sink and rubbed a silken strand of her hair between two fingers. “You know, I helped out with one of those things a few years back when I was traveling through Tennessee, and it was great. Everyone came—uncles, aunts, cousins, friends. There was this old guy helping who was ninety if he was a day, and he didn’t stop for a breath until the job was done. In one day we raised the walls of that house—it was somethin’! And passersby cheered us on as if we had just invented the wheel.”

  “Did you know the people?”

  “Not when I came. Sure did when I left.”

  “You’re such a strange man, Rick Westin.” Laurie sighed, slipping down onto one of the oak chairs near the table.

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.” Rick cocked his head to one side and grinned. “What kind of strange?”

  “Well, first there’s your life on the road, living with those people, never meeting a stranger, sleeping wherever and whenever—like a cowboy or a gypsy.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorta like that.”

  “And then here in Washington you’ve got this beautiful old Georgetown town house that my coworkers say is like gold to come by. I mean, you’re a well-known entertainer, who probably … well, not that it’s any of my business.”

  “What … makes a lot of money?” he prompted, amused by her sudden formality. This must be another of the many things one did not talk about in the convent.

  “Well, yes, I guess.” She looked up shyly.

  “It’s what I was trying to explain the other day, darlin’. I love my home here, and I love my traveling home out there. Sure, they’re as different as ice cream and molasses, but both are sweet to my taste. See?”

  “I think so.”

  “The fact is, I don’t think of it as strange. I think it’s more the way life ought to be. A balance. Does that make any sense, Laurie?”

  Laurie nodded, a soft smile playing over her lips. “Sure. It makes lots of sense, Rick.” She touched his arm lightly and her voice turned thoughtful. “A delicate balance. I think that’s what I was missing in the convent. I tried to find it, but it never felt quite right. Somehow I wasn’t able to hang on to Laurie O’Neill in the middle of everything else. I lost her, and became someone else.”

  Rick was leaning forward, watching her with dark intensity, wondering about that life, the years that were part of Laurie’s past. She didn’t talk easily about it, so he salvaged bits and pieces that she threw out at random, and patiently hoped that someday they’d form a picture he could understand.

  Laurie felt the heat of his gaze and blushed. Wiping an imaginary crumb off the table, she tossed her head back and changed the subject. “Back to this housewarming, Westin. Just what do you have in mind
?”

  Rick accepted her mood swing, and began pacing around the room as if measuring space. “It’ll be great! We’ll be a little crowded, but that’s okay—that’s what makes it a housewarming, after all. Simple and easy. We’ll just do it, that’s all. What do you say about Friday night, right after the show?”

  “A housewarming Friday night? That’s too soon. We’ve got to plan it!”

  Rick waved away her objections. “What’s to plan? I’ll take care of the food and libations. You take care of opening the door when the guests arrive.”

  Suddenly Laurie threw her hands in the air, her eyes round. “Oh, Rick—we can’t!”

  “We can’t?”

  “No, we can’t. For one very basic, very good reason. Except for you, Paula, Ellen, and Dan, I don’t have any friends to invite!”

  Rick’s husky laughter swallowed her mournful protest. “Then, my sweet thing, we shall find you some friends! No problem at all. Why, I’ll just go up and down the halls and—”

  “Rick, stop it! I’m serious. Who would I invite?”

  “You invite Paula, Ellen, and Dan. And I’ll invite all my friends who have been badgering me for weeks to let them meet you. You see, Laurie”—he wound an arm around her waist and ran a finger slowly over the alluring curve of her cheek bone—“I’ve been very selfish. I’ve been keeping you all to myself. But I can’t do that forever, much as I’d like to!”

  “This will never work!” Laurie stared into the refrigerator. Plates of cheese and sausage and pungent antipasto glared silently back at her.

  “It won’t, you know. I’m not ready to meet Rick’s friends. I don’t want to meet them. What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t like them? And what in heaven’s name will I say to a houseful of guests—my guests—whom I’ve never met?” She stabbed an innocent olive and shoved it into her mouth.