Suddenly

by Barbara Delinsky

  As he watched, she separated herself from the group and wandered idly toward the front of the store. Then she saw him. She smiled and waved. After turning to say something to her friends, she came outside.

  “Hi, Dr. Grace.”

  “How’re you doing, Julie?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Did you find something to rent?”

  “Nah. I’ve seen everything good three times. It gets boring after a while.” She gestured toward his camera. “Are you taking pictures of anything special?”

  He tossed his head back toward the street. “Just the town. The light’s right.”

  “Take some of me?”

  “Of you.”

  “My stepmom’s birthday is next month. I’d love to send her something good. She thinks the worst of me most of the time. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could have something angelic?” She glanced toward the church, beside which was a small park. “We could go there,” she said, taking his arm and leading him off.

  Peter felt a tiny qualm. Julie Engel was as wily as she was beautiful, if the stories he had heard were to be believed. He wasn’t sure her stepmother’s birthday was in October. He wasn’t sure she had a stepmother at all. And he could hear Mara’s voice, warning him against wily young women.

  Then again, the park was beside the church, which was certainly safe ground.

  “What about your friends?” he asked.

  “It’ll be ages before they pick something and have a soda and maybe even an ice cream across the street. We don’t get ice cream at school anymore. Mr. Perrine thinks frozen yogurt is healthier.” She slipped her elbow through his. “He’s an incredible bore, don’t you think?”

  Peter eased her arm from his. Tucker was a small place. People saw things; what they didn’t see, they imagined; and what they didn’t imagine their neighbor imagined for them. He didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. He didn’t fool around with kids, never had, never would.

  “To tell you the truth,” he said now, “the man seems fine to me. I like his rules.”

  “That’s because you don’t have to live under them. You don’t have to be in a dormitory at ten on week nights and eleven on weekends—and that’s for the seniors. Let me tell you”—she scooped her hair back from her face—“it’s a bummer. I shouldn’t be restricted this way. I’m eighteen.”

  Peter didn’t believe it for a minute. Seventeen, maybe. Maybe seventeen and a half. But not eighteen.

  She ran ahead, stopping against the side of a tree on the edge of the park. The sun caught her hair and gave it life; Peter raised his camera and captured the image as he approached, then did it again from different angles close up. He was in the act of refocusing when she trotted deeper into the park, stopping this time on a long wooden bench. She sat there innocently, looking into the camera’s eye for one frame and away for the next.

  “Lift your chin…. That’s it. Great. When did you say your stepmom’s birthday was?”

  “November. There’s plenty of time to get a really good shot. I’ll pay you, of course. You’d be my official photographer.” She jumped off the bench. “How about there?” She pointed to a stand of birches. The sun’s final rays were snagged on bits of protruding bark, creating the hint of a conflagration in the works.

  Peter, who had no intention of charging Julie for one print for her stepmother, whose birthday was in either October or November as the girl’s whim went, held her off while he photographed the trees. He had the camera to his eye when she moved in but lowered it when he saw what she had done.

  “Julie,” he warned.

  “Just a few,” she whispered, slipping off her shirt as she approached. “The light is great.”

  “Put it back on.”

  But she had tossed the shirt aside, and if she’d been wearing a bra, it too was gone.

  Her breasts were high and full, fresh in the way of a young woman approaching the height of her physical appeal. She might have been eighteen, twenty-one, or twenty-five. But she was a patient, a student at the school of which he was the doctor of record, and trouble.

  Peter deliberately threaded the camera over his shoulder. “I won’t take pictures of you nude.”

  “I’m not nude,” she said, coming closer still. “I’m wearing pants.”

  “Get dressed, Julie. Let me walk you back to your friends.”

  She shook her head. With the confidence of one who knew her power, she held his eyes. “Touch me,” she whispered from inches away.

  “Un-uh,” Peter said with a slow shake of his head.

  “Don’t you find me attractive?”

  “Very, but you’re my patient, for one thing, and for another, you’re a child.”

  “I’m not a child. I’m eighteen. And I’m Dr. Pfeiffer’s patient, now that Dr. O’Neill is dead.”

  Now that Dr. O’Neill is dead. Mara would be shrieking if she could see him then. Focusing on that thought, he moved aside and reached for Julie’s shirt, but she moved with him.

  “You are,” she said, “the most attractive man in this town.”

  He stretched the shirt over her shoulders, only to find that the sleeves were inside out. He took it back off and set about righting them.

  “Half the girls at school are in love with you.” She put her lips to his jaw.

  He tugged harder at the sleeves of the shirt, fixing one and attacking the other.

  “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what’s bothering you. I’ve done this before.”

  “Spare me, Julie,” he warned as he pulled the second sleeve through. He hurried the shirt to her shoulders, only to find that he had hemmed her to him. Her hands went to his belt. One slipped lower.

  “You do want me,” she said with a victorious grin.

  “No,” he shouted, and stepped back. “No,” he said more quietly, holding up his hands in token surrender. “I’m flattered. You’re a beautiful girl. But anything between you and me is impossible.”

  “I felt it,” she taunted.

  “What you felt,” he said with a sigh, “was the difference between a boy’s body and a man’s. And what you did,” he added with gravity, “was an invasion of my privacy.” He put his hands on his hips. “Now, I can easily walk you back through town with your shirt off, so that everyone can see the goods, but if that isn’t what you had in mind, I’d suggest you button your shirt.”

  She buttoned the shirt, but her eyes said that she didn’t believe he hadn’t been aroused. The occasional smirk she shot him as they walked back to Reels said the same thing. He was relieved when she ran off to join her friends. She had begun to make him feel like a eunuch, but he wasn’t that by a long shot. He had a normal, healthy appetite for attractive women—an appetite that would have been well satisfied even then, had it not been for Lacey’s trying to tell him how to run his life. He could tell her a thing or two right back. It struck him that he ought to.

  He crossed the street, walked back the way he had originally come, turned the corner to the Tavern parking lot, and slid into his car. Minutes later he was on his way to the Weeble estate.

  He pulled up in front of the garage, climbed the narrow stairs to the apartment above, and knocked on the door. He could hear the sound of Tucker’s own rock band, Henderson Wheel, which had hit it big to the tune of three successive platinum albums. He knocked again, louder.

  “Yes?” Lacey called over the music.

  “It’s me. Peter,” he tacked on, because he wasn’t sure what his reception would be. He hadn’t talked with her since the night he had walked out of the Tavern and left her behind.

  She was a long time in opening the door, and then she wore a long robe and a sober expression. “You should have called first. I’m very tired.”

  “I won’t stay long,” he said, and went past her into the apartment. He waited to hear the door close. When it didn’t, he turned to find her standing with her back to him and her hand on the knob. Her blond hair spilled down her back to the point where the robe cinched
in her waist, just above the gentle flare of her hips. He felt a sharp tightening at his groin.

  He returned to her and buried his face in her hair, pushing the door closed as he pressed into her.

  “Peter, don’t,” she protested, and tried to move away, but his arms hemmed her in.

  “I know I’m a bastard,” he said before she could, “but we have unfinished business, you and me.” He began to knead her breasts.

  She squirmed. “Don’t do that.”

  He let her turn herself around before he pinned her to the door, and while he moved against her, he held her face with one hand and lowered the other. “You like it. I know you do.”

  “Peter—”

  “I know just what places feel the best”—his hand found its mark—“especially when you aren’t wearing underwear. Did you do this for me?”

  “How could I have?” she cried, exerting a steady pressure against his chest. “I didn’t know you were coming. Peter, I don’t want—”

  He stoppered further words with his mouth and devoured her lips while he stroked her, but even as he felt her body begin to move to his rhythm, she tore her mouth away.

  “You have no right to walk in here like this,” she panted, pushing against him weakly, “and expect me to put out.”

  “But you love it,” he said, opening her robe, then his pants. He felt powerful and male, hard as a rock, ready to explode.

  “Damn it, I don’t want—”

  “You do, yes, you do,” he said, holding her less gently. He ground his mouth against hers at the same time that he drove into her. He didn’t know whether her cry was of pain or pleasure and didn’t care, because the need inside him was too great, too male, too total.

  The door behind her rattled under the force of his thrusts, but it, like the band of her legs around him, was something far removed from the tension building, building, building inside him. He ground his teeth together, bit out a guttural cry, and reached a climax that seemed to go on and on. In its midst he was aware of nothing but the extraordinary pleasure that had taken him over.

  Very, very slowly, he regained an awareness of where he was, of the boneless slump of his body against Lacey and the raggedness of his breath against her neck. It was another minute before he felt her rigidity.

  Drawing back, he met eyes that were cold as ice. After slipping from beneath him, she tied her robe as she crossed the floor, closed her hand around a stone obelisk that stood on the coffee table, and faced him again. “I think you’d better leave. Now.”

  The way she was holding the obelisk kept him where he was at the door. He rezipped his pants. “What are you upset about?”

  “I don’t want you here. I didn’t want you here in the first place, but you barged your way in. You’re a rude man, Peter.”

  “Ahhh. You’re pissed at me because I left you with the bill the other night.”

  “The bill was nothing. I could afford to pay it. But you walked out when I dared to criticize you. I hadn’t realized how insecure you are.”

  “There you go, psychoanalyzing again.”

  She was shaking her head even before he stopped speaking. “Not psychoanalyzing. Stating the obvious. You can’t take the least bit of criticism, and you can’t take rejection. That spells insecurity to me, and it’s the last thing I’m looking for in a man. Contrary to what you choose to believe, I don’t need you, Peter. I’ll be heading back to Boston in a month. It’s been nice, but it’s over.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her. After all, he was the best Tucker had to offer, even for one last month. “Are you annoyed because you didn’t come?”

  She shot a sound of exasperation at the ceiling. “Listen to me. It’s over. We’ve had some fun, but the fun is done. Don’t even think of coming here again. If you do, I’ll prosecute.”

  “Prosecute?” he asked. “Prosecute what?” He wasn’t getting tripped up in that one. “What happened just now wasn’t rape.”

  “Maybe not in the end, because, you’re right, you know the buttons to push. But another time you won’t be getting near the buttons. I’ll call the cops first.” She shifted her hands on the obelisk. “Now, leave.”

  Peter gave her a last, long look. She was attractive, but far from the best lover he’d had. He didn’t need her, not by a long shot. Let her finish her work and go back to Boston. He could function just fine without her.

  With a shrug, he opened the door. “It’s your loss,” he called over his shoulder as he trotted down the steps. With the slam of the door above him, another small chapter in the book of his loves ended, which didn’t bother him in the least. Another would begin. He was a big man in town, an important man, a respected man. Women loved that. He wouldn’t be alone for long.

  twelve

  NOAH WAS AMAZED AT HOW WELL HIS PLAN gelled. He wasn’t sure whether the credit could be laid to the plan itself or to the fact that he had any plan at all. Mount Court had been stagnant for so long. The prospect of someone doing something new and untried created instant enthusiasm.

  Permissions arrived by fax from each of the parents involved, along with more than one encouraging phone call. The equipment was donated by a graduate who had gone into the business of orienteering and was curious, given the reputation of the current Mount Court student body, to see how it would be used. Noah called on old contacts to provide two professional climbers, a young married couple who would offer him badly needed backup in exchange for a welcome, albeit small stipend.

  He picked his group with care, selecting the thirty students and four faculty members he felt most needed the challenge. The male-female split was even, as was the division among sophomores, juniors, and seniors. He included Sara in the group for the same reasons that applied to the others, plus several more. The mountain climb was, first and foremost, an exercise in group cooperation and trust. If all went as planned, there would be a bonding among the participants. He wanted her to experience that. He also wanted her to see that her father wasn’t the bad guy everyone thought, but that he was experienced, knowledgeable, and adventurous.

  The night before the trip, he called the faculty members to his house and told them his plan. They were resistant, but he had been expecting that. The four had the same kinds of attitude problems as the kids, which was precisely why he had included them.

  “Katahdin?” one asked. “That’s ambitious, for a group that’s never climbed a mountain before.”

  Another shook his head warily. “If the new emphasis here is on discipline and academics, missing classes is a big mistake.”

  “Taking those kids is the mistake,” a third warned. “Your list includes some of the worst troublemakers in the school. They’re apt to go on a sit-down strike halfway up.”

  “They won’t,” Noah said. “They’ll be too scared of being left behind. We’ll leave tomorrow afternoon, immediately after class. It’s a four-hour drive to Baxter State Park, which means that we’ll reach the base camp in time for dinner.”

  “Are there decent restaurants nearby?”

  Noah slowly shook his head. “We cook.”

  “Us?”

  “You four, plus two guides, plus thirty kids, plus me. Everyone helps, everyone eats. We’ll spend the night at the base camp and set off from there before dawn.”

  “Before dawn.”

  He ignored the echo. “All we’ll have to carry are small day packs. The vans will meet us at the other side of the mountain tomorrow night to drive us back here, so we’ll only miss a day of classes.”

  “Why go during the week and miss any classes at all?”

  “Because I don’t want this mistaken for any old weekend hike. It’s serious stuff. An impromptu part of the curriculum. It’s as important as any class they have.”

  “But if it’s a four-hour drive from here to Baxter State, we could be getting back in the middle of the night. How can you ask the kids to go to classes on no sleep?”

  The question came from Tony Phillips, a math teacher, football
coach, and ex-player who was the laziest one of the bunch. Noah wasn’t surprised that he would be worrying about sleep—and not about the kids’ sleep, either. He was thinking of himself, no doubt about it.

  “Kids can push themselves when they want,” Noah said with a confident smile. “They’ll sleep like logs Friday night.”

  “But we have practices Friday afternoon and games Saturday.”

  Noah nodded. “Right, and the kids will be grumbling about that, which is why I need you all to be upbeat and encouraging. They can do it all, climb Katahdin and still make practice and their games, and they’ll be feeling on top of the world. The point of this is to give them a sense of achievement.”

  Abby Cooke, who taught history, made a dubious sound.

  “What?” Noah asked.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “It didn’t sound like nothing. Do you have reservations about the plan?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Actually, yes. I do. These students have no appreciation for mountain climbing. They couldn’t care less. There won’t be any sense of achievement.”

  “Maybe not,” Noah admitted. “Then again, they just might. I’m not looking to kindle an interest in mountain climbing, just give them a taste of success. I’ve been with groups like this before. Even the most reluctant are usually touched in some way.”

  There was silence, then, “What’s the weather forecast?”

  Noah shrugged. “Whatever.”

  There was another silence, then, “When will the kids be told?”

  “They’ll get notes at the end of their last class asking them to report to the auditorium. You four and I will be there to explain what’s happening and give them a list of the things to put in their day packs. They’ll have half an hour to get ready, then we leave. I already have the okays of their parents. Any other questions?”