by George Eliot
herself.
"Woo-a-woo-oh."
"Wow," Lance said as he gently placed the pad on the table. "You got me."
"Really?" Toni's eyes were sparkling and her countenance glowed. "Did the ending
surprise you?" She dried and put away the last dish.
"I'll say. I have Goosebumps all over me."
"That's the Noxzema."
"I don't think so."
"Did you really like it, Lance? Be honest. What can I do to make it better?"
"I wouldn't change a word. There's just one thing wrong."
She frowned as she sat at the table. "Tell me."
"Now I will be bugging you to let me read all of your stories."
She laughed. "I'm afraid they're not yet ready for prime time."
Chapter Four
The next four weeks were the most physically challenging of Lance's life. For
days, the sunburn tormented him. Following the shade helped, but even the
morning sunlight set off excruciating pain and the burned skin blistered and
then began to peel. Toni applied Noxzema every few hours every day, and that,
plus his determination to avoid a computer nerd label, kept Lance going.
Lance and Toni developed a daily routine. She woke him every morning and
prepared breakfast while he dressed. They worked together on the cabin, pausing
at noon to have lunch at the Danbury diner. Every morning, Toni brought a change
of clothes and at the end of each workday she showered and changed in the RV.
After Lance showered and changed, they ate supper together. Sometimes Toni
cooked, occasionally they drove to Winston-Salem and ate in one of the many
restaurants, but most often, they ate at the Danbury Diner where Toni enjoyed
friendly conversation with the other diners and Lance was all but ignored.
As they worked together, they talked. Lance felt as if he told his complete life
story a dozen times, but he was certain Toni left gaps in the recounting of her
personal history.
It took less than a week to remove the chinking from the cabin. The dried mud
broke away easily. Sanding off the remains of plaster from the upstairs rooms
was more difficult. At the end of the first day, Lance felt as if his arms were
too weak to lift a pencil. The electric sander was not that heavy, but after
holding it for thirty minutes, its weight seemed to increase dramatically. Even
Toni complained.
Buddy and his crew, whom Lance now trusted thoroughly, completed the plumbing,
rebuilt the front porch, installed a new plastic paste compound between the
logs, shored up the foundation, installed the made-to-order windows, installed
new doors, cut a door from the kitchen to the rear deck and refinished the
downstairs hardwood floors.
On the third Saturday, Lance declared that God was much smarter than Buddy Mabe
and pronounced Sundays to be days of much needed rest. There were no complaints
from the pool hall crew.
On the first Sunday of freedom, Toni agreed to show Lance his farm. They drove
over logging roads and through open fields. The amount of land he owned amazed
Lance, and the unused acreage that once grew towering tobacco plants appalled
him.
He was disappointed that Buddy was not at home when they reached the tenant
house his contractor rented. Lance wanted to see the inside, but respected
Buddy's privacy too much to enter uninvited. The outside of the house looked
nice, but old appliances and pieces of cars cluttered the yard. It reminded
Vance of a junkyard.
"When are we going to eat that picnic lunch you promised me?" Lance asked as
they drove away from Buddy's house.
"We've seen as much of the farm as I can show you from the car," Toni replied.
"Now we're going to my � your spring. We'll eat there."
Toni drove back almost to the log cabin before taking a car-width trail cut into
the woods.
"This does not look like one of the logging roads," Lance said.
She laughed. "It isn't. Buddy and I hacked this trail ourselves when we were
just kids. It leads directly to the spring." Her face glowed as the clearing
came into view.
Toni grabbed his hand when they emerged from her car and led him to the bubbling
water.
"Isn't it beautiful, Lance?" she said, squeezing his hand a little.
He returned the pressure as he looked at the moss covered bank surrounding the
pool of crystal clear water. "There is only one other sight that is more
beautiful," he conceded.
She smiled at him and he thought his knees might buckle. "I agree there is one
sight more beautiful, but I'll bet we are not talking about the same thing.
Window Falls by lantern light is the one place I find more breathtaking." She
grinned. "What were you thinking?"
"You."
Their eyes locked. His hands moved to her cheeks. His lips brushed hers. Holding
her close he whispered, "You are the most beautiful woman in the world."
"If you must kiss me, get it over with," she said quietly.
He nibbled at her upper lip, her lower lip and, surprised at the opportunity,
slipped his tongue gently between her slightly parted lips. His hands traveled
south.
She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and did not complain when his hands
tenderly caressed her hips. She plunged her tongue into his eager mouth and
moaned as their bodies meshed. Then the tears came and she pulled away.
She placed her hands on his ears as he pulled her back to him and looked deeply
into his turquoise eyes. "Please don't let me do things like that, Lance."
Her body was trembling. "Toni, I don't understand. I'm crazy about you. You have
to know that."
She nodded, pulled away and knelt beside the bubbling pool. "I like you too,
Lance. You have to know that."
"Then what's the problem?"
She cupped her hands in the water and sipped the cool liquid as he knelt beside
her. "We have the same problem my mom and your dad faced. I'm a country girl and
you're a city boy. It just wouldn't work."
"You don't know that, Toni. We can make it work."
"I'm a high school grad and you have a college degree."
"True, but you write beautifully and I can't string words together in a proper
sentence, let alone a paragraph. In many respects you are far better educated
than I am, if that's what's bothering you."
She dipped her cupped hands again and held them as he sucked the delicious cool
water into his mouth. "Do you like country music, Lance? Do you like to square
dance?"
"If that's all it takes, I'll learn to like country music and I'll learn to
square dance."
She looked deeply into his eyes. "You would, wouldn't you?"
He nodded, his eyes pleading with hers.
She jumped up, placed her hands on her hips and laughed. "Then we'd really be
incompatible. I hate country music."
Toni dashed back to the car, leaving a totally confused and frustrated Lance
staring after her.
She returned with the picnic basket. They spread a tablecloth on the moss and
reclined, eating Toni fried chicken and potato salad and drinking water from the
spring in the tumblers
Toni supplied.
Other than to compliment her cooking, Lance did not know what to say. He
devoured her beauty as well as the chicken in silence.
They packed away the dishes, but he could stand it no longer. When Toni knelt to
fold the tablecloth, causing her golf shirt to gape open and reveal a hint of
her cleavage, he grasped her arms and pulled her erect. He crushed her to his
chest, forced his tongue into her mouth and let his hands explore her body. He
used his superior strength to keep her from pulling away. He felt her melt
against him, yielding to his desire and the eager caresses of the off-limit
areas of her anatomy.
He tugged the golf shirt from her cutoff jeans and slowly inched it upwards. She
raised her arms in submission.
As the white underside of her breasts appeared she said, "I'm not on the pill,
but do what you must, Lance."
He yanked the cloth back down and turned his back to her. "I can't," he muttered
bitterly.
She pressed against his back, wrapped her arms around him and placed her right
hand firmly between his legs. "Yes, you can," she assured him.
He turned and folded her in his arms. Their cheeks met. "No, I can't," he
whispered softly. "What I want to do is find a way to make you love me as much
as I love you."
He felt her body sag into him. "Don't use that word, Lance."
"Love?"
He felt her head nodding against his cheek. "You may love my body, but you don't
love me." She pushed her pubic bone against his erection. "I'll give you the
relief you want, but don't pretend you love me."
He placed his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm's length. "I'm not the
one who is pretending. You want me as much as I want you. You may not love me,
but you're close � very close. If I just wanted to use you as a sex toy, you'd
be naked right now, on your back with your legs in the air and me between them.
That's not what I want."
The tears came again. "I can't love you, Lance. I � I can't explain."
"There's someone else?"
She looked at him, her eyes searching his, and suddenly yanked the tablecloth
from the ground. "Grab the basket," she said as she dashed towards her car.
In silence they drove past the log cabin, down the dirt road and turned on the
rutted driveway that led to her house. With deliberation, she marched to her
door, Lance following close behind. She went straight to her desk, searched
through the stack of yellow pads until she found the one she was seeking, and
tossed it to him.
Bewildered, he watched her stalk from the room, sat on the dilapidated sofa and
listened to her sobbing in some other part of the house. He sighed and let his
eyes fall on the first page of the legal pad.
Rosie
Normally I have a bowl of cereal and coffee for breakfast and a simple
sandwich for lunch, but I try to eat a balanced meal every night. The
Macmillan Cafeteria is my favorite spot because the food is good, the
selection is highly varied and the price is right. I am a little sensitive
about dining alone. I have found that if I go to dinner early or very late,
the cafeteria has few customers and, therefore, there are fewer chances of
embarrassment.
I am a free lance computer programmer. On this particular day I concentrated
so hard on a little programming problem that I forgot to eat lunch, so, once
the hurdle was successfully negotiated, I headed for the cafeteria, although
it was not yet five o'clock. I loaded my tray with roast beef, mashed
potatoes with gravy, lima beans, a tossed salad with house dressing, two
yeast rolls with butter, iced tea, and a huge slab of chocolate pie. I knew
I should have passed on the potatoes and pie, but I've been fat all my life
and girls don't exactly beat a path to my door anyway.
I went to my usual booth at the rear of the dining area and unloaded my
plates onto the table. A black girl wearing an apron, nametag and a broad
smile revealing perfect white teeth appeared out of nowhere and took the
empty tray from my hand.
"May I get anything for you?" she asked.
"No thank you," I smiled back as I dug into my pocket for change. I slipped
two quarters into her expectant hand and slid into the booth. I added salt
and pepper to everything except the bread, tea and pie. I know I should
taste the food first, but I never do.
I cut and ate a piece of the roast beef. It was delicious. As I continued to
eat, I felt as if someone was staring at me. I glanced around the room.
There were few diners present, and none of them seemed to have any interest
in me, but a lone lady sitting at a table perhaps twenty feet away caught my
attention.
Her salt and pepper hair led me to believe she was several years older than
me, but she was fairly attractive. Her body, mostly hidden from me by the
table, seemed to be slender and not particularly well endowed in the chest
area. It was the sad expression on her face that held my attention � that
and the fact that she looked a little like Rosie Jefferson.
The woman glanced in my direction and I jerked my eyes back to the plate of
roast beef. I tried to steal another look out of my peripheral vision. She
was still looking at me with that sad, sad countenance. Was she interested
in me? A lot of good that would do, and yet there was a warm feeling growing
inside me. I wanted to hold her in my arms, stroke her hair and assure her
that everything would be all right. She really did look like Rosie
Jefferson, but that was impossible. Rosie disappeared from my life twenty
years ago and three hundred miles away when we were both only fifteen years
old.
Not a day has gone by during those twenty years that I have not prayed for
Rosie's happiness and forgiveness. How can I expect Rosie to forgive me when
I can't forgive myself?
As a roly-poly kid wearing thick glasses, I was not popular in high school.
The kids avoided me and I avoided them. I don't know why I went on that
school picnic to Hanging Rock State Park. I think my mother may have
insisted, but I'm not certain of that.
Anyway, there I was sitting some distance from the closest classmate, eating
fried chicken and potato salad. When the meal was finished, some of the kids
headed for the water to swim, fish, or row a boat around the large lake
while the rest got the equipment out of the chartered bus and went laughing
and joking to the softball diamond. To my amazement, one of them even
invited me to join them, but I, of course, declined. Not gifted in the
athletics department, I did not want to go through the humiliation of being
the last one chosen for one of the two teams.
I stayed behind to help the chaperons clean up the mess we all made. I don't
know why, but Rosie stayed behind also. I knew her, of course. She and I
shared classes since grade school, and, although I frequently daydreamed
about her, we were not really friends. Rosie was not exactly popular, but
she wasn't an exile like me. Either group of classmates would have welcomed
her.
The cleanup process didn't take much time � at least not as much time as I
would have liked. As the chaperons started walking towards the softball
field, I knew that Rosie was expecting me to say something to her. I
remember watching myself toe the earth as she approached. To my great
relief, she took the initiative.
"How's it going, Danny?" she asked.
"Okay, I guess."
"Have you ever hiked down to Window Falls?"
"No."
"The wild flowers along the trail are beautiful and the falls are
breathtaking," she said as she walked past me.
I watched for a minute or two as she strolled towards the trail. I realized
she did not exactly invite me to join her, but I couldn't just stand in the
picnic area for the next three or four hours. I jogged after her as fast as
my fat little legs would allow and when I caught up with her I asked, "Mind
if I join you?"
She smiled. "I was hoping you would."
We followed the trail into the woods. She knew the names of all the
wildflowers we saw and I pretended to be interested. Unfortunately, empty
bags, candy wrappers and beverage cans littered the trail. I agreed with
Rosie that it was a shame people were so thoughtless.
Soon I heard the sound of falling water. "Are we almost there?" I asked.
"No," she answered. "That's a small fall off to the right that you hear.
Window Falls is a little further down the trail."
The trail was so twisting and narrow it seemed like a rabbit path, but we
never did find any rabbits. What we did find was a clearing featuring huge
boulders, four of which were propped together in such a fashion as to
resemble a large window in which a grown man could easily stand. We climbed
into the window and sat on the ledge. The view on the other side of the
window was fantastic as water cascaded over the mountain from thirty feet
above us.
Rosie's face glowed as she pointed to first one and then another of the
wildflowers that grew on the sides of the pool into which the water dropped,
and she told me their names. To be honest, I was a bit uncomfortable. We
were both quite sweaty and Rosie's tee shirt was now clinging to her
bra-holstered breasts. I was hoping she would not notice I was aroused.
Suddenly, two men, pointing handguns at us, appeared from the falls side of
the window. I turned, looking for escape, but two more men were behind us.
Whenever I recall this event, I would like to think there were forty men,
but in reality, there were only four. Neither of us heard them approaching.
"Don't make a sound," one of the men said menacingly as he walked up to us.
I was so scared I couldn't have made a sound anyway. He told me to stand up.
I did. He told me to take off my clothes. Rosie protested. One of the men
slapped her and told her to be quiet. I took off my clothes as instructed,
except for my jockey shorts. He wanted those off also. I obeyed, thankful
that I was no longer aroused. Not wanting Rosie to see my tiny penis, I
turned my back to her.
An unarmed man marched me to the falls and made me stand in the cascading
torrent. He did not tie me but simply told me to put my hands on top of my
head and not move a muscle or make a sound. He rejoined the group, leaving
me, the coward of all cowards, standing obediently in my ridiculous
position.
When I focused again on the window, one man was going through my pockets,
removing the little money they contained. He even took my pocketknife. The
others pulled Rosie to her feet. They crammed something into her mouth.
She struggled as they dragged her next to the pool and right before my eyes
they completely stripped Rosie. She was obviously terrified and did not
resist. I obediently stood there with my hands on my head. She was the first
