The men who Piper dated more than once or twice learned quickly, however, and seemed somehow disappointed by the fact that she was much more comfortable spending time in the countryside—picking apples or pumpkins, fishing, canoeing, riding, stopping anywhere she saw a sign for a barn sale—than being in three-inch heels and at a five-star restaurant. Not that she didn’t clean up very nicely; the only thing standing between her being beautiful and her being stunning was a string of pearls her grandmother left her and a really nice deep plum-colored lipstick called Ripe Raisin that whitened her teeth more than any dentist could ever hope to. Her hair always caught men’s attention and was the envy of most women, though few vocalized these thoughts. Her thick black mane flowed gently past her shoulders and came to a “V” between her shoulder blades. She didn’t do much with it because she didn’t need to, and she always kept it long, feeling that this was one thing women had a right to, and should take advantage of. It was clearly a feminine trait that she enjoyed, and she noticed that it usually turned heads, whether she was in jeans and half-chaps or a skirt and blazer on the way to a meeting.
It was during one of these meetings that Piper met Paul. They were introduced by Sharon and there seemed to be a bit of a spark as they shook hands, Paul averting his gaze for a fraction of a second to see if there was a ring on her finger.
Paul was an agent with the same large insurance company that Piper had worked at for seven years, but he was only beginning to dabble in the equine division and had requested this office on a whim, mostly because it was far away from his former wife in New York and also because he was tired of being a closet Red Sox fan ever since, as a kid, he had watched Oil Can Boyd pitch a near perfect game against the Yankees. And, teetering on the cusp of forty, he felt he could use a change of scenery; what better way than to move hundreds of miles away from everything he knew because of the beautiful face of a woman he had seen on the company’s website? He couldn’t think of anything more romantic, or crazy for that matter. He wondered for a few seconds during their handshake if this could at all be considered rash or even a bit stalker-like, but shrugged it off, knowing himself too well. He was not impulsive in the least; but this move seemed to come at a time when he needed to make a break from the old and start anew.
Piper’s eyes sparkled more than a little, which was unusual for a Thursday morning, with the weekend seeming close and yet too far away at the same time. Upon waking that morning she had known that the day would go well, but had had no idea how she knew it. Standing in the shower and letting the warm water saturate her hair, she stood still, eyes closed. The familiar scent of freshly turned soil and tomato plant leaves filled her seemingly from head to toe. Her shoulder blades twitched and she smiled.
“Okay Thursday. Let’s see what you got.”
Soon after arriving at work she glanced at her watch. 9:45? Really? Maybe I was wrong about you, Thursday.
Piper never aspired to be in management in any way, shape, or form, but she knew that if by some bizarre turn of events she found herself there, she would not bore people to tears. One meeting down, two to go. She glanced at her day planner. 10:15 – Paul. The new guy from New York. Hmm, maybe Thursday still has a chance.
He walked into the conference room and immediately made eye contact with Piper. He fixed his tie nervously. “Good morning,”
“Hi. Good morning.”
She realized she was smiling and tried to keep it to a friendly toothless grin. Seems nice.
Paul seemed a bit eager and she preferred to keep business matters just that: business matters.
“So, Piper, where would you recommend a newbie find the best martini in town?” They left the conference room after Sharon and the others. He stopped to let her through the doorway before him.
Here we go. Her mind flashed back to a guy she briefly dated. Stan. He worked in her office a few years back. She agreed to more than one date more out of boredom than any real interest. He seemed like a normal enough guy, a little older than she usually dated, balding, and more than a bit chubby, too. But she was consciously trying to change her dating criteria and date men who were different from those she was normally attracted to. She had read something online the previous month that suggested some women just needed to enhance their mate-choosing skills by using their heads more than their feelings or heart. She didn’t usually take online fluff too seriously, but since Sharon had emailed the article to her, she thought maybe she ought to take the hint. Being a bit displeased with her own track record in the world of dating, Piper decided that she would assert this principle to her next potential relationship. She remembered her grandmother telling her more than once that, “Men learned to love the women they are attracted to and women learn to be attracted to the men they loved,” much to the chagrin of both Piper’s father and grandfather.
“Uh, well, I guess a newbie would want to try a few places and decide for himself.” Piper realized her words came out wrong and she regretted it. “I could help?”
“Why am I flat ironing my hair for a casual, work related, no expectations dinner?” She looked over her shoulder at Viceroy. He was never more than a few feet from her when she was home. He tilted his head as if to ask her the same question. Memories crept in as she sprayed heat protectant on her silky raven hair. She couldn’t help remembering more than a few awkward first dinner dates and other various courtship outings at which she couldn’t, for the life of her, keep from making mental notes about the size of her date’s diminutive hands, and how sweaty his hands and forehead would get when he dropped her off for the evening. She tried so hard to like the guy, but it was getting increasingly difficult for her. Mostly she was bored with a lot of them but with some … she just could not bear the thought of them naked. It’s not that Piper considered herself to be off limits. She did, however, feel there was a need for some modicum of attraction for it to work. Come on now, she would think to herself, give a girl something to work with. And she felt it important to go out of her way to present herself in a manner in which most people would find attractive, more for their sakes than hers. Her grandmother had for years told her that even though what’s on the inside of a person is what matters most, people will judge you by what you choose to present. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she’d inherited her grandmother’s genes for height and for a narrow frame, making her height all that much more elegant and sexy. Piper felt her grandmother wouldn’t have approved of any of the men who had been Piper’s potential suiters. Presentation was completely lost on a few of them—particularly the guy from the office. What she really found tasteless was men showing interest in her just because of her looks; in fact, that was a big turn-off for women of substance, women like Piper. She had a lot of love and desire to offer the right man; it was simply a matter of finding him and she just didn’t have the patience for it.
So she tried her best to make each man she dated “the right one,” which she quickly learned is not a worthwhile exercise for a woman her age. She got the feeling that she could pretty much see someone’s potential or lack thereof in the time it takes to order wine and an appetizer on the first date. Did he order her wine for her or ask her first what she’d like? Did he shave before their date, turn off his cell phone, clip his fingernails? Was he cordial to the waitress? And most important, did he stare at the waitress’s chest as he ordered their spinach and artichoke dip?
Dating Stan had worn thin for her. The breaking point was when her sweaty, chubby, balding date asked when he was going to be able to see her wearing only her riding boots and carrying a whip. In fine Piper style, she took this disgusting little fact of life in stride, seeing it not as an insult, but as an opportunity. She took a deep breath and promptly responded by telling him that it was called a crop, not a whip, and that if she ever put her boots on without first putting on breeches, it would mean that she was too old and far too senile to want to be seen by even the handsomest of men, much less the likes of his perverted, disgusting self. And with that, Pi
per decided she would not date someone with whom she worked ever again. She smirked at herself in the mirror. She closed eyes for a moment and inhaled. What is that? What is that smell?
1848
THE SUN WAS ALWAYS BRIGHTER on the days that he came to see her, the way it slanted through the window and fell gently, warmly on her face. She noticed things that she would have overlooked on any other ordinary day. The flowers in the door-yard were brighter, the floor was easier to sweep, the water from the well colder, cleaner somehow. The breeze found her in the open window making her feel unforgotten, a new feeling in her young life. She and Vander were going to the fair by the sea to celebrate the spring planting and the warm weather ahead. It did not matter how many times he knocked at her door, how many times he greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and a handful of freshly picked lavender: each time was like the first. What a difference in her heart, this kind of nervous fluttering. Until now, the only feelings to have visited her heart were heavy burden and mourning.
Piper and Vander had grown inseparable, their friendship growing over the years into something greater, though her father not allowing her to call it courting as yet. She thought that might change in the coming months with the feelings that Vander had been sharing with her. Prior to this springtime, if other girls had harbored any doubts that Vander and Piper would eventually have something other than friendship, those doubts melted away with the last of the lingering snow. Women and girls alike often waved their approval as the pair rode through the lanes on Vander’s magnificent horses and headed toward the sea. And on market day, when Vander carried big armsful of freshly shorn wool, scratching and itching all the way only to trade it for a few sweets, a bit of ribbon, and a handful of lavender, it was clear to anyone for whom the wares were intended.
This quiet, handsome boy was quickly becoming a tall, broad-shouldered, and enviable young man. Many parents had their eye on him as a possible suitor for their daughters. His father Philip was honorable and hardworking, known for going out of his way for anyone in need. The men in the village often jokingly questioned this dark haired, stout man about his sons’ paternity! Vander and his two older brothers were fair-haired and towered over their father. And his mother, Amélie was a woman other women wanted for a friend: quiet in her ways and honest in her deeds. Diminutive though her frame was, her spirit was as large and open as the spring skies at planting time. She raised three boys and a herd of sheep, kept two cows for milking, sold eggs at the market, mended her husband’s fishing nets, and was known to be the gentlest of the village midwives. She quietly delighted in the honor of being the first person to touch many of the village’s children as they made their passage from the womb into the world.
But those who thought they might bargain Amélie out of a fair price on her wool or perhaps play coy with her handsome sons, were quickly introduced to the side of her that questions not what is right and fair.
Philip pushed Vander to fish alongside him as he had done with his father, but Vander was not a man of the sea. He had a way with the land, the plow, and the animals. He dreamed of building his own home and farm outside the village on the land that was given to his father as a wedding gift. His brothers both had married and moved with their brides to a larger village where there was work for shoemakers, bakers, and milliners.
Piper and Vander had been childhood friends since she fell from a boulder at the edge of the meadow on the outskirts of the village when she was in her twelfth summer, Vander his fourteenth. He heard her cries in the woods and raced to find her before anyone else who might have dark intentions. He spoke kindly to her all the way through the meadow, into the village, and then gently helped her into her house. Drawing fresh water from the well and bandaging her bloody knee, he softly whispered a tune that put her at ease. It was a song she knew all too well. She had met him earlier that week but, being tongue-tied and unsure, hadn’t spoken. She was taught to be afraid, afraid of those she did not know, especially boys. Her shiny, raven hair caught his eye the first time he had seen her at the market and the handful of other times he had seen her since. Her family had come to this village when her mother passed on and her father felt it better to return to the country he knew as a boy. He found work here as a tradesman building tables, chairs, brooms, and wine barrels that were shipped across the sea to be sold in markets Piper’s father would never see. Young Piper had been skipping stones on the river when she was supposed to be washing her brother’s trousers and bedclothes.
When Vander stopped to let his horses drink from the river, he asked her if he could show her a trick or two to help the stones skip farther, longer. She took one look at him and remembered what her father had told her about boys, being especially protective of her and her brother Marek since their mother’s death; he did not like boys, or anyone for that matter, coming around to visit Piper, no matter how innocent. She shook her head no and looked away over the river bank into the sky as if she expected her mother’s advice to be written in the clouds for her. She realized that Vander must be different from the boys her father warned about. He was quiet and treated his horse with such kindness. He kept his eyes downcast, showing Piper respect. She instantly felt sorry that she had shunned him, but her father had been adamant about boys and the things they can do to girls, especially when he was out of the village, perhaps on the sea, fishing. She wanted to tell him that indeed she would like to know how to skip the stones farther, that she had taught herself and for the life of her could not get them to skip more than twice, no matter what she tried. But when she looked back to the spot where he had been riding, he was gone. Her eyes quickly scanned the woods, up and down the riverbank but he was gone, his horses having had their fill of the cool, clean water.
Piper was a lonely girl and spent a lot of time by herself, washing, cooking, planting, mending, and trying to keep her brother out of trouble, which took more time than all the other chores put together. Disappointment was a companion that often whispered to her to come and play. Her mother suffered long with the sickness that finally took her when Piper was in her eighth autumn, and she knew nothing of a life outside of fetching cloths dipped in the coldest well water for her mother’s feverish skin, feeding a younger brother what little bread there was after all of their father’s wages went to medication that didn’t work, and listening to father’s cry in the night to a god who didn’t answer.
Piper knew pain and she knew sorrow, but somehow she also knew it was going to be all right. Life was not all bad. Since they had come to this village, there was no sickness, no crying, and going to bed hungry didn’t happen often. When it did, it was because of nervous butterflies, not for lack of food.
Piper had noticed Vander long before the day at the river. He was the boy who rode the fine black horses out to the meadow to let them graze on the days they weren’t being used to pull a cart full of fish back from the seaside. He was the boy with the straw-colored hair and the shy eyes. The girls in the village were always giggling and whispering as he rode past, he seemingly unaware of them. Lyska, a piggish girl with hair the color of a rooster’s comb, told Piper not to stare at him as he rode past, that it was shameful for a girl to notice a boy. But when Piper asked if Lyska had not noticed him first, she pushed Piper to the ground, bloodying her nose and dirtying her freshly washed dress, and knocking her out of one shoe. They had been her mother’s shoes, a gift from her husband when they married. They were a bit too large for Piper’s small feet, but they were the only ones she had or wanted. Lyska informed her that she was older than her by three summers; she had reached courting age and that Piper had better stop gawking. She added, as if to cement the idea, that if Piper dared to quarrel about this, her mother would take care of it properly and without haste. What Lyska did not know, but was about to find out, was that Piper was not one to keep her thoughts to herself. Though she spent a lot of time alone, when given the chance, she let anyone in earshot know just what she thought, good, bad, or otherwise.
Pipe
r picked herself up off the dirt lane, on the end of which sat her home with chores as yet undone. But before she had straightened up completely, she threw herself at the red-headed witch, who to Piper’s way of thinking, was too ugly ever to catch the eye of someone as gentle and sweet as that boy, whoever he might be. She knocked Lyska down and straddled her, pinning her arms with her knees. Long ago she had learned that this was the only effective way to wash behind her brother’s ears and it seemed to work in restraining this little red devil, too. She was quite pleased with the results. In the most authoritative voice she could muster, she told Lyska that patience is a virtue and she wasn’t feeling very virtuous lately. She slapped Lyska’s cheeks as hard as she could until the stunned girl was snorting and squealing like the piglet she was. Piper, realizing how this would sound to anyone coming down the lane, quickly jumped up and trotted back home to check on Marek; there was dirt covering the back of her dress, she clutched her shoe to her bosom, and blood dripped down her nose and into the corner of her mouth.
She caught a glimpse of Vander through the trees as he dismounted and turned his horses loose in the meadow. She loved how he quietly communicated with his horses. He knew that voices didn’t have the same effect as gestures and that kindness begets obedience. Animals as grand as his had never been seen in this village until Vander’s father brought them home from war in the east. He brought the majestic black horses home to his wife as a gift for staying true to him all the time he had been gone. The story in the village had it that Vander’s father, though a fisherman here, was transformed into a great warrior on a battlefield far away across the sea. He had saved an entire town from being burned by an invading army, and in return for his bravery, the people of the town presented him with their two finest yearlings, as black as coal and as strong as oxen. He brought them across the sea on a ship two years after leaving home and finally returned to his family, the horses now three years old, ready to work. The everyday beasts of burden throughout the fields and stables of these fishing and farming villages were heavy horses, used to pull the plows and the fish carts, transport the harvest to the huge barns in the center of the village, and carry the dead to the burial yard; yet they were gentle enough for three or four children to ride at one time. They were simply working animals, beloved by their families no doubt, but necessity still. Vander’s horses were far more beautiful and lighter, elegant yet broad shouldered, lifting their knees as they trotted, hooves reaching out and pounding the ground in a proud procession, heads held high, necks gracefully arched, feathers on their fetlocks as graceful and curly as their flowing manes. They truly seemed to float along the lanes of the village, so beautiful was their conformation.
Piper, Once & Again Page 5
