A Paige in Cupid's Book

by Ginny B. Nescott

  “Did my Mom like him?”

  “Uncle Fredrick? She didn’t know him. My Dad? Sure, he was all smiles for your mom. She was his baby girl. He had it easier by the time she was a teen. Good crops and lots of help. Oh, stop giving me puppy dog eyes. I had way more fun than your mom ever had. She never even sat on a Harley let alone poured whiskey in a bar in the Arizona desert. So, quit.” Linney smiled.

  Paige followed her with a bucket filled with the chemical bottle and tools needed for the downstairs bathroom.

  “Okay. Just one more. Who’s Samuel and Marilyn?

  Linney stopped short and tightened her eyes. “Where did you hear those names?”

  “Letters. I didn’t get a chance to read them.”

  The fierce expression from her aunt hit her like a Mack truck. Linney. Her aunt’s name wasn’t from Linda. It was from Marilyn.

  “Oh. I just realized you are Marilyn. They’re your letters, aren’t they?” A wave of panic washed over Paige. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I’ll get them. I honestly didn’t open them. Please forgive me.”

  Her aunt just shook her head. “Nah. It’s okay. Just all this talk of Uncle Fredrick the Spiteful somehow twisted it. I’ll tell you. It’s time I told someone. Your mom doesn’t even really know.”

  Paige stopped in her tracks. Her aunt, her quirky, generous aunt trusted her and needed her. She felt a rush of compassion and warmth mixed with fear at what her aunt might say.

  “C’mon Squirt. We need to get this sickeningly awful wallpaper down. I’ll tell you as we go. Who puts tangerine flock wallpaper in the powder room? Oh, right, my own mom who thought it would be cheerful, years and years ago.”

  As they worked, her aunt told of Samuel. She spoke of his deep chocolate skin and it being a time when multi-racial romance happened in cities but was not heard of in rural places. And how, in a farm community, people stayed with their own kind, which meant Episcopals didn’t mix with Lutherans even, let alone other intermixing.

  “Oh, Paige, he was a muscular dream. I remember it like yesterday. Skin dark, smooth, and hairless. Smile so bright when I approached him. He was a good swimmer. So there goes another stereotype.”

  “Nuwak?”

  “Big time and caring. He was my first love. I would have married him had things worked out differently. Our family wasn’t big on him nor his on me. He left for college and took my heart with him. I broke up with John George because he was prejudiced.”

  “The Wi-Fi guy? I thought—” Paige swirled the scratching tool over the flocked paper.

  “No. He’s George Cedric. Not him. Who knows about him? I meant my first husband back when I was far younger than you are now. I married him because I was expected to. We both hated every minute. My divorce sent me traveling.” She poured the strong scented de-glue chemical. “I met men along the way. Roger, you know. Tom, he wasn’t bad or Big Emo. He was good at—” Redness spread to her cheeks as she applied the chemical. “Where was I?”

  “Um, I thought you were telling me about Samuel, but I can roll with it.”

  “Right. Samuel. Man, was he a hunk.”

  Linney drank wine. In the enclosed space, the chemical fumes were strong. The draw fan barely helped.

  Paige worked closer to the open the door. “Do you need a break?”

  “Naw. Just started.” Linney’s words slurred a bit. They both sponged on the chemical. “Do you know we once did it right there in the creek?” She pointed to an east facing wall. “A mile thataway. We were kissing and swimming in our underwear. That rope swing was a blast, all the splashing.” She waved her arm for effect. “Did I say underwear? No bra even. You have to try it. So freeing.”

  Linney’s arms were waving still. Paige stopped scraping and stared, completely drawn in. The chemical needed more time and so did the story.

  “Samuel wasn’t ashamed of his body. He taught me to appreciate my own form. Not that I didn’t look as good as you do, kiddo. I was the package just like you.”

  “Now I know you need some water. Come with me.” Paige gave her a hand up.

  Her aunt complied and kept talking as she followed, “I swung so high and flew off that rope. And when I was climbing up that muddy bank, he just turned me around and kissed me and pressed me into the mud…”

  Paige poured water into a glass while her aunt continued, “And then, oh, that was the first time. Mud all over me, squishing against him.”

  Her aunt motioned while Paige plunked ice in the glass one at a time.

  “D’you know, it didn’t hurt. It was heaven, Paige. I rode him for hours. Soft mud, hot air, water lapping. The memory’s so real.”

  Paige had poured her aunt a huge glass of water, but drank it all herself. Both women stared into the void, thinking about the story.

  Paige snapped out of her trance and gave her aunt water, pouring herself another. She raised her glass to her aunt. “Here’s to mud in your eye.”

  ****

  After Linney’s stirring tales and much more water, she and Paige returned to wallpaper stripping in the powder room. The fumes had slightly disseminated. Peeled pieces lay in twisted piles on the powder room floor. Lower layers peeled back with a struggle.

  “Why didn’t you look for Samuel?” Paige asked.

  “I dunno. Figured it would have happened. He could have found me.”

  “Really? Think about it. Marilyn Dornheim. But you are now Linney Smith. Hmm. Nearly the same.”

  “I tried once on Facebook. Too many Samuel Jackson’s. Not to mention Samuel L. It wasn’t him by the way.”

  “Do you have any lead? Any reunion?”

  “Hmm. Someone said he had gone out west. Maybe Utah or Colorado?”

  “Okay, that helps. Anything else?”

  “Are you trying to fix me up?”

  “No. I’m trying to get you to reconnect so you can move on.” Her aunt sneered when she’d said that. “Okay, okay. But wouldn’t it be cool to talk to him?”

  “He did have such a dreamy voice. He would whisper my name in my ear. Do you know what that’s like? It felt like my clothes would fall off me.” She ripped off a big chunk of wallpaper.

  Paige nodded and ripped. “Flea.”

  “Yes, I know Michael calls you that.”

  “No. Flea or tick, or some dead thing stuck inside this wallpaper. Eww.”

  They both laughed.

  “Seriously, Aunt Linney…”

  “Just, please call me Linney at this point.”

  “Okay, Linney at this point.” That got another glare. “Okay, Linney. Did Samuel have a middle name?”

  “Sure.”

  “And it was…”

  “Shh…I’m thinking.” She scraped and ripped off wallpaper for another minute and stopped. “Reuben!”

  “Please tell me that is his name and you aren’t hungry.”

  “It is his name, but I’m also getting hungry. Wish pizza got delivered out this way.”

  The third miracle of the day happened. The first was removing wallpaper from Paige’s room. Second was stripping the powder room walls. The third came with getting a pizza delivered. It was only lukewarm but delicious. The chemical fumes mixed with the pizza scent and permeated the house. Though the temperature dipped far below freezing, the women opened the windows, and ate pizza, all in a happy haze.

  Then Paige did something even more amazing. She found a phone number for a Samuel Reuben Jackson…in Colorado.

  ****

  It wasn’t that it was late. It was that they were exhausted. Paige let Linney shower first again, thinking it might be sobering. By the time Paige toweled her hair and walked to the stairs to head to the kitchen for tea, she heard her aunt’s voice through her open bedroom door and dashed downstairs. Uncharacteristic though it was, she quietly picked up the kitchen extension and was rewarded for her eavesdropping.

  “Hello?” came a deep voice.

  “Is this Samuel? Samuel Reuben Jackson?” her aunt asked.

  “Yes.” T
he man’s smoky voice hung on the word.

  Her aunt let out a puff of breath and went silent.

  “Look, if you’re calling me,” he said, “and you don’t even have your script down, there’s no way I’m buying whatever you’re selling, so maybe we should cut this call short and you should go on to the next one on your list.”

  “No, wait, please. I’m not selling anything. I wanted to speak with you,” Linney said.

  “Who is this?” the voice rumbled.

  “I…I waited so long to talk to you, and now I don’t know what to say.”

  “Who is this?” the voice asked softer this time.

  “Sam?”

  “Your voice sounds familiar.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Marilyn?”

  Paige nearly gasped into the extension at his recognition of her aunt’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Pennsylvania Marilyn? Pennsylvania Marylin who’s supposed to be dead?”

  “Pennsylvania Marilyn who is very much alive, and for a multitude of complicated reasons I’m back in Pennsylvania right now. And no one calls me Marilyn anymore, not since…well, for a long time.”

  Silence.

  “Is it really you, Samuel?”

  “Yes. So, what are they calling you now?”

  “Linney. Linney Smith actually. I married a Smith, and then I divorced the Smith, among other things. What about you?”

  “Name’s the same as you can tell. Married and divorced. Never really stuck… This is so unbelievable Marilyn. My Marilyn. Any chance we can do this on video chat?”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I’m barely used to the thought it’s you and I’m hearing your voice again.” She had a softness to her voice. “Besides, I don’t look like I did in high school.”

  “Does anybody? I, for one, am bald and a bit rounder.” They both said rounder at the same time, then gave a nervous laugh.

  Paige didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself as she listened on the extension, thankful that her grandma had a home with old school phones with old fashioned portable extensions. Her toes wiggled at the laugh the two had just shared. The two past lovers got more and more comfortable as the call went on.

  He spoke of the shade of an oak tree down by some stone fence and how he lifted her up on the wall. “Do you remember how you got me so worked up kissing that I just pushed your underwear aside and…”

  “I remember like it was yesterday. Sometimes, I wonder if only it could have been different. I would have loved to have stayed with you. Then…”

  “College happened. Life happened for us both, Marilyn. Oops, Linney.”

  “Please call me Marilyn. Seems right somehow. I miss your voice. Remember how we used to sneak into the closet to talk? You in yours, and me in mine. Hey, this closet right here as a matter of fact.”

  A door creaked open.

  “Only there is no chord being stretched on this wireless phone.” She sighed. “I came back to help my mom in the end. Both my parents died. The house fell apart even before probate and the squatters. I’m renovating it now with my niece’s help. You wouldn’t believe it, but she found your letters this week.”

  “Oh, those. Not much of writer back then. Or now for that matter.”

  “I wish I could have found you sooner.”

  “I did look for you, too, Marilyn,” Samuel said with a murmured sigh.

  “Actually, you’re my early Valentine present from my detective of a niece.”

  Paige inhaled, hoping they didn’t hear her. She really did need to hang up but was addicted to eavesdropping.

  “Are you still there, Sam?”

  “Yes. Just lighting up something.”

  “You smoke now?”

  “Only the good stuff, but I prefer it in cookies.”

  “Where do you live now? The phone number says some kind of Colorado number, but it could be anywhere.”

  “It is Colorado. I have an idea. How about this? I’ll look you up in Facebook, and you look me up?”

  They did just that. They scrolled through each other’s photos and told stories. Neither had kids but had nieces and nephews. He had pets.

  Paige hung up the extension quietly. Step one done. Make that two. Old flame and possible new flame with Wi-Fi man. The rest was up to her aunt.

  Paige’s room was chilly, though the window had been long since closed. She added an extra blanket and draped Michael’s shirt over her new pillow. It still had the vaguest scent of him or at least so her mind told her as she curled up clutching it. He would be back in her arms tomorrow.

  In her exhaustion, she didn’t see his text until the next morning.

  “Coming back to you is like wanting to rush back home. It should have been sooner. Sleep well, my sweet Flee.”

  Chapter Nine

  Paige’s aunt slept in and then rushed to her hospice care work. Paige just slept in. Excavating much of the trash in the dining room had revealed valuable items to sort through. She did this with an easier pace, cleaning off an entire collection of tins, which she lovingly stacked in the foyer. It almost looked like a brick wall of antique tins, most likely a few carrying some value.

  The nearly twenty clocks were placed on or around the dining room table for detailed cleaning, further assessment, or repair. She probably should have worked longer but didn’t. Having Wi-Fi was like a dream and far too tempting with music and direct access to accounts. Emails were easy to send. She stopped short of getting caught up in social media, since she was still incognito from her ex and his whole fraternity Buckhead crew.

  Paige rose and stretched, deciding to cook something. She began to marinate a defrosted roast. She peeled and cut root vegetables, singing as she went. Meal prepped. Though Michael would probably ask her to dinner, she wanted him to have a home cooked meal.

  That gave her pause. Did they really skip dating and go straight to homebodies? She looked down at her baggy clothing. Not just homebodies but a frumpy homebody?

  “I’m too young to play frumpy housewifey. Forget it,” Paige scolded the innocent roast before putting it in the oven.

  Yoga clothing called to her. She slipped into her formfitting things, expecting them to be tight with the calories she’d been consuming. Surprisingly, when she looked in the nearly unserviceable mirror propped in the hallway, her yoga outfit looked like it fit. That brightened her smile, even if the mirror was foggy and most likely misleading.

  She brought her mat to the foyer, appreciating the airiness the tall ceilings afforded. With soft Indie music, she moved through her yoga positions. It would be another hour before Michael arrived. Or so she thought.

  She was wrong. Almost through her routine, Paige bent into a wide-angle fold, hands to the floor, bottom to the door. She felt a sudden cold breeze on her upturned cheeks and looked between her legs. “Michael?”

  “I knocked.” He grinned and dropped his bags, arms open. “I see you are very ready for me.”

  She should have been miffed. She wasn’t even apprehensive or ready with a return quip. All she felt was happiness unfurl at the sight of him. She straightened and ran, ponytail bouncing, into his arms, and nearly bowled him over as she hugged him.

  “Love what you’ve done, Flee.”

  “The place. Yes, huge progress.”

  “No, Flee, your outfit and that flexibility.”

  “Are you going to kiss me, make lecherous comments, or what?” Paige demanded.

  “How about all three, especially the or what part?”

  Michael made good on his promise. He pulled her body against his, wrapping her in his arms, his coat open and enfolding her. He kissed her with a reacquainting flit of tenderness. The sweet kiss of greeting was only momentary.

  Paige’s breathing deepened. In an instant, he had her turned, back pressed to the door and making her gasp in no time. Cupping her ass cheeks, he lifted her. Never releasing her from his hungry kisses, her legs wrapped around him. He ground his hardeni
ng cock against the thin fabric of her yoga pants. Unfortunately, her leg slid on his coat, bringing her to her feet.

  His laugh resonated in the foyer.

  “Not sure you can tell I missed you, Flee.” Michael’s pants bulge was more than evident.

  “Hadn’t noticed,” she lied breathlessly.

  “I have something for you.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. She avoided saying, “I can tell” and instead tugged him up toward the stairs and bedroom. “Aunt Linney’s at work.”

  “Oh?” He threw his coat on to the worn newel cap in haste and lifted his travel bags, leaving the music and yoga mat behind. His light brown eyes never left sight of her, not even glancing to any of the house changes around him.

  By the time they reached her hovel of a bedroom, she tossed off her exercise bra and ripped clothing from him, the door to the bedroom left open. His shoes and pants flew off. His tie was stuck. He just yanked it overhead, flinging it somewhere out the door and over the handrail. They fell to the bed, Paige on her back, he on top.

  His deep voice growled, “No need to rush.”

  Paige felt the exact opposite. She silenced him, mirroring his deep, hungry-tongued kisses. His large, warm hands touched, exploring every inch of her naked upper body. His kisses left trails of goosebumps. He tugged on a nipple and let it snap, sucking it, sending shockwaves of longing through her.

  His hand alternated from gentle, gliding strokes to rubbing her yoga pants so firmly that the seam sank into her folds, eliciting a whimpering moan. He bit her neck and trailed up to her lips. The next fiery kiss tasted of Michael and slight musky salt from her own skin. Her legs pulled him, grinding against him through her pants. He tore the packet so hard it sent the condom flying.

  Her laugh flooded over his moans as he rose to dig for another in his clothing. She took that moment to tug off her pants and panties, leaning back, breathing so heavily that her breasts rose and fell with each breath. He rolled on a bright red condom. She eyed him and giggled again. He stood before her, his amber eyes set to hunger, melting her smile into a smolder. He crawled over her.

  There was no mature, sweet, lovemaking. There was only a raw fire. Positioning her legs wide apart, he drove deep into her. Rocking back, he then sank in again, the mushroom head of his cock driving all the way in. He ground into her.