Susan stared at him. She knew she’d see him at Christmas, but she hadn’t expected him just then and couldn’t think what to say.
“Thank you for your condolence note,” Pearl said, and Susan was surprised because she hadn’t known he’d written, and she smiled at Joe. The two looked at each other, not talking. Pearl glanced from one to the other and said, “If you two will finish hanging these lights, I’ll make cocoa.” Neither Joe nor Susan replied, and Pearl went inside, leaving them alone.
“Hey,” Joe said quietly, and Susan’s heart warmed.
“Hey yourself.”
Joe lifted his hand as if to touch her cheek, but then he turned and went to the ladder and picked up a string of lights. He climbed to the eaves of the house and began attaching the lights to hooks. After a bit he called down, “Are you still mad at me?”
Susan wanted to say yes, because she was, but she didn’t want Joe to know how much she cared. “For what?” She flushed, but her face was already red from the cold so she hoped he wouldn’t notice she had blushed.
“For switching schools and not telling you until the last minute.”
“Why would I care?”
Joe didn’t answer as he concentrated on securing the lights to the hooks along the eaves. When he was finished he stepped off the ladder. “Because I do.”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it,” Susan said. She wasn’t ready to let it go just yet.
“I should have written you, but I’m not very good at that.” He went up to her. “Come on, Susan. Give a guy a break. I know I should have told you as soon as I found out.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Your nose is red.”
“Who couldn’t forgive somebody after a compliment like that?” she told him and laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She was glad that was behind them. Joe was too precious to let his changing schools spoil the years of friendship.
As they went inside, Joe asked, “Do you want to go sledding Saturday?”
“Down the hill on Taos Street?”
“I almost forgot. You have good memories of that place.” He laughed, and Susan was warmed by the sound. “No, up on Loveland Pass. We’ve got a toboggan, two in fact. It’s great up there in those bowls. Besides, we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“I’d like that.”
She took off her coat and threw it over a love seat, and Joe saw the tiny arrow pinned to her sweater. “So, you’re a Pi Phi?” When Susan nodded, he said, “I guess you didn’t need my help, then. You must be having a good time at DU.”
“Of course,” Susan said, but she knew that now that Joe was back in Georgetown, she was going to have a better time at Christmas.
* * *
They drove up Loveland Pass, above timberline, in Joe’s truck, Susan sitting next to him in the unheated cab, huddled against him and feeling his warmth. A Georgetown girl whom Susan had known for years sat beside her, and four young men rode in the back of the truck. They got out when Joe stopped at the top of Loveland Pass. “I’ll drive down and meet you, then drive you back up. Somebody else can drive the next trip,” Joe told them, backing the truck around and starting down the mountain. Susan wanted to say she’d go with him, but that might make her feelings obvious.
The others pulled the sleds to a snowfield, then plotted how they would descend. “That’s an avalanche area over there.” One of the young men pointed to a cornice of snow. “Stay away from it.” He sat down on the sled, two others behind him, and they took off down the open slope to a chute between the trees. Susan and the others followed on the second sled, flying down the snowfield. But their sled hit a mound of snow and rose into the air, flipped over, throwing the sledders into the soft snow. Susan rolled over twice, then landed on her back, staring up at the sun, whose rays almost blinded her. She turned over on her hands and knees and looked around for the other two, who were sitting in the snow, looking sheepish.
“Not our best effort,” Susan said. The three waded through the snow after the toboggan, which had lodged in a pine tree, then pulled it to the road, where the others stood, waiting for Joe to drive them back up to the top of the pass.
“Are you hurt?” Joe asked Susan.
“I did better with a tire.” Joe laughed, and so did several others, because they had been among the children who had watched Susan roll down Taos Street inside the tire. This time, however, she didn’t have to prove herself, and it seemed that she and Joe were on the same side.
They got into the truck and rode up the mountain for a second run, which was more successful. Both sleds made it that time. They finished half a dozen runs, and on the last one, Susan sat behind Joe on the toboggan, while one of the young men drove his truck. There were just the two of them, and they took off, the sled aimed perfectly toward the chute, Susan exhilarated by the speed and the feeling of her arms around Joe’s back. She leaned forward, tightening her arms around him, feeling his hard body through his wool jacket. She laid her face against the rough fabric and closed her eyes, and then she heard a crack, and Joe pulled away from her as he shouted, “Avalanche!”
Susan glanced over his shoulder at the cornice that had broken off and fallen into the snow below it, setting off a slide that was rushing toward them. It would reach them in seconds if they continued straight down the slope. “We can’t outrun it. We’re going to the side,” Joe yelled, as he jerked the sled to the right, nearly toppling it, in an attempt to get out of the way of the avalanche. But the motion slowed the sled, and the edge of the slide caught them, throwing the two into the air.
Susan was enveloped in a swirling mist and tumbled into the snow, landing facedown, as the white rushed onward, covering her, not stopping until it reached the trees. She tried to turn over, but she was pinned down in the snow, which held her tight, and she thought she would suffocate. She would lie there until her air was used up, and she would die, and at first, the thought did not scare her, because she was warm and comfortable under the blanket of snow. But then she realized that Joe was buried, and she had to get him out. He would run out of air, or maybe he’d been crushed by a boulder or a tree. He could die, she thought, as she struggled to free her arms and legs. Joe could die! The others might not know they’d been caught in the snowslide. It was up to her to tell them where Joe was buried, although she herself didn’t know. She panicked as she shoved at the snow, which held her like wet clay.
At that moment, someone touched her leg. Then hands were on her head and back, scooping up the snow. In a minute, she lifted her head and saw the others around her, pushing the snow off her. “Joe?” She looked around, frantic. They had to find Joe.
“I’m here.”
She sighed deeply, coughing as she let out the air. “Are you all right?” She mumbled because her mouth was stiff from the cold.
“I’m fine. I rolled out of the avalanche. You were the one who was buried. How about you?”
She nodded. “I thought maybe you were dead.”
The others had gone to dig out the toboggan and the two were by themselves now. “No such luck. It takes more than a dinky avalanche to get me.”
“Oh, Joe, I was scared,” she blurted out.
He squatted down in the snow next to her.
“Not for me. For you!” Susan began to cry, the tears warm on her cold face.
“Hey, kiddo, it’s okay.” He put his arms around Susan and held her until she got control of herself. Then he helped her stand.
Susan felt foolish for the outburst and said, “First the snake, and now an avalanche. This is the second time you saved my life.”
“It’s an honor. You’re worth saving.” Joe put his arms around her and held her upright. “We’ll take it slow,” he said, but he didn’t move. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt.” He took a deep breath. “I was afraid you were buried. It was like that time when you were in the tire and I thought you were dead. I was never so relieved in my life when I heard you yell.” He leaned down and kissed her, and Susan didn’t care that the others were w
atching.
* * *
Susan and her parents attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at the Presbyterian church, and as they tramped through the snow on their way home, Pearl remarked that she’d always planned to be married in that church.
“Your father would have stopped us,” Frank said, but Pearl told him fondly that nothing would have prevented her from marrying him. “Maybe you’ll be married there,” her father told Susan.
“I’m going to be married in the Bride’s House,” she replied. “I’ve always wanted to be married in the Bride’s House.”
“Do you have somebody in mind?” her father teased, and Susan blushed and turned away.
On Christmas Day, the three of them ate dinner in the dining room, watching the snow that fell in big flakes outside, and then they went into the parlor and lit the candles. Pearl sat down at the big pianoforte and began playing “Silent Night,” just as the doorbell rasped, and Susan answered it.
Joe Bullock stood on the porch, bundled up against the storm. “Merry Christmas,” he said. He stamped his feet and brushed off his coat, then stepped inside, dripping snow onto the worn Persian rug in the foyer. He went into the parlor and greeted Pearl and Frank.
“We haven’t had coffee yet. I’ll go fix it. Come and help me, Frank.” Pearl took her husband’s hand and led him into the kitchen, leaving the two young people alone.
“I have a present for you,” Susan said, going to the tree and picking up a package. She handed it to Joe, then sat down on the piano stool, while he unwrapped a red wool scarf. “I knitted it. You can probably tell,” Susan said. “It’s a little crooked.”
“It’s perfect. I’ll take it to school.”
“You mean you’ll wear it on the beach?”
“It’s just the thing for the desert.” He reached into his pocket. “I got you something, too. I’m pretty lame at wrapping.” He handed her a white box.
Susan turned over the box in her hands, rubbing her finger over the white string that he had tied around it. Joe had never given her a present and she savored the moment.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Sure.” She slowly untied the string, then took off the lid and removed the white cotton and caught her breath as she lifted out a sterling silver snowflake with a pearl in the center. “It’s beautiful,” she told him, holding up the brooch so that it glimmered in the candlelight. “Oh, Joe, it’s beautiful.”
He seemed relieved. “I had Gusterman, the silversmith, make it for you. He had all these Christmas orders to finish, but I told him this was more important. Here, I’ll pin it on.” Joe unfastened the clasp and pinned the snowflake to Susan’s sweater, then stood back to admire it. “I thought you’d like it better than a toboggan. Or a snake.”
“Lots better,” Susan said. In fact, it was the best present she’d ever received, and she kissed him on the cheek. Before Joe could return the kiss, Susan’s parents came into the room with cups and a silver coffeepot.
* * *
On New Year’s Eve, the house shone in the light of white candles set in the evergreens and red poinsettias. Pearl and Susan had baked a ham and a turkey, prepared side dishes and canapés, and Frank had driven to Denver for champagne and liquor, caviar and petits fours. The invitations suggested formal Victorian dress, and Susan rummaged through trunks in the storeroom until she came across a dove-gray gown that made a perfect background for the silver snowflake Joe had given her. Joe arrived in a black suit of his grandfather’s, a beaver top hat on his head. Others came smelling like mothballs, and some who had misunderstood the invitations were clad as prospectors. Peggy was dressed as a dance-hall girl, with fishnet stockings and plunging neckline. A few of the younger guests drank too much, Peggy among them. Joe had to take her home, and to Susan’s disappointment, he missed the stroke of midnight and the toasts to 1951. He came back as the guests were leaving, and offered to help clean up, but Pearl said they’d worry about that in the morning. She and Frank were exhausted, and they were going to bed.
Joe and Susan were not tired, however. So because the house was stale from the cigarette smoke and the candles that had guttered in their holders, they went out. The temperature was near zero, and Susan put on her mother’s Persian lamb coat and a wool scarf, while Joe donned the top hat, and the two walked up Sixth Street, past shop windows still decorated for Christmas. They passed the Red Ram, the town bar, where a pair of drunken soldiers came out of the door, glasses in their hands. One of them stumbled and sloshed his drink onto Susan’s fur.
“Watch it, fellow,” Joe told him. The soldier, offended, put up his fists, but Joe only laughed at him. “Happy New Year to you,” he said, and he and Susan went on, leaving the revelers covered with confetti and blowing tin horns. They walked through the dark streets of the old residential district, where the Victorian houses were decorated with evergreen wreaths and garlands, just as they had been the only Christmas that Susan’s grandparents had spent together. Susan found the scene enchanting and thought spending Christmas in Georgetown had been a brilliant idea.
The two reached the park and sat on the steps of the bandstand, talking about their studies and the upcoming election, about politics and President Truman and the Korean War. “It’s wrong. Our boys are going to die there. Think about it. Guys we know won’t come back,” Joe said. Susan remembered Peter then and shivered. She hadn’t told Joe about Peter; in fact, she hadn’t thought much about Peter since she’d left school, hadn’t exchanged Christmas presents or even cards with him. But why should she? It wasn’t as if there was anything but a good time between them. Peter wasn’t Joe Bullock.
She had ruined her satin slippers in the slush, and her feet were cold, so they didn’t stay long in the park. Joe put out his hand to help her up, and then he kissed her and said, “Happy New Year.” It wasn’t much of a kiss, not like last summer. It was the sort of kiss you’d give anybody on New Year’s Eve, and she was disappointed.
Still, Joe held her hand as they hurried back to the Bride’s House, and once inside, he agreed to have another glass of champagne. She opened a fresh bottle, and while Joe built up the fire Susan poured the champagne into stemmed glasses, and they toasted the New Year.
They sat across from each other on the love seats, Joe with his tie tossed aside, Susan rubbing her stocking feet because they were red with cold. In a moment, Joe sat beside her, saying, “Let me do that,” and he began to warm her feet in his hands. “What changes do you think we’ll see a year from now?” he asked after a time.
“A new President for sure.”
“Not that. I’m talking about you and me, us.”
Susan didn’t know what “us” meant, because Joe had never said anything about the two of them, so she replied, “I guess I’ll be a sophomore, and you’ll be getting ready for law school. Or maybe you’ll be drafted.” She turned and faced him. “I’d hate that, Joe, if you got drafted and sent to Korea.”
He shrugged, and Susan leaned back against the love seat. “I mean us. Do you think we’ll be together to celebrate next New Year’s?” he asked. Susan had barely touched her champagne, but Joe had finished his and refilled his glass—twice. He’d been drinking during the evening, too.
“That would be nice,” she replied, hoping “us” meant the two of them as a couple. She didn’t want Joe to know she assumed that, however, so she said, “Maybe Mother and Father will want to spend Christmas here again next year.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m asking whether you think we have a future together, you and me?”
Susan studied his face in the firelight, his head down a little, his curly hair falling over his forehead. His brown eyes seemed to bore into her, seeing all the way to her heart. She wanted to tell him yes, but she was too unsure of herself. “You saved my life,” she said instead.
“I guess that means I have a claim on you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
Joe brought his
head close to hers, and she could feel his breath on her cheek. “I’m not sure. You’re pretty special, you know. You always have been. I’ve been thinking…” He didn’t finish.
“Thinking what?”
“I don’t know. It’s a long time out. I’ve got to finish college and law school before I can even think about getting married.” He poured more champagne and drank it down.
“Married?” she said in a tiny voice, not able to look at him for fear she hadn’t heard him right. Instead, she stared across the room at the Christmas tree, the branches thin, set far apart. If Bert hadn’t cut it down, the tree might have grown as tall as the jackpines in front of the Bride’s House. The tinsel glittered in the light from the fire. “What are you saying?” she asked.
Joe didn’t answer for a while. “I’m saying I think you’re the greatest girl I know, and I think I might be in love with you.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “How’s that for a way to start the New Year?”
The firelight seemed to glow inside Susan now, as she heard the words she had longed for, heard Joe say he loved her … well, maybe he loved her, but that was good enough. “You’re what?” she asked when Joe was silent.
“You heard me. I never said that to anybody before.” He took Susan’s champagne glass out of her hand and set it on the table beside the love seat, but it rolled off and fell onto the floor. Joe ignored it as he pushed Susan down on the sofa and began kissing her—her face, her neck, her shoulders. He stopped and put his mouth against hers, and she kissed him back, kissed him long and hard and pushed her tongue into his mouth the way Peter kissed her.
Joe sat up and held her tight, and she could feel him grope at the stays and lacings and bands of her Victorian dress. “Who designed this, your mother?” he asked, his voice low.
The Bride’s House Page 28
