by Mila Summers
"Emily, for the life of me, I have no idea what you're talking about," I lied, as I called up into memory the images from my room that morning. I felt my cheeks redden as I thought about the scenes in question.
"Oh, come on. You know exactly what I mean. I think you just don't want to talk about it. Then don't. Fine by me," she answered in a huff.
"I don't kiss and tell," I answered theatrically.
Whereupon Emily looked at me with amusement and we both snorted with laughter.
Chapter 9
I felt like a princess in my fabulous dress. Emily did my makeup and fixed my hair in the restroom at the restaurant.
Taking a last scrutinizing look, I examined my makeup and had to admit that Emily had done a good job of it. My cheeks were covered with a delicate red rouge. My eyes were so expertly made up that they appeared larger. I was going to have to ask how she did it when I had a chance.
Emily hastened to receive the guests and lead them to their seats. Each of us had assigned duties so as not to disturb the flow of the festivities.
Mitch and I had the task of ensuring that Aunt Margaret and Aunt Heather didn't come to blows after the meal. The two sisters had fallen for the same man long ago. It was a shame that neither of them knew about the other and the guy had made a joke out of starting up a relationship with the both of them. When his cover was blown, the two rivals went at each other's throats and the culprit ran for the hills. They hadn’t spoken a single word to each other from that day forward.
For the meal, the quarreling pair were seated far apart and Mitch and I were to each look after one of the ladies. I sincerely hoped Heather would not torment me with annoying questions.
So far I had been lucky. The guests had not yet paid much attention to Mitch and me. Which was understandable. The focus was exclusively on the bridal couple. As it should be.
"You look good enough to eat," I heard Mitch quietly whisper in my ear as he pulled out the chair for me.
"Thanks," I answered just as quietly, as the rouge on my cheeks darkened a shade.
During the meal, Mitch stroked my knee with his hand over and over, as if by accident, and slowly but surely made his way up my leg. I kept him in check just in time during each attempt, although it got more difficult to hold him off.
His touch sparked a blazing fire which was having an effect on every part of my body. Hopefully nobody saw the little game taking place under the table. It was so embarrassing that I could hardly concentrate on the table conversation.
Next to me, Emily began to tell me something about the food but I didn't notice until she looked at me quizzically and was apparently waiting for an answer.
"What do you have to say about it?"
"Hmm?" I revealed my inattentiveness.
"Have you even been listening to me?"
"Of course I have. I was just a little ... distracted," I gave Mitch a chastising look, while he gave me an amused smile.
"Ah, I see," Emily replied, not missing our meaningful looks.
"Love is a beautiful thing," I heard her say, as Mitch slipped a little closer to me and touched my lips with the breath of a kiss.
After the meal, there were some speeches on the program which we patiently endured. After Uncle Paul had stood up over and over again, losing himself in endless reminiscences, James valiantly declared the dance floor open.
Not a moment too soon. The faces of the guests were already showing the first signs of fatigue. One was yawning, another rubbing his eyes. We had to get them out of their chairs, otherwise the mood threatened to plummet. Nothing was worse than a wedding where the guests left the celebration before midnight.
Before Mitch and I looked after the two older ladies, we wanted to take a risk on a first dance with each other. He offered me his hand and I nodded all too willingly.
After the bride and groom ended their opening dance, the masses stormed onto the dance floor and we mixed in with the others as a matter of course.
"Ready?" Mitch asked, as he brought me to the starting position.
"I think so," I answered tentatively.
Mitch looked deeply into my eyes for the next three minutes, directly into my soul. He led me expertly over the floor, as we completely blocked out everybody around us.
The butterflies in my stomach were doing somersaults and kept bumping against the sides of my belly. This was what all those people meant by the tingling feeling in your stomach.
The intensity of this feeling was new to me. I had never felt this strongly before. With Mike it had been different. I had thought I felt that way before, but in retrospect I had to admit that I had been mistaken.
As the song came to an end Mitch took my hand, kissed it tenderly, and thanked me for the dance. We stood hand in hand on the dance floor for an eternity. Neither of us was ready to be separated from the other.
We didn't leave until we heard an alarming commotion in the back of the restaurant. Apparently some guests were getting in each other's hair. Our charges, Heather and Margaret, obviously were not of the opinion that we should be spending any more time together.
At any rate, it appeared that the two had purposefully sought each other out. Just now, the pair were swapping friendly anecdotes from their past and taking care to make sure that everybody in the hall could hear their conversation.
Mitch tore away from me and set off directly towards the quarreling couple. It only took a few words from him for them to let each other go. I likewise made my way through the crowd and overtook Heather, carefully grasping her by the arm and pulling her to another section of the hall. Far away from Margaret.
"Let me go," she scolded me furiously when she noticed I had taken her out of the danger zone.
"I will be happy to as soon as there is some space between you and Margaret," I answered matter-of-factly.
"What are you thinking? Who are you?" she snapped at me.
"I'm Stacy, Mitch's girlfriend," I heard myself say. I was only aware of the impact of these words when Heather stopped, took a good look at me, and then said with approval,
"Good for you, my child. Nobody has ever managed that before. Mitch has always been a lone wolf, you should know. How did you manage to lure him in?" she looked at me with interest.
"I don't know myself," I shrugged my shoulders in answer.
"Come, let's sit down at the table back there. There isn't anybody left to disturb us. You can tell me everything down to the last detail," she seized my hand and pulled me with a quick jerk to the chairs nearby.
Heather attacked me like a piranha and wouldn't let go, and it wasn't just the way she acted that reminded me of those small predators. She also resembled them physically. Besides her googly eyes and her narrow, sunken face, her sparse teeth stuck out with gaps between them.
While Heather subjected me to a cross-examination, the party really got going. The band played one hit after another, inviting the guests to dance the night away.
I watched Sue and Bob as they exuberantly glided over the floor. The strain of the previous hours was no longer visible. Mitch's parents and his sister Emily were also clearly discernible in the crowd. Everybody was entertaining themselves brilliantly except for Mitch and me.
We were bound to two specimens from the stone age who were in danger of clubbing each other's heads in, if nobody watched them. Sporadically, we sent each other encouraging looks. Without these glances, Heather's supervision would have been a little more difficult.
"You know, child, life is much too short to argue but when it's about true love, you tend to overlook this principle."
I turned with interest to Heather and listened to her talk. The rage had disappeared from her voice. Now only the only thing left was the insight of an old woman who was certainly aware of what she had missed out on in life.
"Jim was a sales representative who traveled from city to city. When he settled down in our little village for a few weeks, the women starting lining up in front of his motel door after a couple of day
s. Married or not, it didn't matter. They all fancied him. No exceptions. After a few days, when he came to our house and asked me for a date, I was more than flattered. I'm sure you can imagine. It seemed as if he preferred me above all the other women and girls. When he asked me to keep the relationship secret, I didn't have a problem with it. You should know, our father was very strict and would have never permitted us to go out with a man without being married. Those days were different. Sometimes I wish I were still living back then. Where did I leave off? Oh, yes. Now, Jim was a true Casanova, you know. Besides the fling with me and Margaret, he had a handful of additional women on the side. The man was simply insatiable. After the whole thing blew up, he fled the city in haste and left a multitude of broken hearts behind. I have never told anybody before but I'm not angry at Margaret because she fell for him just as hard as I did. The thing which cut to the quick is the fact that she didn't tell me anything about it. She knew how much I loved him and she threw herself at him anyway. That's not how a big sister is supposed to act. I haven't been able to forgive her to this day," Heather finally ended her monologue.
"Have you thought about the fact that she might see it from a similar point of view?" I asked, eager to bring some objectivity into the matter.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, she might be angry that you didn't say anything about your own relationship with Jim. You really need to talk this out with each other, I think. How long ago did it happen? 40 years? 50 years? Do you want to go on this way until someday it's too late and one of you dies without being able to reconcile beforehand?"
Heather gave me a piercing look. I counted on her reading me the riot act at any second but contrary to expectations, she agreed with a nod, got up and walked directly towards Margaret.
Mitch came over to me after he was convinced that Heather had come forward with good intentions.
"What in the world did you say to her? She came over meek as a lamb and wanted to speak calmly with Margaret. I never would have thought that was possible. Not in my lifetime."
"We were just chatting a little. Nothing more than that," I acted modestly.
"Ah, ha, women's secrets?"
"Could be," I chose not to reveal more.
"Well, if that's the way it is, I won't ask for further details. Would you like to cook up a storm on the dance floor with me?"
"Always. But this time, I'm leading," I joked.
"Well, you'd probably prefer it that way," he murmured suggestively in my ear.
Chapter 10
When you believe that an evening could not get any more perfect, you should allow it to end and just go home. Somehow we had reached our zenith and started down again and that made the events which followed no less terrible, but possibly a trace more explainable.
The mood remained exuberant until the early morning hours. After Margaret and Heather had buried the hatchet after 47 years, there was additional reason to fully celebrate the evening. Not that we needed the reconciliation on top of everything else. But the family saw it as a lucky coincidence that the two had settled their differences on this very day.
After all the bustling about, I allowed myself a cocktail at the bar with Mitch. We came together, pleased to have coped so well this day, and would have gone home satisfied.
Well, it could have gone that way. One uses the subjunctive in this case because what happened was not wished for, planned, or desired. Before my glass reached my mouth, I heard a loud voice behind me call Mitch's name.
Surprised, I looked at Mitch, whose eyes were unusually large, and then looked over my shoulder. A good-looking brunette, approximately in her mid-twenties, was heading for us as she frantically waved her arm to get our attention.
As I waited spellbound to see what this person was intending, Mitch walked past me and greeted her by seizing her arm.
"What are you doing here?" I heard him say.
"Ow, you're hurting me," the slender figure retorted, as her stricken doe-eyes looked on.
"Once more, Samantha. What are you doing here?" Mitch persisted, his eyes flashing. The saying if looks could kill was not just an empty phrase in this case. In fact, you would expect that this woman could fall down dead at any minute.
Hey, wait a minute! What had he just called her? Did I hear right? It couldn't be. Or could it? Would she actually dare to show up here? That bordered on madness.
"I told you that I had to talk to you," she answered with less sweetness.
"Then say what you have to say and go."
"Who's that at the bar? Is she your latest? You haven't left yourself a lot of time to get over me. Or had you already started a relationship when we were still together?"
"You can shut your mouth and head for the door you just came in."
"And if I don't? What then? Are you going to pull me over your knee and spank me?"
"Samantha, that's enough. Leave before I forget myself and I say or do things I might regret."
"Hmm, let me think. Actually, I think it's rather nice here. Maybe I'll chat a little with your girlfriend," she threw me a significant look and made a move towards me.
"Damn it, Samantha. That is not my girlfriend. Stacy and I have an agreement. Nothing more."
My blood ran cold at his words. They echoed in my head and painfully struck my temples without warning. Unbelievable agony gripped my body, as if somebody had stabbed my heart with a knife and twisted it in the wound with relish.
The band had stopped playing as all eyes in the room seemed to rest on our threesome. Nobody dared speak, nobody dared breathe. Complete silence filled the room.
"Mitch, I'm pregnant by you," was the last thing I heard before I fled the hall, light-headed. I had to get away. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. Didn't look back. Didn't pay attention to the people standing around, looking at me with pity. I had to get away from here.
I kept running although I had left the hall behind me some time ago. How could he do that to me now? He had exposed me in front of his family and his friends. He might as well have ripped out my heart, stomped on it, and cut it up in tiny pieces.
And Samantha? She was pregnant by him and now was hoping for a reconciliation. Would he give her another chance? Would he make a leap of faith for a child and leave the past behind him? Was he in a position to overlook her misstep?
What did I care? What Mitch and I had was over and done with. He could not have made it clearer what he thought of me. With a heavy heart, I had to admit I had hurled myself all too naively into the affair.
A man who still had to resolve things from his past was not a good match. In retrospect one is always wiser, but this realization had cost me a broken heart and at least five blisters on my feet, which had been running around Chicago in high heels the whole time.
What on earth should I do now? Where should I go? Before I could form a plan, the decision was made for me. Mitch appeared beside me in his dark blue Cadillac Escalade.
Honking, he drew my attention, which only spurred me to keep running. I turned into a side street in the hope he would leave me alone and not keep driving after me. Unfortunately, to no avail. He remained on my heels and followed me into what turned out, to my chagrin, to be a dark cul-de-sac. When I came to the end, he stopped behind me.
"Stacy, please listen to me. I am so very sorry," he began to speak, climbing out of the car and slowly coming towards me.
"Oh, really? What exactly for? That you accidentally let slip our little secret, that you trampled all over my feelings, or that Samantha is expecting a child by you?"
"For everything. But mostly I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings. I'm so terribly sorry that I couldn't control myself. But Samantha provoked me until I just couldn't say anything else. I was not in control of the situation and when she accused me of already being with you during my relationship with her, I blew a fuse. I cannot express in words how sorry I am. Please, Stacy. I was a total idiot. Can you forgive me once again? I truly regret that I've pulled you i
nto this whole thing."
"You and your Samantha deserve each other. At this point I don't have anything more to say. I really thought that this time I had met a genuinely nice guy who I liked. I was thoroughly deluded. The only thing I'm sorry for is that I climbed into your damn car a few days ago. Then I would have saved myself a lot of grief," I suddenly began to cry. Not from grief or sorrow over what could have been, no, the tears were more the embodiment of my pent-up rage.
"But this can't be all there is. Not after what happened between us. You must feel it too. Stacy, please don't give up. I'm sure we're worth fighting for. Give us a chance."
"Why would I want to? Give me just one reason why I should put everything on the line again? Why would it be worth it?"
"For love, Stacy. We belong together. Please believe me."
"Not after what just happened."
"Is that the last thing you have to say?"
"Mitch, what do you expect from me? You've just jettisoned everything that connected us. Your family doesn't have a need to see me anymore. God knows what they'll think of me. There is no going back. Don't you see that? You've pulled the rug out from under us."
"I can't see it that way. Stacy, we both feel drawn to each other. Doesn't that mean anything? How can I make up for my stupid mistake? Because of one moment of carelessness, you're going to punish me for a lifetime? You can't mean that."
"Don't you start putting the blame on me. I didn't lose control because my ex provoked me. That was you and you alone. Mitch, we're going round in circles. Would you please drive me to your parents' place so I can pick up my things? I would like to leave as quickly as possible."
"Is that what you want?"
"Yes, it is."
If I thought the hardest part would be surviving the drive with Mitch alone in the car, then I had thoroughly deceived myself. That was demonstrated fairly clearly as soon as I climbed out of the car and the door to the house opened without any warning.
