Spring fancy

by LaVyrle Spencer

  "Yes, to an auction sale."

  She was flabbergasted. "An auction sale. Jo-Jo Duggan, you're crazy. I'm addressing my wedding invitations, and you invite me to an auction sale."

  "Yes. There's a '41 Ford on the billboard, and there'll be a swap meet, and I might be able to pick up a piece for my '54 Cadillac pickup I haven't been able to find. I thought we might drive it up there."

  "And what about Paul? Should I invite him to come along with us?"

  "Sure. We'll put him in a coffin, and he can ride in the back."

  She gave a nasal snort of laughter before she could stop herself, then covered her nose with a hand. "That's awful, Joseph!" she scolded.

  "With a comfortable pillow and blanket, of course," he added, "not a satin lining. And a thermos of iced tea to keep him company for the long ride."

  She resisted the gravity of his teasing and became serious once again. "Joseph, I have to go now."

  "My leg could use some of that attention you promised."

  "Goodbye, Joseph."

  "And I've signed up for dancing classes."

  "Goodbye, Joseph."

  "And I can't find anybody who's half as good as you on the racket-ball court, or who kiss-"

  She forced herself to hang up gently. But she dreamed of his curls and crinkly eyes that night.

  * * *

  The prenuptial craziness continued the next day when Fern reminded Winn to send the caterers their time schedule and be sure not to forget to put return postage on the R.S.V.P. notes, and to tell her she'd found the perfect stem glasses for the toasting ceremony of the bride and groom. Winn shook her head as if she'd just been landed a right uppercut. They had to buy special glasses for that?

  At eight that evening Winn sat at the kitchen table pouring on the steam to her addressing operation. A knock sounded, and Paul came in without waiting for her to answer.

  "Winnie, darling, the most wonderful thing has come up!" He swept into the kitchen and stepped behind her chair, grasping her shoulders while bending low to kiss her neck. "I've been asked to go out to California for a week. The company is sending me on a tour of The Valley! Imagine that-The Valley!" She knew by now there was only one "valley" in Paul's vocabulary. He referred to " Silicon Valley," the world's foremost computer-manufacturing area.

  "When?"

  "I leave tomorrow for a week. There'll be tours of all the major computer-manufacturing plants and opportunities to learn about all the latest technological advances." The entire country knew that the area just south of San Jose had been in the vanguard of computer technology and was populated with brilliant young men and women whose genius in the field would see many of them millionaires in their thirties. Their expertise was so valued in the industry that the term "The Valley" was now recognized worldwide. Innovations came from The Valley so fast and radically that a computer was often obsolete almost before it rolled off the assembly line, bettered by its successor. Winn understood how the opportunity must excite Paul.

  He urged her up from her chair. He kissed her ardently, then asked, "Can you get along without me, darling? I know there's a lot going on, and I know I shouldn't be leaving you at this time, but it's the chance of a lifetime, Winnie." Seldom did his eyes dance like this. She looked into them and tried to conjure up even a quarter of the electric response generated by the mere sound of Joseph Duggan's voice crossing a telephone wire.

  "Of course, I can get along without you for a week. All I really need to get done right now is the invitations, and you can't help me with them."

  "Oh, thank you, darling." He cupped the back of her head and lifted her toward his kiss-an excited, searching kiss-then wrapped her in both arms and pressed her body close to his. She clung and kissed him back with an almost violent twisting of her body against his, pressing and writhing against him. But it didn't work. She was forcing the issue, and when her body failed to respond as fully as she'd hoped, Winn realized Paul was stimulated as much by excitement over the trip to Silicon Valley as he was by his bride-to-be.

  "Winnie," he groaned in her ear. "Let's go to bed. God, it's so good to have you like this again. Something's been wrong for the last few weeks, and I haven't been able to put my finger on it. But tonight you're like you used to be."

  She kissed his jaw as she answered, "No, Paul, not tonight."

  He drew back, hurt. "But I'll be gone for a whole week."

  "I have my period." It was a lie, and she suffered the weight of guilt for it while he encircled her in his arms again, slipped his hands beneath her shirt and caressed her breasts while groaning into her ear.

  "Damn!" he murmured at last, forcing himself to release her.

  She offered him a consolation that hardly eased her conscience. "When you get back, we'll go out shopping for the lamps and buy you the chess table, too."

  "I love you," he declared gently.

  His eyes were filled with admiration and gratitude, but he was as eager to leave as she was to have him go when he left a short while later.

  After he was gone, she returned to her wedding invitations and attacked them almost frenziedly. She worked that night until midnight and the following night till ten-thirty when she became drowsy and got up to make a pot of coffee to help keep herself awake. She finished the last pink envelope around 1:30 A.M. and licked two hundred and twenty-five stamps before going to bed. She wondered if it was the taste of the glue that made her feel slightly nauseous.

  * * *

  On Friday morning-precisely four weeks and one day before the big event-she dropped the two hundred and twenty-five shell pink envelopes in the big drop box at the post office and breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Tonight when Paul called from California, she'd tell him. Then she'd feel excited.

  At work she wrapped patients' limbs in hot packs, then put them through their various rehab exercises. She determined the resistance levels of those who rode the stationary bikes and decided how much weight to strap to those limbs needing strengthening. She gave massages, had a consultation with a doctor regarding a new patient to whom she was being assigned, went to lunch with two co-workers and told them she'd finally mailed her wedding invitations.

  And at one o'clock that afternoon, Mrs. Christianson called Winn to her office and quietly announced that Meredith Emery had died.

  Winnifred tried valiantly to control her tears.

  "But she's due for her therapy at two o'clock," she said inanely, as if the reminder would bring the child back to life to meet the schedule.

  Mrs. Christianson took Winn's hand, led her to the exercise room and forced her to sit on the edge of a table, then sat down behind her and started massaging Winn's shoulders and neck.

  "You've got very close to this one, I know, Winnifred. And it's hard when you get close. Take the rest of the day off, then go out this weekend and do something wild and crazy to take your mind off it."

  The woman's hands were superbly trained and exceedingly adept. She gently kneaded without pinching. But the pain couldn't be massaged away. It went too deep. Winn bent forward, braced her elbows to her knees and dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.

  "Go home, Winnifred. Go home and take a run, then soak in a hot tub and call that man of yours and celebrate life with him instead of dwelling on death."

  But Mrs. Christianson didn't know that man of hers was two thousand miles away, paying homage to a bloodless nerveless entity called "the computer."

  Still, Winn followed her supervisor's advice. She put on her green shorts and sweat shirt and ran. She felt the overwhelming need to be outside where blossoms and fresh-cut grass gave testimony to the green resurrection of the world. She sucked in the fecund late May air and counted the number of people who were out planting their backyard gardens, and watched a pair of kites sailing far above her head, realizing two hearty and hale people held the other ends of the strings. She lifted a hand in greeting to every toddler on every tricycle she passed. She cut through a park where pet owners were out walking their d
ogs and through the parking lot of a small neighborhood grocery store where husbands were stopping to buy cartons of milk on their way home for suppers with wives and children. She steeped herself in life, clinging to each piece of evidence that it thrived, carrying those pictures with her while her legs pumped and stretched and passed the point of easy endurance. She ran on, feeling the heat build in her muscles, welcoming it as a reminder that she lived, panted, burned and ached.

  Back at home she draped herself across the kitchen counter, pressing her hot cheek to its cool Formica surface, hardly able to stand for several minutes while her breath beat against her up-thrown arm. When her heart had calmed and her breathing slowed, she stood beneath the pummeling hot shower before eating the most calorie-filled foods she had in the house-all starches and sugars and the forbidden junk she rarely put into the body she kept at its peak as a defense against all those she encountered daily who were not as lucky as she.

  Paul called. She told him about Meredith Emery in as unemotional a voice as she could manage. He listened and offered a token response of sympathy before reminding her that it was best not to bring her worries home at the end of the workday, especially with a job like hers.

  Rage grew within Winn that he, who spent night after night locked away from her, clattering the keyboard of a computer named Rita, should tell her not to bring her career-oriented concerns home at the end of the day!

  In bed she tossed and flailed, and studied the black square of window and tried to cry but failed.

  At 11:00 P.M. she gave in and called Joseph Duggan.

  One of his brothers answered, then Joseph came on the line and grunted sleepily, "Yeah?"

  "Joseph, it's Winn."

  In the tiny house in Osseo, Joseph Duggan stood in his jockey shorts beside his grandmother's kitchen sink, which was piled high with dirty cups and plates, and pictured the woman whose voice now spoke in his ear. He pictured her as she'd looked the day he turned and found her watching him scrubbing up after work.

  "Winn," he repeated, as if the name released a flock of white doves.

  "Joseph, I need somebody tonight. I can't… oh, please, Joseph, can you meet me?"

  "Anywhere. Anytime."

  "Will I sound ridiculous if I ask you to play a game of racket ball at this hour of the night?"

  "I'm already tying my Adidas."

  "My club is open till midnight. It's closer than yours. I'll meet you there. Ask at the desk which court, and I'll tell them you're my guest."

  "Let me go, so I can hurry."

  He ran through the house searching frantically for anything to throw on, grabbing the first thing he found-a pair of sawed-off blue jeans and giving up when he couldn't find a shirt fast enough, so heading out without one, only his shoes in his hand, and his racket.

  At the club he careered to a halt before the sleepy night-desk attendant and impatiently whacked a palm down beside the registration book. "What court is Winn Gardner in?"

  "Number six."

  He jogged down the long corridor and panted to a halt before the only court in which the lights were burning.

  She was waiting in the middle of the floor, huddled, arms to knees and forehead to arms, facing the front wall. He stepped down onto the wooden floor and paused.

  "Winn?"

  Her head snapped up, and she spun around on her buttocks.

  "Oh, Joseph, thank you for coming."

  He crossed the distance between them with a strong muscular stride. "Don't you dare thank me for coming, Winn. Not me."

  She swallowed hard and had an awful, belligerent set to her jaw as she rolled to her knees and looked up at him, standing above her. "Work me hard tonight, Joseph," she demanded sternly. "Don't give me no quarter. Promise?"

  Their eyes dashed, and he wondered what this was all about but let her carry it to whatever end she desired without enlightening him in the meantime.

  "I promise."

  She leaped up and stripped her sweat shirt off almost angrily, flung it out into the hall and slammed the door. He watched, frowning as she strode to the center of the backcourt, dressed in a white T-shirt and green shorts.

  "Serve!" she ordered, disdaining warm-ups, staring at the front wall almost as if she'd forgotten Joseph was there except as an instrument to do her bidding.

  He strode to the serving lane and gave her what she wanted. He worked her like a slave driver, giving her everything he had. She smashed the ball with a vehemence that was awesome. She drove it and backhanded it, and all the time her teeth were clenched and her jaw bulging. She rushed forward to meet each oncoming ball as if her life depended upon meeting it in time. She was vicious and at times almost ugly in her grim fanaticism. But in that ugliness lurked a true beauty, that of the athlete who pushes her body to its physical limits. She arched her back to a torturous angle as she reached for high shots behind her head. She lunged with a pure surge of might and sometimes climbed two steps up the concrete walls in her frantic effort to wreak whatever vengeance she must upon a dumb blue sphere of rubber.

  The sweat flowed freely. She swung at a shot and missed, then when the next serve came, cracked it dead center while gritting for emphasis, "Goddamn you!"

  They played at the torturous pace for thirty minutes, then Joseph had to know. He stood at the serving line with his back to her and stubbornly refused to turn around while asking, "Did you send out the wedding invitations?"

  "Yes!" she barked. "Serve, dammit!"

  Joseph felt as if she'd stabbed him in the back with a broken blade.

  They played fifteen minutes more, but now he was attacking each shot as recklessly, as angrily as she. Tonight it mattered not in the least who won or lost. It only mattered that they slammed the ball against the concrete walls and got even with the world's injustices and demands.

  "Why?" he growled as his racket punished the innocent ball.

  "Because I couldn't stop it!" She, too, performed an injustice to the game of racket ball with her next return.

  "Is that why you're doing this?"

  The whistling return he'd expected to fly past his ear never materialized. Instead, behind him all was silent. He whirled, white lipped now with fury. Dammit, he loved this woman! They stared each other down-she was poised as if to turn her racket on him while he gripped his own racket with a fist so tight it made veins bulge like blue rivers up his arms.

  "Is that why?" he demanded angrily.

  "No!" she bleated. Then, without warning, Winn Gardner collapsed to her knees, hugged her head and broke into a torrent of sobbing.

  Jo-Jo's racket clattered to the floor. He was bending to her in less than a second, knee to knee, grasping her arms in a painful grip. "Winn, please tell me what this is all about."

  Her hair was strewn and wild, for it had not been pampered after its last washing. It prodded the air around her face while her mouth yawned in anguish and tears streamed from her tormented eyes. Her fingers plucked at Joseph's chest as if searching for a shirt to grasp.

  "Oh, God, Joseph, she died." And then he understood.

  "Winn… Winn…" Gently he embraced her, kissing her temple, wanting to slip her inside his very body to protect her from further pain. "I'm sorry, darling. I'm sorry."

  Her body jerked. Her arms clung. The salt of sweat and tears intermingled upon his neck as she buried her face there and wept. Incoherently she babbled out her sorrow while he quietly held her, understanding the meaning if not the words. Joseph and Win were bound together wherever their bare skins touched by the sweat they'd forced from each other's bodies during the grueling combat of the past half hour. He ran his hands as far around her as he could and drew her in as if his arms were attached to a winch, and only she could release its catch. Their knees were widespread now, their stomachs and breasts molded flat together. Her hurt became his. And because she cried, his eyes misted, too.

  When her sobbing grew terrifying, he plowed his hands through her hair and forced her head back, covering her mouth with his in a b
lessed surcease of solitariness. Their tongues, like the ball they had just battered, drove and smashed and volleyed, continuing to fight the fight of the living against the invincibility of death. Their heads moved as if they were fighting each other with their open mouths, when there was truly no fight at all, only enormous relief from tensions both emotional and sexual.

  He pushed her back and fell with her onto the middle of the vast empty floor, covering her hard-muscled body with his own. His elbows struck the floor, then her head was cradled in his arms in a half awkward, half meshing embrace while their well-matched bodies fused. His hips shifted to one side, and a knee nudged hers open. She complied with profound defiance of everyone and everything save Joseph Duggan, placing her soles on the floor, widening her straddle until he was couched securely within her thighs, and she could freely and angrily thrust up against him.

  At first their breaths were ragged, hers still shredded by the last vestiges of weeping. But soon they became conscious of the faint hum of the overhead lights in the otherwise still room. Neither their lips nor hips had separated when the writhing and lashing out stopped.

  Their kiss grew tender, the movements of their heads mellowed into those of lovers exploring something wondrous. Her knees were still flexed, but they relaxed now, and one of them slipped down to lie flat against the floor while the other caressed his hip.

  Combat became caress.

  Grip became greeting.

  Anger became accolade.

  They moved as a wave moves upon the shore, one upon the other, slipping up to explore, cover, then receding to await the next nudge of nature.

  His body was hard. He used it to encourage, to invite, but not to assault or punish. She lifted rhythmically in acceptance, and he backed away the shortest distance possible, only enough to see her wide blue eyes, filled with acceptance of the inevitable, and with something else, trembling, breathless loving.