Any Rainy Thursday

by Jessie Salisbury

  He said softly, little more than a breath, “My Bonny Thea, I knew you would come to me.”

  She moved closer, realized that his chest was bare. “How did you know that?” She felt impelled to add, “You said goodbye, that you wouldn’t be here again.”

  “And you believed me?”

  She couldn’t answer. She had doubted. She hadn’t trusted.

  He pulled her closer, tightening his arms around her. “Because it’s raining and it’s Thursday.” His lips found hers again, more insistent, and his hand moved down her back, holding her against him. He whispered, crooning softly, “My beautiful Althea in the Rain on Thursday. Of course I came back to you.”

  She gave in totally to the song, to the moment and to her need. She pressed her stomach against his. She asked, her face against his, “Did you wait here very long?”

  “I would have waited all night.”

  “And if I hadn’t come out?”

  “I guess I would have had to go looking for you.”

  “But, how did . . .” his hand was on her thigh, gently caressing, disrupting her thought.

  “You told me you always walk in the rain and I know Thursday is your favorite day.” His questing hand found the bottom of her shirt and pushed it upward along her thigh. “I needed you.”

  “I needed you, but you left. You said goodbye and you didn’t come back.”

  “I was upset by you knowing about me, my past. That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  She murmured, “You have a plan?”

  He didn’t answer, just pulled her a little closer, held her a little more firmly.

  She felt him stirring against her groin and responded to it without thinking, her lips again on his, trying not to make her need obvious. Miles wasn’t really part of her fantasy. At least, he hadn’t been. But now . . .

  His hand was on her bare buttock. He asked into her ear, “Do you always run around half naked? Or is that just for me? Knowing I would be here?”

  His arrogance, his self-assuredness, almost cooled her growing desire. She pulled away so she could look up at him, but she couldn’t see him clearly in the dimness. The mist grew heavier, almost rain. She shivered convulsively.

  He stepped backward, guiding her into the partial shelter of the arbor, and closer into his embrace. “You’re cold.”

  “Not really.” And she wasn’t. She was too filled with expectation, the unexpected fulfillment of her long-held dream. And Miles’ return.

  He said, his lips against her cheek, “A wet tee shirt doesn’t keep you very warm.” She heard the invitation in his voice, the suggestion, and laughed. “So I’ll get rid of it.”

  He pushed the soggy shirt upward, into her armpits, and then cupped his hands around her breasts, caressing lightly with his thumbs. He kissed the fullness of the curve and then the nipple, touching gently with his tongue and sending another kind of shiver deliciously through her body. She moved closer, her bare body against his.

  “I can’t see you,” he said, and pulled her into to the open space behind the arbor. “I want to see all of your beauty.”

  Enough lambent light remained to let her see his face, but not the expression in his eyes. She said, she hoped not too coyly, “So, here I am.” She couldn’t quite finish the quote, take me, but it was what she wanted.

  His arms were around her again, holding her tight against him, his mouth on hers, insistent.

  She pressed her stomach against his, as close as she could get. The rivets at the waist of his cut-off shorts dug into her flesh, making her draw back a little.

  He slid his hand between them and unfasted the waistband. He said, conspiring, his intent plain and inviting, “Come into my arbor, my lovely one. My Bonny Thea.”

  She hesitated for only a moment, never doubting it was what she wanted, what a rainy night was made for. It was what those benches had been built for.

  LEAVING

  Sunday was clear and cold with a biting wind. The outside work was done, the ground partly frozen and covered with the first dusting of snow. Ed had everything gathered in, stored for the coming winter, and was completing the splitting and storage of the wood for the fireplace. The world was settling in on itself in preparation for the coming cold.

  Althea went about her chores with a light heart, still savoring and reliving the night in the arbor. And Miles will be here this afternoon, as early as possible.

  “I’ll be gone tomorrow and Saturday,” he’d said when he had reluctantly left her late Thursday night. Or maybe it was early on Friday morning. She hadn’t checked the time. “I have a job in Connecticut I promised to do.” He had held her close. “I hate to leave you, but this is a good paying job. Sometimes I need money.”

  She understood that and also about promises made. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  They had sealed that with one more long, lingering kiss.

  ~ ~ ~

  Today, she told herself, I will invite him in to supper. It’s time to let him see where and how I live. In preparation for that, she filled the slow cooker with her favorite corn chowder, made a bowl of salad, and a pan of blond brownies. She brought out a nicer tablecloth than she usually used and, as for any special occasion, she would use her grandmother’s blue-sprigged china.

  Late in the afternoon, filled with happy anticipation, she pulled on a heavy sweater, picked up her windbreaker and walked to the arbor. Miles wasn’t there. It was too chilly to sit, so she walked along the hedge, her jacket close around her neck, looking at her newly mulched flower beds without seeing them.

  She didn’t hear Miles until he spoke to her.

  She turned toward him, arms wide and eager, and stopped.

  Miles’ face was white, pinched, and she could see tears in his eyes. She could barely gasp, “Miles, what . . .”

  He didn’t come any closer, and moved back a step when she walked toward him. When she put her hand on his arm it was rigid under her fingers. His hands were clenched. “Miles, what happened?”

  He shook his head, keeping his gaze on the ground. “I can’t.”

  Fear tightened her stomach. “Can’t what?”

  He whispered, “Stay. Here with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to go.”

  The bleakness of his voice tore at her heart. “Has something happened? Miles, tell me what’s wrong.”

  He put his hand tentatively on her arm, his fingers still stiff. “This just isn’t for me.”

  She stepped closer and he didn’t move away. “What isn’t?”

  He drew in a long breath and released it slowly, shudderingly. “This. All of this. The garden, the stand, the way you live.”

  She drew back a step, not believing. “But you knew that. You’ve been here to see it all.” She waited a moment, but he didn’t deny it. “I thought maybe it . . . I, meant something to you.”

  “You do. It all does. That’s why I can’t stay. Why I have to leave.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He straightened, squared his shoulders somewhat, and said stoutly. “This farming. This stuff that Ted talks about. His big dream. All of this idealism. It’s not me.”

  He did not sound convincing, more like he was reciting memorized lines. She asked softly, “What is you, Miles?”

  He didn’t answer, did not meet her eyes.

  “You came to me with your music, your poetry, and showed me another side to life. A happy side, and one that can fit into what I do, what I’ve always dreamed. I thought you shared that. What you offered me.” She relived their night together for just a moment. “I gave all of me to you.”

  He whispered, “But I can’t take it.”

  “Why not? You seemed eager enough.”

  “I was. It was what I
wanted. But I have to go.”

  “Why?” She heard the tears in his voice, could feel his anguish, and it wrenched her to her soul.

  He sighed deeply, breathed raggedly for a moment, obviously trying to control his voice, and pulled her close to him. “What I love, I lose.” He buried his face in her hair. “I couldn’t stand it again.”

  She looked up at him, not understanding, trying to meet his eyes.

  He avoided her gaze. “My mother,” he said bleakly. “She left us one day, me and my dad. I came home from school and she was gone. I never saw her again. I guess Dad knew where she went, I guess she left with somebody. He never got over it.”

  “Oh, Miles.”

  “Neither did I.” He swallowed convulsively. “Dad sort of left me, too. He wasn’t there for me anymore, and then he died right after I graduated from college. Then I had nobody but Aunt Mary, Ted’s mother, sometimes. And Ted.”

  She tightened her hands around his arm trying to reassure him. “But now you have me.”

  He shook his head. “No. No, I can’t.”

  She heard fear in his voice and again asked, “Why?”

  When he didn’t answer, she said softly, “Whatever it is, whatever you think is wrong, you can trust me.”

  “I can’t trust anyone. Ever again.”

  “Just try.” She tugged at his arm. “Come and sit in the arbor, out of the wind.”

  He followed her without speaking and went where she indicated.

  She sat beside him, his hand still in hers. “Take a deep breath.”

  His fingers tightened convulsively around hers but he didn’t look at her.

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  “It hurts too much. I never told anyone. Not even Ted.”

  She said softly, coaxingly, “It might help if you did.”

  He looked up at her then and smiled crookedly, but the tears had spilled over onto his cheeks. “My Thea. My Bonny blue-eyed Thea. My belle.”

  He sounded almost like himself again and she relaxed slightly, hope returning a little.

  He didn’t meet her eyes. “I want to remember you like this. Like I wish it could be. Like I always wanted it.”

  “Remember me?” The cold fear was back in her stomach.

  He went on in the same dreamy voice, the voice she associated with his inner self, the one she couldn’t reach. “Her name was Elsa,” he said. “I used I think of her sometimes, but not now, not since I met you.” After another pause, an indrawn gasp of breath, “but I remembered her yesterday, while I was driving home. To you. I can’t do that again. Ever.”

  Althea asked softly, as gently as she could, “What happened to her? To you?”

  He closed his eyes as a tear escaped. He shook his head.

  Althea wondered if he were recalling her, or shutting out her memory, and waited.

  “She was beautiful,” Miles said faintly. “Almost as beautiful as you are, but her hair and eyes were almost black.” He sighed again and opened his eyes, but did not look at her. “She was a violinist in a group at school. She played so well, so hauntingly it could melt your heart. I loved her so much.”

  Althea waited, but he stopped talking. Fearing the worst, that Elsa had died tragically, she could think of nothing to say.

  “Everybody loved her. All the guys were around her all the time, but she agreed to go out with me.” He laughed shortly. “We talked about a future together. She would go on to further study, a master’s degree, work with a great teacher so she could play in some symphony. I would support her and her dream until she reached it.” He stopped again. “She was that missing part of me. What I thought I had always wanted.”

  Althea whispered, “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. She left to spend break time in Florida with her family.” His voice broke. “She never came back.”

  “You didn’t hear from her again?”

  “Only through a friend. She met somebody down there. Transferred to another school. Just like that.” He choked on a sob. “She never called me.”

  Althea connected the sad dots of his past in her mind: the loss of his friend in the fire, his mother leaving without a word, the rejection by his music teachers, and then Elsa to whom he had given his heart. Maybe it was too much. Maybe he couldn’t get past it all. “But what has that to do with me?”

  “You will leave me, too. I couldn’t stand that. Not again.”

  “Why do you think I’d just leave?’

  He said bleakly, “Because everyone I love does.”

  “Miles . . .”

  “I have to leave. You don’t need me. You have so much.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Nobody needs me.” He paused again. “My heart has been broken too many times. It never gets mended.”

  “Can’t you trust me?”

  He looked down at her. “I can’t trust anyone. Especially myself. Goodbye, Thea.”

  She struggled to her feet. “You can’t just leave me. Not after . . .”

  “Why not? Everyone else did.”

  “But . . .” She couldn’t say she loved him. Now was not the time. “Just trust me a little longer.” She added in a whisper. “Remember our night together. It was so good.”

  “I know, and that is why.” He pulled her close to him and kissed her gently. “My Bonny.” He held her tightly for a moment, then released her, pushed her roughly aside, and left, striding out onto the back lawn and not looking back.

  She watched him through her tears, unable to grasp what he had said. He’ll come back. Of course he’ll be back. Won’t he? He can’t just leave like that. Not now, after what we shared.

  She walked slowly back to her empty kitchen and the chowder she had made with love. It had very little taste. What am I to do now?

  She had given him her heart, freely and fully, and he had taken it with him, leaving her empty. As she regarded her table, arranged so carefully for him, for them, and for another night of love, her emptiness was filled with anger.

  He can’t do this to me. After he led me on, promised me everything. Sang to me. Wrote me a song!

  But that song echoed in her heart – Althea in the Rain. It had been such a wonderful night in the soft warm rain. The anger dissipated into anguish, and then into despair. She closed her mind to Miles Davidov. She tried to push him into the same box where she had sealed away Ward, the first love who had rejected her. But Miles didn’t fit.

  She missed him already. Terribly.

  THE BENEFIT CONCERT

  Althea saw the hand-printed cardboard notice tacked to the center post of the stand’s patio when she stopped after work on Thursday. A benefit for a young cancer victim was being held in a neighboring town on Saturday evening. One of the three bands listed was Musical Madmen.

  “A young man stopped and asked if he could put it up,” Connie told her. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  Althea read the notice again—considering, remembering, wondering if she should go.

  It had been a long and lonely four days. Althea had not mentioned Miles’ absence to anyone. After all, she had never mentioned that she met him as often as she did, although she suspected Connie knew a lot more than she said. She seemed to know almost everything. She said, as offhandedly as she could, “Miles said they do that sort of thing sometimes. It’s the kind of event they like.”

  “I don’t know the family, but it’s a worthy cause. People with cancer need all the help and support they can get.” Connie turned away to meet a customer, apparently with no interest in either Miles or the event.

  Althea decided to go. Unless Miles showed up in the meantime. And maybe even if he did. It would depend on what he said or did. She missed his music.

  ~ ~ ~

  Althea closed the stand on Saturday aft
ernoon, took a quick shower, and drove three towns east to the event. She was feeling more and more reluctant to attend. How would Miles react to her being there? How will I react when I see him? She recalled a Patsy Cline lyric, “I fall to pieces, each time I see you again.” She didn’t want to embarrass herself, or him. Her heart ached.

  It had been overcast all day with a raw wind, which did nothing to raise her mood or quiet her fears and dispel the sadness that had enveloped her since Miles’ abrupt departure. Did he really say he wouldn’t ever come back to me? He just left. What do I say to him when I see him? Suppose he ignores me? I can’t beg. Why the hell am I doing this?

  She knew the answer to that. She was afraid for him, afraid that his depression, his sadness, would be too much for him, would be more than he could cope with, even though he had given her no indication that he had ever felt that way, that he couldn’t manage. She firmly closed her mind to recollections of the wonderful night in the rose arbor. Surely he felt the same way and wouldn’t, couldn’t forget.

  She was delayed by traffic, slowed by road work, and arrived later than she had planned. She found parking was limited, forcing her to walk two blocks. She heard the music as she neared the town common. It was the music she had expected to hear, lively sing-along old melodies. The audience knew the songs and was as enthusiastic as usual, clapping in time to the music. She stopped at the edge of the crowd to listen, but it didn’t sound quite right. Something was missing. She worked her way through the crowd until she could see the performers. Miles wasn’t there.

  Althea stood perplexed, not knowing what to do. Miles should have been there, right beside Andy Cross, the drummer, playing whatever instrument he had chosen for this gig. He had told her that he never passed up a chance to play, had never missed an event. It was what he thrived on, what kept him going. Was he ill? Injured? She had no choice but to wait until they stopped for a break. She looked around for something to do, some place to wait, and spied a stand offering coffee and apple desserts. She wasn’t hungry and was sure she couldn’t eat her favorite apple crisp, considering the knots in her stomach, but there was little else she could do. She walked that way, bought a cup of coffee, and found a bench where she could sit, listen, and wait.