by Bonnie Pega
Except Annabelle. She surprised him in dozens of ways, every time he saw her. She was always lovelier than he remembered—her hair silkier, her eyes softer, her skin creamier. When he reached out to touch her, he never knew whether to expect the sweet fragrance and satiny coolness of rose petals or a handful of thorns. She could be bold or shy, sweet or acerbic, cuddly or prickly. And he seemed to be enchanted with all of her prismatic sides.
When Gregory took his evening stroll—this time at eight P.M. instead of three A.M.—he deliberately headed toward Virgie’s house, though he didn’t know if Annabelle was there or not. But as if conjured from his thoughts, she sat on the front porch swing. In the rapidly lengthening shadows of twilight, Gregory saw the gleam of her soft hair, the pale gold of her legs, left bare by the short skirt she wore, the creamy skin of her shoulders and arms, exposed by her matching sleeveless top.
Her gaze seemed fixed on the horizon as she stared off into space, and Gregory didn’t think she even noticed him as he walked up the sidewalk. He wondered what she was thinking about to put such a wistful, almost pensive expression on her face.
“Annabelle?”
She jumped and turned startled eyes to him, then smiled. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking a walk. I just got back from the hospital a little while ago.”
“Oh. How’s Mrs. Cochran?”
“Better, I think. Still weak. And, according to Richard, the cardiologist says she’s not totally out of the woods yet. But we prayed together and I read her favorite Bible passages to her, and she seemed to enjoy it. I told her you’d stayed the night at the hospital and she’d like you to visit her when she’s better.”
“I’d like that,” Annabelle murmured, then gestured at the other side of the swing. “Wanna sit?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Love to.”
They sat, swaying back and forth in comfortable silence as the night swallowed up the last of the sun. Fireflies began winking off and on and the night orchestra of peepers tuned up.
He wished he could sit like this with her every summer evening. Knowing she’d be there at the end of each day, waiting to share a few quiet minutes, could make the rest of the day worthwhile. When they’d finished talking about their days with each other, their conversation would turn more intimate and their hands would clasp, fingers entwine. Their world would narrow to exclude everything—the peepers, the fireflies, the warm summer breeze—but the two of them. Finally, they’d get up in unison and go inside, closing the door.
“How long did you sleep today?”
Gregory forced his attention from fantasy to reality. “About three hours, I guess. And you?”
“Not long, maybe an hour. I just can’t sleep well during daylight.”
“I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For a lot of things.” His gaze lingered on her face. “For staying with me last night. It meant more than you can know. And thanks for realizing what I needed. You knew I needed to sleep even when I was denying it.”
“You were just like a little kid who says he doesn’t need a nap even when he’s yawning and his eyelids won’t stay open.”
“I only hope I wasn’t as cranky.”
“You were polite and kind. No one could have asked for anyone nicer.”
Silence reigned again, and Gregory found himself being seduced by her nearness. He could feel the warmth of her body all along his right side, her arm touching his, her thigh touching his.
Deliberately, he reached over and took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. Maybe she was as seduced as he by the warm soft darkness because, though she glanced at him, she allowed her hand to rest in his. He closed his eyes for a moment. She was wearing White Shoulders again. He doubted he’d ever be able to smell it without thinking of Annabelle. He could remember breathing in the scent when he’d slide his hands over her skin. The heat of their bodies as they made love seemed to intensify the fragrance until it surrounded them both.
The scent of it now made him long to touch her, but he contented himself with caressing her hand instead. He cradled her hand, his fingers lightly stroking each finger, tracing circles in her palm, gently massaging the fleshy pad between her thumb and forefinger. Barriers momentarily down, her gaze met his and he looked into her unshuttered eyes, knowing she was feeling the same heat he did. It was purer than lust, softer than wanting, warmer than desire.
He bent his head to hers, his lips hovering just out of reach, wanting to give her time to move away. She didn’t. He released her hand to brush strands of hair back from her face before moving closer still. Barely a kiss, his lips moved against hers, soft as velvet, slick as satin, seductive as a blazing fire on a cold day. He intended to take one kiss, one taste, then pull away. Until Annabelle opened her mouth to him, until she tunneled her fingers through his hair and urged him closer.
A wave of sweet, heady need surged through him and he kissed her again and again, each kiss a little hungrier, a little more urgent, than the one before. He kissed her until kissing wasn’t enough anymore and he closed his hand over her breast. She arched into his touch, the movement making the swing sway. Only then did Gregory remember they were sitting on the front porch, in full view of any interested neighbors.
Annabelle realized it at the same time because she withdrew slightly, running one shaky hand over her hair, smoothing it back behind her ears. She gave him a small smile and shifted to look straight ahead again.
Gregory searched for something to lighten the mood. He didn’t want her dwelling on what had just happened, picking it apart, trying to rationalize her way out of doing it again. A firefly blinked right in front of him, startling them both. Gregory reached out to capture the insect. He opened his hand in front of her and the little beetle crawled across his palm before launching itself back into the air. “Photuris pennsylvanica.”
Annabelle smiled a little, gratefully accepting the distraction. “Show-off!” She smacked at a mosquito that had dared past the citronella candle on the porch railing. “You think you’re so smart, then identify this.” She pointed at the persistent pest that was attempting to obtain a snack from the inside of her thigh.
“Mosquito,” he said.
“Ha-ha.” She absently rubbed the spot where a little red bump was already forming.
“Uh, Culex pipiens. I think. Right?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Then you wouldn’t know if I was right or wrong, would you?”
She smiled and shook her head, her smile suddenly fading when his hand gently moved hers aside and he rubbed his fingertips over the mosquito bite.
He jerked his hand away after a moment and searched for another distraction, this time for his persistently wayward thoughts. A whippoorwill sounded in the distance. “Now that is—”
“Please, don’t tell me. There are some things I’d rather not know. I wish I’d never learned that bacon was full of nitrites and I wish I’d never found out that the moon is really a dusty ball of rock. I’m sorry I ever learned that JFK had affairs and I really don’t want to know one single botanical fact about whippoorwills.”
“Maybe there are some things it’s better not to know.” Gregory couldn’t help but think of the question he’d wanted to ask Annabelle all these years. Did he really want to know the answer? Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
“All I know is whippoorwills sound so lonely,” she murmured. “Even when I was a little girl, I always thought so. Gran told Danni and me that they were really singing lullabies for their babies. I know that’s not so, but I liked believing it as a child.”
Gregory nodded. “I’d like believing that too. You know, I hadn’t heard a whippoorwill in years until I moved to White Creek. They don’t have too many in downtown Philly where I grew up, or in the heart of the city of Arlington where my first church was.”
“I used to hear one on occasion on campus.”
“Maybe that’s because you took time to st
op and listen. I was always running one place or the other.”
“Yeah. You were pretty busy. Between your schoolwork and all those demonstrations you were involved in, you hardly had a spare moment—even for me.”
Gregory planted both his feet on the porch, stopping the gentle sway of the swing. “Is that what you thought?” He turned to look at her.
She shrugged and continued to gaze out at the night as if the fireflies were blinking a Morse code that only she could understand. “It’s no big deal,” she muttered.
“Is that what you thought?” he repeated, laying a commanding hand on her arm.
She pulled her arm away. “What else was I supposed to think?”
“How about that I loved you? That you were the most important thing in the world to me?”
“I don’t know why I would think that,” Annabelle said in a brittle voice. She didn’t want to say anything else, but she couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “I don’t recall you ever standing up Greenpeace because you had a date with me or, being late for a nuclear disarmament rally because you’d agreed to meet me for a soda after pysch.”
“This is why, isn’t it?” he said softly, as if he was speaking to himself. “This is why.”
“Why what?”
“This is why you left me. It is, isn’t it, Annabelle?”
She got up from the swing and moved to the corner of the porch, leaning against the railing. Her arms wrapped around herself, she still refused to look at Gregory. She didn’t want to do this. Didn’t think she could stand it.
How was it possible that he hadn’t realized why she’d left? It had never occurred to her that he’d been so involved in his causes that he honestly hadn’t even realized what he was doing. Not that it changed anything. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she’d still come in second place.
“Gregory, I’m tired. I really don’t want to go over all this right now. It’s nine-year-old business. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
He stood and walked over to her, effectively keeping her prisoner against the porch railing. “This is why you left me, isn’t it? Because somehow you felt you weren’t as important to me as all those other things.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Fine. You want the truth? You’ve got it. I felt like all your causes were more important than I was. I felt like I was in competition with Greenpeace and Save the Bay and PETA and every other cause you sank your teeth into. Only there never was any real competition. I always came in second. Or third. Somewhere behind the cause of the week.”
Gregory looked stricken. “How could you doubt what I felt for you?”
“I never knew what you felt for me. I knew you wanted me. I knew you liked, even loved, having sex with me, but that’s all I knew.”
“I loved you. I must have told you dozens of times.”
“Really? When?”
“I—I—didn’t I?”
She shook her head. “Not once. Not even once.” She turned back to stare out into the dark shadows of evening.
“I never told you?” Gregory sounded incredulous.
“I thought those words so many times that I guess I just assumed—”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything even if you had said the words. You’d have made the same choices and I’d have still felt like I wasn’t important enough.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her back to face him. “Nothing was ever more important than you were. Nothing.”
“Actions speak louder than words, Rev.” The words weren’t said accusatorily, they were simply stated, but Annabelle saw Gregory flinch as if he’d been struck. “You were always trekking off to one cause or the other and leaving me behind. Leaving me out.”
“I’m sorry you felt that way, Annabelle. I never meant for—”
“It doesn’t matter. It was over a long time ago.”
“All these years I’ve wondered why you’d left. You never told me. Why didn’t you even tell me? How could you love me and not tell me?”
Annabelle twisted out of his hands and hugged herself again. “It was because I loved you that I couldn’t face you. I wasn’t sure I could even say the words to you. I was afraid you’d talk me out of breaking up with you and I knew I couldn’t go on living the way we were living. It’s selfish, I know, and terribly egocentric, but I wanted to come first. I didn’t want to have to vie for your attention with the environment and animal rights and human rights and civil rights.”
“You never had to—”
“I had to all the time!” With an effort Annabelle lowered her voice. “Remember the concert we had tickets for? And you never showed up? How about the weekend of my sorority’s spring formal? I’d bought a new dress, even spent a huge chunk of change getting my hair done. Where were you?”
“I couldn’t help that. How was I to know that things would get a little out of hand at the rally?”
“What about the concert? You simply forgot that.”
“Look, it was just a couple of times—”
“I don’t know how many times I sat in the library waiting for you to show up and you didn’t. And there were so many times when we were supposed to meet after class and you were held up at some meeting or another.” She gave a tired sigh. “It happened all the time, Gregory.”
He stared at her for a long time. “I—I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, Annabelle. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s over and done with, Gregory. We both made mistakes. Maybe I should have told you how I felt. And maybe you shouldn’t have gotten involved with anyone until you’d gotten those causes out from under your skin.”
“I believed—believe—in those causes, Annabelle.
They were important then, and they’re just as important now.”
“I can see that. Even now, you’re defending them to me.”
“If no one fought for things, nothing would ever change,” he said quietly.
“I know that too. I don’t want to debate the issue with you. You asked a question and I answered it.”
“I never meant to make you feel second best, Annie. You know that.”
“Gregory, I really didn’t want to rehash this. There’s no use anyway. We can’t change what happened.”
“We need to—”
“We don’t need to do anything, Rev. We really don’t. I’m tired. And even if you did get a nice nap earlier today, you’ve got to be tired too. I’m going in now.” She turned, but Gregory still stood in the way. With the porch railing on one side and the swing on the other, she couldn’t go anywhere until he moved. “Gregory—”
“Not so fast. You don’t want to talk about what happened anymore, so I’ll respect your wishes. For the moment. But this isn’t over, Annie. Not by a long shot.”
“And like I told you before, I haven’t been Annie for a long time. It’s Annabelle.”
“Okay. Annabelle. And like I told you, it’s Gregory, not Rev.”
She inclined her head. “Point taken.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but snapped it closed again and moved aside. “Good night, Annabelle.”
She walked to the door and turned the door-knob, but before she could go inside, Gregory laid his hand on her arm. She sighed impatiently. “Gregory—”
“For your information, we never had sex, Annabelle. We made love. We made incredible love.”
Her gaze locked with his for a long moment before she turned and went inside, closing the door behind her. Gregory stared at the blank door. Well, he’d wanted to know why she’d left him. Now he did. Somebody had once said, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.” He’d gotten it all right. And he wished he hadn’t.
All this time he’d thought it had been something else—that she’d fallen in love with another man, that she’d simply been too young to commit herself to one person. When she’d first left, he’d gone over his words and his actions with a fine-tooth comb time and again. He couldn’t see that the bl
ame might lie with him. He’d always sworn that he would have cut off his right arm rather than hurt her, but he’d hurt her anyway. However inadvertent, however unintentional his actions had been, he’d hurt her.
He started walking the same way they’d gone the other night and found himself back at Taylor’s Rock. He climbed onto the boulder and sat, placing his hands in front of him, feeling the coolness of the stone. This was where he’d kissed her, where she’d kissed him back, where he’d felt the warm soft skin of her breasts against his chest, the sweet sweet taste of them in his mouth.
She’d made him forget that he was a minister with an image to uphold, an example to set. She’d made him forget anything and everything but that he was a man and she was a woman and that it felt good, and incredibly right, to hold her in his arms.
He propped his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead in his hands. He sat for what could have been minutes—or hours—frustrated, bewildered, hurting. Life had been so much simpler before Annabelle had come back. More boring, sure, and a lot lonelier, but simpler. Now it seemed as if she were systematically driving him insane—insane with the need to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe, to love her until they were both too weak to walk.
Love her. That was the key. He still loved her. After nine years of growing up, changing, building different lives, he still loved her. No, that wasn’t quite right. He’d loved her nine years ago, loved the sweet generous girl she’d been, loved the promise of the woman she’d be. Now he loved the woman she’d become. The thought gave him no joy, however. She didn’t want his love. She seemed not to want anything from him at all.
Another mostly sleepless night. Annabelle woke up feeling as exhausted as she’d been when she’d crawled into bed. Why did it seem she’d have to leave town in order to get a decent night’s sleep? At the very least, she’d just have to stay far, far away from the Reverend Gregory Talbott.
Easier said than done, though. She’d certainly see Gregory tonight at Daisy and Buddy’s engagement party. She’d see him again tomorrow at church and Sunday dinner and the play. A few weeks from now there’d be the wedding rehearsal, and as a bridesmaid, she’d see him there too. Why did it seem as if the fates were conspiring against her?