Seventh Wonder

by Renae Kelleigh

  John chuckled. “You look confused.”

  She shook her head, smiling faintly. “Just trying to convince myself I’m not dreaming.”

  He reached for her but paused mid-movement, his eyes flicking to the house. “Is anybody home besides us?” he asked softly.

  “No.”

  In response, he pulled her across the center console and into his lap before his lips landed on hers once again. They were parked in the shaded, private driveway, no longer exposed to the prying eyes of strangers, so he had no reason to hold back any longer - and he didn’t. Meg pressed against him as they kissed, desperate to feel more of his hands on more of her skin, and he pressed back, moaning quietly.

  Hours or days later, Meg pulled away, laughing and breathless. “Irene could be back any time.” She grimaced at the realization of all her statement implied: that for as long as they stayed here, they would be reduced to sneaking around like adolescents, hoping for stolen moments.

  John’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “We’d better move inside then, huh?”

  They spilled clumsily from the driver’s side door, and he took his duffel from the trunk. As they walked through the side door into the kitchen, Meg tried pretending that they weren’t entering her parents’ house. She felt a familiar surge of self-consciousness as she thought of how many years had passed since John lived at home with his parents.

  “This is the kitchen,” she said, stating the obvious to divert his attention in case he was having similar thoughts. “Through there is the dining room, and the living room is down that hall.”

  “Beautiful house,” he remarked, following her through the archway into the corridor. He paused when he reached the row of framed photos mounted on the wall beneath the staircase. “Is this you?” he asked, smiling. He stood before a photo of a much younger Meg, posing with her aunt and an exceptionally large corndog before the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier.

  “That’s me and my Aunt Virginia,” she replied.

  He leaned forward to inspect it more closely. “You look a lot alike.”

  She waited patiently as he examined the other photos on the wall: Meg sporting Minnie Mouse ears at Disneyland; Meg with her parents at Big Sur; Meg accepting her high school diploma; Meg and Virginia standing outside Stern Hall on her first day at Berkeley. Finally he glanced up. “You’re so pretty,” he said. He sounded sort of in awe, and it caused her cheeks to flush.

  “This way, Lover Boy. The guest room is all made up for you.”

  The guest bedroom was at the end of the hall at the top of the stairs, directly across from the room Meg had slept in for the sum total of her formative years. She stood to the right of the door, gesturing for him to enter, but John stuck his head into her bedroom instead. She waited while his eyes swept over the room’s contents: the bed with its double wedding ring quilt that Meg’s paternal grandmother had hand stitched over fifty years ago; the oak vanity and matching wardrobe; the cedar hope chest filled with linens and silverware passed down from her grandmother to her mother (and secretly, a few personal items). After a moment of quiet assessment, John took a step into the room, and Meg followed.

  “Where are the posters of movie stars and pop singers?” he teased as he walked over to the bed.

  “I’m twenty-two, not sixteen.”

  He chuckled as he scooped up Meg’s stuffed bear and fingered its button eyes and the red silk ribbon around its neck. “Are you sure?” he asked, holding up the bear.

  She colored instantly, her neck and face prickling with heat. She strolled quickly to the side of the bed and snatched the bear away before chancing a sidelong glance at him: his expression had contorted from one of amusement to remorse. Taking her shoulders in his hands he said, “I’m sorry, Meg. It was a horrible joke.” He planted a lingering kiss on her forehead. “I think it’s sweet that you have a teddy bear.”

  She couldn’t be sure whether he was being sincere or simply trying to make her feel better, but she relaxed some regardless. “Virginia got me this bear for my sixth birthday. I had lots of stuffed animals, but this one was always my favorite. I was sort of convinced he was lucky for some reason.”

  John’s smile was kind, without trace of judgment. “What did you name him?”

  Meg shrugged. “I never did. ‘Bear,’ I guess. That’s all I’ve ever called him.”

  “Hunh.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just thought all kids liked naming their stuffed animals. I liked naming everything when I was a kid. I probably would’ve named all of my socks and shoes if I thought I could remember them.”

  She laughed. “Keep it simple. That’s been my motto for about as long as I can remember.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He dropped his bag on the floor and, to her dismay, sat on the edge of her bed before stretching out on his back. “Come here,” he said. Patting the mattress: “Lie beside me.”

  Her eyes darted quickly to the doorway, then back to John. Knowing her parents could be home any minute set her on edge, but surely the sound of a car in the driveway would provide them sufficient notice. In any case, she was powerless to resist him. She knew this as well as she knew her own name.

  When she curled up next to his body and he enfolded her in his arms, they both exhaled in the same moment. Nuzzling her cheek with his nose, John said, “Christ, I’ve missed this. You feel even better than I remembered.”

  Meg squirmed closer and turned her face to kiss his cheekbone. She lifted her hand and felt the short, silky stubble on his head. It felt like the soft bristles on a hairbrush sifting between her fingers.

  “How do you like my haircut?” he asked.

  “I miss your longer hair,” she answered honestly, “but I don’t really think there’s much you could do to your appearance to make yourself any uglier.” He chuckled, and she dropped her hand to touch his ear. “Your ears stick out a little,” she added with a giggle.

  “Yes. They’re Stovall ears, my beauty. My dad had them, too - so do my uncles.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “He lucked into our mother’s genes on that particular trait.”

  She smiled. “Was it nice spending time with your family?”

  He nodded, sighing as he shifted a bit, ever-so-slightly adjusting their positions. “Very, very nice. My sister is sweet as ever - not to mention pregnant - Charlie’s still ornery but somehow lovable, my nieces are beautiful and funny as hell. And my mother... Well, she’s just an all-around great lady.”

  His eyes lit with fondness as he spoke of each in turn. Suddenly she felt a little guilty, being his reason for parting from them.

  For close to an hour they talked, about everything and nothing. Certain topics they shied away from - like John’s impending departure. Others they returned to again and again - like their memories of the canyon.

  By the time Irene arrived home with the ingredients for dinner, neither of them could imagine being anywhere besides here, or in any time besides now.

  * * *

  At first, John couldn’t quite determine how a man like Meg’s father and a woman like her mother could possibly have ended up together. But then, the longer he observed them, the more he felt he understood. Mr. Lowry, who initially struck him as dour, visibly softened each time he was addressed by his wife. And Mrs. Lowry seemed admiring of her husband in a way John surmised she respected few other men.

  All told, Irene had been fairly quick to win over. John liked her: she was free-thinking and receptive, yet reserved in a way that was at once charming and gracious. She was also beautiful, although John tended to favor her daughter’s youthful softness and her quickness to blush over Irene’s sharp, take-charge sort of beauty. (Meg, in fact, was so far beyond beautiful this evening, John was driven to distraction - looking positively edible in a pale blue dress and pearl earrings. So lush, so pink-cheeked and sparkling, John didn’t know how anyone could see anything else, talk about anything else, when she
looked like this.)

  It was Mr. Lowry he worried about. He wasn’t forthrightly unwelcoming or even particularly vicious. Rather, his demeanor was cautious: quietly accepting. He’d remained silent for the majority of the meal, but several times John glanced up from his eggplant parmesan to find the man’s eyes fixed appraisingly on him.

  “Are you from here originally, Mrs. Lowry?” he asked at one point as he handed Meg the pitcher of iced tea with a covert grin.

  “John, please, call me Irene,” she replied. Touching Mr. Lowry’s shoulder: “And feel free to call my husband Jim. We’re not formal here.” John flicked a nervous grin at “Jim,” knowing he would never call him anything other than Mr. Lowry until he was granted express permission to do so by the man himself.

  “Irene,” John acknowledged.

  Pacified, she replied, “I’m from Oregon, actually. I moved to the Bay Area midway through eleventh grade, though, to finish high school near the musical conservatory.”

  “She was an Ernest Neumiller scholar,” added Meg. “Very prestigious.”

  John raised his eyebrows. “Impressive. You must be very good.”

  “I used to be,” she confirmed.

  “You still are, dear,” Mr. Lowry said quietly, patting her hand on the table. “Your students are lucky to have you.”

  Irene awarded her husband an appreciative grin as she pushed back from the table. “Time for dessert, I think. Meg, will you help me?”

  “Sure.” Meg gave John’s hand a quick squeeze before rising to follow her mother into the kitchen. The door swung shut behind the two women, leaving John and Mr. Lowry very much alone. John was a man who enjoyed and often reveled in a certain degree of silence, but this he found rather unnerving.

  “Do you plan on becoming a career military man, Mr. Stovall?” the older man asked suddenly after half a minute of painful quiet.

  “No, sir,” John replied evenly.

  He nodded once. “I thought not. You have other career aspirations, then? I mean apart from selling your artwork.”

  “Yes. I have a job, in fact. I teach at a community college in Eureka - though currently I’m on an extended leave of absence, for obvious reasons.”

  “Do you intend on going back to it once your tour is over?” asked Mr. Lowry.

  “As of now, yes, that’s my intention.”

  Meg’s father sat back in his chair with his fingers laced over his abdomen, regarding John with what looked to be a mixture of interest and skepticism. “If I may be so bold, what, ah... What are you to my daughter?” he asked. His face reddened a little, leaving little room for doubt as to his discomfort.

  John supposed he should have been prepared with an answer here - he’d asked himself the same question enough times, after all. Instead, all he could come up with was a bungling declaration of thoughts and feelings that would be better directed at Meg than her father.

  Finally he said, “I care a lot about her. My... My future has taken a turn I didn’t expect, but I can promise you I only want what’s best for her... Nothing more.”

  Mr. Lowry looked as if he wasn’t sure whether he should be more concerned or placated by this revelation. He opened his mouth, perhaps to ask what, in particular, John felt would be “best” for his daughter (a valid question, to be sure), but he was interrupted by the return of the two women.

  “Angel food cake!” said Irene, holding the towering cloud of a dessert aloft. “Who wants some?”

  * * *

  Sleep was a shifty, tumid thing that Meg couldn’t quite seem to get her arms around, try as she might. When she heard the tapping at her door the following morning, she felt as if she’d dozed off only scant moments before.

  “Come in,” she croaked as she gathered the bedding up under her chin.

  Seeing John’s face appear between the door and the frame, her sleepiness drained away in the reverse of a flash flood, heavy thunderheads of exhaustion being sucked back up into the atmosphere. “Your parents just left,” he said softly. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” She lifted a corner of the quilt by way of invitation, and he crept inside, shutting the door behind him.

  She released a pent up breath as he slipped in beside her and his legs tangled with hers. John let loose a soft growl as his hand roved down the side of her ribcage and wrapped around the back of her hip. “You’re hardly wearing anything,” he whispered as he slid his hand down the back of her bare thigh below her underwear and hitched her leg up over his hip.

  “I wish I could say the same for you,” she replied, glancing down at his fully clothed body with a disapproving frown.

  He cupped the back of her neck and kissed her. His lips brushed lightly from her mouth, up the curve of her cheek to her temple before moving against her forehead as he spoke. “I like a good adventure now and then, but being seen by your parents half naked seemed too big a risk.”

  Meg’s eyelids fluttered shut. She hummed, leaning into his caress. “What have you got to lose?”

  He didn’t answer: she had the distinct impression his mind had drifted elsewhere. Instead he kissed her, again and again and again, each more fervent than the last. Their hands moved beneath the covers, desperately searching, until Meg was no longer sure which fingers belonged to whom.

  A deep moan resonated in his chest as she twisted at his pants’ button fly. A moment later they broke apart, but only long enough to let the fabric of Meg’s shirt slip between them. John rolled onto his back and hauled her on top of him so that her bare chest pressed against him. She sat up, straddling his waist, and John watched her, mesmerized, as she undid the buttons all the way down the front of his shirt. That task accomplished, he sat up quickly and wriggled his arms out of the sleeves as Meg helped him.

  His socks were next to join the pile on the floor, followed by his pants. And all the while, they drowned one another in frantic, lip bruising kisses. Meg felt his erection pressed against her leg and she shifted against it, opening her legs further to guide it between them.

  She had just reached down the front of his underwear to grasp the silky length of him in her hand when the sound of the front door opening caused them both to freeze.

  “Irene?” called a voice. “Meg?”

  Of course Virginia would choose now to stop by.

  John cursed under his breath as he rolled out from beneath her and began tossing various articles of clothing on top of the comforter. Meg scrambled for her shirt as he hopped on one foot, pulling on his pants. “Coming!” Meg shouted, trying (but probably failing) to keep her desperation from bleeding into her voice. The last thing they needed was for Virginia to come up here.

  “Who is it?” John mouthed, barely whispering.

  “My aunt,” Meg replied softly. “Don’t worry, she’s easygoing.”

  She crossed the room and pulled open the top drawer of the dresser, then fished out a pair of pants. When she turned back around, John was watching her, his mouth open slightly. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  “Put this on,” Meg said with a chuckle, tossing him his shirt from across the bed.

  “Sorry,” he grumbled. “Got distracted.”

  “Come down in a minute, OK?” she said. “I’ll tell her you’ve just gotten out of the shower or something.” He nodded once, and she strode quickly from the room, tucking her unkempt hair behind her ears.

  Virginia was sitting in the front room, paging through a book of Dorothea Lange photographs, when Meg reached the bottom of the stairs. She realized too late she’d forgotten to put on a bra; self-consciously she crossed her arms over her chest as she cleared her throat.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” said Virginia. “Don’t tell me you were still sleeping.”

  “Sort of,” Meg replied noncommittally.

  Seeing the look on her face, a smile bloomed on Virginia’s - the smile that said she knew everything, or at least could make an educated guess. Meg bit her lower lip, wishing she could go back to bed and have a do-over. />
  “Is your friend here?” asked Virginia.

  “He’s in the shower,” Meg blurted. “Or he was.” She flicked a glance up at the ceiling, as if she could see through it to the floor above. “I think he’s finished now.”

  “Do you mind if I meet him?” asked her aunt.

  “Of course not. I could just run upstairs and see if he’s ready—”

  She was cut off by the sound of footsteps on the stairs behind her. Meanwhile, Virginia’s face morphed from smug amusement to muted surprise.

  “Good morning,” said John as he walked up to stand beside Meg. He laid one hand against the small of her back and extended the other, which Virginia shook. “I’m John Stovall.”

  “Mr. Stovall? I’m Virginia Roemer - Irene’s younger and considerably more attractive twin sister.”

  She winked at Meg, who snorted. “She’s twelve minutes younger,” she clarified under her breath.

  “Every second counts,” Virginia said with a smile.

  * * *

  When it became clear Virginia had no immediate intention of leaving, John volunteered to make breakfast, and the three of them congregated in the kitchen as he whipped up a batch of vanilla scented French toast. For the remainder of the morning they entertained her - or rather, John did, with his tales of art and travel. Listening to him speak brought on a complicated mixture of emotions for Meg: she laughed along with her aunt, relishing his talent for storytelling, while concurrently lamenting her own lack of narrative-worthy experiences. At twenty-two, she simply hadn’t yet had time for a life. Still, rarely had she felt this discrepancy more acutely than she did now, sitting at the breakfast table with her aunt and lover as they traded accounts of their sundry misadventures.

  Two and a half hours later, John insisted on taking care of the dishes while Meg walked Virginia out to her car. The Santa Anas were still blowing, although they’d become noticeably cooler over the preceding weeks.