Water's End

by Jessica Deforest

  "I'm speechless," she said when she opened the door. "You 're wearing more tinsel than my Christmas tree and looking mighty purty, as they say in these here parts."

  "May I say the same? You look fabulous."

  "Like it?" she asked, doing a show turn so her gown swirled about her.

  "Like a hog loves grub," he said.

  When he took the white orchids from their box, he stared at her bodice for a moment. "But where do I pin this?"

  "I'll do that, thank you very much," she said, grabbing the corsage from him. “You big goof, this is a wrist corsage,” she said, slipping it on her arm.

  "Curses," he said, twirling an invisible mustache and wiggling his eyebrows. "Foiled again."

  Anne giggled "I've never seen that kind of uniform before, and those red satin lapels are fabulous. Too bad you're such a big old hunk. I'd like to borrow that jacket sometime."

  He laughed and smoothed his lapels, then glanced at his watch and said, "Shall we be off to the ball, Princess?"

  The officers' club parking lot was jammed when they arrived, so Mike let her out under the covered entry and went to find a parking spot. Officers in their dress blues and women in furs and colorful gowns drifted across the parking lot and into the club, many of them staring appreciatively at Anne, who had thrown a long black-velvet cape over her shoulders.

  Soon Mike joined her, and they made their way inside and to their table in the huge ballroom.

  "I'm so excited," she said. "I can't believe they got the Les Brown orchestra for tonight."

  Before she finished speaking, the band started to play, and Mike swept her out onto the dance floor. Every inch of him was filled with grace and rhythm. Too bad she couldn't feel anything but friendship for him. He just didn't make her heart beat faster.

  But even as she danced cheek to cheek with Mike, wrapped in his arms, she thought of David, wishing she could be here with him, swaying to this fabulous music.

  No, she wouldn't allow herself to think things like that. He was probably out somewhere glued to Pineapple, grinding his belly into hers.

  She hated David Hawkins. The only way to stop the longing was to feel contempt for him.

  The music was too loud for chitchat with their table partners, and she was glad. All she wanted to do was listen to the music and dance. The two couples they were seated with were nice people, but boring, with their talk about their kids, their cars, and their dogs. Anne wondered if they ever read books or went to the theater.

  Glad to have an excuse to escape for a moment, Anne excused herself and strolled across the dance floor to the powder room, where she repaired her lipstick and powdered her nose.

  Just as she started back across the dance floor, she felt a stab of sadness as the band began playing "Misty." There was little time to think, though, because a second or two later, she found herself swept onto the dance floor.

  "Red! I told you I'd see you again. May I have the pleasure?" he said, leading her strongly into an expert foxtrot. "Remember me? We met in the bar last night after the Hail and Farewell party."

  She felt breathless. "It's Tully, isn't it? What an unusual first name."

  "My mother's maiden name. Southern tradition. Lot of guys in the South have strange monikers." He gazed down at her, smiling. "You remembered my name. I'll take that as a sign."

  "Of what?"

  "I don't know, but I'll think of something." He pulled her closer and put his lips next to her right ear. "You not only look beautiful, but you smell right pretty, too."

  Goosebumps prickled her arms and legs, and her heart galloped along in a new and crazy rhythm. Tully pressed her close to him. It felt good, and she realized she wasn't numb anymore. Her back tingled where his fingers touched her bare skin. Lightly, slowly, he traced little circles on her shoulder blade, and she felt some warmth return to her soul.

  "This is my favorite song," she said.

  "Mine, too. Guess it will have to be our song."

  She let it pass because it was the song that she and David thought of as their own. Just because she felt some attraction for Tully, she wasn't about to give up her memories of David, no matter how angry she was.

  When the piece ended, he walked her back to her table. "Mike," he said, "I'm surprised you'd let this doll out of your sight. Not a good idea at all, especially with me lurking about."

  Mike clapped him on the back. "Shoulda known you'd try to poach on my territory if you could. Got a date?"

  Tully shook his head and said, "Stag."

  "Then come join us," Mike said, motioning to an empty chair.

  Throughout the evening, she took turns dancing with the two. Mike didn't seem to mind. It was a good thing he didn't know how attractive she found Tully. But she knew Mike didn't want to get serious. That's why she was dating him in the first place. He had just broken up with someone, and like Anne, was determined not to get involved again.

  "You're far, far away," Tully said when Mike left to dance with his boss's wife. "Penny?"

  "For my thoughts?" she said. "They'd only bore you."

  "Never."

  Adjusting her gloves, Anne leaned over the table. "I was just wondering where you learned to dance so beautifully."

  "Where else? Arthur Murray." Tully leaned toward her.

  "That explains it," she said. "And I can tell you love to dance as much as I do."

  "I love music, don't you? If you don't have music in your soul, there's no engine to drive you," he said, leading her back to the dance floor.

  Following him was easy. They moved together as if they were fused into one body with one rhythm. Magically, she wasn't sure how, she knew exactly what he would do next. He pressed her close and swayed to the music, nibbling at her ear until her earring fell off.

  "Cut it out," she said, giggling as she clipped her earring back on.

  He pulled her close again, swaying to the beat more than dancing. "Ummm, I love the 'Why Dance', don't you?" he said as the music ended. "Wait here for me, okay? I'll just be a sec."

  He strode over to the bandstand, and she saw him talking to the bandleader. Wearing a big smile, he hurried over to her and grabbed her around the waist just as the band lit into "Night Train."

  "How did you know? That's my favorite jitterbug number of all time," she said.

  "Mine too. Let's go burn up the floor," he said, feet moving.

  Tully Weldon could dance even better than Anne's uncle, who taught her when she was a four-year-old. Tully knew all the steps, and his sense of rhythm was as strong as hers. Before they were halfway through the song, the other dancers cleared a circle to watch, clapping to the beat.

  In spite of Anne's petticoats, Tully maneuvered her around without missing a step. The crowd applauded when they finished the piece and started off the floor. The band, however, started playing a cha-cha, and Tully spun her back onto the dance floor, where another circle soon opened up for them.

  After that number they headed for their table. "Have lunch with me Monday?" he asked.

  "Okay."

  "I'll call you."

  She hated to see the evening end, and though she saved the last dance for Mike, which was only proper because he was her date, it was Tully she was thinking of. She was glad to have something else on her mind besides David, because every thought of him stabbed through her like a rusty knife hacking out her heart.

  The first thing she did when she went to work the following Monday was to dig out Tully Weldon's personnel file. Reading the green history form, she saw he was from Alabama and was fifteen years older than she, but she didn't think it would be a problem.

  However, when she looked closer at his records, she could barely believe what she saw. Married? He can’t be married. He lives in the bachelor officers' quarters. Where is his family?

  His emergency notification form showed his wife lived in Alabama. How dare he try to pass himself off as a bachelor? Her hometown was littered with broken-hearted women duped by student officers with wives elsew
here.

  One pretty young woman tried to commit suicide after she became pregnant by an allied student who philandered his way through the army school while his wife was stashed away in a fancy penthouse in Kansas City.

  The rich playboy son of a famous South American dictator, he did so poorly at the school that he received a certificate of attendance rather than a diploma at the graduation ceremony.

  It was rumored that his faithful chauffeur, who drove a salmon-colored Imperial around town, attended classes in his stead; if so, he wasn't a very good student either.

  About eleven o'clock Tully called her. "How about my picking you up at a quarter of twelve?"

  "That won't be necessary,” Anne said. "I don't go out with married men." She slammed down the telephone.

  David, who stood in front of an open drawer at the filing cabinet across from her desk, gave her a quizzical look.

  The phone rang immediately, but she refused to pick it up. She motioned to David to answer it, and silently nodded her head from side to side so he would know she didn't want to talk to the person on the other end.

  "Sorry, she just stepped out," she heard David say.

  Making an okay sign, Anne smiled.

  David hung up. "What was that all about?"

  "This guy wants me to go out with him, but it turns out he's married."

  "He said to tell you he's separated from his wife."

  "Yeah. They all sing the same song, like a bunch of horny mutts baying at the moon."

  The phone rang once more, and David answered. "No, she hasn't come back yet," he said.

  That afternoon Tully came to her office when he got out of school. Sauntering over to her desk, he pulled up a chair and sprawled into it, long legs akimbo. "I need to apply for leave, Miss Mills."

  "When?"

  "For Easter," he said.

  "What? That's several months away." Anne was disgusted. "You only need to apply a week ahead of time."

  He ignored her. “And while I'm here, I need you to clean out my records. They're a mess."

  "We've already purged them," she said, moving aside a stack of records.

  "Then have a cup of coffee with me."

  "I told you, I'm not interested in other people's husbands." Disgusted, she turned to her typewriter and inserted a fresh sheet of paper in the roller.

  "This is different," he said. "I've filed for divorce and go to court any day now."

  Turning back from her typewriter, Anne glared at him. "I've heard that fairy tale before," she said.

  "Okay, you hardhead. I won't bother you anymore right now. But just you wait until my divorce comes through. You'll see."

  Anne didn't care what Tully Weldon did. For all she cared, it wouldn't matter if he never called her again.

  David would be leaving in a week, and she felt as if her world had spun off its axis and would be off balance forever.

  With his enlistment up, David was going back to California. The Beckwith Agency agreed to allow an agency in Hollywood to buy his contract, so he already had a foot in the door on the West Coast.

  These days, Anne didn't know which was worse, coming to the office each day, loving and hating him, and having to deal with him, or knowing he would soon be gone and out of her life for good.

  The cold December day he left, he hugged her and gave her a peck on the cheek. "It's been great knowing you. We'll always be friends, and I'll always love you, even if you don't believe it now. I'll keep in touch."

  She went home sick that afternoon, knowing she couldn't go to the farewell party his friends were throwing for him. It would be nice to simply lie down, close my eyes, and never have to open them again, and to stop hurting.

  Deep within, she knew she would never see him again, except as a beautiful image in her mind, a phantom she saw whenever she closed her eyes.

  David's departure signaled the beginning of her insomnia and the end of her writing. She tried, but what little she put on paper was no good. Her journal sat empty and unused. And every night, David teased her in her dreams, beckoning to her and then running away just as she got within arm's reach of him.

  She struggled through Christmas with her family, trying to smile and not spoil the holidays for anyone, leaving early so as to avoid her mom's scenes. Mike had gone off to visit family in Oklahoma, so she was even lonelier.

  That year, they had a hard winter, with what seemed like tons of snow and ice. Sometimes rain fell in the daytime and froze at night, turning sidewalks and streets into sheets of ice. Repeated snows that thawed and then froze again made it difficult for her to get to work. When she did get there, the sight of David’s empty desk made her even more aware of his absence.

  Betty remarked on the circles under her eyes and said, "Lord, Annie, you're losing weight again. I'm worried about you."

  "I'll be okay. Just a little under the weather."

  She began spending more time alone after the holidays, and when Mike came back, she refused even his invitations, preferring to sit by the fire and read, thinking it was a good time to hibernate. Besides, just getting around in the constant snow and ice was a chore, even though the city paved the road in front of her house earlier that year.

  Dealing with tire chains was a mess, and she grudgingly took money from her school fund for a set of snow tires. Funny, she thought, buying snow tires is the only bright spot in my life this winter. Otherwise the days were dark and dreary, just like her thoughts.

  There was no way she would ever get over losing David, but as winter melted into spring, Anne's spirits began to rise, and she felt more like herself as the giant icicles that hung like stalactites from her eaves melted away. Soon, crocuses popped through the snow, and she had a new surge of hope. Before long, pussy willows and bright yellow forsythia appeared, the days grew longer, and a few robins returned.

  The first week in April, Tully Weldon was back in her office. "I've got proof," he said, waving a piece of paper. "Here's my divorce decree. Let's change my records to show that I'm a free man. Now will you go out with me?"

  "Hush," she said, "everyone's looking at us."

  "Do you think I care? I'll make lots of noise until you say yes. Dinner tonight?"

  That evening was the first of many such dates: long, leisurely dinners at the officers' club followed by dancing at one of the after-hours spots, and the beginning of her recovery from David.

  Being with Tully Weldon helped keep her mind off David. Although she knew she didn't love Tully, she felt a strong animal attraction for him.

  After all, there was no future with David, who wouldn't have her, no matter how much she loved him. Her only choice was to go on with life. Tully had everything that would make for good husband material. He was smart, good-looking, and ambitious. All her friends were envious of her.

  On their fourth date, Tully took her to a romantic Italian restaurant, where he said "Marry me," and slipped a West Point miniature class ring onto her finger. "I've got orders for Fort Bliss after graduation. We can get married and take a couple of weeks off for a honeymoon. Maybe go down to see my folks in Alabama before we move to Texas."

  "Are you crazy?" she said, immediately taking the ring off and pressing it into his hand. "I'm not ready to marry anyone, and particularly not after four dates."

  "We're going to end up married, so you might as well put the ring on now instead of later."

  "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

  Four months later, the day after Tully graduated, they were married by a justice of the peace in Kansas City. Mike McGarrity and Anne's friend Jackie stood up with them.

  Following the ceremony, Mike grinned and clapped Tully on the back as they left. "Be good to her, man, or I'll beat the tar out of ya. That's the finest little lady I've ever known."

  "Not to worry," Tully said, smiling.

  Chapter 17

  Tully changed almost as soon as they were married. It was as if he had turned her off in his mind. He acted as if wives were merely thin
gs that did the housework and were not to be talked to. In so many ways he was like Joe. She would never have dreamed it was possible, but as her aunt had said, "the real people come out after the ring goes on."

  During the thirty-three years of their marriage, Tully Weldon played her body like a fine musician, drowning her in physical pleasure that made her weak and held her captive even when he mistreated her.

  It wasn't the kind of love she had with David; this was mechanical sex with an expert who knew exactly how to please a woman. She started pretending Tully was David; indeed, she wished he were, for Tully was becoming more and more difficult to live with.

  At parties, he drank more, and after he ignored her the entire evening to fondle someone else's wife on the dance floor, when they got home he used sex to make her forget her anger. If she got sick of driving him home drunk, it did little good to say anything. He'd merely charm his way back into her bed in five seconds, and then she'd forget all about being angry.

  Once, early in their marriage, she complained about his drinking, and he slapped the side of her head so quickly and so hard that at first she didn't know what happened, until she felt the pain and discovered she could no longer hear anything with her left ear.

  When she threatened to leave him, he said, "Go ahead. You don't have any money, and I'm sure as hell not going to give you the car keys. See how far you get."

  She slept in the guestroom that night, but couldn't figure out a way to get back home with no money. The army doctors tried to repair her eardrum, but nothing seemed to bring back her hearing.

  What hurt her most, other than the way he hung all over other women, was his stinginess. They were married two years when their first child, Vicki, was born. Anne was humiliated that he wouldn't let her have money for anything, not even for maternity clothes. Instead, she wore things a neighbor gave her and dressed her baby in hand-me-downs the woman brought over from time to time.