Mr Tolliver's Class
Summary: Kandy at Berkeley. Their first meeting.
Disclaimer: I wish I did but I don't.
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You want a sequel…I know you do. I would like to write a few chapters of their relationship through the notes but I don't know if I have time so I think I'll just work that in as flashbacks when they find the notes today!
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'Sandy!' he could hear his wife calling but he was mid-schmear and he couldn't jeopardise his art right now.
'Sa-a-a-n-dy. Sandy!'
Oh-oh, she was getting mad. Better answer.
'Yes honey?' he yelled back, stuffing half the bagel into his mouth. 'Sandeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,'
Damn, looked like he was going to have to go find her. Sandy grabbed the other half of the bagel and followed the voice.
Kirsten was sat on their bedroom floor by the dresser, clothes, jewellery, knick-knacks, photographs and paintings done by Seth in pre-school strewn around her.
'Uh sweetheart…' he began, glancing at the mess, 'what's going on?'
'I'm sorting…but I sort of got distracted.'
He laughed at that, picking his way through the belongings littering the floor. 'What's this?' he asked picking up a packet of cigarettes, 'honey I-…'
'They're Ryan's,' Kirsten told him.
'You mean you found them?'
'No,' she said. 'He gave them to me. When we became his guardians, like a…promise or something.'
Sandy felt immediately guilty and seized on a card that lay nearby. One made by Seth at three years old.
'H M D M' it read in large glittery letters and beneath this a sketch of Kirsten. He hadn't quite mastered the idea of words at that point; believing the first letter of each was enough to say 'Happy Mother's Day Mom', but the drawing was more than the average toddler's scribble. It had a head and arms and legs, long blonde hair, a big smile and the cute button nose Sandy loved so much.
'Always said he was going to be an artist,' he commented.
'Yeah that was the excuse you used when he drew on every wall of our house in Berkeley.'
'He was expressing himself.'
'We couldn't afford to paint over it for months.'
Sandy laughed and leant over a pile of old receipts and cinema tickets to kiss his wife. She had a worn leather photo frame in her hands and he smiled at the two black and white pictures.
The first was labelled Sandy Cohen Graduation 1985;Sandy in his cap and gown, arms around Kirsten, giant, goofy grin on his face, wedding bands conspicuous on the fingers of the young couple.
The second, Kirsten Nichol-Cohen Graduation 1987;an almost identical picture but Kirsten in regalia, Sandy's hand resting at her waist, the rise of her stomach a hint of Seth's presence.
'We look so young,' he said half-laughing, half-wistful.
'We were, but that wasn't what I wanted you for.'
'What did you want me for?'
Kirsten elbowed him at that. His tone deserved it.
'The relationship in those pictures…'
'Our relationship. Kirsten, what's wrong?' he asked worriedly.
'Do you remember how it started?'
'It feels like we've always been together; I don't remember the time before you…at least, I'd rather not.'
His wife smiled and nuzzled against his shoulder. 'Good answer but not good enough. You might have been forgiven for forgetting our anniversary you cannot forget how we met.'
Sandy feigned great concentration. 'I was twenty-two, you were eighteen, living in a mail-truck. I was the dumb fool who parked his car so close you couldn't get out the back.'
'No,' she said, laughing at the memory knowing full-well she and Sandy had both been inside at the time and had whiled away the time quite happily.
'Well, as I remember it. You stalked me obsessively for about a month before you actually spoke to me.'
'If anyone did any stalking it was you Sandy.'
'Hmm…were you the lap-dancer in that club?'
'Sandy!'
'Fine. Tolliver's first class of the semester, you were late, I had the incredibly good fortune of having an empty seat next to me. You flung yourself into it (I like to think it was the appeal of the handsome neighbour more than the acute embarrassment of being late but feel free to counter)…and the rest is history.'
She grinned widely at that and handed him a sheaf of papers, her eyes bright with tears. Sandy took in the dog-eared, yellowing sheets and felt his throat constrict.
Art major?
Law
Sandy Cohen
'I'll be right back,' he said, his voice gruff, and a confused Kirsten watched as he leapt up and hurried out the door. Moments later she heard him rummaging about in his study, a triumphant exclamation and then footsteps coming back towards their room. Settling down next to her, Sandy smiled sheepishly and handed his wife a similar stack of notes, the first of which read;
Art History
You?
Kirsten Nichol
'Oh,' she breathed. 'You kept them too.'
'Of course.'
'I love you.'
'I love you too.'
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Do you love me? I promised you this and I
have…finally…delivered. Sometime I will write some more!
Hopefully without such a giant gap between updates!
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