With thanks to all who have waited an age for this update… there were a few little things to sort out in 'Heart's Desire'-land first!
This will read like an Oscars acceptance speech, but I want to say thank you to every one of you who has followed (officially or not) or favourited; to every faithful reviewer (hello OriginalMcFishie), particularly those I am so slow in returning the favour to (hello and thanks to the wonderful kslchen, Oz Diva, Excel Aunt, Anne O' the Island and KimBlythe); and to mavors4986 for helping bring both the 80's and sexy back and elizasky this week in particular for the safety net in every respect that are her PM's.
Additionally, there are lovely new reviewers to this story, and new guests adding much appreciated comments. I want to find a special time to thank you, too, but please know how fabulous it is to see a new reader engage with this (and any) story!
With love and mix tapes,
MrsVonTrapp x
Chapter Seven
'That the powerful play goes on'
Interlude: Melissa Meredith
Redmond College, Kingsport, Nova Scotia
August 1989
'There's another—not a sister; in the happy days gone by,
You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye;
Too innocent for coquetry—too fond for idle scorning—
O, friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning!' *
There were few people whom Melissa Meredith set much store by in life, and even fewer possessions, and thus true to both sentiments as her lone piece of jewellery - bar a multitude of ever changing and ever bigger, bolder and brighter colored earrings - there lived a tiny gold heart, pierced by a tinier diamond, permanently pressed against her golden skin. She found herself often twisting the delicate gold chain in contemplation, sometimes rubbing the heart unconsciously against her lips, as she poured over her nursing texts over the years and tried to focus on something other than the gossip of her roommate and the invariable conjecture over who was sleeping with whom this week.
She herself had been at the epicentre of that conjecture for nearly three years; but this would be the start of her senior year now, and things were getting serious, and so, finally, was she. Melissa had loved that at Redmond she was not flighty, as many a muttered aside back in the Glen, but a free spirit; not a rule breaker but a maverick. Though she couldn't think on being a maverick without thinking of someone she had once christened Goose.
Though too late she had realised that the joke was on her, and she was most definitely the feckless feathered creature in this equation.
It hadn't started out this way; they were firm friends who had met two if not three times a week, for a sandwich or a pizza, comparing new college experiences and their courses and news from home. They attended numerous parties together; there was even the dance held by the Law faculty, which hadn't been as stuffy as she'd feared. And then there had been… Derek.
Not an inspiring name, that was given, but absolutely a personage who inspired all manner of fantasies. At home she had not been unused to handsome men – Tony Drew had been more than passable; her brother, though painful to admit it, was bad-boy good looking and, heck, Rob himself was handsome by every objective measure – and a few subjective ones too - but Derek Johnson was… beautiful. A sophomore with brown eyes and blonde hair, with the muscular strength of a sprinter due to his track scholarship; and with a smile that some sixties movie heroine would have described as… dreamy. Undertaking a Science degree rather predetermined her physical proximity to him, with the nursing building so close by… and one golden late October afternoon in first year, she happened to bump into him, in a way that was the cutest meet cute of any couple in the history of meet cutes, and the rest, as they said in all the classics, was history.
Well, the classics always failed to note the reaction of the best friend, unless they happened to be breathlessly agog and hanging on the update of the heroine for every twist and turn; every kiss and clandestine meeting. Rob was not so breathless and not so agog, but painfully polite, shaking Derek's hand when she introduced them; determined to play it cool because this was college, but the disappointment darkened his eyes, until she could not look into them, and began to make excuses for staying away so she wouldn't have to.
Really, Rob had to lighten up. They were at uni now, embarking on The Time of Their Lives. She had fought hard for the privilege of it and would squeeze every last drop of sensation she could from their experience of college life, in all its facets. She would 'suck out all the marrow of life' ** in every respect.
And one of those facets was, naturally, the losing of her virginity to Derek Johnson (such a stupid phrase, really, she had always thought – as if you could mislay it like a set of car keys) when her roommate was sufficiently encouraged by the inducement of money for a movie and snacks to vacate the premises, though Melissa had perhaps overestimated the time this momentous event would require, and had bid farewell to Derek and had even had opportunity for a quick shower by the time Debbie resurfaced to knock tentatively on her own door.
Debbie had certainly read the script, and was in all stages of breathless agog-ness, and charmingly clung to Melissa's secretly tepid and outwardly warm responses; no, it hadn't hurt as much as she had anticipated; yes, Derek was as hot naked as clothed; yes, she supposed she felt different, though that difference manifested as a curious detachment, and she was left with the vague sense of searching for answers, as if to a crossword puzzle where she had overlooked a rather obvious clue.
Her seven months with Derek was merely bland more times than it was boring, and if it was tedious watching him train that was rather offset by the fact he was pleasant and pretty to look at, and a fabulous escort to parties, where she would occasionally encounter Rob, with all the cheek-flaming awkwardness of a long-lost lover, and not a friend and third cousin who by now had his own colorless little girlfriend on his arm, smiling up at him as if he had hung the moon.
In the parade of paramours there next came Justin, who was sweet in the way of another she knew but perhaps without the intelligence; into second year she happened upon Greg, an architecture student whose methodical leanings unfortunately extended to the bedroom; and towards the end of second year there was Jon, who was an intern at the training hospital; their brief, torrid affair and bitter break up made her turn to feminism for much of third year and lesbianism for one strange if memorable night, and the swearing off of all men in the interval.
The summer break at the end of third year found her longing for the tranquil, restorative waters of home; a place she had never thought she would miss and a community she usually merely tolerated. She had expected Rob to be there and hence the possibility of reconnecting over a coffee at some café (or his old lady tea if he insisted) but found herself at a loss when he was discovered to be clerking over the summer up in Charlottetown at Old Uncle Jerry's former chambers. That he had so thoroughly moved on from her with seemingly insulting ease was a bitter pill. Where was the patient guy who would wait forever, like some medieval knight?
And then, the bitterest revelation of all; he hadn't waited for her because she hadn't asked him to. That she had instead thumbed her nose at the idea of his waiting as some sort of breach of the sacred covenant between them, and not perhaps the very fulfilment of it.
She didn't want to miss his quiet humour or his clever asides or his flash of a smile or the warmth of his chuckle or the twinkle of mischief in those hazel eyes. And she definitely didn't want to miss the slow realisation over so many years that she was made more special just by the way he looked at her.
She slunk back to Redmond early, mostly because there was nothing else to do, and she spent days pacing the dorms, listless and disaffected. She drifted off to the movie theatre closest to campus one early evening because it was showing Dead Poets Society, and she wanted to watch it again to remind herself there was still goodness in the world and that mavericks could make a difference. And because militant feminism was tiring and she just wanted to sit and peruse cute guys in public school uniforms sprouting poetry for a while.
The queue was longer than she had hoped; mostly because everyone was also purchasing their own body weight in popcorn. A tall and impressively broad shouldered guy bought his ticket and turned to walk past, and her eyes locked with his because that's what they had always done.
Rob Blythe was staring back at her, juggling his coke and his popcorn and his clearly evident surprise.
Carpe Diem, Melissa Meredith breathed to herself.
XXXXX
"Rob!"
"Mel!"
It had been their first exchange in what felt like a year; she stared up at him and almost didn't know him. Who was this gorgeous guy? Where the blazes had those shoulders come from?
Everything that had been reassuringly soft and still boyish about him had fallen away, to reveal this chiselled creature of firm, slightly-stubbled jaw; of dark hair no longer flopping fetchingly over one dark brow but now shorter and gelled into an artful quiff; of the shoulders barely encased in their denim jacket; the double-demined magnificence extending to long muscular legs in his Levis; her wondering gaze travelled down to his Reeboks and up again, past lean hips and firm torso and found startling refuge in his eyes, the only thing about him that felt the same. He quirked a small grin at her open appraisal, and her own cheeks flooded with color, and then she felt her body nudged forward by the guy behind her in the queue.
"Are you seeing what I think you're seeing?" he asked.
That was debatable, she frowned to herself, still trying to account for his appearance even as she outwardly nodded regarding his educated guess with regards to the movie, watching with wide eyes as he negotiated seats together, amazed to note the gentle charm worked upon the girl behind the cashier's desk whose seating plan he had irrevocably destroyed; he bought her ticket and a Diet Coke and a packet of Skittles, still her favourite sweets, working from long memory, and gave a broader smile as he led her away and towards the theatre doors.
"Um, thank you."
"Sure." He paused. "It's great to see you, Mel. How have you been?"
How had she been? She felt she had been sleepwalking through her life, and someone had just cruelly slapped her awake with a start. Her throat closed over the ironies that assaulted her, and it made her response more accusatory than she had intended.
"Fine," she stumbled on the word. "You didn't go home this summer!"
He glanced down at her, his brows coming together at her tone.
"Er, no. I intended to, but I got… caught up."
She hunted around for her manners. "You worked at Old Uncle Jerry's firm? In Charlottetown?"
"Yeah," his look was fond. "It was great. They let me sit at his beautiful old mahogany desk. I was able to go back over some of his cases – mostly because they had me sorting out the old files and the other junk in the back room, but I hardly minded."
His soft smile was touching. He had really hero-worshipped old Jerry.
"I'm sure he would have loved you being there."
"Yeah," he nodded thoughtfully, and then turned back to her. "And how were things back in the Glen?"
"Oh, pretty lively and rad, as per usual," she muttered darkly, and his long-missed chuckle reached across to caress her as if a hand.
They found their seats and settled in. The showing was a busy one, being a Friday night and with nothing else to do before classes resumed halfway through the next week, although the mostly-empty campus would fill with arrivals old and new on the weekend. Melissa was annoyingly aware of his presence next to her; of the aftershave that flared her nostrils; of all the other films they had seen back in the time when she would relax her head against his shoulder and give arch, whispered running commentary of the movie into his ear.
But here, so close, all she could think of was the vast space now between them.
The film shouldn't have made her cry so much. She knew what to expect. All the yawping and dream-chasing and dream-shattering and defiant standing on desks. Her mother was a teacher at the high school; she would love this. But Melissa didn't think she could bear to ever see it again. Because it would just bring back memories she already wanted to bury; of those big Blythe hands feeding her a steady stream of serviettes to commandeer as tissues against the onslaught of her tears; of the bulging bicep giving up altogether and resting itself reassuringly around her shoulders, giving her a supportive squeeze every now and then; of his fond look to her when the house lights came up on her wrecked, tearstained face, with the sound of triumphant bagpipes over the end credits still ringing in her ears.
"Maybe we should have seen Top Gun again," he offered wryly.
She cough-spluttered a laugh and once out in the foyer dived into the restrooms to repair the damage as much as possible. It was stupid to feel shy of him as they slowly walked the streets back towards the college, he too full and she too jittery to contemplate anything approaching dinner as yet. Their talk was of inconsequential details about their courses and their workloads and their joint assertions that they would never survive the year. Weaving their way through the familiar walkways and past the grand old buildings (and some unfortunate early 70's architecture) the university felt a ghost town, appropriate enough for the ghosts that haunted her of their past selves as she and Rob ended at her door within the practically deserted dorm. If felt as if the only sounds was her heart thumping in her ears, and his soft breathing beside her.
"Ah, my roommate is not back until tomorrow…" she began, her throat inexplicably dry.
"It's Debbie, still, right?"
"Yes. And you… it's still Simon?"
Rob groaned good naturedly. "Yes. And Simon is still Simon."
She laughed freely for the first time that evening. Rob's roommate since first year was a nice, innocuous guy who was a case study in allergies and fastidious nervous behaviours. Their shared room was possibly the cleanest of any dorm in the whole of Redmond.
Melissa's invitation aimed for blasé and landed somewhere between scared and strangled.
"Would you like to come in for a while?"
Something shifted in that long-lashed, hazel gaze. "OK. Sure. Thanks."
XXXXX
Inside, the room was suddenly too small and his presence in it too overwhelming. Rob shrugged off his jacket and his t-shirted torso made things infinitely worse. Her dark blue eyes kept straying to his before looking away. Melissa had made the bed but had achieved little else; her boxes from home still heaped haphazardly. The only thing she had properly unpacked were her cassettes, a few new-fangled music compact discs and her new boombox which could play both. Her stack of cassettes sat on her desk; glaringly obvious at the top of the pile were two homemade mix tapes, which had become worn with use. Rob stilled, looking at them, frowning in concentrated bewilderment. And then, as she watched on breathlessly, he pushed play on the last thing she had been listening to, and the room filled with the audacious -and ironical - strains of Simple Minds' 'Don't You (Forget About) Me', from the joke tape he had made for her a lifetime ago.
He looked as if a stag stilled before a rifle, not sure if he was comprehending what his ears and eyes told him was possible danger. He switched it off and they were relieved by silence again.
"You… still listen to this?" his voice seemed to come at her from far away, as if down a long tunnel. "You still play these?"
"Occasionally…" she hedged, ensnared in her obvious lie.
He turned to her fully. "Why, Mel?"
"Why do you think?" she bit out defensively, feeling foolish. "You can't get that stuff anywhere anymore."
Another lie, and her cheeks enflamed at his narrow-gazed appraisal. Unfortunately she always twisted the necklace he had given her when agitated and she did so again unawares, until his gaze burned her from across the room and she became conscious of her folly, tucking it back beneath her blouse.
"Would you like something to drink?" she began moving away towards the bar fridge, prattling desperately. "I haven't got much in yet, but – "
"Mel, stop! For God's sake, just please talk to me properly for a minute."
Her new inexplicable feelings bled into her response. "We have nothing to talk about, Rob! You haven't been interested in talking to me for years!"
"What?" his incredulity left him open mouthed.
"You didn't even come home this summer! You didn't even see your parents!"
"They came up to Charlottetown several times," he explained tersely. "They stayed for nearly a week halfway through the break."
"Well, thanks very much for my invitation!"
"Honestly, Mel," he had become clearly exasperated, hands on hips. "I didn't think you were much interested."
"I am always interested in what you are doing!"
"Well, when you're between boyfriends you are."
The unfortunate observation slipped from him before he had a chance to attempt to retrieve it, but it was far too late anyway. Her own mouth dropped open and those blue eyes nearly popped out of her head.
"You supercilious bastard!" she reddened. "How dare you?"
He was immediately contrite, cheeks pinkening himself. "Mel – I'm sorry! I didn't mean that!"
"Of course not! And all the times I tried to touch base with you meant nothing, I guess?"
"Mel, I couldn't!" his face and tone had become agonised. "I couldn't stick around and watch you waste yourself on guys who never cared about you."
"As opposed to you, Rob? Throwing our friendship back in my face?"
"As opposed to you, Mel, never giving me a chance?"
"You said you would wait forever for me! You hardly lasted a year!"
"I would have waited forever for you if you had given me the slightest hope!"
"God, Rob! This is such old ground! I never wanted us to end up a disaster like the rest of them! I loved you too much for that!"
Evidently the guy opposite her wasn't the only one blurting stupid things this evening.
"Like," she backpeddled quickly and clearly ineffectually, her cheeks on fire. "I meant… like."
He had stilled again, and it was extremely unnerving. "Did you?" he asked, breathing heavily.
"Shut up, Rob! I am not playing law nerd semantics here!"
"No…" his look was piercing. "But the law nerd is just trying to get a handle on the evidence."
"Evidence?" she blustered.
"You are still wearing my necklace…" he began, voice slowing to calm now, infuriatingly, and his eyes flickered momentarily to somewhere about her collarbone. "You still listen to my tapes. You didn't recognise me at first at the cinema, and for a moment…" his voice finally caught, "you looked at me like you've looked at those other guys you were so mad for. And… you've been acting weirdly all evening."
"I have not been acting weirdly!" she clutched at the easiest thing to deny. "The movie was wrenching!"
He ignored this. "And you can hardly make eye contact with me."
She swallowed painfully, and gave him a long, deathly stare just to show that she could.
"Yep, that's convincing," he gave the ghost of a smile.
"You never were a smart alec before, Rob. It was one of the things I most admired about you."
He paused before answering. "And you never used to lie to yourself – or me – Mel. It was one of the things I most admired about you."
She scowled darkly at this, trying for affronted, but fearing her efforts were merely pitiful.
"The truth is I've missed you, Rob," she finally admitted begrudgingly, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat. "Alright? Are you happy? I've missed hanging with you. Though on tonight's recent efforts God knows why."
His eyes were surprised at this, but then he gave a maddening smirk. "I have missed you too, Melissa Una Meredith," he gave blithe reply.
She grabbed the nearest object, which was a shoe, and lobbed it in his general direction. Regrettably her aim was rather better than she'd reckoned on – or he'd grown taller and broader so there was just so much more of him – but she ended up clunking him fair and square on the side of the head.
"Ow!" he cried, his hand going to his crown.
"Oh, God, Rob! I'm so sorry!" she gasped. "I didn't mean that! I was just reacting stupidly to your stupid tease!"
"It's alright, Mel…" he half turned away from her, pressing his fingers to his scalp and then pausing as if to examine them. "But I think I'm bleeding…"
"What?" she shrieked, instantly bolting across to him, dragging him by the hand to her bed while he held his head with the other. Oh, God, had the heel of her shoe cut him? Would it be deep enough to need stitches? The hospital at this hour on a Friday night would be teeming with the injuries resulting from the drunken antics of the local populace, even without most of the college crew in residence yet.
"Rob…" she stood before him seated on the bed. "Please just let me look at it…" she leaned over to run deft fingers through his thick dark hair, too aware of her proximity to him, and those hazel eyes watching her that made her rather breathless.
"Umm…" she puzzled, leaning back to look at him, "there's a very slight bump but I don't see any…" She halted at his face; the light in his eyes; the emergence of a full-throttle Blythe grin.
"Maybe I was mistaken about the blood," he acknowledged blandly.
She felt her own face crack open on a smile. "You pig!" she giggled in relief, thwacking his disconcertingly hard bicep. ''You swine!"
"Hey!" he laughed, catching her hand, drawing her to sit beside him. "A common mistake! I'm not the one with the medical training!"
Melissa tried to maintain a vestige of control, but her mind had gone to mush.
"Goose," she sighed, almost sadly.
His laugh skidded to a stop. His eyes bore into hers. There were long leaden moments where the very air in the room felt heavy and dense with anticipation.
Gosh, would he ever kiss her? she gulped to herself.
Of course not. This was Rob Blythe. This was…
Oh, OK then. This was Rob Blythe kissing her.
XXXXX
His lips leaned in, brushing hers, carefully, as if expecting her to still draw back, despite all evidence to the contrary. When she met his, just as tentatively, she heard his surprised intake of breath, and it broke something in her, brittle girl she had been. Her hands immediately reached again for his hair, in caress now, and then locked around his neck, and he deepened the kiss in an instant; and in that infinitesimal beat of time her world and all her understandings of it shifted, as he drew her narrow waist to him with his large hands; bringing her with him to lie on the bed. Her brain whirled, trying to find any reason with which to right itself; this couldn't be Rob, her Rob, kissing her in this manner; this passionate, fearless, abandoned manner, which was slowly obliterating all her thoughts and reducing her to senses; the taste of his lips, still salt-scented and slightly tangy; the touch of his tongue as it questioned and quested; the feel of his long muscular body pressing in urgent greeting to hers; the smell of his cologne-scented skin, light and nuanced with an underlying note of sweetness, just like him; the sound of his breath shared back and forth with her; and finally, to have her eyes flutter open, dazed, amazed, to see his beautiful, hopeful face, and the curve of his lips into a sensationally satisfied smile.
She stared into the hazel eyes she loved, and knew with a sudden stab so new and yet so long denied that she loved him; that she loved him, and not because she was lonely and celibate for the last fourteen months; not because she was nostalgic for the past; not because he was handsome in the way that he had always been handsome ramped up a thousand-fold; not because he was in every way her best friend, even after all this time; not because he was gentle-strong and decent and intelligent and wry; not even because he knew his way around a kiss… Though there was truth in all those things, they were not the things that mattered. She loved him, now, this moment, in the new-knowledge, splintering her heart, that she couldn't bear to be without him again, ever.
"I love you, Rob…" she breathed in a way that was in every way unlike her and yet so very much like she always felt she could be.
"Love me?" his hazel eyes were wide.
"Well, yes, I…" she faltered, unsure of her path now, this new territory, having never actually offered the words before. "I think I love you… as in David Cassidy and The Partridge Family and… ah… all that." ***
He took another breath, as if he had been drowning only to suddenly resurface. "I… I love you too, Mel…" his eyes blistered with sudden light and longing. "I always have. But then… well… you knew that long ago."
"Yes…" she reached out to trace a finger down his cheek, running the pad along the prickles there. She gave a sweet smile. "But I didn't know… about me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Rob. I didn't know… I just wasn't… ready… then."
His brows drew together, as if still disbelieving. "And you are now?"
"Yes!" her kiss was every way a vow, cupping his face between her hands. "Yes, Rob!"
Her lips dragged his back to her, and the resulting minutes became feverish with mouth and hands and bodies, interchangeable and intertwined.
"Oh, Mel…" he suddenly groaned as her hands roamed to the skin beneath his t shirt. "Oh God… I'm sorry. I can't."
"Rob?"
He sat up, head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Mel. I can't do this. Much as I'd like to – and I unbelievably would like to!"
"Rob…" she sat up too, nestling into him, rubbing his back reassuringly. "Oh Rob… It's OK… really. This is all new for us. It takes… time. Though I would have thought, you know, with that girl you dated for ages…?"
Admittedly, she was shaky on the details, but he had dated that mousy girl – Sally? Kellie? – for over a year, possibly eighteen months, and she was sure he had had some dates in the interval. But perhaps she had wanted to wait – or perhaps he had wanted to, Blythe chivalric code firmly in place. Knights and vows and waiting and all that. Her heart swelled.
He looked back to her curiously. "Mel, you don't think that I'm…?"
"There's no shame in it, Rob!" she determined fiercely.
He bit down on his lip, and began to chuckle darkly.
"God, Mel!" he shook his head, bemusement breaking through his agony. "You don't know how much I really have missed you! But, Mel… I'm not a virgin. I… I have a girlfriend."
"What?" she questioned dully, not following.
His sigh came from his very depths. "This would have to happen now, of course! I've loved you since I was fifteen, Mel! That makes it five years of waiting for those words!" he threw her a look of heartbreak and shimmied away from her and off the bed. He began to pace before her, alternatively rubbing his hands down his face or through his hair in agitation.
"I have dreamed of a moment like this, dammit!" he continued to lament. "And this is just typical!"
"Rob – I'm sorry! I don't want to confuse you… but you don't owe any allegiance to her! Kellie or Sally or whatever her name was!"
His frown was deep, though an edge of humour softened it.
"Allie! Thanks for paying attention there!"
"Well, sorry, Rob Blythe, but same difference!" she huffed. "And my observation still stands."
He rolled his eyes.
"Mel, I don't mean Allie. I mean…" he paused, mouth working to form the words. "I mean Kimberley."
"Kimberley?" she echoed, incredulous.
"Kimberley," he affirmed bleakly. "Whom I met this summer… in Charlottetown."
Melissa froze. Well, so that's why he could hardly drag himself back to the Glen.
She tried to keep her face composed, though she had not reckoned on such a development.
"Well then…" she managed.
"I tried to move on from you, Mel!" the admission seemed ripped from his throat. "I tried so hard to move on from you! And I was doing OK, too!"
"Do you still want the opportunity to do that?" she was suddenly fearful of the possibility, and she felt the fear transfer itself to her face. Oh, God, what if he did? What if she had realised too late?
His look to her could have melted her clothes off her skin. "What do you think?"
She reddened with a primeval pleasure.
"Well, then…" she swallowed. "If I love you, and you love me, and not her, just phone her. Break up."
"Mel, you know I could never do that! I would need to see her… in person."
She blew out a frustrated breath. "So, go next weekend, and see her in person," she continued stubbornly.
"Mel…"
"God, your parents haven't met her, have they? They don't know that you and she were - "
"No! Of course not!"
Well, that was something.
"No one knew about us, Mel. It was a bit, ah, clandestine…" His look had grown incredibly sheepish. "Because, ah, she was actually a staffer, and it would have been against their Code of Conduct, as I was also technically an employee below her in rank…"
"She was on staff?"
"Yes. She had nearly finished her Articles."
Mel made some quick mental calculations, and then her mouth dropped open.
"She has to be older than you by… well… two or three years…"
"Nearly four, actually. She took a year off to travel after her degree."
Her mouth hit the floor, and she attempted to scoop it back up again. Rob had been having some secret affair with a twenty five year old?
She swallowed again, with even more difficulty, giving him a loaded look from beneath her lashes. No wonder he knew how to kiss. And… the new and still-surprising thought colored her cheeks… probably a little more than that besides.
She heaved herself off the bed in the last vestige of imperious indignation, crossing her arms to give full regal effect.
"Well, Robert James Blythe! You have been busy!"
"Please don't be like that, Mel! I didn't expect anything to happen with her. And I certainly didn't expect anything to happen with you! Give me some credit!"
She wished she didn't feel marginally impressed by these lothario leanings he was demonstrating, though they ran counter to all her fond imaginings about him. But then… fond imaginings had nothing to do with the tingle of delightful torment when he looked at her as he was looking at her now…
"Mel…" he came to her, his eyes the earnest eyes of the boy she remembered, inside the man she was learning about anew. He sighed deeply. "This is a mess. I'm sorry."
She swallowed. "I haven't exactly helped matters…" she met him halfway. "I could have realised I loved you before the summer, at least."
He gave quite a beautiful smile at that; the half-heartbroken smile of the boy on his eighteenth birthday, having kissed her with everything in him, and it still, then, hadn't been enough.
"I wanted to do this so differently…" his voice had dropped to a low rumble. "I wanted for you to… um… for me to try to make you maybe realise that…" He flushed, rolling his eyes.
"To make me realise I had feelings for you?" she asked gently, and then with a suggestive gleam, "and how did you propose to do that?"
"Well…" he shrugged, looking delightfully embarrassed now. "It probably involved me kissing you senseless… and, er, other things…"
She cleared her throat, and her blood hummed. "Granted, the other things probably need to wait, um, how long exactly?"
"Three weeks," he explained carefully. "She's on a work assignment in Alberta."
Melissa's breath was long and her response very dry. "Of course she is."
Rob looked at her, trying to judge her reaction. "I waited five years for you, Mel," he offered with quiet fervour. "Can you wait a month for me?"
"Well, that all depends…" her lips found the sultry smile she didn't know lived in her, and she met his eyes challengingly. "Maybe you can forget you have a girlfriend for five more minutes, and remind me how that kissing me senseless idea goes again?"
He grinned the grin he always found just for her, and caught her in his arms, her lips parting eagerly beneath his lingering smile.
David was convinced that there were few occasions in life more excruciatingly mortifying than the one he faced that Sunday morning, but he was determined to make the best of it. His amorously-inclined father, newly awakened as if a young colt introduced to a fresh pasture, hid behind his newspaper, preferring to sense his scrambled eggs by touch rather than risk a glance which might inadvertently land on the smirking visage of his lookalike son.
"So you explored some of the local sights yesterday, Dad?" David asked blandly.
"Mm-hmmm…"
"Glad you didn't catch any sun. It certainly was pretty hot and steamy by the afternoon…" David bit down on his lip so hard he felt he might draw blood.
"Mmmm…"
"I really hope you showed Tessa a good time…" David shook now with the effort not to laugh, and was rewarded by a great spluttering in response and a scramble for a gulp of tea, the previous day's The Globe and Mail **** acting as thankful bulwark between him and stray breakfast projectiles.
With a deep sigh Rob Blythe folded the newspaper and set it down beside his plate.
"It's times like this, son, you are disconcertingly like your mother."
David grinned broadly.
"That's because I have Meredith blood running through my veins twice over, as Anne has been too pleased to remind me."
At mention of Anne, Rob's face lit from within, no doubt reflecting on others of his acquaintance from that family. After a moment he attempted to compose his features and his response.
"David… I would like to have a quick word about yesterday. I owe you an apology. And Anne. You were both left completely to your own devices and it's something that Tessa and I both regret. I should never have put you in the position of being solely responsible for Anne's welfare for all day and... into the evening."
"Dad, it's fine! We were fine! We had a nice time…" so much more than a nice time, he mused, "and really, she's seventeen, I'm nearly twenty-one; no big deal."
"Still…" his father was evidently unwilling to cast off his hair shirt, "it shouldn't have happened, and it won't again."
"It won't?" David quirked a knowing eyebrow.
"Oh, alright!" Rob scoffed. "You know what I mean!"
David began to chuckle infuriatingly, making his father shake his head in despair.
"How did the family research go?" Rob asked after a moment.
"Diversionary tactics there, Dad."
Rob rolled his eyes. "Be that as it may, Mr Smart Alec. I notice half the attic has made its way downstairs."
"Yeah. Sorry about that," David glanced to the boxes at the end of their long dining table and a few clustered on the floor.
"Don't apologise! I'm thrilled - you know that. As long as all this isn't taking you away from your MCAT studies."
"It's all under control, Counsellor," David flashed a grin.
"And as long as Anne is enjoying things too. Has she liked learning a little more about the family?"
In an instant David was back at the top of the lighthouse that previous evening, as the midnight darkness was broken by the imagined beam of light from its dormant eye, and the light coming from Anne's own eyes before he had kissed her.
"I think so far she has found it all very… illuminating," his smile softened.
"Good…" Rob's litigator gaze took in his son thoughtfully. "David, you don't have anything to share with me, do you?"
The answering smirk wasn't quite so cocksure as before. "No more than I imagine you do, Dad."
"Yes, well, alright…" Rob flushed despite himself. "Just, ah, be mindful, OK son? She's younger and, er, family and … well… three buttons ***** and all that."
David sighed extravagantly. "And Noah phoned while you were out. He wants his Ark back."
This earned him a swot on the shoulder with the aforementioned reading material, though Rob joined with his son's laughter. They began to compile breakfast paraphernalia on the bench and in the dishwasher, caught in their own thoughts.
"David… you know I love you," Rob announced seriously.
"Jeez, Dad, of course! And I love you, too."
"I wouldn't want… recent developments… to take anything away from what your mother meant to us – what she meant to me. I loved her very, very much."
David contemplated his father seriously; this decent, honourable, good hearted man of strong values and tender sensibilities. His throat tightened unexpectedly.
"I know, Dad. I know. Me too. But… I'm happy for you. You deserve this."
Their hug was brief and heartfelt, before Rob moved towards the study and David to the stairs; the ladies of their new acquaintance were having the morning with Maddie Meredith and then their Ford visitors would come together to Ingleside in the afternoon.
Before he ascended, David called his father back.
"Dad? Thoughts of Ma and latchkey kids aside, you don't have any other regrets about yesterday, do you?"
If Rob Blythe was caught out by the question, the lawyer in him was hardly going to let it show. His slow smile, gaining in watts to full Blythe brightness, told its own story.
"Not a single one, son. Not a single one."
Anne was convinced that there were few occasions in life more excruciatingly mortifying than the one she faced that Sunday morning, and she prayed for it to be over as soon as possible.
"I hope you know how sorry I am, Anne, love. Rob too. We were very negligent and – "
"Mom, please. It's OK. I'm seventeen, not seven."
Tessa drummed nervous fingers on the dining table of their suite. "All the same, darling, I… I…"
"Mom, stop beating yourself up! It was fine. I was with David the whole time… and I met Maddie and Max, too, and you'll meet her later."
"Yes, that will be lovely. And David… David was terrific. I'm so grateful to him, taking you under his wing and…"
"Mom! You make it seem like I'm some stray animal he took in for the day!"
"Love, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way…" Tessa covered her face with her hands. "I am making an absolute mess of this!"
"Mom… how about I ask the questions, and you answer them. Then we might get out of here sooner."
"OK…" Tessa's look was dubious.
"Right. Firstly… you… slept with Rob Blythe?" Anne's cheeks flushed alongside her mother's.
"Oh, darling!" Tessa looked horrified. "Couldn't you have started with what we had for lunch?"
Anne's lips quirked. "Believe me, Mom. That is not the hardest question."
Tessa let out a long breath. "Yes, darling. I'm sorry… I did."
"Why are you sorry? Was it not… nice?"
"Oh my God. I am just not ready for this conversation!" She looked to Anne, still waiting patiently and somewhat wonderingly. "Would you like some water, sweetheart?"
"Mom… you're avoiding the question!"
"Just let me get some water…"
Her mother took an inordinate amount of time to pour bottled water into two glasses, and then she added ice, and walked very slowly back to the in-room breakfast neither had barely touched. She was a little more composed when she sat down again.
"Right, darling. I'll answer you honestly. You are virtually an adult yourself; you deserve nothing less. I… I meant I was sorry in that I felt I let you down, in not being there for you, and going off by ourselves. I didn't want to imply that my time with Rob was the part I was sorry about. My time with him was not just nice it was… lovely. Too lovely. Not just when we were… together… but the whole day. I don't know if I could date anyone now, back home, after having met him. So maybe that part I'll regret. Maybe he's spoiled me for anyone only half as nice. And not being able to pull the mother card on you, my love, ever again, after my hasty behaviour is probably a regret as well…"
Her mother looked dangerously close to tears; Anne hardly felt she could ask her real question now.
"Mom… do you love him?"
Her mother took another long sip of water.
"I think… I am dangerously close to falling in love with him, yes."
"Do you… want that to happen?"
"Oh, darling…" Tessa sighed. "I don't know. It's only been a few days. This has all been crazy and so quick and… Really, it's just this Island, and it's just this summer and… I didn't come for this, so it feels wrong to hope for it now… and nothing can come of it, anyway. Different worlds, love… I'm only visiting. In a few weeks we'll be back home again, and we'll have a pumpkin in the drive and not a glass coach…" Tessa gave a pained, lopsided smile. "So if I live in the fairytale for a while, it's only that I know midnight will come again eventually."
"Mom! That's just too sad! You have a right to be happy!"
"Darling, I am happy!" Tessa protested.
"I thought you were… I really did. And then you met Rob Blythe, and now I know the difference. And its'… its spoiled things for me, too."
"Oh, Anne…" Tessa's beautiful face finally fell in on itself.
"I really like Rob Blythe. He makes you happy. I'm pretty sure you make him happy. Why not just… be happy?"
"Out of the mouths of babes…" Tessa shook her head incredulously, and then gave her lovely, tinkling laugh, only with a darker edge to it. "Why not, indeed?"
"You don't believe you can be?"
"No, it's not that, love… it's just that life isn't that simple."
"We've done complicated, Mom. I think it's time to try simple."
Her mother's breaking, genuine smile, then.
"Anne Alexandra Ford, Agony Aunt. And where does David Blythe fit into these wise musings?""
Anne reddened at the unexpected change in direction.
"He doesn't fit anywhere, Mom! That is… he's nice…" so much nicer than nice… "He's really great…"so much greater than great… "But we… we're just…"
Anne halted, defeated. Her mother had claimed she deserved honesty but she was giving none in return.
"I like him. A lot," she blurted before she lost her nerve. "But maybe that's just the fairytale part, too."
"You're seventeen, darling…" Tessa's tone was wistful. "You should get to have the fairytale."
Anne reddened beautifully, and found her glass of water newly fascinating.
"It's just that, darling… you're still young and… David is older and… I'd hate to say do as I say and not as I do but…"
"Mom!" Anne leapt up in indignation, barely resisting the urge to cover her ears in mounting horror. "We were going so well!"
"Sweetheart! Will you just take things slowly and…"
Anne's affronted eye roll nearly caused permanent damage.
"No more Mom Card, Mom! At least not for a day or so!"
Tessa let out a steadying breath.
"OK, love. Fair enough… But fair warning, I am only taking a raincheck."
"I would expect nothing less," Anne huffed.
"Darling, can I please say what I would like to say once, and I won't mention it again unless you want to, and I am saying this fully aware of the … irony… of my own actions."
"OK…" Anne clutched the back of her chair tightly.
"You … you are the most precious thing in the world to me, Anne. And so, if anyone now or in the future is deserving of you, they will treat you as if they think you are exactly the same, to them. Never forget how incalculably precious ****** you are."
Anne blinked back her tears.
"Does Rob treat you that way?" she asked hoarsely.
"Yes, love. Absolutely."
"Did… did Dad?"
A pained pause, and dark grey eyes met troubled brown.
"Darling, I…"
"Honesty, Mom, remember?"
Tessa took a shuddering breath.
"Mostly."
Anne nodded silently, biting her lip.
"Don't worry, Mom," Anne's throat throbbed, barely able to force the words, determined not to cry. "I know what being treated as something incalculably precious *****looks like. Because I've had you there for seventeen years, every day, showing me."
Tessa stood, coming around to her daughter, and her hug was long and heartfelt. Anne registered the tears damp on her cheeks, but this time they weren't her own.
No one knew where to look, or who indeed whom to look at. Rob was effusive in greeting Anne that afternoon and only furtively smiled at Tessa. Tessa was concentrating all her too-cheery efforts on David, thanking him for taking Anne to meet the Merediths and obliquely for everything else. David's eyes darted everywhere. Anne concentrated her efforts on the floorboards.
They finally relaxed over coffee, tea and hot chocolate. Enough, at least, for Anne and Rob to begin to excitedly converse over their findings.
"Has your research so far uncovered anything new to you, Anne?" Rob wondered.
"It has, Rob! Some great primary sources. There's old newspapers and bills and so forth. My great great grandmother Rilla wrote a diary over the war years. I'd love to take a closer look at it for a while if you don't mind. And… ah…" she shot a quick look at David. "We might have a few questions for you regarding some Blythe family members…"
"Oh?" Rob smiled. "Did you find a closet full of skeletons we don't know about?"
Anne opened her mouth to reply, before David cut in quickly.
"About that, Anne…" he intercepted. "I just wanted to check over something with you upstairs."
"OK," Anne blushed, instantly making the invitation seem less-than-innocent. She followed David to his room, leaving the parents to their own innuendo-inflected conversation.
Inside his room David closed the door; an intentional move that was not lost on her. He stood before the door, and then moved towards her hovering near the bed.
"Hi," he offered.
"Hi," Anne replied.
"You're… OK?"
"Yes," she nodded firmly. "Very. Unless you count… tres awkward breakfast conversations with my mom."
He rolled his eyes. "Roger that. This end, too. But let's not go there now…" his tone had lowered seductively, and his hazel eyes could not decide whether they wanted to linger on her own eyes or her lips. "We have other matters to attend to."
"Oh?" she breathed. "Did you have anything particular in mind?"
He gave a wolf's smile. "Oh, Anne. Don't tempt me."
This gifted him the blush he had been courting, and his insides smiled too. Damn, she was lovely. Damn, those three buttons.
"Anne, there's something I wanted to run by you about Shirley Blythe's letter, before we go with it to Dad…."
"Oh…?"
"But once I do, you will be completely preoccupied with it, I think, and we'll miss our window for… saying hello properly."
"Oh…?"
"So I was wondering, if there were no objections, if I said hello to you first, and then went over the letter."
"Right." How long, she thought, did a person not breathe before they lost consciousness?
"So… is that a plan that works for you?" the gleam in his hazel eyes lit them as if a match struck.
She nodded, not trusting words.
He took a small step towards her.
"Hello, Anne."
He did not wait on her reply, but instead placed his long fingered, beautiful Blythe hands either side of her pale cheeks, leaning in to kiss her deeply. The room spun as if they both stood within the vortex and the air swirled around them, sucking all force towards their center; specifically the pressure of David's lips on hers.
The kiss was not long but hardly needed to be; it had more than done its job. With a grin and a kiss on her nose he left her to go to the desk; Anne plonked backwards onto the bed, grateful she no longer had to fight gravity.
"OK, then…" David was all business when he returned to sit down beside her, the copy of the Whitman in his hands. "If I asked you to be Best Man at my wedding, what would you think that would mean?"
"Sorry?"
"Just play along for a minute, please Anne. There is a method to the madness I assure you. So, a Best Man's role. Forget before the wedding. What would a best man do at the ceremony?"
"Um… well… he has the rings…"
"Yes…"
"When the bride comes in, he's waiting up the front, next to the groom."
"Yep. Would you say he stands beside them?"
"Sure. Of course." She nodded, frowning slightly.
"And who would you normally expect a groom to ask to be their Best Man?"
"Well, their best friend, of course."
"Male of female?"
She laughed. "Depends on the time and place! In Toronto there have been a few Best Girls in tux's, believe me! There was a wedding of a friend of my cousin's where that happened – it got a bit weird when it came to the dancing!"
He allowed her diversion, smiling bemusedly.
"OK. Sure. But what would your answer be if we're talking here in Glen St Mary, or hell, anywhere on the Island or the mainland too, around the end of the First World War?"
"Well, male, obviously!"
"Okay, then," he gave a smug smile of satisfaction.
"David, what is all this about?"
"Here…" he opened the Whitman and carefully extracted the letter. "Keep all that in mind, and read what Shirley says to Kit again…"
David watched Anne reading the letter, waiting for the lightbulb moment. He knew when it came; her gasp of disbelief and her agog grey eyes proclaimed her guided discovery fairly clearly.
"Oh my God!" she turned to David.
"What is your understanding now?"
"Shirley says stand up beside you while I hold my peace… While you marry someone else."
"What would your conclusion be about them, then?"
"That… Kit had to be a man! … That Shirley was in love with Kit, who was a man…"
David nodded silently.
"That Shirley Blythe was gay," Anne whispered, as if the very walls of Ingleside could hear them.
There was a beat of a few minutes whilst Anne digested all this.
"So… do you want to sit on this for a while? Or go down and shock my Dad?" he smiled knowingly.
Anne folded the letter reverently.
"Do you think he knows?"
David shrugged. "Hard to say."
"It was illegal…" Anne's face contorted in worry. "He could have gone to prison! Oscar Wilde did, not long before this letter was dated."
"Homosexuality wasn't decriminalised here until 1969…" David asserted, nodding sadly. "The year my Dad was born."
"Who was Kit, then? Someone here in the Glen?"
"Only one way to find out, I'm thinking…" he raised a speculative eyebrow. "But it's your call, Anne. You found the letter."
"But its your letter within your book within your house!"
"My Ma's book, actually…" he offered quietly.
"Really? Oh, David! Do you think she knew of the letter?"
"Jeez! I never thought of that!" his own eyes widened.
"Would Shirley Blythe have given young Melissa Meredith a love letter he wrote to his gay lover at the end of World War One?"
David's own eyes widened further. "Would Shirley Blythe have given my ma the letter he had sent to someone else?"
"Kit passed on the letter! Your mother knew Kit?"
They had both almost levitated off the bed in the growing rush of their excitement.
"Still your call, Anne!" David was virtually bouncing on his toes.
Anne took the letter and folded it back into the Whitman, pressing the volume to her chest.
"Carpe Diem!" she was already halfway to the door, racing David down the stairs.
Chapter Notes
I break tradition today to take my chapter title from Walt Whitman;
'That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse' from 'O Me! O Life!' in Leaves of Grass (1892) Book XX 'By the Roadside'.
Which was also wonderfully highlighted in Dead Poets Society… 'What will your verse be?'
*'Bingen on the Rhine' by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1867) also recited, of course, by Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables (Ch 19) for absolutely the same reasons as I reference it here.
**A quote from one of my favourite films, Dead Poets Society, directed by Australian Peter Weir, which was indeed released in 1989 and confirmed my desire to teach literature. Vale, Robin Williams – he said many times that teacher John Keating was his very favourite role.
The film was also my introduction to the 'sweaty-toothed madman' Walt Whitman, although I did not revisit him properly till decades later, courtesy of elizasky.
After seeing the film, which was a seminal moment for me, my seventeen year old self went home and wrote Carpe Diem in bright pink and orange fluroescent marker on the biggest sheet of paper I could find, and that life advice lived on my wall for the next five years, until I fronted my own class of teenagers.
Of course, the phrase to 'suck out all the marrow of life, is directly quoted and referenced in the film, and is from Henry David Thoreau, from 'Where I Lived, and What I Lived For', in Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (1854);
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
Those of you following elizasky's 'The Happiness We Must Win' (which is hopefully everyone!) will know that Nellie gave Carl Meredith the self-same book; not an originally intended little wink to the continuity I am trying to establish with both our stories, but one I will grinningly take with both hands.
***Whilst we are talking films, this is my riff on Hugh Grant's speech to Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral, although since that film wasn't released until 1994, you can be rest assured that Melissa is quoting the actual song from the series. Vale, David Cassidy.
****Alas, The Globe and Mail doesn't print a Sunday edition, but then Rob didn't get to too much reading the previous day! (For a refresher, see my M story A Beating Heart at Dance-Time)
*****see elizasky's 'Glen Notes' and 'Dispatches'
******Anne of the Island (Ch 20)