Auld Lang Syne
CJ/Danny, mentions of Toby and Nancy, someone else
This started out as one thing and became something completely out of left field, so the "one thing" is still waiting to be written. Unfortunately, it means that Donna needs to sit tight for a little while longer.
Warning – recurring "character" (if that's the right term) death
Rating : Mature/Adult for activity and languare
Please note:
The sexual events in this story take place in flashbacks to right before the time when some public health officials had just begun to notice what seemed to be cases of a rare form of cancer in otherwise healthy homosexual men and had just started talking about something called GRID -- Gay Related Immune Disorder. I am by no means advocating that anyone should imitate what Brianna and Danny, CJ and Paul did in less treacherous times. Nor am I advocating breaking the laws regarding underage drinking (although those of us who learned how to respect alcohol at our family tables and under the eyes of our parents while in restaurants seem to do better with it than those for whom it is totally "forbidden fruit" for 21 years). It was the end of a simpler era, one of "auld lang syne".
Spoilers through end of series
Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul
Feedback and criticism always welcomed
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Late September 2009 Santa Monica CA
Danny pulled into the garage, got out of the Mustang (he preferred that CJ use his car when driving with Paddy rather than the convertible), and picked up his briefcase and overnight case. The garage door was shutting as he walked into the courtyard. He hurried across the open space and into the family room.
"Honey?" he called.
"Hush," he heard her stage-whisper voice coming from the bedroom. "I just got Paddy to sleep."
He walked into the bedroom and then into the sunny yellow nursery. "I missed you," he wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. Then he reached into the crib and stroked the sleeping baby. "I missed you, too, male child mine. Were you a good boy for your mama and Uncle Hank?"
He had been in New York for one day to meet with his publisher and with Mrs. Fitzwallace, flying up the night before yesterday on the red eye, then meeting all day and most of the evening. He got the first flight out this morning. It was the first time he had to leave CJ overnight with the baby and he had been concerned. He had asked one of the guys to stay with her, to help with the baby; he phoned her 4 times yesterday to make sure everything was going okay. If it weren't for the time differences, he would have called before leaving New York earlier today.
"He was fine. He was a little fussy when Hank was feeding him, but eventually he took the entire bottle. With any luck, we'll have the teen club kids back by the end of the week." A nasty intestinal virus was working its way through the group of young women who helped out after school and they were temporarily without outside help.
He turned CJ around, intending to pull her into the bedroom and take advantage of the 90 minutes they hopefully had. It was then that he noticed her red-rimmed eyes.
"Sweetheart?" He put a hand to either side of her face, looked into those sad eyes. "What is it?"
She led him into the family room.
"When I woke up this morning and came in here, there she was, just just - just lying there."
She stopped by the table behind the sofa and he could see Gail floating on her side at the top of her fishbowl.
Then his eyes started stinging and he pulled her into a big hug. "Ah, honey."
"I know that she was really old for a fish, I mean, almost 11 years, but still –."
"I know." And he did know what she was feeling. Gail had meant so much for them during those seven years in the White House. The fish was symbolic of his stated intention to wait for her, to make her part of his life when she was free of her self-imposed duty. Gail was the child he would someday give her, the child that now slept peacefully some 30 feet away from where they were standing.
He thought of his utter sorrow when Pistol died and while the attachment between the two of them and the little goldfish was not as deep as that between boy and dog, this was more than an inconvenience.
"Danny, I don't want to make a huge fuss, but I can't just flush- "
"Why don't we wrap her in one of the elephant ear leaves and bury her by the fountain? Maybe put some of her decorations there?"
"One or two; we'll keep the rest. Do you think that we could get two fish this time? I was thinking today, we never gave her a chance for a family, or even just a friend."
"You want more fish?"
"Not right away; maybe in two or three weeks, I'll find us a nice fish couple."
"When you're ready, I'll take care of it."
"Danny, you've got a book to write, a column to write, two classes to teach, and two classes to take. You've got enough to do."
"And one of those things is giving you goldfish." In his mind, some things were his responsibility. Ensuring her safety when she traveled. Taking care of her car. Cleaning the gutters. Doing the driving in nasty weather or on the tricky parts of the road. Answering the door at night or when they weren't expecting anyone. Impregnating her (and all the fun that went along with it). Buying her goldfish.
They went into the courtyard. CJ went to get a hand spade while Danny got the leaf, gently scooped Gail's body from the bowl, and wrapped her in the leaf. She dug into the soil around the fountain in the center of the courtyard and they buried the fish, pulling one of the dahlia plants over the grave.
Back to the family room, Danny looked over the mail. She went to the kitchen, came back with some grapes and iced tea.
They were about to head for the bedroom when the phone rang. CJ sighed and reached over to answer it.
"Hello? Oh, hi, Robin. How's everything going with you guys? How does Fee like being at Trinity?" Pause. "Well, I guess that's a good sign." Pause. "Sure thing, he's right here." She handed the phone to Danny.
"Hey, guy, whassup?" Pause. Then, his voice breaking. "Oh, Geez. How? When?" Pause. "I'll call over there later this week, explain that we can't come for the funeral, can't travel that far with the baby. Give Angus and their kids our love. Kiss Erin and Ash for me."
Hanging up, he turned to CJ, who was sitting beside him on the couch, concerned about the apparent bad news her husband just received from his brother-in-law.
"Brianna and Hugh Stewart are dead. They were out sailing when a sudden squall came up, capsized the boat. They found the bodies this morning."
Then he buried his face in her shoulder and shed hot tears for the woman who, when she was a 26-year old widow, had shown him things every man should know; and for her second husband, the man who, according to some diehard royalist/ nationalists, should have been king of an independent Scotland.
It was the summer between his freshmen and sophomore years at Notre Dame. He had just turned nineteen. He was newly orphaned; his father had died the previous March, probably of a broken heart (his mother had died ten months earlier). Erin and Robin had been married for two years. They didn't think Danny should be by himself, but Erin was still flying and their schedules were haphazard. So Robin arranged with his uncle Angus for Danny to stay with him in Scotland and work in the family whiskey business.
It was really interesting work; he could write about it next fall in his articles for the student newspaper. Danny enjoyed being with his brother-in-law's extended family. The small village in the Scottish highlands where the distillery and estate were located was a blend of Brigadoon and the modern world.
In mid-June, Angus mentioned that his older daughter, who had recently been widowed (her husband died in an avalanche while skiing in Gstaad the past January), would be coming to visit. ("She thinks his parents blame her for getting him interested in the sport and she canna stand to watch their pain.") Angus was concerned about his daughter. She and Jeremiah Ogilvie, who had been 12 years older than she, had been a real love match. "Jem took to her when she was 10 and they married at 17 because he couldn't wait any longer for her. They were planning to start on a bairn when he died. I ken she has ta grieve, but she has her whole life ahead of her."
The next day, when Danny returned from the distillery, he heard the sounds of "Coming through the Rye" being picked out on the parlor piano. When he looked inside, he saw a china doll sitting at it. He had heard the phrase "alabaster skin" but he never knew what it meant until now. The young woman was petite, with black hair halfway down her back that managed to have glints of silver in it as she moved her head to the music.
He must have made some noise, because she stopped and looked up with eyes that were as blue as his own. "It must be Robin's wee brother-in-law," she said with her father's brogue. "I'm Brianna Ogilvie of the MacDonalds of Sleat, Robin's cousin. That must make us some kind of relation, but I dinna ken what it could be."
"I'm Danny. Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons." He smiled, giving her a formal introduction in return for hers. "In some parts of America, they would call us kissing cousins." Where did that come from?
She got up from the piano and laughed. He could hear the brooks of the glens in her laugh as she walked over to him.
She reached up and planted a relatively chaste kiss, her lips open but nothing else, on his mouth. "I like that term, Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannon's."
He was a generation removed from the auld sod, but he could do an Irish lilt to match her brogue. "An' do ye now, Miss, I mean Mrs. Ogilvie?" He remembered her recent widowhood and flushed with embarrassment for having flirted with her. "I apologize. And I am so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine losing a spouse. You must miss your husband very much."
Her eyes became a little duller; he could sense a mantle of sadness draping over her, but still she teased. "Don't ever be calling me that again. Mrs. Ogilvie is me mam-in-law. Aye, I miss my Jem. Our nine years together seems as but a single season now. I thank you for your kind thoughts. And you, losing your da and your ma within the year or so. Ye must feel as alone as I do at times."
He thanked her, admitted that he did. "We were never very close to my parents' families. Now it's just me and Erin."
"Ah, but now you're a kissing cousin to Clan MacDonald. We're a terrible bunch altogether, there'll be times when ye'll wish we weren't so friendly. Will ye be here in mid-August? There'll be a gathering; we'll introduce ye to The MacDonald himself and get you formally adopted." He loved the way she slipped in and out of the brogue, as if some teacher had tried for years to drill it out of her and almost succeeded, but not entirely.
For the next six days, they spoke with each other occasionally. Danny was really busy in the distillery; Brianna kept to herself other than mealtime and when she was visiting with girlhood friends. Some evenings, Angus, Brianna, and Danny would play three-handed bridge. Sometimes, she would play the piano. Other evenings, he would meet the other young men of the village in the pub.
On the seventh day, Angus received a call from his sister Sorcha. She wanted to come visit but she had sprained her ankle and needed a ride. Angus left that evening; he would stay overnight and would be back the next afternoon with Sorcha.
That evening after supper, as they were playing gin, Brianna started asking Danny about Notre Dame. She was especially interested in the women. Did they seem to enjoy their studies? Did they feel as if they needed to compromise their intelligence in order to appeal to the men?
Jem had wanted to send her through university. He wanted her to be fulfilled, to be a truly modern woman. They had married when she was 17 because they had been drawn to each other for seven years and that had been long enough, but he wasn't looking for merely a housekeeper, a bedmate, a mother of children. It was she who decided that she wanted to be with him constantly; almost as if she knew somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind that she would not have him for long. He was the one who had wanted to wait to start their family; she would have preferred conceiving right away. They had planned to spend the first night back from the trip to Gstaad poking holes in her diaphragm; they had been hoping for a baby before Christmas. Now, she said with tears escaping down her cheeks, she had inherited much of his fortune and she was thinking she should belatedly get the education he had wanted her to have. She missed him so much.
Danny was a sucker for tears, but he didn't get upset at the idea of a woman crying. He did what he usually did – put an arm around her and let her cry herself out at her own pace.
When she finished, she sniffed, reached up and kissed his cheek, saying, "I'm sure that this is such a boring summer for you, spending your days tending to peat fires and barley mash and your nights with an old man and his sniveling lass, listening to her blathering."
"I've always been a good listener. Girls say that about me." He smiled.
"That you are, lad, that you are." She reached up to kiss him again, but this time he moved his head and she ended up kissing his mouth.
Then he returned her kiss. "Oh, laddie, where did ye learn to kiss like that?" she murmured as she briefly broke away before returning her mouth to his.
She wasn't that bad a kisser either, Danny thought as his body reacted and he pulled her closer. Damn, these jeans are tight.
When his right hand slipped of its own accord from the side of her face to her neck and then to the side of her breast, she suddenly stood up from the couch.
"I'm sorry, I had no right," he began to stammer. He was a guest in her father's house, for heaven's sake.
But Brianna took his hand, and, moving backward, pulled him to his feet. "Come upstairs with me, Daniel Concannon of the Concannons of Galway."
His feet moved but he was hesitant. "Brianna, I'm not – "
"Hush, your body doesn't lie," she said, looking pointedly at his groin and continuing to pull him to the steps.
As she started walking backward up the stairs, her eyes never leaving his face, he tried again to let her know that while he might be a very good kisser he might disappoint beyond that. "I've never done this – "
"Then it's a good thing I have," she smiled, continuing to pull him up to the second floor. "I'll show you the way."
He had to learn sometime and, truth be told, he might have just the smallest little crush on this particular teacher. He had one more concern. "I don't have anything. What if you get preg – "
"My diaphragm, with no holes, is still in my suitcase; I won't."
By this time, they were in her room, the door shut and locked. She was sitting on the bed, still holding his hand. He was standing in front of her.
She looked up at him. "We'll be good for each other, Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons," she whispered.
And Danny sat down beside her, nervous and excited about what was going to happen tonight. "H'kay".
Danny figured he had been to third base ("or at least to shortstop"). He had removed a girl's blouse and her brassiere and kissed her breasts. He still needed two hands to undo the back hook type, but he could do it without having to turn the girl around. He had put his hands inside a girl's underwear and touched her, but had never seen a girl completely naked in an intimate setting. A girl had reached inside his pants and briefs and stroked him, but he had never ejaculated into anyone's hand other than his own.
He took to heart the idea that what occurred between a guy and a girl, a man and a woman, was private, for them alone, and had not engaged in many bull sessions in the dorm. When asked about his exploits, he took refuge in his smile, not realizing that his smile was interpreted by most of the guys and many of the girls as implying knowledge and experience he did not have. Yes, he had read all the books, even seen some pictures from the Kama Sutra, but this would be a first for him.
She kissed him and pulled off his T-shirt, then his shoes and his socks.
He kissed her, moved his hands to her blouse buttons, and waited until she nodded her head to undo them. He kissed her neck and shoulders and she made appreciative sounds. When he was going too slowly for her tastes, she crossed her arms in front of her and pushed her bra straps from her shoulders. He stopped her hands and took over.
She unsnapped his jeans and removed them and his briefs, touched him and called him silk. He unzipped her skirt, but she wouldn't let him remove her half-slip. Instead, she guided his hand up under it to her underwear. They were cotton, like her bra, and felt to be full cut. Obviously, she hadn't planned a seduction when she got dressed this morning.
"Please take them off," she whispered, lying back and lifting her hips off the bed.
He smiled (Sweet Lord, she thought, did he have any idea how he looked when he smiled?) and then laughed at himself as he had trouble maneuvering the cloth from waist over both hips.
They stretched out alongside each other and began to kiss again. He reached for her breast and she put a hand on his hand, adjusting the pressure and showing him what she liked. Her hands on his shoulders, on his back, on his butt felt good and when she asked him if there was anything special he liked, he told her quite honestly that he didn't know what he liked or disliked, she should do what felt good to her husband and he would let her know if anything felt bad.
He reached for her slip and she stilled his hand, left the bed for the bathroom attached to her room, and picked up a small case on the way.
He didn't think she intended it, but the bathroom door had a full-length mirror on it and the angle enabled him to watch her. She removed a round object from the case, inspected it, and covered it with some sort of Vaseline-type substance (he later found out it was a spermicidal jelly). Then, in profile to the mirror, she put the leg nearest the door on the commode seat and curved her back so that her head was almost to her breasts. She slipped the round object between her legs. As it and her hand disappeared from his sight, he saw her trunk move slightly. Then she lowered her leg, rinsed her hands, and returned to him on the bed. Looking down at him and then at the slip, she softly told him "Now ye can take it off."
For the first time, he was naked with a naked woman. He trailed his fingers down her stomach toward her curls. She opened her legs to him and he reached into her center. It felt so different than before; in the past the girls would open their legs only slightly and he could touch with only one or two fingers moving freely. Now he was touching Brianna with his hand out flat, marveling at the warmth and wetness under his palm, the folds under his fingers.
He began to move said fingers and was promptly stopped by her hand over his. She arranged them differently, had them move differently. "Watch my face, watch me, Danny," she whispered. "Always watch her. She may be too shy to show you, to tell ye what's best for her, but her face won't lie, her body won't lie."
When he knew what to do, she put her hands on his shoulders, reached up to kiss him. Then she continued to stroke his body, giving him verbal hints and instructions. ("Move your thumb a little harder, put two fingers inside me slowly, yes, yes, stop right there, and press up. Oh, yes, oh, yes, yes!")
When, a few minutes later, she stiffened, pressed up against his hand, then melted back into the bed and looked up at him, he asked her, "Did you just?" She smiled and nodded her head, and she became the first recipient of what several women would come to know -- the beatific smile that started on his mouth, spread to his eyes, and then become the glorious self-satisfied grin that could only be described as "shit-eating".
"Come to me, Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons," she whispered, and he moved between her legs. She guided him to her entrance and shifted her hips toward him. And Danny Concannon reached home plate.
He could not believe the warmth, the heat, the clutching around him. He moved out slightly, and back in, out again. As he moved in a third time, he exploded inside her and collapsed on her body, one of her hands stroking his head, the other moving from his back to his butt.
He didn't know much, but he knew enough that it shouldn't have ended so soon, and he said something to that effect, apologizing.
She laughed, not at him but at the situation. "Ah, laddie, that's been waiting for how long, how many years? Ye're young; ye'll be ready again soon. In the meantime, we can get some more tutoring in, aye?"
She got up and walked again to the bathroom, where she washed herself and did something with the jelly and a plunger-type thing, inserting the plunger-type thing inside her.
"Were you aware that I could see what you were doing, the way the door and the mirror are positioned?"
Brianna said she wasn't, asked what he thought about what he saw. He told her he thought she was beautiful and that sometime, he would like to watch her "do that from the front." She laughed and kissed him, asked him if he needed to use her bathroom.
He realized that he did. He could hear her light laugh as he shut the door and turned on the faucets in the sink before relieving himself. He knew she wasn't laughing at him, not really. Afterwards, remembering what she had done, he used her washcloth to remove the traces of himself from his genitalia and groin.
He looked at himself in the mirror, trying to see if he looked any different. By some standards, he was now a man.
When he returned, he started to get beside her, but she had him sit on the bed facing her ("Far away enough that you can see everything, but near enough to touch"). Then, spreading her legs and with the help of the hand mirror she had taken from her dresser, she proceeded to give him one of the most thorough anatomy lessons ever given outside of a medical school. She showed him what she liked, but she also showed him what other girls liked ("or so they tell me, I don't have that kind of knowledge from personal experience, ye ken?"). She showed him where a lot of pressure would be good and where to be careful. ("It feels good at first, but too much, and the puir wee lass will have a bladder infection, and ye'll have a case of blue balls.")
After about 30 minutes, he reached over, took the mirror from her hand, smiled at her ("Damn, the lad has an awesome smile, too terrible altogether"), pushed her down on the bed, and said it was time for recess.
He didn't remember everything but Danny had always been told he was a fast learner and Brianna only had to coach him a little this time. And this time he managed to move eight times within her before he climaxed.
She woke up early the next morning a little before sunrise to see him lying on his side. "I was watching you sleep. You have the cutest little snore."
"Lesson three needs to be sweet-talking, I see." She reached for him and looked under the sheet. "Is that for me or is that for the bathroom?"
His mouth came down on hers ("Go to the head of the class, Daniel Concannon"). "I've already been to the bathroom."
After a few minutes, she pulled away from him. "Don't ye be going anywhere," she stared pointedly at his groin.
When she returned, he was half propped up against the headboard; she carried the diaphragm in her hand. She placed her right leg on the edge of the mattress and stared into his eyes as she inserted it into herself. Then she climbed onto the bed, over his legs and straddled him.
She led his right hand to her center, right above where they were joined, and showed (and told) him what to do with his thumb and forefinger. By being on top, she was able to control the situation and she was able to keep him in check until she was ready.
And Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons hit his first home run.
If the feel of climaxing inside her was something he couldn't have imagined twelve hours ago, the feel of climaxing inside her while she climaxed around him stretched the bounds of all that was imaginable. And the look on her face exploded those bounds beyond the universe. He vowed right then that he would learn to do this right, to control himself and to bring a woman to her critical point, so that this would be something that would not be a rarity in his life.
Afterward, she told him that when her father returned, they would have to be extremely discreet. "I'll not be rubbing his face in it, ye ken?" Luckily, there were many places on the property they could use.
Then, she looked at him, took his face in both her hands.
"And ye are not to be falling in love with me, Daniel Concannon of the Concannons of Galway. I'm not the lass for ye. I don't know if there'll be another lad for me, but if there is to be, ye are not him. Ye're a dear sweet lad and the woman who is waiting somewhere for ye is one of the luckiest lasses in the world, but we are not meant one for the other. Tell me ye understand."
Sadly, he nodded his head. Somehow, he knew she spoke the truth. And somehow, he knew that somewhere, there was another man for her, someone worldlier than he was now. But he was glad that fate had brought him here to her father's; what was just a job was now summer school at its best.
That afternoon, when he came back from the distillery, there was a bag on his bed. Inside were seven pairs of boxers, a note ("Most of us like these better"), and a rough map ("5:30 pm").
For the first three weeks, when they found time and a place to be together, their pattern resembled that first night. He gradually increased his control on the first time, but it was on the second, the third (and a few times, the fourth) that she taught him what he needed to know. How to move and tease against her core. What angles to use for which positions. How to find the other places on a woman's body that could have a direct line of excitement to that core.
He asked her how he could keep himself in check and she told him she remembered her husband saying something about a "Periodic Table of Elements" and naming all the clans of Scotland along with the colors of their plaids. He decided on Latin declensions and state capitols.
She taught him the difference between "hard" ("it's primal, it's pounding, it's thrusting, it's noisy"), which was okay, and "rough" ("it's demeaning, it's disrespectful, it's debasing"), which was not, and how to stay on the right side of the sometimes thin line between them. "You should always make sure she's ready to receive you, but especially when you are going to go into her in one swoop, make sure she's wet, make sure she's relaxed. You're thicker than most, Danny, make sure she can take three fingers, separate them."
And all her instructions used the third person feminine. She never said "I" or "me". It was always, "make sure she" or "caress her here". "She may be comfortable with the earthy words, she may want the fairy-tale words, she may just give you a look; but whether she says 'Fuck me' or 'Make love to me' or just looks at you, it's you she wants, it's you she wants to please, to satisfy." Always reminding him that she wasn't doing this just for herself, although she was very happy, very content. To some extent, she wasn't doing it just for him; she was doing it for the future women in his life, for the woman who would one day be Mrs. Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons.
But she was also doing it for him. She taught him things he didn't know about his own body, things he could show someone else to do for him, with her hands, with her mouth, with her tongue, with her teeth, with her hair, with her feet.
One night in late July, when her father and her aunt were over in Inverness for the weekend attending a wedding to which only a few family members were invited, they spent the night in her bed. They had just finished making love for the second time; he was stroking her hair as she came down from their mutual climax, when she softly whispered, "Ah my Jemmie, I miss ye so!"
For a millisecond, his hand froze, but he immediately realized that it was no reflection on him. It was a sign of how much she cared for the man she had married and lost. For the first of what would be many times in his life, he sublimated his hurt in order to deal with the pain, to deal with the needs, of a woman for whom he deeply cared; he continued to stroke her hair, murmured meaningless but soothing sounds into her ear.
After a minute, she looked up at him with guilt, sorrow, and embarrassment in her eyes. "Oh, Danny, I'm sorry, I dinna mean –".
He put a hand over her lips. "I know; it's okay." Then he reached over to her nightstand, opened the top drawer, and took out the picture he knew sat on the table when he wasn't in her bed. It was from her honeymoon on Minorca. Her face showed contentment and wonder, his love and satisfaction.
"Tell me about Jem."
"I think we were fated for each other.Jemmie, that was just twixt me and him; he called me BREE-a-nuh, that was my name twixt the two o' us." She touched the face under the glass. "Danny, ye might sometime think on wearing a mustache or a beard or both. Once it grows in, it can feel ever so nice in places."
And for the first time, Danny saw Brianna flushed with embarrassment.
"I could talk all night and still not tell ye everything about my Jem. The summer I was ten, we had a small gathering here, not like the one ye'll see in August, mind, and he was a guest of Robin's older brother. The lads and lasses my age and a little older snuck some of the whiskey from the parlor and watered down what was left to fill the decanter. As ye've learned, adding water to whiskey is tantamount to murder here and me da threatened to spank the lot of us, more for the waterin' than the drinkin'. Moira said she was too old to be spanked. Jem laughed and teasingly told her that no woman was too old to be spanked. Much later, he told me that he wanted to defuse the situation; it hadn't been that long ago that he would have done things like that. I turned to him an' gave him a wicked smile. I said, 'But ye're talkin' about the type of spanking meant ta be enjoyed. Maybe when I'm older, ye ken show me.'
"Me da wanted to wash me mouth wi' soap, but Aunt Sorcha whispered something in his ear. Then it was as if no one was in the room except Jem and me. His eyes got very serious and he said, 'Count on it, Brianna MacDonald.'
"When I was 15 and my mam died, he sat with me in the garden and held me as I cried. When I was 16, he came to Da and asked permission to woo me. And when I was 17, he married me and made me his."
He couldn't help himself. "And did he ever and did you enjoy?"
"I willna tell ye that. What I will do is tell you of my wedding night. Ye ken, it's not like I'm running a proper school for the debauching of young men," she laughed, "so I canna go out and round up a wee virgin for ye to practice on. Although I've seen the looks some of the lasses in the village give ye. Maybe I should ask around?"
The Danny Concannon that would be 15 years older would have come back with an apt riposte; the Danny Concannon that would be married to CJ would have swatted Brianna's rear end. The 19-year-old Danny Concannon merely turned beet red and stuttered, "I – I don't – I don't think – ", before she kissed him fully on the mouth.
She described the things her husband did to make her first time so special. She described the way he used his hands and his mouth to make sure she had crested several times before he entered her. She described the way he just lay there, still, for what seemed like forever while she adjusted to his presence within her. She described his restraint, something she did not fully realize for several weeks until she had the experience of his fully unleashed taking of her with which to compare it.
"Remember, Danny, that virginity is not just a piece of skin. The lass taken against her will, or the wee girl used despicably by her da or her uncle or cousin is as much untouched as the one who bleeds like a stuck pig the first time."
She looked directly at him. "And then there'll be those who know everything I know and more, do it much better than I, but who never found someone to trust, those who can't surrender completely. If ye find one of these and ye feel she's the one for ye, ye must do everything in yer power to help her cross that barrier, to give her soul to ye, to make her know that ye'll spend the rest of yer life making her the most special woman in the world."
By August, her father knew, but his sister Sorcha convinced him that Brianna was in no danger of physical or mental hurt, nor was Danny.
He went with Angus, Sorcha, and Brianna to the gathering of Clan MacDonald and met almost as many MacDonalds as the number of hamburgers claimed to have been sold by a certain chain headquartered in the states, including the head of the clan himself ("Those fockin' idjits best not be getting' their drawers in a wad about who can and can't use the name; I'm the final authority on that!") who said of course, Danny was one of them; a fatherless lad, even one of 19, needed an uncle to kick his ass when he deserved it, an aunt to make him feel better afterward, girl cousins to flirt with, and guy cousins to drink beer and hold pissing contests with. And when were Robin's and Erin's flights landing?
Robin knew right away what was happening with Brianna, talked with his cousin, and then simply gave his young brother-in-law the same cautions that Brianna had given him, that there was no future between them.
Erin found out and was concerned, worried, afraid for him. Robin tried to allay her fears. "He was going to, sooner or later. He's not with someone that can give him the clap and he's not with someone who is going to play around with his heart."
There was one thing that had tugged at Danny's mind and, two days before he was due to leave Scotland, he found the courage to ask.
"Brianna, your husband staked his claim on you when you were ten. You married Jem at 17, were a virgin on your wedding night. And yet you know so much about men in general, girls in general?"
She confessed that after that first time, when she realized that she would be his introduction to "the art of love", (she made big quote marks with her fingers) she did talk some with her cousins Leith and Moira "who have been through the rye a bit". No, she didn't mention his name, but then Leith and Moira weren't the dumbest of the bunch, a'tall, a'tall, and probably had their ideas. "How did ye think I knew that ye and Jem were thicker than many men in yer arousal? Did ye think I went about the village with a tape measure?"
Danny had taken a Statistics class last semester. The image Brianna planted in his head and thoughts of least squares, regression, a grab sample, and standard deviation combined to produce ideas for his upcoming columns in The Observer.
The day before he would go back to South Bend, his religious scruples and the idea of being suspended in air across the Atlantic combined to make him a little jumpy. Aunt Sorcha ("Ye're part of the clan now, boy, call me auntie, I'm everyone's crazy, fey Aunt Sorcha") must have read his mind, because she told him that Father Kilian at St. Cuthbert's was "the priestie all the lads and lasses here use". So he trotted off to confession, got a lecture about responsibility and not using young women carelessly, and a decade of the rosary.
He felt bad about trying to avoid Brianna that evening, but he also felt nervous and wanted to preserve his newfound "state of grace". However, Aunt Sorcha had apparently talked with Brianna because the young widow came into his room that night, kissed him lightly on the lips, and then sat on the floor next to his bed.
"Aunt Sorcha told me to tell ye that ye're not to be concerned about me. She said to tell ye that 'twill take ye longer than most but the right lass for ye is out there, ye'll know her as soon as ye see her, that 'twill take some time, but the two of ye shall be happy in the end. She also said to tell ye that although ye'll have a while to wait, ye need to remember that others are like Jem and me, who find their soul mate right away. Only God knows why."
She got up and came over again to him in the bed. "I won't be here in the morning when ye leave. God go with ye, Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons." She kissed him one more time and left the room.
Two years later, he returned to Scotland with Erin and Robin to see her married again, to the handsome scion of Scotland's ancient royal family. Over the years, he'd seen her periodically, congratulated her on the births of her three children. She always told him that his one true lady was still out there, to not give up on love; Aunt Sorcha said so.
He'd last seen her when he took CJ to Scotland for their honeymoon. When he and CJ entered the old house and went to the parlor, Brianna was holding her first grandchild at the piano, playing "Loch Lomond", singing in harmony with Hugh one of the variants of the song, one that dealt with the Uprising.
"I trysted my ain love last night in the broom
My Donald wha loves me sae dearly.
For the morrow he will march for Edinburgh toon
Tae fecht for his king and Prince Charlie.
Oh ye'll tak' the high road an' I'll tak' the low road
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye.
But me and my true love will ne'er meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond."
Silver had streaked her hair, she was almost 60, but she looked as young as ever.
Looking up, her smile took over her face and she handed the child to her husband ("Now that's what a king should look like," CJ told Danny later), jumped up and grabbed his hands.
"Aunt Sorcha was right; I can see it all over yer face. Ye've found yer one true lady, the one who loves ye, comforts ye, respects ye, Daniel Concannon of the Galway Concannons!" She gave him a hug, then turned to CJ. "And I can see he's doing right by ye, lass, in bed and out, not that there'd be any question, once he found ye."
And now she was gone and God would figure out how she could be with both Jem and Hugh together in heaven.
"I'm sorry," he said, raising his head from CJ's shoulder.
"For what?" She kept one arm around his shoulders as she wiped a tear or two from his face with the other hand. Then she kissed him lightly on his lips, on his nose, on his forehead, and then again on his lips.
"For breaking down like this over another woman, for soaking your blouse. I can't imagine what you must think."
"That my husband has lost someone special in his life, someone to whom he owes a lot, someone to whom I owe a lot."
She did not tell him of the other things she had been thinking, the pleas to her son. Please, Paddy, stay asleep, don't wake up, don't be hungry, don't need changing, don't need me to quiet and calm you. Right now, your Daddy needs me so much and I can't deal with both of you at the same time. So please, baby, do this one thing right now for Mama.
And, luckily, Paddy did.
"Are you hungry? Can I fix you something?" she asked.
"Maybe some eggs?"
So she dragged him into the kitchen and threw together a mushroom and cheese omelet. There was a stoppered bottle of champagne from last night that was about one-third full (Hank and Steve brought it over with shrimp salad). She divided it into two wine glasses and topped them with grapefruit juice.
CJ raised her glass. "To Brianna."
"To Auld Lang Syne," Danny answered.
After they ate, Danny decided he needed a shower and a nap.
While he was in the bath, she unpacked his things, and puttered around the bedroom, thinking about Brianna. She had been embarrassed at first at the woman's outspokenness when they met, but later realized that Robin's family was earthier, more open about some things. And she did truly appreciate reaping the benefits of all that Brianna had done for Danny so long ago. Later, when CJ had the chance to be alone with Brianna, she told her so and the other woman, swearing her to secrecy, told her some things (but not bed tales) about that summer. When Danny caught them giggling together, he said he was afraid to ask.
The Sunday after she had met Erin and Robin, the Sunday after Danny told her he knew about her and Hoynes, she and Danny decided that they would tell each other about any people in their pasts who might crop up in their present and future, people in politics or the media, people who might have an axe to grind.("Just so we aren't blindsided. They aren't important to what we are now.") Her life was much more of an open book, but there was a guy from the Mint she had managed to keep under the DC radar. She also gave him the full story about Ben and she had told him all about Tad Whitney. He had had a relationship with an editor for Newsweek, one with a senatorial liaison, and one with a congresswoman from New Mexico. There was one girl way back at Notre Dame who had become famous in the business world, heading up a major automobile manufacturer. ("Were you good enough that we could ask for discounts?" earned her a swat on her rear.)
A week after they had become engaged, when they had moved into Sam's condo, she made an appreciative comment after an extremely wonderful session in his arms. He told her about Brianna and her "summer school". The next night, she told him about Paul.
They met during those wonderful days at the beginning of the academic year, when classes haven't started but everyone is back on campus, getting settled in, going through late registration, renewing friendships put on hold over the summer, enjoying the last days of summer. He was standing in front of her at the bookstore checkout line. She was juggling her texts for the new semester, and he offered to hold some while they waited. They made small talk. Just before it was his turn to pay, he asked her to have coffee with him and she agreed.
Coffee stretched out for two hours as they connected with each other. She told him about herself, her studies. He grew up in Albany, had done his undergraduate work at Dartmouth and coming to a big place like Berkeley was a bit daunting, but he was excited about the change. He played varsity hockey in New Hampshire but obviously that was something he couldn't do here. (She told him she had done some figure skating and they wondered about a rink.) He also played intramural rugby and was trying out for the Law School club team here. He was sharing an apartment with another Dartmouth grad who was pursuing a Ph.D. in Archaeology. The fraternity to which he belonged had a chapter here at Cal and was having a dance tonight. Would she be interested?
He walked her to her dorm and arranged to call for her at 8:00.
Walking her home after the dance, he asked her to supper and a movie for the upcoming Saturday.
After the movie on Saturday, they were sitting in the lounge of her dorm. He told her that he had a job that took up his Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings; on Thursdays, he had a study group. He would like to see her again but could only do so on weekends. He was sure she was a popular girl and would have many offers, that many times, her weekends would be full with other guys. He wanted her to understand why he could not see her during the week. That is, assuming she would be willing to date him again.
She told him that she wasn't seeing anyone else and that she would very much like to see him again (and again). When he left, he kissed her goodnight.
He was warm, he was intelligent, he shared her political views, although he felt he could better serve them in the courtroom than on the front lines. He was courteous and considerate. He didn't paw all over her in public but he let her know that she was an attractive, desirable woman, both physically and mentally. When she was with him, she felt she was both feminist and feminine.
They met when they could for lunch or coffee during the week. They usually ended up going to movies or student plays on Friday nights. On Saturday mornings, he played rugby and she came to cheer on his team. If there was a home game that weekend, they would cheer for the Golden Bears in the afternoon. More often than not, they would party with Cal's chapter of his fraternity on Saturday night (he counted as a chaperone). Sunday afternoons and evenings would find them in the law library studying together.
The kisses became more passionate and spread beyond "Good night".
One rainy Sunday afternoon in early October, he suggested that they study at his apartment; he could make spaghetti.
She was hesitant. She looked down and did what she always did when she was unsure, was anxious; she babbled. She wasn't sure exactly what he was asking, but she was still a virgin, had only been to second base. She might be ready for third, but she didn't think she was ready to head for home plate. She wanted to be upfront about everything, and hoped she hadn't made a fool of herself.
He told her that he wanted her, but he was a patient man; she would set the pace. He would go as far as, and only as far as, she wanted with respect to that part of their relationship, and, knowing what that limit currently was, he would still very much like her to come home with him.
They began to spend more time in the apartment studying (and other more enjoyable activities) and less time in the law library. He was totally respectful of her wishes, but he also had some conditions of his own; he was only human. He opened her blouses, undid her bras, and touched her inside her underwear, but he wouldn't trust himself to remove any clothing and still not push her beyond her line. Neither would he have her spend the night with him; he knew his limits. For that matter, he would only be with her in the living room; he did not want her in his bed until she was ready for intimacy. At one point, she made a comment about not wanting to be a "tease", about being worried that she was getting more out of their physical contact than he was. He told her that he considered it part of her becoming ready for the next steps in their relationship; that he was patiently waiting for the long run.
On a Sunday afternoon in early November, she told him that she was ready to "be with him."
He took her face between his hands, kissed her lightly, looked into her eyes, and said, "Friday."
She told him she was sure now, didn't need to wait. He didn't need to give her time to change her mind.
He laughed and told her he wasn't waiting to give her time to reconsider, although she could say "no" at any time up to, or even during, their lovemaking.
"CJ, darling, your period started two weeks ago. Right now, your body is screaming 'Conceive! Conceive!' Friday will be safer. Besides, I don't have any contraception right now. And the place is a mess. Larry could come back at any moment, may have friends with him. I want this to be special for you, for us. Friday. Plan to spend the weekend with me."
Embarrassed that she didn't think about being safe and touched by his care and concern, she nodded.
On Thursday at lunch, she asked him if she should "buy something at the drug store". He told her he had taken care of it. He asked her to bring a nice dress for Saturday night. He had made reservations two weeks ago to take her to Chez Panisse for dinner this Saturday, since it was near her birthday. When she made some comment about how most men would "do the wine and dine before the recline", not after, he told her that he figured she might be "anxious" on Friday and fully expected her to feel much more relaxed on Saturday, more likely to enjoy the meal. Then he asked her what she considered a very odd question, but she gave him the answer.
When he called for her early Friday evening, he took her garment bag and weekender from her, set them in the back of his car, and seated her on the passenger side.
"I've got some salad and fettuccine at the apartment, but would you like something else?"
She shook her head.
He put a hand under her chin, turned her face to him.
"Second thoughts?" When she shook her head, he added, "Remember, any time before, up to, even during, just say the word."
She smiled slightly and told him that he was right about not spending a lot of money on her beforehand.
When they reached his apartment, he took her things to his bedroom, spent a few minutes there, and then poured the both of them a glass of wine. She noticed the silence and asked about Larry. He was on the Outing Club trip to Tahoe for the weekend. When she mentioned that that was rather convenient, Paul admitted that he offered to pay part of the expenses. He thought she would be more comfortable without someone in the next bedroom.
"Would you like to eat?" She shook her head no.
"What would you like to -?"
She interrupted him by putting her arms around his neck and kissing him. "Move beyond all this anxiety."
He kissed her deeply, picked her up, and carried her to his bed. ("The only one besides you, Danny, to do that.")
The bedcovers were turned down. He had bought some flowers. He had strung little white Christmas tree lights around the room. He had put a 25-watt bulb in his bedside lamp.
He undressed her slowly, kissing whatever body part he uncovered. He told her how beautiful she was. Somehow, he managed to get himself undressed at the same time. He touched her between her legs, very briefly and very shallowly reached inside her with one finger.
"Open wide for me, sweetheart." Watching her, he used his palm and his fingers to bring her to orgasm, then brought her near again with his mouth.
He moved up beside her, put his hands on either side of her face and asked again, "Are you sure?" At her nod, he reached into his nightstand for a condom, sheathed himself, and moved into the vee of her legs, and, one last time, "CJ?"
When she solemnly nodded yes, he told her to bring her legs up around his waist; he kissed her and moved slightly into her until he reached the barrier that he had earlier ascertained was there. He took a breath, plunged into her, hard, fast, and deep, and then didn't move an iota.
She cried out once, bit her lower lip, and teared up a little. Paul kissed her over and over. "My beautiful lady, my wonderful lady, that should be the worst of it." He asked her if she wanted him to pull out. She shook her head no, tried to smile. He kept very still, kissed her again, told her that that was why he had asked her how she took off her Band-Aids. If she had said she eased them off slowly, he would have drawn out his entry; but she had said that she took hold of them and yanked them off quickly, so that was how he penetrated her.
Still not moving at all, he asked her how much pain she still had. She said it had dimmed significantly; he moved slowly, watched her face and asked her again.
When she told him that there was very little discomfort, he withdrew completely. She was confused until he reached into his nightstand, drew out a box containing spermicidal foam. "Redundant, but I wanted to be sure," he said. He helped her figure out how to use the spermicide.
He kissed and caressed her again. She reached to touch his arousal, and gasped at the sight of blood on her hand. Then she saw the stain on the sheet; she was embarrassed, said she should have thought to ask for a towel underneath her.
He told her that he didn't want her to think he expected her to bleed, in case she didn't, that not every woman did her first time. "Tampons, medical exams, heavy petting, the stereotypical horseback riding, stuff like that."
He changed condoms and entered her again. This time he went slowly until he was sure that he was no longer hurting her, then began to move expertly within her. He used his fingers to bring her to the edge again, then slowed until he was almost there himself before starting up again. He took her over that edge and joined her seconds later.
He held the condom close, withdrew from her, removed it, and pulled her close to him. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her neck, her mouth, telling her how wonderful she was. She stroked his hair, his face, smiled the smile that filled her face, that made her glow.
They talked about everything and nothing; they couldn't stop kissing each other.
He asked her if she was hungry; she said she was ravenous. He suggested she take a warm bath while he fixed them some supper. He had bought some bubbles for her, several scents from which to choose.
When she left the bathroom wrapped in a towel, she could see him in the kitchen in a pair of white pajama bottoms. She tiptoed to the bedroom, opened her garment bag, and put on the peach nightgown she found Wednesday in a little shop on Telegraph Avenue.
They ate fettuccine, salad, and cheesecake, drank champagne. He put on an old Johnny Mathis tape and they danced around the living room, kissing, embracing, and touching. Then he took her hand, led her back to his bed, and gestured to the can of spermicide and its applicator while he reached for another condom.
The next morning, they made breakfast together and spent most of the day studying; finals were coming.
They showered together and shyly dressed in front of each other as they got ready for dinner. She turned her back to him, lifted her hair, and asked for help with the zipper of the cinnamon brown dress she was wearing.
Looking over the menu at Chez Panisse, she mentioned some items. He told her she didn't have to stay at the lower end of the menu, quietly joking that she "had already earned the lobster". He asked her if there was anything she particularly liked or disliked, asked her if she trusted his judgment. When the waiter came, he ordered for the both of them. The waiter had no problem in pouring her glass of Riesling even though she had just turned 19; ID cards weren't checked in Berkeley in those days.
After the waiter left, he reached into his pocket and drew out a small jewelry box ("But obviously not a ring box.") It was a pendant of amber ("For your eyes") on a gold chain. He came over to help her with the clasp in the back.
That night, he gave her her first lesson on riding a man.
Afterward, she broached a question that had been lingering in her mind. "Not that I'm complaining, but you seemed to know exactly how to do all this so wonderfully for me?"
He told her that part of it was from books, part of it was because there was a girl from Bennington his junior year, but most of it was from what would best be described as a lecture by one of the fraternity seniors to his pledge class freshmen year. Their fraternity chapter had a reputation among the women's colleges for being very good for "first timers", and they intended to keep it.
"So instead of being a jock house or a party house or a nerd house, you were a - "
"Journey to womanhood house. There was a grosser name, but we won't go there."
Then he got serious. "The thing with the foam. When I realized that it was still there, I mean your - , well, I wanted me to be first, not some plastic applicator. I know it sounds horribly macho and I'm not very proud of it, but –"
And she kissed him quiet.
They made love in the sunlight on Sunday morning. At one point, he lifted up on braced arms and silently appreciated the beauty of the contrast of their joining, his dark brown against the remnants of her pale golden tan.
"Sweetheart, you do know that I'm in love with you? You happen to be white, it's part of what makes you you, but it's not because you're white. I'm not that kind of guy."
"And I love you the same way." She had been afraid to bring up the "L" word, afraid to use it first.
Sunday afternoon, he tentatively brought up the subject of contraception, asking her if she would consider going to Student Health for pills. He could pay for the prescription if needed. She said she had been thinking about it herself.
He returned her to her dorm Sunday evening before Larry returned. She would let him know how things went with Student Health. He mentioned something about cooking next weekend; he joked that now that he had gotten her buns in bed, he'd be interested in what kind of biscuits she could put in the oven. She reminded him that, unless the fates truly hated them, she would be having another period next weekend and that she would be of no use to him. He told her that he hoped they would have many weekends together when she was not available for "fun and games", that this would just be the first.
The doctor at Student Health examined her, gave her 3 months' supply of pills, and told her to come back before then for another examination. If everything was still okay, she could get a 12-month supply. Student Health only charged cost.
She told CJ she was lucky with her timing. She was due to start her period on Friday. If she took her first pill then, her cycles would probably switch to a Monday. Sometimes, girls preferred to wait for the next Sunday for convenience's sake; in that case, she would cycle on Wednesday. She should use "backup" for the first week.
CJ decided that remembering to start a packet of pills on a Friday was a small price to pay for being "open for business" every weekend of the month.
That Friday, her cramps were really bad and she wanted to do nothing more than curl up in her dorm bed with a heating pad. He tried to convince her that she could do that just as well in his bed; plus, he could bring her tea and soup. However, she couldn't be convinced. She felt better on Saturday and stayed the night with him.
She spent Thanksgiving break with him and that weekend, they were truly together for the first time; no need for latex between them. He reveled in the feel of skin on skin; she felt him explode inside her. They started experimenting with other positions. They worked their way through "The Joy of Sex".
The San Francisco chapter of the Dartmouth Alumni Association held a dinner meeting at the Mark Hopkins and she went with him. A week later, he received a call from one of the other attendees, a senior partner in one of the city's most prestigious law firms. The man asked Paul to contact him in a few months regarding summer employment. Then he mentioned in passing that "the young lady with you would be a great asset to your future."
A national coordinator from Young Democrats, some guy named Ziegler, came to visit their chapter and she convinced Paul to go the meeting. The New York guy told her that she should try to get her friend interested in politics; Paul would be a perfect candidate.
They pined for each other over Christmas break. He phoned her twice a week; her family was curious but didn't ask any questions.
When the new term started, they talked cautiously about "two years from June" when he would have his Juris Doctor and she her BA. She was afraid of how her family would react; she was afraid to find out that maybe they weren't as perfect as she thought. He had the same thoughts about his family. He could almost hear his mother saying something about having no problem with CJ, she was a wonderful girl, she obviously loved him very much, but "the children will be ostracized by both worlds". If necessary, it would the two of them against the world.
They became a fixture in their small ponds on a large campus – her dorm, her friends in Young Democrats, the rugby club circuit, the fraternity, the law school. One African-American woman in her dorm was upset that "a honky bitch was taking one of the good brothers"; someone else wondered if she was seeing him "as an act of rebellion". One guy called her a "race traitor" (she never told him about it); another told him to stop being "uppity". To everyone else, they were just one of the many inter-racial and/or inter-ethnic couples on campus and were accepted as "Paul and CJ".
She was careful to not make Larry uncomfortable, to not clutter up their bathroom with her things, to not make him feel like a fifth wheel in his own apartment. When Larry's fiancée (a senior at UNH) came to visit over her spring break, the four of them took a weekend trip to gold country, a day trip to Napa and one to Sausalito, as well as doing the usual San Francisco stuff – Lombard Street, Haight-Ashbury, the cable cars, etc.
He taught her everything he knew about a woman's body. He taught her everything about a man's body; how to make him happy. She enjoyed doing the things he taught her. She spent her weekends with him, her weekdays in the dorm. It was a not uncommon thing for women of her time to do.
One day in April, after a couple of other guys made passes at her, he asked her if she would wear his fraternity pin "if he managed to find it". She told him yes.
That Friday, when he came for her (he told her they had been invited to a party at one of his professor's) and she was walking toward the stairs, she noticed that none of the other girls on her floor were around and thought it strange. When she entered the dorm's main foyer, he was there with a huge bouquet of red roses, all of members of his fraternity behind him. The young men started singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" in a capella harmony as he handed her the flowers and, fumbling a bit, placed the pin on her dress. He then kissed her to a huge round of applause. Most of the girls in her dorm, plus some of their boyfriends, were in the foyer also. Later that evening, he told her that he was sure she would have suspected something, that he thought that at least one of the girls in the dorm would have let the cat out of the bag, especially since at least one of the African-american women disapproved of him being with a white girl. (They found out later that the woman in question did indeed say something disparaging, but her boyfriend told her to "cool it".) He also told her that not so long ago, assuming it wasn't raining, fraternity tradition would have demanded that everything take place under her dorm room window, with him climbing a ladder to give her the roses and to pin on the jewelry.
They told their families about their relationship. Both were relieved when the reactions were better than they expected. Her father was more concerned about her being in an intimate relationship at her age than about the racial difference.
He made Law Review.
She spent most of the summer working at her sister-in-law's family's vineyard in Napa. Paul worked at the law firm of the Dartmouth alumnus he met back in December. He started a special savings account, putting aside $20.00 a week, giving up beer and soft drinks during the week.
Her father and her step-mother came to California for a week and after meeting Paul, he father felt a little better about his little girl being involved with a man.
They saw each other most weekends. He went back to New Hampshire to serve as an usher at Larry's wedding for one weekend. He asked her to go with him, but she didn't think her parents would approve.
With Larry married and moving into married student housing, Paul decided that rather than finding a new roommate, he would look for a one bedroom place. He found one he could afford in an older building. It didn't have a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, or air-conditioning, but the rooms were large and airy, there was a small dining alcove that opened onto a back garden, and the living room had a working fireplace. However, they both felt it would be best if she continued to live in the dorm, just spending the weekends together.
She stopped working at the winery about ten days before the new academic year started. They spent a few days camping on the Oregon coast and then spent a week "playing house" in the new apartment before her dorm opened for the term.
The law firm in San Francisco for which he worked in the summer offered him a part-time job and scheduled the hours around his classes. It paid more than the after-hours check-clearing job at the bank that he had the previous year. He also took a job as a "defense attorney" for kids brought before the student disciplinary committee.
His parents came out to visit in late September and his older brother, an army doctor came through when he was transferred from Kansas to Hawaii.
One weekend, they asked her roommate and the roommate's boyfriend to dinner. Afterwards, he told her that he would prefer they not do so again. It wasn't her roommate, he liked Alex a lot. But the guy she was dating was a total idiot, an immature child. He kept making suggestive comments, both about CJ and about Alex. Plus, he was groping the poor girl every other minute right in front of them. CJ told him that the guy had made her uncomfortable, but she sort of understood; the guy lived in the dorms and didn't have access to the degree of privacy they had. Paul told her that he had been in that situation while at Dartmouth and knew about it, but a gentleman made arrangements, worked an extra job to afford off-campus housing or a nice hotel room. A gentleman didn't open his lady's blouse in front of another man. For one thing, he treated the lady respectfully; for another, he didn't want another man looking at her body. In any event, there was a guy, a senior at the fraternity named Luke Davidson, who would be perfect for Alex, much better than this dope. Maybe CJ should ask her she would be interested in a blind double-date?
He took a room at the Mark Hopkins in the city the weekend before her birthday. They did dinner and dancing the second night at the Top of the Mark, where they ran into several of the lawyers at the firm at which her worked and their spouses. The first night, he took her to a Moroccan restaurant where they sat on pillows on the floor and ate the special seven course tasting menu.
They spent Thanksgiving weekend with Gina, her brother, and Gina's family. He just laughed when she fumed about having to sleep apart, but agreed that they would leave for Berkeley right after breakfast on Sunday, citing the need to study. Maybe this once, she could stay over Sunday night?
She was elected to Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honorary society, and was informally assured by the chair of the Poli Sci department that she was a shoo-in for grad school the year after next. The law firm in San Francisco gave him similar hints; his passing the bar was a foregone conclusion.
They spent time, off and on, with Larry and his wife. On evening, while she and Rosemary were cleaning up after dinner, the girl dropped her ring and when CJ picked up the diamond and commented about it, Rosemary asked her what shape diamond she liked. Later, when no one was looking, Rosemary whispered something to Paul and he thanked her for the ploy. He started eating a bit more tuna fish during the week and increased his savings account contribution to $25.00 a week.
They talked oh, so casually, about neighborhoods, San Francisco verus Berkeley, apartment versus flat, modern versus Victorian.
They each spent a couple of days with each other's families over the Christmas break.
They had a minor disagreement about one of the students he defended before student court, a somewhat controversial case. He told her that why he would never do what the guy did, he could understand the reasoning the young man used, and managed to broker a deal which everyone thought was an excellent compromise. It made the local news. One of the federal judges in the city approached him about a clerkship when he graduated.
In late March, he began to second-guess his career decision. His senior year at Dartmouth, he was deciding between law school and divinity school and had been accepted at Yale Divinity as well as Berkeley, Duke, and SUNY Buffalo for law. He was beginning to think he had made the wrong choice. He was contacting the Pacific School of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union. He knew that she considered herself a "fallen" Catholic; how would she feel about a serious relationship, a possible marriage, with a progressive Protestant minister? In May, he found out, in a strange twist of fate, that PSR didn't accept him but that Yale had a slot open and still wanted him.
She was already planning to apply for graduate school at Berkeley.
"I'm sure Yale would take you. You're already in Pi Sigma Alpha and you're a lock for Phi Beta Kappa. Brown's more like Berkeley than Yale is and it's only two hours by train. And then there's the Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, UMass complex. Or I could wait a year, apply to the div schools in Claremont, in San Anselmo. Even LA wouldn't be too impossible with the cheap commuter flights."
They thought about all the ways to make it work. A year apart wouldn't be that bad. Many couples with two or three years between them, age wise, had done so. Two seniors in her dorm were married. They chose their seminars from those that met on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and spent long weekends with their husbands in grad school in Los Angeles.
But it wasn't going to work. Could they handle a year on opposite sides of the country? She really wasn't the "Yalie" type; she felt he deserved to be in the best place that accepted him, not a second choice; she wasn't sure that she was willing to sever herself completely from Catholicism and wondered what denomination, no matter how liberal, would offer a position, or even ordination, to a man with a Catholic wife. ("Maybe if we both became Episcopalian?" he suggested.)
She didn't begrudge or question his change of vocation. ("If it weren't for the celibacy part, you'd be a wonderful priest, a perfect pope.")
She never voiced it, but she wasn't sure she was ready for the commitment that changing her life (or asking him to change his) implied. It was one thing to speculate when they thought they both would be in Berkeley for the next few years, where they already were, where they wanted to be; kind of like a holding pattern. What they were contemplating went far beyond that.
He had never told her that he had been saving up for an engagement ring because he had had visions of proposing next November on the two-year anniversary of the day they first became intimate, with the wedding taking place soon after she got her BA. He had figured that he could still work as a paralegal; he had decided he would do whatever was necessary to support the two of them while they were both in school. If she had wanted to work also, that would be fine, he wasn't a chauvinist, but if she didn't, he would have found some way to support them both.
A week before the end of the term they were making love gently, tenderly. And he suddenly began to cry; she joined in. They lay there, still joined together, arms around each other, sobbing into each other's necks as their hearts broke.
He drove her to the airport when she flew back to Dayton for the summer; there was no way she could stay in Calfornia for the summer. They held hands in the boarding lounge until her flight was called; they kissed until the final boarding announcement. She walked up the jet way backwards until it bent out of his line of sight. She didn't know that he stayed at the window until her plane pulled away from the gate and taxied out of sight. She didn't know that when he packed up to drive to Connecticut, he kept the sheets she had slept on, didn't wash them until Christmas.
She threw herself into Young Democrats and became the local liaison with the national organization; she worked more and more with that Ziegler guy. She and Paul wrote for a while, and then the letters became sporadic. The day came when she misplaced his last letter and never got around to writing back. Thinking back, she realized that at 23, Paul's love for her was more whole; at 20, she was as much, if not more, in love with the idea of being in love with a truly wonderful guy as she was with the guy himself. But right then, right afterward, she was totally miserable. ("Jeannie, I'm sorry you were hurting, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that for my sake, I'm glad it didn't work out for the two of you.")
She thought about him whenever someone broke her heart, abused her trust. But that time at Dulles about 5 weeks ago was the first time she had seen him since Oakland International Airport.
Paddy's cries disrupted her reverie. She went to her son, crooned to him. ("Is Mama's baby hungry? Is he wet? Is he needing to be held?") As she was changing him, Danny left the bath and re-announced his intention to sleep.
She brought the baby into the bedroom with her, got on the bed beside her husband, and began to nurse. Danny snuggled up against her hip, draping an arm across her lap. He mumbled something about her not leaving him this afternoon. She crooned at him in the same way she had crooned at her son. "I'm here, sweetheart, I'm gonna make it all better for you. Go to sleep, I'll be here."
A few minutes later, Paddy was full and asleep in her arm. Danny was softly snoring alongside her. She would probably end up asleep with the two of them. She reached for the phone and called Nancy. She had planned to go into the office for an hour or so, thinking that Danny would be here for the baby. She told Nancy to fax her some things, email some others. Her men needed her. Concrete, gravel, tar and squabbling bureaucratic a$$holes could wait for another time. Life was short, uncertain, precious.
Later that evening, when Danny was playing with his son, she took the scrap of paper from her wallet and updated her Outlook address book.
Then she began to type. "Hi Paul: Something happened today to make me realize……".