Page 94 of Two Chances With You

“Did you open my present?”

“No, Mamma.” Even now, I can’t seem to tell her a lie. And it’s not just the fear of being caught out in a lie. I’m reminded of Gin, and what she said about eyes. For a moment, I feel like smiling. And it’s a good thing. “I haven’t opened it.”

“That’s not good manners, and you know it.”

But she doesn’t wait for me to ask her forgiveness, no apology is needed. Her smile makes it clear to me that everything’s all right, it’s all water under the bridge, and she’s not going to hold it against me. “It’s a book, and I really wish that you’d read it. Do you have it here?”

“Yes.”

“Then go get it.”

And the way she asks is so kind and courteous that I can’t help it, I get to my feet, I go to my room, and I come straight back with that present. I set it down on the table, and I unwrap it.

“There. It’s by Irwin Shaw.Lucy Crown. It’s a very beautiful story. I just happened upon this book. It made quite an impression on me. If you have time, I hope you’ll read it.”

“Yes, Mamma. If I have time, I’ll read it.”

We sit there for a little while in silence, and even though it’s just a short time, it seems to go on forever. I look down, but not even the book cover can help me to make that infinite span of time progress forward. I fold up the wrapping paper, but even that only increases the weight of the seconds that creep by, never seeming to get anywhere.

My mother smiles. At last, she helps me to get over this small, short chunk of eternity. “My mother used to fold up the wrapping paper from all the gifts she received too. Your grandmother.” She laughs. “Maybe you got that from her.” She stands up. “Well, I’d better get going.”

I stand up too.

“Let me walk you out.”

“No, don’t go to the trouble.” She gives me a light kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be fine. I have my car parked right downstairs.”

She goes to the door and walks out, her back to me, without once turning around. She seems tired, and I’m utterly drained. And I no longer feel all the strength that I’d always felt I possessed. Maybe, then, that kiss wasn’t as light as it first seemed.

Chapter 34

Oh, I was just thinking about you. We’re simpatico! Seriously, I was about to call you.” Gin is disarming in her constant and inevitable cheerfulness. “Where are you?”

“Right downstairs. Will you let me in?” I ask.

“But I’ve just finished eating, and my uncle is still here. Plus, what are you doing? Do you want to come to my house, introduce yourself to my parents, and take advantage of the fact that my uncle is here to ask mesomething?” She laughs cheerfully.

“Come on, Gin. Invent some excuse. I don’t know. Say that you have to take in the laundry that’s hanging on the line out on the terrace, that you have to go pick up something from your girlfriend who lives upstairs, that you need to elope with me, tell themthatif you want, but just get free. I want you.”

“You didn’t just say that you wanted to see me, right? You actually saidI want you?”

“Yes, I did.”

Gin takes a long pause. Too long. Maybe I gave the wrong answer. “I want you too.”

She says nothing more, and I hear the front door click open. I don’t bother taking the elevator. I climb the stairs like a bolt of lightning, all the way to the top floor without stopping once, actually taking the steps four at a time. And when I get there, the elevator door opens. It’s Gin. Simpatico in this too.

I plunge into her lips and search for my breath there. Kissing her uninterruptedly, not even letting her breathe. I steal away her strength, her taste, her lips, and I even steal her words. A silence made up of sighs, her blouse falling open, her bra hook popping undone, our trousers falling to the floor, the banister moving, her laughing and telling me “Shhh” lest we be overhead. And strange positions in that elaborate tangle of legs, trapped in that denim that just excites me more, that captivates me, that is killing me right now.

Stopping for a moment and, down on my knees on the cold marble of the landing, kissing her between her legs. She, Gin, a strangely out-of-control cowgirl, feigns a rodeo all her own to keep from falling away from my lips. And then I mount her again and we race, together, we stupid, savage, impassioned, enamored horses, kept here on earth by a wrought-iron railing. It vibrates in silence just like our passion.

For a moment, we are suspended over the void. Distant noises. The sounds of a building. A drop of water in a sink. An armoire being shut. Footsteps. Then nothing. Us. Just us. Her head thrown backward, her hair hanging loose, abandoned, dangling over the stairwell. Her hair moves frantically, as if getting ready to leap into the void, just like our desire.

But a last kiss makes us both come down to earth together, setting foot on solid ground just as someone, somewhere, summons the elevator. “Shhh.” She laughs, collapsing to the floor. Exhausted, sweaty, wet and not just with sweat. Her hair plastered to her face, laughing with her.

We embrace, joined together, like a couple of punch-drunk boxers, wrung dry, exhausted, squatting on the ground, defeated. While we await an unnecessary verdict: it’s a draw, on points.

Smiling, we kiss. “Shhh,” she says again. “Shhh.” She delights in that silence.

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