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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
The house may have been all decorated up for Christmas, but Cindy wasn’t in much of a Christmas spirit. When possible she tried to find a bright side, and the only one she could manage was that this had to be better than sitting out in the middle of some damn desert like Pat was doing right now.
She’d only had a couple letters from him, and those had been on the brief side, without a lot of news. He was in Saudi Arabia, she knew that, but where was unclear, and she had the impression that he might not know himself. From what he’d said, one place seemed to be pretty much like the next one, not that he’d seen much. It was sandy, dusty, dry, and unpleasant, and that much was clear from the news reports on TV.
At least she’d gotten her grades for the semester this morning, and they’d been good. She ought to be through with the program in one more semester, so she figured that would be good for something. How much, she wasn’t sure; that remained to be seen and there were other things on her mind.
She was mulling it over again when the doorbell rang. She was more than a little curious as to who it could be; hopefully it wasn’t a magazine salesman or something stupid like that.
When she opened the door, she was surprised to see a familiar face. “Russ!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” he said. “It’s been a long time, Cindy.”
“It has,” she sighed. Even though things had fallen apart between them well over a year before, it was good to see him again. “Longer than I want to think about. Why don’t you come in? I can put some coffee on.”
“Sure, if it’s not going to be any trouble,” he said, stepping inside and stripping off his jacket; he needed one, it was cold and blowing snow out there. “So how have you been?”
“Not too bad,” she replied, not really wanting to reveal the truth, at least at this point in the conversation. “How’s Deborah?”
“Hell if I know,” he snorted. “Not in my face, so that’s all to the good.”
“You broke up with her?”
“Well, actually it was the other way around, but I guess I was glad when it happened,” he replied. “It hadn’t been going well for a long time, and I could see things were going to have to turn around. But she found someone with a smoother line and more money, so that was that.”
“Oh, Russ, I’m sorry,” she replied, leading him toward the kitchen. It didn’t take much to figure out what he had in mind, and in a way she might have welcomed it. Well, only if . . . better not get into that, at least not yet.
“It was a really stupid thing for me to do,” he told her bluntly as she started in making coffee.
“Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “It was stupid of me to let you do it, just like it was stupid of me to get carried away at college and let my grades go to hell. So I guess we were both about equally stupid on that.”
“Yeah, but I do blame myself. I got carried away, too. We were a couple, Cindy. We had it down pretty good and we were going places, but I guess we both let things happen to us that we really shouldn’t have let happen.”
“I’ve come to realize that,” she sighed. “I’ve missed you, Russ. In fact, I’ve missed you a lot. There have been times I’ve cried myself to sleep over how bad I fucked up in letting you go as easily as I did. But, well, I was having my own hassles at the time, too. But enough of that. How has school been going for you?”
“Better, at least since Deborah and I split up. I had the best grades this semester I’ve had all the time in school.”
“Are you still taking business?”
“Yeah, with a concentration in insurance. Look, since I haven’t seen you for a while there’s a piece of news you probably haven’t heard. I’ve got something solid set up for after I graduate, and I should be enough ahead on credits that I can graduate this time next year.”
“What’s this?”
“Long story. Do you remember me telling you about my Uncle Walter?”
“You might have said something but I don’t remember it,” she admitted.
“He runs a medium-sized insurance agency down in Dayton, Ohio, at the edge of town” he explained. “He and his partner have been pretty successful at it, and they’ve built good lives for themselves, mostly doing car and homeowner’s insurance. But his partner had a stroke a little less than a year ago, and he can’t contribute to the business anymore. Well, last spring it got worked around through the family, and I was sort of asked to go down and see if I could help him dig out. I spent the summer down there, and I learned a lot.”
“So you’re thinking of going into insurance?”
“More than thinking about it. Right after classes broke last week, I went down to Dayton to help him get caught up again. To make a long story short, Uncle Walter is willing to work with me to come up with an arrangement to buy out his partner’s interest. It won’t be real good money for a while, but pretty good money, especially afterward, and it’s too good a deal to turn down. So I’m going to go back down right after Christmas and tell him yes, I’m up for it. It’ll mean busting my ass next summer, but this time next year or a little later I should be getting settled in on it.”
“That really settles a lot of things for you, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” he smiled. “There are probably other things I could do, but this has several things going for it. The biggest thing is that it accomplishes what I wanted to do by going to college in the first place, which is to keep from having to work out at the plant.”
“I can understand that,” she nodded as she began to smell the warm aroma of the coffee running into the pot. “How many kids in our class had that as their main goal in life?”
“Can’t say, but a lot of them,” he agreed. “Look, being a suburban insurance agent isn’t exactly the same thing as being a hot-shot executive in some big company, but it ought to be a solid and stable career. It takes one big worry off my mind.”
“I can see how it would.”
“Oh, hell,” he said. “This isn’t anything like how I expected this to go. I had something all planned out and I just can’t seem to spit it out. Cindy, I know I fucked up with you real bad. Yeah, you made a couple mistakes too, but nothing like as bad as I did. What I’m saying, is, uh, I know it’s not going to be easy since Meriwether is so far away and Dayton is even worse, but maybe we can let bygones be bygones and try to get something going again.”
Cindy let out a long sigh. “Part of me says it could be a good idea,” she started as she reached for words. “And part of me wants to give it a try. But Russ, I’ve fucked up worse than you know, and it probably would be best to drop the idea before we get any further.”
“Cindy? Is something the matter?”
“Yes,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “Look, please. Don’t let my folks know. I haven’t told them yet. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to do it, and they’re . . . well, they’re not going to be happy. I really fucked it up this time.”
“This sounds serious, Cindy. I promise I won’t tell.”
“You’re sure? I mean, really sure?” The tears were rolling now. “I don’t want this to get out around town, or especially around the class, at least not yet.”
“I can keep a secret if I have to, Cindy.” He got up from where he’d taken a seat at the kitchen table, and wrapped his arms around her in a big hug. “Is something the matter?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant? When did this happen?”
“Not long ago,” she said. “I, uh, well, I was always on the pill when you and I messed around when we were going together. But then after we broke up and you went off with Deborah, I went off it. I thought it was causing me to gain weight, and there wasn’t much chance of birth control being needed, anyway. And then, well, something came up, and I’d been so used to doing it with you without protection I never even goddamn thought about it. Well guess what?”
“Oh, God,” he said, pulling her close. “You know whose it is?”
“Yes,” she cried, burying her face in his shoulder. “He’s the only guy I’ve ever been to bed with besides you, Russ, and it was only the one time. But Russ, I . . . I don’t think it would be a good idea to get back together with you, not with that hanging over me. Christ, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I can’t do that to you.”
“Does this guy, whoever it is, know about it?”
“No, I just found out about it myself,” Cindy cried, holding on to her old boyfriend. “Only in the last few days. I missed a period last month, but I didn’t worry about it much as it’s happened before. Then when I missed a second one, I thought I’d better get a pregnancy test. It was positive, and I just don’t know what to do, and I don’t want to hurt my folks by telling them. And I’ve got any number of good reasons to not tell him right now.”
“What could those be, Cindy?” He squeezed down on his hug. Cindy had normally been a pretty happy girl, but he could see this was really hitting her hard.
“The big reason is that he’s in Saudi,” she said softly. “God knows he’s got enough to be worried about now without me adding to it. Christ, you know he’s going to be looking at fighting a war, just as sure as hell.”
“That would make it a little more difficult,” he said. “I can see why you don’t want to tell him now.”
“And I’m not sure I want to tell him later, either,” she sobbed. “If he does make it back somehow and he’s all right, wouldn’t that be a hell of a way to welcome him home? I mean, ‘Hello Pat, good to see you again. Oh, and say hello to your kid.’ What would he think of me for not telling him?”
“Pat?” Russ said, his mind running through possibilities. It was a very short list. “Pat McDonald? How did that happen?”
“He was home right after his mother died. He was out having dinner at the Chicago the night before he was supposed to head back to the Army and ship out. I saw him sitting there, eating his gut, and I thought, ‘Jesus, there’s a guy who needs a friend.’ He has nobody, Russ, even though he’s probably better off with his mother being gone. So we got to talking, and I figured I’d give him a nice goodbye present. I didn’t even think about him giving me one, too.”
“Oh, shit,” Russ said. “I guess I can’t blame you on that part of it, Cindy. Pat is a nice guy. It’s just that he was up to his ass in the shit from his mother so much of the time that it dragged him down a lot.”
“I knew that,” she nodded, the tears letting up a little. “I mean, he just seemed so goddamn pathetic. There was no one to tell him goodbye, no one to care about the fact that he was gone, no one that gave a shit for him. I figured what the hell, it’s been a long time since you and I had been together, and well, I didn’t mind the idea. We had a good night, Russ. He was a virgin, did you know that?”
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
“Well, I told him that fun was fun, and whatever we did wasn’t going to go beyond that night. I mean, I didn’t want him eating his heart out over me when nothing was going to happen, right? Well, I sure as hell didn’t expect this, and I don’t think it would be right of me to drop this bomb on him, what with everything else.”
“Well, you could, you know.”
“No,” she said, pulling back from him a little. “Look, you’re right. Pat is a nice guy. But, well, hell, he’s in the Army. I mean, while we were talking he told me that he likes it and he’s really thinking about staying in. Well, the way he said it, I figured it couldn’t exactly be the stupidest thing he ever did.”
“Probably not,” Russ conceded. “I mean, what would he do on the outside? Get a job at the plant or something?”
“Right,” she nodded, the tears still rolling down her face, although she wasn’t steadily sobbing any more. Russ thought that it probably felt good to her just to get this out in the open, and he was ready to listen. “But since I found out I’m pregnant, I’ve been thinking about what would happen if I did go to him and tell him. Being the kind of guy he is, he’d offer to marry me, but shit, Russ, I’ve thought about it ever since I found out. I just don’t want to be the wife of a low-ranking enlisted man, following him around from base to base when I could be with him at all. I mean, I suppose it’s all right if I loved him, but honestly, I don’t. I like the guy, but . . . hell, I don’t like him that much, if you know what I mean.”
“Sounds like a recipe for trouble, if you ask me,” he nodded.
“Don’t I know it. I mean, it might work, but it would be a long shot. I don’t think I’m cut out to be an Army wife. You watch TV and almost every night there’s a story about some woman having trouble because her husband is in the Army and off in Saudi. And besides, I don’t want to tell him right now. Like I said, he’s got enough on his mind as it is, and he for goddamn sure doesn’t deserve to get a letter from me over in that goddamn sandbox saying ‘Hey, guess what?’”
“Yeah, that might not be the best way to get things started, either.”
“I realize that. I’ve made up my mind that whatever happens, I’m not going to tell him now. Maybe later, maybe not. I mean, I thought about just getting rid of the kid, but I can’t do it. I mean, if someone else in the same situation were to do it, fine with me, but I just can’t imagine myself doing it.”
“I can’t blame you. If I were a woman I don’t think I could do it myself, but to each his own. I wouldn’t want to have someone telling me what I can or can’t do about it, either. But if you’ve made up your mind you’re going to keep the kid, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head bleakly. “I just don’t fucking know. And to make it worse, I’m so scared to tell my folks it’s not funny.”
“Yeah, they might get a little upset with you,” he nodded, knowing her parents well. “Maybe not, you never know, they might be happy for you.”
“I doubt it. I doubt it like hell.”
The coffee had long since dripped its way through the coffee filter. Russ stared at it for a moment, then silently got up, went to the cupboard where the coffee cups were – he’d known for years; he and Cindy had been a couple for a long time before they drifted apart. He poured cupfuls for both of them, then went to the refrigerator to get some milk to put in hers, since he knew just how she liked her coffee. “Let’s sit down and talk about this for a moment,” he told her, holding a chair out for her at the table.
“Russ, what are you thinking?” she asked as she sat down.
“Still thinking about this,” he shrugged. “Look, Cindy. I came over here to apologize for what I did to you, what we did to each other, however the hell you want to put it. Now, just supposing for a second that this hadn’t happened. What would you have thought of my offer?”
“I screwed up on that, too,” she replied glumly.
“We both screwed up, so let’s not start playing a blame game. Would you have been willing to consider us getting back together?”
“I guess so,” she nodded bleakly. “But I figured I’d lost you to Deborah forever.”
“Last spring you might have had a reason to think that,” he told her. “It looked pretty solid. Then I spent the summer in Dayton. When I got back in the fall, it had all gone to hell. There must have been a dozen times I was tempted to get in the car, come down here, and ask you to take me back, but I always chickened out. I figured a girl like you was not going to have any problems latching onto some other guy, and that I’d pretty well lost my chance with you.”
“Never happened,” she shook her head. “I missed you, Russ. I missed you a lot. I guess I’d always hoped I could get you back, or that we could go back to the way things used to be, but I guess there’s no chance of it happening now.”
“I missed you a lot, too,” he said. “Even when I was with Deborah I was comparing her to you and realizing that I’d screwed up by letting you go. Now, I’ll be the first person to agree that we can’t go back to what we had.” He took a deep breath, as if gathering his courage before he continued, “That’s no reason we can’t go on to something better.”
“Russ?” she looked at him tearfully. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I think I am,” he said. “God, Cindy, I’ve missed you so and I can’t stand to see you hurting like this.”
“But Russ,” she protested. “The baby wouldn’t be yours.”
“You know that, and I know that,” he smiled. “No one else has to know. Not even Pat. Pat and I don’t look much alike, but we’re about the same size, the same build, and have the same hair and eye color. Nobody would probably ever be the wiser without a DNA test.”
“Russ, I can’t believe you’re actually saying that.”
“I am,” he said. “I’ve missed you that much. Besides, let’s just theorize for a moment. Let’s just suppose the timing were a little different, that you’d gotten pregnant by Pat a few months earlier, told him, and the two of you had gotten married, OK?”
“It didn’t work that way.”
“I said just supposing,” he smiled. “OK, still just supposing, suppose the war we’re expecting breaks out there and he got killed. That would leave you a widow with a small child, right?”
“Well, yeah. I wouldn’t want it to happen to Pat, though. He’s too nice a guy.”
“I wouldn’t want it to happen to him either, but I’m saying it this way to make a point. Supposing after all that were to happen I’d come along and offered to get back with you with the kid being part of the deal, of course?”
“In a situation like that, just supposing like you said, I don’t think I’d turn you down.”
“And the end result would be the same thing, now wouldn’t it?”
“God, that’s slippery, but maybe you’re right.”
“Now, still just supposing, what would have happened if this whole deal with Pat hadn’t happened, and I’d come home a couple months ago, offered to make up with you, and we’d have fallen into bed like we used to do?”
“It probably would have happened if you’d done it like that,” she nodded, beginning to see where this was going.
“And we’d still be sitting here today with you awkwardly telling me you’re pregnant, right?”
“Well, yeah. Maybe, I guess. But it wouldn’t have been the same thing.”
“Like I said a couple minutes ago, you know that and I know that. Nobody else has to know. Look, Cindy, I thought I loved you for years, and it wasn’t until I was with Deborah that I realized how much I really did love you. Now that I’ve got a chance again, I don’t want to lose you over some little technicality.”
“Some little technicality, my ass,” she snorted. “I can’t actually believe you’d offer to do what it sounds like you’re offering to do.”
“Remember the war-widow scenario,” he smiled. “Leaving out all the unpleasantness, what’s the difference?”
She was silent for a long time. “I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” she said finally. “And I think I’d still catch hell from my parents. Maybe not as bad, but still. You’re still up at Meriwether, and I’ve still got a semester to go. I might be able to get it in before I have the baby, but it could get uncomfortable toward the end.”
“There is one other thing,” Russ smiled. “I didn’t even consider it as an option until now. Uncle Walter is up to his ass in work, and he asked me to consider transferring down to the University of Dayton so I could work for him part time, maybe going on full time. I didn’t look into it yet since I figured it would probably cost me an extra semester. But now, since I’ll be handed the job I was looking for after I graduate, big deal. If it takes me an extra year or two of going to school part time, so what? We could move down there, hell, next week, and get an apartment or something.”
“But what about my course?”
“Same thing. There’s bound to be some school down there where you can finish it up. So it takes you an extra year, so what?”
“Holy shit,” she shook her head. “I never figured on that one, either. It could work, and I might not even have to tell my parents right away.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he smiled. “They’re bound to ask what the big rush is. We might be able to cover it up with the rush for us to move down to Dayton as quick as we can so I can get to work, but they’re bound to figure it out sooner or later.”
“When we’re in Dayton,” she smiled, starting to warm to the idea.
“Something like that,” he nodded. “There are any number of details to work out, and we’re going to have to do it quickly, but if we’re going to do it we’d better getting started on it, like how we’re going to manage getting married.”
“Maybe the thing to do is to just take off and elope,” she grinned. “That would cover up an awful lot of awkward questions. Maybe, oh, the day after Christmas, next Wednesday.”
“Might work,” he agreed. “Let’s face it, I’m going to be getting some awkward questions from my folks, too.”
“All right,” she said. “Something tells me I’m crazy as hell to do this and we’re probably going to have all sorts of problems we’re not seeing, but at least it’ll solve a couple really tough ones.”
“I’m sure you’re right on that.”
“Damn it, I don’t believe this. You just asked me to marry you and I said yes, and we still haven’t kissed.”
“Easily solved,” he said, getting out of his chair and walking over to her.
A long kiss later, she whispered in his ear, “I’m damn tempted to take my fiancé upstairs and celebrate our engagement properly, but it won’t be that long before my folks are home and we have other plans to make.”
“There’ll be plenty of time to do it in the future,” he grinned, and kissed her again.
