Penny for my thoughts - Fiction - Short Story

Literary Review, Spring, 2003 by Mark Greenside

We sat for what seemed like, but couldn't have been, a long time, listening to the music and not saying much of anything, not needing to. Eventually, I slid towards her, reached out, and touched her hair. It was the most difficult part of the night for me. Once I started, though, I didn't stop. I splayed it, spread it, fanned it, smelled it; curled, twisted, straightened it, held it. In school every day, she wore it up, in a twist or a bun or a beehive, making her seem taut and severe. Twosdays she wore it loose. It was shoulder length and golden-blonde, so bright it shone in the dark, and it smelled of lilacs.

Soon she'd be leaning into me. "Ummmm," she'd say. "I like that. I like how gentle you are."

I never understood what she meant, though I liked it when she said it. I didn't know then how else I could be, or what else I could do. I was young, and thankfully my choices and imagination were limited.

I found her ear, and I touched it with my fingertip, as soft as you touch a newborn, and whispered her name, "Penny." She turned and kissed me then, easy at first, quick, a peck, a pucker on the lips, the cheek, my neck, my ears. Our arms locked around each other, my hand coiled and entwined in her hair.

You probably think you know what happened next. But it didn't, not then anyhow. We kissed and touched and hugged. And then we lay down on that long, wide leather seat and did it some more. It was like dancing lying down.

Only once did I see her breasts. It was a warm, humid night at the end of June; the moon was full and the sacristy lit. She was lying on top of me, resting, breathing easy, catching her breath. Murray the K announced the Shirelles new song, "This is dedicated to the one I love." "I'm hot," she said, and sat up, pulling her sweatshirt over her head and raising her tee shirt with it. Her breasts jumped free, alive, swinging like Liberty Bells. In the light from the moon and the church and the glow from the radio, they were luminous, incandescent, glowing from within and without like 24 carat gilt or alabaster. She sat on my lap, the Shirelles singing, holding her tee shirt up for me to see. Her face was relaxed, at ease, loving, unguarded, full of faith and trust, a believer. She closed her eyes, asking for mercy and joy. As the song ended, I took the tee shirt in my hands, lowered it, and told her I loved her. It was the only time I ever did. The whole thing lasted three minutes, maybe only two-and-a-half, the length of a song or a prayer.

That was in the summer of my senior year. I left the following week to live with my uncle and make money for college, and she went to secretarial school. She wrote and I telephoned, and when I returned after Labor Day, we saw each other a few times before I went away to school. We drifted after that, sent funny cards, and eventually began seeing other people, she and I. It wasn't until my junior year that I saw her again. By then she was a stewardess, and the airline she worked for bought landing rights in the town I was living in. She telephoned to say she was arriving and asked if I wanted to see her. I did, of course, though I was already seeing the woman I'd later marry. We went out to dinner, and later we went back to her hotel and made love for the first and last time. That's all I remember about that night. Except afterwards, lying in her bed with the radio on, listening to Oldies, I thought of that night in June when she sat on my lap, holding her tee shirt up, giving herself to me. Her eyes were shut. Her belly heaved in and out. "I love you, D.," she said, for that's what she called me. "I always will. I swear." I could have done anything with her, everything, whatever I wanted. I could have gone all the way. "I love you too," I said, and pulled her tee shirt down and hugged her. It's forty years later now, half a lifetime, and no one--not my two wives, my children, my parents--has looked at me with more gratitude or gratefulness for something I did or said, as if I'd given her heaven and earth or saved her. I'd give anything to see it again.