All Your Pretty Dreams (36 page)

“
Carry on, Jon,” Will
Franklin called.

“
Carry on, Iz,” said
Daria.

Jonny had been staring at
the ceiling for about fifteen minutes when he realized she wasn’t
asleep. Her breathing had wakened him early. He wasn’t accustomed
to sleeping with another person, let alone
this
person. Last night was a happy
blur, everything he had dreamed. He glanced down at his hands, neat
against his belly. Then at her hands, also folded on the
sheet.

Isabel was staring at the
ceiling too. He couldn’t see her face without moving. What was she
thinking? How to leave gracefully? Locating her shoes so she could
make a dash for it? He glanced around the room. He would always
remember this place, no matter what happened next. The little hotel
room with its gold lamp and plush carpet and view of the lake had
been expensive but worth it. More than worth it, last night anyway.
This morning’s worth had yet to be revealed.

Attuned to her breathing,
he heard her take a sharp intake of air. At the same exact time
they sprung upright and swung their legs off opposite sides of the
bed. Each grabbed the sheet. It pulled taut between them. He let
go. It snapped away and he grabbed the blanket, pushing it down
across his lap.

Now what? He was naked. The
room was chilly even with the morning sun streaming across the
carpet. This was the first time he’d been in a hotel room with a
woman who wasn’t his wife. What did people do?

Her hand on his back
startled him. She was still there. Of course she was. Where did he
think she would go? In his heart, he had wondered. They barely knew
each other. It had happened so fast, she must be having second
thoughts, wondering what sort of a tangle she’d gotten herself
into. What sort of man he was. What sort of future they might
have.

His breath caught in his
throat. He saw the future, the two of them, together. Building a
life, a family, supporting each other’s dreams in a way he never
thought possible. And he wanted it. Badly, madly if he was honest,
with a fierceness he had never experienced before. Because of her.
Of who she was. And who she made him want to be.

He glanced over his
shoulder. Her back was still turned. How was he so sure, so
suddenly? But he was. He wanted her, now and forever. Did she feel
the same? Did she dream the same dream? Or was she plotting a
graceful exit? Her arm was twisted behind her, fingers splayed
against him. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Her
fingers were cold. Goose bumps ran up her shoulder. He turned on
the bed, feeling her smooth skin against his palm, the warmth of
her, pulling her back under the covers. She curled under his arm,
against his chest. Her cheeks were cool. He pulled her close, his
nose in her hair.

Push and pull. Press and
draw. Breathe in, breathe out.

Are you ready for the key
change,
mon ami
?
Get your fingers in position and press with all your
heart.

Chapter
24

The bees returned to
southern Minnesota in late April as spring worked its way north up
the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. First a few
bumblebees were spotted buzzing around early blossoms in the
hedgerows. Then the orchard mason bees were seen swarming high in a
flowering crabapple. Jonny and Isabel drove up for Easter, stopping
many times along the way to check apple orchards, chokecherry
bushes, and blackberry thickets for insects.

Spring had come a few weeks
earlier in downstate Illinois, bringing the cheerful sight of red
and yellow tulips to the beds in front of the Student Union in
Urbana, and the heady scent of lilacs on the old
streets.

Upstate, on the fifth of
April in a chilly Chicago rainstorm, Daria and Will said their
vows. Isabel was maid of honor but didn’t plan the bachelorette
party. She left that to Daria’s friends in Chicago. There were male
strippers, totally inappropriate but totally well-received. Isabel
didn’t sing karaoke. At the reception Jonny was convinced to play
his accordion. Just one song, for the father-daughter dance. It
turned out Max had a secret— he could dance the polka with what
could only be called youthful enthusiasm.

Jonny had left the firm in
Minneapolis in the dead center of January, on the same day Wendy
got a scholarship to Mankato State. Snow was falling hard the day
he packed the Fairlane, flakes swirling around the icy streets.
Sven made him a CD of road music. He played it all the way down
Interstate 94. It took him three days to find a drafting job that
would leave time to take University classes. It took only an
afternoon to find a small apartment.

Isabel got her own
apartment three blocks away. They agreed on that. But then, they
agreed on almost everything. At the end of the school year, when
Isabel’s classes and seminars were finished, papers corrected and
grades posted, they walked along the Vermillion River in Kickapoo
State Park, watching the swallows dive for insects in the twilight.
They pitched a tent and roasted hot dogs and swatted flies. The
night was full of stars.

Jonny started classes in
earnest that fall. By second semester he was admitted into the
architecture program, something he was sure would never happen.
Isabel worked on her doctorate, using the data from the field study
to correlate survival factors, migration patterns, and life spans
of feral bees. She presented a paper that spring to the
Entomological Society of America meeting at Penn State. While there
she met a colleague at Washington State University who invited her
to participate in a field study. In July she went to Ellensburg,
Washington, and helped supervise a bee count in the apple orchards.
Jonny was busy learning to make models.

When he called her one
night, midway through July, she could tell something was wrong.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“
Always
dangerous.”

“
Are there any interesting
guys in Ellensburg?”

“
Why, yes. One owns the
motel where the students are staying. I’m at the Best Western
though. It has a pool.”

“
Does he play an
instrument?” he asked.

“
I’ll hang out at the bar
more. See what I can find out. I do love a musician.”

He didn’t say anything.
Jonny, when anxious, still couldn’t read her. At least not over the
phone. She felt bad for teasing him, a little.

“
On second thought, he
probably isn’t musical,” she went on. “He’s a Mr. Fix-it. The girls
call him The Tool.”

“
I was thinking of coming
out there. For a weekend. Or a week.”

“
I’ll be back in two
weeks.”

“
I don’t think I can wait
two weeks.”

“
Well, come then. But I’ll
be working a lot. You remember.”

He rustled some papers.
“I’m moving. This place is too hot in the summer and too cold in
the winter. Someplace bigger. You could move in.” His voice
dropped. “I need you here.”

When Isabel returned from
the field study she gave up her apartment. At Christmas, on their
own in front of a living Christmas tree Isabel had borrowed from
the University greenhouse, Jonny proposed and Isabel accepted.
Their parents were not surprised. Isabel let Edie throw a small
engagement party at the Botanical Gardens, under duress. Edie said
it was only fair and smiled like crazy.

There were more flowers
than guests at their wedding that spring, on the weekend after
classes finished. Unless you counted the bees and Isabel was a
little too busy for that. Margaret’s rose society went overboard
with the bouquets. The backyard of the mansion on the lake was
transformed by the huge tent. The Notable Knobels played a reunion
set for Jonny, only making him take up Stumpy’s accordion and play
a tune of his choice for old times’ sake.

The band swung into
Holti’s favorite,
She Likes Kielbasa
Polka.
Jonny felt the heavy instrument in
his arms, shoved the air into it and drew it out again, just the
way he always had. His mother was dancing with Father Teddy, Nora
with Claude, Max with Daria, Will with Isabel. Sonya and the baby,
Holti, did a spin as well. Jonny took off his jacket and put his
heart into the dirty old ditty.

A rush of affection for the
squeeze box flooded through him, its familiar feel, the tradition,
the family. He promised himself right then that he would get out
his grandfather’s accordion this summer and learn the Cajun music
Claude had sent. He would play again. It was in his
blood.

His father beamed from
behind the drum set. His brother and sister tooted their trumpets
and teased each other as the notes faded.

Jonny stepped off the stage
and found Isabel in her simple white gown, the delicate crown of
roses in her hair. Her cheeks were pink from the warm day, and the
emotion. She shimmered like an angel. He felt the tears in his
throat as his heart swelled again.

He took his bride by the
hand and led her to the dance floor for one more round of polka.
What had he been waiting for?