Looking Through Windows (2 page)

"So, you like my cooking, ja?" Mrs. Gundlach beamed, and Emily realized she had nothing to worry about.

"Oh ja, es was sehr gut!" Again, she replied without realizing she had lapsed into German. The Gundlachs smiled at one another but said nothing.

After the dishes were washed and put away, they all went out to the screened porch with large glasses of iced tea.

"None of our children chose this university," Mrs. Gundlach said. "They all wanted to see other parts of the country. Our youngest, John, is a junior at FloridaState. The others are scattered all over."

Emily fell into a trance listening to Mrs. Gundlach talk about their other children and their five grandchildren. She rocked and listened, responding occasionally.

"Mama," Mr. Gundlach said at last, "It's time for us to let Miss Emily go to bed. She's had a long day."

"Oh ja, Papa. You are right. We get up early, Emily, but you sleep as late as you like. Good night."

"Good night," Emily said sleepily. Once upstairs, she sat in the dark of her room, not wanting to go lie down. This was the hardest part of every day, with long, empty hours stretching out before her. Some nights her brain gave her a merciful respite; other nights were so filled with bad dreams that she felt she hadn't slept at all.

At length, she fell asleep. Under the whir of the ceiling fan, she got a good night of undisturbed slumber.

Chapter 2

T
he next morning she woke early to the smell of coffee, eggs and bacon. She hurriedly showered, ran her fingers through her damp curly hair and hopped down the stairs dressed in khaki shorts, a sleeveless top and sandals.

"Guten Morgen!" she said enthusiastically to Mrs. Gundlach as she bounced into the kitchen.

"Good morning, my dear!" Mrs. Gundlach replied from the stove. She was wearing a lightweight shirt and cotton work pants. "Karl will be in soon. He is feeding our few chickens and gathering eggs."

"How much land do you have?" Emily hadn't realized it was actually a working farm.

"Only fifty acres now. Just enough to graze a few cattle, keep some chickens and hogs, and have a big garden," Mrs. Gundlach answered as she turned the bacon. "We have two draft horses Papa won't part with. He came from a farming family in Germany, and you just can't keep him from it. He worked for a sawmill until he retired a few years ago, but we've always had a few animals. He said it taught the children to be responsible if they had to take care of something that depended on them."

Pouring coffee for herself and Mrs. Gundlach, Emily smiled. She enjoyed listening to Mrs. Gundlach's soft accent. She had noticed that Mr. Gundach's was a little stronger.

"How old were the two of you when you came to the United States?" she asked, handing Mrs. Gundlach her coffee.

"I was only four when my parents moved us all to America. We left Austria in 1939. Papa's father sent the boys and their mother to Switzerland in 1940. They had a farm and probably could have kept farming, but Papa's father had decided to help hide the Jews who were trying to get out of Germany, and he didn't want the family to be involved. They stayed in Switzerland until the war was over. There was no word from Karl's father. The family couldn't find him, and their farmhouse and barns had been burned. So they came to America. Papa doesn't speak of it often."

"How horrible, never to have known what happened," said Emily, her face hard, her jaw tight.

"It's a beautiful morning!" Mr. Gundlach burst into the kitchen with a basket of eggs. "The kind of day that makes you glad to be alive!" Emily's face softened as she looked at his broad smile. Greta trotted to Emily for a pat before lying under the table.

After breakfast, she helped with the dishes and asked Mrs. Gundlach for directions to campus. Carrying her backpack loaded with a few pads, pens and dictionaries, she decided to walk, exploring as she went. She realized the Gundlachs' house was on the edge of town. Twenty minutes at a brisk pace brought her to the campus. The campus was beautiful, with old stone buildings, ivy trying valiantly to sneak past the groundskeepers' eyes and cover the cool stone.

She found the foreign language building, Whitmore Hall, where she introduced herself to the department secretary, Monica.

"Dr. Brooks is out of town for a few days, but he was expecting you and asked me to give you these personnel folders on the teaching assistants you will be supervising," Monica explained. She showed Emily to the third floor office shared by all the language teaching assistants. It was a large airy room with about ten desks, all furnished with computers and neat stacks of the required texts for each class. There were tall windows thrown open to the warm summer air.

Emily spent the remainder of the morning writing lesson plans for the classes she would be teaching. From time to time, her eyes wandered to the large windows with their view of the mountains beyond. Everything was still green now in late August. She had to force herself to concentrate on her lesson plans.

By early afternoon, her eyes were tired and she was hungry. Wandering through the maze of campus buildings, she found her way to the small downtown area of Weston. She picked a friendly-looking café, where the college-aged server bemoaned the emptiness of the town during the summer. Trying not to stare at the metal stud piercing the young woman's tongue, Emily suspected the town's permanent residents probably enjoyed the quiet, as the university's student population almost equaled that of the town.

After lunch, she strolled along the main street, which was lined with large shade trees. There were small shops selling books, clothing, jewelry and a wonderful old hardware store that reminded her of the one she used to go to with her father when she was a child. Everyone was friendly, and no one seemed to be in much of a hurry.

She discovered a small park one block removed from the main street. There were a few benches under trees, and a white painted gazebo with a water fountain. Off to one side of the park was a small stone church with an historical plaque stating that the church was the oldest one still standing in Weston, having been built in 1838. She went into the hushed interior of the small edifice. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light filtering in through the tall, narrow windows. Almost hidden in the back corner was a steep staircase. It led up to a small belfry, which no longer held a bell, but gave her a wonderful view of the park and the surrounding area. She wasn't sure how long she was up there, but looking at her watch, Emily was surprised to find that it was already three o'clock. She debated going back to the office. She had made a good start on the semester's lesson plans. It was only Tuesday, and classes wouldn't start until Monday, so she had plenty of time. Deciding that a pre-dinner run sounded better than more work, she headed back to the Gundlach house to change.

Chapter 3

"
A
ll right, Meg, come on girl," crooned the dark-haired young woman as she led a tall chestnut mare into a trailer. The mare followed willingly and settled down for the trip.

"Ann, are you sure you want to take Meg to Vermont? We could lease a horse up there for you." Katharine Hight helped load her daughter's tack into the front of the trailer.

"No, Mom." Ann poked her head out of the small window at the front of the trailer. "Thanks, but I'd really rather have Meg with me. I found a place to board her that has an indoor ring, so I can ride all winter. They'll take care of feeding her and turning her out, so if I get busy with classes, it won't matter if I can't get there for a few days." She jumped down from the back of the trailer, stowed the ramp and closed the door. "But I appreciate the offer," she added as she kissed her mother on the cheek and flashed her beautiful smile.

Katharine was always struck by how much Ann resembled her husband, Owen. They had the same thick, black hair and startlingly blue eyes. Ann's features were chiseled though, as if Michelangelo had sculpted her face, with a high forehead, perfect nose, lips neither too thin nor too full, but ready to break into a smile that could always make its recipient feel special. Katharine looked nothing like the rest of the family. Her red hair had turned silver white by the time she was forty, and she had opted to leave it that color.

"All right, then," Katharine said, "If everything else is packed, let's go say goodbye to your father."

Arm in arm, they walked back to the beautiful old farmhouse they all preferred to their apartments in Boston or L.A. Owen needed places close to major coastal airports for business, but he cherished the time he got to spend at home here on the farm an hour and a half outside Boston. They found him in his study.

"You all set, little girl?" He looked up from his desk. "I thought I'd be doing this five or six years ago. I can't believe I'm sending you off again, but at least this time," he said as he stood to hug her, "you're not going to a scary, unsettled part of the world."

"Dad, the Peace Corps was a great experience," she insisted as she hugged him back. "But I'm definitely ready for college now. It would have been a waste of money when I was eighteen."

"I know, I know," he sighed, letting her go reluctantly. "But to tell you the truth, I'm almost as nervous about letting you go to college as I was about sending you off to Africa."

"Dad, please," Ann said, rolling her eyes. "I'm years older than those kids. I'm there to work, not party. I got that out of my system in Europe," she added with a coy look.

"Stop!" Katharine held up her hands. "I don't want to know any more. There are definitely things parents do not need to know." She laughed. "At least that's what I always told my mother."

"I'll remember you said that," Ann grinned.

They all walked out to where the Land Cruiser was waiting with the horse trailer hitched to it.  Ann hugged her parents one more time, promising to call when she got to her apartment, and pulled out of the driveway. Looking back in the rearview mirror, Ann saw Owen slip his arm around his wife and pull her close as they walked back inside.

Ann drove carefully to avoid jarring Meg. Her route took her along a series of large interstates and smaller highways, which offered a more intimate view of the small farms with their neatly painted barns, and fields dotted with cattle. As she drove through Vermont, the terrain became more mountainous. When she arrived at the farm where the mare was to be boarded, Ann found Barbara, the owner. They unloaded Meg and placed her in her stall with some grain. Then she unloaded her tack trunk and saddle, putting them in the tack room. She parked the trailer off to one side of the barn with some others and drove on to her apartment.

She had found an enormous old mansion, which had been remodeled into five separate apartments. She wanted to live alone, though it meant not being able to share expenses. She knew she couldn't tolerate being in a dormitory. This apartment suited her needs perfectly. The tall windows brought in plenty of light, with a rosy glow from the oak floors bouncing off the cream-colored walls. There were two bedrooms, but she had only brought one set of sheets, so the other bedroom served as the receptacle for empty boxes and suitcases as she unpacked. After she brought the last box up from the Toyota, she placed a quick call to her parents and then went to the campus bookstore to get her textbooks.

It was Friday and she knew the bookstore would be open tomorrow, but she was eager to look through the first few chapters before classes started. She hadn't expected the books to be as numerous or as heavy as they turned out to be. She left the bookstore with two heavy bags and regretted not having driven to the bookstore. Taking what she hoped was a short cut back to her apartment; she cut through the park with the old church. There were several people in the park, including a group of guys throwing a football. Suddenly, she heard, "Watch out!" But it was too late. A muscular young man trying to catch a high football pass ran right into her, knocking her flat and sending her books flying.

Emily was up in the bell tower and saw everything. She watched the young man's mouth moving rapidly as he helped the dark-haired woman to her feet. Though she couldn't hear from where she was, Emily was sure he was apologizing profusely. He didn't take his eyes off the woman's face, and even from this distance, Emily understood why. She was beautiful. To Emily's amazement, the dark-haired woman was smiling, not angry. In a couple of minutes a whole crowd of guys had gathered round, picking up her books, asking if she was okay. Emily smiled and shook her head as the woman left the park like a Pied Piper with a herd of men following her.

Ann got back to her apartment and thanked the guys who had carried her books for her, as they deposited them on her kitchen table. They all filed out except Peter, the one who had run into her.

"Ann," he said awkwardly, "this is not how I usually go about meeting someone, but," he looked down and cleared his throat, "would you go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?"

She quickly considered. Peter seemed like a nice enough guy. She guessed him to be about twenty-one. She hoped he was at least old enough to order wine. "Sure, I'd like that," she smiled. His face took on the trancelike quality she had learned to recognize when she spoke with men. She didn't take her power over them for granted; she just wished she could meet someone who wasn't affected by it. She never felt sure the men she dated wanted to get to know her. They all seemed to get stuck on showing her off like a new car.