The Diary (9 page)

After a bit, Elizabeth let out a long, slow breath and said, “I wish we didn't have to go back.”

“We could keep on going, but I reckon at some point we'd have to turn back.” His voice was low and throaty against her ear, with a note of deep regret.

“Not if you were to kidnap me.”

He chuckled softly. “I'd never get away with it. They'd lock me up for good next time.”

“In that case, we could just run away.”

“You don't mean that,” he said in a more sober tone.

In response, she swiveled around so she was facing him. Then she did something she'd never done before: She kissed a man without waiting for him to kiss her first. She felt AJ draw in a sharp breath as their mouths made contact, one that gave way to a low groan as the kiss deepened. For Elizabeth, the kiss was equally electrifying. She felt as she had while they'd been dancing to the music inside—as wild and uninhibited as the little girl who'd once turned cartwheels on the grass and, fresh from the bath, run naked through the house, giggling as her mother chased her. She wondered what it would be like to have AJ make love to her and thought she understood now why Lady Chatterley had risked everything for this: because, in the moment, nothing else mattered.

She could have stood out there all night, kissing under the stars, but everything must come to an end at some point—even fairy tales. All too soon, they were on their way back to town.

It was shortly after eleven when they pulled up in front of her house. She was relieved to find its windows dark, only the porch light aglow. Her mother must still be at the party. Otherwise every light would be blazing and Mildred in a frenzy, wondering where she was.

At the thought, the pleasant spell Elizabeth had been under was broken. AJ's words came back to her:
They'd lock me away for good next time
. There was more than one kind of prison, she thought.

“Don't forget this.” AJ handed her the rolled-up drawing as she was opening the car door.

“Thanks,” she said, tucking it under her arm.

“Will I see you again?” His pose was relaxed, one arm resting loosely on the steering wheel and the other slung over the back of the seat as he sat facing her. Only his eyes gave him away as they studied her in the faint glow from the dash, glinting with some deep, unreadable emotion.

Elizabeth didn't know what to tell him. With the breaking of the spell had come the oddest sense of stepping back into her life—her life here, the life she would one day share with Bob—the way she might step into a familiar item of clothing. “I'm not sure that's such a good idea,” she said.

“The best ones never are.” His mouth twisted in a hard little smile.

She hesitated before coming to a decision. “Is there a number where I can reach you? In case …” She paused. In case of what? In case she decided she couldn't bear being apart from him after all?

He fished an envelope from the glove compartment and tore off one end, scribbling a number on it. “It's a rooming house where I bunk sometimes,” he told her. “The landlady takes messages for me.”

Elizabeth took it from him, hastily stuffing the scrap of paper into her pocketbook as though it were a piece of evidence in a crime. Moments later she was fleeing up the front walk.

It was only later, as she was about to climb into bed, that she remembered the drawing. She retrieved it from atop her dresser, where she'd dropped it on her way in, and slipped off the rubber band.

But it wasn't the caricature he'd done of her at the fair. This was a more lifelike rendering, drawn from memory, of her sitting by the creek, her legs outstretched and her head tilted back, eyes half closed, in a pose that was, despite its innocence, almost …
wanton
. Elizabeth stared at it for a long time, partly in shock and partly in sheer wonderment at his vision of her, so unlike the one she had of herself as she stood trembling in her thin nightgown. The sound of a car pulling into the driveway—her mother back from the party—finally shook her out of her stupor, prompting her to roll up the drawing and tuck it out of sight under the bed.

CHAPTER FIVE

A
UGUST
10, 1951

Dear Diary
,

I have a confession to make: I'm not sorry Grandma Judith broke her hip and came to stay with us. Isn't that an awful thing to admit? If Mother knew such a thought had entered my head, it would be a dark day in this house. And I do feel bad for Grandma, what with the pain she's in and her not being able to get around, truly I do. But at the same time, a part of me can't help feeling secretly relieved. Because it means all talk of getting engaged has been tabled for the time being
.

Bob's been wonderful about it. The house has been in an uproar, what with Mother and I running up and down the stairs all day, fetching this and that for Grandma (who isn't the easiest patient, I can tell you!). He's always on hand to run errands for us, but other than that, he's been sensible enough to stay out of the way. I know he's anxious to get a ring on my finger before he goes back to school in a couple of weeks, and I want that, too
—
or I will want it once I've come to my senses
—
but right now I'm too confused. Ever since the night of Ingrid's party, I've been at sixes and sevens. I can't stop thinking about you know who. I wonder if he's thinking of me, too
.

Sometimes it seems like I must have dreamed it. Other times it's as real as when I cut my finger and it bleeds. That's how it feels: like I'm slowly bleeding to death, only on the inside, where it doesn't show. I think about him all the time. I think about when we kissed and what else I wanted him to do to me. I'm afraid of what would happen if I were to see him again. I'm afraid of what might happen if I don't. Why can't I make up my mind one way or the other? Why must I torment myself
?

Last night I did something foolish. I called the number he'd given me and left a message for him. I told myself it was only to let him know that he shouldn't expect to hear from me again. Isn't that ridiculous? Like eating half a box of candy before telling the person who gave it to you that you can't accept their gift. But, like I said, I haven't been myself lately. What more proof do you need
?

I have to go now. The phone's ringing. Every time I hear it ring, I practically jump out of my skin, thinking it's for me. That it's him. Maybe this time it is. Maybe he got my message
.

“
It's for you
, dear!” her mother called.

Elizabeth's heart kept time with the thumping of her footsteps as she pelted downstairs. Was it
him
? She knew it couldn't be Bob or her mother would have identified him as the caller. It couldn't be Ingrid, either. Today was the day Ingrid and her mother planned to drive into Lincoln to look at bridal gowns, and they weren't expected back until later in the afternoon.

Her steps slowed as she approached the bottom of the staircase. Directly below she could see her mother standing by the small bow-legged table that held the telephone, with the heavy black receiver in her hand. For the umpteenth time, Elizabeth wished it weren't the only telephone in the house. Mildred considered a phone in every room, as in the Olsens' house, a pointless extravagance. In answer to the argument that having to dash downstairs every time the phone rang meant risking missing an important call, she would always say, “If the person wants to talk to you badly enough, they'll call back. Otherwise it couldn't have been all that important.” As a result, there was no such thing as a private phone conversation in their house. Elizabeth and Ingrid, when they were younger, had had to develop a code when talking on the phone. And any male callers, with the exception of Bob, would inevitably lead to a grilling that turned a simple phone call into an excruciating ordeal.

“Who is it?” Elizabeth asked with a mixture of hope and trepidation.

“Some young man. He didn't give me his name,” her mother replied impatiently, clearly thinking the caller ill-mannered for failing to identify himself. She extended the receiver to Elizabeth as if it were a misbehaving cat dangling by the scruff of its neck.

Elizabeth took it without comment, holding it away from her ear, a hand cupped over the mouthpiece, in the hope that her mother would take the hint and make herself scarce. But it quickly became clear that Mildred had no intention of doing so; she was far too interested in listening in.

She cast a pointed glance at the receiver. “Well, aren't you going to see who it is?”

Elizabeth was left with no choice but to bring the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“It's me.” The familiar voice greeted her with a husky intimacy that emptied her lungs of air and brought her heart to a momentary standstill. She didn't know how to respond. An honest reaction would only raise suspicions in her mother that she wasn't equipped to deal with, while a show of indifference would give AJ the wrong idea—she knew she needed to nip this relationship in the bud but didn't want him to think she was heartless. She was spared from having to make that choice when AJ, who must have sensed something amiss, asked, “Is this a bad time?”

Elizabeth darted a nervous glance at her mother. Mildred appeared to be sorting through the mail, but her alert pose gave her away. “No, of course not,” she replied in a sprightly tone designed to throw her mother off the scent. “How are you? I haven't seen you in ages.”

“I'm guessing you're not alone.”

“No, but I'm glad you caught me,” she said in the same false, bright tone. “It's awfully good to hear from you.”

“Same here. I got your message.”

“Really? Well, it was nice of you to get in touch.”

“I'm just wrapping things up here. I should be pulling into town in a couple of days. Will you be around?”

The mere sound of his voice was wreaking havoc on her nerves. A storm was threatening to break loose behind her tautly smiling expression. “Why don't we meet for a drink? Any day this week is fine. I get off work at five.” In her panic, she'd have promised him the moon just to get him off the phone. She didn't know how much longer her crumbling facade would hold out.

“Okay. Let's make it day after tomorrow, then. Look for my car. I'll be parked outside the Rail.”

She felt a moment's panic. The Brass Rail was where a lot of her old school chums went for drinks after work. The last thing she needed was for one of them to spot her getting cozy with AJ and tattle to Bob. But with her mind whirling, she couldn't come up with a better suggestion; she would just have to finesse it when the time came. “All right. See you then. 'Bye, now,” she chirped.

No sooner had she hung up than Mildred dropped her pretense of reading the mail. “Who was that?” she asked with an affectation of mild interest that was in sharp contrast to the keen-eyed look she gave Elizabeth.

“Just an old friend from school.” Elizabeth struck a carefully neutral tone.

“Oh? Anyone I know?”

“You might have met him, but he's no one you'd remember.”

That much was true. Those whom Mildred considered socially inferior rarely registered on her scale. If she remembered AJ at all, it would only be as “that Keener boy” who'd gotten into trouble a few years back. “Actually, I don't know him all that well myself,” she threw in for good measure.

“Well,
he
clearly knows
you
.” Mildred arched a thinly plucked brow.

“You know how it is. People move away, and old acquaintances grow in memory. To be honest, I was just being polite. He's only going to be in town for a few days, so I didn't see the harm in meeting him for a drink.” Elizabeth feigned indifference, but in truth she was nearly faint at the prospect of seeing AJ again.

She was turning to head back upstairs when her mother asked sharply, “Who is this person? You didn't tell me his name.”

Elizabeth paused at the foot of the staircase, frantically casting about in her mind. If she plucked a name at random from her class roster, she wouldn't put it past her mother to track down the poor, unsuspecting fellow and expose her for the liar she was. Luckily she was saved from having to respond by her grandmother calling from above, with amazing vigor for someone bedridden, “Mildred? Elizabeth? Is anyone home?” As if they would have left her alone in the house!

Her mother heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Dear, why don't you run up and see what she wants?” If Mildred was a taskmaster, she'd come by it honestly: Grandma Judith had run her own household like a battleship. Even now, elderly and infirm, she was still bossing everyone around.

But for Elizabeth, this marching order couldn't have come at a better time. She raced upstairs as if eager to do her grandmother's bidding before Mildred could attempt to pry any more information out of her.

She entered the guest room to find Grandma Judith sitting up in bed. Enthroned against the pillows propped behind her back, she looked like a wizened potentate in her pale-blue nightgown and the matching quilted satin bed jacket draped over her bony shoulders like a cape. Elizabeth could see the pinkish contours of her skull through her white hair, which was insubstantial as smoke, and noted that the hands resting on the coverlet were nearly fleshless below their knobby wrists. But her grandmother had retained her dignity as well as some vanity—she was like Mildred in that respect. In the time it had taken Elizabeth to climb the stairs, she'd managed to apply lipstick, albeit not very successfully.

“Did you have a nice nap, Grandma?” Elizabeth was in the habit of addressing Grandma Judith somewhat formally. She hadn't spent enough time around her grandmother to feel comfortable with her in the way that Bob did with his grammy and grandpa, who lived just down the street from him. Grandma Judith lived in Omaha, some two hundred miles away, so Elizabeth had seen little of her while growing up. Mildred always claimed it was too far for Grandma Judith to travel, but Elizabeth knew that was just an excuse—the truth was that Mildred didn't get along with her mother. Otherwise wouldn't she and Elizabeth have made the trip to Omaha more than once a year? Sadly, the feeling appeared to be mutual—Grandma Judith didn't appear to have tender feelings for Mildred, either. Elizabeth doubted that her grandmother would have prevailed on Mildred to take her in after she'd broken her hip if her youngest daughter, Prudie, who lived closer to her mother, hadn't coincidentally been suffering from an attack of shingles that had left her bedridden as well.