Nelson DeMille - Spencerville

"I know that, too. I know when to come."

"Okay."

She extended her hand, and he took it. Keith said with a smile, "In Europe, Washington, or New York, we'd kiss good-bye."

"In Spencerville, we just say, 'You have a real nice day now, Mr. Landry. Real good seeing you again.' " She squeezed his hand and turned away.

Keith watched her cross the street and noticed the three women taking it all in.

He stood a moment, not remembering where he was, where his car was, or what he was supposed to do next.

He found he had a lump in his throat and kept glancing at the park across the street, but they were gone now. He wanted to go find her and take her arm and tell her friends, "Excuse me, we're in love, and we're leaving."

But maybe she needed some time to think about it. Maybe she didn't like what she saw. He thought about the conversation, replayed it so he wouldn't forget it, and tried to remember the look on her face and thought about what he'd seen in her eyes.

From what he'd gathered, she'd had a bad time of things, but you couldn't tell by her eyes, or her face, or her walk. Some people showed every scar, every disappointment, every sorrow. Annie Prentis was the eternal optimist, happy, perky, and unbowed by life.

He, on the other hand, had done well in life, and perhaps he didn't look burned-out, but he carried in his heart every sorrow, disappointment, and human tragedy he'd ever seen or experienced.

It didn't do any good to wonder about how life might have been if they'd married and had children. It would have been fine. They always said that they were made exclusively for each other. It was more important now to see if it was really possible to pick up where they'd left off. The cynic in him said no. The young Keith Landry, the one who had loved completely and unconditionally, said yes.

He found his car, got inside, and started it. He was vaguely aware that he had a list of errands to do, but he started for home.

As he drove, he remembered that day, twenty-five years ago, in her bedroom in Columbus. Dawn was breaking, and he'd been awake and dressed for hours. He'd sat looking at her sleeping naked on her back in the warm room, the unforgettable profile of her face and body, her long hair tumbling onto the pillow.

Certainly, he'd known that it would be a long time before they would see each other again. But it never occurred to him that a quarter century would pass and that the world they knew would have vanished so completely. Sitting in her bedroom, he'd thought briefly about the war in Asia, about the possibility that he would die, but it all seemed too remote then. They were small-town kids who'd had four idyllic years of college, and this two-year Army hitch was just a bump on the road. His only concern was that, after being inseparable in high school and college, she'd be lonely without him.

He'd finished his training at Fort Dix, but, instead of getting leave time, his training battalion had been given a crash course in riot control and sent to Philadelphia because of antiwar protests that had turned ugly. Again the world had intruded, as it did in time of war, but it was a new experience for him.

He'd managed to call her from a pay phone, but she wasn't in her apartment, and there were no answering machines in those days. He'd had a second brief opportunity to call, late at night, but her line was busy. He'd finally written her, but it took a few weeks before her reply found him back at Fort Dix. Communication was not easy in those days, and it became more difficult in a larger sense in the following months.

Keith found himself at the farm and turned into the drive that led to the house. He pulled the Blazer around the back near the garden and sat at the wheel.

He wanted to tell himself that everything would be all right now, that love conquers all. He thought he knew how he felt about her, but, aside from the memories and the letters and now seeing her, he didn't know her. And how did she feel about him? And what were they going to do about it? And what was her husband going to do about it?

At was seven P.M. when Keith Landry pulled up to Gail and Jeffrey Porter's place, the old Bauer farm. The evenings were getting shorter and cooler, and the sky was that deep purple and magenta that Keith associated with the end of summer.

The farmhouse, a white clapboard building in need of paint, sat near the road.

Gail came out the front door and across the crabgrass lawn and met him as he climbed out of the Blazer with the wine bottles and Jeffrey's umbrella. She hugged and kissed him and said, "Keith Landry, you look terrific."

He replied, "I'm the delivery boy, ma'am. But you look pretty good yourself, and you kiss good."

She laughed. "Still the same."

"We wish." Actually, he'd only known her in their senior year when Jeffrey started seeing her, and he barely remembered what she looked like, because she had looked like a lot of thin-faced, lithe-bodied, granny-glassed, long-haired, no-makeup, peasant-dressed, barefoot girls of the time. In fact, she was still wearing a peasant dress, probably an original, her hair was still long, and she was indeed barefoot. Keith wondered if he was supposed to dress sixties for the occasion. She was still thin, too, and still braless, as he saw by the low-cut dress. She wasn't pretty then and wasn't pretty now, but she had been, and still was, sexy. He handed her the umbrella. "Jeffrey left this."

"It's a wonder he remembered where he lived. You guys had a good time, I gather."

"We did."

She took his arm and walked him toward the house. She said, "Jeffrey tells me you were a spy."

"I have laid down my cloak and dagger."

"Good. No politics tonight. Just old times."

"Hard to separate the two."

"True."

They entered the house through a battered wooden screen door, and Keith found himself in a barely furnished living room, lit only by the setting sun. From what he could make out, the furniture was sort of minimalist European modern, and it probably came in boxes with instructions badly translated from Swedish.

Gail threw the umbrella in a corner, and they passed through the dining room, which had the same sort of furniture, and into the big kitchen, a blend of original country kitchen and 1950s updates. Keith put the wine on the counter, and Gail took the bottles out of the bag. "Oh, apple wine and spiked grape juice! I love it!"

"Kind of a joke. But there's a good Chianti, too. Remember Julio's, the little Italian place near campus?"

"How could I forget? Bad spaghetti before it was called pasta, checkered tablecloths, and melted candles stuck in straw-covered Chianti bottles — what happened to the straw?"

"Good question."

She put the apple and grape wine in the refrigerator and gave Keith a corkscrew to open the Chianti. She found two wineglasses, and he poured. They touched glasses, and she toasted, "To Bowling Green."

"Cheers."

She said, "Jeffrey is out back, gathering herbs."

Keith saw a big pot simmering on the stove, and the kitchen table was set for three, with a loaf of dark bread in a basket.

Gail asked, "Did you bring meat for yourself?"

"No, but I looked for roadkill on the way here."

She laughed. "Disgusting."

He asked her, "Do you like it here?"

She shrugged. "It's all right. Quiet. Plenty of empty farmhouses at rents we can afford. And Jeffrey's people are still here, and he's been doing his memory-lane thing for the last two years. I come from Fort Recovery, so it's not much different. How about you? You okay here?"

"So far."

"Nostalgic? Sad? Bored? Happy?"

"All of the above. I have to sort it out."

Gail filled their glasses again and poured one for Jeffrey. "Come on outside. I want to show you our gardens."