Nan Rossiter - The Gin and Chowder Club

Asa shook his head again. “Noelle, I don’t think there will ever be another… like you.”

“There will be, Asa,” she said softly. “I promise.”

Asa looked out at the waves, and his mind drifted. He thought back to the day last fall when he had gone hiking with a group of friends at school. The October air had been crisp and cool. Flames of color had swept the countryside and shimmered against the sapphire sky. Lane, a local girl, and two of her friends had come along and had brought a couple bottles of wine. They had walked along the Shepaug River and hiked up to the pinnacle. There they had lingered on the rock outcropping, reveling in the radiance of the late-afternoon sun and passing around the wine.

Later, still feeling euphoric, they had ventured into an abandoned train tunnel. Asa had just walked into the darkness of the turn inside the tunnel when Lane had slipped her hand into his and pulled him back. He had looked at her questioningly and had suddenly felt her warm lips, tasting sweetly of wine, pressing softly against his. He had been so surprised that he had just stood there. Even so, he had been thrilled by this turn of events and had held her hand until they had reached the trailhead. After that day, though, Lane had seemed embarrassed and avoided him. Asa decided that it was his weak response to her kiss that was to blame.

Noelle watched Asa wipe the condensation on the outside of his bottle and wondered what he was thinking.

“Well, enough about me,” he said, genuinely unaware that he hadn’t actually spoken but had only thought about that day. “I bet you were a handful as a teenager,” he said, turning to Noelle.

“Me?” She laughed. “I was an angel, of course!”

Asa opened a second beer for himself and one for Noelle. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “There’s truth in wine.”

She laughed. “It won’t help, remember? I was a P.K.”

“That’s the worst kind,” he teased.

“Well, I suppose you’re right-maybe I wasn’t perfect.”

Asa laughed. “You see, there is truth in wine!”

“I haven’t even had any yet.”

“Well, go ahead, and then tell me how you weren’t perfect.”

Noelle took a long drink and thought for a moment. Is this really something I should be talking about? “All right,” she began. “There was, perhaps, one time when I wasn’t exactly an angel.” She studied Asa. “But I was young, and at the time, it just felt right. It was the summer after Pete shipped out. His best friend Tom had just turned eighteen and couldn’t wait to catch up with him. I had had a crush on Tom for years. He was tall and slender, and all the girls thought he was dreamy. After Pete left, Tom continued to come by our house to talk and to find out if we had heard from Pete. I could tell that he missed him, and I honestly thought that was the reason he was coming by. I was so innocent-I certainly didn’t think he was coming to see me.

“Anyway, the night before he was to leave, our church had a reception for him. At the end of the evening, we were having a hymn-sing around the campfire, so Tom and I ran up to the choir loft to grab some hymnals…” Noelle paused and took a sip of her beer, she seemed lost in her thoughts. Asa watched her but didn’t say anything. The only sounds were the pounding surf and the wistful lyrics of the Platters coming from the radio.

Noelle smiled. “This station always plays such good songs. They bring back so many memories.” Asa just nodded. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the hymn-sing. Well, the sanctuary was dark-especially in the choir loft-and I tripped and dropped my hymnals. Tom knelt down to help me, and then everything happened so quickly. He had tears in his eyes, and he told me he was afraid of not coming back, afraid he would never get married, never make love, and I… well… I…” She paused, then smiled mischievously at him. “I guess I’ll have to leave the rest up to your imagination…”

Asa watched her, his whole body aching. He had never known desire like this. “Sixteen and… and in a church?” he stammered in disbelief. “I guess you were a little wild!”

“Hey, now, I like to think of it as a sort of ‘last request’!”

“Well, I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” Asa replied. They were quiet, and Asa started to visualize Noelle at sixteen, lying on her back in a dark choir loft. It was more than he wanted to think about, so he stopped himself. “Do I dare ask what happened to him? Please don’t tell me he died too.”

Noelle half smiled and shook her head. “We wrote back and forth during his tour, and I saw him once when he returned. He came to visit Pete’s grave, and I went with him. But after that, his family moved away, and we lost touch. The war had changed him, and I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

“But, Asa, please… all this is just between you and me. I don’t know how you get me to talk so much. Even Nate doesn’t know about this…”

“Don’t worry,” Asa replied. “Your secrets are safe with me.” He leaned back on the blanket and looked up at the stars. Frank Sinatra was softly crooning an old Gershwin song. Asa listened in wonder to the words that he had heard so many times growing up, words that now seemed to be meant just for him. Oh, how he needed someone to watch over him…

In the days that followed, Asa could think of nothing else. He slept fitfully and had almost no appetite. He declined invitations to go out with friends, and to Sarah he seemed sullen and brooding. It was not until she had asked him several times what was troubling him that Asa realized that he needed to do a better job of concealing the madness that was churning inside. Sarah, for her part, hoped that her son was just anxious about school and prayed that his uncharacteristic mood swings would simply subside. By Friday morning, her prayers seemed to be answered. Asa appeared, smiling, at breakfast, kissed her lightly on his way out, and whistled a carefree tune as he walked to his truck.

By Friday afternoon, however, his heart was once again full of an increasing, familiar apprehension. He pulled slowly up the sandy driveway to the old red Cape and looked up at the massive stone chimney protruding stoically from the center of its roofline. He pictured the mason that had stood high above the ground almost two hundred years earlier, toiling under the same hot sun and looking out in awe at the same rugged coastline. He imagined the intensity of the man’s concentration and the sweat dripping from his brow as he carefully chose each stone for the most impressive part of the chimney.

To Asa’s dismay, Noelle wasn’t home yet. He parked the truck, lifted his toolbox out from the bed, and walked around to the back porch. He opened the door and called out a hello just to be sure. It felt strange to walk into the empty house, almost as if he were an intruder. He headed up the stairs, his heart pounding. The bedroom door was open, and he walked quickly across the room, set down his toolbox, and pushed the window all the way up. He took out the screen and set it against the dresser just as Nate had done. As he turned back to the window, the bed caught his eye. It was neatly made with the quilt pulled tightly to the headboard, but Asa did not see the quilt. Instead, in his mind’s eye, he saw only a snowy white sheet strewn quickly aside. He stared at the middle of the bed and saw Noelle lying naked, her arms stretched freely above her head. He saw Nate next to her, his fingers gently running along her abdomen and slipping down between her thighs, teasing her. Asa squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. This is crazy. I am crazy!