Gerri Hill - One Summer Night

Then, on a rainy afternoon in March, when Johanna was twelve, her mother’s car skidded around a curve, colliding with a tree. She had been killed instantly.

Harry and Beth Marshall had willingly taken Jo in and saw it as their life's work to try to make her happy. Sarah had been their only child. Johanna was their only grandchild.

As a teenager, she had rebelled, of course. She was a hellion, silently bitter about her loss. But that, too, passed. After high 32

school, she enrolled at the University of Texas, graduated in three years, and then continued until she had her master's degree. She had been teaching at Austin City College for ten years now, and didn't have any desire to move on.

Harry was waiting for her on the porch, sitting in his usual rocker. She parked in the shade of the old oak tree, walked up and hugged him.

"I'm so sorry," she began.

"Nonsense," he said, dismissing her apology. "You're entitled to oversleep now and again."

Harry Marshall, eighty years old, didn't look a day over sixty-five. He had thick white hair, which he wore much too long for a man his age. But he looked fit. He still swam the lake every day, even in winter. Only his eyes showed the years, and the sadness that had been there since his wife, Beth, died.

Jo had been coming to brunch on Sundays ever since college, and because her grandmother had passed away two years before, she often stayed the whole afternoon with Harry, fishing in the lake, going on a boat ride, or just talking.

She smiled and knew he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Four hours sleep was not nearly enough for her, especially after a night like she had spent. She lowered her eyes, hoping he wouldn't ask. He didn't.

He served them chicken over a bed of rice, fresh vegetables from his small garden and iced tea in the same glasses she remembered from her childhood. The table was crammed into a nook at the back of the house, facing the lake, and they watched the boats on the water, some pulling skiers behind them, others just cruising by. She was quiet and knew she was not being very good company. Turning away from the lake, she smiled at him, murmuring how good lunch was.

33

"Have a late night?" he finally asked.

"I went to a softball tournament yesterday and out to dinner," she answered, avoiding his eyes.

"Oh."

"With Betsy," she volunteered.

"You haven't brought her around in a while," he said.

"I haven't seen her in a while, either."

"Well, now that summer is here, you should have more time for your friends."

She looked up quickly. "Yes."

"I worry about you, you know."

"I know," she said. "Thank you. I love you for it."

"You need someone other than me.”

He gave her a smile and said what he always said. "I wish you had someone, Jo-Jo."

"Oh, Harry, I'm fine. You know that."

"But still, I won't be around forever."

She dismissed that comment. He had been saying that since the day her grandmother had died.

After they cleaned up the dishes, they took the boat out and cruised around the lake, taking their time as they marveled over the expensive houses dotting the shoreline.

"Hard to believe we were one of the first ones out here,"

he said, like he usually did.

She nodded, like she always did, and smiled at him. He was all she had left, and it saddened her. He had withdrawn some since Beth had died and she knew it was a struggle for him to hang on. Part of him had died with her, despite how much Johanna needed him. He had lost his wife, his partner and Johanna couldn't even begin to know what that must be like. The devastation she had felt when Nancy left couldn't even begin to compare to the death of a spouse after fifty-two years of marriage.

34

"Let's go out for dinner this week," she suggested, as they were tying the boat up.

"Sure. Mexican food?"

The memory of last night flashed by, and she shook her head. "How about Italian?"

"Okay."

"Wednesday?"

"Sure."

They brought out the worn deck of cards and the pitcher of iced tea and settled at the picnic table. The breeze off the lake and the shade of a giant oak made the heat bearable.

They played cards and chatted, Jo thankful for anything to keep her mind occupied. If she concentrated really, really hard, she could almost forget that she had spent last night in the arms of a complete stranger. Occasionally, though, images would sneak through and she would feel herself go hot as she saw a flash of herself on the bed, arms reaching for Kelly, silently begging for her touch.

She grabbed her glass of tea, embarrassed by her thoughts. Touching her face with the cold glass, she sighed.

“Hot?”

Jo nearly sputtered at his innocent question and pretended interest in her cards. “I’m a little warm,” she said.

“But I guess it’s that time of year.”

“I don’t even think about it anymore,” Harry said. “If I get hot, I just strip down and take a dip.”

“Harry! You’re not still skinny-dipping during the day, are you?”

Last summer, Harry’s new neighbor had been near the property line, cleaning brush, and had spotted Harry in the buff, and called the sheriff’s department.

“I think she sits on her porch with binoculars,” Harry said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Maybe she’s just looking for a thrill.”

35

“They warned you that they would fine you next time, Harry,” Jo reminded him.

“Oh, bullshit,” he laughed. “Wouldn’t that make good news? Slapping a fine on a shriveled-up old man for indecent exposure.”

Then he laughed again. “But I guess that would be an indecent sight.”

Jo laughed, too. Harry had not been in such good spirits in a very long time and, despite her headache, she stayed for another round of cards.

It was after three when she finally left. During the drive home she tried in vain to forget about last night. Without Harry to distract her, images of Kelly Sambino kept intruding. Her stomach did a slow roll as she remembered how her mouth had reluctantly left Kelly’s breast, only to travel down her body to a warmer, wetter place.

“Oh God,” she murmured.

She turned the air vent to her face, then the fan on high, stubbornly refusing to let her mind replay any more of the events of last night. Instead, she spent the rest of the drive chastising herself for acting like a wanton harlot!

She knew she was being foolish, but she parked in the driveway, not wanting to go into the garage and remember the long moments they had stood there, staring at each other across the car. But she sat in the car and remembered anyway, hands gripping the steering wheel, unaware of her accelerated breathing. She was aware, however, of the warm sensation between her legs, and her eyes closed slowly as she saw first Kelly’s hands, then her mouth move over her body.

She shuddered at the memory of her own urgent hands guiding Kelly to the ache between her thighs.

The low moan in her throat startled her, and her eyes 36

flew open. She buried her face in her hands, trying to erase the images, trying to curb her arousal.

When she went inside, her answering machine was blinking. Ignoring it, instead she took a beer from the refrigerator and poured it into a frosty glass from the freezer.

Despite the heat, she went out onto the deck and sat in the shade, drinking her cold beer and staring out toward Bull Creek as the clear water rushed over the limestone bottom.

She loved her house. It was a little bit of the Hill Country nestled in the foothills of West Austin. Thick groves of cedar and oak lined the creek and gave her privacy from her neighbors. It was a small creek, barely four feet deep during the wet season and only twenty-five feet across in some places, but it was a haven to her. On hot, sunny days, she would take a tube and float downstream, then paddle back up and do it all over again. The cold, spring water was a blessing during the hot days of summer.