Tapestry of Fortunes A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,27
bathed, put on clean clothes, brushed my hair. I waited a long time, and he didn’t come. Finally I gave up and went to bed, but fully clothed, just in case he did show up. I remember I put a record called ‘One Stormy Night’ on the stereo to fall asleep to, even though it was redundant; it was raining.
“I woke up to a knocking at the door. I answered and there was Dennis, and the night looked so big behind him. I had no idea what time it was. I opened the door for him to come in. But he gestured for me to come out, so I followed him around to the front of the house. He had a motorcycle with him; I was surprised I hadn’t heard it when he pulled up outside, but I hadn’t. I got on the back and we went riding. It had stopped raining, but the streets were still wet. Dennis dipped really low from side to side, and it wasn’t scary; it was like dancing. I rested my chin on his shoulder and looked at all the things we passed by and I watched his face in the side-view mirror and I kept thinking, He is so handsome.
“When he brought me home, I made us peppermint tea. We brought our mugs out to the back steps to watch the sun come up. The sky was all rose and apricot colors, and then it started turning blue, and the birds began to call. It felt like a privilege to be up at that hour. It was like church. We went inside and he lay in my bed next to me. Neither of us spoke. For a long time, we were still, letting ourselves get warm. Then he rose up on his elbow and looked down at me, and he gently stroked the hair off my forehead, then back from my temples. He kissed me once, a long, deep, and perfect kiss. And that was all we did. He lay down beside me and we didn’t say another word until he had to go. That kept it like a dream. Joan Baez has a line in a song: Speaking strictly for me, we both could have died then and there. Whenever I hear it, I think of that time with Dennis.”
I stop talking, realize I’ve told this latter part of the story without really being here; I’ve been elsewhere, lost in the reverie.
I look around the table, a little embarrassed.
Joni practically whispers, “But you didn’t have sex that time?”
“You know, when I told my best friend, Penny, that story I just told you, she said, ‘That was your first time.’ And I said no, that came later. And she said, ‘No, that was your first time.’ And she was right. Dennis and I made an unalterable connection that night. It was the first time I’d met someone so fully in the middle. For me, it was a transcendent moment, something that superseded anything physical.”
Joni says, “Whew! It’s a good thing you decided to go and see him. Because otherwise I would have had to take you. And I don’t have time to take you.”
“He’s your one,” Lise says, quietly.
And I nod, thinking I know exactly what she means. What I felt for Dennis right from the start was a pull like gravitation, a feeling that I already knew him in my bones, and that thus far in my life I had only been piddling around, waiting to find him. I know how this sounds. But it’s true as blue, as Dennis himself might say. Or would have, in those days.
“Your first,” Lise says. “There’s something so evocative about those words: the first.” She sits there for a minute, thinking, and then she says, “Where are you going, again?”
“Well, Dennis is in Cleveland, so I’m going there. But it’s a road trip, so I’m perfectly willing to roam around and go almost anywhere else, too.”
“Des Moines?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, I might come, then. I just might.”
“Who are you going to see?” Joni asks.
“If I go, I’ll tell you,” Lise says. Then, “So, Renie. What came in at work today?” Clearly she wants to change the subject.
Renie thinks for a moment, then says, “One from a woman whose son doesn’t like her boyfriend. One from yet another Bridezilla … Oh, and one from someone whining that the person who gives her massages keeps doing it wrong.”