the middle of the second bedroom. I could live without it. I'd use the kicking pads in the aerobics room at Body Time.
Then I tried to imagine Jack sharing my bathroom full-time. It was very small, and counter space was next to none. I wondered what we would do with his furniture. How would we divide the bills?
We had just complicated our lives enormously, and I was scared of the change. There were so many details to work out.
"You don't look very happy," Jack said. He was eyeing me from the other side of the table.
"But I am." I smiled at him, and he got that witless look on his face again. "I'm scared, too," I admitted. "Are you, a little?"
"Yeah," He confessed. "It's been a while."
"At least one of us has had prior experience. I've never done this."
Jack took a deep breath. "Would you rather just go on and get married?" he asked, every muscle in his body rigid. "That might be good, huh?"
I had to take my own deep breath while I groped for the right words to tell him what I felt. I hate explaining myself, and only the fact that I simply couldn't hurt Jack impelled me go through the discomfort of it.
"If it wasn't for other people, I would marry you today," I said slowly. "You know how happy the papers would be if they found out? You know how people would pat us on the backs and congratulate us? 'Those two poor wounded souls, they've found each other.' "
Jack's face was beginning to collapse, so I hurried on with the rest. "But that's no reason for us to bypass any happiness we can have. You know what I would really like? I'd like to be married to you with not another soul in the world knowing about it, at least until it was old news."
Jack didn't know if I'd said yes or no. He was struggling to understand. I could tell by the way he learned toward me, his eyes focused on my face.
"It would be just for us," I said, sure I'd failed in what I was trying to convey. I had always been a private person.
"Married is what you would like?"
"Yes," I said, surprised at myself. "That's what I would like."
"To be kept secret?"
"Just for a while. I'd just like to get used to it before we told anyone."
"Now?"
"No." I shrugged. "Anytime. But they put the names of people who've applied for marriage licenses in the paper. How could we get around that? Providing you... ?" I felt very anxious as I waited for him to speak.
"Yes," he said slowly. "I'd like that, too." He looked sort of surprised to discover that he would, though. He put his hand over mine where it was resting on the table. "Soon," he finished.
I tried to imagine that Jack did not feel about me the way I felt about him. I tried picturing Jack tiring of me in a month or two, opting for some woman in Little Rock who was more convenient and less prickly. I projected myself into that position of pain and rejection.
But I couldn't imagine it,-
I didn't count on much in this life, but I counted on Jack's love. Though he'd just confessed it this morning, I'd known Jack loved me, and I'd known it with certainty.
I wasn't going to jump up and down and scream and run home to tell my mother we needed to pick out china and reserve the church. The time in my life I might have done that had long since passed by. Now that I had Jack, I had everything I needed. I didn't need the congratulations and gifts of other people to confirm that.
"Damn," Jack said, grinning like a maniac. He jumped up and began swinging his arms as if he didn't quite know what to do. "Damn!"
I felt as radiant as if I'd been painted with light. Without knowing I was standing or moving I found myself glued to Jack from head to foot, our arms wrapped around each other, the smiles on our faces too silly for words.
We'd always had electricity between us, and the high emotion we felt turned us into dynamos.
We celebrated exceptionally well.
Afterward, the kitchen was in an even worse mess. Since he'd cooked, I cleaned while Jack made the bed. Then, with the unusual prospect of a free day stretching ahead of us, we decided to take a walk together.
It was a perfect morning, both in the perimeters