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It Was A Very Good Year
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non_plot challenge this week was "silent communication". Which is kind of the perfect challenge for your strong, silent types, isn't it? :-) Yay for quiet softspoken rancherboys and smitten college girls, you've gotta love 'em. And now I have Frank Sinatra stuck in my head.
Chris's apartment was all pale blue walls and bare floors covered by thick squishy nubbled rugs that the landlady had made using outgrown t-shirts and worn denim in a testament to typical New England thrift and practicality. Connie sat down in one of the chairs and looked around - he had shooed her out of the kitchen with little more than a look and a raised eyebrow, preferring the zen rhythms of knife against board to her chittering questions and need to fill silence with words.
After a few minutes sitting, she got to her feet again and began poking around the large airy living room restlessly. Perhaps the objects he chose to surround him would tell her more about the man than the man himself. She wanted to know him, to climb under his skin and find out what made him tick. He would answer her questions with patient bemusement, his soft voice relating bare-bones stories of his family or recent trips until he reached some kind of critical mass of speech and would stop talking in favor of soft, sweet kisses instead.
Not that she minded his distractions ... at all ... but it would be nice to know about him, to soften the sickening lurch she felt when she realized she was falling very, very hard for a man she knew very, very little about.
The bookshelves held a few clues; mostly well-thumbed travel guides for states she'd never seen - Wyoming, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, California, Oregon, Washington. Guide to the New England states. There was a framed photo collage on one wall - pictures of a grassy, mountainous landscape covered in flowers, a large split-level ranch house with side garden; Chris and two men that were probably his brothers that looked somewhat familiar around the eyes and nose, with the same dark wavy hair, but were chunky where he was slender. Chris and an older man, probably his father. Chris very young; holding the hand of a tiny woman with darkish hair and olive skin. Mother? He'd never mentioned a mother, but she assumed he must have one.
A stack of library books. Zane Grey, John LeCarre, David Morrell. No television; a radio, tuned to a local jazz station playing softly in the background. Very little furniture; just a small loveseat covered in woven Navaho blankets worn soft and a dining room table with two chairs ... end table ... lamp. She completed her circle of the room and turned past the kitchen down the stub of a hallway, toward the back. Closed door led to a bedroom; open door led to the bathroom.
A dim memory surfaced somewhere in the back of Connie's mind. Her aunt Addie - the crazy one, everyone said - with her long cigarettes and tobacco-husky voice whispering to her younger self conspiratorially that if you really wanted to know about someone, look in their medicine cabinet. Little Connie in pink party dress and Mary Janes looking up at her aunt with a smile and nodding politely, little miss agreeable, not understanding what on earth Aunt Addie was talking about but realizing that sometimes it was easier to smile and nod - especially when Aunt Addie had had one too many cosmopolitans.
But Aunt Addie had a point. Closing the door carefully behind her, she pried open the mirrored cabinet with her fingers.
Tylenol. Bandaids. Bactine. Shaving things. Condoms. Muffling a soft 'eek', she closed the door hurriedly again, catching a glimpse of her reddening face. Um. Well. Heavens.
Maybe she'd better see how things were going in the kitchen.
On the way out, she fluffed her dark, curly hair and ran her tongue over her teeth, taking advantage of the mirror to do a quick check ...
... you know. Just in case he was ... planning on using those.
A girl could dream, after all.
* * *
"This is absolutely delicious." Connie smiled across the table, popping a forkful of pasta in her mouth. "I can't get over how well you cook - I mean, not that I thought you couldn't, of course, you do work in an Italian restaurant, after all, so I suppose it would make sense that you could... but really, you're a very good cook, this is just wonderful."
Chris looked up, brushing a lock of dark hair out of his face. "Thank you."
"And such a lovely place setting! I adore the napkins. I always liked cloth napkins better than paper ones ... there's just something nice about them."
"Thank you."
"My mother always thought I was silly, preferring cloth napkins to paper ones, she said it was old fashioned. I suppose she had to do the laundry, so she kind of had an ulterior motive ..." she laughed, lower lip sliding flat and bloodless-white between her teeth.
Chris reached across the table and took her hand, massaging the fingers for a moment before pressing it to his lips gently.
Connie's dry-throat swallow turned into a sigh. "I ... suppose I'm babbling."
He smiled, squeezing her hand and holding it lingeringly for a moment before going back to eating his meal with an air of serious contemplation.
Connie picked up her glass of water and wet her suddenly dry lips, watching him for a moment before returning to her food.
* * *
Dessert was chocolate mousse, rich and thick and sweet. Connie lingered at the table, scraping the sides of her parfait glass with a spoon while Chris cleared the table, methodically sending the plates and glasses through their paces in a bath of hot, soapy water.
She poked her head in the kitchen door and set the empty glass on the counter. "All done."
Chris took the glass, rinsed it off and took her hand.
"What?"
He smiled mischeviously and led her into the main room. Connie followed, laughing.
The window was open, letting a cool autumn breeze whisk through the room, billowing her short fluffy skirt around her thighs. Chris turned up the stereo with a delicate flick of the wrist; Frank Sinatra filled the room as they danced back and forth, following the steps of a gentle waltz.
When I was seventeen ... it was a very good year ...
Connie stared up into his dark eyes, wishing there was some way she could freeze this moment in time; the comforting warmth of his arm around her waist, the gentle wisps of cologne tickling her nose... it was perfect. It was perfecter than perfect. Nothing in the world could make it more perfect. As though someone had heard her pleas, time seemed to slow to the perfect crawl.
He took her hand and pressed something into it, something small and warm. She paused for a moment in midstep, curious, and stared at the delicate golden band lying in the center of her palm.
"If you like it," Chris whispered, "you can keep it."
Connie, for once in her life, had nothing to say.
Chris smiled and kissed a stray tear off of her cheek, preferring to read his answer in her eyes.
non_plot challenge this week was "silent communication". Which is kind of the perfect challenge for your strong, silent types, isn't it? :-) Yay for quiet softspoken rancherboys and smitten college girls, you've gotta love 'em. And now I have Frank Sinatra stuck in my head.Chris's apartment was all pale blue walls and bare floors covered by thick squishy nubbled rugs that the landlady had made using outgrown t-shirts and worn denim in a testament to typical New England thrift and practicality. Connie sat down in one of the chairs and looked around - he had shooed her out of the kitchen with little more than a look and a raised eyebrow, preferring the zen rhythms of knife against board to her chittering questions and need to fill silence with words.
After a few minutes sitting, she got to her feet again and began poking around the large airy living room restlessly. Perhaps the objects he chose to surround him would tell her more about the man than the man himself. She wanted to know him, to climb under his skin and find out what made him tick. He would answer her questions with patient bemusement, his soft voice relating bare-bones stories of his family or recent trips until he reached some kind of critical mass of speech and would stop talking in favor of soft, sweet kisses instead.
Not that she minded his distractions ... at all ... but it would be nice to know about him, to soften the sickening lurch she felt when she realized she was falling very, very hard for a man she knew very, very little about.
The bookshelves held a few clues; mostly well-thumbed travel guides for states she'd never seen - Wyoming, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, California, Oregon, Washington. Guide to the New England states. There was a framed photo collage on one wall - pictures of a grassy, mountainous landscape covered in flowers, a large split-level ranch house with side garden; Chris and two men that were probably his brothers that looked somewhat familiar around the eyes and nose, with the same dark wavy hair, but were chunky where he was slender. Chris and an older man, probably his father. Chris very young; holding the hand of a tiny woman with darkish hair and olive skin. Mother? He'd never mentioned a mother, but she assumed he must have one.
A stack of library books. Zane Grey, John LeCarre, David Morrell. No television; a radio, tuned to a local jazz station playing softly in the background. Very little furniture; just a small loveseat covered in woven Navaho blankets worn soft and a dining room table with two chairs ... end table ... lamp. She completed her circle of the room and turned past the kitchen down the stub of a hallway, toward the back. Closed door led to a bedroom; open door led to the bathroom.
A dim memory surfaced somewhere in the back of Connie's mind. Her aunt Addie - the crazy one, everyone said - with her long cigarettes and tobacco-husky voice whispering to her younger self conspiratorially that if you really wanted to know about someone, look in their medicine cabinet. Little Connie in pink party dress and Mary Janes looking up at her aunt with a smile and nodding politely, little miss agreeable, not understanding what on earth Aunt Addie was talking about but realizing that sometimes it was easier to smile and nod - especially when Aunt Addie had had one too many cosmopolitans.
But Aunt Addie had a point. Closing the door carefully behind her, she pried open the mirrored cabinet with her fingers.
Tylenol. Bandaids. Bactine. Shaving things. Condoms. Muffling a soft 'eek', she closed the door hurriedly again, catching a glimpse of her reddening face. Um. Well. Heavens.
Maybe she'd better see how things were going in the kitchen.
On the way out, she fluffed her dark, curly hair and ran her tongue over her teeth, taking advantage of the mirror to do a quick check ...
... you know. Just in case he was ... planning on using those.
A girl could dream, after all.
* * *
"This is absolutely delicious." Connie smiled across the table, popping a forkful of pasta in her mouth. "I can't get over how well you cook - I mean, not that I thought you couldn't, of course, you do work in an Italian restaurant, after all, so I suppose it would make sense that you could... but really, you're a very good cook, this is just wonderful."
Chris looked up, brushing a lock of dark hair out of his face. "Thank you."
"And such a lovely place setting! I adore the napkins. I always liked cloth napkins better than paper ones ... there's just something nice about them."
"Thank you."
"My mother always thought I was silly, preferring cloth napkins to paper ones, she said it was old fashioned. I suppose she had to do the laundry, so she kind of had an ulterior motive ..." she laughed, lower lip sliding flat and bloodless-white between her teeth.
Chris reached across the table and took her hand, massaging the fingers for a moment before pressing it to his lips gently.
Connie's dry-throat swallow turned into a sigh. "I ... suppose I'm babbling."
He smiled, squeezing her hand and holding it lingeringly for a moment before going back to eating his meal with an air of serious contemplation.
Connie picked up her glass of water and wet her suddenly dry lips, watching him for a moment before returning to her food.
* * *
Dessert was chocolate mousse, rich and thick and sweet. Connie lingered at the table, scraping the sides of her parfait glass with a spoon while Chris cleared the table, methodically sending the plates and glasses through their paces in a bath of hot, soapy water.
She poked her head in the kitchen door and set the empty glass on the counter. "All done."
Chris took the glass, rinsed it off and took her hand.
"What?"
He smiled mischeviously and led her into the main room. Connie followed, laughing.
The window was open, letting a cool autumn breeze whisk through the room, billowing her short fluffy skirt around her thighs. Chris turned up the stereo with a delicate flick of the wrist; Frank Sinatra filled the room as they danced back and forth, following the steps of a gentle waltz.
When I was seventeen ... it was a very good year ...
Connie stared up into his dark eyes, wishing there was some way she could freeze this moment in time; the comforting warmth of his arm around her waist, the gentle wisps of cologne tickling her nose... it was perfect. It was perfecter than perfect. Nothing in the world could make it more perfect. As though someone had heard her pleas, time seemed to slow to the perfect crawl.
He took her hand and pressed something into it, something small and warm. She paused for a moment in midstep, curious, and stared at the delicate golden band lying in the center of her palm.
"If you like it," Chris whispered, "you can keep it."
Connie, for once in her life, had nothing to say.
Chris smiled and kissed a stray tear off of her cheek, preferring to read his answer in her eyes.
no subject
no subject
(I cry at movies too. Don't feel bad.)