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Click hereHer eyes slowly opened. I put my arm around her. She cuddled her naked body cozily against mine.
But there was a clatter of dishes from downstairs.
"We should probably get up," she murmured.
-----
People were packing and saying their goodbyes. Vernon and Lynn were there, and some of us went for a little hike across the fields. Mary Ellen wore a scarf on her hair. We ate a picnic lunch on the edge of the woods. You could see the church steeple off in the distance. Mary Ellen played with Abby's little niece, and I caught a glimpse of the patient, loving mother she would one day be.
Mary Ellen and I took our own leave soon after we got back to the house. The sky was dappled and glorious, the grass along the roadside verdant and lush. We picked up our crumbs along the lane, along the county road, along the state road, along the freeway.
We talked about this and that, about the wedding, about Abby and Tom, about Abby and Mary Ellen, about school, about class, about some of the books we'd read. We had a paper coming up.
"I haven't really picked a topic yet," I said.
"I'm going to write about The Age of Innocence," she said. "It's kind of funny. What I want to write about isn't really even in the book. I mean, it is, but it isn't. It's kind of in the blank space between one page and the next.
"You know how most of the book is about Archer falling in love with his exotic cousin even though he's engaged to his lifelong sweetheart. Will he will run off with the cousin to live a life of bohemian passion? Or will he succumb to the pressure of his family and remain loyal to his solid, but somewhat ordinary sweetheart?
"And then you turn the page, eager to know what will happen. And in that act of turning the page, twenty years go by. And by the time the page has settled and you've begun to read the first words of the next chapter, Archer has already lived his life. His children, who were barely imagined a page ago, are now grown. He's followed one course, but not the other.
"I cried. I cried for Archer, for the life he chose, for the life he didn't choose, for the woman he married, for the one he didn't. For all those years that passed in the turning of the page. For Edith Wharton, who could imagine such a vibrant 'what might be' and then turn it, in the twinkling between one page and the next, into such a poignant 'what might have been.'
"That's what I'm going to try to write about, if it makes any sense. How it felt to turn that page and see that tangible, palpable 'what might be' turned with such finality into 'what might have been.'"
-----
We'd reached our exit. The enchantment of the weekend, of the strange bed in the strange farmhouse, of the crickets and the newly plowed earth, of the slow dancing in the moonlight, had stayed with us all the way back. I wondered how we would act toward each other when I dropped her off.
We drove in cozy silence up leafy avenues. The sunset was just fading as we pulled up to her dorm. She took her bag.
We kissed.
It was the first grown-up kiss of my life. The affectionate kiss of someone with whom I'd shared something special, who cherished the memory and did not begrudge its intimacy, who sincerely wished me well and would be glad the next time she saw me, who was willing to give the man within me the chance to prove that he was man enough for the woman she had already become.
---------------
---------------
Before our paper was even due, the fellow who was originally supposed to be Mary Ellen's escort was back in the picture. I can't even remember what I wrote about, but I do remember it wasn't very good. Over the summer they became engaged.
Mary Ellen lived off campus senior year, and we rarely saw each other. When we did it was like a warm reunion between affectionate cousins or childhood chums, fully in each other's unquestioned confidence even as our lives were starting to drift their separate ways. She and the fellow were married soon after graduation. She sent me a heartfelt letter telling me how much it would mean to her if I could attend the wedding. But circumstances conspired and I wasn't able to. I wrote back, wishing her all the joy and all the happiness in the world.
You've no doubt seen her photograph in the society pages from time to time since then. Her radiant smile still catches the eye. If newspaper accounts are to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt them, her life is a happy one. Rich, sophisticated, a loving wife and mother, a steadfast advocate for certain progressive causes.
No photos of me. I eventually married someone else. We're reasonably happy, moderately sophisticated, not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I'd like to think that Mary Ellen and I both chose wisely.
There was a time when I might have said that the farmhouse weekend had just been Mary Ellen acting out a melodramatic plot twist, with guest actor, from her larger opera. But deep down I know that that was not the case. She was as sincere that weekend as she was in every other situation in which I knew her. The offer in her kiss was genuine, and it was never rescinded, not up to the hour that it was overridden.
I just never followed through. I didn't have the confidence. I wasn't man enough. That's just the way it was.
There are those who rise to the stars, and those who sometimes rise to the occasion.
- COMMENTS
"Oh," she whispered. "Oh. Oh."
Hector, several years ago you wrote a wonderful comment about my Floating World story with Amanda, and I have quoted it several times in AH threads.
For my sins, I never read anything of yours until today. This story is sublime. Such lovely, gentle writing.
A lovely story, sensual but constrained enough to be realistic. Nice job.
Hi Hector
Thank you for a **Great** 5-star story.
I realize the key phrase in tis story was Mary Ellen's saying: "I thought it might be fun to go with you"
That sentence led to a weekend of bliss for Hector and apparently for Mary Ellen. This is a happy story of a young woman who reached out to a personable, considerate classmate, an acquaintance. That classmate was you, Hector, then a young man who showed himself to be a worthy escort for Mary Ellen for the weekend and who passed muster, with all her elatives and friends, as a (potential) boyfriend .
You, Hector could indeed have been boyfriend material for Mary Ellen if her other had indeed not rejoined her picture.
Mary Ellen and you, Hector, were like two ships, each on its own voyage, in a safe anchorage for two nights before continuing two different but somewhat parallel voyages.
I am grateful for you taking your idea to an outline, then to a first draft, to many numbered drafts and finally to a version that was ready to be proofread and then submitted. We are grateful for all your excellent work.
Overall very sweet; it is also a little sad, and certainly worth five stars.
Sign me "Appreciative in Toronto"
PS: I can understand why you, Hector, having made such a fine impression as Mary Ellen's escrort at Abby's wedding, did not want, or could not bear, being at Mary Ellen's own wedding.
Maybe the two saddest words one could put together. I’ve spent too much time speculating on what might have been if I made what I later thought might have been better choices. The trouble is a different path leads to different mistakes. I think it is wise to view everything as the best opportunity you will ever have then make the most of it. Maybe his life could be very joyful if he spends less time pondering “if only.”
You pointed me here for depth of genuine emotion and the story truly delivered this. The plot connection to The Age of Innocence is compelling. I disagree with those who want a sequel. Part of the the story's message to me is that not everything nice gets one and that everything ends sooner or later. That doesn't need diluting. That is also where I see the philosophical sadness the last commenter remarked on. This story reminded me of my other favourite of yours, Compatible Bedfellows, in that both make the reader aware of the limits to their happiness, though they are wider in the latter. Your reserved telling of their brief, intimate encounter suggests that the narrator is reluctant to allow his emotions to flare up about it, fearing that they will reawaken his pain of bereavement, suppressed by cheerfulness.
There is merit to the idea that not all wisdom is sadness, and though this story is rich with both, I like to think that Hector realised his lot was painful but rescued his happiness by making the best of the hand he was dealt, that he didn't give in to the narrative of having missed the one chance life gave him, that he realises he is not alone because almost everyone alive has fought for happiness (or at least cheerfulness) in the face of loss. I may be projecting my own characters' traits onto Mary Ellen, but I think she wanted to escape a prison and would have needed his confirmation to feel justified in doing so. She needed his complicity in the small crime of breaking (or weakening) her other relationship. It seems that he tacitly declined this last and greatest favour by trying no more after that encounter and left her out in the waste, as Damien Rice puts it in '9 Crimes'. The alternative would have been to go after her without knowing what he was breaking and it is not clear to me that that would have been better. Nor can it have been clear to him. He can hold his head high. And would he have been ready to let her go in turn, if she ever came to find life with him suffocating? My solution might have been polyamory. Or home and holiday ;-) Five stars.
Beautifully done and poignant. A continuation or sequel would kill it.
I am failing to see the good story others are seeing. Shitty ending that served no point but to make the entire story pointless. Romance? To go off and live a mediocre life without the person you love? Fuck that. 1*. There had been a nice 4* story building up till the author threw it in the shredder.
But it's kind of a sad story. He felt not good enough and she basically said he wasn't so moved on to her rich life. I have doubts that rich brings real happiness.
Thanks to everyone who commented on the story. I really appreciate it.
Some of you kindly asked how the characters had gotten on. It’s nice to think that they have a certain reality and vitality in your imagination as well as in mine. I wrote an epilogue telling how things played out in my mind. But I’m not sure that they wouldn’t have preferred being left to fend for themselves in yours.
You are a good writer hector but you have the ,IMO. fault of never really finishing your storys,you suggest but not put an end to it,pitty really
I give you 4**** for the well written story,it could have been a 5 ***** but .........
The person who gave this two stars and commented, "blah, blah, blah," is a sad, lonely cynic.
I think it's one of the best stories I've read here. I didn't even miss not having more sex. I encourage you to flesh it out, add some chapters, and see where it takes you (us).
Great. Simply great.
Thank you.
It's almost lyrical.
The exploration of two people is beautifully described.
I look forward to another part.
Please?
73,
HP
this is a great read but please add a chapter 2 to it
where do that go from here
how does it end
Breathtakingly well done, and I would have sacrificed my entire day reading more. Alas, it was just a fabulous hors d'oeuvre. Damn it! It would be criminal not to continue this. Please, please indulge us with a complete tale.
Sometimes it's a shame you can't walk down both paths.
Nearly all stories have an improbably premis somewhere, and this one was fairly reasonably. The story was believable to me when I remember how naive I was in college. Good work, I'll read the rest of your stuff..
Chilley