drawings and, yes, some Japanese prints, we moved for a second round of Tanqueray martinis to the back porch, where night had fallen; lights were flickering in the buildings across the way, and paper lanterns swung and glowed in the gardens below. Evan prepared two T-bones, medium rare, over a charcoal-burning hibachi, and pulled out of the refrigerator two green salads, which he tossed lightly with vinegar and oil. I put candles inside the hurricane shades and lit them and we settled down to some serious eating. Fred Astaire sang “ Th ey Can’t Take Th at Away from Me,” accompanied by Oscar Peterson. I remember Evan’s saying as we touched glasses, “Here’s to the beautiful children we’ll have together.”
Th e apartment, the dinner, the cocktails, the love songs, the reference to what beautiful children I could give him, all signified to me, in my misreading of the code we were following, that it was a serious relationship we were about to enter, one that justified the surrender of my hitherto carefully guarded virginity. Soon we were naked on top of one another, in the candlelit confines of Evan’s platform bed, where he tenderly discovered and then set about physically confirming the virginal state of my body. I rode through the experience as if borne along on an ocean wave, taking in the surprising gentleness of Evan’s lovemaking, and appreciating to the depths of my English-major soul the compliment he paid my breasts: “ Th ey look like the faces of two young perch.” To my trusting mind, all of this was following a classic pattern. I knew—or thought I knew—that these references to children and this biblical flattery were oblique allusions to a forthcoming proposal of marriage. As a practiced hand at this sort of thing, Evan knew better.
Th e follow-up was equally irresistible. I was delivered home at sunrise, and after I had slept only a few hours, two dozen long-stemmed red roses—the first ever in my date book—were delivered to my door, impressing the hell out of my British roommate.
It must have been about noon the “morning after.” I had just finished trimming the stems and arranging the roses when Evan called and said he would be picking me up in half an hour. He said he owned a cunning orange Volkswagen and we were going to take a little trip in it to Lancaster County—Pennsylvania Dutch territory in the Brandywine Valley. I put on a black cotton dress, with a wide, swinging skirt and bright pink sprigs of dogwood on it, and some strappy raffia sandals, and by the time I had packed a big straw bag to sling over my shoulder, the buzzer told me he was at the door.
So began a surreal thirty-six hours during which Evan kept up a steady stream of chatter regarding the delights, cultural, ethnic, equine, gustatorial, and architectural, of the terrain toward which we were headed.
We stopped midafternoon in a little tea shop on the outskirts of Amish country, and I had my first mint julep, in a frosty silver tankard with a fresh mint leaf sticking out of the top. All very heady, but my excitement was somewhat tempered by concerns that there was something wrong; I had needed a sanitary pad to stanch bleeding I had no clue about the significance of. Was I damaged goods in some literal sense? Was I jeopardizing my ability to have those “beautiful children” Evan had so seductively dangled before my eyes the night before? Ought I to be recovering from this earthshaking change in my body by twenty-four hours of bed rest in a darkened room instead of swanning about the countryside with cocktail stops on the itinerary?
If I spoke at all, God knows what I said. Certainly nothing to the point. Meanwhile, Evan solicitously plied me with BLTs and a roster of local pleasures that included quilt shops and the Andrew Wyeth gallery. As I was to learn, he never failed to pursue a piece of art or sculpture he admired, and the hyperrealism of the Wyeth country scenes touched that area of his aesthetic
Th e apartment, the dinner, the cocktails, the love songs, the reference to what beautiful children I could give him, all signified to me, in my misreading of the code we were following, that it was a serious relationship we were about to enter, one that justified the surrender of my hitherto carefully guarded virginity. Soon we were naked on top of one another, in the candlelit confines of Evan’s platform bed, where he tenderly discovered and then set about physically confirming the virginal state of my body. I rode through the experience as if borne along on an ocean wave, taking in the surprising gentleness of Evan’s lovemaking, and appreciating to the depths of my English-major soul the compliment he paid my breasts: “ Th ey look like the faces of two young perch.” To my trusting mind, all of this was following a classic pattern. I knew—or thought I knew—that these references to children and this biblical flattery were oblique allusions to a forthcoming proposal of marriage. As a practiced hand at this sort of thing, Evan knew better.
Th e follow-up was equally irresistible. I was delivered home at sunrise, and after I had slept only a few hours, two dozen long-stemmed red roses—the first ever in my date book—were delivered to my door, impressing the hell out of my British roommate.
It must have been about noon the “morning after.” I had just finished trimming the stems and arranging the roses when Evan called and said he would be picking me up in half an hour. He said he owned a cunning orange Volkswagen and we were going to take a little trip in it to Lancaster County—Pennsylvania Dutch territory in the Brandywine Valley. I put on a black cotton dress, with a wide, swinging skirt and bright pink sprigs of dogwood on it, and some strappy raffia sandals, and by the time I had packed a big straw bag to sling over my shoulder, the buzzer told me he was at the door.
So began a surreal thirty-six hours during which Evan kept up a steady stream of chatter regarding the delights, cultural, ethnic, equine, gustatorial, and architectural, of the terrain toward which we were headed.
We stopped midafternoon in a little tea shop on the outskirts of Amish country, and I had my first mint julep, in a frosty silver tankard with a fresh mint leaf sticking out of the top. All very heady, but my excitement was somewhat tempered by concerns that there was something wrong; I had needed a sanitary pad to stanch bleeding I had no clue about the significance of. Was I damaged goods in some literal sense? Was I jeopardizing my ability to have those “beautiful children” Evan had so seductively dangled before my eyes the night before? Ought I to be recovering from this earthshaking change in my body by twenty-four hours of bed rest in a darkened room instead of swanning about the countryside with cocktail stops on the itinerary?
If I spoke at all, God knows what I said. Certainly nothing to the point. Meanwhile, Evan solicitously plied me with BLTs and a roster of local pleasures that included quilt shops and the Andrew Wyeth gallery. As I was to learn, he never failed to pursue a piece of art or sculpture he admired, and the hyperrealism of the Wyeth country scenes touched that area of his aesthetic
Similar Books
