The Melanie Chronicles Page 2

  "Are you happy you came?" he asked.

  "I am. It was the right thing to do."

  "You needed a break from everything," he said. "For months you were like the walking wounded. And I asked myself what was the best thing I could suggest that might help you..."

  But she didn't want to talk anymore. She kissed him again and drank in the taste of Damian's mouth.

  There didn't seem to be anything more left to say.

  "I'm meeting the Lachlans in a few minutes at the Lobby Bar for drinks and to get the keys to their flat. Do you want to join us?"

  She nodded absently. She was sitting at the vanity table, wrapped in one of the hotel's fluffy guest robes and brushing her hair. Damian was behind her buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. After they'd made love, he'd showered and his damp hair curled at his neck.

  "Have you met them before?"

  "The Lachlans? Yes, a few times. The wife went to school with my sister."

  "Are they... what are they like?"

  Damian grinned at her in the mirror. "Don't worry about them. They're fine."

  After the introductions, the Lachlans launched into a flurry of questions about Damian's family and their mutual acquaintances. Neither the husband nor the wife paid much attention to Melanie other than a few polite inquiries into how she was enjoying her stay in Scotland and if it was her first time there.

  Damian wasn't oblivious to this. He wrapped his arm around Melanie's shoulder and drew her closer, murmured in her ear that it would all be over once they had the keys.

  "We'll have dinner at the Witchery," he said as his hand slid up and down her arm, "then we'll take a walk around the city."

  She nodded, but even being close to him didn't diminish how invisible she felt. Looking down at the simple peasant blouse and new Gap jeans she wore, she wished she'd chosen something more stylish. Clodagh Lachlan was wearing a breezy silk shirt and chocolaty suede pants that Melanie recognized from the pages of Vogue while Angus Lachlan wore what seemed to be the European version of the Rich Man's Uniform: a pale blue checked shirt and immaculately pressed trousers. They both wore the pampered looks of the Idle Rich.

  "We didn't know you'd have a flatmate, Damian," Clodagh said. She was smiling at Melanie but her eyes were cold and unwelcoming.

  "He won't," Melanie retorted quickly. "I've got my own rooms at the university."

  "Would that have caused a problem?" Damian was stroking Melanie's nape under her hair. His voice had lost its usual mellowness and sounded tight in Melanie's ears.

  "No, no, of course not," Angus answered with a smile but Melanie could see that they were just backtracking. They didn't want to anger the brother of their friend, especially when he would be lining their pockets for the next year while they were in Antigua. "Of course your friend could stay there with you."

  And you'd be counting your silverware the moment you came home, Melanie thought with a glare. She sat a little straighter and returned their smiles. Angus nodded at her, but Clodagh focused on Damian distracting him with a barrage of questions about what he'd be studying for the next year. The subject of Melanie possibly living in their apartment wasn't broached again.

  By the time Angus Lachlan handed over the keys, Melanie was glad she'd insisted on her own rooms. They didn't want her in their apartment.

  She wasn't one of them.

  And she was glad for that.

  Starting Over

  Until She Comes

  They didn't speak during the drive from the airport. John was all fingers and thumbs, afraid that anything he said would be wrong and that she'd turn and glare at him with eyes as hard and shiny as polished ebony and snap her fingers and disappear. Melanie looked too exhausted to attempt a conversation of any sort. But even with the fog of jet lag cocooning her, she was lovely and knowing that she'd called him and not Maria or Karen or even her mother filled him with a ridiculous giddiness that embarrassed him and revealed itself in the silly grin plastered on his face. Did he look as lovesick as he felt?

  The late afternoon rush hour had begun an hour ago, and the cars on the Schuylkill Expressway inched along at a snail's pace, punctuated by the irritated tooting of horns and the occasional curse. And John was brewing with impatience. He wanted to be in his apartment with Melanie, to just feel that she was near instead of a million miles away. He longed to be away from everyone else so that they could talk. He should've guessed that the Expressway would be congested and nerve-wrackingly slow, but he hadn't been thinking straight since last night when she called and told him she was coming home. The midsummer sun glared down on them. A thin layer of sweat shone on John's forehead. Melanie fanned her face with a faded and dog-eared postcard she'd found on the dashboard. Not even the air-conditioning helped. It hummed loudly but the air being pushed out was clammy and warm.

  Even though her flight landed at 3:20PM, it had taken Melanie more than an hour to get through customs and retrieve her luggage. John had paced the floor of the International Arrivals Hall, sworn under his breath each time the doors whirred opened to present yet another passenger who wasn't the one he wanted. He was scared, and he hated it. Doubt ate away at him and burned in his stomach. He needed to know that she was just on the other side of the wall. What if she'd changed her mind by the time she landed at Heathrow and rebooked her final ticket so that she returned to Stockholm to give Alex another chance? What happened then? He'd bitten his thumb until he tasted blood, then cursed at his own stupidity and balled his hands into shaking fists.

  By the time Melanie finally appeared, weighed down with three suitcases and a shoulder bag that kept sliding down her arm and looking a bit dazed, John had nearly worked himself into a frenzy. His hair stood in dark, uneven tufts on his head from raking his fingers through it too many times, the frayed sleeve of his sweater was even more frayed from pulling at loose strings. He'd hugged her a little too long, but he couldn't help himself. And she'd held on to him just as tightly, had kissed his cheek and left a smudge of dark red lipstick that he still hadn't wiped away. A year had passed since the last time they'd been together, and now she looked so fragile he wanted scoop her up and keep her safe. And now that she was sitting just a few inches away, he couldn't stop glancing at her or reaching over to touch her hand or stroking her hair.

  "Where do you want to go?"

  They were creeping along I-76, closing in on the University City exit. John turned down the radio and searched for a station playing something other than overly sentimental ballads and pounding hip-hop. Neither seemed the right soundtrack for their reunion. He wished he'd remembered his REM compact discs. Melanie always liked them, and he was always impressed when she knew the lyrics to every song on whichever cd he played.

  "Can I go to your place?" She sounded hesitant; she looked a little stunned to even be sitting there. "I haven't even called my mother yet. And I don't want to just show up like that . . ."

  "You can stay with me as long as you want," John said and eased into the far right lane.

  She nodded. Paul Young's raspy voice slithered from the radio speakers, imploring his lover to stay for good this time. Melanie leaned forward and turned up the volume, murmured along with Paul Young and kept her eyes on the road. Being with John again, sitting so close to him and stealing glances from time to time, felt so right. Even with the awkwardness, she was glad to be there with him.

  “When I was in the hospital...after the miscarriage, I made a list on a napkin of the people I wanted to see first,” she said suddenly. “And you headed the list. I’d lost Alex’s baby but you were the only person I wanted to talk to.”

  John kept his eyes on the road. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for everything he’d ever done that had pushed her away. He’d tried to so many times and got it wrong. Even when he’d gone to Stockholm thinking he could change her mind, he’d screwed it up.

  He’d flown there expecting her to fall into his arms, see the error of her ways but Melanie was still besotted enough with Alex to i
gnore the fragility of their relationship. Alex was too smooth, too aware of the affect he had on women to appreciate Melanie. Even during the awkward dinner party he’d arranged when John showed up, it was obvious that Melanie was a nice accessory for Alex--the exotic African American girlfriend--but she was never going to be a permanent fixture in his life. The other guests, all lithe Scandinavians with names like Jens, Astrid, Andreas and Villem and clad in expensive clothes that were just a little too perfect. They spoke a mixture of Swedish and English out of deference to John and Melanie. He’d sat across the table from them, watching how casually Alex slung his arm around Melanie’s shoulder, how she turned to smile up at him but his eyes trained on another woman.

  Months later, when his cousin Maria told him Melanie was pregnant he’d given up on believing she’d ever come back to him. Too many things and people had got in the way. But then she called him late one night and whispered from across the ocean that she and Alex were over. The baby was the only thing holding them together and now she was gone...a miscarriage. Any attempts at salvaging their relationship would be futile. “All I keep thinking about is you,” she said through the distance. “I keep thinking about you and the baby we never had.”

  John had listened as she told him how she wanted to come home. She was an alien in Stockholm. She couldn’t find her footing, she couldn’t see any point any longer in staying. “When I hang up, I’m going to buy a ticket back to Philadelphia.”

  She didn’t say she was coming home to him but he’d hoped she was. Even with all the regrets they had, he could not picture his life with someone else. she'd fantasized about John being the father. The baby she’d and regretted aborting the child they'd conceived together.

  And now she was sitting beside him again and he was giving her sidelong glances while an uncertain, boyish grin lit up his tanned face. She'd missed his tentativeness, how he rarely assumed that he was wanted. Alex had been too smooth, too aware of his own beauty to have the shy boyishness that John never lost, even when he'd seen the effect he had on people.

  "I missed you so much," she murmured without realizing that the words had actually been said. But she didn't regret saying them, it felt right.

  "I missed you too." He smiled at her then focused on the road again.

  They were driving along Spruce Street now, passing their old stomping grounds of Penn's campus. The trees lining the street were lush with dark green foliage in spite of the heavy heat that weighed at their branches. This was where it had all started. Where she'd first met him and known from the very beginning that he was the one she'd always want to be with.

  His apartment still looked the same, even though he'd tried to brighten it up with a crimson sofa and a rust and saffron-colored rug in the living room. Somehow, the fact that everything was nearly the same comforted Melanie. She'd been afraid that there would still be traces of Chloe, but John had managed to hold on to the simple charm he preferred. Chloe may have tried to live there, but she hadn't left her mark anywhere that Melanie could see. While John took her suitcases to the bedroom, she looked around, hoping not to see anything that would remind her of Chloe, no forgotten perfume bottles or silk scarves. She glanced in his office at the Wall of Days with its photos of their college days; she was still there, still sitting in that Adirondack chair, holding John's squirming Jack Russell on her thighs and beaming for the camera. Melanie smiled and covered her mouth. Then she followed John into the bedroom and watched as he put her bags in the walk-in closet.

  She purposefully didn't look at the bed. Perhaps he wouldn't want to rush into a sexual relationship again. Maybe for him, this was all a platonic arrangement he'd offer to any friend in need. Then again, the space between them burned with unspoken, unanswered questions. Each time he glanced over his shoulder at her, she saw those questions clouding his brow, then he'd grin at her and they'd vanish for a little while.

  But for the time being, small talk sufficed.

  "Did they give you any hassles at passport control?"

  She shook her head no. "It's wasn't so bad."

  "Did Alex take you to the airport?"

  "Yeah, it was a little weird, though. It was like we didn't even know each other anymore. But I guess that's what happens when you leave someone and you know it's for good."

  John closed the closet door and walked over to her.

  "It would've happened sooner or later," he said and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He shrugged then smiled shyly.

  For a moment, she tightened inside. A part of her was still afraid that he would tell her that tomorrow he was leaving her again, or that Chloe was on her way and that Melanie would have to go away again. But she steeled herself and smiled up at him. Then she did what she'd wanted to do since she saw him in the airport: she slid her arms around his waist and kissed him on the mouth. She pressed her lips to his and felt his open and his tongue trace her lower lip. A little moan escaped. She felt his hands cup her face, the roughness of his fingers on her cheeks and sliding into her hair. He pulled back and stared hard at her with eyes that she knew held some of the questions she couldn't answer yet.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she began to undress him. John reached forward and undid her belt, then fumbled with the tiny buttons on her sweater. They both laughed nervously. She wondered if this was what all reunited lovers felt when they knew that the love they'd felt was too great to restrain. The rush of warmth and the lightheadedness, the strange ache to be kissed and touched even when you knew you should take it slow.

  By the time they were both naked and she could drink him in, Melanie was prickly hot with the desire she'd always felt for him. There'd been nights when she and Alex were together and all she saw beneath her was John. She pulled him to the bed and pushed him down. Before he could grab at her, she climbed on top of him and slid him inside of her and rode him until he bucked beneath her and she'd tired herself out. She'd needed to be on top, wanted to look down at his beautiful face and see that the dark blue eyes staring up at her weren't the cold pale of Alex's, that the honey-hued arm that reached out its hand to squeeze her breast still had her name tattooed on it in small slanted letters. Each time she leaned forward to kiss him or suck on his lower lip, he held her so tight and so close she thought she'd melt into him. Even though she could feel the jet lag closing in on her and wrapping itself round her like tendrils of wet heavy seaweed, she wouldn't give in. She wanted more. Then she let him take over.

  He didn't expect it. He wanted it, but he didn't expect it. They made love and then fell asleep curled around each other. Now the sun had gone down and his bedroom was dark. He wanted to see her, but didn't want to wake her by turning on the bedside lamp so he traced his fingers softly over her face. She murmured in her sleep, kissed his fingertips without waking. He pulled the covers up around her and settled down again. When they'd first started dating, they took naps together in the middle of the afternoon and he'd always wake to find her watching him and smiling. At first it had made him feel uncomfortable and vulnerable, but now he understood why she'd liked it: watching someone you love sleep and imagining what they dream, remembering the things you've done with that person and the silly smile it brings you.

  In the year that they'd been apart, he'd missed her terribly and regretted that he'd let Chloe come between them. Most of all, he regretted that he'd been so blind to how deeply he'd hurt her and that she'd ever gone away. Maria had been right all along when she'd called him a coward for letting Melanie go. He'd known from the very first time he kissed her in the dark stairwell of her dormitory that Melanie was the one he'd always want.

  "Do you want to call your mother and let her know you're back?" John was sitting Indian-style on the bed facing Melanie who was still lying down; her dark hair fanned out on the pillow in silky ringlets.

  She shook her head. "Not yet. I don't want to see anyone else right now. You haven't told Maria that I'm back, have you?"

  "No," he said and stretched out h
is legs. "I didn't think you wanted her to know yet."

  "I like it the way it is," Melanie sat up and crawled over to John. She kissed the tip of his nose. "I almost wish we didn't have to tell anyone where I was."

  "We could go away together for awhile. Nobody's at the summer house."

  "No, I just want to stay here with you."

  "How long will you stay with me?"

  Melanie settled onto his lap and buried her face in the crook of his neck. She'd always liked that spot, it always smelled warm and natural.

  "I don't know. Until you get tired of me or I get tired of you."

  He grinned and tightened his arms around her.

  It was late enough in the evening that the street lamps were lit and glowing orange against the black summer sky. Through the open bedroom window came the sounds of the street below: a woman's soft, resonant voice singing a song about the color of the sky; strains of vibrant calypso music, bursts of staccato laughter.

  John nearly forgot there was a world outside.

  Getting It Right

  Lily

  It's almost nine-thirty, and Lily and I are sitting in the backseat of a taxi speeding along the Expressway. We're on our way to meet her grandmother, Nan Cavannaugh, at the preschool Nan has hand-selected. It's a tony sort of place in Chestnut Hill that calls itself a country day school though it's hardly in the countryside. Of course the name and location give it panache, which explains the two year-plus waiting list. My husband's godmother is on the board of governors for the school. Nan cooed this to me on the phone when she told me Lily had been accepted.

  "Of course Ellie Ballantine pulled a few strings since it's John's daughter being considered and not just any child," she'd said and I imagined her chest puffing up with pride like some bird ready to preen and strut as a part of its mating ritual.