I'm Your Girl (32 page)

I
don’t want to talk about my mama at a time like this!

I’ve just been unofficially engaged (without the ring) in my own living room, and a man has just said “I love you” to
me
on my own sofa. This wouldn’t play well
at all
in a movie where the hero is supposed to propose at some fancy restaurant or on some beach as the sun dissolves into the sea or in front of a crowd of his and her family and friends. And that “I love you” thing? We should have said it a couple
hundred
times before this moment and only
meant
it now.

We are doing everything so backward!

“We talked on the phone earlier today, and, well, I said some things”—I actually cussed at my mama!—“and then she said some things….” I frown. “It wasn’t very pleasant.”

“Then we’ll have to make their stay here as pleasant as possible, her stay especially nice.”

Not if I want them to leave quickly, we won’t!

“You were saying something about Saturday morning,” he says. “Are you planning to work the day after they get here?”

“Yeah, hopefully so they’ll get bored and leave.”

He knits his eyebrows and squints. This means he doesn’t understand. The first few times he did that I had wondered if he had gas. “I was hoping we could drive up the Parkway in the morning to beat the traffic and later have lunch at Bandini’s.”

“What about Saturday night?” He’s not leaving me alone with my parents on a Saturday night!

“Well, I’ll have some packing to do, and I thought you’d want to spend some time with your parents. When’s the last time you saw them?”

That isn’t the point. “It’s been a while, but…” I sigh. “All right. We’ll…go up Saturday morning.”

“Good.” He smiles. “We’re getting married.”

I force a smile. “Yeah.”

“Up at your church in Indianapolis.”

I frown. “No.”

“Because…”

“Because…” Because why? I wouldn’t mind standing in front of those people. They know me. They know I can wear white. But wearing white
and
marrying a white man? I don’t know. “Because it would shame my mama.”

“Would it shame you?”

“No,” I answer quickly. “Not at all.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

He nods. “Hmm.”

Either he understands or he says “hmm” to make it appear that he understands. I slide my legs around him, my hands around his neck, and I realize I need a bigger sofa. “So…”

“Hmm,” he says again.

“What are you thinking?”

I brace myself for another convoluted tale. Somehow, he went from working in the yard to asking me to marry him. He’s such a storyteller. At least his tale ended happily.

“I can’t marry you at my church,” he says.

That was direct.

“I’m sure it’s not proper form to marry two different women in the same church so few years in between, especially since it’s Noël’s family’s church.”

I wouldn’t feel comfortable there either.

“What about your church here in Roanoke?”

I shrug. “They hardly know either of us because we’ve been alternating between yours and mine.”

“Hmm.”

Maybe “hmm” means he’s making a decision.

“Then let’s make your church our church.”

First, my yard is
our
yard and now…“Cool,” I say.

He blinks. “You said ‘cool’?”

I nod. “It is cool. New beginnings all around.” I cringe. “We’ll probably have to take a couple’s class.”

He laughs. “Where they teach us how to be a couple?” He rubs my foot. “I think we already know how to do that.”

I put my other foot in his hand, and he rubs it as well. “I think they’ll teach us how to have a holy marriage.” And this time I cringe inside. The Bible tends to be, well, sexist when it comes to marriage, with the woman taking second place to the man. I know I can love Jack, but can I
obey
him? That’s stretching the limits of everything I believe. “I suppose the class is required if we want to get married there. We may even have to become members.”

“Fine.”

“Just like that?”

He nods once. “Just like that.” He squeezes each individual toe, and I squirm with delight. “If I were to, say, buy a ring sometime this week, what size should it be?”

I want this ring so badly, but…“Let’s hold off on that until my parents leave and you come back from your tour, okay?”

Yeah. I’d be waiting for that engagement ring for almost two weeks. But, I’ve waited this long, so…

“One shock at a time, okay?” I say.

He sighs. “Okay.”

I put my head on his chest. “Size seven, round diamond,” I whisper.

“What was that?”

I know he heard me. “Nothing.” I mean, he can give it to me anytime, right? I just won’t
wear
it when they’re here.

We cuddle for a long while, occasionally kissing, occasionally squeezing, but mostly…just cuddling—and talking about
his
parents.

And I learn that his parents are, well, weird.

His father, Arthur Davis “David” Browning, and his mother, Maryanne “Annie” Berry Browning, have had a dysfunctional (yet enduring) romance.

“Dad was born in Delaware, first son of the five children of Grandma Ella and the Reverend Jack Browning,” Jack begins. “He lived in north Philadelphia, where he became an athletic schoolboy legend of the gridiron.”

I try not to giggle at Jack’s choice of words. He sounds so much like a movie narrator.

“Dad’s attempts at being a star in baseball were thwarted one cold, Philadelphia day. With the legendary pitcher Robin Roberts in attendance, Dad pinch-hit late in the game after riding the pine. He lined a clean, crisp single to left, then ran himself literally into the ground on his way to first base. His legs, inert for six innings, just wouldn’t work. The left fielder threw him out at first base.”

I don’t know much about baseball, but that doesn’t sound good.

“On the football field, however, Dad was amazing, quarterbacking the Abington High School Ghosts to many victories and playing halfback for the Wheaton College Crusaders.” Jack pauses. “They’re called ‘The Storm’ now.”

“To be politically correct?” I ask.

“Strange name for a Christian college, though. Anyway, Dad earned all-American honors and a picture in
Sports Illustrated.
”

“Yeah?”

He nods.

“Are you athletic?”

“I used to be,” Jack says. “I played baseball mainly.”

I learn that Jack’s father had studied criminology and aspired to be a detective, but a ride-along with the Chicago vice squad quickly put that out of his mind.

“Dad was a bit of a prankster in college. He and his teammates once carried a Volkswagen Beetle, owned by a particularly difficult history professor, into the faculty cafeteria. He had even led an aged horse into the office of an evil Greek professor, who had failed half of the starters from an undefeated team, causing them all to take summer school. It was June, it was hot, and the professor was on vacation.”

Nasty!

“The horse died, and the building had to be fumigated.”

“That really happened?”

Jack nods.

I thought that sort of thing only happened in the movies.

“Because Dad went to college on the GI Bill, he owed his soul to Uncle Sam and served his tour of duty at Fort Bliss, just outside of El Paso.” Jack smiles. “And that’s where he met Mom.”

From Delaware to Philadelphia to Illinois to Texas. Jack’s dad certainly got around.

“Mom was the third of four children born to Ree Theus Berry, a bilingual high school business education teacher, and Jefferson Davis Berry, a lieutenant in the United States Army. Grandpa Jeff, given the choice between being stationed in Pearl Harbor or Panama in forty-one, chose Panama, where Annie was born.” He looks at me. “Otherwise, I might not be here.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” He looks at the ceiling. “Grandpa Jeff spent two years in the Italian campaign, then spent the rest of his life trying to forget the Italian campaign, running a grocery store and drinking rye for breakfast. Mom, who learned to drive at the tender age of eleven, graduated from Texas Western, which is now called UTEP, in three years and was a virtuoso viola player.”

His parents are a football star from Philly and a viola player from west Texas. Wild!

“In sixty-one, Dad, an eraser-headed second lieutenant, attended church in El Paso with his buddy Pete, a red-faced Irishman who wanted Dad to meet ‘his girl’—Annie Berry.”

“Your daddy stole your mama from someone else?”

Jack nods. “From the moment Dad’s and Mom’s eyes locked, it was love at first sight. Mom quickly gave Pete the boot, and only thirty days after knowing each other’s names, Dad asked Mom to marry him.”

And I thought that Jack and I were moving fast!

“Mom, naturally, said no.”

As any woman would have…wouldn’t she?

“Rebuffed but not disheartened—”

I start to giggle.

“What?” Jack asks.

“‘Rebuffed but not disheartened’?”

Jack shrugs. “I read the thesaurus a lot as a kid.”

Poor kid!

“Dad continued to pursue Mom for the next three months, writing her long letters—in all capital letters.”

So, that’s where Jack gets his handwriting.

“I remember finding one of those letters in a cigar box, of all places; Dad doesn’t smoke. It read something like, ‘Annie, just being with you is heavenly, whether we’re washing dishes or just picking the meat off the chicken bones after a meal.’” He laughs. “My father has a way with words.”

And despite the “chicken bones” line, it’s kind of sweet.

“So, four months after they first met, Dad went to Grandpa Jeff and asked for Mom’s hand in marriage. Grandpa Jeff sized up Dad and asked, ‘What about the rest of her?’” Jack smiles. “Dad said he wanted the rest of her, too.”

This is so…quaint!

“They were married in El Paso, and he drove her to Aylen Lake, Ontario, Canada, the first time she had ever been north of Oklahoma, for their honeymoon.”

I’m beginning to think I need a map to understand all this!

“On this honeymoon, they played Monopoly, and when Mom won, Dad, after upsetting the board first, decided to let Mom run their finances for the rest of their marriage, something he tells me was the best decision he ever made. Mom ate fish for the first time, used an outhouse for the first time, and almost cleaned a smallmouth bass for the first time, too.” He sighs. “I’m not boring you, am I?”

“No.” This is all so…odd.

“After my sister Jeannine was born—”

“You have a sister?”

Jack nods. “Two, actually. Jeannine’s a year older than me. She lives out in Los Angeles, and Jessie, who lives in Atlanta.”

Four months I know him, and I really don’t know him. “Go on with your story.”

“So, after Jeannine was born, they all moved to Philadelphia. Dad approached Westinghouse, General Electric, and the Aluminum Company of America, Alcoa, and said: ‘What can you do for me?’”

That’s cocky.

“Dad entertained offers from all three but settled on Alcoa. So, while I was being born, Dad was taking the return train from Manhattan and the World Trade Center back to Philadelphia.”

That’s
quite
a daily commute!

“So, where are they living now?” I ask.

“North of San Francisco somewhere,” Jack says. “I’ve never visited them there.” He drops his chin. “And we don’t, um, talk as much anymore.”

“They know all about me, right?”

He nods. “I sent them an e-mail. That’s how we talk most these days.” He starts to massage my back. “Platinum or gold?” he whispers.

“What?”

“Platinum or gold?”

We go from his family back to the rings? I guess he doesn’t want to discuss them anymore. “What do you think?” I ask.

He kisses my neck, and then…we attack each other until we fall off the sofa, continuing our clothed grinding in between the sofa and the coffee table, spilling the coffee and panting and—

I
definitely
have to get a bigger sofa! And softer carpet here! I’m getting rug burns through my clothes!

Sometime after who knows when—because suddenly time doesn’t matter as much to me anymore—Jack gets up to leave. I kiss him three times. “Those kisses are for those three little words you said to me.”

He pulls me to him…and squeezes my caboose three times! The nerve!

“What were those for?” I ask.

He puts his lip near my ear. “Those were for these three little words: I want to make love to you.”

I count the words in my head. “That was seven.”

“I know.” He squeezes my caboose four
more
times, powerfully and with more ferocity than ever before. “And now you know that I can’t count. I’m terrible with numbers. Now, did you whisper six or seven?”

I squeeze his caboose once, digging my nails in. “Seven.”

“Hmm.”

“Round diamond.”

“Ah.”

I wince. “Ten carats.”

He blinks. “Ten?”

“Ten.” As if
that
will happen!

He nods. “Ten it is.”

I pat his behind. “I was kidding.”

“I wasn’t.”

I sigh. “Kiss me and get out.”

He kisses my nose. “Let me get this straight. You’re a size ten, square diamond, platinum, seven carats.”

“Go home, Jack.”

His eyes soften. “I am home, Diane.” He cocks his head at the door. “That other place is just temporary. This is where I want to be.”

“This is where I want you to be.” And then I start laughing uncontrollably. This is all
so
corny! And yet, I know in my heart that I’ll be reading it in Jack’s next chapter of
A Single Touch
, every word, every gesture, every squeeze. When I recover, I hold Jack’s jaw in my hands. “Please don’t put any of this in the book.”

“I intend to.”

“Oh, come on, Jack! Let’s keep some of our lives private.”

“No.”

“Please, Jack?”

“Hmm…I’ll think about it. I won’t put anything about my parents in there.”

“Why not?”

“Who would believe it?”

True.

He hugs me. “I’ll be up all night writing.”