The Diary (11 page)

They continued deeper into the field, the only sounds now the chorus of crickets and night birds and the rustle of cornstalks bowing to let them pass. The setting sun's showy display had faded to a glowing red line sketched along the horizon. Soon they found themselves submerged in a green-smelling sea under a purpling canopy of sky in which a handful of stars glimmered. The corn was so high she could barely see above it. There was no mistaking this for anyplace but Nebraska in August, yet she couldn't shake the sense of having been dropped into a foreign land.

At last they emerged from the field onto a grassy, tree-ringed knoll that bordered on a fenced pasture beyond which stood a barn and farmhouse, its lighted windows casting a soft glow over the shadowy yard, where they could hear a dog barking. The moon had risen, a great golden orb hanging low in the sky, seemingly close enough to touch. Elizabeth felt as if she'd been deposited back on known turf … none the worse for the wear but altered in some ineluctable way.

She turned to AJ, asking in a hushed voice, “Do you think they'll mind that we're trespassing?”

“They won't know. They're probably just sitting down to supper.”

She pictured the family inside the farmhouse gathered around the table saying grace, the farmer and his wife and their children, heads bowed and hands clasped in prayer. She felt enclosed in that circle somehow, even though she knew what she and AJ were doing was wrong.

He took off his shirt and spread it over the grass for her to sit on.

She lowered herself onto the ground, and AJ dropped down beside her. Despite her earlier anxiety, she felt strangely calm. It seemed perfectly natural to be sitting there in the moonlight beside the bare-chested AJ. She bent her legs to examine the soles of her feet, which were caked with dirt. “My mother would have a fit if she could see me now.” But she laughed as she said it, the threat of any reprisal from Mildred only a distant speck on her consciousness.

“What your mother doesn't know won't hurt her,” he said.

“She has a way of ferreting things out.”

“You worry too much.” He turned to smile at her.

“You want to know something funny? I'm not worried. And that worries me.”

AJ slipped an arm around her waist. They sat that way for a spell, gazing up at the moon that was like some enormous piece of fruit ripe for the picking, neither wanting to be the first to break the silence.

At last she dropped her head onto his shoulder with a contented sigh. “When I was a little girl, I used to beg my parents to let me sleep outside on nights like this,” she reminisced. “My father would always give in. He'd help me set up the tent in the backyard so I wouldn't get eaten by mosquitoes and let me borrow his flashlight. After he died, that was the end of that. My mother was always afraid some stranger would carry me off in the middle of the night, like the Lindbergh baby.”

“And so he has.” AJ chuckled.

She cast him a coy glance. “Is that so? Well, in that case, sir, what sort of ransom did you have in mind?”

He crooked a finger under her chin, gently tipping it up to kiss her. She'd been breathlessly anticipating this moment, despite her earlier resolution to nip the affair in the bud, but it caught her by surprise nonetheless—not the kiss but the intensity of it. There was none of the initial tentativeness of last time. AJ laid claim to her with his mouth and hands as though they were already lovers.

They went on kissing under the benign, unblinking eye of the moon. When he lowered her onto her back, she was only dimly aware of the grassy turf rising to meet her; she could feel nothing but the sensations that were like a slowly winding passage taking her deeper and deeper into a forbidden realm. Even her body felt unfamiliar, a stranger's yielding to touches that from anyone else would have caused her to shrink in modesty.

Bit by bit, he removed her skirt and blouse and undergarments, each button and hook a small seduction in itself, pausing every so often to nibble and kiss and stroke the warm flesh underneath. When at last she lay naked before him, she felt as though she'd not only been stripped of her clothing but turned inside out, her innermost recesses laid bare. She watched as AJ hurriedly removed his own clothes. There was a moment, looking up at him silhouetted in the moonlight, a figure seemingly wrought by hammer and chisel out of something more durable than flesh and blood, that she was certain she was dreaming.

But if so, it was a dream she didn't want to wake from.

They made love
on the grass in a way that was both tender and urgent. Elizabeth showed no hesitancy, yet he was acutely aware that it was her first time and was careful to take it slowly. In a way, it was like the first time for him as well. He'd been with other women but no one for whom he'd had such strong feelings. How could he love another when he was filled to the brim with Elizabeth? She was the first thing on his mind when he woke up in the morning and the last thing he thought about before he went to sleep at night. It was all he could do not to come, too, when he felt her start to climax. Only by some miracle was he able to hold back until her shudders subsided and her body went slack under his. His own climax, after he withdrew from her, was almost secondary to the warm swelling of emotion that overtook him moments later as he gazed down at her flushed face and saw the look of rapture she wore; rapture mixed with a childlike wonder as if at the discovery of something whose existence she had believed to be a rumor.

They made no move to don their clothing afterward. They lay on the grass, as unashamed in their nakedness as the first man and woman, AJ flat on his back and Elizabeth curled on her side with her head nestled against his shoulder and a leg slung proprietarily over his. He could feel her rib cage rising and falling with each breath. He still carried the sweet taste of her on his lips, a taste like the nectar drawn from honeysuckle. He held very still, not wanting to break the spell.

His only wish was that he could make time stand still so they'd be caught forever in this moment.

It was Elizabeth who broke the spell. “So, where are you going next?” she ventured after a bit. He caught a note of anxiety in her voice, as if she were wondering when—or if—she'd see him again.

He replied casually, “Actually, I thought I'd stay put now that the season's winding down.”

He felt her breath catch. “For how long?”

“Maybe for good this time. I'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I can always pick up work around here.” That wasn't his only reason for staying put, but he didn't want her to feel pressured into making a decision until she was ready.

“What kind of work?”

“I've been offered a job at the cement factory. You remember Brad Lewiston from school? He's a supervisor there. Says they're shorthanded because so many of their men have been drafted. It's not exactly what I planned on doing for a living, but it's good, steady work. I can't spend the rest of my life on the road.”

Abruptly she sat up. “The factory? Oh, AJ.” He could see the dismay on her face and knew what she was thinking: that it was one thing for her to work as secretary to the boss in a hat factory and another for him to be toiling on the line amid the dust and fumes, just another cog in the wheel.

He sighed. It wasn't what he wanted for himself, either. Growing up in the shadow of the cement factory, he'd sworn to get as far away from it as he could. And he had for a time … only to come full circle.

It hadn't always been like this. Once he'd lived in a nice house with a lawn out front in a part of town where the air was clean and fallen leaves were the only things littering the sidewalks. His father had had a job as an accountant at an engineering firm. His mother had kept house. They'd had a little money saved and plans for the future. Then one sunny day while AJ was at school, his mom and pop had set out in the family sedan for the funeral of an old army buddy of AJ's father in Lincoln. Five miles outside town they'd been struck head-on by a flatbed truck that had spun out of control. They had both been killed on impact, according to the policeman who'd been among the first to arrive on the scene. Instead of the funeral in Lincoln, they'd attended their own funerals.

“Pay's good,” he said with a shrug.

“Couldn't you make a living as an artist?” she wanted to know.

He gave a derisive snort. “What I do isn't art.”

“No, you're good. You have real talent,” she insisted. “You could get a job as an illustrator, if nothing else.”

“The thing is, I'm not sure it's what I want.”

“What
do
you want?” She dropped back down beside him, propping herself on one elbow, her head cupped in her hand and her eyes searching his face. Her mink-brown hair blended with the darkness around them, leaving only the pale cameo of her face, which wore an expression so serious, as she waited for him to reply, that it moved him almost to tears. That his future was of interest to anybody besides himself seemed nothing short of a revelation.

What I want is you
.

He didn't speak the words aloud; they would only have frightened her. Instead he drew her close and kissed her lips. He'd have made love to her again right then and there but for what happened next. AJ glanced up, distracted by the panicked whinnying of a nearby horse, and saw something he'd hoped to never again see in his lifetime: flames flickering out of control.

The barn was on fire.

An instant later he was on his feet, Elizabeth jumping up, too. “Wait here,” he told her as they threw on their clothes.

“No. I'm going with you.” She looked up from tugging at the zipper on her skirt.

“You can't.” He seized her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze.

The stubborn look she wore at once melted into one of regretful acceptance. She knew as well as he what the consequences would be were they to be seen together in this remote place, in their grass-stained clothing, looking as disheveled as the pair of lovers they were. Once the panic over the fire had died down, there would be talk, and that talk would inevitably get back to Bob. Her reputation would be in ruins and her engagement—or whatever she chose to call it—broken. Not that it wouldn't be the answer to AJ's prayers for Bob to break it off with her, but he wanted it done cleanly. No messy leavings to haunt them later on.

AJ raced down the slope, buttoning his shirt as he ran, and catapulted over the fence into the pasture beyond. By the time he reached the barn, the farmer and his wife had managed to lead most of the animals to safety. Horses and pigs and chickens and dogs ran in panicked circles about the yard, squealing and squawking, barking and whinnying. AJ pitched in at once—there was no time for introductions—working frantically amid the roiling smoke and flames to rescue the last of the pigs before the fire, mostly contained in the haymow for the moment, spread to the stalls below.

He was making his way out of the smoke-filled barn for the last time, a squirming piglet tucked under each arm, when there was a tremendous cracking noise and one of the rafters collapsed in a shower of sparks, sending a great gout of heat rushing at him like a locomotive. He staggered into the barnyard, releasing the piglets, which went squealing off into the night. He was coughing and slapping at the stray sparks that clung to his skin like biting insects when he heard the welcome wail of sirens in the distance.

Minutes later a fire engine pulled screaming up the drive. Then there was the clang of metal ladders being unhooked and the slap of hoses hitting the ground. Firemen in turnouts swarmed the yard while the farmer and his wife, aided by AJ, herded the animals into the pasture. The fire was nearly out when AJ, bent over to tend to a lame goat, felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Nice work, son,” said a ragged-sounding voice. AJ looked up into the soot-blackened face of the farmer.

“I'm sorry I couldn't do more.” AJ coughed, turning his head to look up at the barn, now a charred ruin.

“You did what you could. We got the animals out at least,” said the farmer, an older man with bristling gray hair, in which ashes were caught like snowflakes, and pale-blue eyes that stood out in stark relief against his blackened cheeks. He wore a look that was a mixture of regret and resignation.

“Good thing I happened by when I did.” AJ unwound a coil of baling wire from one of the goat's back legs—it wasn't lame after all—and it tottered off, bleating piteously. He straightened, passing the wire into the farmer's hands.

“You can say that again. You got here mighty quick, too. We're a good jog from the road.” The farmer was peering at him now with an odd expression. “Say, don't I know you? You look awful familiar.”

“No, I don't believe we've met,” muttered AJ. He felt a familiar tightening in his gut and knew he'd made a mistake in coming to the farmer's aid. But what choice had he had? He could hardly have sat back and watched the man's barn burn to the ground.

“Maybe not, but I never forget a face, and I know I've seen yours somewhere.” The farmer's expression was less friendly now. He was staring at AJ with something close to suspicion.

Luckily AJ was saved from having to respond by one of the firemen appearing to steer them clear. Not a moment too soon, for seconds later what was left of the barn collapsed in a cloud of smoke and charred timber, sending a last fistfuls of sparks funneling up into the night sky.

AJ took advantage of the confusion to melt into the night, slipping away to rejoin Elizabeth.

CHAPTER SIX

A
UGUST
14, 1951

Dear Diary
,

Something dreadful has happened! The police took AJ in for questioning. It seems there's some suspicion about how the fire started, and they think he's the culprit. The farmer recognized him from his picture in the paper after that trouble he was in a while back. I'm the only one who knows for a fact that he's innocent. But he won't let me set the record straight. He says it'll only ruin my reputation, and why should we both suffer
?