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She dismissed him. “You say that after I’ve been gone for four years—”
“Just over three years.”
She confronted the stickler and corrected him. “It is almost four. I’m twenty-eight.”
He slid a salacious glance down her body. “You’ve held together quite well.”
She leveled a look at him that showed him her adult maturity and tolerance.
She went to her suitcase, removed a pair of slacks and underwear, then chose a blouse.
“We’ll swim after we’ve breakfasted and read the paper.”
She looked up at him. She did want to swim. She took out pajamas and went to the bath, ignoring his very earnest protests.
She returned wearing the green silk pajamas for the first time, and was additionally wrapped in a cover-up of dark blue. She had a towel around her head.
He put down the paper and served her breakfast from the insulated pots.
There was hot cereal, fruit, remarkably sinful iced muffins, milk, tea and sugar mints. He had coffee. He hadn’t forgotten any of her needs.
She put the fruit on the cereal, butter and jam on the muffins, and she ate every bite.
When she sat back, he put down his paper and smiled. “Feeling better?”
She regarded the husband she had discarded, and she knew this was her chance to use him as she’d always wanted. He would not change, but this was an opportunity to live out her dream of a relationship.
If she could have him now, she could get him out of her system and then go on her way, freed of him. That was what this unexpected opportunity offered.
She smiled at him.
He laughed. He reached over and cupped her chin in his hand as he leaned to kiss her mouth. Then he lifted his head. His eyelashes almost covered his eyes and the crinkles at the corners deepened. “What a miracle to’ve found you again.”
She didn’t again say baloney to him. She just looked at him critically, searching for his flaws. As she’d always thought, he had no physical flaw. His flaws were limited to that of cohabitation.
Neglect of a chattel.
But he was trapped there, with her, and he had no escape. No other person could take his attention from her. She could wallow in his concentrated regard. Perhaps then he would know what he had missed in their marriage. And this time, it would be he who was abandoned, to stand alone, bereft, on the plain of nothingness.
Was she taking revenge?
She considered that. But she could not see how he could be harmed. He hadn’t changed. His marriage to her had not been important to him.
When they were married, he’d had the opportunity to cherish her or even just to include her in his life. He had not. He would not be harmed by an interlude with her.
It was only now that his clever tongue said things about disliking the word “divorce,” but his saying it didn’t mean anything. He’d had a long, long time to figure her out. And almost four years ago, he’d agreed to an amicable parting.
Her leaving hadn’t upset him or saddened him. He had only inquired if she wouldn’t like to stay long enough for her to earn her doctorate. At the time, such a polite question had sundered any lingering hope Jo might have had for their marriage.
Jo looked at her ex-husband and he was as she remembered him, as she’d dreamed of him. She watched him smile at her.
And she smiled back.
He laughed softly in his male throat and coaxed, “Come sit on my lap. I’ve not held a woman on my lap in too long.”
Her body got up and just wiggled right on over and sat itself down on his interested lap.
It was, of course, a part of her plan. She would get all of this kind of foolishness out of her system.
His hands were familiar. He found a mole he’d missed. “I’d wondered if you’d be so foolish as to have this removed. I love this mole. It proves you’re human.”
“Moleless people are inhuman?”
“Most goddesses don’t have moles. Only those who are partly human can contrive to have a mole or so. That fools human males and they believe they are dealing with real women instead of magic ones who can get away. How many other men have you lured?”
“Just you.”
He hugged her gently to him and groaned. “I’ve missed you.”
“How can you claim you’ve missed me?”
“I’ve felt vacant without you.”
“Come on, Chad, you were never around enough to even get acquainted with me. What you missed was the handy sex.”
“We did it by hand!”
In an adult way, she explained, “I was available.”
“You were the most important thing in my life. Are you finished running around being a single woman? Are you ready to come home? It’s time you did, you know. There’s a limit to what a good husband will tolerate in a flighty woman who wants to try her wings.”
Sitting on his lap, she asked, “Do you actually believe I left you in order to be on my own? I was already. I didn’t need to physically leave you. You were gone.”
“I was always there.”
He said that! He actually said it quite as if he thought he’d always been around!
She instructed, “Other men go home to be with their wives and mow their yards and help.”
“They do?”
“You never noticed?” She frowned at him.
“When we lived together, you were looking at other men?” In shock, he leaned back so that he could see her face.
“I wanted only to see you! I loved you. I wanted to be around you. You weren’t anywhere around. You were always busy.”
“I made our living.”
She exclaimed, “Twenty-four hours a day?”
“I wasn’t gone all the time.”
“You were gone most of the time.”
“Being a new assistant professor at Butler University is somewhat demanding, of time, if your students are to be taught what they should know.”
“A wife has none of the professor’s time.”
He said, “I slept with you every night.”
“You’ve mentioned that. You said it at the time. Sleeping isn’t one of those chatting times when a couple becomes acquainted and learns what the other person thinks or feels.”
“I felt around on you all night long, just about.”
She agreed, “Here and there.”
He looked at her body. “What did I miss? I thought I’d felt around everywhere.”
Jo corrected herself, “Now and then.”
“You’re still peeved.”
“No,” she replied. “I’ve adjusted. I’m going to enjoy this hiatus. When we say goodbye this time, we’ll do it better.”
“How can leaving me be. better?”
“I’ll know why it didn’t work the first time. Why it’s impossible. I won’t yearn for you.”
Quite soberly, he asked, “Did you? Did you.yearn for me after you’d left?”
She didn’t reply but slowly got off his lap. She removed the towel wrapped around her head and slowly began to rub her hair. Finally she said with some irony, “Chad, I yearned for you while I lived with you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She stopped and turned her face to him in disbelief. She just looked at him.
“You did tell me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Jo.”
“It’s past. Let’s go swim.”
He sat and watched her. “I’ve missed you so terribly. I knew you were there to come home to. After you left, I dreamed of your sweet face and your voice. I missed your body in my bed. I remembered how it was to make love with you. Did you remember that?”
“Yes.”
He was sure. “We had a good marriage.”
“You had a good convenience.”
He watched her. “I love you.”
“Of course. Let’s go swim.”
He considered her, her mood, and he mentioned, “You just washed your hair.”
She shook her head. “It was so stale from being so sweaty that I would have polluted the pool.”
“You always were a stickler. There would be no way that you’d pollute a swimming pool.” Then he asked slyly, “Why did you sweat that way?”
She tilted up her chin and replied with some verve, “I haven’t a clue.”
Chad loved it. He laughed in the way men have when they’re flirting with a woman who pleases them.
That time there were other people swimming. But they were earnest lappers and took up only one side. On the other side, the two lovers played. He had his hands on her one way or another all the time. She smiled and flirted and taunted him.
They went back to their room to shower and dress, then they went out to investigate the highlights of Old Fort Worth. They saw the old cattle yards, and they checked out the railroad stations and the old saloons.
They had genuine TEXAS barbecue for lunch, but it wasn’t. It was meat with a hot sauce. They drank Pearl Beer and learned to roll the warmed tortillas so that the hot butter wouldn’t run out.
And they went to a theatre, which showed the old, early silent cowboy shorts with accompanying piano music.
One short featured a train engine. The heroine was tied to the train rails. She was rescued by the mancovered engine from a set fire that engulfed the forest. The camera people made it appear the heroine took off fifty petticoats so the men could beat out the roaring blaze.
There were other, similar film shorts, and the viewers loved every one. They could read the text out loud and laugh and chat and not bother the reception of the films. It was fun.
While the pair was casually dressed, they were welcomed to a marvelously elite place for dinner. And they talked as they relished perfect food served precisely. The presentation was an art.
When they returned to the hotel, they found a note saying they could make connections for their flights the next day. They should call.
In their room, the ex-marrieds considered each other quite seriously. And they decided they weren’t in that much hurry. So they canceled their reservations at the airport.
Chad called the delay to his college, and Jo reported in to her computer firm in Chicago.
Sharing the cost, they rented a car the next day and drove south to Austin. It is the state capitol. There, they snooped around to hear some great blues and country groups. They viewed the Guadalupe River and picnicked there along that wonderful, lazy waterway, which at one point meandered over a lumpy, white rock bed.
They found out why it’s said that the sunshine spends the winter in TEXAS. Of course, San Antonio brags that the winter sun stays only in their area.
The divorced couple walked all over downtown Austin and viewed the red granite state capitol building. They noted the TEXAS trees, and the fact that they are different from those in the north.
They saw the hundreds-of-years-old oak some person had tried to kill with chemicals. The tree was saved, they say, by putting crystals around it to counter the poison. A baffling act.
But along with the crystals, the state resource used countering chemicals. The money spent in saving the oak would have planted a hundred other trees.
There is no other vista like that of TEXAS. The visitors lounged and talked and laughed and looked. They then drove on down to San Antonio, and it was just like the features shown on TV. How amazing to see it actually.
