Certainly, he'd known that it would be a long time before they would see each other again. But it never occurred to him that a quarter century would pass and that the world they knew would have vanished so completely. Sitting in her bedroom, he'd thought briefly about the war in Asia, about the possibility that he would die, but it all seemed too remote then. They were small-town kids who'd had four idyllic years of college, and this two-year Army hitch was just a bump on the road. His only concern was that, after being inseparable in high school and college, she'd be lonely without him.
He'd finished his training at Fort Dix, but, instead of getting leave time, his training battalion had been given a crash course in riot control and sent to Philadelphia because of antiwar protests that had turned ugly. Again the world had intruded, as it did in time of war, but it was a new experience for him.
He'd managed to call her from a pay phone, but she wasn't in her apartment, and there were no answering machines in those days. He'd had a second brief opportunity to call, late at night, but her line was busy. He'd finally written her, but it took a few weeks before her reply found him back at Fort Dix. Communication was not easy in those days, and it became more difficult in a larger sense in the following months.
Keith found himself at the farm and turned into the drive that led to the house. He pulled the Blazer around the back near the garden and sat at the wheel.
He wanted to tell himself that everything would be all right now, that love conquers all. He thought he knew how he felt about her, but, aside from the memories and the letters and now seeing her, he didn't know her. And how did she feel about him? And what were they going to do about it? And what was her husband going to do about it?
Chapter Eleven
At was seven P.M. when Keith Landry pulled up to Gail and Jeffrey Porter's place, the old Bauer farm. The evenings were getting shorter and cooler, and the sky was that deep purple and magenta that Keith associated with the end of summer.
The farmhouse, a white clapboard building in need of paint, sat near the road.
Gail came out the front door and across the crabgrass lawn and met him as he climbed out of the Blazer with the wine bottles and Jeffrey's umbrella. She hugged and kissed him and said, "Keith Landry, you look terrific."
He replied, "I'm the delivery boy, ma'am. But you look pretty good yourself, and you kiss good."
She laughed. "Still the same."
"We wish." Actually, he'd only known her in their senior year when Jeffrey started seeing her, and he barely remembered what she looked like, because she had looked like a lot of thin-faced, lithe-bodied, granny-glassed, long-haired, no-makeup, peasant-dressed, barefoot girls of the time. In fact, she was still wearing a peasant dress, probably an original, her hair was still long, and she was indeed barefoot. Keith wondered if he was supposed to dress sixties for the occasion. She was still thin, too, and still braless, as he saw by the low-cut dress. She wasn't pretty then and wasn't pretty now, but she had been, and still was, sexy. He handed her the umbrella. "Jeffrey left this."
"It's a wonder he remembered where he lived. You guys had a good time, I gather."
"We did."
She took his arm and walked him toward the house. She said, "Jeffrey tells me you were a spy."
"I have laid down my cloak and dagger."
"Good. No politics tonight. Just old times."
"Hard to separate the two."
"True."
They entered the house through a battered wooden screen door, and Keith found himself in a barely furnished living room, lit only by the setting sun. From what he could make out, the furniture was sort of minimalist European modern, and it probably came in boxes with instructions badly translated from Swedish.
Gail threw the umbrella in a corner, and they passed through the dining room, which had the same sort of furniture, and into the big kitchen, a blend of original country kitchen and 1950s updates. Keith put the wine on the counter, and Gail took the bottles out of the bag. "Oh, apple wine and spiked grape juice! I love it!"
"Kind of a joke. But there's a good Chianti, too. Remember Julio's, the little Italian place near campus?"
"How could I forget? Bad spaghetti before it was called pasta, checkered tablecloths, and melted candles stuck in straw-covered Chianti bottles — what happened to the straw?"
"Good question."
She put the apple and grape wine in the refrigerator and gave Keith a corkscrew to open the Chianti. She found two wineglasses, and he poured. They touched glasses, and she toasted, "To Bowling Green."
"Cheers."
She said, "Jeffrey is out back, gathering herbs."
Keith saw a big pot simmering on the stove, and the kitchen table was set for three, with a loaf of dark bread in a basket.
Gail asked, "Did you bring meat for yourself?"
"No, but I looked for roadkill on the way here."
She laughed. "Disgusting."
He asked her, "Do you like it here?"
She shrugged. "It's all right. Quiet. Plenty of empty farmhouses at rents we can afford. And Jeffrey's people are still here, and he's been doing his memory-lane thing for the last two years. I come from Fort Recovery, so it's not much different. How about you? You okay here?"
"So far."
"Nostalgic? Sad? Bored? Happy?"
"All of the above. I have to sort it out."
Gail filled their glasses again and poured one for Jeffrey. "Come on outside. I want to show you our gardens."
They walked out the back door, and Gail called out, "Company!"
About fifty yards away in a garden, Keith saw Jeffrey stand up and wave. He came toward them wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt, carrying a wicker basket piled with vegetation that Keith hoped was weeds destined for the garbage can and not something he was supposed to eat.
Jeffrey wiped his hand on his shorts and extended it to Keith.
"Good to see you."
Keith asked, "You made it home all right?"
"Sure." He took his glass of wine from Gail and said, "I'm becoming a juicehead in my old age. We only do grass on special occasions."
Gail added, "We put on oldies, turn out the lights, get naked, get high, and fuck."
Keith didn't comment but looked around the yard. "Good gardens." Jeffrey replied, "Yeah, we've got use of four acres and all the corn we can steal from the fields. Thank God this guy grows sweet corn, or we'd be eating cattle feed."
Keith looked out over the acres of gardens. This was more kitchen garden than the average farmer kept, and he figured that the Porters depended on this for much of their food. He stopped feeling sorry for himself with his adequate government pension and his family-owned acres.
Jeffrey said, "Come on, we'll show you around."
They toured the garden plots. There was a plot devoted entirely to root vegetables, another with vine vegetables such as tomatoes and squash, and another garden was planted with more varieties of beans than Keith knew existed. The most interesting thing was the herb gardens, the likes of which were rarely seen in Spencer County. There was a culinary herb garden with over forty different varieties, and also what Jeffrey called "a garden of historical and medicinal herbs," plus a garden of herbs used for dyes and miscellaneous household needs such as soap and cologne. And beyond the gardens, stretching out to where the cornfield began, was a profusion of wildflowers that had no use at all except to please the eye and ease the mind. "Very nice," Keith said.
Gail said, "I make perfume, potpourri, tea, hand lotion, bath scents, that sort of thing."
"Anything to smoke?"
Jeffrey laughed. "God, I wish we could. Can't risk it here."