from “Jannie’s Song,” by Kevin Kittredge:

 

Chapter 1

He was a linebacker in the Age of Aquarius – earnest, loud, muscle-bound, his pant legs neatly creased, his hair like a short-bristled brush.  Others were turning on, tuning in and dropping out, but the boy Jan Campbell remembered lived by the old code; he still said things like “Better dead than red,” and saluted the flag. Jan’s friends had called him “Johnny Hero” behind his back. 

But he adored her.  So Jan called him up again, dialing the number from memory, thinking: When a boy is that smitten, for that long, a girl can call him anytime, and the odds are he will come. Even so, she held her breath as the number rang, cowed by her own audacity.  Would he answer?  Did he even live here anymore?  Had he graduated, left town, married some sweet, adoring girl less difficult, less damaged and much prettier than her?  Who knew?  It had been more than a year now since her breezy ta-ta.  Jan held the telephone receiver with both her hands, because it shook with only one, and waited. Her palms were damp.

 “Hello?”  

It was only one word, but it was him –  Regis Harper, all unsuspecting.  A little man-growly and distracted, maybe, yet still ready to be friends with anyone.  It had taken just ten seconds to conjure him back into her world.

“Regis – hi.  It’s Jan.”

Who knew but Regis what went through his head in the two or three seconds before he replied?  – if he considered shouting, swearing, hanging up?   She had left him shamelessly, promising a letter she never wrote, let alone sent. For those long seconds she could only wait and suffer.  When he spoke at last his words were without inflection, without emotion, but soft:

“Jan Campbell?”

“Of course, silly.”

“Jannie.  Are you still in California?  No?  You’re back at school here?  Well, that’s great.  It’s good to hear your voice.”

And how good to hear his! – however strained.  He was leaving early the next morning for the shore, to work for a few weeks on the shrimp boats.  The call was short, awkward, and successful; by the time she hung up, Jan had a lunch date for the Saturday after his probable return.

 

 

#

 

 

She knew she should have called him to make sure, but Jan had used up all her nerve.  Instead, she simply showed up at the restaurant they had chosen, “The Lunch Box” – her favorite. It was just a red brick pillbox in a square of asphalt, but it had flowers in the window planters and “Welcome” hand-painted in blue letters on the door, and they served stick-to-your-ribs country food. She was 10 minutes late because she had spent half an hour, vain in every sense, on her wayward hair, but he was there; she could see him from the parking lot, seated at a table by a window, waiting with his head down.  Reading something, probably.  Inside, Jan paused some seconds to breathe and to take him in.  

He had aged handsomely; his face was leaner and his shoulders broader than she remembered and he was very brown from the sun.  He soon noticed her and stood up.  After an awkward pause in which they merely stared at one another without speaking, Regis grinning, on Jan’s own face only God and Regis knew what, she hugged him. She hugged him and then she clung to him, stunned by how much she craved the contact.  His back was broad and corded with muscle, but he hugged back gently, surprised by so much need. 

“There now, Jannie. It’s okay.  Don’t cry.”

Finally, she sat down sniffling and reached into her purse for tissues.

“Nice start, huh?”

“It’s okay.  Crying’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”  He was so big, so strong, but so gentle – and he hugged back! He was healing her already, without words. Jan, still dabbing at her eyes, buried her face in a menu for a moment – Regis had had time to choose already – and then they placed their orders, and suddenly there they were, on opposite sides of a little table with a napkin holder and cut flowers in a vase between them, avoiding each other’s eyes.  They were both at a loss for the right, the diplomatic words to bridge all those months.

Jan reckoned it was up to her. 

“So. You’re still here. I wasn’t sure.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m still here.  Graduated, though.”

Regis, being Regis, could not be tongue-tied long.  Whatever else Jan was to him, she was a captive audience.  Soon he was pouring words into the void: 

“I asked for deferred admission to graduate school, while I make a little money.  Also – well, I’m writing a book.  Okay, it’s a novel.  Coming of age, yeah, the old themes, boy loses innocence, loses girl, gains a little bit in the process, ends up looking a little bit more like a man.  I haven’t written the ending yet.  I may have him join the Army and win a battle single-handed, be a hero with his picture in the paper so the girl can read about him and know she shoulda married him instead of some little pipe cleaner of a playwright-.”

“No, Regis.”

“Okay, okay.  Instead of this guy she’s married to who flunked out of school and mopes around their cheap, smelly bungalow all day drinking Mogen-David, while she waitresses at a drive-in to pay the bills.”

“Well.  That certainly sounds interesting. I’d love to read it.”

“So c’mon, Jannie, what happened out there in Cal-ee-for-nigh-ay?  I thought you and Tennessee Williams were all ready to get hitched.”

“I can’t imagine why you ever would have even thought that, Regis.  Anyway, I’d much rather talk about you.  A novel!  How exciting.  I bet you’ll be famous.  And graduate school!  Where?

“Hawaii.”

Jan’s heart thudded once, low down in her chest.

“Oh. I see.”

“Nah, not really.  Here.”

“Regis!”  Was he toying with her?  Did he dare?

 

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