Young Pete was so flabbergasted at the sight of the naked, wild-looking man that he stood and stared, his shotgun lowered.
Kit was almost over the wall before Young Pete recovered enough that he raised the gun and took aim. Olivia, who’d been on the girls’ softball team in high school, picked up a rock the size of her fist and threw it. It hit Young Pete in his lower back. As he spun around, the shotgun accidently went off, and the unexpected recoil sent him facedown into the water.
Olivia, naked as the day she was born, grabbed their clothes, ran across the bridge, and headed for the wall. She leaped onto a stump and propelled herself up. As she knew he would be, Kit was leaning over, both his arms held out to her. He pulled her up and over. With clasped hands, they ran through the wooded area. When they reached the edge, they stopped and looked at each other. She used Kit’s shirt to wipe the mud off his face and he kissed the bloody scratches on her body that had been made by the stony wall.
It wasn’t until after they’d made love on the grass that they saw that Olivia’s brassiere was missing.
They halted, fear in their eyes. Would they be identified through that? Arrested for trespassing?
But then, Kit’s eyes began to sparkle. How could a piece of underwear identify its owner? “Was it that pink one with the rosebud in the center?” Kit asked.
“The very one,” she answered.
They began laughing and didn’t stop until they got back to the huge old plantation, Tattwell, where they were both living and working. After that, just the mention of the word rosebud sent them into peals of laughter.
As for Young Pete, when he went to the sheriff with the pink satin brassiere and demanded that they find the owner, he set off laughter that didn’t die down for twenty years.
The sheriff said, “We’ll have a town-wide search to find out who it fits.”
“Like Cinderella’s shoe,” the deputy said. “Just a different body part.”
“When duty calls, we must serve,” the second deputy said.
The men looked at Molly, the dispatcher, who had on her usual tight sweater. She was a thirty-six triple D and the bra was a thirty-four B.
The men were smiling at her, as though to say, “You first.”
“In your dreams,” she said, and went on typing.
The story spread as only gossip in a small town could. Young Pete was constantly asked if he’d identified his trespasser yet. Asked if he needed help in looking at mug shots of possible suspects. Some wit took a photo of the found article and made it into a wanted poster.
$1000 reward for the Satin Bandit. Please call me.
One by one, every male in town had crossed out phone numbers and put his on it.
It was that place Olivia wanted to see. The house held no memories, except that she and Kit had thought it was beautiful. She saw the back of the house first. Three stories with a long, one-story addition to the side. They’d agreed that would be Kit’s office. The idea was that he’d work there, but the truth was that neither of them could imagine being in the same house but rooms apart. They had so very much time to make up for. They’d been together for one glorious summer, then separated for decades. Too much time lost!
Quietly, slowly, she walked past the house, then looked back at the front. There were lots of different heights of roofs from all the additions that had been tacked on over the years. One tall window had a rounded top. It was said that in the 1930s that had been an artist’s studio. In the ’50s it had been made into a kitchen and that’s the way she and Kit had left it. They hadn’t wanted an island—which to the two of them was a modern concept—but a table where one could sit while the other cooked. She wasn’t tempted to peek in the windows to see the restoration work.
To her right was a little round brick building. It had been used to store garden equipment, but Olivia and Kit agreed that it was too pretty for that. So far, they hadn’t decided what else to use it for.
Ahead of her was the old bridge. It was weathered and splintery, but caught in the grain of the old wood were flecks of the blue paint that had once covered it. That day she and Kit had made love on the island, he said, “It should be lacquered red. Twenty coats of it.” Laughing, kissing, she’d agreed with him. Lacquering the bridge red was on their list of things they planned to do.
She took her time crossing, remembering every second of that long-ago day. She’d ridden piggyback on Kit across the bridge. The island was small, created by the man who built Camden Hall. The river, deeper back then, had been widened to form a large pond in front of the house. The excavated dirt had been piled in the center, the edges reinforced with stone.
In its heyday, it must have been a fisherman’s dream.
At the far end they’d found the remains of what may have been a hut, something to sit in while waiting for unsuspecting deer to come to drink.
Kit had said it was a place for lovers to meet.
At their age, all it had taken was the mention of “lovers” to get them to tear off their clothing. They’d tossed them on the ground at the far end of the island, then fell down on the mossy surface that had once been a fisherman’s hut or a place for lovers to meet or the purpose Olivia liked least: a place to hang deer carcasses.
When she got to the end of the bridge, she looked around. The landscaping had changed. Years ago, it had been kept mowed and there was a path edged with little woodland flowers. Now it was just weeds and overgrown trees that darkened the place.
She raked her shoe through the grass until she saw the bits of gravel. Stepping over some stout fallen branches, she went to the far end of the island. The foundation stones of the little building were nearly covered now, but they were still there.
Bending, she touched one, smiling at the memory of that day. She could almost feel their lovemaking. Hear it. Smell it. Feel the sun coming through her clothes. Kit’s strong young hands on her breasts. Her head was back, wanting more and more of him. To become one with him. Body, mind, and soul.
Suddenly, she became dizzy and had to sit down on the stones. A bit of sunlight came through the trees and she held out her hand to it.
How different! she thought. In her mind, she remembered smooth, pink skin. But the sunlight showed lines, veins, and a couple of those brown spots that no amount of sunscreen could prevent.
She snatched her hand back. Balled it into a fist and for a moment, she closed her eyes.
Over forty years, she thought. That’s what she and Kit had lost.
She stepped up onto the stone foundation. On impulse, she lay down on it and looked up at the trees. On their honeymoon, Kit had talked about his diplomatic service, even about the three scary years when he’d infiltrated young Gaddafi’s new regime. He told her of the months in the hospital after an armored vehicle had rolled over with him in it. His pain and rehabilitation had been excruciating.
Olivia talked of running the appliance store and how she’d opened more stores. She’d discovered that she had a knack for business.
What they didn’t talk about were their marriages. They’d decided that one afternoon in Paris. They were sitting at one of the lovely outdoor cafés having coffee and Kit started telling about the birth of his son.
“When I held him in my arms, I didn’t know I could feel such love. He was red faced and hairless, but I thought he was the most beautiful thing ever put on the earth. And Gina was—”
He broke off when he looked across the table at Olivia. She was smiling, but there were tears running down her cheeks. His son had not been their child. It hadn’t been Olivia in that bed.
Kit took her hand in his and kissed the palm. “There was no one else,” he said softly. “It has always been us. Together or apart, just us.”