The Forever Girl Ch. 08

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual person or event is purely coincidental. All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18.

Chapter Eight - Vignettes

Alexandria, Virginia, Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022 -- The smell of a freshly opened bag of Starbucks Café Verona blend brewing in my kitchen awoke Lisa this morning. She had covered her nakedness in the duvet cover. I walked to her, took her into my arms, kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and finally, sweetly, on her lips.

"Morning, baby. I love you," I said as I held her close. "I hope to tell you that for a long time to come."

She just breathed deeply and exhaled, each of us content to start the day in each other's arms.

I poured us cups of the dark Italian roast that Sis had recommended on Friday that I buy along with a handful of Lisa's preferred shampoos, conditioners, snacks and creature comforts to make her feel at home for our first real night together not on four wheels on a crowded, frozen freeway. The BBC News was playing on my TV and we took our coffee there as English muffins toasted and bacon broiled in an air fryer.

I joined Lisa beneath the thick duvet cover. She climbed into my lap, looped her arms around my neck and just smiled.

"And I look forward to hearing that from you every morning for a very long time," she said. Her head relaxed against my chest and neck until the chime from the toaster alerted us that the muffins and bacon were done. When apricot jam dripped off her muffin onto her upper thigh, I took the napkin from her and instead licked it up. And continued licking.

The muffins and bacon were never finished. We spent the rest of the morning in leisurely lovemaking, culminating in the shower where we slowly kissed and washed each other's every contour and crevice.

It was early afternoon before we finally left the apartment for a stroll down King Street to the Potomac and back, a distance of nearly two miles round-trip. By the time we returned, the sun was ready to plunge behind the western horizon, so we decided a lazy day deserved a lazy end. We ordered out for pizza, retired to my apartment and turned the thermostat up to the point where we could comfortably lounge around naked, alternately streaming "Bridgerton" episodes when we weren't teasing one another to orgasms. We were both sound asleep again by 10 o'clock, quite certain that nothing in the world outside this apartment mattered.

●●●

Irvington, Virginia, February 14, 2022 -- Lisa and I took personal days off, giving us our first long-weekend getaway for our first Valentine's Day as lovers. We drove down U.S. 17 and crossed the Rappahannock near its mouth into Chesapeake Bay for a three-night stay in a waterfront room at the posh Tides Inn.

We got out of the room and away from each other's bodies long enough to take a walk around the resort grounds on an unseasonably warm, sunny February afternoon on Sunday. There, I gave her a necklace with a gold medallion on which the date of our snowbound I-95 adventure was engraved on one side. On the other was a space for another date intentionally left blank.

"What will this say, Jake?" she said of the uninscribed side before I fastened it around her neck.

"Whatever we decide, Lees, but it has to be special. Very special," I said.

Today is actually Valentine's Day, but we both had to be back at work the next morning so we were driving back to Washington.

"It's getting to the point where I feel depressed knowing I've got to drop you off, even if it is with my sister," I told her. "What would you think of switching roommates from one Gordon twin to the other?"

"I'd be open to it, but ... how would I break it to Janine and how would she manage the rent without a roommate," Lisa asked.

"Let's see what I can work out," I said.

I walked Lisa up to the apartment and helped her carry her bag inside. The living area was quiet, the TV off and the kitchen was dark. On the coffee table was a hand-lettered note from Lisa: "Love birds, Marcus and I are making an early night of it so keep it down PLEASE."

Lisa and I smiled at each other. We had the same idea -- maybe this roommate issue for Sis will resolve itself. We watched the 11 o'clock news together before I kissed her goodnight and drove to Old Town.

●●●

Raleigh, North Carolina, March 12, 2022 -- As she had several times, Lisa was a weekend guest in the home of John and Evelyn Gordon. Usually, it was just the roomies, Janine and Lisa, though I had been there a couple of times -- things like a Memorial Day or Thanksgiving weekend. So Mom and Dad didn't think much of it that I was there.

They had come to think of Lisa as their third child because of the close bond she and Sis had formed. Lisa fit the role of kid sister perfectly. They hadn't been kept up to date on all the developments that would alter, but further solidify, the relationship.

Sis had let them know that Lisa and I had gone out a time or two. They had no idea how serious things had gotten.

We were sitting around a propane fire pit on the deck overlooking a small lake in a development outside Raleigh after Sis and I got our degrees and took good jobs in D.C. For appearance sake, Sis and Lisa stayed the first night, Friday, in the same room. This was Saturday. Lisa sat between Sis and I on a large porch swing hanging one of the beams on the pergola suspended over the deck. It was Mom who noticed Lisa leaning against me as the sun sank and the chill reclaimed the night after a balmy day. She smiled as her brow furrowed as the puzzle pieces snapped better into place in her mind.

"So what's up with you kids?" she asked.

Janine was the first to speak.

"It looks like I might be losing my roomie," she said, regret blended with anticipation etched on her face. "Marcus has asked me to move in with him, and ... our relationship has reached the point where it feels right. He has a brownstone on Capitol Hill Northeast that his mom put in his name after she moved to a retirement development in Maryland to be nearer Marcus's sister."

A moment of silence as Mom's eyes scanned the three of us, unsure how this disruption between her twins and second daughter would play out. She had become deeply fond of Lisa over the years.

"So?" she asked, rolling her hand to get elicit more information.

"So my lease in Georgetown runs through April and I will move in with Marcus by the first of May," she said.

"And that leaves Lisa to find another roommate?" she said, concern now apparent on her face. Dad, by far the more laconic of the two, leaned back puffing his pipe, not sure what was next and paying attention, but sensing a big turn in the story..

"Yes, she'll have another roommate," Sis said. "But I think it's going to work out well. Lisa and I will still stay in close touch, guaranteed, and so will you, Mom."

"How can you be so sure?" Mom asked.

By now, Lisa was blushing and had gripped my hand. It was my turn to pick up the thread.

"Because Lisa's new roommate is me," I said.

Mom froze. Her jaw dropped and her hands grasped her cheeks. Dad's pipe fell from his mouth and clattered to the deck floor, scattering smoldering tobacco on the boards. It was their moment of epiphany as the last pieces of the puzzle snapped into place. As we abandoned the business-as-usual charade, I wrapped Lisa in my arms and kissed her forehead.

"Oh my God!" Mom said as she rose from her chair, her arms skyward. "Thank you, Jesus!"

She walked around the fire pit and embraced Lisa. "You know we love you like you're our own, Lees. This makes me very happy."

Mom wondered how things had advanced so far with her knowing so little. We told her how the romance took root on the harrowing January ordeal on I-95 Virginia, omitting the juicy parts, and how it had steadily grown. We didn't want to get too far out over our skis too early. I had a conversation with Sis in February and she recommended the new lodging arrangement.

"I love Lisa very much and this is the right move," I said. "So Sis and Marcus and Lisa and I met for dinner a couple of weeks ago and it was all done in five minutes. We wanted to tell you personally."

John and Evelyn nodded.

"In view of that," Dad chimed in, "we have no objections, Jacob, if you and NeeNee switch bedrooms for the rest of your visit."

A lake near Tate City, Georgia, April 16, 2022 -- "You didn't come all the way down here from Washington on Easter weekend just so we could go bass fishing, Jake," Bill Muldoon said as he sipped coffee from his thermos. "What's on your mind?"

You don't raise yourself from a hustling Pittsburgh kid who grew up poor, worked his way through college and became the dominant car dealer in the Steel City without being able to cut right to the chase on a deal. A lean but barrel chested man with a rugged, ruddy complexion and a thick, full head of white hair, he cast his line over the right side of his fully appointed bass boat toward a thicket growing along the shoreline with the sun barely above the eastern shoreline and began reeling his lure back in. The moment was mine.

"Well, Mr. Muldoon, in the past few months, I've grown -- Lisa and I have grown -- quite close. Well ... we ...," I stammered before Bill cut me off.

"Here Jake, let me help you. What I want to know is, do you love her?" he said.

"Yes sir. With everything I am and all that I have," I replied without a second's hesitation, grateful that he had seen through one of the toughest moments a guy can have. "She's everything to me."

He looked at me and saw I had forgotten my lure and my rod and was looking him squarely in the eye. He smiled and nodded.

"So, you're going to ask her to marry you?" he asked.

"I am. I'd like your blessing, Mr. Muldoon," I said, my face intense.

He chuckled, turned and faced me directly. "Jake, for one thing, if I'm going to be your father-in-law, you gotta stop with this Mr. Muldoon shit. It's Bill, OK?"

I smiled, and so did he.

"Of course I approve," he turned around in his chair, faced back toward his marina and lodge and gave a conspicuously outsized thumbs-up.

"Lillian's up there watching through binoculars from the window in the great room. She approves, too, and wanted me to signal her soon as it was done," he said. "Ain't got to be Nostradamus to figure out what you were up to, Jake."

I exhaled, and a huge wave of relief came over me.

"Jake, for a guy who deals with a lot of national intelligence, you can be pretty clueless to some things right under your nose. Lillian and I have noticed the way our baby girl lights up around you for years. Your sister noticed it. Everybody but you and that Princeton dipshit she dumped noticed it," he said.

"But even though you couldn't tell she had a thing for you, we noticed the way you looked after her just because you're that way. Now I find out you're an Eagle Scout, so that figures. But it was when the two of you were trapped in that snowbound mess on I-95 in Virginia that you came through and protected our daughter during the most dangerous and worrisome night of our lives when all the cell phones were out and we had no way of contacting her. What reassured us was she was with you," Bill said.

"Provided she says yes," he smirked, extending his hand to shake mine, "welcome to the family."

"Lisa's sleeping and knows nothing about this, and Lillian and I aren't going to tell her. Don't want to spoil the surprise. But, if you don't mind me asking, when you gonna propose?" he said.

"I thought about doing it here. Down by the lake around sunset this afternoon or tomorrow," I said.

"You got one," he said.

"Um, yes ... it was my aunt's ring. It's beautiful. It's in my luggage, and ...," I said, but he cut me off, pointing to the line, jerking in the cold, blue-green water.

"No, you got a fish! Set the hook and reel him in!"

The lone four-pound bass I reeled in and the three that Bill caught became dinner -- broiled, served with asparagus and mashed potatoes with a crisp, unoaked Chardonnay. After dessert, I thanked Lisa and Lillian for so delicious a repast and recommended that we walk some of it off with a little stroll down the one-lane road and the gravel footpath along the shoreline before dark.

Bill and Lillian knowingly demurred, recommending that Lisa and I go ahead.

There's a granite outcropping that juts into the lake. I had noticed it while we were fishing. It's not steep, but it can be a little tricky hopping on and off it. I suggested to Lisa that we watch the sun set from there. We climbed atop it and I spread a towel I had brought with us to keep the moss from staining our pants.

Lisa leaned against me, and I put my arms around her.

"I love it down here, baby. So peaceful, this lake. Great place to fish, swim, ski, just hang out and catch rays, look at the stars I bet," I said. "Can't you imagine being here some summer's day with all our children."

She raised her head and turned toward me with a bemused, quizzical look.

"I can imagine it, Lisa," I continued. "And that's why I'm asking you to marry me."

I pulled the navy blue box from my pocket and opened it. Inside was the engagement ring that my father's sister had worn until she died a dozen years ago of lung cancer. Sis had held it for safekeeping. She was able to figure out Lisa's ring size and had a jeweler tighten it to fit her before we left for this Easter weekend trip. The two-carat diamond blazed as the golden-orange rays of the setting sun danced off of it.

Lisa's hands covered her open mouth. Tears flooded her beautiful eyes as she looked at it.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, Jake, yes!"

I took her left hand and slid the ring onto her third finger and put the box back in my pocket. We kissed until the sun was gone, and the western sky blazed pink, orange, gold and magenta, seemingly God's own celebration of this moment and all the moments in a full life ahead of us.

My forever girl and me.

THE END