The sun wasn’t up yet, but it had lightened the sky to an opalescent gray that lifted over the east windowsills of the kitchen, providing enough light for Theresa to see very clearly the dark hair springing from Brian’s bare chest and diving into his waistline like an arrow. His nipples were like twin raspberries, shriveled up in the centers of squarely defined muscles. The only bare chests she’d ever seen in this house had been Jeff’s and her father’s. But this one was nothing like either of theirs, and the sight of him brought to mind vivid scenes from the movie they’d seen two nights ago. She dropped her eyes after the briefest glance, but down below she encountered more hair—dark wisps on his big toes. And suddenly she couldn’t stand there beside him a moment longer, with him only half dressed and herself coming totally unstrung inside her mint green robe.
“Would you mind watching the coffee till it starts perking, then turn it down to low?”
In the bathroom she switched on the light above the vanity and checked her reflection in the mirror. Sure enough, beet red! That horribly unflattering red that made her look as if she was going to go off like a Fourth of July rocket. She pressed her palms to her cheeks, closed her eyes and wondered how it felt to be normal and come up against a half-naked man like Brian Scanlon in your kitchen.
Lordy, he flustered her so.
What do other women do? How do they handle the first attraction they feel? It must be so much easier when you’re fourteen, like Amy, and you go at the natural pace: a first exchange of glances, a first touch of hands, a first kiss, then nubility taking over as boy and girl together begin exploring their awakening sexuality.
But I was thwarted at square one, Theresa thought miserably, looking at her awful freckles and hair, which by themselves would have been enough to overcome without the other even greater obstacles. I was cheated by nature out of those first kittenish glances that might have led to all the rest, because all the first glances I ever received contained no more than shock or lasciviousness. And now here I am, midway through my twenties, and I don’t know how to handle my very first sexual attraction to a man.
She took a bath, washed her hair and didn’t reenter the kitchen until she was properly dressed in a color she wore defiantly—cranberry. She loved it, but when it got anywhere near her hair, the two hues went to war and made her look like beets and carrots mixed in the same bowl. She had to keep the cranberry corduroy slacks separated from her flaming hair by a band of neutral color across her torso. When she explored her closet, she came upon a wonderful white sweat shirt Amy had given her for Christmas last year, which Theresa had never worn, no matter how many times she’d been tempted. To the average woman the sweat shirt would have been absolutely dishwater plain. It had hand-warmer pockets on the belly, zipper up the front and two sport stripes running down the sleeves: one of navy, the other of cranberry.
She took it from the hanger, slipped her arms into it and stepped before her mirror while she zipped it up. But the reflection that met her eyes made her want to cry. It looked like two dirigibles had been inflated beneath the garment. There was no power on earth that could make her wear this thing out to the kitchen and face Brian.
Angrily, she jerked it off and tossed it aside, replacing it with a prim oxford-cloth shirt in off-white with long sleeves and a button-down collar, over which she draped the everlasting, hated cardigan.
She was saved from encountering Brian’s bare chest again when she heard him take over the bathroom while she was arranging her hair in a round mound just above her collar. When it was confined, at least it didn’t look as if it was going to carry her away into the wild blue yonder if a stiff wind came up.
In the bathroom, Brian, too, assessed himself in the mirror. She’s scared of you, Scanlon, so the issue is settled. You don’t have to think about the possibility of falling for her.
But the room was scented with feminine things—the flowery essence of soap left behind in the damp air. There was a wet washcloth over the shower-curtain rod, and when he grabbed it down to close the curtains, he found himself staring at it for a long moment while he rubbed a thumb across the cold, damp terry cloth. With an effort, he put her from his mind and folded the cloth very carefully, then laid it on a corner of the tub. But while he stood beneath the hot spray, soaping his body, he thought of her again, and of the movie, and couldn’t help wondering what it would be like in bed with that freckled body, the generous breasts and red hair.
Scanlon, it’s Christmas, you pervert! What the hell are you doing standing here thinking about your best friend’s sister like some practiced lecher?
But that’s not the only reason I can’t get her off my mind, his other self argued honestly. She’s a beautiful person. Inside, where it counts.
He intentionally kept things light and breezy when he met Theresa in the kitchen again. But it was easier, for the rest of her family was beginning to rouse, and one by one they padded out to have coffee or juice. By the time they all sat down to breakfast together, the day had changed mood.
It was set aside for preparations. There was a family gathering planned at Grandma and Grandpa Deering’s house, and everybody would take something for the supper buffet. Then tomorrow, the pack would descend upon the Brubaker house for Christmas dinner, so Margaret, Theresa and Amy were busy all day in the kitchen.
Margaret was at her dictatorial best, issuing orders like a drill-team sergeant again while her daughters carried them out. Willard spent part of the day watching for cardinals, while Jeff and Brian broke out their guitars at last, and from the kitchen Theresa heard her first of Brian’s guitar playing. She dropped what she was doing and moved to the living-room doorway, pausing there to observe him tuning, then fingering an augmented chord of quietly vibrating quality, bending his head low over the instrument, listening intently as the six notes shimmered into silence. He sat at the piano bench, but had swung to face the davenport where Jeff sat, and didn’t know Theresa stood behind him.
Jeff, too, strummed random chords, the two guitars quietly clashing in that presong dissonance that can be as musical in its own off-harmonic way as cleanly arranged songs.
Jeff played lead, Brian rhythm, and from the moment the discordant warmup crystalized into the intro to a song, Theresa recognized a marvelous communion of kindred musicians. No signal had been spoken, none exchanged by eye, hand or tongue. The inharmonious gibberish of tuning had simply resolved into the concord of one single silently agreed-upon song.
Between musicians there can be a connection, just as between friends who somehow single each other out, recognizing empathy from the moment of introduction, just as a man and woman sometimes attract each other at first glimpse. It’s something that cannot be prompted or dictated. Among members of a band this connection makes the difference between simply playing notes at the same time and creating an affinity of sound.
They had it, these two. There was almost a mystical quality about it, and as Theresa looked on and listened from the kitchen doorway, shivers ran up her arms and down her legs. They had picked up on “Georgia on My Mind.” Where was the clashing rock? Where were the occasional sour chords she used to hear from Jeff’s guitar? When had he gotten so good?
Neither Brian nor Jeff looked at each other while they played. Their heads were cocked lazily, eyes blankly turned to the waists of their guitars in that indolent, concentrative pose Theresa recognized well. How many times had she stood before Jeff and asked him a question when he was in such a trance, only to be separated from him by the wall of music until the song finished and he looked startled to find her standing there?
Jeff began to sing, his softly grating voice evocative of Ray Charles’s immortal rendition of this song. A lump formed in Theresa’s throat. Amy had come up silently behind her, and they stood as motionless as the hands of a sundial. Jeff “took a ride” at the break, and Theresa stared at his supple fingers running along the frets with an agility she’d never seen before. Pride blossomed in her heart. Oh, Jeff, Jeff, my little br
other, who started on that fifteen-dollar Stella in the corner, just listen to you now. He vocalized the last verse, then together he and Brian “rode it home,” and as the last poignant notes ebbed to fade-out, Theresa looked back over her shoulder into Amy’s wide, amazed eyes. The room was silent.
Jeff’s eyes met Brian’s, and they exchanged smiles before they concurred, in their two deep voices, “All ri-i-ight.”
“Jeffrey,” Theresa said softly at last.
He glanced up in surprise. “Hey, Treat, how long have you been standing there?”
Brian swung around on the piano seat, and she gave him a passing smile of approval but moved to her brother, bending across his guitar to give him a hug. “When did you get so good?”
“You haven’t heard me for over a year, closer to a year and a half. Brian and I have been hittin’ it hard.”
“Obviously.”
She turned back to Brian. “Don’t take me wrong, but I think you two were made for each other.”
They all laughed, then Brian agreed, “Yeah, we kind of thought so the first time we picked a song together. It just happened, you know?”
“I know. And it shows.”
Amy, with her hands jammed in her jeans pockets, inched closer to Brian’s shoulders. “Gol, wait’ll the kids hear this!”
Theresa couldn’t resist the temptation to tease. “Is this Amy Brubaker speaking? The same Amy Brubaker who inundates us with AC/DC and scorns anything mellower than Rod Stewart?”
Amy shrugged, showed a flash of braces behind a half-sheepish grin, and returned, “Yeah, but these guys are really excellent, I mean, wow. And anyway, Jeff promised they’d do some rock, too. Didn’t you, Jeffy?”
Instead of answering, Jeff struck a straight D chord, hard and heavy, with a dramatic flourish, and after letting it sizzle for a prolonged moment he met Brian’s eye, and the next chord bit the air with the brashness of unvarnished rock. How they both knew the chosen song was a mystery. But one minute only Jeff’s chord hung in the air, and the next they were hammering away at the song as if by divine design. Amy stood between them, getting into the beat with her hips. “Yeah ...” she half growled, and Brian gave her a nonchalant quasi smile, then turned that same smile on Theresa, who shrugged in reply, a proud smile on her face while she enjoyed every note, rock or not, and each sideward thrust of Amy’s hips.
When the song ended, Margaret and Willard were standing in the doorway, applauding. Amy rushed for the telephone, undoubtedly to rave on about the good tidings to as many friends as possible, and Theresa reluctantly returned to the kitchen to listen from there while she worked.
In the late afternoon, they all went to their respective rooms to change and get ready for the trip across town to Grandpa and Grandma Deerings’. When they rendezvoused in the kitchen to load the car, it was Margaret who suggested, “Why don’t you bring your guitars? We’ll do some caroling. You know how your grandparents enjoy it.”
So the station wagon was packed with potato salad and cranberry jello, a vintage Gibson hollow-body 335 and a classic Epiphone Riviera, a rented amp, a stack of Christmas presents and six bodies.
Willard drove. Theresa found herself in the back seat sandwiched between Jeff and Brian. His hip was warm, even through her bulky coat, and when he and Jeff exchanged comments, she was served up tantalizing whiffs of his sandalwoody after-shave, for he’d slung an arm across the back of the seat and repeatedly leaned forward to peer around her.
If Brian thought he’d feel out of place at the family gathering, the delusion was put to rout within minutes of arriving. The tiny house of mid-forties’ vintage was popping at the seams with relatives of all ages and sizes. Grandpa Deering was deaf, and when Jeff took Brian over to introduce him to the shriveled little man, he shouted for his grandfather’s benefit. “Grandpa, this is my friend, Brian, the one who’s in the Air Force with me.”
The old man nodded.
“I brought him home to spend Christmas with us,” Brian bawled at the top of his lungs.
Mr. Deering nodded again.
“We play in a band together, and we brought our guitars along tonight to do a few carols.”
The bald head nodded still once more. Grandpa Deering raised a crooked forefinger in the air as if in approval, but said not a word until the two were turning away. Then he questioned in his reedy old quake, “This y’r friend who fiddles with you?”
It was all Brian could do to keep a straight face. Jeff turned back to his grandfather, leaning closer. “Guitar, grandpa, guitar.”
The old man nodded and said no more, replaced his arthritic palms one on top of the other atop a black, rubber-tipped cane and seemed to drift into a reverie.
When Brian and Jeff turned away, Brian whispered in his friend’s ear. “Doesn’t his hearing aid work?”
“He turns it down whenever it’s convenient. When the music starts he’ll hear every note.”
The thirty-odd aunts, uncles and cousins ate from a table containing more food than Brian had ever seen in one place, and after the buffet supper, opened gifts, having exchanged names at Thanksgiving. When it was time for the music, everyone found a spot as best he could on the floor, the kitchen cabinets, end tables, arms of furniture, and the entire group sang the old standard carols while Theresa was cajoled into playing along with the guitars on an ancient oak organ whose bellows were filled by foot pedals. She complied good-naturedly and pulled out the old stops from whose faces the mother-of-pearl inserts had long ago fallen. For the benefit of the small children in the group, Brian and Jeff were enticed into doing a run-through of “Here Comes Santa Claus,” which evolved into a jazz rendition that would have shocked its composer, Gene Autry. Jeff took an impromptu ride, taking outrageous liberties with the melody line, ad-libbing arpeggios while Brian modified the chords to smooth, fluid jazz. When it was over, the house burst into whistles and clapping, and the youngsters called for “Jingle Bells.” When that was finished, someone called, “Where’s Margaret? Margaret, it’s your turn. Get up there.”
To Brian’s surprise, the hefty-chested dictatorial Margaret stepped center front, and while her daughter played an accompaniment on the wheezy organ, she belted out a stunning “Oh Holy Night.” When the song ended, and Theresa spun around on the seat of the claw-foot organ stool to face Brian’s eyebrows raised in surprise, she leaned near his ear and whispered, “Mother was a mezzo-soprano with a touring opera company before she married daddy.”
“That leaves only Amy. What about her?”
From his far side, Amy spoke up. “I only got the beat, I didn’t get the voice, so I play drums in the school band.”
Brian smiled. “And dance, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah. Just wait and see.”
Theresa knew a kind of keen envy. Amy could dance the socks off any three partners who tried to keep up with her. The sample she’d given earlier today in the living room had been only a hint of the rhythm contained in her svelte, teenage limbs. Theresa had always been extremely proud of Amy’s dancing ability, and more so, her sister’s lack of inhibition whenever any music started. While Theresa herself had felt a lifelong urge to dance, she’d never yielded to it.
She should have grown inured to giving up enjoyments such as dancing. By now, she shouldn’t miss them, but she did. She transferred all her emotions into her music and took from it the satisfaction she was denied in other modes of self-expression, as she did now on this Christmas Eve.
She shunned the petty envy that she’d come to hate in herself and lauded, “Amy is the best dancer I know. It’s too bad she isn’t old enough to go with you on New Year’s Eve.”
Brian only smiled from one sister to the other, hoping the older of the two would agree to go with him, after all.
On the way home they dropped Jeff off at Patricia’s house, where another family celebration was winding down. Jeff would get in on the end of it. When the remainder of the group reached the Brubaker house, the two older ones toddled off to bed while the
remaining three turned on the tree lights and sat in the cozy living room exchanging anecdotes about past Christmases, music, the Air Force, school dances, Grandpa Deering and a myriad of subjects that kept them up well past midnight. Jeff joined them then, announcing that he’d just flown in on his jet-propelled sleigh and was looking for a plate of cookies and glass of milk before he filled any stockings.
When Theresa went to sleep that night, it was not to visions of sugar plums dancing in her head, but to visions of Brian Scanlon’s long, dexterous fingers moving along the fingerboard of an Epiphone Riviera, picking out the chords to a love song whose words she strove to catch.
__________
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING Theresa was awakened by Amy, pouncing on her bed, giggling. “Hey, come on! Let’s make it to those prezzies!”
“Amy, it’s blacker than the ace of spades outside.”
“It’s seven o’clock already!”
“Ohh!” Theresa groaned and rolled over.
“Come on, get your buns out of here and let’s go get the boys and mom and dad.”
From down the hall came a hoarse call, “Who’s doin’ all that giggling out there?” Jeff. “Come in here and try that!”
Amy sprang off Theresa’s bed and went to wage an attack on her brother, and the squealing that followed told clearly of a bout of tickling which soon awakened Margaret and Willard. The thumping on the floor aroused their houseguest downstairs, and within ten minutes they had all gathered in the living room and snuggled around the Christmas tree, dressed in hastily thrown-on robes, jeans, half-buttoned shirts, bare feet and bedroom slippers, sipping juice and coffee while gifts were distributed.
Brian was sharing a Christmas unlike any he’d ever experienced. This boisterous, loving family was showing him depths he’d never known. The gifts exchanged among them underscored that love again, for they were not many but well chosen.