cooked precisely the way they had ordered them, the salads crisp and fresh, the dressing delicate, and the selection of wine was remarkably varied. Between bites, they spoke of inconsequential things, not mentioning the tragedies that had occurred in the theatre. By the time they ate dessert, a piece of blueberry pie for Dennis, a cup of custard for Ann, she was feeling relaxed, partly as a result of the wine, partly from the ease of being in Dennis's company again, and from knowing that there was no longer a wife offstage.
It was absurd, she thought, that she should be feeling guilty over not having to feel guilty. If she could have wished Robin alive again, she would have. But wishing would change nothing, and, circumstances being what they were, she thought she would have been a fool not to be glad to be there with Dennis, to have him across the table from her, their eyes meeting constantly, and her reading in his eyes things unspoken, things she longed to hear.
The meal finished, Dennis paid the bill, and they walked outside. The winter air was brisk, and their breath puffed out like amber clouds in the gleam of the lamps that lit the parking lot. She slipped her arm though his as they moved toward the car, and, after he unlocked her door, he turned to her, put his arms around her, and kissed her, a light and gentle kiss, made with no demands. They stood there for a long time, until she shivered from the cold in spite of her warm coat, in spite of Dennis's embrace. Finally he spoke.
'This feels so right. All those years ago, and it seems like only yesterday since I held you.' He sighed, and she felt his warm breath against her hair. 'I wish that time never would have passed. I wish we would be back there, that we had done things differently.'
'I do too,' she whispered. 'It was a mistake. It didn't take me long to find that out.'
'Mistakes,' he said, 'can be corrected.'
They kissed again, and he opened the car door for her. When they were both inside, he started the engine, and heat rushed at them from the vents. 'I don't want to take you home,' he said.
'Whose home?'
She could see his smile in the semi-darkness. 'Come to the theatre with me.”
“What show will we see?'
'A love story.' There was only the trace of a smile now.
'Do you know how it will end?' she asked him.
'Happily. I pray to God, happily.' Then he added, ' This time.'
She made a little gesture toward the night, the cold darkness. 'Let's go,' she said.
The other love story, the one that had taken place twenty-five years before, had not had a happy ending. That ending had come on a July night at a table at the Kirkland Inn, with a young man and a young woman seated across from each other in candlelight. They held hands, but as the words passed between them, the grips loosened, and soon there were two hands in the center of the table, barely touching. She withdrew hers first, into her lap, blinking away the tears in her eyes so that he wouldn't see. But he did, through the teary haze that warmed his own eyes. She loved him, yes, she admitted that, but it would not work. Her parents were against it, and she had never gone against them, simply could not. They wanted her to finish college, and she wanted to also.
Couldn't they write to each other, he asked, write and maybe he could come up to see her at her college on Mondays, when the theatres were dark, and the show wouldn't run forever, after all, it might even be a flop, so did it make sense to call an end to everything now?
She had to, she told him. She could not imagine being away from him, but it was her parents, and she could not disobey them.
Then you don't love me, he said.
But I do, she answered.
They were still young, barely past adolescence. They were in love with each other, but with their own lives as well, he with the theatre, she with her school, her friends there, and bound by her ties to her mother and father. They were confused, they were angry, they were hopeless and doomed to estrangement. After that night, they did not see each other again for twenty-five years.
And twenty-five years later, their children sat facing each other across that same table in that same inn. An onlooker who knew both their parents would have noted the resemblance. The boy's features were strong and clear, his red hair the shade of his father's before gray had touched it. Though her hair was cut short, and was similar in color to the boy's hair rather than her mother's, the girl bore Ann Deems's delicacy of features, the small mouth, the pert nose, the small but intense green eyes under gracefully arching brows. The hands of the two did not touch, though. Not yet.
'You expecting somebody?' Evan asked. 'You keep looking around.'
Terri smiled as though it hurt her. 'No, not really.'
They had finished their entr e e, and were waiting for dessert. Up to that point, the conversation had been neither sparkling nor provocative, so Evan was surprised when Terri asked him if he was a virgin.
He gave a little laugh. 'Why?'
'Curious.'
'The same reason you keep looking around?' She didn't answer. 'No, I'm not. Is it your business?'
'It might be. A person can't be too careful these days.'
'About what?'
'About their sexual partners.'
He looked at her for a long time before he spoke. 'What?' He knew it was a dumb thing to say even as he said it. He had heard her clearly, and realized the implication, but he was too distrustful of fate to think that it should drop something this desirable in his lap.
'Look,' she said, and now her smile was not as pinched as before. 'I know you find me attractive, and I think you're kind of a hunk in a strange way.”
“Thanks. I guess.'
'And we're both unattached, so why shouldn't we?' She cocked her head at him. 'Unless I've been reading you wrong.'
'No, no, I think you're quite a… a hunkess yourself, you're right.”
“Hunkess? I didn't know there was a feminine form for that.'
'So what are you asking?' he said, getting back to the subject that now hung over the table like a fleshy chandelier. 'If I'm safe?'
'Basically. Oh, I mean, we'll practice safe sex anyway, but if you know that you're carrying something unpleasant, I'm sure you'd be gentleman enough to tell me.”
He had never, he thought, met a girl like this before. Not even in Honduras with the corps. 'I'm not,' he said. 'I mean, I don't have anything.'
'Good,' she said, giving him a look that produced in him an instant erection. 'I'm very glad to hear that.'
'You, uh… you still want dessert?'
She smiled and shrugged. 'We already ordered it, didn't we?'
Dennis pulled the Porsche into the small underground garage of the Kirkland Community Building shortly after ten o'clock. When he opened the door for Ann to get out of the car, she stepped directly into his arms and they kissed again, this time with more passion than before. 'You don't think this will spoil it,' Dennis said with a half- smile.
She shook her head. 'I only wish it had been earlier. We've had to wait so long.”
“No longer,' Dennis said, and kissed her again, lightly.
They walked, their arms about each other, to the elevator that would take them to the suites above. 'Wait,' Dennis said, as Ann was about to push the button. 'Let's walk up. Through the theatre. I want to… to talk for a moment.'
She didn't know what he intended, but followed him without protest through the shadowy corridors, up the winding stairs, and into the inner lobby of the theatre, then up the marble staircase that led to the balcony, across the mezzanine lobby, and finally up the ramp that led to the balcony. He took her hand and led her down to the first row of the loge, where they sat together, looking out over the dimly lit auditorium.
'I used to come and sit here,' Dennis said. 'Just sit here and look down at that stage and think about what's
