Gathering Clouds (4 page)

“He’s a published poet?”

“Yes, in four different highly respected college magazines. He’s done some acting in school, too. Marcus teases him. Calls him the poor man’s Denzel Washington or Sidney Poitier.”

I really didn’t think anything would come of it, but I also thought it might be fun, a different way to pass a weekend day, and it was unusually warm for the time of year. The ocean would surely be refreshing.

“Okay. I’m in,” I said.

She called Marcus to tell him. From the conversation I understood Marcus was having a hard time getting Larry to come along, but in the end, he managed to get him to join us. They came to the campus about nine in the morning. I wore jeans, a knit blouse, and a hooded light pink sweater. Neither Lynette nor I had mentioned our beach trip to any of the other girls in the dorm. We simply stepped out into the bright sunshine and got into Marcus’s station wagon. His car was a hand-me-down from his parents and not very sporty.

I glanced at Larry and quickly closed the car door, checking to see if any of the other girls were watching us. I saw no one in particular and we drove off. After we pulled away from the campus, I turned to Larry Ward and smiled. He was wearing a turtleneck cable knit sweater and jeans and was as good-looking as Lynette had implied. He was lighter skinned than Marcus, and when we stepped out of the vehicle later, I saw he was close to six feet tall with well-proportioned shoulders. He had a shy but disarming smile that made me feel he was always two or three steps and seconds ahead of everyone else and able to anticipate reactions to anything.

Unlike all of the other young men I had been with, he had no interest in talking about himself. Once we were over the awkwardness of just meeting, he asked me questions about where we lived, my school, the friends I had, and my interests. We talked about music and movies. He and Marcus had a nice banter between them, gently teasing each other about each other’s failures in sports and how Lynette could whip “both our asses” in a one-on-one basketball game.

When we reached the beach and parked, Lynette and Marcus walked on ahead at a much faster pace, looking like they had come for the exercise mostly. Larry and I lingered far behind. There were long silences between the things we said until I asked him about his poetry.

“When I was growing up in Baltimore,” he said, “I kept my poetry secret. My friends didn’t know about it until my senior high English teacher went and submitted one of my poems to a magazine for me and it was accepted. The school principal made a big deal of it at an assembly and I was exposed.”

“What sort of poetry do you write?”

“It’s all free verse. I’m more interested in images, allusions, irony, that sort of thing. I’m doing my graduate work in Shakespeare,” he added. Then he stopped walking and put up his hands, laughing. “I’m not going to be an actor, just a college teacher. Also,” he said, leaning toward me as if there were dozens of people listening in on our conversation, “I’m somewhat of an Anglophile. I’ll probably end up living in London.”

We walked on. The breeze played havoc with my hair, but I didn’t mind. The water, the sunshine, and his soft, almost melodic way of talking made me feel so warm and contented in a way I hadn’t ever felt. Maybe I was just relaxed and had never really been.

“So what do you want to be?” he asked after a few moments of silent walking.

I paused and for the first time really thought about it. My guidance counselor, Mr. Martin, couldn’t get me to do this. Maybe it was because more time had passed, or maybe I didn’t feel threatened by any answer I might express.

“I think I would like to be me,” I said.

His laughter turned Marcus and Lynette’s heads. They paused and looked back at us. Then they walked on.

“I think I know exactly what you mean,” Larry said. “How do you like that?”

“Oh? Why do you think so?”

“I wrote a poem that goes
Most of my life I’ve been looking into mirrors and seeing only what others see of me. I put on the clothes they expected I would wear. I went to places they expected me to go. I said the words they expected me to say, and then one day I went naked. I didn’t go anywhere and I was silent and suddenly, I was born and a stranger in the eyes of those who had known me. The stranger was myself.”

He looked away quickly.

“I love that,” I said. It’s exactly how I feel.”

He smiled.

We walked on.

Somewhere inside me, a stranger stirred.

Larry was a few steps ahead of me.

Impulsively, I reached out and seized his hand.

He turned and he smiled, and it was as if everything that I had felt and known before was like the tide washing over the shore and out to sea, leaving the sand sparkling like new jewels in the sun.

There is something about a secret romance that makes every kiss sweeter, every embrace warmer, every lustful look of longing more forbidden.

In the beginning I often felt Larry thought he had to sneak around to protect me. I soon learned he had no one from whom he had to keep our romance a great secret. His parents had separated, never really bothering to get a formal divorce, when he was only eight and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. She passed away the year before he began his college education. He had been admitted with scholarship aid and he worked in the school library for his expense funds. He rarely saw either of his parents now.

“I’m my own family,” he told me.

We didn’t start dating immediately. After our day on the beach, we returned to the college in the evening. Those girls who saw me get out of a car with Lynette didn’t think much of it. I had gone places with her and her boyfriend before, and Larry was not that obvious to them. He remained in the station wagon. We said good-bye and I told him much I had enjoyed the day with him, but he didn’t ask me if I wanted to do anything else with him. He simply said he was pleasantly surprised at how much he enjoyed the day as well.

When I closed the car door, I felt a deep sense of disappointment. I imagined that he didn’t enjoy himself with me as much as he had claimed. I also remember thinking,
Oh, well, perhaps this is best. After all, how could I bring him home to Mother?

I was so quiet that Lynette thought I had not had a good time.

“Don’t be upset, Megan. From what Marcus tells me,” she said, “Larry isn’t all that comfortable around girls of his own color, much less rich, pretty white girls. He becomes a real turtle.”

“No, he wasn’t like that at all!” I exclaimed, perhaps with more enthusiasm than I had intended. Lynette’s eyes widened and she smile.

“Oh, really. What was he like?”

“He was . . . real,” I said. “Sincere, and he recited some of his poems, too.”

“He did that? What did you do, girl, because whatever it was, Marcus is going to want the copyright or the pattern so he could register it.”

I shook my head, skeptical of anything I had done to bring him out of his usual shell.

“Maybe he  was just trying to avoid being bored. Sometimes that’s the reason I do things that make other people think I like them and want to be with them.”

She looked at me askance.

“What, you think he didn’t want to be with you?”

“I heard you on the phone and heard how hard it was for Marcus to get him to come along.”

“Forget that. It wouldn’t have mattered who was with us. He’d be that way even if it was Venus herself.”

“It’s all right. I had fun.”

Uncharacteristically, I dove into my schoolwork the remainder of the week, and only when Marcus called Lynette or she talked about something they were going to do together did I stop to think about Larry. Actually, I thought about him a great deal at night after we put out the lights and lowered our heads to our pillows. I saw his smile, heard his poems, felt his hand.

What’s wrong with you, Megan Hudson?
I asked myself.
Why are you behaving like a teenager girl who’s having her first crush?

Maybe it was because this was the first real crush I had, I thought.

On Friday morning the phone rang in our room just after Lynette had left for her class. I had an extra hour before my first class began.

It was Larry Ward.

“Hi,” he said. “I was hoping to catch you before you went to your morning classes.”

“How did you know when that would be?” I asked.

He was silent a moment. It was obvious he had gotten my schedule from Marcus who had gotten it from Lynette. Sneaky Lynette, I thought, but fondly. She knew he was planning on calling me after all, but acted dumb all week.

“I asked the dean,” he finally replied and I laughed. “Maybe you’ll think this is out of line,” he continued, “but there is a jazz concert and a poetry reading tonight at a club I frequent, and I was wondering if you would like to go along. It’s kind of different, but it’s not boring,” he added quickly. “There are some great characters there and the music –ˮ

“It’s not out of my line,” I told him. Again he laughed. I heard how nervous he was. “Sure,” I said. “I’d like to go. Where is it?”

He gave me the address.

“I don’t have a car or I’d – ˮ

“I do. Do you want me to pick you up?”

“Um . . .”

“It’s a simple yes or no,” I said and then added, “so forget maybe.”

He laughed.

“Sure. I’ll be finished at the library about eight tonight. I can meet you – ˮ

“Outside the library them,” I said quickly, making it clear I didn’t expect him to go to some clandestine place where no one we knew would see him get into my car.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks. Oh,” he added.

“Yes?”

“Don’t be late for class.”

I laughed and hung up. Even I, when I looked at myself in the mirror, saw the radical change in my face. There was a brightness and an excitement I my eyes that had been dormant too long. I even went at my schoolwork and lectures with more enthusiasm. It was truly as if I had been injected with a shot of what the French call joie de vivre. The sun was brighter, the sky bluer, the breeze warmer and softer, and all the birds more melodic. I felt like a butterfly emerging and I longed to try my wings.

Lynette kept coy. She asked me nothing and I teased her by not telling her a thing as well. When she saw me start to dress that night, I could see she was full of curiosity. Did I have another date with one of the fraternity boys or had I agreed to do something with Larry?

“Where you going?” she finally asked.

“Nowhere special.”

“You don’t doll up like that for nowhere special, girl. I’ve been your roommate long enough to tell.”

“Oh, really? Well if you must know, I’ve been asked to go to a jazz club.”

“Jazz? You?”

“I like all music.”

“Suer, you know jazz. Name one jazz musician, one jazz singer. Go on,” she ordered, her hands on her hips.

“I’m in the process of learning.”

“A-huh. And who would the teach be?”

“Someone named Larry Ward,” I said and she laughed. “Like you didn’t know.”

“Me?”

“You can fake them out on the basketball court, Lynette, but not on my court. Girl,” I added.

She laughed and we hugged.

“You sure you want to do this?” she asked turning serious.

“That’s what scares me the most.”

“What?”

“That I am sure,” I said.

She suddenly looked frightened for me.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be fine. And so will Larry,” I added before I walked out.

He was waiting in the shadows in front of the library. My car took him by surprise.

“Brand-new?”

He stood there holding the opened door and looking in at me.

“Yes,” I said. “Graduation present.”

I saw the hesitation.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not a snob,” I said and he smiled.

“Yeah, well,” he said getting in, “you’re the richest non-snob I know.”

The club we went to was really off the beaten college path. There were mostly black people there, but there were other whites and most everyone knew Larry. I found out he had read some of his poetry there and one of the musicians had put a poem of his to music. He was asked to do it again and I thought it was wonderful.

“This is like stepping on another planet,” I told him. “I know what jazz is, of course, but I never listened to it like this.”

“I’ve always been into it,” he said. “I play a little on the saxophone.”

Again, he surprised me when he was asked to do just that before the evening ended. He looked like he was blowing every note just for me. The melody was lovely, sensuous. Listening to him and watching him, I felt as if we were already making love.

Once again, I had a wonderful time. When we left, I didn’t want the night to end.

“Do you live in the dorm?” I asked.

“Dorm? No, that’s too expensive. I have a couple of rooms in the back of an elderly lady’s house. She was a good friend of my grandmother’s. I have my own entrance and a small kitchenette. Half the time she doesn’t even want the rent money. I have to leave it on her kitchen counter.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“What? C’mon,” he said. “It’s nothing. A few pieces of furniture, an old television that’s not even a color set. I sleep on a pullout.”

“I don’t think I ever have.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Are you ashamed of where you’re living?”

“I certainly am not. It’s clean and – ˮ

“Then you’ll take me there,” I said. “Where do I turn?”

“Do you always get what you want when you want it?” he asked.

“Yes, why? Are you going to be the first one to stop me?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“I know when to step back,” he said. “A long time ago my grandmother taught me that a branch that doesn’t bend, breaks.”

“Then she must have known I was coming,” I said.

When he looked at me, his eyes were no longer full of laughter.

They were full of love.

After I parked, we walked through the shadows as if we were shadows ourselves, neither of us speaking, holding hands and listening to the pounding of our own hearts. The world around us had suddenly become that silent.

The back of the house wasn’t much and the rooms were half the size of my closet at home, but I didn’t say anything. He put on a lamp and then another because there was no central ceiling fixture. I looked at his shelves of books. They were obviously his most precious possession. It looked like he spent all his money on books, in fact.

“Looks like you eat and sleep books.”

“If you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader,” he told me as I studied the titles.

He showed me the magazines that had published his poems.

“You’re really good, Larry. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t read a poem, but I like yours very much. They’re serious but they’re not written so you have to decipher them.”

He laughed.

“Maybe they’re too simple.”

“We spend too much time disguising our feelings as it is,” I said and he looked at me sharply.

“Yes,” he said.

Neither of us spoke. He stepped closer. I could feel his desire, but also his hesitation so I reached out and took his hand, bringing it to my breast.

“Feel my heartbeat,” I said. “It’s got a mind of its own.

He smiled, kept his hand on my breast, and then slowly brought his lips to mine.

“Don’t tell me I’m the first white girl you’ve kissed like that,” I warned him.

He laughed.

“I wasn’t going to tell you that. I was going to tell you that you were the first girl period I kissed like that.”

“If that’s true, you’re a natural.”

“I don’t need practice?”

“You need lots of practice,” I said and we kissed again. “You’re getting better,” I whispered.

He looked at me, searching my face for some sign that said yes.

If he didn’t see it, he heard it. Every part of me was crying out. He glanced at the pullout and saw my willingness.

Our lovemaking was gentle, each move either of us made tentative, waiting for confirmation or acceptance, expecting the other to do something to stop it, to draw back. Neither of us was willing to surrender or retreat. I wanted to be naked and to have him naked beside me as quickly as possible. I don’t even remember how our clothes peeled off our bodies, but we were soon embracing on his pullout, clinging to each other, every part of ourselves longing to be touched, caressed, kissed. I opened to him as if I had been waiting for him from the moment my sex had risen from whatever place inside me it had been kept waiting. It was though nothing before, no kiss, no lovemaking, no whispers of love had ever happened. I was a virgin again.

And most of all, I was boarding a rocket ship after all. My heart was thumping so hard, I remembered Petra Loman’s warnings of a potential heart attack, but I welcomed it as if I knew that in death’s embrace I would always be with Larry. Nothing but these moments mattered, not my heritage, my name, my future, anything. It was truly as though I had discovered that fairy tales and fantasies could be real.

Afterward, we both fell into a sweet silence. Neither of us spoke about what we had done. It was as if we both believed we had dreamed the entire thing, that we had both fallen into a coma while we were there and had just regained consciousness. He walked me to my car and reviewed the directions back to my dorm for me. Then he leaned in and kissed me good night. We made no plans to meet again. We didn’t have to. We knew it was inevitable.

Lynette was back before I was and asleep. She heard me come in and stirred, but she didn’t wake up and start pummeling me with questions as the roommates of other girls in other rooms would surely do. I slept so deeply and so long into the morning, she was already gone when I awakened. I had breakfast in the dorm cafeteria and talked to some of the other girls, but I didn’t tell any of them about Larry or where I had been. It was easy not to do that with these girls. They were too consumed with telling me about what they had done. I smiled to myself thinking how ironic it was that I could keep my secret easier among these girls. They were too conceited to be interested in anyone else.