Tilting at Windmills Read online

  “On the hood, roof, or trunk?”

  “Huh?”

  “Where do you sit?”

  “Oh, usually the hood.”

  “Brian’s Bluff,” she said with a sweet smile.

  Her words drew out my own smile. “Yeah, we each need our own sanctuary. Although, Annie, after this weekend . . . with George dying and thinking of Gerta living her life without him . . . I’ve got to be honest with you: I’m tired of bluffing.”

  Her brown eyes widened, liquid pools of chocolate that filled me with a craving—not just for them but for all of her, and I leaned in to her quivering lips and planted my lips on them. The kiss was as tender as our first, though it lingered much longer. I pulled her in close, wrapped my arms around her, and drew her off the stool, all the while continuing our kiss. When our bodies finally drew apart, we found that our eyes stayed locked on each other’s.

  I touched her face, her soft cheek, her red lips, which pressed down gently on my fingers. Still, we didn’t look away from each other.

  “Brian . . .”

  “Sshh, don’t . . .”

  She pulled back slightly and went to her canvas, lifting the cloth covering to reveal a partially finished painting of Connors’ Corners. “I was afraid you might be leaving, and well, I thought you might want something to remember the time you spent here. Am I right, Brian? Are you planning to leave?”

  I held my breath a moment, scared to answer, my eyes dancing between the painting and Annie.

  “Give me a reason to stay, Annie.”

  My message was clear and she responded quickly, without any hesitation. Annie came to me, and I embraced her again, more fiercely this time, holding her close and tight while our mouths searched and found and hungered and our bodies pressed tightly together, as though sealing a bond we’d simultaneously agreed to.

  My legs wavered suddenly and I grew light-headed. Annie’s body flowed with mine to the floor, where we lost ourselves in the passionate heat of the moment, kissing, touching, feeling, our bodies expressing all of the pent-up emotions that were suddenly released. I rolled over, Annie on top of me, and my elbow hit the floor.

  “Wait,” she said, and though I didn’t want to let her go, she got up and came back with a sleeping bag in her hands and an explanation on her lips. “Sometimes Janey and I spend the night up here, especially hot summer nights.”

  “Tonight’s a hot summer night,” I said.

  Annie laughed and turned off the light inside the mill, leaving only our shadows that moved against the wall. She lured me into the sleeping bag and we kissed again. This time I moved my mouth down her neck to her throat, thrilling at her taste, while she slid her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck.

  I peeled off her artist’s smock, my fingers moving from button to button, undoing her denim blouse until I revealed her lacy-white bra and the soft, flat curve of her stomach. She slipped out of the shirt and guided my fingers to the snap of her bra, and in an instant, the lace fell away to reveal her voluptuous round breasts. I took them in my hands, the dark nipples first in my fingers, then in my mouth, suckling and nuzzling with urgency and passion. She drew my mouth back up to hers, and our tongues played a dance. Her fingers began their own journey of discovery, pulling my shirttails free and unbuttoning my shirt. She slipped it off my shoulders, and I felt her fingers slide over my chest, her hair graze my nipples.

  She lay me down on my back, opening the snap of my jeans with one easy motion. Then she slid her hand further down, touching, squeezing, driving me wild with uncontrollable passion. We could wait no more. I tore off the last of Annie’s clothes and then my own, and soon there was nothing left to expose but our inner hearts, and we did so soon enough, as I moved over and entered her with a gentle, easy, and ongoing push, never taking my lips from hers, never taking my eyes from her. As the sweetness of our love intensified and I moved faster, she moved with me. Our two bodies moved as one, both of us panting and groaning and thrusting, our mouths searching and suckling, our bodies arching and wracking together until we lost ourselves in a long, explosive moment of sheer, ecstatic bliss.

  The power of our passion overwhelmed me, and I released myself into her. She arched to meet me as if to take in every last drop of my love, every piece of my heart. And then we collapsed into each other’s arms, panting and flushed, unwilling to loosen our embrace.

  So we lay there, my arm around her shoulders, holding her close and tight, she so soft and so quiet. We gazed at each other and smiled and kissed each other with utter tenderness. It was a kiss that spoke volumes, and I felt as though someone had recharged me, had given me new life and new hope. My skin was electric and alive.

  We lay there, for how long I couldn’t say and I didn’t care; time, like the rest of the world, had faded away. We lay there communicating only by touch. Because in truth, we were each alone with our own thoughts.

  I spoke first.

  “I was afraid,” I whispered in the dark, “that I would never be able to love again, and now—”

  Annie interrupted me. “Brian, you show your love every day, the way you felt about George, the way you’re able to make Janey smile. You feel, maybe too well, and you love . . . well, that you do well, too. Just because you shut it down for a time doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart.”

  I kissed the top of her head, nuzzled the nape of her neck, and whispered into her ears a quiet thanks. Annie rose from the floor, and I was suddenly filled with the awful sense that I’d somehow belittled the power of her words and had pushed her away. But she came back shortly, and in her hands was a tube of acrylic paint. I gave her a curious look, but she just shushed me.

  “Maybe you need proof,” she said, and then she squeezed a small blob of paint onto her finger. Even in this translucent darkness, I could tell the color was red, a rich and vibrant hue.

  She took her finger and began to paint simple strokes on the center of my chest. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing. But I watched every move, every stroke of her hand, until she was done and pronounced me finished and complete and able to love.

  Annie had painted a heart on my chest.

  “I feel like the Tin Man,” I said.

  “And so you are,” Annie told me, “just like him. He thought he needed a heart, too, and look how wrong he was.”

  I kissed her passionately then, as though both my hearts were pumping new life into me. Our passion mounted and stirred. I felt her opening up to me again, and this time she guided me inside her. Our lovemaking this second miraculous time was more fierce, more hungry. Time slipped away from us until we were both dripping with sweat and smiling with satisfaction. It wasn’t until we’d fallen back against the floor panting that I noticed that my red heart had bled, leaving in the flesh between Annie’s breasts a shadowy hint of a heart all her own, or at the very least a vibrant part of mine.

  Our skin was lit by moonlight and warmed by the energy of our lovemaking. We moved to the open door and stood on the windmill’s catwalk in the shadow of the sails, wrapped together in the sleeping bag. Quietly, we watched the stars twinkle above us.

  I felt her tremble, and then noticed tears on her cheeks. I swallowed a lump at my throat and spoke.

  “I can’t compete with a ghost,” I said.

  Her hand ran smooth against my arm. “Oh, Brian . . . oh, you mean the tears.” A small laugh escaped her mouth. “You don’t know much about women, do you?”

  “I guess not. Why are you sad?”

  “I’m far from sad—just the opposite,” she said, smiling up at me. “I’m glad that you’re here with me, cradling me in your arms. I wouldn’t trade this moment for any other, past or future. This kind of security, comfort, is so rare.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” I said, tightening my hold on her.

  “For either of us,” she said. “Look, Brian, I don’t want this . . . us . . . to start off on the wrong foot. You’ve already told me about Maddie, her betrayal, and about your high scho
ol sweetheart who stole your dreams. . . . Now it’s my turn . . . to tell you about Dan.” She paused, turned to me, and kissed me reassuringly. “Dan was a wonderful man, a good father, but he was frustrated, too, by the limitations of his life. He wanted so much; in fact, he wanted everything. Lots of kids, his parent’s farm to be prosperous, his wife to succeed, and his job to be the defining aspect of his manhood. He lived for his job, working up at the state capitol, pushing paper but dreaming large. He thought of running for some kind of government post, and he talked to me at length about it. But you know what, Brian? He was lacking something—true drive. Sure, he had his dreams, but he didn’t have the passion to make those dreams come true.

  “For the first three years of our marriage, everything was great. We were happy. Then Janey came along, and our happiness intensified, or so I thought and so Dan thought. What Janey really did was fill a widening gap between me and Dan, because he didn’t have the life he wanted and I couldn’t give it to him. So one night, he went searching for some answers.”

  “Annie, if this is too painful, too much to bear in light of what’s transpired tonight, I can wait.”

  “I’ve started. I have to end it, too,” she said, resuming her story.

  Some of which I’d already heard from Chuck Ackroyd. Dan Sullivan sought escape in the arms of another woman, one Vicki Ackroyd, a fellow government employee who, in the mind of her small-town husband, was attracted to Dan’s ambitions, or at least his talk of them. “Two very separate things,” Annie reminded me.

  “The affair went along for probably two years before Vicki began pressuring Dan to declare his candidacy against an incumbent assemblyman. He wouldn’t do it, didn’t think he could defeat him. In hindsight, Vicki was probably very good for Dan, because she told it as she saw it. If Dan wanted to get ahead, he had to take some risks. If losing an election was one step backward, actually running was two steps forward. So really he would have gained something either way.”

  “You seem to know a lot about what Vicki Ackroyd thought,” I added.

  “She shared her thoughts with me, before she left Chuck and Linden Corners for good. For Washington, actually. Seems Dan was getting ready to join her, and he was ready to tell me he wanted to end our marriage. I’d been suspicious, but how could I confront him? I needed him, and so did Janey—and tearing apart this family wasn’t in my plans. See, what Dan failed to realize was that we all have certain dreams, but they don’t all come true. He couldn’t see beyond his own fear. Anyway, the night he was going to tell me the truth, Dan never reached home. His car crashed into a tree. He died instantly.”

  “Was it . . . ?”

  Quickly she shook her head. “An accident, that’s all. Or maybe the hand of fate, I suppose. See, Brian, we’re always running from something. Dan, from a life he felt betrayed by. Me? I haven’t wanted to admit the truth for some time, and aside from Cynthia and Gerta, I have not really discussed it. Janey knew her father as a good and decent man, and I prefer it remain that way. I’m not even sure what memories Janey has of her father. Nothing thrilled Janey more than spending time with Dan, accompanying him on his errands or watching him work, or listening while he read her bedtime stories. Yes, Dan had his faults, but deep down, he was a caring man. Maybe life cheated him, too.”

  She paused, and her eyelids flickered in the dim light of night. “So maybe I’m running from a truth, and if so, that’s my cross to bear. What about you, Brian?”

  I was touched by the ease in which she’d revealed herself and I found myself equally willing to talk.

  “Running away. I’ve heard that phrase a lot these past months, and lately I’ve taken it more seriously, trying to figure out if that’s really what I’ve done. And you know what I’ve concluded, right here and right now? Everyone’s been telling me that refusing to deal with Maddie’s betrayal, skipping out on all that I’d built for myself, that those were the actions of a man running from life. I think they’re wrong. I stuck to my principles, ran with my gut—and look where it got me. It brought me here to Linden Corners and to you. To me, that’s a sign of a man running toward something. Toward something very wonderful indeed.”

  We were done talking for the night, and we went back inside the windmill, where Annie lit some candles she kept for emergency purposes. “We lose power a lot during thunderstorm season,” she explained. And so we made love by candlelight until they burned down and the sun rose. Then we shared a humongous breakfast before Annie went to pick up Janey. I went home and showered, lingering long under the hot spray as I replayed the night’s events over and over, until I thought my heart would burst.

  Sleep came easily, and I dreamed well, of renewed life, of renewed love, and of a new kind of commitment. My subconscious knew the truth; it knew that no time soon was I leaving this little town. Linden Corners was in my blood, and so was a woman named Annie.

  TEN

  Can you really throw your life away and find not just success but meaning in your new one? I was living proof that yes, you could, and all it took was a woman with incalculable charm and a girl with an incurable smile, and a spinning windmill that fueled the passion we all felt.

  My friend John wasn’t so convinced, despite the conversation we’d been having for the past thirty minutes. If stubbornness were a drug, John would be an addict. And if he were a record, he’d be a broken one.

  “So when are you coming home?” he finally asked. “Your six months of seclusion are almost up, and, well, I’ve got to make plans myself. The apartment, for one. It’s still yours and I’m only a sublet—and an illegal one at that. How long can we fool the landlord? Hey, how long can you fool yourself that this Linden Corners isn’t going to betray you, too?”

  “If you knew this place, John, you wouldn’t even think such a ridiculous thing.”

  “I knew Maddie, too, and worse, so did you.”

  I wasn’t going to have this conversation again and told him so. Instead, I brought the talk back to the apartment, telling him to stay comfortable and that I’d keep him updated on my plans. In the meantime, I had things to do.

  “What kind of things? You don’t work during the day and I do, but I’m not the one wrapping up this call.”

  I laughed. “Talk to you later, John.”

  “Moo,” he replied.

  The city boy was convinced I’d gone farmer.

  I was at Annie’s house, and neither she nor Janey were home. I had promised to take care of some plumbing problems and I’d spent much of the morning looking at pipes and poring over instruction manuals. Frustrated, I’d thought, why not call a professional plumber, like I’d have done in the city, and well, that kind of thinking led me to pick up the phone, not to call a plumber but to hear a friendly voice from the city. And so I called John.

  Now, instead of going back to the plumbing, I sat down on the porch swing. It was a lustrous day, early summer warm, the kind of weather that makes you feel glad to be outdoors.

  Since that magical night a week ago when Annie and I had made love, the days had passed with shining beauty, and I had a sense that nothing could go wrong. Indeed, nothing had, aside from the bathroom sink. With Janey in school during the day and my working at night, Annie and I had those sun-dipped mornings to ourselves, and we spent every one of them together, enjoying our blossoming romance. But come nightfall, I went to the Corner and then back to my apartment to sleep. I had yet to spend an entire night at Annie’s, and for now, we both felt that that was best. Neither of us wanted to overwhelm Janey or lead her on with the promises of a future that had, so far, gone unspoken between us.

  We were tentative, too, in revealing too much of our passion to others, if only for our fragile hearts’ sake. We’d both been burned; we both still needed time to recover. We gave each other a lot of room and found ourselves able to share our painful experiences with each other. Our days were spent companionably, interrupted only by powerful bursts of passion, when we would steal ourselves away and make love for hours.
One day we even ran the fruit stand on the outskirts of town, so Cynthia could have a day off with Bradley. It was there, working side by side, stacking fruits and vegetables, helping customers, trading gossip (and tempering any about us), that I finally realized that I no longer thought about New York City. No, all I could see was Annie, her bright smile and the way the sun caught the auburn highlights of her hair, the joy she instilled deep within me. I could imagine no other life.

  Now into our second week of being together, our routine was achieving a comfort level. One day, Annie had dashed off to the antique shop early, leaving me to my chores. I was staying at the house until Janey returned from school, so I decided there was no better place to wait than under the welcoming shading of the farmhouse porch.

  I found myself dozing beneath the sun-dappled sky, the wind on my face, the breeze in my hair. The night before at the Corner had been a busy one, and I’d stayed up late cleaning the bar. I gave in to sleep and had a wonderful dream where I was not just a visitor in this village but a full-blown resident, a native. In my dream, Annie and I had met years ago and Janey was our daughter and this was our farmhouse, and out beyond the dewy hill was the windmill we’d built, a place that fed us our lives, happy day after happy day. And at nights, I’d help out George Connors, who was still alive and pouring drinks, and I’d work by his side, learning not just the bar trade but also the real lessons to be learned from life. And in my dream, the mailbox at the foot of the driveway said THE DUNCANS, and atop the tavern was one simple word that embodied its very spirit. It said, GEORGE’S.

  That’s when I woke to find inspiration staring at me in the face.

  “You okay?” Janey asked.

  I rubbed my eyes, once, a second time, as though doing so would blend the fantasy in my mind with the reality before me.