Swimming Upstream

By MichaelD38

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

DISCLAIMER AND AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This story is a fictionalized account of certain real events (I'm not saying which is which, so don't ask). Where real people and organizations are referenced, every effort has been made to portray them as fairly and accurately as possible, except where doing so would cause more problems than making things up (you'll see what I mean when you get there).

Reposting and archiving is permitted, except where a fee of any sort is required or earned for access (this prohibition includes banner-funded sites and fee-based age validation methods), provided this disclaimer and note remain attached to the story. All other rights, specifically rights of commercial use, are reserved. In plain English: I am the only person who may use this story to make money. If you are attempting to earn money in any way from distributing this story or making it available to others, you are in trouble. You are also in trouble if you modify this story in any way, no matter what else you do with it. Any questions regarding use of this work can be directed to the address below. Failure to contact the author prior to use is presumptive evidence of bad faith and may expose you to significant criminal and civil liability.

Faithful readers: This story features some of the characters from "Muddy Waters" but is not precisely termed a sequel because I wrote it several months ago. Some people who liked that story asked me to repost this one. If sappy romanticism makes you yak, you can skip this; otherwise, read on. This is a long, convoluted story with a lot of twists and turns, so pay attention, eh? Also: although each little subpart of this work has its own subtitle, don't let that confuse you--this is all the same story.

Intelligent comments and criticisms will receive appropriate responses. Flames and juvenile slobbering go straight to the recycling bin.

SWIMMING UPSTREAM

The End (almost).

"Tell me the story again. It's so cute."

"Oh, come on, you've heard this before."

"I know, but they haven't."

"Stephen, please, I'd love to hear this. Someone told me part of it, but I'd rather get it from you."

"Yeah, come on, don't be shy."

"Okay, okay."

I pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Do I start four years ago or all the way back?"

"All the way back," five voices said.

"Okay. All the way back we go. I was sixteen. I'd just transferred to a new high school. I was a geek, and I'd never even been on a date before. But things were about to change."

The First Bit.

My father comes from a long line of distinguished New England doctors. Our ancestors came over on the Mayflower in 1620, and someone in almost every generation since has been a physician of some sort. My great-grandfather was the dean of Harvard Medical School, and his name is on some fancy plaque somewhere in Cambridge. My grandfather was a cardiologist, and worked with the men who founded the Mayo Clinic. My uncle, among many other accomplishments, treated several Kennedys for unspecified (herein, at least) ailments in the 1980's.

With that sort of pedigree, my father's entry into medicine was almost a foregone conclusion. Foregone, that is, to everyone but him. In his sophomore year at Harvard, he had an epiphany, and finally mustered up the courage to announce to his parents that he had no intention of going to medical school.

My grandmother is not someone easily thwarted, however, and she was not about to accept my father's decision lying down. My father was summoned home from school and presented with a choice: redouble his efforts to get into med school, or make his own way in the world. He surprised nearly everyone by taking the latter option.

Banished from Massachusetts, he moved to Austin and completed his undergraduate degree--in business--at the University of Texas. He then took a job with Gulf Oil, married my mother, and soon had me.

Yet despite his rebellious exterior, my father has never quite shed his Boston Brahmin breeding, which inculcates a general disdain for everything west of I-93. (I find I must toss in an aside here: Two little old ladies in Beacon Hill are having tea. "My husband and I were in San Francisco last week." "Really? How did you go?" "Through Framingham.") So though I was born in Texas and spent the first eighteen years of my life there, I grew up subtly despising the person my Southern environment was turning me into. Needless to say, this gave me something of an inferiority complex.

I do have to give my father credit for one thing, however: He never, ever, pressured me into making a particular decision about what to do with my life. On only one occasion did he ever point me in an educational direction that I did not want to go. I've since come to recognize--isn't it always like this?--that he was right. I just wouldn't realize it for about fifteen years.

II.

"Why do you think Hemingway chose to begin the novel like this?"

The teacher glanced around, and I tried to sink into my chair. I had read "The Sun Also Rises" as I was supposed to that summer, but I could not have given a coherent answer about it if a gun were placed at my temple.

Claire Miller, a girl about two desks away from me, raised her hand.

"Was he trying to evoke a feeling of disgust? That the narrator doesn't like anything about his life?"

"That's interesting. That's a possibility. Anyone else?"

I sunk further down in my chair, flipping through my copy as if I knew what was going on. I missed my friends and I missed knowing what was going on around the school. It was only my first day at St. Mark's, but things were not going well. The junior class had all of a hundred students, and all of them knew I was the new kid.

I took notes on the discussion, trying to look as if I was paying attention even if I couldn't make it look like I understood the book. The bell rang about ten minutes later, and I trudged off to lunch.

St. Mark's was the most prestigious prep school in Houston, but I wasn't feeling very fortunate. I had thought from the beginning that the place looked like a castle--or a prison. The older portion of the school, dating from its founding in the 40's, was a broad stone quadrangle, the classrooms all opening to a grassy square of oak trees in the center. The newer buildings weren't quite as imposing, but the stone and red tile architecture persisted throughout the campus.

I was lucky to have gotten into this place, even though my grades at the public high school near our house had been respectable. I had gone from being amongst the upper crust--intellectually at least--to being lost among a bunch of equally, if not even more impressively bright rich kids.

Dad's idea. Had it been up to me, I would have stayed where I was.

I got my sack lunch from my locker and sat with the kids from my homeroom class. When they decided to notice me, all I got were questions about where I had gone to school and where I was from.

My father interrogated me at the dinner table that night.

"How was you first day of school?"

"Okay."

"Did you make any friends?"

"Not really."

"Is it different from Westchester?"

"I guess."

"John, give it time," my mother said. "It's going to take a while for him to get adjusted."

I picked at my dinner, not listening to my parents. When I was done, I retreated to my room and shut the door.

Part of the reason I was mad about having to change schools was my social life. I had begun high school as a very shy and withdrawn freshman, but I had begun to feel like things were improving toward the end of tenth grade. I hadn't yet gone on a date with anyone, but I felt like there were several girls I could have asked out once I was a junior, since I now knew them well enough, and they knew me.

Then, kaboom, Dad decided that my college prospects were being endangered by my exposure to the Houston public school system, and I was soon moved to a new school where I knew no one. The students lived all over town, and most of them lived a lot closer to school than I did. I didn't have a car or even a driver's license (only a learner's permit), and I couldn't see a way I could possibly go on a date otherwise. Most of the people in my class had cars, and at least three of them drove BMW's. I was supposed to have my dad drive me halfway across town to pick up a girl who probably had a car of her own? Besides which, it would take me most of the year to work up the guts to even think of asking anyone out.

When everyone else went to bed, I masturbated bitterly and went to sleep.

Two weeks later, I had begun making a few friends. I had gravitated to the "intellectual" clique, notwithstanding that my grades were not likely to equal theirs. I did, nevertheless, seem to have similar interests.

Football season had started, and with high school football being the national religion of Texas, it was inevitable that I would attend the games. My dad drove me over to the house of one of my new friends, whose name was Ross, and I rode to the game with him.

"You're the new guy, right?"

I turned around and saw a girl named Gretchen Keck, who was in my English class. She was sitting a row up and leaning forward onto her knees.

"Yeah."

"Where did you go before?"

"Westchester. It's out on the west side."

"Oh. Did you like it?"

"It was okay. A lot bigger than here."

"It's a public school?"

"Yeah."

"I guess it was a big change."

"Yeah. It is."

"How do you like St. Mark's?"

"It's okay. I like it."

I didn't know what else to say at that point, and looked back toward the field. I felt that familiar adolescent frustration welling up, wanting to keep talking to her, but not knowing how. She seemed cute enough, with short blonde hair and blue eyes. She stood about 5'6" (I was then pushing a rather skinny six feet) and seemed to have a nice figure. I didn't know anything else about her, though, other than that she seemed as lost in English class as I did.

English class! Of course!

"What do you think of Mr. Carson?"

She glanced back at me.

"He's pretty boring, isn't he?"

"I don't know. The material is pretty boring too."

"Did you understand 'The Sun Also Rises' at all?"

"Not really."

She laughed.

"Me neither. I'm scared to death of what I'll get on my paper."

"What did you write about?"

"Just about tragedy and nostalgia. I didn't know what else to say. What about you?"

"Something like that. He seems to like that sort of stuff."

She laughed again, and touched my shoulder.

"You should have had him last year. We read a lot of Faulkner. It was so dreary and depressing."

I gradually lost track of the game, and talked with Gretchen for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Then one of her friends appeared, dragging her off.

"Um, just a sec. I'll be back."

I didn't see her again the rest of the night. I thought about calling her after I got home but couldn't work up the nerve.

III.

Monday morning, I waited anxiously for her to show up for class. I arrived ten minutes early (I had a free period before), hoping she might show up. The clock gradually inched its way toward ten o'clock. No Gretchen.

When the bell rang, and the nine o'clock class left, I went in and took my place. I spent the next ten minutes glancing back and forth between the door and the clock, wondering when she was going to show up. 9:55. No Gretchen. 9:56. Nothing. 9:58. Mr. Carson arrived, but still no sign of her. 9:59. Maybe she was sick.

Just as the bell rang, she and Claire Miller burst into class and dove for their desks. She didn't look at me or even seem to notice me. I didn't want to seem too pathetic, so I didn't bother looking at her after that. Since she sat several desks behind me, ignoring her was easy--not that she was far from my mind.

Mr. Carson began the class by handing back our papers on "The Sun Also Rises." I got a C-, more or less confirming what I knew--that I hadn't understood it at all. He spent about ten minutes going over our work, then started on the lesson for that day. We had begun reading "The Great Gatsby," and I thought I would probably do better next time.

Five minutes later, I felt something poking my side. I looked back to see Ben, the guy behind me, handing me a folded-up note. On the front was "Stephen," in loopy, girlish script. Heart leaping, I opened it up:

"Sorry about ditching you Friday night," it said. "Claire wanted to talk about something stupid. I looked for you after the game but I guess you'd left. How did you do on your paper? Mr. Carson really ripped me. Gretchen."

I wrote back, "Me too. A C-."

The reply: "Bummer. Let's talk after class. Mr. Carson gets really pissed about note-passing."

I sat through the rest of class only vaguely aware of what was going on. Forty minutes seemed like forty hours. Finally, the bell rang and they let us loose for lunch.

I wanted to rush immediately over to her, but knew I would look stupid doing it. So I wandered toward the door, trying to look as if I was being cool despite my overwhelming anxiety.

Gretchen finally bounced up.

"Hi."

"I guess we both bombed. I should have spent more time reading and less time at the Galleria this summer."

"I tried to read it, but it just went over my head."

"Me too."

I walked with her toward the cafeteria, which was under the new wing of the school.

"Where do you usually sit?" she asked.

"Um, over there, by the doors."

"Oh. I'm going to go sit with Claire. I'll see you later."

I let her go, although my libido was howling at me not to. I had run out of things to say to her anyway.

Friday, during lunch, she reappeared next to me.

"Hi."

"Hey."

"Are you going to the game tonight?"

"I don't know. I need a ride."

"I could pick you up."

"You've got a car?"

"Yeah. It's no problem."

"Okay. Sure."

"Great. Where do you live?"

I pulled a sheet of paper out of my notebook and drew her a map.

"How about if I get you around six-thirty?"

"Okay."

"Great. See you then."

I had difficulty keeping a grip on myself the rest of the day. I had, up to this point in my life, never actually gone on a date. I wasn't sure if this qualified, since she had asked me and it was just a football game, but I would at least get to see her.

Time, after she left me at lunch, immediately turned into cold molasses. Even after I got home, I was reduced to lying on my bed and staring at the clock as the minutes slowly ticked past. I finally began reading something, which made the time move a little faster. I spent the half-hour from six to six-thirty staring out my window waiting for her to show up.

She finally pulled up in a little Volkswagen Rabbit convertible (top down), wearing just jeans and a sweatshirt. I leapt for the front door, watching her walk up through the peephole. When she rang the doorbell, I counted to three--not wanting to seem too eager--then opened the door.

"Hi. Come on in."

She came into the foyer, brushing her hair back out of her face.

"You live a long way out here."

"I know. It takes about half an hour to get to school in the morning."

My father appeared from the den.

"Hi. I'm John Macintosh. Nice to meet you."

She shook his hand.

"Um, this is Gretchen," I said.

"Nice to meet you, too." She turned to me. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"Have fun," my father said.

I followed her out to the car.

"What does your dad do?" she asked me on the way to the game.

"He works for Gulf. He's vice president of something."

"Oh."

"He was supposed to be a doctor. My grandfather is a surgeon, and like half the people in his family were doctors."

"Wow. My dad is a lawyer. Do they lean on you about going to med school?"

"My dad doesn't. But I haven't seen any of my relatives on his side of the family in a long time. They kind of disowned him."

"How sad. That's really stupid."

"Yeah. His family is all in Boston, but I've only been back there a couple of times."

"I've never been there."

"It's okay."

We were quiet for a few minutes.

"Do you still keep in touch with your friends from your old school?"

"Sort of. Just a few. But I didn't know all that many people."

"What sort of stuff did you do?"

"Not much."

"Oh. You didn't go out much?"

"Not really."

I wasn't sure what she was getting at until a minute later.

"I was sort of going out with Richie Simmons last year, but we broke up. You know him?"

"Yeah." He was one of the class clowns, but I hadn't had much contact with him.

"He just got, I don't know, kind of annoying after a while. You know how he is in class, always making stupid jokes?"

"Yeah."

"He was like that when we went out, and it got old after a while."

"Oh."

"I mean, a few jokes are one thing, but he never liked to just talk."

"Yeah."

Okay, I thought. What can we "just talk" about?

"Do you know what you want to do?" I finally asked. "Like in college?"

"Not a clue. I think I want to go to school back East, but I

don't know what I want to study. What about you?"

"I don't know exactly. I've thought about going into R.O.T.C., though. Maybe becoming a Navy fighter pilot."

"Wow. Really?"

"Yeah. That would be neat, if I could do it. I think it's really hard to get in, though."

"I'll bet. But I bet you could do it, if you tried hard enough."

St. Mark's lost, but I hardly paid attention to the game. As the evening went on, I convinced myself we were in fact on some kind of a date, although we had done nothing but go to a football game.

Gretchen drove me home afterward. I plotted and argued with myself about whether to try to kiss her when we got back, but couldn't make up my mind about what to do.

We finally pulled up to my house.

"Okay. See you on Monday."

"Thanks for the ride."

"No problem."

I held her eyes for a moment, feeling my stomach leaping around. For the tiniest fraction of a second, I thought I would actually lean forward and do it--but then the moment passed, and I was stepping out of the car.

"Bye."

"Good night."

Then she was gone.

IV.

Although we had become decent friends at school, I still wasn't sure quite what I had going on with Gretchen. Some days I walked her to and from class; other days I hardly saw her all day (not that she wasn't foremost in my mind). I spent many an hour fantasizing about things to do with her, but never quite reaching the point of actually putting any of my ideas into action.

I went to the game with her again that next weekend, though nothing significant happened that night either. I wanted, desperately, not to let this opportunity escape, but every time I saw her walking away, I felt her slipping through my fingers. I wondered endlessly about what she thought about me, never quite sure what to think.

Wednesday night, the phone rang while I was studying.

"Stephen!" my mother yelled a moment later. "It's for you."

I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hi. It's me. What are you doing?"

"Studying. I was trying to finish 'The Great Gatsby.'"

"Oh. I was working on that earlier, but I got bored."

"Do you like it?"

"It's okay. I guess it's sort of interesting. What do you think?"

"I like it. I guess I sort of identify with Gatsby. I don't know why."

"Yeah. Um, anyway, you know how we were talking about 'Back to the Future' today?"

"Yeah."

"I was thinking we should go. Like this weekend."

I took a breath.

"That would be fun."

"Great. I'll check the times, and we can work out what to do like tomorrow or Friday."

Once again, I spent at least half an hour staring out my window before she showed up. This time she was dressed in white shorts and a sleeveless yellow blouse.

"Hi. You look nice."

"Thanks. So do you."

My parents appeared and saw us off. The theater was back toward the center of the city, near Rice University, which was where she lived. West University, as that area is called, was a much more upscale neighborhood than the tract development I lived in, and the theater sat amongst a cluster of cafes, art galleries, and boutiques.

We ate dinner at one of the cafes as we waited for the movie to start.

"Claire saw this. She said it was really good."

"That's what I heard."

"Michael J. Fox is really cute. Do you watch 'Family Ties'?"

"Not really."

"Oh. Well, I like it."

I picked at my sandwich.

"Um, don't take this the wrong way," she said a moment later, "but I'm not like bugging you, or anything, am I? Because I keep asking you out?"

Confusion spun me around for a moment.

"No. What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, it's just that I've sort of done all the calling and asking here. I mean, if you just want to hang out, that's okay. We don't have to be boyfriend-girlfriend or anything just to go see a movie."

"Uh, yeah."

She looked at me from under her blonde eyebrows, head halfway down.

"But I do like you. So, if like you ever wanted to ask me out, that would be cool."

"Okay."

She smiled at me, and for a second my head spun again.

The movie started a little while later, and we sat together in the dark, watching Michael J. Fox deal with the complications of time travel. I started out the movie with my hand on my thigh, wondering if I should try to hold hands with her. I inched my hand down slowly, but couldn't work up the nerve to go any further. Then I began getting more into the movie, and forgot what I was doing.

About halfway through, I felt a gentle touch on my pinkie. I glanced down to see Gretchen's hand next to mine. For a second or two, our fingers rubbed together, then, as the butterflies in my stomach roared into action, our hands came together.

I was sixteen, it was 1985, and this was the first time I had held a girl's hand before. Almost immediately, my hand began to sweat, but I didn't want to let her go. I was too nervous to look at her. I ventured a gentle squeeze, and she squeezed me back. Oh, boy.

The rest of the movie went clear over my head, because my mind was entirely on Gretchen. When it finally ended, we sat through the entire credits, not getting up and withdrawing out hands until the lights came on. She gave me a quick smile, and we walked out.

On the drive home, we were both quiet. I was thinking I had to kiss her tonight, even if the prospect terrified me. When we pulled up in front of my house, she shut off the engine.

"I had a really good time tonight."

"Me too."

"I'll see you at school, I guess."

"Okay."

I had my opportunity, and I forced myself to take it. I leaned over, and she leaned toward me. It was very quick, a short peck on the lips, nothing to set off any fireworks. It was also the first time I had ever kissed a girl.

As I lay in bed that night, one thought kept ringing through my head: I actually have a girlfriend.

The Next Bit.

My father's attitudes about the South were rather ironic. Southern society, if you've ever experienced it, is as stuffy and hidebound as anything you can find in Boston. Houston society, in particular, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the cowboy-boots-and- Lone-Star-Beer-image portrayed in movies like "Urban Cowboy."

Gretchen's father was a high-powered corporate lawyer, and they lived in a large colonial-style house a few blocks from Rice Stadium. (They played a Super Bowl there once, not that it's at all relevant to this story.) I had shed the shackles of my learner's permit a few weeks before, and convinced my father to let me borrow his car for the night. When I stepped out of his Buick, I checked the fit of my rented tux in the driver's side window one last time, before proceeding up the long brick walk to the door. November, even in south Texas, can get cold, and my breath fogged up the air.

Gretchen's father answered and let me in.

"Stephen, good to see you again."

"Thanks."

"Gretchen will be down in a few minutes. She's up there with her mother getting ready. Why don't you have a seat?"

He ushered me into their living room.

"Gretchen mentioned to me that you want to become a fighter pilot. Thinking about the Academy?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Getting an appointment is so tough. I might just go R.O.T.C."

"Well, that certainly sounds exciting. How are your parents?"

"Fine."

"You're from Boston, right?"

"My family is. I was born here."

"I can tell. You have a sort of Eastern twang to your voice."

"I guess so."

Gretchen's mother appeared on the stairs.

"We're ready, boys."

I stood up with Mr. Keck and looked toward the stairwell. Gretchen descended in a long light blue taffeta dress, puffed at the shoulders. Her hair was a little longer now than when I had first met her, down almost to her shoulders, but tonight she had it pinned up around her head in some elaborate arrangement.

"Hi. You look great."

"Thanks."

I pinned the corsage to her dress, and her mother took a few pictures around the living room before letting us go.

"Do you know how to get over to Claire's?"

"No."

"Okay. Just follow this street until we get up to Memorial Drive. She lives a couple of blocks from school."

I followed her directions into River Oaks, the oldest, most expensive neighborhood in Houston. We were on our way to the Winter Formal, but had been invited to eat dinner at Claire's, along with several other couples. Claire's father was a multimillionaire developer, and they lived in some palatial house near the River Oaks Country Club.

Gretchen held my hand as I drove. She wore white linen gloves, so our hands didn't get as sweaty as they often did.

"Dad is really interested in your Navy thing. He's impressed that you want to go into the service. You know he was in the Marines?"

"You mentioned that."

"He was an infantry officer in Vietnam for a couple of years."

"Does he, you know, get weird about it?"

"Not really. He doesn't talk much about it, but it's not like a 'Rambo' thing with him either."

I drove down between a long row of towering live oak trees, finally reaching Claire's house. The driveway curved a long way up across their front yard, and I parked behind a Mercedes sedan. I saw a yellow Ferrari around back, which I presumed to belong to Claire's father.

When I rang the door, it was answered by a black butler in an evening jacket. He nodded to us, and I handed him our calling cards. Gretchen had previously warned me about this little ritual.

"This way, sir."

Gretchen put her arm through mine, and the butler led us across the foyer, a broad marble room braced by a pair of sweeping spiral staircases. I head voices coming down the hallway toward us.

We entered a wood-paneled sitting room, where I saw Claire and her boyfriend David standing with four other students in our class. The butler stopped and announced us.

"Mr. Stephen Macintosh and Miss Gretchen Keck."

Claire came over and hugged Gretchen.

"Hi!"

"This is a pretty nice house," I said.

Claire waved the remark off.

"It's ridiculous. Come on in. What can we get you to drink?"

"Just a Tab," Gretchen said.

"A 7up."

Another servant, a black woman in a black and white maid outfit, had appeared at our side.

"Betsy, can you get Gretchen a Tab and Stephen a 7up?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She disappeared through a door in the far wall.

As Gretchen and Claire gossiped, I looked around the room. A fire burned in a huge fireplace to my right, the mantle set with a pair of small French vases. Above hung a big oil portrait of a man and a woman, the woman seated in a wingback chair, with the man standing behind her. The woman resembled Claire, so I figured the portrait was of her parents. Similar paintings hung on the other walls, and Louis XV furniture (at least in style, though some looked authentic) was set about the room.

David came up and shook my hand.

"Looking good, Stephen."

"You, too."

"How's life treating you lately?"

"Not bad."

"You paying attention to this thing in Nicaragua?"

"Sort of."

"I'm glad we're doing something. I mean, did you know we're closer to Managua than to Washington right now?"

"Yeah."

"If El Salvador falls, Mexico might be next. Then we've got Communists in our back yard, and what do we do then?"

I let him blather on about Central America for a few more minutes, then reunited with Gretchen.

"You look a little lost," she said.

"I guess."

"This is a lot to take at once. Claire's parents are really into the society thing. You should have seen her debutante ball last year."

"Fancy?"

"It was like a wedding."

The butler finally reappeared, ringing a tiny bell to signal the start of dinner. We filed into the dining room. I pulled out Gretchen's chair, and another servant appeared to push in mine.

My place, like all the others, was set out with more pieces of china and silverware than I had seen since the last time I had visited my father's family in Boston. Soon after we sat down, the servants began flowing into the room, serving an appetizer of chilled salmon terrine with capers and lemon zest.

As the evening wore on, I kept glancing at Gretchen, wanting nothing other than to be alone with her. This social exercise meant nothing to me; I would have been happy with a dinner at Burger King.

I had, of late, begun fantasizing about being stranded on a desert island with her. My life would then be complete, I thought. Just looking at her made me ache. I looked at the little downy blonde hairs at the base of her neck, wanting to run my fingers through them, wanting to pull the pins out of her hair, pull her close, and sniff the fresh scent of her blonde tresses.

She saw me staring and smiled.

"What are you looking at?"

"Um, nothing."

She picked at her hair.

"Is something loose?"

"No, it's fine."

"Oh."

The Winter Formal was being held at fancy hotel downtown. We had a live band, and an open--though non-alcoholic--bar. I danced with Gretchen a few times, then with a couple of her friends, before sitting back down. After resting for a few minutes, we wandered out to the terrace off the ballroom, standing together in the dark and looking out at the lights of downtown. I held her hand, and she leaned against me.

"Do you ever think about the future?" she asked a few minutes later.

"What do you mean?"

"About college, working, that sort of stuff."

"Sometimes. I think a lot about being a pilot."

"I look out there, and I just see a black hole. I don't know what I want out of my life, what I want to do. I just don't have a clue."

"It's not like you have to make up your mind now."

"I know."

She folded her arms and leaned against my chest. I put an arm around her waist, leaning down to nuzzle her hair. I had thought about other things in my future, though I wasn't going to say so. Specifically, I had been thinking lately if Gretchen and I would ever have sex. I knew that was a long way off, if it would ever happen, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I wanted nothing else. We had done our share of making out, but I had yet to get beyond feeling her pert little breasts over her blouse.

"You want to go dance some more?" I asked.

"Sure."

We went back inside, and the band started a cover of a slow Madonna song. We moved out to the dance floor, and I took her into my arms, holding her close as I listened to the haunting lyrics.

" . . . touch me once and you'll know it's true . . . I'm crazy for you . . . I'm crazy for you . . ."

II.

"Let's not go home just yet."

"Where do you want to go?"

"Just park up there. You can pull around the corner and park by the stadium."

Knowing what she meant, I parked my dad's car near the edge of the university. When I shut off the engine, Gretchen turned, leaning against the door and taking my hand.

"Did you have fun tonight?"

"Yeah." I struggled to force out the next part, battling my shyness but feeling as if I had to tell her. "But I don't need to get into all this fancy stuff. Just being with you is enough. You're all I ever want."

She smiled.

"Thanks."

She squeezed my hand.

"I had a few boyfriends before you. But nobody this serious. Nobody I cared about like I care about you."

I swallowed hard.

"I love you."

She blinked, eyes watering, and leaned forward to kiss me a few times.

"I love you, too."

I put my arms around her and kissed her again, awkwardly trying to find her tongue. She kissed me back, leaning against me, and I just held her for a few minutes. She moved her hand up and down my arm, and before long, I was getting tense enough to burst.

I moved my hand to her waist, feeling the stiff taffeta of her dress. She wore something underneath it, a bustier or some kind of strapless bra, but I was too inexperienced then to really know what it was. When I moved my hand upward, finding her breast, she moved her arm away and let me in. Between the dress and whatever she had under it, I could feel very little of her, not much more than something squishy under all the fabric.

She let me fondle her for a few minutes. I wanted to go further, but getting past the dress was going to be difficult. I tried to feel above her bodice, slipping my fingers just under her neckline, but I could see immediately it wasn't going to work.

She leaned forward away from the seat, and I thought I had gone too far.

"Wait a sec."

She reached behind her, tugging at her zipper, and her dress loosed up in front. Then she leaned back and kissed me again.

With the dress coming loose, I could fit my fingers down the front a bit further, but I found the stiff silk of whatever bra contraption she had on under it, and that was as far as I could get.

She giggled.

"God. This isn't exactly the best outfit for this."

She reached around again, unsnapping her bra.

"Try again."

Thrilled with anticipation, I recoupled with her, finally able to get my hand down the top of her dress. I slipped under the bra, feeling for the first time the firm flesh of a woman's breast. Then my fingers found her nipple, hot and erect. I moved my fingers back and forth, not sure what else to do. Her dress fell further down her arms as I worked, finally falling slightly away from her chest. I could reach both breasts now, feeling the little cones of flesh filling up my palms. She was breathing harder now as I worked, and I thought then that the firm perkiness of her nipples was the most wonderful thing I had ever experienced.

Eventually, of course, she stopped me, and rearranged her clothes. She kissed me a few more times, then leaned against me as I held her.

"You really love me?"

"More than anything."

She took a deep breath.

"Promise me we'll never break up."

"I promise."

Ah, the innocence of youth. How could we ever anticipate the havoc that little exchange would wreak?

The Spring Fling.

In March, my grandparents surprised everyone by requesting that I visit them in Boston over Spring Break. Gretchen and I had been planning to spend every microsecond of that week together, and my reaction to this plan--and hers--was not particularly pleasant.

"Do you have to go?"

"My dad said yes. I don't know why they want to see me. I haven't even talked to them in like three years."

"But we had so much stuff planned."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know. I'll call you if they let me."

"You have to call me every day."

"I'll try."

That led to a half-hour or so of awkward groping at each other.

"When will you be back?"

"Saturday night."

"What time?"

"Not that late."

"Okay. We could still do something then. I'll miss you."

"You too."

I exited the gate at Logan Airport to find my Uncle Richard waiting for me. (He was the one, whom I mentioned earlier, who was treating several Kennedys.) He was my father's older brother, but I had had very little contact with him, for reasons I've explained.

"Good to see you again, Stephen."

"You too."

After we got my bags, he led me to his car, a new 911 Turbo with hospital parking stickers all over the windshield.

We drove up the Charles River, finally turning into the Back Bay and parking in front of my grandparents' brownstone townhouse. It was still winter up here, and gray tones permeated everything I saw. Filthy chunks of melting snow still sat the in gutters, and the skeletons of dormant trees lined the streets around us.

I followed Richard nervously up the front steps, and he let us in. The place reminded me of a museum, paintings and sculptures meticulously arranged around the foyer. My grandmother was a docent at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and knew what she was collecting--the artwork in this place alone was probably worth more than our entire house back in Houston.

"Mother? We're here."

The reply came from the living room.

"I'm in here, dear."

I found my grandmother sitting on a doily-draped velvet sofa. She was already in her seventies, but her silver hair was immaculately coifed and her trim suit had likely been tailored especially for her.

I went over and kissed her dutifully on the cheek, then Richard and I sat down.

"Stephen, it's good to see you. It's been quite some time, hasn't it?"

"I think about five years."

"You've grown quite a bit. How are your parents?"

"Fine."

My grandmother's maid appeared with a silver tea service. She set it on the table in the center of the room, poured three cups of tea for us, and withdrew.

"Is your mother still working?"

"Yes. She's a social worker."

"I suppose with what little your father makes, she has to, doesn't she?"

"I don't know."

"How is school? Your father finally put you into a decent private school, didn't he? At least as decent as they have down there, I suppose."

"Yes. I like it."

She took a sip of tea.

"How are your marks? What have you been thinking about college?"

"They're okay, I guess. I don't know what I want to do though. I've been thinking about R.O.T.C."

She glanced at Richard.

"The service? What do you plan to do with that?"

"I'd like to be a pilot. In the Navy."

"I don't know what you could do with that, frankly. You wouldn't make a career of it?"

"I don't know."

"Your father hasn't talked to you about medical school?"

I looked down at the floor.

"Not really."

"Well, your grandfather and I have talked about it quite a bit recently. Just because your father broke the legacy doesn't mean you have to repeat his mistakes. We know quite a few people here, and I'm quite sure we could get you into Harvard next year. After that, you should have your pick of the good schools."

"I don't know if I want to be a doctor."

She sniffed.

"We'll talk about it more later."

My grandfather had an exclusive practice near Harvard and still saw a few patients during the week. He returned home for dinner, joining my grandmother, Richard, and me.

"How are you doing, son?"

"Fine."

"Settling in all right? Mother isn't badgering you too much about medical school, is she?"

I noticed her glaring discreetly at him.

"We talked about it."

"Well, don't pay her too much mind. I know you'll make the right decision when the time comes. You've got the genes and the connections to make a good doctor when you decide to do it."

I nodded.

The conversation went on for a while longer, a largely superficial discussion of Richard's practice and the important people he was treating. Then my grandmother turned back to me.

"Are you dating anyone right now, Stephen?"

"Um, I have a girlfriend."

"What's her name?"

"Gretchen."

"Her family name."

"Keck."

"Hmm. I don't know that name. What do they do?"

"Her father is a lawyer."

"What about the rest of them?"

"I'm not sure."

I knew what she was getting at, but wasn't going to lie about Gretchen.

"Well, I have a friend, Celia Cabot, who has a granddaughter your age. I thought you might want to meet her. She's lovely young lady. I think you would like her."

"Uh."

"I'm sure your friend won't mind. Just so you aren't all alone this week."

I called Gretchen after dinner.

"I miss you so much," she sighed.

"I miss you, too. I can tell already this week is going to be bad."

"What do you mean?"

"They're already leaning on me about becoming a doctor."

"Wow. What did you tell them?"

"About the Navy. It just went in one ear and out the other. It's just like my father always said. They don't care a bit what I think."

"God. I'm sorry. I wish I was there."

"So do I."

"What are you going to do this week?"

"I don't know. They seem to have some stuff planned."

I didn't think it was worth mentioning my grandmother's idea about the blind date.

II.

I spent the next day with my grandfather as he showed me around Harvard Medical School and introduced me to all his friends and colleagues. He showed me his father's portrait in the main building, hanging with the paintings of the other deans. While he walked me around, I spent some time wondering if being a doctor might not be so bad after all. But I kept coming back to what my father had gone through. It wouldn't be my choice. I would just be taking my place amongst all the other Macintosh physicians, worrying about my legacy and whether I could live up to it.

When we returned home, around two, I found my grandmother sitting with another woman her age and a young girl of about sixteen. She had porcelain, chiseled features, blue eyes, and long dark brown hair.

My grandmother held out her hand, taking mine.

"Stephen this is my friend Celia Cabot, and her granddaughter Felicia. I mentioned them last night."

"Hello. Nice to meet you."

Felicia met my eyes for a split-second, then looked back down at her hands. She seemed as embarrassed by this scene as I was.

"Stephen and Richard were just over at Harvard, seeing the medical school," my grandmother said. "Richard was showing him around."

"I'm guessing you're going to be another Macintosh doctor, aren't you Stephen?"

"I don't know. I'm thinking about it."

"Well, I'm sure you will. Felicia is thinking about Harvard, too."

"Is that right?" my grandmother asked.

Felicia nodded.

"What are you thinking of studying?"

"Art History, maybe, or French."

The two women bantered back and forth for a few minutes before my grandmother stood up.

"Why don't we leave these two alone for a moment?"

Celia stood up with her, and they walked out of the room.

I sighed, glancing at Felicia.

"Um."

"Yeah. Sorry about this. My grandmother has been trying to fix me up lately."

"I guess so."

"She said you're from Texas."

"Houston. My dad didn't really get along with his folks. He quit Harvard and moved to Texas halfway through."

Her eyes widened.

"No kidding? So you're like the renegade branch of the family or something?"

"I guess so. This is the first time I've been here in five years."

"I hate the weather up here. It must be nice down there."

"It's okay."

"I get the idea you're not wild about becoming a doctor."

"No. They tried to force my dad into it, too, but he wouldn't do it. That's the reason for this split."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to go into the Navy, maybe as a pilot."

"Wow. I don't know anybody who's doing anything like that."

As I began to relax, I was able to talk to Felicia more casually. After I told a little more about Houston, she told me about the girl's school she went to, a stuffy, insufferably cliquish institution near the city center.

"I can't wait to get out. It just sucks like you can't believe."

"I guess so."

"So, um, do you want to like do something this week?"

"Well, I guess we could, but just so you know, I sort of have a girlfriend."

"Oh. Well, I didn't mean like that exactly. Just so you don't die of boredom while you're here."

"Okay. I guess we could do that."

"We could go hang out in Harvard Square tomorrow, just shop or something."

They left about an hour later, and my grandmother corralled me in the living room.

"What did you think of Felicia?"

"She's nice."

"She's quite a young woman. You know all about the Cabots, of course. I don't know that you could do much better than someone like her. You're not going to advance anywhere in the world by marrying some cowgirl like your father did."

"Gretchen isn't a cowgirl."

"You know what I mean. Don't be impolite."

III.

I met Felicia at Harvard Square the next day. In contrast to the demure dress she had worn the day before, she appeared wearing tight jeans and a big turtleneck sweater. She was taller and bustier than Gretchen, and for a moment I had a flash of guilt at admiring her.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Want to get some lunch?"

"Sure."

"There's a neat coffeeshop around the corner. They've got good sandwiches and stuff."

"Okay."

She led me down the street, and we got a table inside, by the front window.

"You're thinking of majoring in Art History, you said?"

She snorted.

"That's just the party line for my grandmother. They're going to have to chain me down to get me to go to Harvard. I want to go out west, to Stanford or Berkeley. I'm thinking of studying Computer Science or something like that."

"I guess you're in the same boat that I am."

"Definitely. Except you live in Texas, so you probably don't have to deal with it as much."

"Yeah."

"What's your girlfriend's name?"

"Gretchen."

"Got a picture?"

I pulled out my wallet and showed the two shots of Gretchen I carried around.

"She's cute."

"Thanks."

"I've got a couple of boyfriends. Sort of. My social life is pretty restrained. I can see guys, but I have to be really discreet about it, you know, because I tend to like guys my parents hate."

"Like?"

"One of them is a sophomore at B.U. He's in a band. That's how I met him. My dad can't stand him."

"I bet."

"Do your folks like Gretchen?"

"Yeah. But I guess she's pretty normal."

"You're lucky. But I guess your dad isn't like your grandparents."

"He is and he isn't. He doesn't push me like they've been doing the last two days, but the Boston breeding comes through in other ways."

"You know what's weird? 'Cause you grew up completely in Texas, right?"

"Yeah."

"You do sound like you're from Boston. I can't hear any Texas in your voice at all."

"Not everyone in Texas has an accent."

"Still. You know what I mean."

"Yeah."

We spent another few hours together, and as much as I missed Gretchen, I could feel some kind of a connection developing with Felicia. She wasn't at all like the upper-class twit I had expected when my grandmother first mentioned her. She listened to punk rock and talked about computers, and, if anything, found my Southern upbringing intriguing.

She offered to drive me home, so I walked back to where she was parked. She finally stopped next to a metallic gray 944.

"I know, don't say it. I'm a spoiled little princess."

"I wasn't going to say it."

"But you were thinking it just now."

"Okay. I was."

She unlocked the passenger side and let me in.

"Dad bought it for me for my sixteenth birthday. I would have been happy with a Rabbit, frankly."

"It's nice."

"It is. But you understand."

"Yeah."

"No one else seems to. My boyfriend is kind of a jerk about it. My friends at school don't want to listen to complaints about having a Porsche. And of course, what am I supposed to say to my father? 'No, thanks, take it back'?"

"Yeah."

She accelerated around a corner, slamming the car into second gear.

"Sometimes I feel like I would have been better off growing up poor, you know? Or at least like you, somewhere where I don't have all these stupid expectations to live up to."

"It's hard."

"Don't let them lean on you. Be a fighter pilot if you want. You have to listen to your heart, you know? You have to be yourself no matter what anyone else tries to make you."

"Are you?"

She grimaced out at the street, slamming on the brakes as a car cut in front of us. She dropped the window and leaned out.

"Asshole!"

The guy drove off, and she gave him the finger. Then she put the car back in gear and screeched off.

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"I'm going to do what I said, no matter what happens. I'm not going to stay here and be a good little Boston debutante."

"Good."

She got us out along the river and drove back up toward the Back Bay.

"I don't mean to vent at you like this. But nobody else I know seems to understand what I'm talking about."

"Yeah."

"Look. I know you've got a girlfriend. I've got a boyfriend. But I'd like to hang out some more this week. There's a party I was going to tomorrow night, out in Winchester. One of my friends from school. If you want to come with me, that would be cool."

"Okay. Sure."

"Great. How about I pick you up at nine? Don't get dressed up or anything."

"Okay."

She dropped me off at my grandparents in time for dinner, where I had to endure my grandmother's unctuous questioning about what we had done. I tried to make up something that sounded acceptable.

I called Gretchen again that night. I didn't mention Felicia.

IV.

Felicia's friend lived off I-93, near the Winchester County Club. The house sat on a two-acre lot near the top of a hill, a rambling Eighteenth-century farmhouse now become a gentrified yuppie hideaway.

She parked on the street, and I saw half a dozen kids milling around in front of the house.

"My friend's name is Marcy. Her parents are in Europe this week."

She introduced me to a few people, and we ended up in the kitchen. More than a few of them reacted to my Texas background as I had expected--a lot of snide questions about horses and cowboys. The alcohol was out, and Felicia quickly got rather tipsy. Realizing this, I held off in case I had to drive home. Then she disappeared, leaving me in the living room talking to a couple of freshmen from Wesleyan about whether Jesse Jackson was going to run for president again in 1988. This led to a rather strained conversation about how black people were treated in Texas (although, typical of Boston liberals, their racial sensitivity hadn't extended to inviting any non-whites to this party).

Toward midnight, I went to look for Felicia. I found her on the back patio with her friend Marcy, who was a short girl with long blonde hair.

"There you are."

She put her arm around my waist, and I could smell the wine on her breath.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm a little drunk. You might have to drive home."

"I can tell."

"I've been telling Marcy all about you, how you're bucking the whole Macintosh clan rather than become a doctor."

"Why don't you want to be a doctor?" Marcy asked.

"I don't know that I don't. I just don't want to be pushed into it."

"He's going to be a fighter pilot."

"Maybe."

"That's cool. I bet that would be a lot more fun than being a doctor."

"Yeah."

"You don't sound like you're from Texas."

"I know. Not everyone has an accent."

"Well, that's cool. That you aren't letting your family tell you what to do."

"It's not my whole family. Just my grandparents."

"My dad is a doctor. I think he knows your uncle."

"Richard? He's a psychiatrist."

"That's him."

"I hardly know him, frankly."

"Stephen is the black sheep of the family," Felicia said.

She squeezed me with the arm she had on my waist, and smiled.

Near two o'clock, we set out for home. I wasn't used to driving a stick-shift, and Felicia was soon laughing herself silly at my repeated stalls and lurches. But eventually we got back to Boston, and I found her house.

"You want to come inside?"

"I better not. It's pretty late."

"Oh, hell, it's only two-fifteen. My folks will be asleep anyway. Just for a second."

"Okay."

I parked her car in the garage under her house, and we slipped up the stairs. The house was completely dark, so I could see only a few details, and Felicia held my hand as she pulled me up to the third floor. Her place looked like my grandmother's house, just updated for the 80's.

Felicia led me into her room, shutting the door behind her. She switched on a light by her bed, but otherwise left the room dark. Her furniture was all matching white oak, with plush Laura Ashley detailing. Designer clothes bulged out of a big walk-in closet.

She sat down on the floor and leaned against her bed. I sat down next to a chair opposite her. The floor was new maple, overlaid with thick wool rugs. I wanted to get out before anything dangerous happened, which I knew was a possibility.

"Thanks for driving back. I probably couldn't have managed it."

"No problem."

She stared at me for a moment.

"It sucks you live in Texas. I bet we could have a lot of fun."

"Yeah."

She crawled over next to me.

"When do you go back?"

"Saturday."

She stared at me for a moment, then took a deep breath.

"Wanna fuck?"

My reaction was enough to knock her back, and her face got very red. She looked away from me, covering her face.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm drunk. I don't know why I said that."

"It's okay."

"I'm sorry. God. I didn't mean that."

She wiped at her eyes, not looking at me. I put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's all right. I mean, if I didn't have a girlfriend . . . you know?"

"Yeah."

She looked back at me, eyes wet, jaw vibrating.

"It's just that you're the first guy I've ever met who really seems to understand me. I know we've only known each other three days, but . . ."

I rubbed her shoulder, and she leaned against me. I put my arms around her, wondering what I was supposed to do.

A second or two later, she turned back around, facing me, and leaned in to kiss me. Still in shock, I kissed her back for a moment before pulling away.

"Wait."

"Please. Just for tonight. Just pretend it's just us."

She kissed me again, and unable to stop myself, I let her. She was more forceful than Gretchen was, more experienced. When we fell over together on the floor, I began to lose my grip on what was happening, began to lose myself in Felicia. I wasn't sure what she wanted, but hormones were howling in my head that she might actually want to have sex. I could finally do it, even if the circumstances weren't really right.

Her breasts were quite a bit bigger than Gretchen's, slightly more than a handful, and when I slid my hand under her blouse, she began to moan through her nose. She unbuttoned her blouse, throwing it open and exposing herself to me. I opened the front hook on her bra and began playing with her breasts.

She was scratching at my back now, pulling my shirt out of my jeans in back. She ran her hands up my back, dragging her manicured nails along my spine. Her nipples were different from Gretchen's, darker and smaller, tight little eraser-tip nubs of flesh. The more I played with them, the more turned on she got.

But when I felt her unbuttoning my jeans, my conscience roared back into life.

"Wait. Stop. I'm sorry. I can't do this. I can't do this to you. Or to Gretchen."

Her hands went limp, dropping to the floor. She looked at me sadly.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sorry."

She took a deep breath and sighed, rolling on her back.

"You're right. This is crazy. You'd better go. Before anything worse happens."

She sat up and began getting dressed.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's not your fault. I attacked you."

"It's all right."

She sighed again.

"Your girlfriend is lucky. Most guys I know wouldn't have stopped."

"I guess."

She led me back downstairs to the front door.

"One last kiss?"

"Okay."

I kissed her for a few seconds before she let me go.

"Bye. I'll see you later."

I saw her a couple more times before I went back to Houston, and had to assure my disappointed--and disbelieving--grandmother that nothing serious had happened. Gretchen met me at the airport with my parents, and I hugged her for a long time before letting her go.

"I missed you."

"You too. You didn't have too much fun in Boston?"

"No. Not without you."

I looked down into her pretty blue eyes. Whatever possibilities I might have had with Felicia, what I had here was all I needed.

Turning the Corner.

My father came into my room while was studying.

"Stephen, give me a minute."

"What's up?"

He sat down on my bed.

"We need to have a serious talk about your college plans."

"Okay."

"Your mother and I have been talking about this, and we've come to the conclusion that you may not be ready for it yet. Your S.A.T. scores may be outstanding, but your grades, as you know, are not what we would like. I know you've been thinking a lot about R.O.T.C. and being a naval aviator. If that is truly what you want to do, it's going to be very difficult with your record. Your study habits are not what they should be. You just don't seem to have enough discipline, and that's something you must have if you want to be a pilot."

I sat there numbly, not believing this was happening.

"What I am saying is that your mother and I are afraid if you go to college next fall, immediately after graduating, that you will not do anywhere near well enough to qualify for R.O.T.C."

"Well . . . what do you want me to do?"

"I have been looking into this, and there are other ways of qualifying for an R.O.T.C. scholarship, which right now you have no chance of getting. But what you could do is enlist in the Navy first and apply from there. From what I have heard, your chances could be vastly improved if you apply yourself and work hard."

It's difficult for me even now, with twelve years of hindsight, to put into words how I felt at that moment. All of my friends were going to college; the whole mission of St. Mark's was college prep. People simply did not leave St. Mark's and enlist in the service. I felt as if I had been riding a rail heading unerringly toward college, only to have my father appear out of nowhere and throw me onto a different track I had not thought even existed, let alone seen.

"I know this is a big surprise. And I don't want to force you into this if you're dead set against it. But I think if you give it some thought, you'll understand what I'm saying."

"Okay."

He patted my shoulder.

"Just think about it."

Gretchen's face went white.

"What?" she said very softly.

"Enlist. That's what he said."

"What about college?"

"I could do it after a couple of years, apply for R.O.T.C. from there."

"But what about us? Where would they send you?"

"I have no idea."

"You could go anywhere. They might send you overseas or something."

"It could happen."

She stared at me sadly.

"When would I see you? It would be hard enough as it is, being separated for school. Even if you went to U.T. and I went to Rice, like we've been talking about."

"I know."

"We promised that we would stay together. We promised."

"Yes."

She looked down at the ground.

"You don't have do to this, right? He's not going to force you?"

"He said no. But the more I think about it, the more I think he has a point. I'm not going to make it as a pilot the way I'm going. This might be the only way."

Gretchen leaned against me, hugging me.

"I don't want you to give up that dream. But this hurts. It really hurts."

"I know."

The bell rang for the next class. I held her for a moment, looking around the Senior Lounge bitterly. I wondered how the rest of the class would react when this got out.

"I better go. I'll see you at lunch."

"Okay. Bye."

Fall was gradually turning into winter, and the oak trees in the quad were dropping their leaves. I sat on a bench in the center of the square, slowly ripping dry leaves between my hands, watching the way the veins tore apart from the flesh. It seemed like I had a choice to make, several of them. Dad was right; the more I thought about what he had said, the more I knew it. I was not going to make it as a naval aviator the way I was going. I had been deluding myself about that. If I went to college now, I would just be blowing my chances.

So what about Gretchen? If I enlisted, I could end up anywhere. I might get stationed in the Far East or Europe, my only contact with her being through the mail. The only consolation was that it wouldn't be forever. Only a couple of years, after which I could apply for R.O.T.C., get out, and go to college. Would she wait for me that long? We'd only been dating for about a year, even if things had gotten very serious. We had been talking about finally sleeping together, and I suspected it would happen before the year was out. After which, we would part ways, never to see each other again, except on vacation? That hurt. As she had said, it hurt.

II.

I held off making a decision for a couple of weeks, but only because I knew what choice I had to make.

Gretchen's parents went out of town the first weekend in November, and I went over to see her that Friday night. I wasn't entirely sure this was within the rules, but I didn't much care.

We ordered a pizza and watched a movie on her VCR. We were on the couch in the living room, her leaning back against me.

"It's funny that you were talking about being a navy pilot before. Now after 'Top Gun,' everyone seems to want to do that."

"I know. Which is going to make it that much tougher to get in."

She sighed.

"I know."

"Gretchen."

"What?"

"I've been thinking a lot about what my dad said. About enlisting."

She watched me, anxious, but said nothing.

"And as difficult as it would be, I can't help but think that it's the only way to do this. I'm just not going to make it with my record the way it is now."

She closed her eyes and began to cry. I pulled her close, holding her as she shook and gasped for breath in my arms. I lay there and tried to keep a grip on myself.

The tears stopped after a few minutes.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"I understand. I do. I know why you have to do this. But it's going to be so damn hard."

She began crying again, this time not stopping for about five minutes.

I finally shut off the TV. She sat up, wiping her eyes, and looked at me sadly.

"We'll get through it somehow."

She nodded. Then she stood up, taking my hand.

"What?"

She just shook her head, pulling on my arm. I stood up, and she led me upstairs, into her room. She shut the door and came back to me, kissing me. I kissed her for a few minutes, feeling her smooth little body pressing against me.

She turned in my arms, pulling me back toward the bed. Now I understood what she was doing. We didn't have to say anything. When I felt the expected hormonal thrill at what was about to happen, I stomped on it, squashed it, not wanting raw lust to stick its ugly head into this. All I wanted to do was love Gretchen. Nothing more salacious than that.

She pulled off my shirt, and I unbuttoned her blouse, then took off her bra. I looked at her, bare-chested, wondering if anyone in the world had ever loved anyone else as much as I loved her at that moment.

She took my hand and placed it on her left breast. I felt the silky flesh, the nipple that was already erecting. Then I looked up at her face, her beautiful face. I brushed her hair back around her ears. I moved my hand around, feeling her face gently, her eyebrows, her nose, then her lips. She took my hand and kissed it.

She leaned over, pulling me down, and we resumed kissing. I had won the battle with my hormones, and lay with her for a long time, just feeling her and kissing her. I kissed my way down her chest. I kissed her breasts, worshipping her soft pink nipples. I felt her thighs, sliding my hand up her skirt, though not too far, not yet. She unbuttoned my jeans, pushing them down, revealing the erection stretching out the front of my jockey shorts.

She sat up, swinging her legs around the edge of the bed, then stood, pulling me up. Confused for a second, I watched as she turned down her bed, then turned off the lights. She came back to me in the dim light of her room. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see her standing next to me, caressing me as I fondled her.

I found the zipper on her skirt and slid it down. She stepped out of it, then pushed down my shorts. When they were off, I took off her panties.

We stood together, naked at last. We held each other, and I felt my hardness between us, pressing against her abdomen.

"I . . . I don't have anything. Like a rubber, I mean."

"Don't worry about it," she said quietly. "My period was over a couple days ago. I'm okay."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

She led me back to the bed, and we slipped under the covers. I don't know how to accurately describe what happened after that, to completely encapsulate the emotions of it. We were only seventeen, two inexperienced virgins, who despite volcanic passions had little or no clue about what to do. I wanted, desperately, for her to enjoy this as much as I did, and I figured that meant delaying the ultimate act as long as possible. I had libraries of fantasies in my head, things I wanted to do, but all of it suddenly seemed too tawdry and cheap to even contemplate.

Gretchen lay with me, feeling me as I explored her body. She touched me inexpertly, nervously feeling my erection. I probed between her legs, not sure what I was touching and not wanting to go too far. My first contact with her wetness, a little squirt out of her after I had been playing with her for a few minutes, came as a shock. I didn't know immediately what it was, and wondered if something had happened. But she just lay with me, kissing me gently.

We played with each other for a long time, warm together under her covers. I could begin to smell the scent of her, what I was doing to her. She rolled on her back, pulling at my arms. Realizing that the moment was at hand, I crawled between her legs. She reached down between us, guiding me in, and I pushed forward, no idea about what to do. She was ready and welcomed me into her. I felt her virginity, felt it surrendering to my pressure, and with one simple thrust, lost control and came.

She knew it and had probably expected it. She stroked my back, kissing me.

"I love you. I love you."

I kissed her.

"I love you. I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I'm happy. I made you feel good. We have all night."

I lay within her after that, moving softly back and forth, trying to do something for her. The wonderful feel of her, the softness and warmth around me, was enough to reawaken my desire in a few minutes, and we began making love in earnest.

Neither of us knew much what to do, but slowly we fell into a rhythm. I found an angle she seemed to like, and worked on it. She moved her legs back and forth at my side, wrapping herself around me. She began breathing harder, biting gently at my shoulder. She hugged me, pulling me into her.

Her breath came faster through her nose now, and her movements became more spasmodic. I kept doing what I was doing, wanting more than any thing to make her happy. All at once, she started to shiver, digging her nails into my back. The thought of it instantly dissolved my control, and I flamed into fulfillment within her.

We made love a third time about half an hour later, and then lay together in her bed.

"Whatever happens," she whispered, "we'll always have tonight."

"Something to hold onto."

"I hope it's enough."

"So do I."

"I love you, Stephen. I'll always love you."

"I love you, too."

I went home just before midnight.

Coronado Blues.

I did not become a naval aviator.

I reported for Basic Training at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, just north of Chicago, shortly after graduation. The first day was perhaps the longest day of my life. I and eighty other raw recruits were shouted out of bed at four a.m. We had gotten less than five hours of sleep that night, having been up almost until midnight with the endless paperwork and inprocessing. We were lined up in ragged rows and marched off to the barbers. With the sun scarcely in the sky, my hair was shorn from my head. We spent the rest of the day being marched around and screamed at ("I'm going to rip off your heads and shit down your necks!"), gathering our uniforms and gear, moving into our barracks, and learning the proper methods for stowing our clothes in our lockers.

I was scheduled for at least a year at Great Lakes. I had eight weeks of basic training, followed by eleven months of the electronics technician training I had requested. I might not make it home for over a year, since I would not qualify for leave until I finished my training. I wrote Gretchen as soon as I could, and in the first mail call got a tearful letter that she had drafted the afternoon I had left.

So it was likely to be for the foreseeable future. Lots of letters, but little else.

I had chosen electronics training because I thought it would be most applicable to the aerospace engineering degree I intended to eventually get. But three days into Basic Training, I encountered another spur I had not foreseen.

That morning we reported to the camp pool for swim testing. This being the Navy, all of us had to know how to swim. I had learned early on in my life and had no trouble passing the test. Afterward, however, one of the instructors took us aside and explained about another test they also gave.

"Here and now is the quickest and easiest way you may have to qualify for training as a navy diver or a navy SEAL. We will put you through a series of tests designed to gauge your physical fitness and swimming ability. All of you, no matter what other training you may be scheduled for, are also eligible for SEAL training."

He indicated a chart that someone had painted on the wall behind him. I saw a long list of things like "50 pushups in 60 seconds. Tread water for 10 minutes. 30 sit-ups in 30 seconds." I had begun working out in the months leading up to boot camp, and I thought I could probably make it. I still wanted to be a pilot, but I thought I should take every opportunity I had to distinguish myself.

That afternoon, after we had returned to the barracks, our company commander called for any prospective candidates for the diver and SEAL test. I and one other recruit came up to the front, and he sent us off, double-timing back to the pool.

We found several other recruits there waiting as well, and an instructor quickly howled us into line. He had us strip down to swim trunks and lined us up along side the pool.

"All right! You worthless pieces of shit think you're tough enough to become SEALs? Bullshit! If it was up to me, I'd send you straight back to your barracks right now!"

He stalked up to the recruit standing next to me.

"You! Why are you are here?"

"I want to be a SEAL, sir!"

"Why? You want to kill people? You want to be Sylvester Stallone and shoot things up?"

"No, sir! I just want to be the best, sir!"

"All right. Drop! All of you! Fifty push-ups, and count them off. Anyone who can't do it is going home."

We fell to the deck as fast as we could and commenced the push- ups. The count was steady through about thirty, when several of the others began falling behind. The recruit next to me and I kept up a steady pace, counting off as loud as we could. Bit by bit, I realized we were competing, not wanting to be the first to fall behind.

"Fifteen seconds! Let's move it!"

I tried to speed up, as did my partner, and with five seconds left, we finished, collapsing to the cold tile.

Five of the eight recruits who had shown up that night didn't make it. The instructor stood them up and sent them out.

"All right! Sit-ups! Thirty of them, and no pussy flopping around either!"

The three of us left rolled on our backs and began the sit-ups as fast as we could. With two seconds to spare, we made it.

"Up! On your feet!"

We leapt up, standing at attention.

"In the pool, now!"

We jumped in, beginning to tread water.

"You've got ten minutes. You will not stay in there until you drown. If an instructor calls you out, you get out at once. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

We floated around, treading water, as the instructors watched us. They held long poles to pull us out in case we faltered.

The ten minutes stretched on far longer than I had expected. I began to breathe hard, trying to conserve my energy, but my attention began to waver.

The instructor's voice jerked me back to life.

"You! Out!"

I started for moment, disappointment swelling through me, before I realized he meant one of the other two recruits. They pulled him out and let him rest. I and one other remained.

"One minute. You're looking good."

Then:

"Thirty seconds."

"Ten seconds. Almost there."

"Time!"

As I went limp, one of the instructors held out his pole. I grabbed it, letting him pull me out.

They gave the two of us one minute to rest.

"All right, up!"

We struggled to our feet.

"Fifty jumping jacks. Count them off!"

Somehow, drawing on some inner reserve of energy, we managed to do it. They put us through a few more tests, but the worst of it was over.

The instructor took down our names and company numbers.

"Good work. You guys may just have what it takes. Good luck."

I didn't know it then, but that one night would send my life spinning off in a direction I could never have anticipated.

II.

Basic Training, as traumatic as it was, eventually ended. My parents came up for graduation, although Gretchen was unable to, needing to prepare for school. I then took a bus across the base to the barracks I where would live during ET school.

Gretchen and I had been writing each other steadily, settling into a comfortable pattern. We wrote about twice a week, mainly discussing what I was doing. As the summer moved into fall, she told me more and more about classes at Rice, and how much she was enjoying college. She had a nice roommate. She was making friends. She missed me, but she was happy I was doing well.

I went to class from seven a.m. to four p.m., with an hour or more of homework and studying to do each night. With the time I had to devote to running and working out in preparation for SEAL school, I had no time for anything else, and the further I got into school, the more difficult it became. We were being given a very intensive, very specific education in electrical engineering, essentially cramming three years of college into eleven months. I made a few close friends, but as busy as we were, we had little time for anything except an occasion night at the enlisted men's club.

I began to feel as if what I had with Gretchen was slowly withering, as much as we wrote each other. I was beginning to forget what she looked like beyond what I saw in the pictures I had, what she smelled like, what she felt like when we made love. It hurt, a lot, and I could begin to see the same thing in her letters.

Recognizing the inevitable, we began discussing what was happening. I still had another six months before I would get any leave, and that was only two weeks before I had to report to San Diego for SEAL school. It seemed like an eternity.

In April of 1988, with two months left in my training, I got the letter I had been expecting from the beginning.

She had met someone else. She hoped I understood. She still loved me, but I had to recognize that it just couldn't work anymore, not as far apart as we were. Maybe sometime in the future, when I got out, we could give it another try.

I walked aimlessly across the base after I read her letter. I wandered past the mess hall, the enlisted men's club, across the main parade grounds. I sat down next to a big anchor at the head of the grounds and cried. Eventually it began to get dark, and I headed back to my barracks room. I lay in my bunk for a long time.

One of my roommates appeared.

"Hey."

"What happened?"

"My girlfriend dumped me."

"Oh, shit. That fucking sucks. It's because you're here?"

"Yeah. That and she met someone else."

"Fuck. I'm sorry, man."

"Thanks."

He let me lie there for a while.

"You hungry? Want to hit the chow line?"

I sat up, fighting the stiffness gripping my body.

"Yeah. I guess so."

I followed him to the mess hall, catching the end of the line just before they closed it. I tasted nothing.

I walked back, knowing, as much as it hurt, that Gretchen was probably right. This simply wasn't going to work. I had given up what I had with her to pursue my dream in the Navy. The least I could do was not let that slip away too.

III.

Coronado Island sits in front of San Diego, shielding the city from the Pacific Ocean. It was there I that survived the most difficult six months of my life. The Navy calls it BUD/S: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school. They try to kill you, and if they can't do it, they make you a SEAL. One thing above all helped me through it, a sign I saw when I first arrived: "The Harder You Work In Training, The Less You Bleed In Combat." That may sum up much of what it means to be a SEAL.

Little of what I went through is anything I can talk much about. Most of our training was classified, a lot of it very much so. A few months into it, we began what they prosaically refer to as Hell Week. Essentially, it's designed to weed out the students who would break under the stress of an actual mission.

Through seven days, they allowed us a total of about eight or ten hours of sleep. I wasn't counting. I had no energy for anything but the moment. The instructors shot at us (with blanks--most of the time). They threw flash-bang grenades at us. They made us do push-ups until we vomited. Each squad carried a two-hundred pound rubber raft (in official parlance, an IBL: Inflatable Boat, Large) around the base at all times. We did calisthenics with it. We paddled it around the base. We carried instructors around in it as they screamed at us. When the instructors did let us sleep, they woke us up by playing recordings of explosions and gunfire at ear-shattering volume.

Then there was my personal favorite activity, the surf torture. Linked in long rows of bodies, they made us lie down in the surf, letting the waves crash over us until were rigid, frozen balls of muscle. The sand worked its way into every nook and cranny of our bodies. Then we got to run up and down the beach, carrying that fucking raft, until the sand had worn raw, bleeding patches under our clothes. After which, we got to lie back down in the water.

At the end of the week, reduced to shivering nervous wrecks, we performed what's known as a rock portage. This involved trying to land our rafts on a rocky breakwater as the waves crashed us against it. Two men in my team got cycled back with stress fractures in their legs. I was lucky, and all I got of out it were several nasty gashes. Then, at long last, it was over. The instructors pronounced my team secure, and we collapsed onto the beach.

While Hell Week was the most intense phase, SEAL school went on for long months afterwards. As hard as the physical part might seem, my class actually lost more people to the academic requirements. Toward the end, they sent us off to Army Ranger school in Fort Benning, Georgia, which after everything else we had been through, was almost laughable. We were by then beginning to think of ourselves as SEALs, and we got into a few good-natured brawls with the Rangers at one of the bars outside the base (we won). I got to jump out of an assortment of planes and helicopters, and then they sent us back to Coronado for the last phase of training.

About eighteen months after I had shown up at Great Lakes, I was officially a SEAL. That little emblem I earned, which I still have, is known amongst SEALs as a Budweiser (as it looks a lot like the Anheuser Busch logo). It was the most expensive piece of metal I would ever own.

Black Ops, Black Sheep.

I got two weeks of leave before I had to show up for duty with my SEAL team, so I flew home to visit my parents. My father was inordinately impressed with my accomplishments, so I spent a few days letting him show me off to his friends.

I had been thinking about seeing Gretchen, but a week went past before I worked up the nerve. I had to call her parents to get her number, but they were happy to give it to me. I dithered around for another hour before calling her.

"Hello?"

"Hey. It's Stephen."

I heard a gasp.

"Hi! My God, how are you?"

"I'm doing all right. I'm in town on leave. I thought maybe we could get together, just for old times' sake."

"Well, sure. That's a great idea. Why don't you come on over to school? We could just go out and get a bite to eat or something, and you can tell me all about what you've been doing."

I followed her directions over to Rice, and found my way to her apartment. Although her parents still lived four blocks away, she apparently wanted to be on her own now.

When I knocked on the door, it flew open a second later.

"Hi!"

She gave me a big hug. I got a better look at her once she let go of me. She was a little older, a little more mature, and her hair was a lot longer, down to what I've since come to think of as the standard sorority-girl cut.

She leaned back, appraising me as well.

"My God, look at you. You've really put on some weight."

"SEAL school does that."

"You really went to SEAL school?"

"Yeah. I just graduated."

"Wow. That's great."

She pulled me in and introduced her to her roommate, a red-headed girl named Stacey.

"So what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. This is your neighborhood."

"Okay. Well, I thought we could just go down the street to dinner. Nothing really serious."

She led me across campus to a cluster of restaurants and shops.

"I think we had our first date here," I said. "If I'm remembering right."

"Yeah, we did. We saw 'Back to the Future,' right?"

"Yeah."

The waitress found us a table, and we sat down.

"Do you keep in touch with anyone from St. Mark's?"

"Not really. I've been just incredibly busy the last year and a half."

"I bet. I still talk to Claire all the time. We get together when she comes back from S.M.U."

"I still remember when she dragged you away from me the night we met, at that game."

She laughed.

"I know. I was so pissed when I came back and you were gone. I actually yelled at her."

"You did?"

"Yeah."

"I showed up ten minutes early for English class the next morning, hoping to talk to you. But you and Claire were late."

"Aww. I remember that. That's why I sent you that note."

"I think I still have it."

She laughed again.

"No way."

"I think it's in a box at my folks'"

"I kept all the corsages you gave me for the formals and the Prom."

We stared at each other for a moment, realizing what was happening.

"Well. Okay," she finally said. "Tell me what you've been doing."

I spent about ten minutes giving her a synopsis of boot camp, ET school, and SEAL school.

"So what do you do now?"

"Nothing I can talk about. We work on a three-month rotation. Three months at our home base; three months on deployment. From what I've heard, it's very hard on the married guys. When you leave on deployment, your wife doesn't know where you're going or what you're doing, and you don't have any contact with her at all until you get back. And when you do, she just doesn't ask where you've been. You're really only married six months out of the year."

"God. How awful. I don't know how anyone could do that."

"It's not easy. It leads to a lot of divorces from what I've heard."

"What about you? Have you been playing sailor with the women?"

"Not really. I've scarcely had time. What happened to what's- his-name?"

"Mark. We broke up a few months ago. I've been kind of free and easy lately."

"Tell me about school."

"I still haven't declared a major. I have to do it by this fall. I'm still wavering between English and Anthropology."

"You like it?"

"I love it. I've made a lot of friends. What happened to your pilot idea? Why did you become a SEAL instead?"

"I'm still working on it. My application for the scholarship is going in this fall."

"Oh, great. I know you'll get it. Where are you thinking of going to school?"

"Probably U.T. There's no way I can get into Rice, if you were wondering."

She smiled.

"It crossed my mind."

"Right."

The food came after that, and we made casual small talk for a while, dancing around the real issue hanging over our heads. We had coffee and dessert, and I finally walked her home. Somehow out hands ended up together on the way back.

"I really missed you," she said after we'd been quiet a few minutes. "I guess that's obvious."

"So did I."

"I'm sorry about breaking up with you the way I did."

"No. I understood. It wasn't fair of me to ask you to wait that long."

"When are you going back to San Diego?"

"Thursday."

She didn't say anything until we got back to her apartment.

"Why don't you come in? It's not that late."

We went back to her bedroom, and she shut the door. I sat at her desk and she sat on the bed. She leaned over, pulling a photo album out from under it.

"Come over here. I'll show you what I've been doing."

I sat next to her, and we flipped through her pictures from the last two years, generally a lot of people I didn't know. A bunch of them were of Mark, an intellectual-looking guy with curly brown hair and wire rim glasses. He disappeared as we got near the end, and I was surprised to discover that I didn't much care about him. What hurt was looking at all the good times she had had without me. Two years I hadn't been a part of.

"Well, I guess that's it. You're up to date."

She tossed the album onto the floor. I stared at the wall across from us, wondering what I was doing sitting on her bed. I had to leave before I did something I would regret. Then I looked back at her, and my control dissolved. Two seconds later we were kissing.

I knew this was a bad idea, but I couldn't stop myself. Although I had had a few brief encounters in San Diego (milking my status as a SEAL for what it was worth), I had really been alone since I had left. I don't know what was going through Gretchen's head, but I gave up and let myself think we were back together. We fell into all our old rhythms, me kissing and playing with her breasts the way I knew she liked, her climbing on top of me and rubbing herself against me like we always did before we began making love.

Neither of us said anything; we hardly even made eye contact, maybe somehow knowing what would happen if we did. We just lost ourselves in each other for two hours. Then we curled up and went to sleep.

The sun woke me up the next morning. Gretchen and I were balled up together in her bed. I opened my eyes to see her staring blankly at the ceiling.

"What's wrong?"

She closed her eyes, biting her lip.

"This doesn't change anything. You're still going back to San Diego, where you're going to turn invisible six months out of the year. God knows when I could see you again. You might even get killed. How are we supposed to have any kind of relationship? We're in the same position we were before."

I rolled on my back, reaching up to press the heels of my hands against my eyes. What could I say to that? She was right.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It was really nice seeing you. And I enjoyed this, being with you again. But you know how it has to be."

I gulped, fighting my disappointment.

"Yeah."

We got dressed and went for coffee. I wouldn't see her again for another eight years.

II.

For what little I could tell you about SEAL school, I can tell you virtually nothing about what happened afterward. It's a common saying within the SpecWar community that anyone who claims to be part of it and is willing to go into any detail about what he supposedly did--like the bar braggarts you sometimes encounter around San Diego-- is either lying or a complete fraud. They don't let you in so you can talk about it.

What happened to my ambitions of being a Naval Aviator? Quite simply, they foundered on the rocks of my high school grades. No matter how well I had done since then, to get out, I had to qualify for an R.O.T.C. scholarship, which was far more difficult than simply getting into R.O.T.C. in college. I had to convince them that I would be worth a $50-100,000 investment in college tuition, and despite my positive recommendations, I simply couldn't do it.

This is not to say that I mourned my predicament. The truth was, I loved being a SEAL. We worked hard, trained hard, played hard, and drank hard. I got to do things and go places 99.99% of the human race doesn't even suspect, let alone experience. You'll just have to take my word on that.

In mid-1991, just after the Gulf War, I found myself in New England, for reasons I can't really go into (hint: there's a big sub base in New London, Connecticut). I had a few days off, and decided to put in for a four-day leave to go up to Boston to visit my grandparents.

My grandfather had by then retired, except for some occasional work at Harvard Medical School, and he met me at the door of their townhouse.

"Stephen, come in. It's wonderful to see you again."

"You, too. How is everyone?"

"We're getting along, although your grandmother and I have slowed down recently. Your Uncle Richard is heading up a commission on mental health issues for the Governor."

He led me inside, where we found my grandmother in the living room. I kissed her on the cheek and sat down.

"How are you doing? Your father tells me you're a Green Beret now, or something."

"A SEAL. It's part of the Navy. But something like that."

"You aren't going back to college?"

"I will when I get out. But I didn't get the scholarship I wanted, as he may have told you."

"Yes. It makes me sick to think of it. If he had just stayed at Harvard like he was supposed to, then you might not have ended up like this. You would be graduating next spring. You would be applying to medical school soon."

I knew better that to argue with her by now.

"Maybe. But I don't know what I'll do when I get out."

"You could still be a doctor."

"Maybe."

She sighed.

"Your cousin Phillip is at Johns Hopkins now. He's thinking of being a neurosurgeon."

"That's great."

"So what brings you back to Boston?"

"I just finished something. But I can't really talk about what I do. It's all classified."

"I suppose so. Well. I don't suppose you're dating anyone with this sort of career."

"It's very hard."

"Do you remember Felicia Cabot? She's still single. She asked about you recently."

"She did?"

"Or so Celia tells me. Felicia has been something of a trial from what I've heard."

"Where is she?"

"I believe she's home from school right now. She's going to Stanford, if you didn't know."

I tried to remember what she looked like. I'd known her for one week, four years ago, but I thought, what the hell?

"I can ask Celia to tell her you're in town if you like."

III.

I met Felicia at a seafood place down near the water. She was prettier than I remembered, although it might have been the passage of time. She had a good tan, and her hair was shorter, up to about shoulder length.

"Hi. It's good to see you again."

"You too. How's Stanford?"

"I love it. Do you remember that I wanted to do Computer Science? Did I mention that?"

"You did."

"Well that's what I'm doing. I'm working in an internship here, outside of town."

"Programming?"

"Essentially. I've got a security clearance, can you believe that?"

"Is it military, what you're doing?"

"Yeah. I can't talk about it."

I laughed.

"I think this is going to be a short conversation."

"You're a Green Beret, right? Or whatever it is the Navy does? Your grandmother said something like that."

"A SEAL. Yeah. And I can't talk about that either."

"Any of it?"

"Only the very basics."

"What happened to being a pilot?"

"You need a degree. I ended up enlisting because I thought it would help me get an R.O.T.C. scholarship. In my case it didn't. My enlistment is up in two years, then I can go back to school."

"So what are the basics you can tell me?"

"I'm stationed in San Diego. We're home three months and on deployment three months."

"And that's what you can't tell me about?"

"Right."

"Oh, come one. It sounds so neat. You can't tell me anything?"

"Okay. Let's try this. You can ask me yes or no questions. If I can answer, I will. If I can't, I'll just shake my head."

She leaned forward on the table, eyes shining.

"Um. Okay. Were you in the Gulf War?"

I shook my head.

"Oh. I guess that stuff is off limits. Have you blown anything up?"

"Yes. In training we do that."

"I meant for real."

I shook my head.

"Darn. You're no fun."

"Sorry."'

"Do you have any interesting scars?

I pulled up my sleeve, showing her a shallow track on my left arm, about two inches long.

"This looks like a bullet wound."

I shook my head. She rolled her eyes.

"Have you killed anyone?"

I shook my head again, but her face lit up.

"Oh, my God. You have. I can see it in your face. Besides, you'd just have said 'no' if you hadn't."

I shook my head, trying not to smile.

"Don't get me in trouble."

She smiled.

"Sorry. So what brings you back here?"

I shook my head, and she leaned back in her chair, laughing.

"God! What good are you? You're a worthless date! I can't ask you anything."

"Tell me about Stanford."

She caught her breath, then tried to shake her head impassively the way I had been doing. We both burst out laughing.

"It's great," she finally said. "It's hard, but I really like what I'm doing."

"You told me once you thought your family would have a fit about it."

She nodded.

"They did, in the beginning. But having careers to annoy your family is what we do up here. They're used to it by now. It's mainly my social life that bothers them."

"My grandmother said something about having heard you were 'a trial.'"

She laughed again.

"Yes. Because I refuse to date the nice young men they want me to. There's no way I'm going to be a proper Boston wife."

"She also mentioned that you had asked about me."

She glanced away, blushing.

"Well, yeah, I did. I was wondering what had happened to you. Whether you'd given in to the med school idea."

"It's not going to happen. The stars just aren't right."

"You've got a lot of balls, you know? I respect that. Nobody I knew around here ever stood up to their family the way you have. I mean, you probably could have gone to Harvard. You'd be pre-med right now, and with your family connections, you could probably get into whatever med school you wanted. But you turned your back on all of it because it wasn't what you wanted to do with your life."

"Yeah, well, it sort of just happened that way."

"I don't believe anything just happens. Stuff happens for a reason. You could have let your grandparents run your life, and you didn't."

"Neither did you."

"No. Two black sheep, that's us."

"Whatever happened to that girl you were dating?" she asked me after the food came. "Whatever her name was."

"Gretchen. We broke up. It's impossible to have much of a relationship in the service, especially with what I'm doing. There are a lot of divorces."

"I bet. That must be rough on you."

"It can get lonely."

She leaned forward onto her hands.

"You know, when your grandmother called me, I got to thinking about that one night we had. When we almost slept together."

"Yeah."

"I was impressed that you turned me down."

"You would have been my first."

"Wow. Really? I'm even more impressed now."

I laughed.

"I came close to doing it. It was as much nervousness as guilt."

"Maybe, but you didn't do it, that's what counts. Don't keep running yourself down. Most people never even get to that point. They just rationalize what they want to do instead of making the tough decisions."

I had taken the subway over to the restaurant, so she drove me back. She still had her Porsche, slightly more weathered now.

"Are you staying with your parents?"

"No. I've got an apartment out where I work. Want to see it?"

I didn't say anything immediately, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Except this time, there was no Gretchen in the way.

"Sure."

She lived out in Winchester, not too far from where we had gone that night for her friend's party. Her apartment was furnished with bland, flavorless furniture. It reminded me of a hotel room.

"It's a short-term corporate place. The company is putting me up here."

"Oh."

"That's why it's so boring."

"It's okay."

"My place in Palo Alto is a lot nicer. I've been going through this Japanese phase lately, so I've got a bunch of woodcuts and prints."

"I'd like to see it."

"Do you ever get up to the Bay Area?"

"Occasionally."

"Well, we should get together if you do."

She made some coffee and we sat on her couch.

"When do you have to leave?"

"The day after tomorrow."

She sighed, leaning her head on her hand.

"I didn't do this right the first time." She smiled. "But if you'd like a sending-off present, it's available."

I looked away, then back at her.

"You know any kind of relationship is going to be difficult."

"Yes. For both of us. School takes up a lot of my time. I'm not talking about a relationship. I'd like to keep in touch, but I don't get to date much either, with what I do. And I certainly don't meet too many men like you in the computer industry. So . . . what do you say, sailor?"

She grinned at me. I hesitated for a second or two, then reached for her.

I don't if it was because I'd gotten used to anonymous encounters in bars, to the smell of cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey. Or if I had begun to think that the sailor groupies and prostitutes around the bases I'd been to were all I could expect. Maybe I knew even then that something more serious was developing. Whatever it was, that night set a spark to something inside me that had been dormant for a long time.

We moved into the bedroom after a while, and slowly undressed each other. She had the prettiest breasts I'd ever seen, full and round, just short of being big enough to sag. Her nipples were tiny in comparison, scarcely more than little tan protrusions that swiftly turned into hard nubs of flesh. I sat on the edge of her bed, her arms around my neck, worshipping them for a long time. Then she pushed me back, crawling above me, and resumed kissing me.

I lay next to her, gazing into her blue eyes like I hadn't done with a woman for years. We explored each other slowly, making love with our hands, our lips, our mouths. I buried myself between her thighs until she was crying out, clawing at my hair. Then I was up, above her, in her, driving myself into her. We rolled over, and she threw her head back as she rode me, groaning as if she were in pain. When she came, she almost screeched in fulfillment, throwing herself forward and covering my face with her hair. Then she pulled me back on top of her, urging me on, begging for me to come inside her.

We made love long into the night. I finally fell asleep on top of her, still inside her, listening to her breathing as it slowed, settling into warm, sated, contentment.

Coronado Redux.

My enlistment was up in early 1993. I had kept in touch with Felicia, but I didn't see her again until I left the Navy. She had by then graduated and taken a job with a computer company in San Diego. I had come to enjoy that area, and upon leaving the SEALs, I came back and enrolled at San Diego State.

We met again for dinner shortly after I got out.

"So you're free to have a life now?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Any ideas about what you want to do?"

"Zip. I have no interest in being a mercenary, so I guess I'm back to square one."

"You could really do that?"

"It happens. But it isn't something I would ever do."

"Well, yeah. You'd just have to disappear again, right?"

"Probably."

"Which would be no fun for me."

"No. So what made you pick San Diego? It didn't have anything to do with my being stationed here, did it?"

She grinned.

"Your head is swelling. Yes, it did. But it's also the furthest I could get from Boston without leaving the country."

I had some money saved up from my service years, and I found a job as a scuba instructor, so things were comfortable. I saw Felicia a couple of times a week, often to go running around Mission Bay. We discovered that we were both outdoor types, and she soon earned a scuba license and joined me on dives at Point Loma and Black's Beach and some other places around Southern California.

After my first year at SDSU, I decided to major in Political Science, with an eye toward a possible law degree. It wasn't quite enough to satisfy my grandmother, but the news considerably brightened her mood. The Macintosh clan has the odd lawyer in it, so it wasn't considered a dishonorable vocation (unlike a career in the service).

Felicia and I moved in together just before my sophomore year. My grandmother was torn between disapproval over our living arrangements and elation that one of her grandchildren might actually marry a Cabot. Felicia and I discussed the idea once or twice, agreeing that that eventuality was a long way off, if it ever came. We had an easy, friendly relationship, and I didn't want to do anything to screw that up.

II.

In the Spring of 1995, Felicia and I spent the weekend on Catalina Island, diving off a sailboat we chartered. On Saturday, we swam into a deserted little beach between a couple of cliffs, and unloaded our dive gear against the rocks. Felicia was wearing a slim blue bikini, and I sat there on my towel as she arranged herself. She rolled on her stomach, pulling her hair around to squeeze out the water. Then she undid the catch on her top, letting it fall forward. She gave me a brief glimpse of her breasts before settling down on the towel. I looked down her back, along the smooth lines of her buttocks, split by a narrow thong.

"Enjoying yourself?" she asked.

"Always."

"Mmm. Can we stay here forever?"

"If you like."

I looked out across the channel, back toward the mainland. But it was too hazy to see that far, and I felt like we were alone out in the Pacific.

A little while later, I reached out and began stroking her back, running my fingers up and down her spine. I moved my fingers in little circles over the small of her back, just above the top of her bikini. With all the exercise we got together, her butt was still as smooth as a teenager's. I tickled it for a few seconds, feeling the firmness.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. You know what that does to me."

"Does it?"

"Keep it up and you'll see."

I kept it up. About a minute later, she reached down and slid off her thong, leaving herself naked. I glanced out at the water, seeing nothing, although someone could come around the cliffs from Avalon without a lot of warning.

I began feeling between her thighs, and she spread them slightly. I reached in, finding her still wet from the ocean, but getting damp from another source.

"Anyone could be watching this," she said. But she didn't move.

"I don't see anyone."

"Binoculars. They could be looking up my legs right now."

"Hmm. Could be."

She moaned as my fingers worked deeper inside her. She began to move her hips against me. I felt my erection stretching out my trunks, and repositioned it.

"Take off your shorts."

"What?"

"Take them off. Take them off and make love to me right now."

I struggled out of my trunks, and crawled around behind her. She lifted up her hips, reaching down under her. I positioned myself between her legs, and lowered down. I felt her fingers touching me, guiding me in. I pushed forward, pressing against her butt.

She groaned as I bottomed out, and I could feel her playing with herself as I thrust at her. I reached under, gripping her breasts in my hands, pinching her nipples. The heat of the sun on my back and the risk of being seen quickly had me riding her out of control. She whimpered under me, grinding her butt back at me every time I thrust into her. She began to shake in orgasm just before I let loose inside her. Then, gasping, I fell onto her back.

If anyone had seen us, I couldn't tell. Felicia went to sleep on her towel, still nude. I lay there looking at her, wondering what I had done to deserve her.

When we got back to the boat, Felicia called our voice mail with her cell phone. When I looked back at her a moment later, her face had gone white with amazement.

"What?"

She saved the message and set the phone down, dazed.

"You got a call from Gretchen."

III.

She had tracked me down through my parents.

"So I hear you're out of the Navy."

"About two years. I'm going to San Diego State. What's up with you?"

"I'm about to graduate from law school. U.T."

"No kidding? I was thinking about doing that myself someday."

"It's a lot of work. I don't know how I survived the last three years. I probably shouldn't have done this straight out of college. If this went on even one more semester, I don't know what I would do. I'd go crazy."

"What are you planning to do now?"

"I've got a job in Houston, with a law firm in Post Oak. I'll start in September, after the Bar Exam. It's a litigation firm, if you know what that means."

"Lawsuits?"

"Right. It's going to mean a lot of long hours in the library."

"Sounds familiar."

She laughed.

"Yeah. Your mom said you might be getting married."

I chuckled.

"That's what she wants, but I don't know. I'm living with someone. A woman I met through my grandmother, if you can believe it."

"In Boston?"

"Right."

"Some society girl, huh?"

"Yes and no. She comes from a very distinguished family, but she's completely rejected all of that."

"Like your dad."

"Yeah. Which is sort of what drew us together."

"Well, I'm happy for you. I was engaged briefly last year, can you believe it?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. A guy in my class. It just fell apart. He wanted to take a job in New York, and I realized I didn't really like him enough to go with him."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'll live. I maybe shouldn't be dating lawyers anyway."

I talked to her for almost another hour, catching up, before letting her go. I found Felicia reading in the bedroom. She looked up at me, trying to disguise the tension in her face.

"Well?"

"She just wanted to see how I was doing. It was nothing."

I lay down next to her, putting my arm around her. She rolled on her side, spooning with me and taking my hand.

"It's okay. I'm being immature. She's an old friend of yours and I shouldn't worry that you want to talk to her now and then."

"Are you sure? Because we were talking about trying to stay in touch this time. She's just getting out of law school, and we talked a lot about that."

She didn't answer me right away.

"It's fine."

Finding the Current

Another year went by. Felicia got promoted, and we moved to a larger place near the beach. I talked to Gretchen once or twice a month, rekindling our friendship if not the passion. That was also the year that I discovered computers, and she and I were soon having long e-mail discussions about lawyering.

In July of 1996, we flew back to Boston to visit Felicia's parents and my family. Both clans refused to put us up together, so we got a room at a bed and breakfast in Beacon Hill.

My grandmother met us at the door, despite her advancing years. She kissed me, then Felicia.

"I always knew introducing the two of you was a good idea. But when are you going to get married?"

"I don't know, Grandmother. We've talked about it. It will happen when it happens."

"Well, it had better happen while I'm still breathing. Your grandfather has been asking about you as well."

He was not well, and had since moved to a nursing home.

"We wanted to visit him this afternoon."

"Well, why don't we all go over there now? The visiting hours are over soon."

We drove over in our rental car and followed my grandmother to his room. He lay in a mechanical hospital bed, a shadow of his former self. He had lost weight, and his skin looked sallow and pale. But he was awake, and he held out his hand when he saw us.

I shook it.

"How are you doing?"

"They haven't killed me yet, although they're trying."

Felicia laughed softly, and he held her hand.

"How are you two doing?"

"Great."

"You should hear Mother complain about your getting married. You'd think you were responsible for the Fall of Western Civilization."

I smiled, and glanced at Felicia.

"We're talking about it."

"Well, I'd like to see it before I check out. But don't let anyone push you into it. I know we're good at that in this family."

"Yeah."

"I'm proud of what you've done with yourself, Stephen. I wanted to tell you that before it was too late. Too many of the men in this family, myself included, did what they did because it was expected of them. You had the strength to see what you had to do with your life on your own."

"It didn't always work out that well."

"Maybe not, but you're young. And you put your life on the line for this country. You and men like you made it possible for Harvard weaklings like me to be who we are. Not the other way around. Don't let anyone ever tell you that."

"I won't."

He shook my hand again.

"Good luck. Your grandmother and I love you, even if we have trouble showing it sometimes."

"Thanks. I love you, too."

We let him rest after that, and went home. I would never see him alive again.

II.

We had dinner with Felicia's family the next night. Her parents still lived in the same townhouse, not too far from my grandparents.

Her brother Patrick, whom I had never met, greeted us at the door. He was a tall, thin man about two years older than Felicia. He wore a pink button-down oxford cloth shirt and rumpled chinos.

"Felicia."

"Pat. This is Stephen."

He nodded to me.

"Nice to meet you," I said. I had started to raise my hand when I realized his had remained at his side. Anger flashed in Felicia's eyes, but none of us said anything. Pat turned back into the house, and we followed him.

He led us into a sitting room, where we found their parents waiting. Felicia's mother resembled her slightly, though she was shorter and had none of Felicia's healthy glow. Her father was tall and thin like Patrick, with thinning gray hair.

They rose as we entered the room, and Felicia kissed her mother coolly on the cheek.

"Mom. Dad. This is Stephen."

"Hi. Nice to meet you."

Her mother nodded to me, and her father shook my hand. He had a weak, dead-fish grip that I let go of as soon as possible.

"How are you, Stephen?"

"I'm fine. We went to see my grandparents yesterday."

"How are they?" her mother asked.

"My grandfather isn't doing too well. He's in a nursing home."

"I'm sorry," she said, although she obviously wasn't.

"Can I offer you a drink?" her father asked.

"Sure. A beer, if you have it."

I noticed Pat smirking.

"I'll have to check."

"It's no problem."

As her father left the room, Felicia's mother sat down, as did Felicia. But Pat remained standing, so I did too.

"So," Pat said. "What do you do, Stephen?"

"I'm still in school. But I work part-time as a scuba instructor."

"That must be . . . interesting."

"I like it."

"You're going to some school in San Diego, aren't you?" Felicia's mother asked.

"San Diego State."

She glanced at Pat, who could barely restrain another smirk. I looked at Felicia, who seemed about to explode.

"You have quite a tan," Pat said.

"I work outdoors most of the time."

"I imagine you do."

"What do you do?"

"I play the market, when I feel like working. I just got back from Greece. Have you ever been there?"

"Yes."

His eyebrows rose a millimeter or two.

"Really? How?"

I smiled thinly.

"It's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

I heard Felicia laughing softly behind me. Pat glanced over to her, then back at me.

"That's right. You were in the service, weren't you?"

"The Navy. I was a SEAL."

"Enlisted, I would imagine?"

"Yes."

"You need a degree to get a commission after all, no?"

Felicia's father reappeared and handed me a bottle of Sam Adams.

"Thank you."

"Stephen was just telling us about his sordid days as a Navy SEAL," Pat said.

"Felicia mentioned something like that," he said.

Pat and her father sat down, and I sat next to Felicia. Her hand slipped into mine, and I saw her mother staring coldly toward where we were connected.

Dinner was as strained as that initial conversation had been, and toward the end of it, we simply stopped talking. The china and silverware made more noise than the five of us did until the maid cleared the dishes.

After dinner, as the rest of them returned to the sitting room, Felicia's father pulled me aside into his study. He shut the door behind him and went behind his desk.

"Stephen, I'm not usually this blunt, but I imagine you aren't much concerned with social niceties at this point."

I stared at him.

"No. Say what you have to say."

"All right. I want you to know that Felicia's mother and I do not approve of this relationship of yours. Frankly, you are not the person we would have picked for her."

"I'm aware of that."

"Dating her alone would be a problem, but the fact that you're living with her is simply intolerable."

"I appreciate your concern, but it's not up to you."

"You must understand that we will never consent to your marrying her."

"She's an adult. She doesn't need your consent."

"She does if she doesn't want to be disinherited."

Felicia and I had never really discussed that issue, though I thought I could guess her opinions on it.

"I don't think that will make much of a difference to her."

"Don't be too sure. When someone grows up with certain expectations, it's not so easy to let go of them."

"That's something you'll have to take up with her."

He didn't say anything, and I saw frustration filling his eyes.

"You already have, haven't you? And she probably told you to go to hell."

He glared at me, then took a deep breath.

"Stephen, I'm prepared to make you an offer. If you will give me your word that you will break this off with Felicia, I will write you a check for $10,000 right now. I know that for someone in your situation that is a lot of money."

I couldn't say anything to that. I just stood there as my ears rang.

"Twenty thousand," he said a moment later.

"Fuck you. If you think I would accept this, your opinion of me must be even worse than I thought."

I turned around and left the study, looking for Felicia. I heard her before I saw her.

"Oh! You're disgusting!"

"I just don't know what else you must see in him."

I turned the corner into the kitchen to find Felicia and Pat yelling at each.

"You know what it is? I think you're afraid of him. You know he could snap your neck in about two seconds if he wanted to."

She turned to look at me, eyes aflame. I grabbed her hand.

"Come on. We're leaving."

"Yes. We are."

She shot a final glare at Pat and followed me to the front door.

When we got back to our hotel room, Felicia collapsed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I knew it would be bad, I just didn't expect quite this much nastiness."

"I can take it."

She sighed.

"What did my father want with you?"

"He was trying to convince me to break up with you. He's discussed cutting you off if we get married, hasn't he?"

"Yes. I told him I didn't care."

"I gathered as much."

"Do you think we should get married?"

"I want to marry you. But I can't see doing it until I'm out of school."

"I don't know what to think."

"What do you mean?"

She rolled over, taking my hand.

"Don't get me wrong. I love you more than anything. There's no one I would rather marry than you. It just doesn't feel right yet."

"You don't want to do it because our families are being so psychotic about it."

"That and more. I don't know if I'm ready to get married. I don't know if we should get married. Part of it is you being in school. I don't know."

I hugged her.

"Don't worry about it now. We're just fine the way we are."

She nuzzled against my shoulder.

"Do you really want me to beat up your brother?"

She started laughing.

"I'll let you know."

III.

In the spring of 1997, I was nearing the end of my tenure at SDSU. I had started to apply to law school, and I spent more and more time discussing it with Gretchen. She gave me some tips for the LSAT and my application essay, which we e-mailed back and forth as I worked on it. Although Felicia claimed not to mind my relationship with her, I could tell that she wasn't wild about it either.

"Can you believe it's actually been ten years?"

I was talking to Gretchen about our upcoming high school reunion.

"I know."

"Do you think you'll go?"

"I haven't decided."

"You should. I'd like to see you again, just to catch up. And I know it will be fun to see everyone, to see who got fat and bald."

I laughed.

"Yeah."

"Think about it."

"I'll ask Felicia."

"Yeah. I'd really like to finally meet her."

I brought it up at dinner the next night.

"My high school reunion is in May."

She looked up from her plate.

"And?"

"I'd kind of like to go."

"Why? You haven't kept in touch with any of them."

"Well, no. Except for Gretchen. But I'd like to just see it again. I could show you around Houston."

"I don't know. Is she going to be there?"

"She lives there. I don't know why not."

She looked down and pushed her food around with her fork.

"I'd rather we didn't."

"Why not?"

"It's just not a place I want to go. The past is the past. Just leave it be."

"Is this about Gretchen?"

"I don't know, is it?"

"You mean, do I want to go just to see her?"

"Do you?"

"I would like to see her. But that has nothing to do with us."

She sighed.

"It just bugs me. I don't keep in touch with any of my old boyfriends."

"I don't think I'd mind if you did."

"If I was talking to them every week, even though they lived two thousand miles away and I hadn't seen them in ten years?"

I leaned down, rubbing my forehead.

"Forget it. I won't go. It's not worth this."

"Do what you want. You obviously want to go."

"Not if you're going to act like this. Just forget it."

We finished the meal in silence.

IV.

A month went by. One night, near the end of May, I came into the bedroom to see Felicia sitting on the end of the bed, shoulders slumped, staring at the floor. I noticed as I approached that she held some piece of white plastic in her hand.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm pregnant."

I knelt down in front of her.

"Oh, boy."

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

She held out the little piece of plastic, showing me two blue lines.

"I took two of them. They were both positive."

"Did you miss a pill?"

"Last month. Yes. I only missed it by twenty-four hours, but I guess that was enough."

I took her hands in mine.

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't know. I'm still in shock."

I took a deep breath and squeezed her hands.

"Look. You told me once that things happen for a reason. Maybe this is some kind of hint. Something to push us into making a decision. Maybe we should just get married."

She didn't answer me. She just sat there, head down. I saw a tear run down one cheek, then the other.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you asking me to marry you?"

"Yes. Okay. Felicia, will you marry me?"

She convulsed, fighting a sob.

"No," she squeaked.

"What? Why not?"

It took her a few moments to compose herself.

"I know this is stupid," she sobbed. "I know I'm being immature about this. But I can't do this if you are going to keep up this thing with Gretchen. I could deal with it if we were just living together. But I can't deal with it if we get married. I've been playing second fiddle to her since I met you, and I can't do it anymore."

"That's not true. She's just a friend now. That's all."

She took a breath, looking up at me.

"Look me in the eye. Look at me."

I did.

"I want you to repeat after me: 'I do not love Gretchen anymore.' Six words. Even just four will do. 'I don't love Gretchen.'"

I tried.

But when the moment came, I discovered that I couldn't do it.

Felicia fell over on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. I leaned forward, laying my head on her legs, dazed, wondering what I had just done. We sat like that for a few minutes.

Felicia sat up, catching her breath.

"That reunion is this weekend, right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"I want you to go. I want you to go back to Houston. I want you to see Gretchen--"

"Wait--"

"Listen to me! I want you to go see her. To get this out of your system, if you can. I want you to decide what it is you want."

"I want you."

"I wish I could believe that. God, I wish I could." She hung her head back, gasping. "I wish you could know how much I want this. But I can't do it unless you do what I'm asking you to."

"Is that what it's going to take?"

"Don't do this for me. Do it for you. I don't want you to marry me if it's her you really want."

I sagged.

"Go. I'll wait for you. If you don't come back, I'll know what your answer is."

The Last Waltz.

When I was younger, my father told me a story about his childhood in Boston:

"Dad took me on the grand tour of Harvard that day. We went all through the campus and the medical school. We visited my grandfather at his office, and he told us about his father, about the long line of doctors who had come before us. My father showed me the classrooms where he said I would be going, the professors I would be studying with, the labs I would be working in. We went to the medical library, and he showed me articles our ancestors had published in the New England Journal of Medicine a hundred years before.

"Near the end of the day, we went down to the Charles River, and he stood there against the railing telling me about all the wonderful opportunities that awaited me. I remember looking across the water, seeing a four-man boat from the Harvard crew team practicing. They had just finished a run, and were slowly drifting back downstream. You know what I thought at that moment?"

"What?" I had asked.

"I felt like that boat. Like I was caught up in something much bigger than me, something that was dragging me in a direction I didn't necessarily have to go. That I could fight the current, but I would have to work at it.

"Stephen, the past can be like a river. It can be a great force to move you along, to guide you. But it can also make you think you're going places and accomplishing things even though you're just being carried along by the current, like that boat I saw. Don't be afraid to swim upstream, Stephen. Don't be afraid to fight the current. It's the only way you can ever earn anything you can truly call your own."

I landed at Houston Intercontinental late Friday night. I rented a car and drove south toward the city. I got a room at the Hilton near the Texas Medical Center, not too far from St. Mark's and the reunion site.

I lay in bed that night thinking about that story my father had told me. It had made sense before, but I wasn't sure about it now. Where was the boat and which way was the current? I thought a long time about what I had with Felicia and what I had with Gretchen. I loved Felicia, but something was still there with Gretchen, as Felicia had suspected. It had probably surprised me more than it had her.

The next morning I drove over to St. Mark's. I had expected this to be some kind of trip back to what I remembered, but a lot had since changed. They had expanded the new wing of the school, almost doubling it in size to accommodate a new set of science labs. The football field and gym had been completely replaced. Much of what I had known was gone.

I walked out to the old quadrangle, and found the bench I had sat on that day I had tried to decide whether to enlist in the Navy. I saw a graffito on one corner, in crayon: "Jeremy loves Susan." I wondered if Jeremy was having the problems I had had.

II.

The reunion was being held at a bar and grill near the school, where our class had rented out an entire room. I arrived early, not wanting to wait any longer. Only a few people were there, all of them the women on the reunion committee.

One of them, a red-haired woman named Michelle, greeted me at the door.

"Hey! How are you?"

"Good."

"Do you remember me?"

"Yes. How you doing?"

"Great."

She gave me a nametag, and I got a beer from the bar. Gradually, the class began to trickle in, only some of whom I greeted. Richie Simmons showed up, having gained a gut and lost most of his hair.

"Hey! My man! Jesus, you're about a foot taller than you were in high school."

"I was in the SEALs for six years. I put on some weight."

"Whoa. Cool. You look great."

Someone else came by, and Richie went off with them. I met Claire a few minutes later.

"Stephen! You came!"

"Yeah, I changed my mind at the last minute. Have you seen Gretchen?"

"No, she's not here? She should be here any second."

She grinned.

"You looking forward to something?"

"I just wanted to see her."

I heard a scream behind me, and turned just in time to have Gretchen crash into me.

"You came! I though you said you weren't going to."

"I decided I should."

"Well, great. Where's Felicia?"

"She couldn't make it."

"Damn. I really wanted to meet her. What happened?"

"She couldn't get away from work."

"Oh, well. Maybe next time."

She put her arm through mine, hugging it. She looked much like she had the last time I had seen her, except for her hair, which was now up in a snappy, professional cut. She had aged pretty well.

"Well, I guess I get you for the night."

We walked around meeting our old classmates and catching up on the past ten years. I talked to Claire and her husband for a while, then with Ross, who had been one of my friends in eleventh grade. The food came out a little bit later, and we lined up at the buffet. Alicia, another girl I had known at St. Mark's, came up while we were eating.

"My God, nothing has changed. You two are still glued together."

Gretchen laughed.

"I know, isn't it weird? And I haven't seen him in eight years."

"You're still the cutest couple in the school."

The reunion spirit outlasted our allotted time at the restaurant, and some of us moved to a nearby bar.

"Show me something you learned in the SEALs," Claire asked.

"I'm out of practice."

"What are you doing now?" her husband asked.

"I'm in my last year at San Diego State. I also work as scuba instructor."

"Damn. Must be nice. Like 'Baywatch,' I bet."

"It's not that bad."

"Besides, he's almost hitched," Gretchen said.

I thought of Felicia. What was I doing here?

Gretchen and I ended up in a corner of the bar.

"It's really good to see you again. You look great. You really do look like a lifeguard, you know, like Will said."

"I spend a lot of time outdoors. How's the law practice?"

"Insane. I put in at least sixty hours a week, at least. I have no time for a social life. If I don't date guys from my office, I don't get out at all."

"Lonely?"

"A little. I love what I do, but sometimes I feel like my life is just slipping away."

I looked down at my beer.

"Do you ever think about what it might have been like, if I had come back here for school? If I had gotten that scholarship after all?"

She smiled.

"Sometimes."

"You look pretty good."

"Thanks."

She laughed softly.

"You're having an attack of nostalgia. I can tell."

"Yeah."

"I do think about that, sometimes, when I get down. I did love you, probably more than I've loved anyone else since then. I suppose I still do in a way. It would have been nice if we could have made it work. I think we could have had a good life together. It just wasn't meant to be, I guess."

I sighed.

"Life isn't over yet."

I looked up, seeing her face go pale, and her jaw begin to drop.

"Stephen . . . what are you saying?"

"I don't know. I just wonder sometimes why we still keep in touch the way we have, even though we said it would never work."

She looked away from me, head down. She sniffed, and I saw her wipe at her eye.

"Don't do this. Please don't do this."

"Why not?"

"Because it can't happen. Stephen, I'm not your life anymore. I have a life here, just like you have a life in San Diego, with Felicia. My God, you're practically engaged. How long have you guys been living together? Two years? Three?"

"Three."

"How can you even think of this? I won't let you do it. Don't throw away what you have with Felicia because you can't let go of the past."

"Is it the past?"

"Yes. You know it is. We get like this because what we had in high school was so special to us. It is very special to me, everything we had. But it's not now. Don't confuse the two."

I dropped my head, sighing.

"Stephen, do you remember 'The Great Gatsby'?"

"Yes."

"You remember how Gatsby destroyed himself trying to recreate something that was long gone? That's what you're doing. Don't make that mistake."

"I'm sorry."

I felt her hand on mine.

"It's okay. I understand. Believe me, I've thought about this myself. But it's over."

I walked her out to her car. She gave me a hug.

"I love you," I said softly.

"I love you, too. But Felicia is where you belong. You know that and so do I."

"Yeah."

She kissed me on the cheek.

"Good bye. And good luck."

"You too."

I flew home the next day. As I stared out the window, watching the city receding under me, I sung softly to myself:

" . . . old times there are not forgotten . . . look away, look away, look away, Dixieland . . ."

The End (for real).

"And that's how it all happened?"

"Pretty much."

"That's so romantic."

"I know, isn't? Who would have thought all those years ago what would happen to them?"

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Is he boring you with that stupid story again?"

"No."

"No, it's not stupid, it's cute."

I kissed her.

"Just deal with it."

"Okay, well I need you now."

"Why?"

"Because it's time to cut the cake. And it's generally a good idea if the bride and groom do it together."

Postscript
>From "St. Mark's Bulletin," Fall 1997:

CLASS NOTES

Class of 1987

. . . and the latest news from out in California is that STEPHEN MACINTOSH finally married his long-time girlfriend, the former Felicia Cabot. Also in attendance were CLAIRE MILLER DAVENPORT, GRETCHEN KECK, whom you may remember was Stephen's old flame from St. Mark's, and a few of Stephen's buddies from his mystery days as a Navy Seal (wouldn't we all like to know???). The happy couple honeymooned in Mexico, and are now making their home in San Diego . . .

THE END