The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [6]
But moving home? At the advanced age of thirty-three? Like, for permanent, as Cordy might say?
She should have been living in the city with her fiancé, Jonathan, having recently signed her first contract as a tenured professor, waving her engagement ring around wildly whenever she came back to Barnwell just to show that she was, in fact, not just the smart one, that Bean was not the only one who could land a man, and our father was not the only professorial genius in the family. This is how it should have been. This is how it was:
ACT I
Setting: Airport interior, and Jonathan’s apartment, just after winter break
Characters: Jonathan, Rose, travelers
Rose had changed positions a dozen times as the passengers on Jonathan’s flight came streaming through the airport gates. She was looking for the right position for him to catch her in; the right balance of careless inattention and casual beauty, neither of which would betray how much she had missed him.
But when he finally did emerge, cresting over the gentle grade of the ramp that led from the gate, when she could see his rumpled hair bobbing above the heads of the other passengers, the graceful way his tall, reedy shoulders were bent forward as though he were walking into an insistent wind, she forgot her artifice and stood, dropping her book by her side and smoothing her clothes and her hair until he was in front of her and she was in his arms, his mouth warm against her own.
“I missed you,” she said, running her hand down his cheek, marveling at the fact of his presence. Light stubble brushed against her palm as he moved his chin against her touch, catlike. “Don’t ever go away again.”
He laughed, tipping his head back slightly, and then dropped a kiss on her forehead, shifting his bag over his shoulder to keep it from slipping. “I’ve come back,” he said.
“Yes, and you are never allowed to leave again,” Rose said. She’d think back on that later and wonder if his expression had changed, but at the time she didn’t notice a thing. She picked up her book and slipped her hand into his as they headed to pick up his luggage.
“Was it that awful? Your sisters didn’t come home when they got your father’s letter?” He turned to face her so he was standing backward on the escalator, his hands spread over the rails.
“No, they didn’t come home, and thank heavens, because that would have been even worse. It’s just been me and Mom and Dad.”
“Lonely?” He turned back and stepped off the escalator, holding his hand out to help her step off. Swoon-worthy, as Cordy would have said.
“Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it. How was your trip?”
Jonathan had been gone for two weeks, nearly the entire break, presenting at a conference in Germany and stopping on the way back to visit friends in England. Rose had carefully crossed each passing day off in her day planner, feeling like a ridiculous schoolgirl with a crush but unable to stop herself. Ridiculous, she knew. When they had been a couple for only a few months, she’d been the one to utter the magical four-letter word first, breathless and laughing as they lay on his bed and he alternated between kissing her neck and tickling her mercilessly. She’d been thinking that this was love for weeks, but she couldn’t say it first, and then the words slipped out in a rush of giddiness. She’d frozen, horrified at her own lack of control, but then he’d whispered back that he loved her, too, and her relief and happiness made her feel faint. Being without him had felt like a cruel amputation,