An April Love Story: A Cooney Classic Romance

  We got the food, but the train wouldn’t go out again for another half hour so Lucas decided we should take the chairlift up the mountain. I decided I should stay at the bottom and wait for him.

  “Chicken,” said Lucas.

  “I am not. If there’s one thing I’ve found out about chickens, it’s that they’re dumb enough to do anything. Even ride on a chairlift.”

  “Come on, hop in, it’s perfectly safe.”

  I held back. The attendant yawned. “It is safe, Miss,” he said, bored. “You won’t … well, okay, you missed that chair, we’ll put you on the next one, they don’t stop for more than a second, so you … well, you missed that one, too, the people behind you in line are starting to get a little edgy, Miss, if you could just—”

  “Marnie, get in,” said Lucas, shoving, and I was in. “What are you afraid of? This isn’t more than fifteen feet off the ground.”

  “It’s flimsy.”

  “It’s a very thick cable.”

  “Looks like string to me.”

  The attendant slammed a tiny, thin, useless bar across our laps and the lift jerked and we flounced several feet forward. There was another jerk while the next passenger got on and another flounce forward. “Let’s not do this,” I said.

  “I think they probably frown on people vaulting out of the chairlift, Marnie. Sit tight. Nothing will happen.”

  “I should have taken out life insurance.”

  “Even if you did fall, it’s just a little way to the ground.”

  “That isn’t ground down there, Lucas, those are the lethal tips of trees eager to impale me.”

  Lucas laughed, shifting over next to me. The lift now quivered left and right, as well as front and back. I squealed. The wind, which had merely been fierce on the ground, tore around us with the brutality of a young hurricane. “And this is April,” I moaned. “What’s it like in January?”

  “I am beginning to think you are not cut out to be, say, a ski instructor, Marnie.”

  “Lucas, I am freezing!”

  Lucas pulled me next to him, something I’d have cooperated with if I hadn’t been sure than any movement would tip us both out, and wrapped my left side with his arm. I closed my eyes, pressed my face into his chest, and listened to his heartbeat. Lucas took advantage of my cowardice to remove my French fries from my death grip. He ate them as calmly as if we were in a cafeteria. “Marnie!” he yelled over the wind.

  “What?” I muttered through the thick wool of his sweater. My sweater, which I had knit for him.

  “Relax! Enjoy yourself!” shouted Lucas.

  “I am, I am.”

  And I was.

  I was freezing. My legs were cold, my cheeks were cold, my neck was cold, even the fillings in my teeth were cold. I knew the lift would break the next time the cable twitched and we’d both go to gory deaths on some spiky trees.

  And tucked under Lucas’ arm, listening to his heart, I was having the most wonderful time of my life.

  I was actually sorry when we had to get off the lift at the top of the mountain. Getting off turned out to be much easier than getting on. More incentive, I guess.

  We toured an old mine shaft. Lucas would comment on this or that and I would go “mmmm” or “aaah,” but all I was aware of was that my left hand was getting frostbite and my right hand was snuggled in Lucas’. He had taken the hand all on his own. I hadn’t offered it or anything. “So how do we get down?” I said at last, watching the flouncing chairlift from a nice, safe distance.

  “There’s a minibus for people who are afraid of chairlifts,” he said. I felt a deep gratitude for the Tweetsie Railroad managers, who had known this sort of thing would come up from time to time.

  The instant the minibus drew to its stop, we saw the train below us getting ready once more to pull out. “Wait for us!” screamed Lucas. I personally did not feel such an urgent need to catch the train, but Lucas didn’t let go of my hand, and rather than have my arm jerked out its socket, I ran with him. We tore down the steep paths and across the tracks right in front of the train. “It won’t leave when we’re in its way,” explained Lucas. “They hardly ever like to kill the customers.” We leaped on the first passenger car and wilted against its sides, panting and huffing. The train gave a final TOOOOT and pulled slowly and noisily out of the station.

  “There’s a glassed-in car at the rear,” said the ticket officer. “Everybody else is down there to keep out of the wind.”

  “We’re tough,” said Lucas. “A little wind doesn’t bother us.”

  “Bothers me,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.

  “I’ve always wanted a train car all to myself,” said Lucas. “This is one very minor childhood fantasy come true.”

  “Don’t have it to yourself,” observed the ticket officer. “There’s a girl with you.”

  “Another fantasy,” said Lucas, and both he and the ticket man grinned.

  We both wanted a window seat, but I certainly didn’t want to sit in a different row from Lucas, so I sat next to him. The train curved around the mountainside. In places the trees closed around us, dense and green with new spring leaves. In others were vistas over wide meadows to the pretty little valley below.

  “Marnie,” said Lucas.

  “Yes?”

  “What did we decide this is?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s a train, Lucas.”

  “No, no. This afternoon.”

  I drew a blank. I didn’t know what he meant.

  “A ploy to stay off the farm,” said Lucas, “or a date?”

  There was no train, no wind, no people, no scenery then. Just looking at each other, and trying to decide what to say, what to think. I decided that since speech was often a shortcoming between us, I’d forget it. I sat in Lucas’ lap again, and handsome as his forehead might be, that wasn’t where I kissed him.

  “I guess it’s a date then,” said Lucas when we stopped to breathe.

  We laughed and stopped the laughter with more kisses. It wasn’t like junior high. We didn’t miss. We didn’t get each other’s chins damp or feel silly. It was warm, soft and—

  “KKIIIIIYYYYY-YIIIIIYYYYY-YIIIIIYY-YYY!!!”

  Huge, whooping screams filled the air. I was so startled I leaped out of Lucas’ grip, found myself half standing, half crouching, hanging onto the seat back, and staring into the leering eyes of a masked horseman who had drawn up next to our railroad car. Men on horses dashed back and forth, screaming, yelling, and shooting. I was paralyzed.

  “That’ll teach you to kiss,” said Lucas, laughing so hard he choked. “They caught you. You won’t do that again in a hurry, will you?”

  “Lucas, what is this?”

  “It’s a game. Everybody in school has been here a dozen times. Didn’t any of them ever tell you what happens when you ride Tweetsie Railroad?”

  “No. I thought you just rode around the mountain.”

  “You do. You also get robbed. Every time the train goes out, bad guys hold up the good guys. Those are college kids making a little money screeching and shooting and riding horses.”

  I was so embarrassed I could have died. Every one of those riders knew they had really terrified me. Where their mouths showed under their masks, they were laughing, congregating around our car. I flopped into the seat beside Lucas and shrank down out of view.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Lucas. “Your mind was on other things.”

  “And yours wasn’t?”

  “I was a little distracted. But I knew it was coming.”

  “Do they actually rob us? I’m a little short on gold. They’ll have to settle for the cherrywood bracelet your father carved for me.”

  “I wonder if they need any more robbers,” mused Lucas. “I can’t ride a horse, but if I can learn how to farm, I guess I can learn that. Sounds like a much easier way to earn money that sweet potato pie making.”

  I just slumped, letting my pulse slow down, and hoping my cheeks weren’t permanently b
lushed. Lucas slumped down to match my position. There can’t be anything more awkward than being half on a floor, half on a hard, wooden bench, wind whistling through your hair, gunshots going over your head. It turned out, however, to be a very acceptable position for another kiss. And another, and another.

  I knew for sure that Lucas no longer put me in the sister category.

  What I still didn’t know was if, given a selection, Marnie MacDonald was the girl he’d have chosen to date.

  Chapter XIII

  MY LOFT HAD NEVER been cozier. I snuggled into my quilt. Before she went to bed Mother had opened the windows and cool, spring, night air drifted in. I fell asleep thinking of Lucas and love and how perhaps our parents were right—this was the good life! Except for them, the good part would be farming, and for me the good part would be Lucas.

  We’d paint his room together. Laughing. Enjoying it. Making it attractive. We’d build his shelves and drawers together. One of these days he’d ask me for a real date. He’d think of some way to find a few dollars (or at least a few hours) and arrange for the two of us to be alone, somewhere, somehow.

  When I woke up, my mother was calling my name over and over. “It’s late, Marnie. You’ll miss the bus. Hurry and dress. I’ve got a sweet roll for you to eat while you rush down the lane.”

  So much for a leisurely breakfast with a single rose at my place and an atmosphere redolent of romance. The only thing our house was redolent of was scurrying sounds of six people getting ready to leave it.

  I dressed as quickly as I could, backing down my ladder without getting a run in my stockings. I stood over the kitchen table, gulping my apple juice (one of the things I yearn for most is frozen orange juice; I grew up believing Vitamin C came only in frozen orange juice and it’s very hard to believe my own squashed apples will also keep my body functioning), and my father said, “The last possible frost date has gone by, Marnie. Forecast for the rest of the week is in the seventies. This breeze is drying out the soil and everything is just perfect for planting our summer crops. Beans, corn, squash, tomatoes, and so on.”

  “That’s nice,” I said. I stacked my books, looking for Lucas. I had heard him earlier, but he didn’t seem to be in the house now.

  “So the minute you get home from school, get into your jeans, and meet us in the garden to get working. We want to get everything done now. Forecast for the weekend is heavy rain, which will be good for the new seeds, assuming it isn’t too heavy, of course, in which case …” He tapered off into a monologue about the vagaries of weather and the precarious position of the farmer.

  That wasn’t nice. It meant instead of a date with Lucas, I had a date with a garden. Oh, well. Lucas and I could stoop over the same carrot row. It wasn’t a rose on a lace-covered tray, but at least it was proximity.

  I hurried outdoors. It was warm, and the breeze was soft, full of flowery scents. Sometimes I wish I had a strong nose, like an animal, so I could identify everything, and know where it came from, and when, instead of just getting a faint, mishmashy perfume.

  Lucas was just coming out of the barn. He must have had to check on the cow or the goats. He brushed himself off, picked up his bookbag from the porch step, and we headed for the bus stop.

  “I’ve got an exam,” said Lucas. “I should have studied yesterday instead of running all over the place.”

  He would rather have been studying than driving me around Boone? Would rather have been studying than giving me kisses, talking to me about Life, Truth, and Outhouses, the improvement thereof?

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t meant to hurt your feelings. That’s usually your scene, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A few verbal stabs just when I don’t need them.”

  “Lucas, I told you yesterday how sorry I am for all that.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  The bus came. Our conversation—if you could call it that—ended, because Lucas didn’t try to sit with me, even though there were plenty of empty seats. He fell into a seat beside one of the boys and immediately opened a book to begin studying. I ended up with Eloise, Connie, apparently sick again, showing Eloise how to do remainders on long division.

  It wasn’t what I had had in mind for today at all.

  It was impossible to keep my mind on class. I kept running through those few little sentences, as if I were in a play and had to have them by memory. What had Lucas meant by that? Was he telling me he couldn’t forgive me for all the mean things I’d said? Was he telling me to buzz off, because studying had a much higher priority than I did? Or was he just nervous about an exam he hadn’t prepared for, and the stress made him unaware of what he was saying to me?

  When my teachers called on me, I didn’t know what page we were on or what the topic was, and once, I wasn’t even sure which class I was in. I don’t know who was annoyed more, the teachers or me.

  Coming home I got on the bus early. Lucas will be in a good mood, I told myself. The test will have been easy, because tests are always easy for Lucas, and the sun is shining, and life is good, and we’ll be friends.

  Lucas emerged from the building at the last possible second and ran to catch the bus, leaping onto the moving steps just as it pulled out. He didn’t so much as glance at any of us, but squatted beside the folding exit doors to talk to the bus driver.

  “Don’t worry about it, Marnie,” said Eloise, patting my hand.

  “Don’t worry about what?”

  “Lucas.”

  “What makes you think I am worried about Lucas?”

  “All you ever do is make cow eyes at him. Do you know that you did one of my division problems wrong, and the teacher made me do it on the board, and I didn’t know how? All because you are dotty about Lucas.”

  “I am not dotty about anyone and I have never made cow eyes in my life.”

  “Connie says you have a crush on him.”

  I had never said that to Connie. Suddenly I wondered just how much everybody did know. Was it painfully obvious that I loved Lucas and he had no use for me? Did every single person on this bus know that I had been hoping Lucas would sit with me and been in pain when he didn’t?

  I was quite glad when our bus stop came. I was afraid Eloise would tell me that she had never seen Lucas make cow eyes at me so he must not have a crush the way I did. I was afraid Eloise would tell me that when I wasn’t looking, Lucas was making cow eyes at someone else.

  Cow eyes, I thought, gathering my books. What a revolting phrase.

  Although cows do have beautiful eyes. Large, amazed, dumb, brown eyes. Was that what I looked like when I faced Lucas?

  Lucas was off the bus first, of course, since he was perched on the steps, and by the time I got off he was already a hundred feet down the lane, swinging along, whistling to himself.

  It was the whistling that hurt most. Such a carefree sound. Happiness with pursed lips. A boy alone on a country lane, enjoying himself.

  My insides ached.

  I pretended to drop my books, so as the bus pulled away anyone watching would have thought it perfectly normal for me to stand by the roadside stooping and gathering them up. It surprised me somewhat that I cared what they thought. I’d have said that if Lucas didn’t care, then nobody mattered at all. But apparently I didn’t really feel that way. Maybe somehow I needed a reason even for myself for the distance between Lucas and me.

  The sun was no longer a friendly, warm yellow. It was a hot hammer, whacking the insides of my head until it throbbed.

  Okay, Lucas, I thought, if that’s the way you want it, so be it. You couldn’t be making it more plain that you didn’t intend our trip to turn out the way it did. Any kisses exchanged were meaningless, and no conclusions should be drawn from the conversations.

  I accept that, I told myself. Look at me shrug.

  I even shrugged. It was a shoulder movement, though. It didn’t have a whole lot to do with me. I wasn’t shrugging at all.

  It’s probably just
as well, I said to myself. Living together the way we do, it could be awkward for us to be in love. My bedroom in the loft, his a few feet away behind the kitchen. A mild friendship, that’s probably much more healthy.

  Who cares? I don’t care.

  Beside me was the thick hedgerow that ran along Mr. Shields’ property. He had dozens and dozens of forsythia bushes, which four weeks earlier had been a gaudy ribbon of gold. This week all the gold was gone and the bushes were a bright new green. In the middle of all this was a slender weedy renegade, just now coming out with blossoms peeking through all that green. I felt a tremendous affection for that bush. Setting my books down in the rutted lane, I began slowly picking forsythia branches.

  I’m not going to cry, I told myself. Lucas is not worth one single salty tear.

  I had to do deep-breathing exercises to keep from crying, because the other half of me was saying, Lucas is worth a million salty tears! Cry, flood the lousy lane, get your eyes red, scream even.

  I picked forsythia instead.

  “Marnie?” said Lucas. His softest voice. Nothing at all resembling a newborn foghorn. A deep, gentle baritone.

  “I’ll carry your books for you,” he said.

  I had not even heard him walk up to me. I kept my eyes on my armload of flowers, making myself think which vase I’d put them in. The narrow-topped, dark-brown pottery, or the thick crystal vase that Mother hadn’t, after all, given to the yard sale? “Thought you were already hard at work in the garden,” I said.

  “I should be.”

  We both should be, I thought drearily. The word garden is so pretty. Why isn’t the work involved pretty, too?

  “Marnie, wait, please.”

  “I’m walking beside you, Lucas, what is there to wait for?” There. I had snapped at him again. What a habit it was for me, really. No wonder he liked to walk alone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said unexpectedly. “You told me you didn’t like it when I walked on ahead and I did it anyhow. On purpose.”

  At least he admitted it. But I wasn’t too thrilled he came back out of guilt for his bad manners. The last thing I wanted was Lucas around because he had been brought up to be courteous. I wanted him around because he couldn’t bear to be anywhere else. “Doesn’t matter,” I said.