This is a follow-up to Lovely, Dark and Deep (romance - 1/15/22) and Cuddle, Kiss and Comfort (romance - 2/2/22).
Maybe winter isn't so bad after all. The terrible beauty that is January appears to be turning out beautiful indeed. A one Rhiana Schuster is in my life. Just a short time ago, I was a grieving man on social hiatus, grieving over Kathy, my beloved fiancé who had been killed on her bike by a texting driver. I'm still grieving, perhaps always will on some level, missing her, wondering what could have been. Yet, thanks to meeting Rhiana, I can feel myself emerging from the despair that's shadowed me for the past year. Cliché or not, maybe Rhiana and I are kindred spirits in the sense that we've both lost someone dear to us, someone we had planned to make a future with.
If a profound sense of loss is the only thing we have in common, then she wouldn't be sitting beside me on this chilly Saturday afternoon in my charcoal-gray Jeep Wrangler for our first "official" date. No way, because it takes more than sharing mutual grief to keep people together. Besides the obvious physical attraction, we both seem to share an absurdist sense of humor. I had her laughing the day we met. And there's something else: we both miss the joy of sledding. Neither of us had done it since our early teens. My American Flyer is long-gone but Rhiana still has hers, kept in her parents' garage for over fifteen years, "gathering dust," as she told me. But not anymore. The dust has been cleaned off and that sled now sits in the back of my Wrangler as we head over to one of the best sledding places in our region.
"You'll be warm in that?" Rhiana asks, noticing that I left my encumbering blue ski jacket home in favor of wearing a heavy ski sweater over a vest, sweat jersey, jeans and boots. "Sorry, it's my inner Jewish mother coming out again."
"No problem, mom, I'll be quite warm," I say. "You'll notice that I brought an ear-covering wool cap this time. The beard helps, too."
"I see," she chuckles, recalling the day we met when she covered my red, wind-burned ears with her hands. She wears the orange coat she wore that day, her own wool cap and fur-lined suede boots.
Coincidently, or maybe not, the last time we both went sledding was on this hill. Of course, we didn't know each other then, and we probably went on different days. Close to one-hundred yards from top to bottom, the hill stretches from the brick, two-story Summit Country Club clubhouse, down to a two-lane secondary road. The Summit is an exclusive, old WASBY, blue blood kind of club, but members have always welcomed sledders on its broad slope, whether they belong to the club or not.
After parking the Jeep on a side street and lifting the sled from the back, we trudge up the hill, careful not to slip on the snow and ice that had accumulated over the past week. No surprise, other sledders are along for the ride on their own American Flyers and flying saucer type sleds.
When we reach the top, Rhiana says, "You go first."
"No, you," I say. "Ladies first."
She draws a faux exasperated look. "We'll go together. How's that? At least for the first ride."
So, going tandem it is. The sled is long enough to accommodate both of us. I take front, which means I'm charged with steering the thing with my feet. "Ready?"
"Ready," she says, then wraps her arms around me. "Push off."
Olympic bobsledding this isn't, where sleds can reach speeds that you see cars doing on our interstates. Still, it's fairly steep for the first half, and so we fly down, heading for the infamous low berm at the bottom. The berm rises in front of a putting green that the club's golfers use during the season. Hit it and you're sure to capsize. Barring that, you can steer to the right or left of it, though a sharp steer can also capsize your ride. Which is exactly what I do. The sled overturns and we go with it, no worse for wear. Rhiana laughs like a kid who just had the ride of her life. "That was fun!" she cries, brushing the snow from her coat. "Let's do it again."
We do, this time with Rhiana in the cockpit. Unlike me, she negotiates the berm without a turnover. We then go solo, sometimes lying down, other times sitting upright. There's minimal wind today, so we stay reasonably comfortable. Trudging back up that hill after every turn is enough exercise to keep the blood circulating. And speaking of blood flow, there's plenty of that during the brief necking we do between turns on the sled. The last time we necked was on a sofa in her parents' den. Now we do it atop the hill, oblivious to those around us and members of the Summit Country Club who can easily see us through the windows if they take the time and interest to even look. There's something special about kissing a beautiful girl like Rhiana in the crisp winter air. There's a minty tang to it, her erotic, feminine scent combined with a menthol-like freshness. I tell her that she's my snow maiden in spandex and she tells me that I'm her hunk of an iceman in denim, the sort of iceman that "warms me deep inside my gut," she says
Almost two hours of this, and we're ready to call it a day. On the slope, that is. When we get back in the Wrangler, she says, "I'd like to see your place. Can you take me home with you?"
Of course, it's a request that I can hardly refuse. Home for me is a townhouse located a few blocks from Johns Hopkins University, my alma mater. Students and a few of the Hopkins faculty live in the neighborhood. Fortunately, the violence that has plagued other Baltimore neighborhoods is relatively rare here. My front porch faces an urban park equipped with benches where people still feel safe enough to sit on warm days and watch the goings on, the traffic whizzing by, people going to work, students coming and going to class. The place is abuzz with the "right" kind of energy.
Most of the homes, including mine, have a carport in back, a luxury for city dwellers. Car break-ins happen but it's not too often, and so we leave the sled in the Wrangler. After hanging up our coats and stepping out of our boots by the backdoor, I give Rhiana a tour.
The house dates from the nineteen-twenties, but previous owners installed updates like central air and gas heat. My own updates include walls painted a light gray (except for the canary yellow walls of the kitchen), redone hardwoods throughout the house and stainless-steel appliances. "When I finally move from my parents' house, I might get a place like this," Rhiana says. "There's a certain charm to these houses that's missing from suburbia."
Upstairs, she notices the bicycle that I keep in one of the two spare bedrooms. "I keep mine in my parents' club basement," she says. "I keep it on the trainer and do spinning in cold weather. When it gets warmer, maybe we can ride together."
I nod, thinking back to the times I rode with Kathy. Great memories turned sad by her death on a bike. "Sure, when it gets warmer."
Rhiana is perceptive enough to pick up the wistful pathos in my voice. "Oh, my, I just remembered that you and Kathy used to ride together. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to drudge up--"
"Hey, it's okay." I reach out and give her a reassuring hug. "When it gets warmer, we'll ride." Teasingly, I add, "Sure you can keep up with me?"
She sees me grinning. "Listen to you. Well, we'll see. These legs can crank out a mighty cadence, I'll have you know."
"Oh, I believe that," I say, gawking at her firm, shapely thighs under the spandex. "I'll look forward to it." That little exchange breaks what could have potentially turned into a sad mood. I continue: "Meanwhile, how about if I get the fireplace going? Then we can relax on the sofa with a glass of wine. Are you onboard?"
"Totally onboard. But before we go back downstairs, let's do this."
I don't have to ask what she means by "this." We stand and kiss, our bodies pressed tightly together, while that poet's words once again pop into my mind: "pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath." This time, I remember that it was Alan Seeger, an American French Foreign Legionnaire who fought and died in World War One, that wrote those immortal words.
