Back in college, Peggy Grantwood had always had Chuck pegged as a kindred soul, just as shy as she was. That, she believed to this day, was as good an excuse as any why they'd never been more than casual friends.
But she knew the real reason was Mark and Alex. Peggy's longtime crush and his ex of accursed memory.
Even so, she was delighted when Julie told her Chuck was in town. "He just got his teaching certificate," Julie explained as she finished off her cocoa, "and I guess a French teacher at Kennedy went on maternity leave. I just ran into him at the supermarket the other day."
"No kidding!" Peggy allowed a girlish sigh, relishing how close she and Julie had become in the six long months since graduation, both of them having settled in the city a hundred miles or so from their rural campus. Her neighborhood wasn't the best, but the coffee shop where she met with Julie once a week was a cosy oasis in the dead of winter. With the news about Chuck, it felt cosier still. "Such a sweet guy. You know, I didn't know you knew him, Julie."
"Everyone who knew Mark and Matt knew Chuck," said Julie, who like herself had been on the periphery of Mark's wide circle of friends. "The token mature guy, remember?"
"Mark wasn't that immature." Peggy had no idea why she still felt compelled to defend him, but she did.
"Oh, come on, Peg! I know you liked him -- no offense, but everybody knew it -- but he and Matt were a couple of little boys. Chuck would've been a much better catch, you know. And now he's here!" She took out her phone and wrote Chuck's number on a napkin.
Peggy took the napkin. "Thanks," she said. "But I don't think he likes me like that."
"Oh, he's just shy, you know that," Julie said. "And, you know, he had a thing for Alex."
"I'm not Alex, am I?"
"The exact opposite," Julie agreed. "But after she got done slaughtering Chuck's heart, he probably never wanted to bother with any of Mark's exes again.
"Mark and I never dated," Peggy reminded her friend. "Not for lack of desire on my part, but..."
"No offense, but everyone knew," Julie said. "Especially Chuck. Look -- he told me not to say this, but he asked about you."
"Did he?" Peggy saw no point in hiding her delight at that news. She felt like a schoolgirl with a crush, but after so many lonely nights lately she didn't much care. "Mark always did say he said the nicest things about me. I just wish he'd have said some of them
to
me."
"Give him another try, Peg."
Peggy looked at the napkin again, and then back at her friend. "Mark really was a silly little boy, wasn't he?"
"Him and Matt both," Julie said. "And I think they thought of you as their kid sister, to tell you the truth."
"What makes you say that?" Peggy demanded.
"Didn't you ever hear their joke about your initials? They said you were rated PG."
The joke still stung three days later as Peggy was cooking dinner, even as her heart was flying with anticipation of Chuck's visit. Mark was history, gone to Asia to teach English, and there was no sense in kicking herself anymore for what had already failed to happen between them, but
rated PG
? Did he really think she was that innocent?
The lasagne was bubbling nicely in the oven, and Chuck was due any minute now. Time to change clothes. Perhaps, she mused, she ought to take the opportunity to show Chuck, at least, that she wasn't that innocent.
She stepped out from behind the kitchen island to her wardrobe, one of only two pieces of furniture she'd gotten around to buying yet (her beloved queen size bed being the other), and rustled through her dresses. It was too cold for most of them, but the knit black and white one her mother had given her for Christmas would do with tights underneath.
As Peggy lay the dress on the bed and went to the curtain to draw the curtains, she realized it was definitely a night for tights no matter what she wore over them. The old building was drafty and she felt an icy chill well before she got to the window. When she got there, the usually busy downtown corner below her was deserted, with only one man sliding down the shiny sidewalk in the freezing rain that glistened in the air and on nearly every surface. She hated to think of Chuck having to drive or, worse yet, walk back to his shared apartment uptown.
Perhaps, she realized with a pleasant twinge as she pulled the curtains shut, he would just have to spend the night.
There was just enough time to change her clothes and find her black flat shoes before buzzer rang. Peggy ran to the door and picked up the intercom phone. "Hello?"
"It's Chuck! I'm half-frozen but I'm here!"
"Come in!" She buzzed him in.
Whether it was paranoia or newly-learned street smarts from living in this neighborhood, Peggy set her hand on the doorknob but didn't open it, much as she longed to. She looked through the peephole, her heart pounding -- it had only been seven months and he'd sounded just the same as ever on the phone, but they'd been lonely months and she'd kept so much to herself. Recalling her promise to her father, she didn't even unlock the door until she saw him.
He had time to knock twice before she could unlock the door. "Chuck, welcome!" she said, stepping aside to let him in. She ached to hug him, but his coat was drenched. So was the bottle of red wine he'd brought, and which he handed to her with his first hello.
"Sorry about this," he said, unzipping the coat and doing his best to take it off without getting anything wet except the floor.
"Don't be! I'm just glad you made it over here safely. And thanks for the wine." He was just as gorgeous as ever, his light brown hair cut shorter than he'd usually worn it in college, and dressed in a lavender button-down shirt she remembered fondly. "Your shoes must be soaked, take them off!"
"I'll be terribly underdressed, won't I? You look beautiful, by the way."
"Thank you, and better underdressed than sitting there in wet socks all evening!" She pulled out one of the bar stools for him. "Let me bring my electric heater over here. Your pants will be dry by the time we finish dinner."
He sat down and pulled off his socks, and she took them to the bathroom to hang on the shower rod. "This place has steam heat, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't," she said. "So the second thing I bought after my bed was this heater."
"Nice place," he said as he watched her retrieve the heater from the foot of the bed.
"Nice of you to say that, Chuck," she said. "Believe me, I know what a pit this is!"
"No, it reminds me of the house I grew up in," Chuck said. "Probably from about the same era. World War I? We had steam radiators, too. I remember learning to ignore the clanking of the pipes so I could sleep through them."
"I haven't gotten there yet," Peggy confessed, "But like I said, sometimes the radiator doesn't work anyway."
She turned the heater on and Chuck welcomed the blast of warm air on his damp cuffs and bare feet. "Won't that be awfully hot for you in those tights, though?" he asked.
"Well, maybe I like it hot, Chuck," she teased.
Chuck laughed. "Wow, the city sure has changed you!"
"Oh, I wasn't the demure little girl you thought I was before either, Chuck." She pulled the lasagne carefully out of the oven and set it on the end of the counter. "I wasn't really rated PG, I'll have you know!"
"You knew about that!" Chuck laughed to hide his embarrassment, and set about uncorking the wine.
"At the time, no," Peggy admitted. "But Julie told me about it the other day. Oh, and I've got a blast from the past for you!" She reached into the oven again. "Since it was too cold for salad..." She set a casserole dish next to the lasagne, full of green beans, carrots and peas with breadcrumbs and cheese on top.
"The three-vegetable bake!" Chuck exclaimed, recognizing a mainstay from their college's dining hall. "God, four years of that, and somehow I miss it."
"Me too," Peggy said, settling herself in the other chair. "I never thought I'd miss being that busy, but some days my job is awfully dull.
"I hear you," Chuck agreed. "I was just up there last week, you know, to meet with a student who's interested in teaching next year. It was dark and wet out just like tonight, and walking past the dining hall while everyone was warm and dry in there and bonding with their friends...ouch."
"You weren't imagining them all dressed up like Catholic school girls, were you?" Peggy teased as she served them both.
"Oh no!" Chuck laughed. "Mark told you that, did he?" He remembered all too well his silly expectations back in high school about what college would be like.
"Only because he was surprised at it," Peggy said. "Before you told him what you liked as far as women's clothing, he..."
"Thought I was gay?"
"Oh, he did tell you?"
Chuck shook his head as he swallowed his first sip of wine. "No," he said. "But I knew Alex thought that, so it made sense he would too."
"Alex thought you were gay?" Peggy was confused. "Alex who was convinced you had a crush on her?"
"I did have a crush on her," Chuck admitted for the first time ever. "But I mean, I got over it when I realized how selfish and manipulative she always was. You know? Always your best friend right up to the moment when you needed someone to lean on, and then she didn't have the time of day for you."
"Tell me about it!" Peggy said. "Did you hear what she did after that time I invited Mark home for the weekend?"
"She told me all about it," Chuck said. "All about how disrespectful it was of you when she was still hurting from their breakup. Because it was all about her even then." Another sip of wine and he continued. "I'm sorry, Peggy, that's history. I shouldn't trouble you with it."
"No, Chuck, it's fine!" Peggy said. "The way she led you on and always took you for granted -- I mean, you did act kind of bitter about it, but no one blamed you for that. Alex had more ex-friends than anyone I knew. But about thinking you were gay..."
"Thank you, and yeah," Chuck said. "All that time I spent trying to convince her I was fine with being just friends, but you know, being just friends still means being friends and she never did her share. So I finally give up and get on with my life, and that's what she had to tell herself..."
"Right, it couldn't be that she'd pushed you away, could it?"
"I'm sorry to go on like this about her, Peggy."
"Stop apologizing!" Peggy touched his leg gently and then patted his back. "I get it. I've got regrets about Mark, too. Such an awful flirt."
"And he was damn good at it," Chuck said. "Take it from his most loyal wingman."
"Is that why we never got to know each other better, Chuck? You knew how I felt about him?"
"I guess so," Chuck said. "Once bitten, you know. But hey, that's in the past. You heard from Mark lately?"
