Jeremy strode out the door into the beautiful afternoon and saw the emerald sky making love with the tall oaks that lined the green hills surrounding his small town, smiled at the sweet summer smells of barbeques and grass layered within the distant shouts of children playing and the hum of insects in the hot, still air. Ten feet from the open door of his squat brick office building he turned, sucked in a sweet breath of clean summer air, and shouted, âNo! Fuck YOU! I QUIT!â
Smiling still, he pointed his boots toward the edge of town and began to walk.
Without much of a destination, Jeremy walked past the cute shops that catered to the summer tourist trade, their aisles and windows crammed with customers escaping the summer heat, past wilted sidewalk vendors that tried in vain to keep cool in the shade of their canvas umbrellas, past the edge of downtown and the baking down-home sign welcoming one and all to the fabulous shopping mecca of Myer, Massachusetts, past the sweet little suburban homes (though there wasnât any urban to be sub to) that sprouted with roomy regularity from the softly rolling earth, earth preparing to leap excitedly into the hills from which Boston could not be seen, regardless of the weather.
He hadnât a thought in his head.
Jeremy looked in through plate-glass windows to see televisions on, cool blue attempting to defeat the hot orange invading from outside, exhausted housewives having succumbed to gravity and the heat in the overstuffed comfort of their couches. He chuckled at the small band of children having a water balloon fight at half-speed, their energy sapped by the sun, the game of escape almost pointless because they all looked like they wanted to get hit. Several panting dogs watched him from shady porches as he passed, the interesting smells of sweat and leather he left in his wake not tantalizing enough (and what could be?) to inspire the energy cost of investigating.
Jeremy sweated through his shirt under the arms and between his shoulders, walking briskly, enjoying the day. At one point he deposited his open-topped briefcase on a sidewalk corner to stretch, reaching into the sky and grunting with pleasure as his spine crackled, and then he simply walked away from his bag without so much as a backward glance. The scattered clouds looked lonely and out of place. One was a lion, he decided, but the other looked like a speeding car grafted onto a beetle somehow, and he left it to its own devices.
He walked happily, his problems over and yet just beginning, his slender back straight and his head held high, green eyes sparkling in the afternoon light as only the eyes of a young man without cares and a whole summer afternoon ahead of him can, swinging his arms through the fragrant air as he put one foot in front of the other, smiling softly, as if at some private joke.
He didnât know it, but he had a very specific destination.
Jessica.
Sweet Jessica.
After theyâd settled into their routine, Jeremyâs visits to Jessicaâs home became as enjoyable as excruciating frustration can be.
In other words, they had the time of their lives.
Their mutual attraction had begun immediately, and after a few awkward moments when Jessicaâs mother left the room, they had found to their ever increasing pleasure that they clicked like neither had ever clicked before. They were an erector set, Jeremy would think ruefully (he liked naughty but juvenile comparisons, as do we all) when he was walking home, his erection painful and demanding. They fit together so well he was afraid of the possibilities: they were an erector set that could be used to construct a Mars lander, an internal combustion engine, a ticking time bomb.
They found they shared a passion for John Coltrane and ballroom dancing; each was well-versed in environmental politics and the philosophy of the mind; their enjoyment of hiking ran parallel to their love of long afternoon naps; each enjoyed cooking with olive oil, the novels of Neal Stephenson, swimming pools without chlorine, mowing the lawn, and waking up early on weekends. They were both right-handed and their favorite color was teal (teal like a Carolla, not like the Caribbean). Their names began with the same letter. They were both slender and well-kept, good-looking because they didnât care how they looked.
Jeremy looked like a painter, a young artist, who had gotten lost and ended up subbing as a doctor. He had the quiet confidence of a natural talent, and part of what Jessica found so appealing was wondering how many things, exactly, he was talented at. His hair was dark and straight, cut mostly short, a tad wild around the edges but mostly well-behaved. He had an edge about him that spoke of a bewildering combination of deep wisdom and a childlike, manic intensity, a mad willingness to try, well, just about anything. He was lean, not in a hungry way, but in a ready way, like a musketeer or a minuteman, and he wore his clothes like a man who feels perfectly at home no matter where he was. His height was just right.
Jessica looked like a farmerâs daughter whoâd been hijacked by the volleyball team: broad, open features and a ready smile combined with a capable physicality that hinted she was ready for anything. Her hair was long, straight, and blonde with darker roots, and it caught the sunlight with a hint of amber, a secret coaxed out by heat. She had an ability to focus that Jeremy found frankly terrifying, should she ever use it for ill, and a calm way of talking about serious things that made her seem much older, much wiser. She was actively curvy, her breasts as large as her waist slim and her hips wide, and she carried herself with an ease and grace that made her the envy of women twice her age. She had many freckles.
