The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie M. Saul

leave.”
    â€œLike today?” She grinned at me again, and I thought about telling her that it wasn’t at all like today, and about the past three weeks fantasizing about meeting her again somewhere in the city, and all the times I’d felt compelled to see her, but I figured that I’d scared her enough.
    â€œYou know, I was in New York for Laura’s wedding.”
    â€œYou were at the wedding?”
    â€œThat’s right. I wound up being their witness while—I know what you did for her with Simon. And, no, if you’d been there fate would not have been tempted.” She sounded like she enjoyed saying this, and letting me know. “I was with Buddy.”
    Outside, the full moon spread its light across the ground, making everything look silky and unreal. I wanted to stand out there with Marian, hold her in my arms and feel her body against mine. Hold her in the cold until we couldn’t bear it, and wait, just a moment longer, so we could kiss.
    I was bewildered by what I was thinking and by all the things I was feeling. I didn’t know what the expression on my face was, but Marian was still smiling at me.
    â€œYou’re very good at keeping secrets.”
    â€œI think you’re giving me too much credit.”
    â€œI bet if I asked you not to tell anyone what I’ve told you today, you wouldn’t.”
    â€œWhy don’t you ask me in twenty years.”
    She stopped smiling now. “What I said before, about your being dangerous. I meant it.”
    â€œI never doubted you.”
    M arian and I walked down the flagstone path in the cool night breeze. As I started to open the car door, she stood just behind my shoulder and said in a low voice, “Bacon on buttered toast, and very strong coffee with cream.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” I asked.
    â€œWhat I like for breakfast on rainy Sundays,” she said.
    T he full moon was high above the trees. The wind began to pick up, making a deep and rushing sound through the branches, like ocean waves. It made me think of those tempest-tossed characters in mythology and Shakespeare who wash up on unfamiliar shores, their sudden arrival inducing transformation. They are no longer who they were only moments before. That’s how I felt with Marian, listening to her, talking with her.
    As I drove away, with her face barely visible in the rearview mirror, I was incapable of imagining what I might do that would allow me to forget Marian Ballantine.

Seven
    I left Shady Grove that night feeling even more unsettled than I had before I’d seen Marian. What had I accomplished except upsetting her life? There was no pleasure to be had from that.
    I was the only car on the dark country roads, and I drove until I found a bed-and-breakfast, about thirty miles from Shady Grove, near Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I wasn’t ready to go back to the city, not just yet. I didn’t want to be so far from Marian. Not that I had any intention of lurking about Shady Grove, appearing in the grocery store, showing up at the house again. I just liked the idea of Marian being nearby. At least for the night.
    But I didn’t go back to New York the following day, either, or the next three days. I drove around the Berkshires, sleeping in strange beds, walking quiet streets, looking through antique stores and book barns, shopping for clean clothes. It was fine weather for early April. The spring sunshine had a restorative effect. I didn’t even mind the static of my own company.
    I thought perhaps this break was just what I’d needed and I could go back to the city and my life with a feeling of renewal, and satisfaction. I’d had my visit, I could shake off my doldrums.
    Instead, I thought about Marian most of the time, the way she looked with the sun backlighting her hair; and when she described her gardens, even when she made her case for never seeing me again, the way her voice welled and