Window on Yesterday by Joan Hohl

jolted at the sound of it. Glancing up from her concentrated study of the bubbles in her wine, she smiled faintly and shrugged helplessly. “What do you want to know?”
    Sean returned her smile and repeated his earlier directive: “Everything.”
    Dreamy, her senses floating on a flurry, euphoric cloud, Alycia gazed at Sean with her feelings shining from her emotion-darkened eyes. “I’ll tell you my everything if you’ll tell me your everything.”
    Sean stared at her with slightly widened eyes, then tossed back his head and laughed. “I love it!” he murmured. “You’re beautiful!” He grew suddenly serious; his voice grew suddenly very low. “I love you.” Before she could respond in any way, either by flinging herself out of her chair and into his arms or by running for the nearest exit, he grasped her hand and drew it to his lips. “I’ll tell you anything, everything. Start me off. What do you want to know?”
    Tingling all over from the touch of his lips, the glide of his tongue over her skin, breathless and slightly giddy from the impact of his casual confession of love, Alycia rushed into questioning speech. In rapid fire the questions shot back and forth between them.
    “Where were you born?”
    “Right here in eastern Pennsylvania.”
    “Really!” Alycia laughed. “So was I.” She named the small town.
    “That’s less than fifty miles from my home.” Sean shook his head in wonder. “Do you still have family there?”
    “No.” Alycia smiled. “My father did hard physical work all his life, while constantly informing anyone who’d listen that all he wanted was to be a beach bum.” Her eyes sparkled with inner amusement. “When Dad retired four years ago, he and Mother sold the house and everything in it, claiming they were going to the Florida Keys to become beach lizards.”
    Sean eyed her narrowly. “Why do I have this feeling that there’s a kicker coming?”
    Alycia’s soft laughter rippled from her throat. “They invested in a rather run-down bar near the beach.” She laughed again. “And now they’ve got a raging success on their hands!”
    “And they both love it,” Sean observed quietly.
    “Yes.” Alycia brought her mirth under control. “Isn’t it crazy?”
    “I think it’s wonderful.”
    “So do I.” She smiled mistily. “My parents have never been happier. They’re together, doing work they love.”
    “So,” Sean said in a low tone. “Maybe real love does exist.”
    Caught, yet not quite ready to be reeled in, Alycia avoided the issue in the time-honored way of a woman; she changed the subject. “Ah—what’s your favorite color?”
    Sean laughed chidingly, but he allowed her to get away with her diversionary action. “Blue. What’s yours?”
    “Green,” Alycia said without hesitation. ‘The cool, dark green of a summer forest.”
    “Interesting,” he mused, in the most outrageously sensual tone of voice Alycia had ever heard from a man. “The green of verdant earth and the blue of the sky arcs over it.” His eyes had deepened to the shade of sapphire, alluring and enticing.
    Alycia was not unaware nor immune to the underlying meaning in his observation. But she still quivered on the brink of uncertainty. Moving slowly, she eased her fingers from his hand and covered her retreat with an impish remark.
    “Oh, yes, there’s one other thing you should know about me.”
    Smiling in wry appreciation of her delaying tactics, Sean raised one russet eyebrow. “And that is?”
    “I absolutely adore pizza.”
    The sound of Sean’s soft laughter relieved the residue of tension inside Alycia.
    They remained in the lounge another hour, laughing, talking, and simply enjoying the pleasure of being together. They discussed different kinds of foods, favorites, and those abhorred. They compared likes and dislikes in books, plays, art, and films, and the artists who created them. But their deepest, most intense discussion naturally concerned history,