Simon looked away before speaking, as if he couldn’t bear to see any rejection in her eyes. “Do you remember that time when someone busted your window? Back home when we were kids?”
“Yes”, she replied cautiously.
“Did you ever find out who did it?”
“Well, my grandpa Jim swore he would get whoever did it and tan his hide but good. A few days later he told me that justice was served but would never say who had thrown the rock. Why?”
Simon looked her full in the face and adopted a sheepish grin, “For a preacher, your Grandpa Jim worked the meanest switch I ever did see. I still have a couple scars on my backside.”
Ginni looked at him, half-amused and half angry. “It was you? I remember screaming when that stone came through my window. I picked it up meaning to throw it back but it was so pretty I just didn’t want to chuck it. Then I saw the glass all over my bed and my doll Martha’s head was cracked. I got so mad I screamed louder than ever and threw the rock as hard as I could into the trees.”
Simon rubbed the back of his head and groaned, “I got paid twice for that. You hit me in the head and raised a goose egg long before Preacher Jim got ahold of me.”
Ginni smiled so wide her teeth glinted in the candlelight.
“You know I was trying to get your attention…all those years ago. You were the prettiest girl in the county but I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to you.”
“As I remember, you were always pulling my pigtails and slipping frogs into my school bag.”
Putting on a deep accent Simon replied, “Shoot, tain’t no bigger compliment from a country boy than for him t’ give you his frog. ‘Lessin it’s t’ let ya have the magical stone he found down in Smuggler’s Gulch.”
“We might have been friends sooner if you hadn’t broken my favorite porcelain doll.”
“I am very sorry. Perhaps I can make-up for that now.”
He reached over to the end table and took the thin box which he placed gently into her hands.
“Open it,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened and the tiniest sheen of moisture graced her lashes. No one had ever given Ginni anything so magnificently beautiful in her life. Sure, boys and men had been giving her gifts since she was 16 and many were the pretty baubles which slept in her jewelry boxes at home. But this was truly inspiring.
The necklace wasn’t encrusted with karat-sized diamonds or worked throughout by silver and gold filigree. It was simple and honest, like the dawn bursting over a quiet lake. Sparks
Simon lifted it from her hands and opened the clasp. She swept the hair from off her neck and he draped it lovingly upon her bosom.
“What do you think?” he asked nervously.
Breathless, Virginia
She wandered in memory back to Vinton and the little boy for whom she had had no time and spared little attention. He was thin and scrawny; more likely than not to be dirty with no shoes. But he had always been kind, if a little shy. She suspected that it was he who had left a bundle of wildflowers on her doorstep the morning after her window was broken. He certainly left her alone for quite a while afterwards.
Her inner-eye envisioned Simon growing-up. It was an odd quirk of photographic memory that she could cause images to play back like a slideshow. Vivid as real life, there was Simon at ten soaping the jail house windows and then running from the sheriff, suds a-flying; the 13-year-old boy who herded a dozen sheep and goats into church on Easter morning. Grandpa Jim had never cursed from the pulpit before but at the sight of all that wool just as he was talking about finding the lost sheep. He let out a stream of fire and brimstone that had nothing to do with salvation. Secretly, Ginni had thought it very funny but never told anyone.
That prom when they were 15 still made her smile. Those kids had been tormenting her for years and no one had the guts to stand up to them. He was her Knight in Shining Armor that day. Ginni knew he was only saving his own neck, but for weeks she pretended that he had come to vanquish the evil horde and rescue her from sorrow and pain. It was a beautiful fantasy.
Next she saw the boy at 17, a man really. He was tall, strong though not powerfully built. He possessed the body of someone who worked long and hard on not quite enough food. Her eyes followed him as he moved through the crowd, chatting with a half-dozen other students and appeared to be prodding them to follow his lead.
Ginni was glad she had decided to come. Her cousin in Roanoke was graduating and the family was all there. This was a chance to share special moments before leaving for school in just a few weeks.
She flushed a deeper crimson and enjoyed the flutter which spread down past her cleavage and into her stomach. Another of her secret and favorite memories floated into consciousness. Clear as the day it happened, she could see Simon walking across the stage, shaking hands with the Principal and joining his buddies. Then as if on a signal, 20 or more of them mooned the audience. That was the first time she saw the real him. Not just as a heroic dream or trouble maker. But sitting there with her parents and staring at his perfectly formed backside, Ginni thought of all the time she could have spent with this very handsome young man, his being a heathen notwithstanding.
She rose from the nostalgia and remembered the oh-so-nervous-that-he-was-cute Simon in the living room; freed her hair and walked back, determined not to let any more time be wasted.
“I think it is absolutely wonderful Simon. Thank you”, she purred.
Simon could hardly believe his luck. This woman he had pursued for half his life was finally interested in something more intimate with him. “Those are real diamonds by the way. Well, chips anyway.”
“I love it. Anything bigger would have been gaudy and too heavy to wear every day.” Her words were meant to allay his embarrassment at the cheapness of the gift, besides it was true. “But I don’t recognize what the stone is. It couldn’t be a sapphire, one that big would cost a fortune.”
“No. That’s a piece from the rock I threw in your window. I thought maybe it might mean something to you.”
Ginni was utterly confused at this logic and was on the point of saying so when the emotional side of her brain said to just let it lie. Besides, certain feelings were beginning to grow deep inside her and no amount of blithering from him would stop her enjoying this evening.
“It is kinda special to me after all”, he continued haltingly, as if pulling out a deep seated thorn which had pained its victim for years. “I’m sure you never knew my step-dad. Momma got lonely after daddy died and this guy just sorta came into our lives. My family weren’t really interested in church like yours was and he railed against anyone who tried to stop him from having his fun. He didn’t drink often, but when he did it was bad. He became a different person. Got all crazy, ya know?”
Simon’s words began to gush out like some hidden dam had burst within his heart and all the pain of a lonely childhood flooded the small room.
“When I found that stone, it was the prettiest thing I had ever seen and it was mine, all mine. I carried it everywhere and even slept with it. One night Randy got drunk and came into my room. He grabbed the stone from my hands and began beating on me with it. He screamed, ‘I ain’t gonna raise no boy to be a pantywaist! Sleepin’ with a stupid rock! I’m gonna man him up rit now.’ He hit Momma when she tried to stop him. My face was all cut and bruised from his fist and the stone. After a few minutes he staggered out of the house and got in the car. By now Momma had called the police and they said they would come get him for the night. She yelled at Randy that the cops were coming and he laughed, just laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. Then he drove off. Next morning the deputy told us that he had tried to outrun them to the county line. Freight train hit him there where Walnut crosses the tracks and threw him into the ditch. Sheriff said he’d never seen so many empty bottles of Jack Daniels in one place before.”
He wiped his nose on a handkerchief. Ginni was torn between her own emotional high and feeling sympathetic terror for Simon. Her better half wanted to hold him, comfort and shield him from the horrible man who had done this and died that very night. Another side of her wished he would get himself together; these weren’t the emotions she wanted to feel tonight. Tears traced silently down her own face as she listened to his catharsis.
“After that I didn’t want the stone anymore. It reminded me of what Randy had said. But I couldn’t just drop it. I decided to give it to you. My most beautiful possession for the most beautiful girl I knew. When it came sailing back and plunked me on my head, it seemed like a sign or something that I was to keep it.”
He smiled hopefully at her. He wasn’t sure what he saw in her face, a sort of hungry kindness which frightened him just a little.
“My Granny came to stay with us a few days later. And…”
“Simon,” Ginni whispered, “You’re not alone now. I’m here with you.”
He looked deep into her eyes and felt a rush of gratitude, affection and desire wash over him. He had not planned for this to happen. She was too good, too pure, too near and too real. A nervous panic began to rise from his stomach like the one he had felt all day. However, this came not from the fear of going beyond what she was ready for, but beyond what he was.
Ginni’s arms wrapped around his neck and pulled him down to her waiting lips. The kiss was gentle and sweet. For the first time in years, Virginia Shelton felt safe in a man’s arms.
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