Echo Lane by Sandra Kelly

Author:Sandra Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stonehouse Publishing
Published: 2023-05-26T02:29:34+00:00

Chapter Eleven

At this juncture in my story, I’m itching to tell you about the time Aunt Claire dismissed years of Keane family dynamics and invited Bev and Kathleen and me to dinner at her house, but it can wait. Right now, you’re itching to know what happened between Kevin Nyland, a preppie who wouldn’t have looked twice at me in high school, and me, Patsy Keane, a poor Irish girl from the wrong side of Lazy River. Well, we were young, single, and ready for anything.

Use your imagination.

I remember every little thing about my first date with Kevin. The California wine he brought. The hors d’oeuvres I had bought at the neighbourhood deli but passed off as homemade. The music: R.E.M., Fleetwood Mac, Tracy Chapman. Even the conversation, which I had fretted about all afternoon. What would I talk about? For Kevin, every work day was a mental exercise. An average day for me included such mind-dulling tasks as telling Nathan one last time to pick up that wet towel, or sweeping the crumbs out of the kitchen pantry. An intellectual I was not.

Fortunately, Kevin liked to dominate the conversation. He saw himself as a leader in the field of public education, he told me, an expert on shaping the young mind. I was just beginning to think I should get a teaching degree of my own. I would need something to fall back on if my career as an internationally renowned novelist didn’t work out. From there, the conversation drifted over to books and movies and music. I knew more about such things than Kevin did, and I think it irked him. Kevin viewed friendship as a minor game of one-upmanship. If you knew a little about something, he had to know a little more about it. If you said something witty, he had to say something wittier. I didn’t mind. I just wanted to jump his bones.

For our generation, all talk ultimately leads to childhood. Kevin had been a “chronically unspoiled” only child, he joked, the only rich kid on his block who had no “cool stuff.” His folks spared no expense for travel, though, nor for his education—first at a “stuffy” boarding school, then at a snooty-sounding high school called Penner Academy. They paid him little attention, though. They were too busy: his mother selling posh real estate, his father practising law at a top firm downtown. There was a nanny and a housekeeper. A cook, even.

When Kevin started to talk about the exotic places he’d been, I suddenly felt like the help. I was the upstairs maid, foolishly falling for the dashing but cruel and heartless heir to the family fortune. Kevin sensed my discomfort (he was perceptive that way) and reached out.

“Hey,” he said, drawing me into our first embrace. “Fuck those people. And fuck the past. It’s just you and me. Right here, right now.”

That got us over the initial awkwardness. The first kiss. The articles of clothing coming off one at a time. And then, oh God, the skin on unfamiliar skin, the mouths and fingers exploring, learning, teaching.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.