~ Banjo Eyes ~

by

Marilyn Gardiner

She wondered what Adam did for fun these days. No, she didn’t. She didn’t give a damn what he did or who he did it with. He’d abandoned her, after all. Left her to cope with her father, the end of the marriage, and the decision of what to do with the rest of her life. She wanted nothing of Adam now, and hoped with all her heart he would not come to either the mixer tonight or the banquet tomorrow night. He had, after all, proven faithless and a coward, and not to be depended upon. Her father had been right, after all. Adam had deserted her when she needed him most.

She’d been in town exactly three days, begun an inventory of the contents of the house, scheduled appointments for the lawyer, the bank, and the ranch foreman. She hadn’t even started her father’s Buick and taken a ride through town to see what had changed. God only knew why she’d agreed to come to the reunion. Some perverse need to reach back, she guessed, to put a finger on the pulsing difference between reality and what might have been. Stupid!

The last bronze rays of the dying sun slanted through the front door and across the glass cabinet as she watched, gilding the central trophy with her name and Adam’s etched on the front.

The voice came from over her right shoulder. “Seven seconds, four,” he said. “And it still stands as the high school state record.”

Lily stiffened and stared straight ahead. She would have known that voice in the bowels of a submarine below the Arctic ice cap. He was here. And, in some nameless place, deep inside, she realized that this was the reason she had come. She had to know. Had to see. Touch. Adam. Her tongue lay lifeless in her mouth.

“How you doing, Banjo Eyes?” he asked softly. The deep, slow drawl stopped the breath in her throat. She’d always likened his voice to Sam Elliot of cowboy-movie fame. Deep and smooth as chocolate ice cream. “Roped many calves lately?”

Her pride came to her rescue then, and loosened her tongue.

“They don’t rope too many calves from English saddles,” she said, turning but not quite meeting his eyes. “How are you, Adam?”

“Making it,” he said, his eyes skimming over her. He still wore his dark hair fairly short, but he’d added a crisp mustache and a few pounds of muscle since graduation. The fact slammed home that she was not looking at a boy. This was a man. Very little remained of the fun-loving, easy-going, eighteen year old she’d loved so desperately those many years ago.

Coolly, she extended her hand. “It’s nice to see you.”

A bitter smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, but he slowly took her small hand in one of his huge ones.

“Still carrying all your pride in a basket up front, aren’t you? Is that all that’s the same? You’ve even cut your hair.”

She jerked her hand free and didn’t answer. The color drained from her face--she could feel it go. He had loved her long, strawberry-blonde hair. Draped it across his bare chest as they’d lain in the soft grass of the meadow and whispered sweet words of love in her ear.

Her stomach clenched. It had been a mistake to come. She couldn’t do this. The room seemed to revolve slowly around her and she blinked rapidly.

“Hey.” He turned his back to the crowd in the room, shielding her from their eyes and, stuffed both hands into his back pockets. “Loosen up. We don’t want the gaping masses to get the wrong idea, do we?”

Of course, everyone would be watching, interested in the meeting between the two whose perfect high school love had gone wrong. She fastened her eyes on his like a mired calf on a rider with a rope. And then, with visible effort, Lily pulled herself together. The room stopped going around. She stretched her mouth into a smile. It was a brave and brilliant showing of teeth and they both knew that’s all it was.

She closed her eyes for the space of a heartbeat and then said clearly, “The only thing I recognize about you are your boots. They have to be the same scruffy old pair!” She had yet to look at his feet.

“That’s my girl,” he said under his breath. “Your roundhouse punches always did come from the floor.” He put a hand under her elbow. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Lily didn’t move. The smile faded. “No. I don’t think so.”

His hand dropped to his side. “I want to talk to you.”

“But I don’t want to talk to you, Adam. Buy someone else a drink.”

“Lily.” He spoke patiently, as if talking to a child. “There are things that need to be said. It’s been left far too long as it is.”

She nodded. “We passed the point of helpful conversation about nine years and 51 weeks ago. Did you read the annulment papers before you signed?”

Adam flinched, only a small twitch of his head. If she hadn’t been so focused on him, she would have missed it. “Then dance with me. Let’s just--”

“Thank you, Adam, but no.”

His voice lowered as anger built. “I’m not asking you to run off to Arkansas and marry me. Again. I just want to talk to you. Is that too much to ask?”

Her eyes turned flinty-hard. “Yes.”

A faint white line appeared around the edges of his nostrils. “In addition to being prideful, you always were as stubborn as Satan’s mule.”

He showed her the breadth of his shoulders as he strode down the steps and out the door.