Page 13 of A Mind of Her Own

After the warm summer they’d spent together, Alex was disappointed when she didn’t hear from Oliver this time after she left New York. She had felt sure she would. They had gotten so close over the summer, spent so much time together, and shared so many confidences and revelations about their past. She thought he felt comfortable enough to communicate with her now, but he didn’t. She didn’t hear a word from him from the day she left on the twenty-ninth of August. Not a word or a postcard for the entire month of September, and even into the beginning of October. She had sent a telegram and several letters, none of which he answered. She didn’t know if he was working, distracted, writing his book, or if he decided he didn’t love her, or couldn’t follow through. Anything was possible.

He had said he had a dark side, which she imagined was as a result of his mother’s traumatic death and his girlfriend’s suicide. He was afraid of commitment, but so was she, and she had asked him for none. He could at least have said hello in some form or other. Instead, there was total radio silence from New York. If nothing else, it seemed unkind. They communicated beautifully when they were together face-to-face, but with any number of miles between them, he turned into a dud. At his age, she thought he could do better and make some slight effort to stay in touch and tell her he loved her. But he made no contact or effort at all. She was annoyed about it as the weeks wore on.

Alex began her accelerated program as soon as she returned from New York, in order to complete her junior and senior years in one twelve-month stretch. She knew it would be intense, but she thought it was worth it, and in the spring, she intended to look in both Chicago and New York for a job for September. She loved both cities. She sent a few cute postcards to Oliver in September, and one funny telegram, to which he didn’t respond. Her disappointment and sadness turned to anger at his being cavalier with her.

And in the third week of October, she got a message at her dorm. “Here to do a story. Do you have time for dinner? Staying at The Blackstone. Love, O.” Part of her was excited that he had finally surfaced. And part of her was annoyed. It was all a little haphazard if he was there for work and was fitting her in after two months of silence. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to respond or have dinner with him. She finally answered the message and left one at his hotel. “When? Love, A.” She wondered if he’d answer her. She was curious about what story he had come to Chicago for.

When she got back from class that day, he was waiting at her dorm. He looked shockingly handsome in a suit and tie, with a well-cut dark blue topcoat. He’d had a haircut, and looked well. She was dressed like a schoolgirl, in a wool skirt and warm coat. Her heart gave a leap as soon as she saw him, and she tried to ignore it. Everything he felt for her was in his eyes. It was hard to deny it. She offered him a cup of tea in the living room at the dorm. There were already three couples visiting there, and one girl with her mother. Oliver suggested a walk. She left her schoolbooks at the front desk and joined him outside.

“What’s up?” she asked him, suddenly uncomfortable with him after his long silence. They had been so close when she left New York, and he had put distance between them again by his stubborn silence and not communicating with her.

“Nothing. Why?” he responded. He could see that she was upset, and he knew why. It was his reason for coming to Chicago, to make amends. He hadn’t visited her there before. They walked for a little while in silence around the lake, but it was windy and cold. They finally stopped and sat down on a bench, and she shivered in the cold. Winter had come early. “Alex, I know you must be mad at me,” he began, and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry I didn’t write. I was finishing the book. I finally figured out the end, and I didn’t want to stop. I spent every moment I had, when I wasn’t working, wrestling with the book.”

“You could have sent a postcard, or a telegram. I thought we were past your hiding from me,” she said, looking petulant, which he thought only made her look more beautiful, and touched him.

“It was like an express train running through me. I couldn’t stop. I worked on the book every night.” She’d heard people say that about writing before, but she had never experienced it herself, that burning passion that devoured you. She didn’t know if she believed him. Maybe there was another woman in his life. She had thought of everything and now here he was, obviously contrite, but she was angry and hurt. He couldn’t just walk in and out of her life like that, but he had. “I get weird about writing to people,” he said, still holding her hand.

“Apparently. And if you didn’t have this story to do, when would I have heard from you? Next year sometime? What story are you doing?” And she wasn’t interning in New York the following summer, since she would be in school in the accelerated program to graduate in Chicago.

“It’s about the Gambinos. I used it as an excuse to come and see you. Will you have dinner with me?” He could have warned her but he hadn’t.

She didn’t answer him at first. “When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow night. I did the interview today when I got here. I’m free tonight and tomorrow,” he said with a pleading look, and then he leaned over and kissed her. He was so tender with her that she melted and felt dizzy when they stopped.

“You really upset me when I didn’t hear from you,” she said in a small voice, and he pulled her into his arms.

“I don’t know what happened to me. Maybe I got scared again. Everything was so good between us when you left, and then suddenly you were gone and I was in the heat of the book. I found an agent,” he said with an air of excitement. He had wanted to write a book ever since college and he finally had. It was a major step in his life. “He’s a nice guy and he loves it.”

“Can I read it?” she asked, excited for him. “You could have sent it to me.”

“I brought a copy with me, for you. No one’s read it yet but the agent. I want to know what you think.” She had made helpful comments before, when he gave her chapters to read, fresh out of his typewriter. She was excited to see it complete. “We should go back to the dorm. I think you’re turning blue,” he said, and she laughed, as her anger at him dispelled. She loved him and forgave him. She tucked her hand into his arm, and they walked back to the dorm. “Will you have dinner with me?” he asked her again, and she nodded. She hadn’t answered him before.

“Yes, I will. But if you disappear like that again, I won’t.”

“I promise.” He had asked at his hotel, and made a reservation at Henrici’s, one of the best restaurants in town. He wanted to do something special for her, and celebrate the book. She had encouraged him to do it. And now he had an agent. It was beginning to feel real, and he wanted to share the experience with her, to thank her.

She changed quickly, while he waited in the formal drawing room for guests. She looked beautiful when she walked downstairs in a long black skirt, a little fur jacket, and high heels, with her blond curls piled high on her head. She was dazzling, and he felt proud to be with her. Little by little she relaxed at dinner, and by the time Henrici’s famous dessert pastries arrived, they had found their footing again. Not hearing from him had been wounding after telling her he loved her before she left. He was hard to read sometimes, especially when he disappeared.

“How are your classes going?” he asked her.

“The accelerated program is intense, but I’ll be done less than a year from now, instead of two years.”

“A year is a long time to wait for you to come back to New York.” He looked sad when he said it. “I’ll miss you next summer,” he said, and she smiled ruefully. They both had happy memories of her two internships and the time they spent there.

“I hope you miss me before that,” she said ruefully.

“I do—I did for the past two months. I volunteered to do this interview so I had an excuse to come and see you. That’s true. I have an idea,” he said, wanting to make up to her for upsetting her. “Since the holidays are hard for both of us, why don’t I come out here for Thanksgiving? We could have dinner somewhere if you’d like it.” Neither of them had families to spend the holiday with. She loved the idea and warmed to it immediately. “I have two days off but I can trade another two with Tommy. His family is on the West Coast and he never celebrates the holidays. He takes them all together once a year.”

“I would love it,” she said, touched that he would spend the holiday with her. “There’s a lot to do here. Theater, ballet, opera, museums,” she said with a grateful glance at him.

“I just want to be with you,” he said. They were back on track by the end of dinner. And he made the reservation for Thanksgiving dinner before they left the restaurant.

She met him for breakfast at his hotel the next day, and skipped her classes to spend the day with him. They went to see all the highlights of Chicago. They had lunch together and an early dinner. She took him to the train, and stood on the platform waving after he kissed her and boarded. It felt just like the summer, only better. He waved to her until the train turned a bend and disappeared and she took a cab back to her dorm. His brief visit had restored her faith in him. He was coming back in five weeks. He sent her six telegrams and a steady stream of silly postcards before he returned. He had left the copy of the book with her, and she loved it, and was shocked and touched when she saw that it was dedicated to her.

It said simply, “To Alex, the love of my life, O.F.”

She sent him a telegram the morning after she read it that said, “The book is brilliant. All is forgiven, I love you, A.”

The five-week wait for him to arrive for Thanksgiving seemed interminable, but with a steady stream of postcards and telegrams from him, she was no longer worried. He had reformed.

—

She had the most elegant Thanksgiving dinner of her life with him at the Palmer House, and they spent four days exploring every inch of Chicago, and even went to the theater and the ballet. He did everything he could think of to please her. During dinner after the ballet, on his last night, he asked her what she was doing for Christmas. He wanted to invite her to New York. She hated holidays now, because they were so lonely and painful, and then suddenly she had an idea. She didn’t know what he would think of it.

“Why don’t you come here for Christmas? To Beardstown. You can stay at my grandfather’s house. There is always snow on Christmas, it’s beautiful there, and we can visit the Courier .” He hesitated, turning it over in his mind. It was a big step, going home with her for Christmas. But she would be the only one there. There was no family to impress or to have an opinion. It was the kind of thing he never did with women, because it gave them the wrong idea. He never spent holidays with the women he dated, even if it meant staying home alone. But it would be different with Alex. Being with her would make it a real Christmas, for both of them.

“I’d love it,” he said, and as he did, he felt all the tension go out of him, and everything he had been fighting for the last three months lifted and vanished. With Alex waiting for him, he felt like he was coming home for Christmas. He hadn’t had a real Christmas since he was twelve years old, and the scars had healed at last. He was ready to celebrate his first Christmas with her. She was the first and only person who had soothed his troubled soul.