Chapter 2

The next morning I went to see Marty. I described how Ardy was being deprived of sleep; how important it was that she got enough rest to be able to study and maintain her grade point average; and how I had insisted she sleep in the second bedroom the night before, failing to mention that I had given her one of my T-shirts to sleep in.

To his credit Marty stepped up, saying it was all right for her to use the second bedroom until the end of the school year. I asked him if Betty would object and he told me not to worry about his wife. "Maybe she won't notice," he laughed. We both knew better.

Ardy totally rejected the offer to let her live in the house until she graduated, and I thought I knew why. But, on the other hand I could see that having a quiet place to study appealed to her.

"Your Aunt Bertha doesn't need to know," I said and was relieved to see her positive reaction. We went to the apartment and picked up her belongings at lunchtime.

Betty put up a stink about Ardy occupying the second bedroom but Marty said it was only until the semester ended. While Betty was pleased that I would no longer be living like a slob, she was not in favor of letting Ardy live rent-free. It was young Matt's idea for his father to let Ardy work in the shop in exchange for rent. Betty reluctantly agreed.

Living with an unrelated person of the opposite sex was new to each of us. After the first morning when she saw me eying her bare legs below the T-shirt she almost never came out of her room without being fully dressed. And unlike the bathroom that I had shared with my sister and brother, there were no stockings or panties left hanging to dry. We respected one another's privacy.

The work-for-rent agreement was fair. Ardy took her turn in the shop and learned quickly. All of us, even Betty, enjoyed having her there. Young Matt stopped by the shop every day after school instead of going home with his stepbrothers. It was obvious he was smitten.

We drove to and from school together because it was too far to walk. Ardy cut down on her evenings at the library to spare me the trip to pick her up. The letters from Bertha arrived each Monday, and Ardy contributed to the food budget. In fact, she took over the shopping and the cooking.

"We were in the same kindergarten class," she confided one Friday night. Her voice was soft and dreamy. She was lying on the couch and I was sitting on the floor, near her feet.

"How could that be?" I vaguely remembered her being in my kindergarten class. "You were always a year ahead of me."

"Not always. I skipped the third grade."

"You had pigtails with red ribbons," I recalled, ignoring her remark about skipping a grade. I caught one of her feet and removed the shoe, making her try to pull back.

"I almost never wore my hair in pigtails because boys like you always pulled them," she said, still trying to free her foot. I rubbed the arch with my thumb.

"That's what I remember, you in pigtails." She relaxed her foot and let me rub the underside.

As we talked, I learned that she had spent the first and second grades in a class for "gifted" children. And, after skipping the third grade she had continued to receive "special" treatment.

"You're a child prodigy," I exclaimed. My twenty-first birthday was coming up in April and she had turned twenty in November. I had removed her other shoe and was rubbing both feet. She tried to change the subject but I could tell she was enjoying the foot massage.

It occurred to me that she knew everything about me while I knew practically nothing about her. She had cleverly extracted bits of information about my childhood until she even knew how I had gotten the V shaped scar on my right knee. I decided to use the foot massage to my advantage.

"You have unusually long toes," I observed.

She closed her eyes and then opened them, peering down at me, "don't tickle, just rub them."

"And you're ticklish. That's all I know about you. You have long toes and you're ticklish."

"What do you want to know?"

"Who did you date in high school?"

Ardy jerked her foot out of hand. "Ask something else," she said, demurely.

"You know all that stuff about me. I told you about my first kiss. I told you more than I should about some girls you probably know. Fair is fair."

"I told you to ask something else." Her voice was soft but firm, almost irate.

"Okay, tell me about your name. Who stuck you with that?"

Her frown was less than cordial. "Do you know what it means?"

"Yes," I said boldly, hoping she wasn't going to test me.

"Will, then you can imagine the dream my dad had for me. He wanted me to be passionate and enthusiastic about learning. He wanted me to be zealous about life. He named me Ardent."

She had spoken about her father in past tense. Did I dare pursue this? I reached for her foot and rubbed her toes again.

"Did your mother object to the name or did she share your father's dream?"

"According to aunt Bertha my father was the dominant one. He was her younger brother and I don't think she approved of my mother."

I nodded, thinking that I understood. Something had evidently happened to her parents and aunt Bertha had raised her niece. I never got a chance to ask because Ardy had reversed the position of her body, interrupting my thoughts. She forced my head back onto the couch cushion and placed her lips on mine, softly, briefly and with minimal lip movement. Then it was over and she was sitting up on her knees. Any attempt on my part to extend the kiss would have been futile.

"That's the first time I've kissed a boy. Does that answer your question about who I dated in high school?"

She looked embarrassed so I mumbled something about her kissing with zeal. We laughed together. Deciding she was a private person, I didn't try to rub her feet or ask more questions.

During one of these late night talks Ardy divulged that she had applied for entrance into the Master's program, but felt the prospect of her being accepted was not strong because she would need another scholarship.

One Saturday Ardy appeared at the breakfast table, wearing her hair in pigtails. She smiled sheepishly, knowing what she was in for. We worked in the flower shop that day and after lunch she came back to work with the pigtails gone and her hair combed out. "You're a bad influence on that little boy," she said to me. Matt had used the pigtail pulling excessively to draw her attention to him.

Bertha arrived on graduation day. I went to the bus terminal to pick her up while Ardy packed her bags and got ready for the ceremony. They were going to take the bus home that same evening. I was staying at school for the summer.

We had not told Bertha about our living arrangement before her arrival, but she took it quite well. I think it was because our explanation was forthright and truthful. Ardy had taken the room in order to have a quiet place to study and in order to get some much-needed rest. Although we didn't go out of our way to explain that nothing had happened between us it must have been evident.

Bertha sat proudly watching her niece cross the stage to receive her diploma and I was proud too. Afterwards, I wanted to take them to dinner but Bertha wouldn't hear of it so we went directly to the bus terminal. Ardy took my hands to say goodbye but at the last moment she flew into my arms and I felt her lips touch my cheek.

During the summer she wrote twice. The first letter told me she had been accepted as a candidate for a Master's degree. I wrote back to congratulate her. I also told her that young Matt Russell was glad to hear the news although he didn't know what a Master's degree was. He often came to the shop with his dad and was in the habit of asking me if I had news from Ardy.

The second letter arrived in the middle of August.

Dear Jimmy,

I've been trying to find a place to stay this school year but everything seems to be taken. Do you think the Russells would mind if I stay in the house until I can make other arrangements? I'll gladly work in the shop and keep the housework done. Would you mind?

Your friend,

Ardy

There were a number of reasons why I didn't want to even mention Ardy's request to Marty. I had gotten used to living alone again and was not anxious to share my space. Also, I was dating a girl from one of my summer classes who had caught my attention. There was a possibility that she would eventually want to see where I lived. Ardy's presence in the second bedroom would need to be explained.

But down deep it was jealousy; Ardy, from my kindergarten class, was younger than me and she had already graduated. Now she was continuing her education and I was taking summer courses to catch up.

I had been putting off asking Marty for a few days when I happened to mention the request to his young son. Matt's eyes lit up when he heard that Ardy was coming back to school and might stay in the house if we could convince his father and Betty to permit it.

Matt took over the campaign. His father conceded it was the right thing to do, to help a young student achieve her goal. He had seen her commitment to everything she undertook, including captivating the attention of his young son.

Betty was not so easy to persuade but when I reminded her how Ardy kept the house clean she relented. Ardy could stay, temporarily. I drove home to bring her back.

Bertha was less agreeable with the living arrangement. And, unfortunately, I had neglected to tell my parents about the experiment of our sharing the house the previous year or of our intentions to start the upcoming year under the same roof. They gave me more grief about it than Bertha had, stating the obvious, we were of opposite sexes and they feared that we were asking for trouble. They politely avoided the subject that really bothered them.

But when Ardy was able to convince Bertha that our living arrangements were simply a matter of convenience, she was able to sway my parents into understanding that it made sense. By this time I was looking forward to having her occupy the second bedroom, even if only temporarily.

"I told Aunt Bertha we hardly ever see each other," Ardy said as soon as we were on the road. It was a warm day in August and I couldn't help but notice her brown legs, bare below the tan shorts she was wearing. She was in good spirits. I wondered if it was because we were headed back to school or if it had something to do with us being together.

"That's true. We go days without even speaking," I said smiling.

When we stopped for gas and a restroom break she went into the restaurant with me, something she had never done before, always preferring to eat a sandwich in the car. We took a seat in a booth and when our knees bumped she smiled at me. It was nice to see her relaxed. She talked about her summer job, working in social services. She wanted to know what had happened while she was gone. I told her that Matt had influenced his father to let her move back into the house.

"I'll have to thank him," she commented, beaming.

"He has a crush on you."

She dropped her eyes and wouldn't look at me for several seconds. "That's so sweet. What else has been happening?"

"I've been dating a girl I met in one of the summer classes."

Ardy's head popped up, looking stunned and then she calmed and smiled. "That's great Jimmy! Tell me about her."

There was really nothing to tell. Sandy was also a business student and was beginning her senior year. She lived off campus in a house with other women she dubbed "old maids," because their landlady banned men from the premises.

"What do you do? Does she come to the house?"

"No," I laughed, wondering just what she was asking. Come to the house as in "visiting" or come to the house as in "spending the night?" In either case the answer was no. Not that I hadn't considered the possibility. I had even contemplated how I could sneak her out in the morning without Betty catching us.

Ardy wanted a complete description, what Sandy looked like, what we did together on dates and, in a devious way, how far I had gotten with her? Her curiosity offended me. Her return to the house could lessen my chances of ever needing to deceive Betty.