by Rosanna Young
Sharon cursed as she tried to untangle herself from the fishing line that was going to strangle her. The harder she tried to untangle herself, the more wrapped up in it she became, until she threw the pole to the ground in a fit of pique. "Motherfu..." she mumbled, as she felt the fishing hook catch in her hair.
"I'd watch the language if were you," a very masculine voice said from behind her.
Sharon screamed in her frustration, and at the fact that a strange man was witnessing her foolishness. "I was only trying to relax, and have a peaceful afternoon and just look at the mess I've made. Damn it!"
She'd gotten the hook out of her hair, but now it snagged in the seat of her shorts, and every tug on the line threatened her with a wedgie.
"Can't you help me?! Don't just stand there like some kind of idiot, give me a hand!!"
"I might, if you would consider being polite about it," said a now somewhat familiar voice behind her.
Turning to see just who it was that was witnessing her humiliation, Sharon let out a groan. "Evan! What the hell are you doing here?"
"That was polite," he said drolly. ""We haven't seen each other for years, and all you can do is curse at me? As for why, I still patrol this part of the reservoir. You do know that fishing is not allowed here, don't you?"
Sighing, she said, "I do. But I remembered coming here with daddy to fish when we were little, and how quiet and peaceful it was here. I just needed to get away for the afternoon," she finished quietly.
Evan looked at the woman before him, a person he had known through childhood and their teenage years and beyond. He gave a little shrug. Gentling his voice, he approached Sharon to help her get out of her predicament.
"First thing we need to do is get this worm," he said, as he reached out towards her hair. Running his fingers into it, he brushed the offending bit onto the ground, chuckling as he felt the shiver run through her, though she didn't complain, or make any girlie noises.
From Sharon's point of view, the shiver was not because thoughts of a worm in her hair freaked her out, but the fact of the man at her side. They had known each other since childhood, their parents were friends. They even had history, slight though it was. Something about him had always made her tongue-tied, made her say and do stupid things she didn't understand. So why now, when she was at such a low point in her life, did he have to show up? Their mothers still talked, so she was sure that he knew she had gone through a particularly vicious divorce, just as she knew that he had been widowed several years earlier. It made it easier really, not having to indulge in insipid small talk about stuff neither of them wanted to be reminded of anyway.
Finally untangled from her prison, Sharon looked at Evan. Smiling blandly, she mumbled her thanks. Collecting herself, she turned and started gathering up her stuff, missing the confused and then annoyed look that crossed Evan's face.
She's gonna blow me off again, he thought. I don't think so. Letting her get her stuff together, he helped carry her gear to the SUV, stowing it in the back, then watched as she buckled her seatbelt and slammed the door shut. Leaning his elbows against the door, Evan just grinned at her, then slapping his hand on the roof, he said. "Nice to see you again Sharon. See ya around." Then he turned and got into a truck that said 'Fish and Game' on the side and drove off, leaving her in the dust.
It was a good two weeks later, long enough for Sharon to forget her frustration at his, 'See ya around', when the doorbell rang. Turning the fire down under the stew she was warming, she looked through the peephole. Oh no! Resting her forehead against the door, Sharon counted to ten slowly before reaching for the knob, opening it just as the bell pealed for a second time.
"Evan - what a surprise!"
"I said I'd be seeing you, didn't I?
"Yeah, but I thought it was just, you know, just platitudes."
"No, it wasn't. Look, I didn't come here to argue. I thought you might like to go out to eat somewhere."
"Well, actually I was just heating up some stew, you could join me if you like, but I should warn you, it's venison. My brother gave me the meat last hunting season."
"That would be just great."
Supper started out as an awkward affair, but slowly they relaxed, chatting over the meal while they reacquainted themselves with each other. Evan had been very well informed by his mother of her circumstances, but he also knew that she had a tendency to be a bit dramatic. Instead, he had kept track of her through his friendship with her older brother. He knew that she was still reluctant to begin a new relationship with anyone, so for now friendship it would be.
"I was going to watch a movie after dinner, if you'd like to stay?"
Sharon's suggestion shook him for a second. He didn't think she had been that interested in having him hang around. "Sure, great! Love to!"
He must have sounded funny to her, because she looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she started clearing away the dishes. She must have decided he was sincere because she said, "Then why don't you go into the den and pick something out while I finish cleaning up here."
The small older Victorian house that Sharon had bought after her divorce only had four rooms on the bottom floor, the kitchen and dining room to the rear, while a cozy sitting room took up most of the front, with a small powder room tucked away in a corner under the curve of the staircase to the upstairs. On one wall was a large entertainment center with a huge selection of DVDs to choose from. Ambling over, Evan looked at her collection.
"You've got quite a lot of variety here," he called out to her. "What were you going to watch?"
"I hadn't really decided yet, so anything you pick would be OK with me," she called back, before she realized that maybe too close a scrutiny of her DVD collection would not be a good idea.
Hurrying to finish her task, she rushed into the other room just in time to see him pull a movie, actually three movies, from the shelf. "You have quite a collection of old horror movies here," he said, looking at her.
"Well, that's kinda your fault. How many times did you play that old 8mm reel of the Bride of Frankenstein when we were kids, in the dark, in that creepy basement at your house?"
"Probably a zillion," he grinned. "And these two?"
Blushing, she realized he held up the two movies that they had seen together, in the theatre, when they were both still very young. Fluffy, with Tony Randall, about a man babysitting a full grown lion, and Cat Ballou, a western with Jane Fonda, and Lee Marvin.
"If we watch this one, will you sit next to me this time?"
Sharon blushed at the memory. She had been so angry at him. When he called to ask her out, her mother had answered the phone. So instead of asking to speak to her, he had asked her mother if she could go, who in turn had informed her that she was going out to the movies with him. Had she been given the choice herself, she may have gifted him with a sedate 'Sure', but inside she would have been jumping up and down with joy. Instead she had piled her coat on the seat between them. Never cross a 12 year-old in love.
So 'Fluffy' it was.
Sharon was already becoming frustrated with her new relationship (is dinner and a movie a relationship?) with Evan. She might as well have been having dinner with her brother. Yeah, it was nice sitting next to him on the couch. She had leaned into him a little, and he put his arm over the back of the couch, but that was it. They'd shared a bowl of popcorn, with extra butter, but when the movie was over, reliving their first date ended no differently than the first one. He said good-bye with a smile and walked out the front door.
In the following weeks Evan called a few times. They ate out or she cooked, and they'd watch a movie together. The Bride of Frankenstein and Cat Ballou became favorites again. But he never led her to believe that he was interested in anything but renewing an old friendship. He didn't even hold her hand when they went out in public together.
Sharon missed being kissed. It was an intimate expression of affection between two people that she hadn't shared with anyone in a long while. Her husband hadn't been a kisser. Come to think about it, Evan had never kissed her either. Even when they were young, and they'd gone steady for three whole days, before she had panicked over something, and broken up with him.
Trying to keep their budding relationship on the platonic level was more difficult than he thought. When they sat together watching a movie, it was all he could do to keep from wrapping her in his arms and saying the hell with the movie. Afraid he'd scare her, or gross her out with his pawing advances, he kept himself under rigid control at all times. She sure could cook, though. The extra couple of inches in his waistline was proof positive there. He was hooked the first night she served up that venison stew. He brought her fresh fish a couple of times too. He had helped cook, the joking and playing in the kitchen as they worked made him feel that she was getting to be more comfortable with him. It was hard to keep his feelings down in the intimacy of the kitchen, to keep things friendly and even, to work forward, slowly but surely, but he would manage.
Concert tickets. Evan had called to say he had won concert tickets from the local oldies station. For tonight. Sharon wasn't really sure she wanted to go with him. It had been fun seeing him, for a while, but unfortunately she was beginning to feel that she didn't really want to see him on a steady basis. He was friendly and all, but there just wasn't any spark there. It must have been her imagination, the connection she had felt when he first started coming to the house, because whatever they had going on, certainly wasn't going anywhere. Men just sucked. They were just put on this earth to get your hopes up, and experts at laying you flat again. She couldn't get involved in another relationship that was so at odds with what she thought she wanted. She needed to be touched, just touched in the basic ways, a squeeze in passing, have her hand held when they went out, a cuddle on the couch. It had been years, since way before her divorce, that she had felt loved and cared for, and she just couldn't enter into another situation where she felt so alone, even when she wasn't.
Sharon wanted more than just a friend, was ready for more than just a friend. Was more than a peck on the cheek too much to ask for? When a TV commercial that featured a couple just being happy together on the beach made her cry, made her wonder if real couples acted that way with each other, she knew that her life was desperately missing something.
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