Finding Home Read Free Page A

“Lucienne?
It is you!”
    I dropped my plastic spoon.
    “Don’t you remember me?” he said. “Nick
Talbot? From Middleford? West Grove High?” He held out his
hand.
    “Nick?” I hoped my voice didn’t sound as
shaky as I felt. I remembered him all right. I recognized his blunt
chin and square shoulders, his disturbing blue eyes. I didn’t shake
his hand. “What are you doing here?”
    “Just what I was going to ask you.”
    “God, Nick, I never would have known you, I
mean, you look so, um, well, I’m sure I do too, so much, oh you
know ...”
    “Older?” He sat down beside me at the table.
“Well, you don’t. I knew you right away. You look terrific.”
    My shorts and T-shirt felt damp and sweaty
and shabby. “Hey,” I said, “do you live in Montreal or
something?”
    “Oh no, Toronto. I’m just here on
business.”
    I had to laugh. When we were in high school
Nick had his own business – he spent his time selling pot. “Are you
a millionaire yet?” I asked him.
    He smiled and shrugged. He had that muscular
look of someone who works out a lot. “So, Lucienne Smith,” he said.
“My secret adolescent passion. Where the hell did you disappear to,
when was it anyway? Ten, fifteen years ago? I mean nobody knew,
suddenly you were just gone. And you never came back.”
    I couldn’t look at him. “Well,” I said. I
didn’t want to think about Middleford. Or the reason I’d left.
“Yeah, well,” I said, and didn’t continue.
    “Got time for coffee?”
    He was gone to the snack bar before I could
refuse. I stirred my yogurt some more. Then I stared up at the gray
stone squirrels perched high in the rafters which decorated the
ceiling of the chalet, feeling queasy. The squirrels sat silently
watching as, against my will, my mind slipped back.
    My teenage years were so totally repressed,
the only time in my life I’d ever tried to fit in. I’d actually
believed I could be someone else by living a quiet, studious life,
going to church every week with the Wembles, blocking out my past.
Dating safe Gordon Clark. Avoiding guys like Nick Talbot.
    And he hadn’t lost the potential to affect
me, I realized as I watched him return with the coffee. Though not
tall, he seemed to take up a whole lot of space, and gave off a
vibrant physical energy. He wore a black T-shirt and shorts,
top-of-the-line runners, and moved with the authority of a man used
to being in control. A man who held power. A man who could, and
would, have anything he wanted.
    He set a styro cup in front of me, then a
handful of cream and sugar packages. “Want these?”
    “No, thanks, I just take it black.”
    “Me too.” He actually smirked at me, as if
this small common taste now linked us forever. “So, why weren’t you
at the West Grove High reunion?” he asked. “I looked all over for
you.”
    “Huh?” I made a face. “Not really my kind of
thing.”
    “Did you even know about it?”
    “Vera Wemble mentioned it in a letter, I
think.”
    “Well, you’ll just have to tell me everything
now.”
    I warned myself to be careful. I didn’t like
the cozy intimacy he was assuming. And I knew my current situation
made me very vulnerable. I was heartbroken over Jay. If Nick asked,
I might just pick up and follow him anywhere, out of sheer
hopelessness.
    “Oh, there’s nothing much to tell,” I said.
“One day I just suddenly realized there had to be more to life than
living happily ever after in Middleford, Ontario, with Gordon
Clark. So I left.” Not the real reason at all, of course.
    “Gord was devastated,” Nick said, shaking his
head. “Me, too.”
    I tried to look contrite. “Gord wasn’t
interested in women,” I told him. “I did us both a favor,
really.”
    Nick sipped his coffee. “So you knew Gord was
gay?”
    “Oh, not at the time, though looking back it
all makes sense.” I had to smile as I recalled our chaste
relationship. “But that was the whole point, you see. Gordon was
safe. He kept me out of