Hand in Hand

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—Originally publshed in The Roanoke Review, Fall 1996

    Sam Armstrong stood on the brow of the hill and shivered in his summer khakis. The breeze shifted, and the smell of jasmine overwhelmed the tang of sea salt. Beyond the bay, San Francisco sat upright like a lioness. Sam looked past her into the dying sun over the Pacific. Nothing had changed. Clarissa was still his best friend, still the failed debutante who’d rather spend an evening with him reading Flaubert in the original than go dancing at the Mark Hopkins. Grace was still her hen-pecking mother, more drama than substance. Only he had changed. Satisfied, he turned and walked down the curving driveway. Grace and Clarissa waited smiling by the white Chrysler Imperial convertible.
    His eyes swept the house. Shamelessly brilliant in reds and purples, fuchsias did the best they could to cover the dark wood and old brick.
    “Still the same,” he said. “Funny. To look at it from the front, you’d think it was nothing but a summer cottage.” He grinned. “It’s like you, Grace. So much more behind the color.”
    “He’s going over to flattery, Sissy,” Grace said.
    “Let’s go in,” Clarissa said. “We don’t have much time.”
    Inside, Sam put down his duffel bag and drank in the room. He saw again the wall of glass overlooking the bay, the turquoise carpet, the grand piano. He ran his hand across the back of the chestnut sofa. His fingers remembered the rough texture.
    “We’ve put you in the den,” Grace said. “The room is yours until tomorrow.” She threw open the door and posed beside it like a ballerina. Same old Grace.
    And the same Sissy, acting up behind her mother’s back, arms crossed, rocking back on her heels and bending at the waist to balance herself, suppressing a grin. Grace was right. Clarissa had absolutely no sense of decorum. Except, of course, when she wanted to. Grace was wrong, too. Clarissa was no ugly duckling. Except, of course, when she wanted to be.
    He walked into the den. The white carpet and crimson reading chair, the black bookcases covering one wall, the red and black velvet cushions on the floor . . .
    “How many nights have we spent in this room working and talking?” He looked at Clarissa. “Remember studying for the Dickens mid-term?”
    “And typing my term paper on D’Urfé’s Astrée?” Clarissa laughed. “And the spilled coffee?”
    Grace’s eyes snapped open. “On this rug?”
    “Ma, it was four years ago,” Clarissa said. “We worked half the night to clean it up.”

Continued ...

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