FROM THE NOVELLA,
TO LOVE AGAIN
A love story
by
A. J. Kerns
Bend, Oregon—Late Spring
A stack of short stories lay on the left side of Alicia Redmond’s vintage oak desk. She’d found the antique desk a year ago at a local auction and bought it for a song. It had drawers on the right side, which in the first week she crammed to the brim with papers, notebooks, and writing paraphernalia.
As an assistant professor at the local community college, she had edited and made suggestions on nine of her student’s submissions. Eight to go and the class was tomorrow. Mike Monroe’s story sat on top of the pile. She debated placing it on the bottom, maybe to leave it for last so she could give it more attention later.
Now, why was that?
Years back, in high school, when she was a freshman, and he was a senior and a star on the football team, she had carried a secret crush. However, the gap in their ages and the distance in circle of friends prevented any chance of friendship. Even making the cheerleading squad didn’t help a casual encounter with him. Then he graduated and went into the army. Why didn’t he go to college? She wondered. He was so smart.
She fingered the latest draft of the short story he had submitted and was still puzzled. A romance? A nostalgic looking back at a lost love. Was this the same man who wrote that grim war novel, full of violent energy? Oh well, she thought, we all have many sides, facets to our being.
Mike certainly was handsome; tall, with dark hair, blue eyes, and that curious smile of his. Rugged would be the descriptive characteristic she’d use if writing a story about him. Never married. No doubt he’d had a few love affairs and what about that fun glint in his eye and the way two of those women in class vied to sit next to him?
She leaned back and placed her pen marker on his story. Once again, the time back at that high school spring dance came to mind. Bright lights, loud music, and students laughing and dancing. She had stood alone, arms crossed, watching everyone having fun. Then she overheard the comment from her classmates aimed in her direction, “Look at little skinny over there.” Bad enough to be unaccepted in any of the groups, let alone having to put up with that. She had started for the door when then he was there, saying something like, “Hey, good-looking, you’re not leaving. Let’s dance before you go.”
She hadn’t time to say no, and he took her onto the dance floor and twirled her around three times. The music changed to slow dance, and they were touching. In no time he drew her closer, awkwardly at first. The he told her dress was pretty and the rest of their dance she didn’t quite remember. Every spring when she smelled the orange blossoms, memories of the night returned. The evening was the high point of her social high school, even after returning home she’d found her grandmother’s locket was missing.
The clock on the mantle chimed, three o’clock. No more time to work on Mike’s story. Time to pick up Zoe from junior high. She hoped her daughter’s day went well.
A single parent’s tasks never seemed to end.
A J Kerns is a pen name for Arthur Kerns. Following his service as a U.S. Navy officer, Arthur Kerns joined the FBI with a career in counterintelligence and counterterrorism. On retirement, he became a consultant with the Director of Central Intelligence and the Department of State, which took him to over sixty-five countries. His short stories have appeared in several award-winning anthologies, recently in the Sisters in Crime, So West: Lady Killers. Diversion Books, Inc published his Hayden Stone thriller series, first, The Riviera Contract, and followed by The African Contract and The Yemen Contract. His latest thriller, Days of the Hunters, was published in March 2020. He has completed A Suitable Spy a WW II spy novel set in Latin America, that is with his agent. He is working on a whimsical FBI novel taking place in Hollywood.He is represented by Elizabeth Kracht of the Kimberley Cameron and Associates, Tiburon, California.
This excerpt from Three Dances was written with the Hallmark Channel in mind.
Website: www.arthurkerns.com
email: crick1938@aol.com
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