What Family Means. Geri Krotow

so much to get ready for the art show, including the weaving that needed to be finished. But I couldn’t ask Vi to come over and stay at our place if I was only going to disappear into my studio.

      And she needed company, whether she asked for it or not.

      I needed to be in Will’s arms. Three days until he was back from Los Angeles. I’d have a pot roast on the table. And our king-size bed would be waiting for him….

      How lucky was I that I still had a great sex life with the same man who’d taught me how to make love in Paris, almost forty years ago?

      September 1972

       Paris, France

      THE THREE-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD building triggered countless visions in Will’s mind. He saw the building architecturally—the ribs exposed, before the marble and plaster added their depth. His mind’s eye pictured each layer, one after another, until the interior looked as it did today.

      The sound of his leather soles on the wide stairway comforted him. Will lived and breathed architecture.

      He walked down the ornate hallway to a familiar classroom. Once a ballroom, it had been converted with utilitarian chairs and desks. The first architectural design class he’d taken this summer had been in this room. The days were long, sweaty and intellectually exhilarating.

      Today was the start of his art in architecture class. He hoped the professor was more of a left-brain type so they’d study building structure more than actual artwork like paintings and sculpture. Either way, this was a required class for his graduate studies abroad, so he’d do whatever he had to do.

      He wasn’t really into the Paris art scene; he had his sights set on becoming America’s foremost architect.

      He slid into a seat toward the back. He was early and only two other students had shown up so far. He opened a notebook and flipped through it. He’d loved his class this summer, and his French had improved with each passing week. This class had the potential to be great, as well.

      Or boring as hell.

      As he perused his notebook, an unopened envelope fell out.

      From Sarah.

      He sighed. Hell-bent as he was on becoming a great architect, his mother and Sarah were equally hell-bent on his marrying Sarah.

      Both from Western New York, they’d met on campus at Howard University. Sarah had moved back to Buffalo from Washington, D.C., after graduation. She worked as a legal researcher in downtown Buffalo.

      The one time he’d taken her out, over spring break, she’d made it clear that she’d follow Will anywhere, even if it was “back here to little ol’ Buffalo.”

      She’d had the same privileged upbringing he had. Money had buffered them from some of the effects of racism his poorer black friends had suffered.

      They were a great match on paper. But he didn’t love Sarah. Not the way he thought he should.

      Hell, what did he know?

      He’d had his nose in books for the past five years. And he suspected that his mother was determined to win the marriage war, since his parents had lost their battle to send him to med school.

      Long legs in fishnet stockings caught his eye.

      A woman with a short plaid skirt and black knee-high boots moved quickly to the seat in front of him. Her figure was accentuated by her red mohair sweater, over which fell a riot of bright carrot-colored curls. His fingers knew how her curls would feel, how they’d spring back from his tug.

      He’d known a woman with hair like this once. A girl. But she was in Buffalo, part of his past, and he’d never see her again.

      Couldn’t.

      The scent of the woman’s perfume made his blood run hot. So much so that he didn’t realize the professor had arrived and started taking attendance.

      “Roman?”

      “Ici.”

      “Russert?”

      “Ici.”

      “Schaefer?”

      “Oui, ici, madame.”

      That voice.

      “Debra?” he whispered, afraid he’d lost his mind.

      The woman with the cloud of red hair turned around in her seat. Her green eyes glittered in the morning light shafting through the Murano glass windowpanes. The same freckles, the same tilt of her nose. But on a much more sophisticated face. Was that glossy lipstick on her naturally pink lips?

      She didn’t recognize him for a heartbeat, but then recognition and incredulity lit up her expression.

      “Will!” Her voice was huskier, sexier than he’d remembered.

      And too loud for Professor Cleremont.

      “This is a graduate-level course and very demanding, Mademoiselle Schaefer.”

      Debra whirled back around in her chair.

      “Oui, Madame Cleremont.” Her French was flawless. Will recalled that she’d taken French in high school, but when had she learned to speak like a native?

      He sat behind her for the next hour and forty-five minutes, not hearing a single word of what Professor Cleremont said. His intense and constant awareness of Debra made him feel flushed. Distracted.

      So his reaction to their one shared kiss at seventeen—when she was fifteen—hadn’t been a fluke. At least not for him.

      The class finally ended and Will absently picked up the handouts as the fifteen students filed out the door. He saw only one.

      Debra.

      “When did you get here?” Without thought, he placed his hand on her elbow. She stopped and turned to face him. He had her full attention, all right.

      “Last week. This is my junior year abroad with Mount Holyoke.”

      “Mount Holyoke?”

      She looked exasperated.

      “Yes, Will. I’m a student. I attend university. I’m studying art history.”

      “But Mount Holyoke’s Ivy League.”

      Her eyes narrowed.

      “There is such a thing as a scholarship, Will.”

      “But…you’re still an undergrad—these are graduate courses.”

      “Yes, and I’m earning my master’s at the same time as my bachelor’s.” Her face reflected boredom and a flash of…disappointment?

      “I never knew—”

      “You never bothered to ask, Will.”

      Ouch. He hadn’t contacted her after their kiss that winter day so long ago. His mother had forbidden any contact with her, and frankly he didn’t want his mother on Debra’s case, either.

      He’d felt the need to protect her, although—or perhaps because—they moved in different circles. The same high school but vastly different social groups. He couldn’t remember Debra ever being at a dance or after-school function. He’d missed her terribly but was more relieved than anything. He didn’t want his friends bothering her.

      They’d never spoken again.

      “Yeah. I guess we…drifted apart.”

      “Call it whatever you want, Will. I have another class in half an hour, across the place.”

      With that she stalked away from him and he just stood there, his breath gone. As though she’d punched him in the stomach, hard. But she hadn’t even touched him.

      She’d given him that look—of contempt? Disapproval?—with her brilliant eyes. The eyes that used to radiate hero worship for him.