Two Women Scorned
Emma Wentworth was a woman in love with a man who wasn’t her husband. She wrote to him and phoned him from the road. She was a freelance photographer; Emma’s husband never saw the bills and never cared to open them. He trusted Emma implicitly and backed her in her second career. She in turn was a very devoted wife, because Steve gave her what she wanted most – access to Charlie Firebird, who was also a photographer.
They had met one October when the leaves were bursting with red and orange hues. She was taking pictures of the street and the street people as he was coming back from Black Mountain. She raised her Nikon up to take his picture as he got out of his car. She hesitated, because he wore his long hair in a ponytail and she could see that he was either Creek or Cherokee. He was sensitive to her hesitation. He stopped for a moment and took Emma in. Emma recoiled. She preferred to do the scrutinizing behind the lens. When he pulled out a camera from the leather folds of his backpack, Emma knew she would be in the line of fire. Her legs locked. She couldn’t move. He didn’t breathe and looked at her face. We know one another, he thought, and Emma swore that she heard him in her head without verbal words passing between them. They didn’t stop to eat before making love in the Best Western, room 201.
It didn’t matter if he was married or she was married. Spouses’ faces and vows became lost in the sheets. Emma and Charlie knew one another. That was all that mattered to either one of them. There was no husband in Cartersville. There was no wife in Chapel Hill. There was only this day when they had found one another.
When they finished, the sun was already falling into red sky. Charlie caressed Emma in his arms. “Would you like to go out?”
“I’m comfortable. Where would you like to go?” she asked.
“I’d like to show you Flat Rock by night. Have you ever been there, Emma?”
“No. I haven’t. I’ve always been in such a hurry to get to my destination that I never used the secondary roads between Asheville and Spartanburg.”
“We still have time to go.”
“I would like that.”
“Then let’s go.”
They took a shower together. There is a myth in America that passion and desire die in older folks. It didn’t matter that Charlie was fifty-five and Emma was forty-six. They performed society’s obligations. Each knew what they wanted. Emma giggled as he slipped the soap up and down her back. This was play, pure play, and she was having a marvelous time with Charlie Firebird. Her husband would never be touched by her affair. In Emma’s mind, Charlie’s wife was faceless. Emma really never knew what Charlie was thinking. He was just interested in the moment and having a wonderful time.
They dressed very quickly and grabbed their equipment for the drive. Life was more exciting when with a playmate. There was no history here, no tired groove, no rut, and no reality. Time ticked away. Neither wished to think about the moment when they’d each walk into their two different well washed kitchens from the garage. The chase was always much more fun than the capture and captivity which followed.
Emma dashed to the elevator. She loved to be on vacation where nothing was planned. Charlie ran after her and closed the doors. He pushed her to the back of the railing and held her close to him. “Emma, you are so special. I just love everything about you.”
She blushed like a young girl. “Charlie, you make life exciting.”
They held hands as they left the elevator.
“How long will it take to get there?” Emma asked in a child-like, trusting voice.
“Thirty minutes, give or take.”
They arrived after the park closing. Charlie found a place to park by the side of the road.
The air already came at them in chilly breaths. Emma bundled her parka up and lost herself to the night. Charlie was just being himself. He was a very natural man who liked to take walks up Big Glassy and Little Glassy at three in the morning. The National Park Service never discovered Charlie walking on the same trails Carl Sandburg explored years before. He tried to imagine working on Paula Sandburg’s goat farm and he thought the crunch of the leaves beneath his feet to be his slice of heaven. Charlie took Emma’s hand in his. This was the way it should be. Tonight he took Emma around the fringe of the pond at the base of the park.
Emma broke the stillness between them. “Charlie. I have to be home tomorrow.”
“Just as you please.”
“I’d like to see you again.”
“We can do that, Emma.” Charlie went with the moment.
“I’d like to see you every year at this time and whenever our times match.”
Charlie pursed his lips. “We could. I’d like to write you Emma.”
“You could write me and perhaps call me at my office.” She handed Charlie her business card.
“Emma, you are an independent woman.” He put the crisp white card in his right shirt pocket. “That’s what I like…no dependency.”
This was like a slap to Emma. She took it, because she wanted to be near Charlie Firebird. Emma hid her longing to stay with him. After all, Charlie was right. He
was married and she was married. They couldn’t each destroy their lovely built up worlds. Partners, grown-up children, property…it wasn’t worth it. No, he was right. She squared her small shoulders and said, “I’ve had a lovely time.”
“I’ll be sending you some photographs in the mail.”
Charlie and Emma walked side by side saying nothing in the darkness of Connemara farm.
* * *
Train whistles could be heard for miles. Since the time of his upbringing in Reidsville, Charlie desired nothing more than to be carried west. Emma surely traveled west now, through North Carolina into Tennessee. The dawn parted the sky softly at first. The air shook as the train whistle cut through the woods. Charlie’s most recent camp was near the railroad property. He smelled the burning wood and saw that the fire had been ably kept throughout the night. He walked closer and noticed a pot of coffee had been started. Stace huddled beneath a green sleeping blanket.
“I was beginning to think you’d never get back.”
Charlie squatted down. “You know I always return, my dear.”
“Oh, yes.”
He warmed himself, still hunched down. “You no doubt have kept yourself busy.” Charlie laughed softly.
Stace said flatly, “A girl has to earn money.”
“Yes, but other girls don’t do as well as you, my dear.”
“Do tell. Well, I don’t wait for any man to do for me.”
“You are not clingy. I don’t like to keep company with women like than.”
He pulled a sleeping bag from behind him with his left hand and dragged it beneath his boney rear. He sat down, satisfied with his present company of an Asheville prostitute.
Stace studied Charlie’s face for a genuine lack of concern. Still, he had photographed her in the nude and that was some comfort to her artistic side. How many girls could say that they have been featured on the wall of a noteworthy university during a showing of noteworthy black and white studies?