Once in a Lifetime Read Online Free PDF Page B

safe. There were others she would never have let into her apartment, but instinctively with Jeff she had known that she was safe. It was one of the things she instantly loved about him. She felt safe and happy and protected. She felt it just wandering at his side as they walked from the boat pond to the zoo. It was an essence of power he exuded, and quiet strength, at the same time mixed with something gentle. "I'll call you tomorrow."
    "I'll be at school."
    "What time do you leave in the morning?"
    "Eight o'clock."
    "Then I'll call you before that. Can you meet me for lunch?" She nodded, feeling suddenly awed and a little dazed.
    "Is this for real?"
    "Very much so." He kissed her in the doorway and she felt stirrings she had never felt before, and that night as she lay in bed thinking of him, trying to sort out her thoughts, she felt a longing she had never known.
    But he had meant everything he said to her on that first evening. He called her the next morning at seven o'clock, and he appeared outside the school of journalism on schedule at noon. His jacket was slung over his shoulder, his tie was in his pocket, and his golden hair shone in the sun as she came hesitantly down the steps, feeling shy for the first time. This was different from the day before. There wasn't the hubbub of the Bar Association meeting around them, there was no wine, no boat, no sunset peeking through her windows. There was only this extraordinary golden man standing in the noonday sun, smiling proudly down at her as though he owned her. And in her heart she knew he did, and always would.
    They hailed a cab and went to the Metropolitan Museum for lunch, and sat by the pool as they toyed with their food, and by the time he took her back to school, she felt entirely comfortable with him again. He had a remarkable way about him, and once again she felt the same strength and safety she had felt at his side the day before.
    She made dinner for him at her apartment that night, and once again he left early. And that weekend he had taken her to Connecticut to visit friends, play tennis, and sail, and they had come home golden brown from the sun, and this time he took her to his place in the East Fifties and he made dinner. It was there that he finally took her in his arms and slid his hands carefully over her silky golden flesh and made her absolutely ache for him. She spent the night wrapped in his arms, and it was only the next morning that he made love to her, with all the tenderness and caution and solemnly bridled passion of a man very much in love with a virgin. He made it beautiful for her, and that night they made love in her apartment, and this time it was she who took the lead and surprised not him, but herself, with the force of her desire and passion.
    They had spent the rest of the summer in and out of bed, working their schedules around those of their roommates, hers having returned in late August, until finally Jeff could stand it no longer and during the Easter vacation of her senior year, he flew to Tennessee with her, and they got married. It was a quiet ceremony attended by her mother and a dozen friends. She wore a long white organdy dress and a big hat, and carried a big bunch of wild flowers and daisies, and her mother cried, as much from relief as from the delight of seeing her daughter married.
    Camilla was dying from leukemia, but she had not told Daphne yet. Before they flew north again, she told Jeffrey. He promised her that he would take good care of Daphne forever and always. Three months later she was dead and Daphne was pregnant with their first child. Jeff flew to Atlanta with her for the funeral, and he handled everything and held her as she cried. She had no one left now except Jeffrey and the baby that was due in March.
    Through the summer he watched her grieve for her mother as they furnished their new apartment with the few treasures they had shipped up from Atlanta. She had graduated from Columbia in June, and in