Sweet Memories Read Online Free PDF

except lipstick, which she slashed onto her surly lips as if scrawling graffiti on a rest-room wall.  I’ll get you for this, Jeff.  Little thought was given to the clothing she chose, beyond the certainty that she’d put on her gray coat and leave it buttoned until they got back home.
    She wasn’t, however, planning on running into Brian in the front hall by the coat closet. When she did, she came up short, caught without a sweater or guitar or table to hide behind. Instinctively, one hand went up to finger her blouse collar—it was the best she could do.
    “Jeff went out to start the car,” Brian announced.
    “Oh.” The word was barely out of her mouth before Theresa realized Brian had shed military attire in favor of brown tennis shoes, bone-colored corduroys and a polo-style shirt of wide horizontal stripes in red and beige. He’d been carrying a brown leather waist-length jacket, and shrugged it on while she watched, transfixed. If Brian had subjected Theresa to the blatant inspection she gave him, she’d have ended up in her room in tears. She hadn’t even realized how pointedly she’d been staring until her eyes traveled back up to his. She felt utterly foolish.
    But if he noticed, he gave not the slightest clue beyond the hint of a smile that disappeared as quickly as it had come. “All ready?”
    “Yes.” She reached for her gray coat, but he took it from her hands without asking and held it for her. Even as Theresa felt the flush coloring her cheek at the unfamiliar gesture of good manners, she could do nothing but slip her arms into the coat, exposing the front of her so there was no hiding her proportions.
    They called good-night to her parents and Amy and stepped out into the biting winter night. Theresa had gone on few enough dates in her life that it was difficult not to feel seduced into believing this was one, for he held the door of the station wagon while she slid in next to Jeff, then slipped his arm across the back of the seat as he settled in, too. She caught the drift of the same scent she’d detected when he handed her his cap earlier, and since Theresa wasn’t a woman given to using perfumes herself, his faint hint of ... sandalwood, that was it, came through all the clearer.
    Jeff had the radio on—there was always a radio on—and he turned it louder as the gravelly voice of Bob Seger came on. Jeff’s own voice had the grating earthiness of Seger’s, and he picked up the refrain and sang along.
    “We’ve got to learn this one, Bry.”
    “Mmm ... it’s smooth. Nice harmony on the chorus.”
    When the chorus came around again, the three sang along with it, their harmony resonant and true.
    “Ooo, shame on the moon ...” Beside her, Theresa heard Brian’s voice for the first time—straightforward, mellow, the antithesis of Jeff’s. It sent shivers up her arms.
    When they reached Patricia Gluek’s house, Jeff went inside while Theresa and Brian transferred to the back seat, leaving a respectable distance between them. The radio was still playing and the lights from the dashboard lent an ethereal glow to the space beyond the front seat.
    “How long have you and Jeff been playing and singing together?”
    “Over three years now. We met when we were stationed at Zweibrticken together and started up a band there, and luckily we both landed at Minot Air Force Base, so we decided to look for a new drummer and bass player and keep a good thing rolling.”
    “I’d love to hear the band sometime.”
    “Maybe you will.”
    “I doubt it. I don’t have many chances to swing by Minot, North Dakota.”
    “We’d like to get a new group started when we get out next summer, and hire an agent and make it a regular thing. Hasn’t Jeff mentioned it?”
    “Why, no, but I think it’s a great idea, at least for Jeff. He’s wanted to be a musician since he spent that first fifteen dollars on his Stella and started picking up chords from anybody who’d teach him.”
    “Same with me.