Chapter 29: The Courtship of Summer

Tasting Ginger was like nothing Tom had ever known, experienced or imagined.

It was both a subtle and elusive taste that consumed his tongue and left him panting.  Tom Drake had been defeated far too often by life to allow this critical moment to elude him.  Once that first kiss had broken the invisible barriers between them, Ginger fell into bed with Tom night after night.  Infatuation is a dangerous temptation which beckons us to taste its bitter fruit.  To Tom, it seemed like an inevitability rather than an option.  From that first night he had kissed her, leaning her over his balcony while cars hummed below them and jets descended overhead, Tom’s previous life had become unraveled.

The chill of weeks prior had dissipated and they found themselves in the full glory of summer.  It revitalized the entire city and threw gasoline upon the tiny flames which already licked at Ginger’s heart.  They sat in cafes drinking martinis till they blacked out, then stumbled back to his place and tore at one another on the roof of the building.  Above them, planes drew white lines across the night sky.  When Tom thought about such evenings, he thought of the subtlties of Ginger that thrilled him the most.  Most of all was the picturesque way she tossed her skinny arms around the back of his neck and gripped her wrists between one another, a lazy embrace which stretched down his spine.

They often lay in the grass by the lake together, picking weeds.  As for their conversations, they always — always — centered around music.

“Go Hard – DJ Khaled,” Tom began as they lay under the sun one afternoon.

“Most people would be like ‘Tom, this song is about shooting people in the hood; you know absolutely nothing about that nor can you relate to it.’  Which is just stupid, because that is totally not the point.”

“It’s not at all.”

“It’s tight that you actually get that.”

“I know.  Most people don’t have that emotional connection to songs.”

“When I listen to them, I see things.”

“Me too, like scenes playing in my head.  I get the same thing when I read.”

“Do you think this is some kind of special ability that we have?”

Ginger laughed.

“It’s possible — I have never heard of anyone else having it.  Not something that easily comes up in casual conversation.”

“It did now,” Tom said.

“Right, but our conversations are never casual.”

“That’s the beauty of it.”

“It is.”

These moments seemed to Tom to be representations of the best of life; he could hardly believe the happiness which Ginger’s presence brought to him.  But as the summer neared its end, increasingly chilly breezes forced them away from their lakeside chats and often Tom could not reach her for long periods of time.  One day Ginger did not show up to the coffee shop for their planned meeting.  Tom saw her outside the office talking to someone but she shrugged it off when he asked.  They both wanted summer to go on and on and for the best moments they had shared to become elongated and preserved.  But it was over.  Fall was upon them.