Duplicity

By Ron Stevenson

A naive young woman is betrayed and used by a heartless college playboy. She is devastated by his deceit and reacts with bitterness and scorn. But, then, when she visits her sister, during spring break, she meets someone new and her heart starts to mend. Until she discovers that her new lover is not who he seems to be. She returns to college more embittered than ever. He follows her there and convinces her to come with him on a voyage to discover the truth. But what, exactly, is that truth and, what’s more, does she really want to know?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron Stevenson
• Release date: Aug 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386029670

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April 16, 1973

April 16, 1973

Jeannie stared straight ahead, not seeing, not hearing, remembering instead, her mind forming images, of Cal, and her, Cal and her, in love, she had thought, as she had deluded herself and created a make believe world of ersatz happiness. Until she had discovered the real him, the him who had lead her on, used her, embarrassed her, humiliated her, degraded her. She wallowed in painful memories, forgetting where she was, how she had gotten there, where she was going, what she was planning to do. And, so, the loud, discordant braying of the horn was lost to her. It hadn’t registered. Her mind was far too busy dealing with other things.

Then, quite suddenly, without warning, her mind cleared and the insistent blare of the horn broke into her thoughts. She looked up at the traffic light, she had stopped for. It was green. And her thoughts returned to the present, as all of her pain filled imaginings scattered and dissolved away to nothingness. She continued to stare mindlessly at the light as she endeavored to determine how long she had been lost in her thoughts, but it was a wasted effort. She had no answer for that. Up until a few moments ago, she had been oblivious to everything. But the person, in the car behind her, had felt compelled to sound their horn and that was a pretty good indication that she had been immersed in her daydreams for a very long time. She was stopped, at an intersection, on the outskirts of Montpelier, Vermont. And, in Montpelier, Vermont, unlike other places, like New York City; people didn’t just lean on their horns at the drop of a hat.

She pressed down on the accelerator and her car started to move away. Then, she slowly swiveled her eyes and allowed them to focus on the image in the rear view mirror. She noted that the man in the car behind her had raised his eyebrows judgmentally and was slowly shaking his head back and forth. She hunched her head down into her shoulders and tried to hide herself from the man’s slightly hostile gaze. After all, the man was shaking his head. And shaking one’s head censoriously, in the state of Vermont, much like beeping one’s horn, was not a thing to be indulged in without some sort of serious provocation.

Jeannie shifted her eyes away quickly. She felt silly, and more than a little embarrassed. Until she had left Boston on this trip to visit her sister, she had thought that she was getting over what had happened between her and Cal. She sighed inwardly. Apparently she had been deceiving herself, yet again.. And she admitted, to herself, that Cal was still very much in her thoughts. And she determine that she was definitely going to have to do something about that.

Do something about what? She asked herself.

What are you going to do? Forget about him? Just like that? I’m afraid is just isn’t going to be that easy, Jennie, dear. He was too big a part of your life and he will not simply disappear because you will it to be so.

As she turned on to the secondary road, which would take her to her sister’s house, she reached across to turn up the radio. It was set to her favorite classical station and she found herself hoping that the music would transport her mind far away from her troubles with Cal.

She quickly lost herself in a soothing melody, her mind slipped back in time and she was transported through space to the library, at the college she was attending in Boston. She formed a picture of herself; sitting at a table, concentrating intently, studying her history notes. She looked up absently, for a moment, and saw him for the first time. Calvin Wagner! Her―lover. The man she had once thought would be the embodiment of her dreams.

He was standing, at the counter, at the front of the library, attempting to attract Miss Rawlston’s attention. But Jeannie could have told him that he was wasting his time. One simply didn’t get Miss Rawlston’s attention that easily. Especially when she had decided that she had more important things that she needed to attend to. And, at that moment, Miss Rawlston was busily sorting books, single-mindedly concentrating on her objective, manifesting a deliberate intention to ignore any effort to engage her services.

He looked around the library, obviously frustrated with Miss Rawlston, and caught Jeannie staring. Their eyes interacted momentarily and Jeanne felt a strange, exotic thrill travel down her body. It stopped at her abdomen, where it quivered and fluttered. Like a butterfly, caught in a net. Jeannie dropped her gaze almost immediately and focused her eyes on the notes she had been studying from. She ducked her head down slightly and attempted to conceal herself behind the protective wall of books she had so carefully stacked around herself on the table.

When Jeannie chanced a peak over the books, a few moments later, her stomach did a back flip and jumped up into her throat. She saw that the young man had apparently decided to give up on Miss Rawlston. He had moved away from the counter and was walking straight toward Jeannie.

Jeannie allowed her eyes to remain on the young man, for a few more moments, and was able to discern something faintly disturbing about the way that he moved. It seemed to Jeannie that the young man’s movements didn’t quite fit her preconceived notions of how a person should walk in a library. The library was a place where one found shy, ungainly bookworms. Or, occasionally, a socially dysfunctional, but studious nerd. The young man, who was moving toward Jeannie didn’t seem to belong in either of those two groups. It was plain to see from the young man’s cocky, self-assured strut, that he was neither shy, nor socially dysfunctional. And Jeannie realized that this one was, in all likelihood, one of the college’s many brash, egotistical lady-killers.

Jeannie knew his type of man very well. She had been fending men like him off ever since she had enrolled at the university. Almost from the first day. But, fortunately, she hadn’t allowed herself to be taken in by any of them. Because she had their number. They talked sweetly. Said what the woman wanted them to say. Then, after they had gotten what they wanted, they, nonchalantly, threw their conquest away in the next morning’s trash.

Not to worry, she reassured herself.

I’ll just handle this one the way that I have handled all of the others.

Jeannie looked down quickly, then, and focused on her books.

Excuse me, but,

She looked up at him, trying to create the illusion that she hadn’t really been paying attention to him until just that moment. She noted that he was smiling. With that insincere, easy smile that she’d seen so many times before. The look, on his face, only served to reinforce her determination to fend him off.

Was that all there was on this campus? She wondered. Shallow, handsome Lotharios, like this one? Playing the same tired old games with her? Because they had no respect for her intelligence and viewed her as some kind of idiot? They obviously didn’t feel that it was worth the time, nor the effort, to come up with something original.

Let’s see now; he’s going to ask me if I can help him find a book. He can’t get the librarian’s attention, you see.

I can’t seem to get the librarian’s attention. And, I was wondering. Could you possibly help me?

Almost pegged it word for word. Jeannie thought and smiled inwardly.

The modus operandi of his type is so easy to predict.

Her eyes perused his face. She was expecting to see the smug self-centered smile that she knew would be there. But, somehow, her eyes became entwined with his and her attention became riveted there instead. She felt the butterfly, in her abdomen, twitch spasmodically.

His dark brown eyes seemed to have hypnotic powers. They reached out to her and drew her in.

Jeannie didn’t like the effect that his eyes seemed to be having on her. It was