Uncatalogued

Chapter 1 . . . it ravished me . . . that neither then, nor all the evening . . . and at home, I was able to think of any thing, but remained all night transported . . . Samuel Pepys Sarah! Darling. Say it again--all of it. Please." Disbelief warred with joy as I struggled to grasp my fiancee's words, the very words I'd wanted to hear. Rich and exuberant, her laugh reverberated down the line. "I said, my work here is over, Alex. I'm coming home!" A grin spread across my face. I'd read news reports of the power shift in Iraq, where my American fiancee was involved in something frightfully secret for an international task force. But I hadn't dreamed . . . "And the next bit?" "I asked you what you would think of a very small, private wedding in Nantucket." "When exactly, did you say?" "I didn't." A pause. I could see her smile in my mind's eye. "But how soon could you get there?" It was Sunday noon now. . . . With an incredulous laugh, I said, "How soon?! Are you joking?" I stopped pacing and stared through the French doors into the rose garden. The garden was in all its early glory, the first blooms blazing in every possible shade of pink, red, and yellow. As a shaft of light broke through the blanket of cloud and spotlighted the roses, I decided she was absolutely right. We should do it quickly, make certain nothing got in our way. "I'll try for the next flight to Boston, my love. I think it's around half-ten in the morning--" "Hang on, Alex--I can't get to Nantucket until late Tuesday. But could you make it by then? Wedding in the back garden on Wednesday?" I could hardly believe my ears. "Nothing could stop me getting there on Tuesday. I speak for Ian, too, of course. This is marvelous! Sarah, this is the best news possible . . . it's . . ." "Yes?" "It's perfect." Thoughtlessly I added, "I'll ring the College and cancel my reservations for the reunion." "The reunion! I'd forgotten all about it--but wait . . . don't cancel. We could always--" "No. Absolutely not. We are not delaying this wedding one instant beyond the very first moment it can take place . . . and certainly not for a college reunion." "Hey, wait! I'm not suggesting we delay the wedding--only that we both go to the reunion. Together, Alex. I've never had the chance to go--it could be part of our honeymoon! We could spend a couple of days somewhere on Nantucket before we drive up to Dartmouth for the weekend. Afterwards, we could go back for some sailing." "Sounds stellar, but darling--are you sure that's all right with you?" Sarah and I hailed from the same infamous class of '86 at Dartmouth, and we'd known a lot of the same people. In fact, she'd married my close friend and roommate from Richardson Hall, only to watch him die five years later. She knew that my crew buddies were all coming to relive past glory in the Reunion Row on Saturday, but I didn't want her to feel obliged to go. "Yes, I'm sure! It'll be great fun--I haven't seen everyone in ages. And Alex, I want you to know . . ." Her tone changed; she grew serious. "Everything's going to be all right. It really is, this time. I know it." I grinned at the conviction behind her words. What both of us felt was hope--hope that on our third attempt at being joined in matrimony, we would not be interrupted by ruthless gunmen, international terrorists, or other shocking crises. Sarah's intuition was right: no crisis struck until after we'd been safely pronounced man and wife. For that I was deeply grateful. But not long afterward, I found myself risking life and limb for nothing more than a handful of loose pages casually scrawled in the seventeenth century. PlKaewert, Julie is the author of 'Uncatalogued', published 2002 under ISBN 9780553582208 and ISBN 0553582208.