Working Title

Traffic on the Hutchinson River Parkway was thick, making Meredith the last one to arrive at the range. All-Star Archery was off a main road, nestled among warehouses and auto body shops. The guys’ pick-up trucks and SUVs lined the street out front, so Meredith had to park on the sidewalk, which was the common practice for latecomers.

Sal, and his wife Marsha, the owners of the range, greeted her when she walked in. They sat behind the counter, which doubled as a display case. Sal sold things that mostly applied to hunters: camouflage quivers, deer and fox urine to mask human scent, and razor-sharp broadheads used for hunting.

On the walls, and from the high rafters, hung a hodgepodge of advertisements and banners for bow manufacturers, hunting apparel, arrow companies, and one gratuitous girlie poster. It showed a curvaceous blond from behind. Decked out in shiny high heels and an orange thong bodysuit, she stood poised to shoot an arrow. Meredith dubbed the model “Tatiana” and commented that her hips were over-rotated and her stance was all wrong. Her stance, the guys joked, was not what they were looking at. Meredith never complained about the pin-up. After all, she was one of the few women who shot at the range, so she accepted it as “man” space.

Some of the guys were already practicing. Others had set their bows on the racks, and chose to shoot the breeze instead. Dominic Goldfarb and Gianni Valenti were trying to shoot out the center of a playing card taped to the target wall. Dominic was always challenging Gianni with friendly side bets. The card was the king of hearts and, whomever hit it closest to the center, won. Dominic shot first and caught the king’s left shoulder. Gianni straddled the shooting line and turned his head toward the target. He raised his bow and slowly drew its string across his broad chest, anchoring it down the center of his nose. Standing this way, so strong and balanced, with his distinctly Roman profile, Gianni looked like an elegant statue. The glossy black waves of his hair were in sharp contrast to his light gray eyes. Although handsome and funny, it was Gianni’s eyes that made women weak in the knees. Those soulful eyes, rimmed with thick black lashes, first caught Meredith’s attention so long ago. And it was the uncontrollable roving of those eyes that destroyed every relationship Gianni ever had, including the one with her. Now, they were fixed intently on the card taped to the wall. With the most imperceptible movement of his hand, Gianni released the string. From eighteen meters away, he cleanly landed an arrow right through the king’s heart.

“Oy, Jesus!” shouted Dominic. His father was Jewish, his mother Catholic and his expletives were a combo platter of both.

Gianni whooped, “Oh, baby! Would ya look at that! Pay up, slingshot.” He turned around to find Meredith standing there and his smile broadened. “Lookie what I did, Mer!”

***

It was the beginning of her sophomore year at Queens Community College and Meredith needed a phys-ed credit. Not being much of an athlete, she narrowed her choices down to bowling or archery. Both were conducted indoors and neither involved running, jumping or sweating. Archery won out because Meredith hated the thought of wearing anybody else’s cruddy used shoes.

She showed up in the gym for her first archery class to find one person sitting in a corner, reading a magazine. The other students were standing around talking. Only one person seemed the least bit interested in the sport. It was Gianni. He stood straddling a line painted on the floor and aimed his bow at a large target bale at the far end of the gym. He’d shoot three arrows, retrieve them, return to the line, shoot them again and so on. It was as if he were alone in the gym until he caught sight of Meredith.

Putting his bow down, he strode up to her. Meredith noticed his eyes right away. They were intense but gentle. Why did men always get the best eyelashes? She wondered. Everything about him looked Italian, the Roman nose, the strong jaw and cheekbones, everything but his eyes. They were a powdery gray rather than the deep brown of the Italians she went to grade school with in Astoria. He was just about six feet tall and his build was broad and muscular. He wore a pair of loose faded jeans and a green t-shirt that hugged his chest and shoulders.

“Are you here for the archery class?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m Meredith. Are you the teacher?” He was surprisingly young to be teaching a class.Gianni laughed.

“The teacher is that guy over there reading the magazine. I’m Gianni. I’m a student. In fact, if you look around, I seem to be the only student. Everybody takes this course for an easy B and nobody really shoots.”

“Doesn’t he require everybody to participate?” Meredith asked, motioning to the instructor who had nodded off, the magazine dangling from his lap.

“No. All you really need to do is sign the attendance sheet. The rest of the time, you can hang out or do homework, whatever you want. So, Meredith,” he cooed, his generous mouth curling into a grin, “what’s your pleasure? If you want to shoot, I’d be happy to work with you.”

“Are you qualified?” Meredith cooed back.“Am I qualified?”

Gianni started to laugh. “Darling, I have the best form in the room. Well, I did…until you walked in.”

She was blushing and laughing at the same time. Gianni was the best looking guy she’d met since she started college. Good looking and funny. A two-fer! She’d been so busy with classes and her after-school job, there had been no time for dating and she missed it. It excited her that Gianni was flirting and she was more than willing to give it right back. “Gosh, I’ve never done anything like this before.” She was looking up at him, her head tilted to one side. She whispered coyly, “I’d love to see what you can teach me.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” They were both blushing now.

Gianni walked Meredith over to a supply closet. A tangled pile of bows was dumped in a corner. He looked her up and down (more than was probably necessary, Meredith thought) and then rummaged through the pile before selecting one. As he bent over, Meredith checked out his muscular backside. He turned around and caught her.

“Excuse me, Miss. Are you here to learn or are you here to ogle the merchandise?”

“You’ll forgive me for saying so, but you don’t see one like that everyday.” She winked at him. This was fun!

“I’m Italian,” he deadpanned. “We’ve got curves.”

They were both smiling from ear to ear. “Now, if you’re done objectifying me, can we please get started?” He handed her a bow.

“Here,” he said. “This one’s the right size for you.” He then proceeded to look through an equally disorganized box of arrows. Deciding on three, he put them in a quiver that hung on a canvas belt.

“Put your arms out, please?” he asked.

Meredith did as he requested. Gianni reached behind her, wrapping the belt around her waist. He was close enough that his nose ever-so-gently grazed her cheek. Meredith’s breath caught in her throat for a second. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. As a final touch, he produced an oblong leather contraption and slid it up Meredith’s slender forearm. “An armguard,” he told her.

After Gianni explained all the parts of the bow, he brought Meredith up to the shooting line.

“The object of archery,” he said, “is very simple: hit the bull’s eye. But the technique is what’s so hard to master. We’ll work on your draw for a few weeks before I put a clicker on your bow.”

Meredith had no idea what he was talking about but noticed his tone had become very business-like. Then he said, “I’d give you a kisser, but I don’t want you developing any bad habits.”

She tuned in when he said “kisser” and quipped, “Your kisser strikes me as a potentially bad habit.”

He gave nothing more encouraging than a little chuckle. Instructing Meredith to turn her body away from him so her left hip was perpendicular to the target on the opposite side of the gym, he put his hands on her waist and told her to lift her bow. As she did, he moved in closer and he put his left hand over hers.

“Now,” he said softly, “wrap these three fingers around the string.”

When she did, he corrected her, “Like this, Meredith,” and reached around her, curling his fingers over hers with his right hand.

Meredith could feel the heat from his body as his chest pressed against her back. Despite her best efforts, all she could think about was going back into the closet with Gianni to check out the rest of his equipment. But he was being so serious, it seemed the flirting part of their encounter was already over.

“Each shot,” he whispered, “can be like the perfect orgasm.”

The flirting was definitely not over.

He continued, “Never rush it. Take your time. Let it build. Don’t let go until it feels perfectly right.”

Meredith could feel the blood rising to her face again. There was no mistaking his desire. She could feel it as he held her closer. They were both oblivious to the other people in the gym, none of whom were paying any attention to them anyway.

“Now, draw back on the string. Feel the tension building?”

She certainly could.

“Pull back more. More. Do you feel it?”

His breath was warm against her ear and she could feel herself getting moist between her legs.

“Yes,” she whispered.

She was trembling inside and was sure she’d probably shoot out a window if he weren’t helping her hold the bow. The farther back she pulled the string, the more difficult it was to hold.

“It’s getting harder, isn’t it?”

Oh, it’s getting harder alright! she thought. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.”

“Not yet, Meredith.” His voice was barely above a murmur, but his meaning was loud and clear. His lips were touching her ear. “You don’t let go until I tell you to.”

She wanted to collapse in his arms right then and there. He prolonged the tension for a beat or two more and then finally whispered, “Now.”

As Meredith released the string, a small gasp escaped from her lips. The arrow leapt from the bow and skittered across the gymnasium floor.Gianni turned her toward him, his face so close that she thought he might finally kiss her.

Instead, he said, “We’re gonna have to do a lot of work on your release.”

And so they did. All the rest of that afternoon and late into the evening, Gianni worked on Meredith’s release, behind the closed bedroom door of his apartment.

As with most unions based on lust, their romance flamed out in about a year. Meredith quickly grew tired of Gianni’s short attention span for fidelity. It reached critical mass at a party at his apartment. While mingling from across the living room, Meredith noticed him in deep conversation with a girl she’d never seen before. It looked a little too deep for Meredith’s comfort.

She asked her friends, “Who’s that girl Gianni’s talking to?” It came out that she tagged along with an invited guest. Nobody knew anything about her except that she’d arrived from Poland about five months earlier. Meredith watched as Gianni leaned in close enough for the interloper to whisper in his ear. He quickly headed to his bedroom but returned within seconds. Suspicious, Meredith excused herself from her friends and slipped, unobserved, into Gianni’s room. She glanced around, not exactly certain what she was looking for. Then it caught her eye. On the desk sat a notepad, turned upside-down, with a pencil next to it. She turned it over to find “Janna 212-555-7623.”

It was bad enough that Gianni seemed perpetually on the prowl, but to do it right under her nose and in front of their friends…

Among a host of other fine qualities, Meredith was always conscious of other people’s feelings and took great care to spare them whenever possible. So when someone was unkind to her for no apparent reason, it awakened something inside that few knew about – the beast. The beast’s purpose was to make right the wrongs done to Meredith. The beast was her champion of righteousness. The beast was all about getting even.

When Meredith saw that phone number, it nudged the sleeping beast into a groggy, semi-conscious state. It picked up the pencil and gave Janna’s phone number a quick makeover, changing the 3 to an 8. Then it put the pad and pencil back in their original positions and went back to sleep, for the moment. There was only one trait the beast and Meredith shared. Patience.

Meredith spent the rest of the night more pleased with herself than angry at Gianni. When the party was over, their “party” was over, too. She never let on what she knew, or what she had done. Instead she explained that they were too alike to be a couple and lied that she had been cheating on him as much as he had cheated on her. But unlike him, she said, she was smart enough not to get caught. Making him feel less the ladies’ man and more the buffoon was her game, and she played it to perfection.

For six months, they had no communication. Meredith was still pissed about his antics during that party. She decided it was time to serve up her ice-cold dish of revenge. So she called him around his birthday.

“Hey, it’s me. I thought we could bury the hatchet and wondered if you might be up for a drink to celebrate your birthday?” she asked.

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise!” She could actually hear the smile on Gianni’s face. She knew him all too well. Certainly he was thinking she couldn’t get over him, realized her mistake and wanted him back. Low hanging fruit, thought the beast. “A drink sounds good.” They made a date to meet later that night.

Over drinks they talked about this and that, until Meredith finally brought up Janna. “Remember that Polish girl at your party? The one who gave you her phone number?”

Gianni’s ears turned crimson. “How’d you know about that?”

She smiled, “You’re not as slick as you think, Slick.”

“Can you believe that bitch gave me a phony phone number?”

Ah, thought the beast, the moment I’ve been waiting for. “No, she didn’t. I found where you’d written it and changed one digit.” Meredith was smiling ear to ear, so pleased with herself.

Gianni’s eyes grew wide as he burst out laughing, “Oh my god! So you’re the bitch!”

“Yeah, well I did you a favor. She was looking for a green card and found some other sucker to marry her about five weeks later.”

Gianni’s appreciation of the joke made him as charming as always. It took all the air out of the beast’s desire to get even.

Raising his glass, Gianni toasted her, “To you, my little vixen and savior. I’ve actually missed your wicked sense of humor.”

They clinked glasses. He took a sip and set his glass on the bar, searching her eyes. Smiling, he finally asked, “Think there’s any hope for us?”

Meredith sighed, “Romantically? Not a chance, my sweet.”

Gianni nodded, “That’s pretty much what I figured. How about unromantically, if that’s even a word?”

“No,” she replied.

“No? Really?” he seemed surprised and disappointed.

“No,” continued Meredith, “Unromatically is not a word, but yes, I think it’s ok for us to hang out.”

Their friendly affection for each other endured and they remained unromantical ever since.