Love in a Time of Angst

Most colleges and universities require that geology students complete a summer course in the elements of field geology, i.e. surface mapping, plane table and alidade, and use of Brunton Compass.

I was a sophomore when I took my field course at Northeast Louisiana’s camp near Batesville, Arkansas. For you NASCAR fans, Batesville is the hometown of racer Mark Martin.

I’ve already chronicled many of the adventures – or more likely misadventures – that happened during my time at field camp. This story is neither, more like a sad tale of one of those lifetime opportunities that you somehow let slip through your fingers and have regretted it ever since.

My mapping partner, Russell B. and I were working a quadrangle twenty or so miles out of Batesville. The field camp lay square atop the Ozark Uplift, a wonderfully scenic cluster of gently rolling hills topped with stunning sea green vegetation. The terrain reminded me of the Austrian Alps in the movie, Sound of Music. The setting affected Russell one particular afternoon.

We were finished with our mapping for the day and heading down the road to where Professor D and his field assistant awaited with the vehicles. My partner threw down his mapping board, extended his arms in a Shirley Andrews imitation and began singing the hills are alive with the sound of music, his voice raised in his best basso rendition.

“Russell, you are a scream,” I said, realizing his spontaneous outburst provided us both with a momentary release from the heat, humidity and mosquitoes.

“We’ll both be screaming if we don’t make it back to the cars by three.”

“Dr. D’s never left anyone up here.”

“Not yet,” he said.

He was right. Both of us had already had an encounter with Dr. D, suffering the lecturing attack of his sharp tongue, and threat of an impending zero on this particular portion of field camp. Neither of us wanting to suffer Dr. D’s wrath again, we double-timed our way to the County blacktop – just as a green Ford pickup came tooling down the road. Rather than flying past, the truck braked to a stop in front of us.

It was in the days before serial killers and mass murderers and we’d seen the truck and its driver several times before as it passed us on the blacktop. Russell and I sprinted forward in anticipation of a ride down the road to where Dr. D and the other students awaited, and meeting the driver that had also seen us a time or two as we worked our way down the road.

The driver was a gorgeous young lady, her smile as broad and friendly as she was double gorgeous. “You boys need a ride?” she asked, her words as twangy as a Dobro played with a slide formed from the neck of a Budweiser bottle.

“You bet we do,” I said, tossing my map board in the truck bed and sliding in next to her before Russell had a chance to beat me to it.

Russell followed, his miffed expression telling me how unhappy he was about me beating him out for the front seat. I had no time to worry about his appearance of utter hurt as I was too busy ogling the young woman sitting so close to me that I could feel the warmth of her legs.

Did I already mention that she was gorgeous? She was, with flawless skin wonderfully tanned by a friendly Arkansas sun, big flashing eyes the color of an Irish vale in springtime, and teeth that reminded me of a perfect strand of pearls.

And what a bod! A shapely pair of tanned legs protruded from cutoff blue jeans whose frayed hemline provided little more cover than a bikini bottom, and twice as sexy. My vivid imagination informed me that she was also panty-less. Maybe, but I didn’t care. Her blouse was one of those low-cut, braless strap-arounds so popular at the time. I must have been staring – I know that I was drooling – because Russell elbowed me sharply in the ribs.

“I’m Susan Love,” she said, her coy smile indicating that she hoped I was getting an eyeful. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Russ and this is Eric,” Russell said, reaching across my chest to shake Susan’s hand.

“I’ve seen you two up on the mountain. You’re college boys, aren’t you?”

We both smiled and nodded, Susan’s nuance indicating that she thought our studenthood a good thing.

“There’s an old quarry filled with water up in the hills. I’m going swimming there with some of my girlfriends. You boys want to come along?”

I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter of three. Realizing the consequences of failing to return to the cars by departure time was tantamount to failing the course and I said, “We have to get back to the camp but we’ll be back here tomorrow. Can we go then?”

Susan just shook her pretty head. “Sometimes we go skinny-dipping. Sure you boys can’t make it today?”

By this time, Russell and I were both blubbering. Susan’s smile told us she knew it and fully understood her physical control over us. There were parts of me that craved to go with her. Well, at least one part, but I couldn’t and I knew that Russell felt the same. We had obligations to fulfill, parents to appease.

Russell was begging when he said, “There’s nothing in the world we’d rather do than go swimming with you and your girlfriends but we’ll flunk if we do. Can’t we meet you tomorrow?”

Wielding her power, Susan just grinned and shook her head. “Maybe I’ll see you boys on the road again, or in town at the ice cream place.”

Lovely Susan let us off at the geology cars, our only consolation the envious looks of the other students as we climbed out of the truck. We visited the ice cream place in Batesville several times that summer but we never saw Susan again, either there or on the road.

Years have passed since that summer in Arkansas but I can still feel the palpable warmth of Susan’s thighs next to mine and still remember the unfulfilled promise in her sexy smile. But hey, at least I made a C in field geology.

Fiction South