A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon

Dewey Lake was a small body of water about forty miles outside of Odessa. The night was beautiful and star-spangled, with a soft, waxing gibbous moon. The stars danced on the water, and the air was filled with the mysterious sounds of a secret world, a microcosm of the universe, where millions of tiny unseen creatures made love and preyed and were preyed upon and died.

Josephine and David sat in the car, silent, listening to the sounds of the night. Josephine watched him, sitting behind the wheel of the car, his handsome face intense and serious. She had never loved him as much as she loved him at that moment. She wanted to do something wonderful for him, to give him something to let him know how much she cared for him. And suddenly she knew what she was going to do.

“Let’s go for a swim, David,” she said.

“We didn’t bring bathing suits.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He turned to look at her and started to speak, but Josephine was out of the car, running down to the shore of the lake. As she started to undress she could hear him moving behind her. She plunged into the warm water. A moment later David was beside her.

“Josie…”

She turned toward him, then into him, her body hurting with wanting, hungry for him. They embraced in the water and she could feel the male hardness of him pressed against her, and he said, “We can’t, Josie.” His voice was choked with his desire for her. She reached down for him and said, “Yes. Oh, yes, David.”

They were back on the shore and he was on top of her and inside her and one with her and they were both a part of the stars and the earth and the velvet night.

They lay together a long time, holding each other. It was not until much later, when David had dropped her off at home, that Josephine remembered that he had not proposed to her. But it no longer mattered. What they had shared together was more binding than any marriage ceremony. He would propose tomorrow.

 

Josephine slept until noon the next day. She woke up with a smile on her face. The smile was still there when her mother came into the bedroom carrying a lovely old wedding dress. “Go down to Brubaker’s and get me twelve yards of tulle right away. Mrs. Topping just brought me her wedding dress. I have to make it over for Cissy by Saturday. She and David Kenyon are getting married.”

 

David Kenyon had gone to see his mother as soon as he drove Josephine home. She was in bed, a tiny, frail woman who had once been very beautiful.

His mother opened her eyes when David walked into her dimly lit bedroom. She smiled when she saw who it was. “Hello, son. You’re up late.”

“I was out with Josephine, Mother.”

She said nothing, just watching him with her intelligent gray eyes.

“I’m going to marry her,” David said.

She shook her head slowly. “I can’t let you make a mistake like that, David.”

“You don’t really know Josephine. She’s—”

“I’m sure she’s a lovely girl. But she’s not suitable to be a Kenyon wife. Cissy Topping would make you happy. And if you married her, it would make me happy.”

He took her frail hand in his and said, “I love you very much, Mother, but I’m capable of making my own decisions.”

“Are you really?” she asked softly. “Do you always do the right thing?”

He stared at her and she said, “Can you always be trusted to act properly, David? Not to lose your head? Not to do terrible—”

He snatched his hand away.

“Do you always know what you’re doing, son?” Her voice was even softer now.

“Mother, for God’s sake!”

“You’ve done enough to this family already, David. Don’t burden me any further. I don’t think I could bear it.”

His face was white. “You know I didn’t—I couldn’t help—”

“You’re too old to send away again. You’re a man now. I want you to act like one.”

His voice was anguished. “I—I love her—”