... wrote this little chapter in Marjorie Morningstar ... there is something beautiful about this chapter, but also heartbreaking ... such lilacs are hard to come by ...
It was an avenue solidly arched and walled with blooming lilacs. The smell, sweet and poignant beyond imagining, saturated the air; it struck her senses with the thrill of music. Water dripped from the massed blooms on Marjorie's upturned face as she walked along the lane hand in hand with Wally. She was not sure what was rain and what was tears in her face. She wanted to look up at lilacs and rolling white clouds and patchy blue sky forever, breathing this sweet air. It seems to her that, whatever ugly illusions existed outside this lane of lilacs, there must be a God, after all, and that He must be good.
She hear Wally say, " I kind of thought you would like it." The voice bought her out of a near-trance. She stopped, turned, and looked at him. He was ugly, and young, and pathetic. He was looking at her with shining eyes.
"Wally, thank you." She put her arms around his neck - he was taller than she, but not much - and kissed him on the mouth. The pleasure of the kiss lay all in expressing her gratitude, and that it did fully and satisfying. It meant nothing else. He held her close while she kissed him, and loosed her the moment she stepped away. He peered at her, his mouth slightly open. He seemed about to say something, but no words came. They were holding each other's hands, and raindrops were dripping on them from the lilacs.
After a moment she uttered a low laugh. "Well, why do you look at me like that? Do I seem so wicked? You've been kissed by a girl before."
Wally said, putting the back of his hand to his forehand, "It doesn't seem so now." He shook his head and laughed. "I'm going to plant lilac lanes all over town." His voice was very hoarse.
"It won't help," she said firmly, putting her arm through his, and starting to walk again, "that was the first one and the last, my lad."
He said nothing. When they reached the end of the lane they turned back, and paced the length of it slowly. Rain dripped on the path with a whispering sound. "It's no use," she said after a while.
"What?"
"It's fading. I guess your nerves can't go on vibrating that way. It's becoming just a lane full of lilacs."
"Then let's leave." Wally quickened his steps, and they were out of the lane and in the bright open air again.
They drove downtown in sunlight along a drying roadway, with the windows open and warm fragrant air eddying into the Buick. "Come up and have lunch," she said when he stopped at her house.
"I have to go straight to the library, Marge. Term paper due Monday. Thanks anyway."
"Thanks for the lilacs, Wally. It was pure heaven."
She opened the door. Suddenly his hand was on her arm. "Maybe not," he said.
"She looked at him. "Maybe not what?"
"Maybe it wasn't the last. The kiss."
With a light laugh, she said, "Wally, darling, don't lose sleep over it. I don't know. Maybe when we find such lilacs again."
He nodded and drove off.
