Deferred

SUMMARY:  Deferred is a sweeping story of first love, race, class, regret, and second chances. It asks a timeless question: Is it ever too late to tell someone they were the love of your life?   The summer of 1950 was supposed to be just another season.  Instead, it became the one that defined two lives and created memories that lasted a lifetime.  That summer on the campus of Princeton University, two young people fell in love, and it was effortless, intoxicating, and... haunting.  

 

 ***

She was all of eighteen with a head full of gorgeous, perfumed hair.  The first time he saw her, he did a double-take.  But she was a cook in the university's kitchen.  A cook, just a cook.  Be that as it may, during the summer of 1950, on the campus of Princeton University, he fell in love with her.  It was a summer of lightness and magic, and they spent every night of it together, talking, laughing, dreaming, and loving each other.



On the receiving end of life’s largesse, he came from a family of well-to-do doctors and lawyers from the untamed beauty of the Outer Banks.  

One of the few African Americans on campus, he’d grown up hearing two things: 'Make us proud' and 'To whom much is given, much is expected.'   So that fall, he studied his tail off and worked hard as a volunteer with the Association of Black East Coast Doctors.



She came from the slums of Harlem.  All she knew was how to cook.   Born to a white mother and a Black father, she was too black for the whites and too white for the Blacks.   But from some relative from a long ways back, she’d inherited a gift for soothing the troubled and the brokenhearted.  So, her cozy apartment off campus was usually filled with those in need of solace.  Students and employees, Black and white, they all beat a path to her door.

By his junior year, he'd become well known on campus for his outstanding scholarship and athleticism.  Tall and handsome, he was frequently seen in the company of pretty girls from prosperous East Coast African American families.  But she wasn't concerned.  She knew that what they had was uncommon and would stand the test of time.  So, she typed his papers, did his laundry, gave him the comfort of her body, cooked and served him mouth-watering meals, and waited for the day when they would marry.



He graduated, went to medical school, and then took his place among the top-earning Blacks in the country.  She read everything she could get her hands on, educated herself, traveled, and opened her own restaurant in Harlem.  And just as her apartment had been filled with those seeking comfort, her restaurant was now filled with those seeking hot, delicious comfort food.



He was rarely in touch with her now.  A phone call here and there, a postcard sent from a medical convention, or flowers on her birthday.  These gave her hope, and she continued to wait.   A few years later, after someone told her that he was getting married, she couldn't get out of bed for a month.  

He married the daughter of the most successful Black attorney in Chicago.  Their lavish wedding was covered by the Black press from Atlanta to Chicago and New York, and it was even featured in Jet Magazine.   Everyone said she was much prettier than his wife.  "But what does that matter?  She thought.  Because when all is said and done, he chose to marry her, not me."

 

When his children were born, she grieved as she watched him slip further away, but still, against all reason, she kept hoping.  Ten years passed.  Then, on the other side of the world, they ran into each other at a party in London.

 

He was with his wife, and she was with a group of friends.  The next day, he went to her.  And for the first time in a long time, he felt good, really good, comfortable in his own skin, and completely relaxed and soothed.   For a year afterward, he couldn't concentrate on anything but her.  But he heard his father's voice, saying 'Make us proud,' and that, along with the thought of his wife and children, pushed her to the back of his mind.   But, all the same, he promised himself that he’d visit her again soon.

One day, she looked up and realized that twenty years had gone by, and now, here she was—almost forty, unmarried, childless, and still waiting for him.  The following year, he divorced.   In vain, her heart lifted in anticipation of their finally being together.  But he failed to get in touch.  And when she called him, a woman answered.  Well, she thought, how many different kinds of fools am I gonna be?

So, when Vincent, who had been there in the background of her life since she was twelve years old, asked her to marry him, she had an epiphany.  Vincent had been in love with her since seventh grade.  This was the second time he'd asked her to marry him.  He'd been loyal, decent, and patient, and to her eternal shame, she realized she’d been treating him the same way that she had been treated for the last twenty years."

She'd deferred him.  She’d put him aside, back up on a shelf, as if he weren't good enough.  So, right then and there, she accepted him.  If her life with him wasn’t going to be storybook perfect, well, whose was?  What she knew for sure was that he loved her, that she liked him a lot, that she respected him,  and that they’d have a good life together.  And she made him a promise.  She’d do everything in her power to bring some happiness into their lives together.

Marrying Vincent was the watershed moment of her life.  He sparked a complete metamorphosis, reshaping her lonely world with love, intimacy, fun, and laughter.  And for the first time since 1950, Vincent was the man she thought about every day.  If anyone had told her how amazing sex could be, she wouldn't have believed them.  She had her first orgasm with him, the first of many they shared.  Never before had she felt anything even close to what she felt in bed with Vincent.  

And she loved just being with him.  They enjoyed all the same things— sailing, travel, books, movies, theater, crazy stand-up comics, and spontaneous trips upstate to pick apples or stay in cozy bed-and-breakfasts.  When she thought of all the years she had wasted longing for a man who didn't want her instead of being with Vincent, she wanted to cry.

The years continued to slip by.  Faster and faster.  And then, one day out of the clear blue, he called.  "Hello, love." 

"Who is this?"  She said, for she truly didn't recognize his voice anymore.

He was seventy-six years old now, and his doctor had told him that he only had about three months left to live.  Sick, bedridden, and dying, he said to her, “I always wanted to marry you.  But you were not the kind I was expected to marry.  And back then, I didn’t have the courage to break with my family.   When you married that anchorman on CNN, it broke my heart.  It broke me.  And I never recovered.  You should know that."



He continued, "In the back of my mind, I always planned on ending up with you.  If I could do it all over again, I’d marry you, even before I graduated college, because you were the love of my life.  Do you know that the only time I ever felt at ease in this world was when I was with you?  You soothed me, soothed my soul.  The best time of my life was that summer of '50.  I felt so light, so free.   The memory of that summer has never left me.  I loved those beautiful evenings when we'd go sailing on Lake Carnegie.  Oh, what I'd give to go back there again if only for just one day.”

His last words were, “Isabella, please say something.”



But she was unable to speak.  She sat, simply staring at him, her hands in her lap, her face full of sadness, seeing all the wasted years.  And even though she knew it wasn't his fault that she'd waited for him for so long, she hauled off and slapped him anyway.  That lick upside his head was so hard that his daughter called it a homicide.



At his graveside, she tossed two white roses, tied with ribbons in the Princeton colors of orange and black, onto his coffin.  Printed on the ribbons were the words, 'Summer of 1950.' Because it had been a great summer and because she'd never forget it or him. 



She said, “Goodbye, Leo,” and stepped into the sunshine where Vincent waited.

 

The End

© 2026, Jade Love