“You’ll go home with …”
“No! I won’t. I need to talk to you about all this. All you have to do is knock on the door. You don’t have to talk to Sarah. You don’t have to come inside Shelter Cove. Just show up. Just knock. I’ll pack my bags and go. I’ll even pay for your ticket.”
“Jennifer, you have no idea what you’re asking. It’s not possible. It is not possible!”
“Mom, I have to go. As soon as you come, I’ll go. But I have to go now.”
“Jennifer, don’t …” she warned. I could tell that more words would only make things worse. She was just getting warmed up.
“Please think about it. You know I’m just asking because I love you. I don’t want to fight with you. I have to go now but I’m not hanging up on you. I’m not. Bye.”
“Jennifer, don’t … !” is the last thing I heard before I hit the end button. My head buzzed with a heavy dizziness, like a spin cycle inside my skull. I realized that I had leaned all the way into the tree, my forehead at rest against the rough trunk. My eyes burned. My throat constricted. I blinked and turned my head to see Nathan. His worried eyes were riveted to my face.
“Happy?” One rebellious tear accompanied my feeble question.
“No,” he said. “Not happy.” He took a tentative step toward me and reached out his hand. “But impressed.” He gently touched the wet spot under my eye and my face erupted in heat. His stained, dirty finger felt cold against my raging blush.
When I looked up he was far too close. The same distance most people normally stand, but for Nathan, far too close. I tried to swallow but there was no air. No throat. I unfastened my stare from his eyes, letting my gaze stumble over his scar and down to his brown hands which he returned to his pockets. “I’ll take you home,” he said. All I had to do was walk ten feet to the truck. And keep breathing.
Sometimes life asks too much of us.
“You can’t tell Sarah,” is the first thing I managed to verbalize when I settled onto the torn, vinyl seat. As soon as I said it I felt the grip of Smithport tightening its noose around my mouth. Secrets. I was just another Smithport girl with a secret.
“You think she’ll get mad?” Nathan asked as the engine thundered under the hood.
“She wouldn’t let me do it. And I’ve finally convinced myself that I have to do it.” I looked at Nathan, my resolve brittle. “I better be right.”
“I think you handled it really well,” Nathan said.
I laid my head against the cold glass of the window, feeling it vibrate as the car accelerated. “I don’t think my mother appreciated it.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, this and that,” I hummed, remembering her sharp cry as I hung up the phone. I was surprised she hadn’t already called back to give me an earful. I barely noticed as the town dissolved into a dense line of trees along the road. “I have to call Cleo,” I said.
“Your friend. Are you going to show me a picture of her today?” Nathan asked.
I sighed. I suppose I was defeated from the moment he first asked. “Why not?” I muttered. He shot me a puzzled look, but didn’t ask about her again until we made it to Shelter Cove and were standing on the porch with my photo album.
“And why doesn’t she like people?” Nathan asked as I opened the book.
“She does
like
people. She doesn’t
trust
people. They’ve always reacted too much to the way she looks. She thinks they’re shallow.” I flipped past several pages, pausing to point out a few pictures, “My dad, Tom, and my mother.” My finger lingered on her smiling face, wishing I had found a better way to ask. Something less severe.
“I see your mom in you, but you really do look more like Sarah,” Nathan commented, as he studied my face.
“I know.” We skimmed through a few more pictures until we got to my sixteenth birthday party. “That’s Cleo,” I said, watching him carefully as I touched her picture. In the photo her head was turned, her long hair swinging and her pink lips parted as she said something. It couldn’t convey her full beauty, but it got the idea across.
I waited in dread for his response, but Nathan’s eyes didn’t widen. He didn’t smile or blow out a low whistle like most people. He just studied the photo and turned back to me. “She looks nice.”
Did he mean “nice” as in
kindhearted
or as in
supermodel
? I fumbled for an answer and just said, “She is.”
“She’s not the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” he said as he tapped his knuckles on the colorful floats hanging off the rail.
“Then you must have some mutant girls around here.”
He chuckled. “Something like that.”
I started to ask him what he meant when I caught his eyes sweeping across my face. I felt the weight of the air compound into something solid, pinning me in my chair.
“I’ve got to get back. I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to be a jerk. I’ll see you tonight.” He hesitated and then, “I’ll try not to go Mr. Hyde on you.” He flashed a fast smile and left me seated, speechless, my heart thumping a high, tight rhythm in my chest.
By eight thirty that night my conflicted body was engaged in a full-fledged skirmish. Fear seized my stomach, filling it with cold, jellied dread as I waited for another phone call from home, but pleasure rolled through my flesh making my skin itch with anticipation every time I thought about Nathan. It didn’t help that my cell phone crouched like a live grenade in my pocket. My father was most certainly home from work and I kept forgetting to breathe, waiting for the call that would reveal my mother’s reaction. Sarah caught me turning over my cell phone again, checking the time.
“Are you expecting a call? Cleo?” she asked.
“No. I talked to her for an hour today when you went to the grocery store. I thought my dad might call tonight.” In truth I was just wondering why Nathan was late. “Do you want to wait on the porch?” I asked her.
She agreed and grabbed a book. “I haven’t actually found mine yet, but it never takes long to find one good line. The worst writers can manage one good line, even if it’s by accident.”
“That sounds like something you should write down.”
“See!” she said, “Even I can sound brilliant!” I laughed and then sat quietly, watching her skim. She flipped the pages under her thumb and stopped indiscriminately, biting her lip and then flipping again. The sun had already sunk below the horizon but its blazing arms had not dropped from the sky yet. Pink fingers scraped through the clouds, leaving purple bruises under the tired eyes of day. I thought I heard a footstep and I turned from the heavens to the dark shadows of the trees. When he came into view I inhaled, feeling my lungs swell with the brisk air. His gait was awkward, but I didn’t mind. It seemed right that way. I wouldn’t change it if I could. As he stepped onto the porch he shot me a self-conscious glance and nodded.
“Finish the fence?” Sarah asked. After Nathan answered
yes
she said, “I’m going last because I’m still looking for a line. You can go first, Nathan.”
Let it be a love poem,
I silently wished.
He pulled out a piece of paper, even though I knew he didn’t need it. He appeared relieved to focus on it instead of Sarah and me. His tongue briefly wet his top lip. “It’s from a poem called
I wish I Were …
by Tagore.” One of his dirty shoes rose up and scratched the back of his leg nervously.
“He does what he likes with his spade, he soils his clothes
With dust,
Nobody takes him to task if he gets baked in the sun or
Gets wet.
I wish I were a gardener digging away at the garden.”
The disappointment fell heavy. What could be further from a love poem than a poem about dirt?
“Oh, come on, Nathan,” Sarah said in exasperation.
“What?” he asked.
“An obvious bit of justification, I’d say,” she scolded. “Do you want my blessing for weeding flowers the rest of your life because someone wrote a poem about it?”
I saw his reaction before he voiced it. A tight ripple slid up his neck, stiffening his jaw. “
Time is never lost that is devoted to work.
Emmerson.”
“I didn’t say that the work is a waste. I’m glad you’ve discovered the good of manual labor. It’s cleansing. It’s important. But you can’t hide behind lawn clippings. You almost have your bachelors. It’s time to focus.”
“I’m not your project, Sarah. Not your protégé. I can be just as valuable trimming trees as building spaceships. Don’t be a snob.”
Sarah’s eyes blazed. She gripped the wooden arms of her chair and half rose before sitting down sharply. “Below the belt, Nathan! I don’t think education makes you a
better
person. I think you would be a
happier
person. Your brain gets cramped all closed up in that
hard, thick, stubborn
head of yours.” Her tongue lashed out the words. “It wants exercise and movement and freedom. It wants to learn in some way other than textbooks.”
To my utter shock, and despite his scowling face, he shrugged and grumbled “Maybe.” It reminded me of Glenn.
Mebbe so, mebbe so.
“But speaking of why I
can’t
leave,” he said pointedly, “you need to talk to Claude. It’s getting worse. She won’t listen to me anymore.”
“What’s wrong with Claude?” I interrupted, grateful that the tense moment had not erupted into a fight. I’d had enough anxiety for one day.
Nathan only looked at Sarah when he answered me. “Will. She’s getting more serious about him. If he doesn’t watch it, Sarah …”
“Don’t threaten. You need to stay calm and stay out of it. Let Judith handle it.”
Nathan gave her a rather rude “hah.”
“The bigger deal you make of it, the bigger deal it will be,” she insisted.
Nathan shook his head. “That’s childish logic – like telling a kid to ignore a bully.”
“It’s sound logic,” Sarah insisted. “Like not giving a tantrum too much attention. Don’t make Claudia your excuse. You know how unfair that is.”
“Responsibility isn’t an excuse!” Nathan said between clenched teeth.
“I didn’t get to comment on the poem,” I interrupted too loudly. In the quiet instant that followed a cricket trilled twice. Both of them turned to me looking mildly surprised that I was still there. I met Nathan’s gaze with narrow eyes. “I didn’t like it.”
“What?” he asked.
“It was boring.” My jilted feelings roared approval.
“Boring to you?” he suggested.
“Boring to everybody. It sounds like a child wrote it, since you are talking about ‘childish logic’.”
“It’s from the view point of a child,” his face was doing strange things as his expression fought for an emotion to settle on.
“Well it sounds like it,” I grumped.
Sarah examined me in confusion. “Are you all right, Jennifer?”
“I’ve never seen her pout before,” Nathan said, genuine amusement dawning on his face.
I glowered at him, “I’m fine. I’ll go next.” I pulled out my paper and felt my stomach tighten. “‘
I know I am but Summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year
.’ Edna St. Vincent Millay.” My voice started strong and sullen, but it dropped when I got to “heart.” The lower it dipped, the more my control slipped on the syllables, trembling. The air felt cold on my wet eyeballs. “Why do words always do that to me?” I burst out.
Sarah laughed. “Words in the soul. The only people who cry at a concerto are people with music in the soul. You must have words in the soul.”
Nathan didn’t comment. He just asked his usual question, “Why that one tonight?”
“Why
yours
tonight?” I demanded. “Why dirt?”
“Why not?” he asked, clearly baffled by my outburst.
Of course, why not. I put my heart down, defeated. Every heedless, weightless feeling I’d experienced, every panting, eager moment waiting for his voice belonged to me alone. He had no reason to discuss love or youth. Only dirt.
“I picked it because it sounded pretty,” I answered in a dull monotone.
“It reminds me of John,” Sarah said. Her words swept aside my anger. I forgot Nathan for a moment as I turned to her. “I was just a summer to him,” she admitted. Her thick, wavy hair, the same color as wet, harvest wheat framed a fatalistic sadness in her features. How a person could see her as ‘just a summer’ bewildered me.
“Why?” I asked, desperate for an explanation. Something to make sense of the ageless suffering of unrequited love. And still, for all my faith in my Aunt, for all my infatuation with lines on her front porch, I knew the answer wasn’t there. Wasn’t anywhere. Simple wasn’t.
“His reasons are his. Maybe we don’t even know our own reasons. But the point is that I made him all four seasons of my year. Of my life. And I forgot to ask what I meant to him. There is that narcissistic, headlong rush into the arms of destruction. Nothing like first love.” Sarah raised her hand as if toasting us. Did she know? Did she know the feelings waking and stirring in the depths of my body?
“He’s an idiot,” Nathan mumbled.
“I wish it were that simple,” Sarah replied. “But thank you, anyway.”
“Little said that the best loves belong to the young,” I said, clinging to the words. It is the truth I needed to believe.
“How’d she come to that conclusion?” Sarah asked. “Because her young love worked out so well?” I didn’t like the sarcasm. It sounded wrong on her.
“I don’t know. I don’t know her story,” I answered. “But whatever happened, she’s convinced that young love is best.”
“Are you?” Nathan asked.
The trees stopped their restless shuffling and silence clapped its hand over the night. I dared one brief glimpse into his penetrating stare. My eyes dropped. “I wouldn’t know,” I whispered. I felt a physical stab under my ribs that I later recognized as sadness.
“I’m sorry, Jennifer,” Sarah said softly. “I didn’t mean to argue with you.”
“Don’t apologize!” I responded quickly. “You argue with Nathan. You can argue with me. I can hold my own.”
“Fair enough. You’re right. You’re not a child. You can probably handle a healthy dose of skepticism.”
“No coward soul is mine,” Nathan muttered.