Before I could blink or think or move he leaned over and rested his lips lightly against mine. I’ve tried so many times to remember exactly what I thought in that moment, but I can’t recall a single organized concept in my mind. A light, victorious feeling sprung up at my lips and washed over the rest of me. In the fastest instant it was over and I leaned back with a surprised smile.
The calm grin on Nathan’s mouth melted into a straight line and his eyes narrowed in a mixture of confusion and regret. “I’m freezing. I better get inside.” He jumped up. I couldn’t stand yet. The warm, triumphant feeling was still swooping up to my chest and meeting the icy fear that Nathan’s face triggered in my mind. Like a storm front under my ribs. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Sorry.” His eyebrows inched up in a silent plea and he slipped away, fast and quiet.
His ‘sorry’ had been so gentle, so soft that I couldn’t tell if he meant ‘
sorry for leaving so fast’
or ‘
sorry for kissing you
.’ My churning emotions collided and a cold, dousing drizzle in my chest extinguished the light of his kiss. I found myself, once again, abandoned to the moon’s indifference.
But this time I knew that Nathan felt something for me. And despite the clammy, sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, my mind skirted around the dark hole that his exit left. Tonight, when I got back to my bed, I had a kiss to remember. And a promise that he would come back tomorrow. It was enough. For now.
It took hours to convince myself to go to sleep. I lay in bed, picturing him across the cove, his head sunken into a lumpy pillow, his eyes staring up at the dark ceiling just like mine. I hoped he had the same, secret smile that tugged at my lips. I’d never considered sneaking out in my life, but it crossed and recrossed my mind. If I could just lean up against his house. I would sit there, my back to the wall where he slept, only wood and plaster between us. Something about touching the rough shingles of his home seemed very important, almost as important as touching him. Instead of stealing back into the night, I revisited the beach in my mind, watching the kiss. I tried to see it from different angles. I tried putting my arms around his neck. I tried closing my eyes. I tried to make up words for him to say, but I always scratched those out. My words didn’t work on him. I tried putting his hand in my hair. That was the best one. A finger trailing right behind my ear. Then I made him lean back and smile. And I fell asleep.
The next day dawned warm, and to my relief, busy. Sarah wanted to take me out on a boat and we spent the morning packing food and sunscreen and bottled water, which occupied my anxious mind. Anything that sped up the daylight hours was a blessing to me. I asked whose boat we were going on and she told me that Will’s father, Jake, said we could tag along.
“But that’s a working boat,” I protested. “Are we going to
catch
things?”
“Heaven forbid!” Sarah teased. “We’ll just get to sit up top and watch. Let the men slave away while we eat bon bons.”
“So is Claude coming?”
“Hah! Not in this lifetime!” She said. “Claude hates boats. Won’t step foot on one.”
“Why?” I asked. That was like someone in Nebraska being repulsed by tractors.
“No clue. She has no clue. She can’t remember anything bad ever happening on a boat. They still terrify her.”
“You made me sound weird for not liking seafood. And I’ve never lived here!”
“True. There is someone weirder than you. That’s got to feel good.” Sarah winked over the bulging canvas backpack that she zipped closed. “Let’s go.”
Once we made it to town, we had to pass the Jacks before we could get onto the docks. “They sort of sit there like gatekeepers,” I whispered to Sarah and nodded toward their position right at the top of the ramp that led to the docks.
“Hah!
Abandon hope all ye who enter here
! We should scribe
that
on their bench!”
“How do, girls? Looking fresh and lovely today,” Pete asked with a broad smile.
“Playing the polite card today, Pete? I like that one. You almost pull it off.”
“Now, Sarah, I’m hurt. Nothing stings like an insult from a pretty girl.” His eyes twinkled over his frown.
“I forgot how very tender you boys are,” Sarah jeered. “Like little old lambs.”
“Nowt but the lambs of God,” Russ said with an angelic face.
“Oh, please,” Sarah laughed. “More like the lost sheep. But we can’t chat today. Jake’s taking us out on his boat. Jennifer’s maiden voyage.”
Glenn spat on the ground in contempt. “That warehouse on water? You’re taking her out on
that
? That amounts to sin, is what! Sin!”
“Just got to show her the rest, Glenn. Then one of these days you can show her the best. She’ll appreciate The Misses more if she has something to compare her to,” Sarah’s soothing voice unruffled his furrowed brow. He grumbled in reluctant agreement. “And,” Sarah continued in a tempter’s tone, “If she’s still here for Independence Day you can give her a show. Jake never has anything much better than bottle rockets.”
“They got nothin’ on us, do they boys?” Glenn perked up right away.
“I ordered some rockets straight from Thailand this year. Not even approved for use in America. Smuggled them in from Ebay,” Pete bragged.
“That’s … disturbing,” Sarah answered and sighed a ‘live and let live’ kind of sound. “We’ll see you when we get back.”
“
If
that cheap heap gets you back,” Glenn mumbled. Sarah rolled her eyes and hustled me past.
“What’s all the talk about rockets?” I asked as we stepped onto the docks.
“Fourth of July is a big deal here. All the fishermen push off from shore and shoot fireworks off their boats. It makes for a great show. If you’re still here, you’ll love it. Your mom used to lose her head over the fireworks. She would have eaten spaghetti and lentils all year just to save money for my dad’s rockets. His show was usually pretty good.”
She smiled at the memory of her father and I remembered the feeling of being close to him on the living room stairs.
Sarah raised her hand and let out a piercing whistle that probably carried for a mile. All heads turned but she only waved at Jake’s boat.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Talented tongue,” is all she said as the fishermen went back to their work.
“We’re ready for you, Sarah,” a man shouted.
“Thanks, Jake. This is my niece, Jennifer.” Jake didn’t resemble Will much at all. He was average height, average girth and more handsome in a very ordinary way.
“Come on up, Jennifer,” he said extending his hand and pulling me aboard. “I knew your mom. Went to school together. Had a little crush on her. But there were only twenty girls in the school so we all had little crushes on everybody. Harvey was …”
Sarah bumped purposefully into his arm and turned so he could see her face and I couldn’t. Jake cleared his throat. “So we’re going to show you around the water, today?” he said in an overly bright tone. “I’ll go start her up. You know Will, right?”
“Yes,” I said, waving to Will who appeared from the inside compartment. I narrowed my eyes at Sarah. “What were you saying about Harvey?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Just kid stuff,” Jake said as he edged away from us. Sarah avoided looking at me while she adjusted her sandals. The boat pulled out slowly and for the next four hours I divided my time between leaning against the rails to experience the fluid speed of the boat slicing through the water and watching from the deck as Will and his father worked their nets. Readied their nets. Cleaned their nets. Positioned their nets. Cursed their nets. Rarely did they
use
their nets, but they always seemed to have them in their hands for one reason or another. None of the other deckhands were on board so the two of them worked as the entire team, shouting, complaining, laughing. And all the while the salty wind scooped up the sea spray and swept it across our faces and clothes.
Will’s gangly body transformed with a net in his hand. The long, wiry muscles in his arms flexed like ropes, extensions of his ropes he held. When the wench suddenly unlocked and the wheel started a furious, metal spin, Will jumped in fearlessly, catching the bludgeoning handle like he was bringing down a wild animal with his bare hands. After I straightened up from my frightened cringe I looked at him with a new respect. An ugly bruise rose up on his forearm, but the winch was once more locked and subdued. They let me lower a net and try trawling the bottom. My first attempt brought up a few slimy little fishes, but on my second try a large struggling crab appeared in the net.
“I got one!” I screamed and jumped away from it.
Will put his hand on my arm. “Come on. You can do it. I’ll help you.” He put the net back in my hand and extracted the crab, holding its claws shut in his strong fingers. “See. You want to hold it?”
“No!” I cried, but stepped closer. The colors were astonishing. A deep indigo blue that faded into crimson legs. “He’s got beautiful colors.”
“She. It’s a girl. The boys hide in the rivers in the summer. You want to keep her for dinner?” he asked.
“No,” I squeaked. “Throw her back. Just let her go.”
“Hear that, lady crab? Your luckiest day.” He dropped her with a wet plop back into the water.
By the time they returned us to the dock my invigorated brain was bursting with the new smells and sensations and sounds, but my body was exhausted just from watching the work. “How do they do it?” I asked Sarah as we drove home. “It’s depleting.”
“They’re tough. You can’t live in Maine and not have a tough streak in you. It’s a hard place to make a living.”
“But worth it?”
“Undeniably worth it,” she affirmed.
After a dinner of leftovers it was already seven o’clock. My fingertips trembled as I looked over the books, wondering how much to reveal in the passage I picked. I obviously couldn’t read “How do I love thee, let me count the ways …” but I didn’t want to recite about dirt either. Something subtle. Something that hinted. Book after book, it eluded me. It took nearly an hour to decide on a line. Sarah walked through the living room and absently pulled a book of the shelf. After a fast perusal she marked the page and was done.
I huffed and tapped Charlie on the top of his head with my pencil. The waiting was the hardest. Hardest because it coupled with the fear that he wouldn’t come at all, despite his promise. At eight thirty I heard his steps on the porch and shot up from the couch. No room for pretense. I knew the relief showed plainly on my face when I opened the screen door and stepped out. I could feel it throbbing against my cheeks like a sunburn.
Nathan’s tanned face never betrayed a blush but a deep red blazed around the collar of his t-shirt. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing and sat down nervously. He opened his mouth to say hello, but then decided on a nod instead.
“Hi, stranger,” Sarah joined us on the porch and threw Nathan a jolly greeting. “We’ve missed you.” I dipped my head. She had no idea.
Nathan nodded again and his voice cracked a little when he answered, “Hi, Sarah.”
“Who is first tonight?” she asked with a clap of her hands.
“You,” Nathan hastened to answer. I nodded in agreement.
“All righty. I picked Hermann Hesse. A favorite of mine.”
“They’re all favorites,” Nathan said in a comic aside. Sarah smiled and ignored him. I was just grateful to see him joke. When he joked I knew he was there. The real Nathan. The open Nathan. Sarah read with gusto, read convincingly,
“Leave me alone, you unendurably old human grief!”
Let it all be pain.
Let it all be suffering, let it be wretched-
But not this one sweet hour in the summer,
And not the fragrance of the red clover”
“It’s from Lying in the Grass.” She finished but I didn’t say a word. My lips made a small O where they parted in the middle.
“Can I see it?” I asked, taking the book from her hand. “’
Not this one sweet hour in the summer,
’” I read quietly, tracing the words with my finger. “I like this one,” I whispered.
“Good! I like it, too. It gives me hope. No matter how terrible life gets (and doesn’t he put it well – “unendurably old human grief”?) there is always a reprieve. A moment of grace.”
“A sweet hour in the summer,” I said.
“Precisely,” Sarah agreed.
I looked to Nathan, only to find him staring at me. We both diverted our eyes.
“So don’t waste time?” he said in his low, shy voice.
“Exactly. Not the good time. Put the misery away and enjoy yourself,” Sarah answered. Nathan glanced up again, a hunted look in his eyes.
“Do you think it makes the grief worse – contrasting it with the good?” he asked.
“That’s an age old question,” Sarah said. “But no, I don’t. I think it makes the grief more bearable. We need a pattern of hope in life. We need to think we will keep returning to better days.”
“And what happens when you’ve had your last “better” day?” Nathan asked, a desperate edge to his voice. “What if the best is not ‘yet to be’?”
“Nathan, you’re eighteen,” I scolded. “You can’t think the best of life is over.”
“No. Not me. I’m talking philosophically. What if someone wakes up and realizes that they have already lived the best part of their life? What do you do with that?” He leaned forward, waiting for an answer, looking to Sarah and me.
“Then you have time to savor it, I suppose,” Sarah offered.
“Is that good enough?” Nathan asked.
“Not really. But we make do,” Sarah said.
“You say it like it’s fate, Nathan,” I interrupted. “Like God deals the cards and if you already played the ace, then too bad for you.” They both looked at me thoughtfully, the intelligent spark in Nathan’s eyes almost blinding me.
“So how do you see it then, if that’s wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You just … you …”
“You pull a new card,” Sarah finished for me. I looked at her with a grateful, knowing smile.
“Exactly. Just deal again,” I said.
“So what did you bring tonight, deep thinker?” Sarah asked Nathan.