I didn’t move until I was certain they were gone. I never told Hannah about the close call, probably because I didn’t want to remind her how different we were. That I grew up with her maids.
Later that same afternoon, I grew antsy with the same routine. I grew tired of the beach. I didn’t want to fish anymore. I paced around at my camp smoking for a while and a darkness came over me. Maybe it was seeing Maria in that house. Wondering what Maria would have thought had she opened the door before I had a chance to wake and found me in the bed. Something about this idea soured the happiness I had been feeling. I paced around and I thought that it might be a good idea to go see Hannah. I didn’t want to wait until the evening when she got home. I wanted to see her now, just to be pulled back to where I was before the maids shattered my sleep.
I had not been back to the village since I arrived on the island. I went to the general store near the lighthouse for food and cigarettes, but my only other interaction was with Hannah and the great house. The village was where Sheriff Riker was. And the roads were where Sheriff Riker patrolled in his car. But my need to see her that afternoon outweighed any concerns I had about running into him.
And so I walked that long island road again, as I had that first day. I wore my hat low over my eyes. I winced every time a car approached but the only cars I saw belonged to islanders and to tourists.
When I reached the edge of the village, I turned down one of the side streets. I had not bothered to ask her where the ice cream store was, but I knew there were only a few commercial blocks on the island. I didn’t remember seeing it on the Main Street in front of the ferry but I thought this side street would lead me to the other set of stores that I did not pass that day. As it worked out, the store was on the side street itself, a small clapboard building next to other small clapboard buildings that housed clothing stores, delis, and little storefront restaurants. A small red sign had Benny’s written across it in script.
When I opened the screen door, I did not see Hannah. There were two plain-faced girls that looked like sisters behind a wooden counter. The only customers were a family, a tall, athletic-looking man and his equally tall wife. Two blond boys. I went to the counter.
“Can I help you?” one of the plain-faced girls asked.
“I’m here to see Hannah.”
The girl looked puzzled. I knew it was the way I appeared. Shorts with work boots on. Dark skin. She turned toward a room in the back I couldn’t see and she called her name. In a moment Hannah came from the right, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She could not disguise her feelings. I already knew her well enough to read her face. She did not light up with the sight of me. She did not want me here and when she smiled, it was weak and forced. To my right one of the plain-faced girls handed ice cream cones across the counter to the tall man. She whispered hello.
“Hey,” I said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to visit.”
She looked around. “I’m working.”
“I needed to see you,” I said.
Having gotten their change and their cones, the family made for the exit. The two plain-faced girls folded their arms over their chests and I knew they were studying me but I was ignoring them. I looked at Hannah, who seemed tight to me. One of the girls said, “Hannah, you going to introduce us to your friend?”
I gazed at the one who spoke. She smiled at me and pulled on one of her bangs over and over. “I have to go,” Hannah said.
“You don’t look busy.”
She lowered her voice. “I have to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”
I nodded. “You’re embarrassed of me,” I said.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I just have to work.”
“You are,” I said. “Don’t worry, I won’t let them hear. But you’re embarrassed of me.”
She reached for my hand then, but I wasn’t having it. “No, Anthony,” she said.
Behind me the screen door opened and I turned to see several boys, twelve or thirteen years old, muscling their way into the store. The small space filled with their energy.
“Maybe I’ll see you later,” I said. “Maybe not.”
I spun and walked out the door. I didn’t pause to see if Hannah had followed me.
I did not go to the house that night. On the beach I leaned against the rock promontory and I watched the day turn into night. My anger left with the sun. Now I was just sad. I had shown her too much and too soon. I wondered if she would find me and I hoped that she would. I couldn’t stand it if she didn’t. I had revealed myself to her, and she needed to come to me.
Above me the last light bled from the sky. The tide rolled in. I smoked and I listened to it. And then Hannah came out of the shadows and stood over me where I sat and I didn’t look at her. My heart lifted but I didn’t want her to see this so I watched the tide.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said.
“Sit down.”
She sat next to me and crossed her legs Indian-style. “I’m not embarrassed of you,” she said.
“No?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Could of fooled me,” I said.
“Those girls aren’t my friends.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s a small town. I don’t like people knowing what I’m doing.”
“I shouldn’t have just shown up,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“It’s okay,” I said, and it was. I was just happy Hannah had come to find me. For the first time, I wasn’t chasing her anymore.
“Come here,” I said, and she inched closer to me on the sand. I put my arm around her and she moved into me and we kissed. We kissed for a while and then we stopped. The dark came completely and we sat next to each other and when we started kissing again, we didn’t stop. She rolled on top of me and on the bedroll her long hair swung in front of my face.
“We can if you want,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Do you have anything?”
“No.”
“Don’t come inside me.”
I had no idea what I was doing and when she first moved on top of me I mistook the expression on her face for pain. But then she smiled at me and I knew it was going to be fine.
“Wait for me,” Hannah said, and I didn’t know what this meant. I held her shoulders in my hands and she slid on top of me and when I pushed her away, she rolled back like a wave.
“Like that,” she said.
The night was black but I could see well enough to know when she closed her eyes. I thought that I should too but the truth was that I wanted to watch her face. It seemed as if every line on her skin, every tiny perfect freckle was there for me, because of me. I was suddenly aware of everything: the steady ebbing of the tide as it moved closer. The beach. The two of us, where we were joined. I tightened my hands on her shoulders, pressing down. She murmured yes and I gave in and shut my eyes and there was only Hannah, the softness of her skin underneath my palms.
After, when she had fallen into me and then rolled away, I wrapped my arms around her bare belly and I said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I can do better.”
“It was perfect.”
She spun into me then and rested her head on my chest. We looked up at the new stars. I ran my hands through her hair. I felt like talking. I said, “I always want it to be like this.”
“Like what?”
“You in my arms.”
“You’re sweet.”
“I’m in love.”
She laughed at me. “Silly. It takes a long time to be in love.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I do.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Yeah,” I said, and I didn’t care if she knew it.
“Only in the movies,” she said.
“No,” I said. “Here. Now.”
“Whe
n you first saw me you had just woken up. Maybe you were confused.”
“I didn’t know a girl could be so beautiful.”
“Is that really what you thought?”
“I didn’t know a girl could get more beautiful every day. That every time you see her you notice something different.”
“Like what?”
“Like this,” I said, and I moved her hair where it rested off to the side. I ran one finger along the nape of her neck. “How soft your skin is here.”
“You’re going to make me cry.”
“I don’t want you to cry.”
“Then stop saying such nice things.”
“Okay,” I said. “No more nice things.” I played with her hair. I slid my fingers through it and I massaged her scalp.
“That feels good.”
And we lay in silence then. Somewhere in the distance a car made its way around one of the island roads, changing gears on the switchbacks. A reminder that there were other people in the world. Above I noticed now the first quarter moon, stuck in the branches of the overhanging trees. I pulled her tighter and soon she was snoring lightly and sometime after that I fell asleep too.
When I woke, the sky was subdued with the gray of dawn. A light fog had blown in off the water. It had cooled off and when I reached for Hannah I realized that she was already awake and had been crying. When she turned toward me, her eyes were rimmed with red.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
She laid her head on my chest, away from me so that I could not see her face. “It’s nothing,” Hannah said again.
“Garota bonita,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s Portuguese.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Pretty girl.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “Tell me something else.”
I thought for a moment. I said, “Eu morreria por voce.”
“What’s that?”
“I would die for you.”
She lifted her head and looked at me. Then she punched me in the chest with her small fist, not hard enough to really hurt but it stung anyway. She said, “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I mean it. Promise me.”
“I won’t say it.”
She laid her head back down and her face was warm against my bare chest. The air was wet with the morning fog. I wondered what the day would bring. I wondered if it would rain. I ran my fingers through her hair and for some reason I suddenly imagined the beach in the winter, as I had seen it from sea. Snow-covered and windblown, the rocky cliffs slick with ice. In time Hannah fell asleep again but I did not. I watched the whitecaps rippling from east to west and I held her against the cold.
Berta visits me about once a month. She still lives in our small house and she still cooks at the college. At first she visited me more often but I know it’s hard for her to come here and I understand that. She takes the bus from Galilee and has to switch buses three times before she gets here. In good weather we walk around the grounds and I hold her hand and we talk about nice things, simple things, like the weather, how the old town has changed since I was last there, the condos that have been going up near the harbor. Rich people moving into our working town. There’s talk about large-scale development and someone has even made noise about buying every house in our neighborhood. Berta doesn’t want that to happen, even though they would probably overpay for those small houses and she could live somewhere better. But I know she sees my father in that house, and me before all this happened, and she remembers happier times. Maybe she thinks those memories would go away if she left. I think we all reach a point in our lives where the memories are all we have to hang on to. We stop living, in a sense, except in our minds. I know what Dr. Mitchell would say about that, but I don’t care. I like to picture Berta in front of the television in our house, sitting in the overstuffed chair, her eyes closed. But instead of sleeping, she reaches back across time and she remembers. She remembers my father and she traces their life together. All those moments when he made her laugh, how she felt when he opened the door after returning from sea and took her in his arms. And then she remembers bringing me into the world and even the little sister that I did not know. Maybe she pictures my father and me kicking the soccer ball back and forth in the sandy street. Father and son and the lives we had not yet led, the possibilities of everything unfolding in front of us like a map. Maybe she sees this and it warms her. Maybe it makes her happy and gives her solace. And maybe that is enough.
It’s hard to believe that I was on the island for less than three weeks. I think we both realized—once we were into it—that it was not going to last forever. The funny thing was that we never talked about this. We never spoke of time, of when I would have to leave, of when she would have to leave. I had told her I had missed my boat and she never asked me another thing about it. I know now that Hannah didn’t bring it up for the same reasons I didn’t. To do so would have been to give it words, and giving it words would have made it real. Something we couldn’t turn back from. I know you can’t control time like that, but both of us thought we could. Or at least the days and the nights seemed longer when we ignored the obvious.
The sex was the newest part for me. I had been a virgin before I met Hannah, which I think she knew but I don’t mind saying anyway. The passion of it surprised me. I was unprepared for how quickly it stripped away whatever remaining walls may have stood between us. I confess that a few times I found the whole thing stressful, since Hannah seemed to want more than I could give her. There was a line, I think, between what was loving and what was not. I was so new at all of it, so that when she would want me to pull on her hair until it hurt, I couldn’t understand why she wanted me to hurt her.
“Just do it, Anthony,” she demanded.
And so I did, though I did it reluctantly, and afterward, when we lay together in the quiet with our skin warm against each other, I sometimes felt bad about it all, like I had let her down, even though I was doing exactly what she had asked me to do.
The morning Hannah told me her mother was coming, a fog rolled in from the east and it brought the first rain we had seen since we had been together. At first it wasn’t much more than drizzle but by midday it was pouring. It was a day Hannah didn’t have to work and we spent the whole morning, as had become our habit, in bed. It seemed like we could have divided our life together into two parts: when we were having sex and when we had just finished. I remember that we were lying there watching the rain fall in a gray sky out the windows. I went to say something about it when she interrupted me.
She said, “My mother’s coming.”
“When?”
“Today.”
She rolled away from me so I could not see her face and I looked again to the window and the rain that fell now like bars of silver. “Okay,” I said.
“I should’ve told you sooner.”
“Don’t sweat it,” I said.
“It’d be better if…”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to say this,” Hannah said.
“Tell me.”
“If she didn’t know about us.”
“How long is she here?”
She turned back toward me. I brushed the hair away from her forehead. “The weekend,” she said. “She hates it here, but she feels like she has to check on me.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
“It’s not what you think,” Hannah said. “It’s just that if she thought I was involved with a boy, any boy, she wouldn’t leave. Then we couldn’t be together.”
“I get it,” I said.
“Do you?”
“Yeah.”
I watched the rain fall and wondered what I would do with myself if I had to stay away from the house. It was a soaking rain but maybe it would let up. She leaned in and kissed me then and we
kissed for a while. Then she said, “It’s only two nights.”
I nodded. “Two nights will feel like a long time.”
Her green eyes narrowed and then she smiled. “I’ll miss you,” she said.
“You sure?”
She nodded and her hair fell in front of her eyes and now she swept it away. But I was greedy for her, drunk for her, and every moment away from her felt empty. The truth was that sometimes it took another person to teach you how to be alive.
Later that afternoon the rain picked up and fell in sheets on the beach. It was so heavy that I could not see the water. I sat wedged under the rock face and I was miserable. My luck had run out. The promontory provided some shelter but it was not enough. When the wind blew the rain came right in and soaked my clothes. Hannah was with her mother by now. What were the two of them doing? They would have the great house to themselves. I would be stuck on the beach, the rain-soaked beach.
At least I was smart enough to snag two bottles of wine from the cellar before I left. I might be wet but I had the wine and that was a comfort.
I wished there was someplace I could go. I had money. I thought about getting a hotel room. Lying on a warm bed and watching television. But I didn’t have a credit card and I knew you needed one for places like that. Besides, I didn’t look like someone who belonged in a fancy inn. My presence might raise questions. A phone call to the sheriff.
So I sat and watched the rain. I was wet and cold. And I felt the sadness coming on. I felt it coming on like a cold.
When the wind shifted at dusk and the rain began to come sideways under the rock, I broke camp. I piled my things into the oilskin and made for the cove. Passing the overturned rowboats, for a moment I thought about using them somehow to build a shelter. But someone might notice them missing.
Envious Moon Page 8