by L. B. Dunbar
I needed a little reprieve and walked to the front of the house, which faced the road. There was a rousing game of basketball by some teenage boys and a few teenage girls watched the action. I noticed my niece Madison was one of the onlookers.
I walked to the end of the drive where cement meets the black top road to be as removed from it all as possible while still being present at the party. I sipped my beer and looked up at the sky again. The stars weren’t as clear with all the lights flooding the driveway, but I could still see many of them, as well as a bright piece of moon high over the lake.
“Beautiful at night, isn’t it?” Jess said quietly.
“I had forgotten.” I looked at Jess then followed his gaze back up at the sky.
We were silent for a few minutes.
“I saw that girl tonight at the showing. Can’t believe I remembered her, and you were just asking about her the other day on the boat. She looks exactly the same.”
I continued to stargaze as I answered.
“I saw her in town a few times. She has a kid. He’s real cute. Funny. Looks just like her.”
I felt Jess’ eyes on me.
“How old is the kid?”
“Six.”
I looked at Jess, who wouldn’t meet my eyes. Something passed over his face and he did this grinding thing with his jaw that I recognized instinctively, despite the dim light. Jess was thinking about something.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Jess replied as he continued to look up at the stars.
“There you two are,” said a sweet voice. I glanced from Jess to Emily. “I thought you two might have run off, trying to relive some glory days or something small town like that.” She kissed Jess’ cheek as she smiled sheepishly and wrapped an arm around his back.
“Don’t like our small town?” I teased, knowing that Emily was from Chicago and had moved to Elk Rapids for Jess and Katie.
“Oh no, I love this small town.” She smiled again as she looked at Jess, who beamed a crooked smile and leaned in to kiss her. I was embarrassed by their show of open affection and I coughed awkwardly to make them stop. Emily looked dazed as she pulled back from Jess, and again I felt a pinch of jealousy. Zoe hadn’t looked at me like that for as long as I could remember, if ever. I knew who once had, and I felt a small pang in my heart. I realized that I wanted someone to look at me like that again.
“So tomorrow is boating with Tom? You’re coming right?” Emily continued. “And fireworks on Saturday night? When do you move to your mom and dad’s?”
I was supposed to be leaving my hotel on Saturday morning and staying with my parents for the rest of the week until the wedding. I could have afforded the hotel, but I couldn’t justify the distance knowing how much Mum looked forward to my visit, and knowing there were many festivities before the wedding. However, discovering Britton was this close, somewhere in Traverse City, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to move up to Elk Rapids.
“Uhm…I’m not sure when I go to my parents. I might have a slight change in plans.” I looked down at my shoes, drawing a line in the driveway.
“Like what?” Emily asked.
“Like who is more like it,” Jess mumbled.
I glared at Jess for a moment. In the distance I thought I faintly heard someone call my name.
“Gavin, be careful.”
It wasn’t possible, though, and I ignored it.
Emily began telling me details about the wedding and the week leading up to the big day. She was excited and animated, slightly opposite of Jess, and I couldn’t help but like her. She was enthusiastic and funny, and she made Jess smile. She was telling a story about Katie and having to bribe her with candy to walk down the aisle because she didn’t want everyone looking at her, when I saw a flash of blond on the street in front of us.
“Gee, slow down.”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted Emily and walked blindly toward the center of the road. A small bike whizzed past, narrowly missing me, with the sound of pure glee coming from the rider. Minutes later, a concerned-sounding mother came down the road, hastily slapping her flip-flops in a rapid walk.
“Gee, watch out…” her voice trailed off as she noticed me standing in the road.
“Gavin?” she said softly, surprised.
“Britton?” I replied, sounding even more surprised. My voice rang loudly in my head. She couldn’t be standing on this very road, could she? I turned to look at Jess for confirmation and saw him shaking his head as Emily asked him a question. I looked back at Britton. Yes, she was definitely standing in front of me on this road. The same road that held the conversation of the moon, started our long summer relationships, and ended with a film some seven years later.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“What are you doing here?” she snipped back.
“This is my party. A reception for the premiere. I would have invited you, but you ran away again.”
“I ran a…” she stopped. “I didn’t run away. I was invited to the party and was here earlier.”
I raised an eyebrow in surprise before I responded. “Well, I’m glad you came back,” I sighed.
Britton sighed harder.
“I didn’t come back, Gavin. I live on this road. Down the street.”
“What?” I practically shouted. I’d been looking all over for her and she’d been in the same spot I could always find her.
“When my uncle died, he left me his house,” she blurted out.
That smallish home I parked near, that I assumed someone must have bought for the property, was her home. Her home. I remained quiet for a moment. Too many memories of the house and Britton came crashing into each other inside my head.
“Why…why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, softer this time.
“It was too easy.”
“Too easy. Too easy for what?”
“For you to find me.”
“You didn’t want me to find you?” Slight anger was growing in my voice.
“Gavin,” she whispered. Her tone was low and sultry.
“Don’t say my name like that,” I demanded.
“Like what?” she said innocently.
“Dammit,” I mumbled and ran a hand through my wavy hair. When she said my name like that it had always distracted me, and the fight melted away. Her blue eyes glowed at me despite the darkness, and I knew she didn’t want to argue with me. She’d grown up with fighting around her all the time and she was always saying that we had such a short time together that there was no time to waste fighting.
She smiled and bit her lip as she absentmindedly pushed a hair behind her ear.
“Come join me at the party. There are some old friends who would love to see you.”
“I don’t know. Gee just took off down the street. I need to go find him.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
Britton looked at me for a minute before tilting her head for me to follow. We walked down the dark road with only the sound of her flip-flops slapping the ground.
Take 16
Under the Moonlight
There’s an indescribable awkwardness while walking next to someone whose body you know intimately. Whose body you have explored every inch of. Whose body you have had in compromising positions. And yet, now we walked as if we were complete strangers.
I was overwhelmingly uncomfortable as we began our walk down the darkened lake road with the water lapping in the background as we got farther away from the party. Images crashed through my mind of us on this road, like snapshots taken rapidly. We’d spent many nights on this road kissing, touching, and exploring in the dark. I tried to drive the memories away as my body was reacting to the flashes in my brain.
“So, tonight seemed successful,” she interrupted, bringing a sweet reprieve to the images of her body against mine.
“Yes. I’m really touched…is that the right word…by all the support and the turn out. The theatre was packed.” I smiled to myself. Britton walked
with her arms behind her back, clasping and unclasping her hands as we strolled. I noticed her flowing skirt and the shapely curve of her legs. I scanned her fitted t-shirt and the way it hugged her breasts. I was taking in her body again, and my thoughts were transferring to those freeze frames in my head.
“I feel very lucky,” I added to keep the conversation going.
“Is this how it works? You show the film at festivals when it’s an indie film?” She seemed genuinely curious.
“I think so. I didn’t have a large budget and I need to sort-of prove the film’s worth before it can be transferred to the big screen. If it could make the big screen, I must clarify. I just found out tonight I was invited to the Sundance Film Festival in Montana. That’s the big one.”
My smile filled my face and I felt her looking at me.
“Are you proud of yourself?” My eyes swung to her face for a moment to make sure she wasn’t insulting me or insinuating that I was being a snob.
“More importantly, are you proud of me?” I asked. I don’t know why I asked, but I suddenly needed to know.
“Does it matter?”
“To me, yes.”
“Yes, Gavin. I’m very proud of you. You’ve accomplished everything you dreamed of.”
I smiled again to myself as I noticed her looking ahead toward her home.
“Zoe must be very proud of you as well,” she practically whispered.
Zoe? How did Britton know about Zoe? Ah, the question and answer session.
“Well, I don’t know if proud is the word. Zoe and I have a…”
“I don’t need to know,” Britton cut me off, almost harshly. “It’s none of my business.”
“Well, we…”
“No, really, Gavin. I don’t want to know.” The tone of her voice was serious. She didn’t want to know anything about Zoe, or me, or us together. Why?
We reached her yard and could see Gee sitting on the front porch, swinging his legs from a bench to the left side of the door.
“Gah…Gee, you shouldn’t race off in the dark like that,” Britton scolded him. “You almost hit Gavin. If he hadn’t seen you, he might have run into you.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Anyone walking into the street, or driving down it, would not have seen him in the darkness. He could have been hurt. A sudden lump formed in my throat at the very idea of anything happening to this child.
“I’m sorry, Gavin.” A slightly trembling voice apologized.
“If he cries, I’m a goner,” I mumbled to Britton.
“Me, too, but sometimes, you get over it.” She bit her lip, trying not to laugh.
Gee got up off the bench and walked toward us. Britton reached her arms out thinking the child was coming to her, possibly for her comfort, but the boy walked into my legs and hugged my knees. I felt another lump in my throat and awkwardly reached down to pat the boy’s small back. I wasn’t used to children, having barely been around my nieces and never my nephew. Zoe and I didn’t know people with children, and once anyone had them, Zoe didn’t want to be friends with them anymore.
I looked at Britton, puzzled. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. Britton looked panicked again, and this time it held for longer than a minute. I leaned down to pick Gee up under his armpits and I hiked him up so we were face to face.
“Did you get hurt?”
“No.” The boy shook his head.
“Did I get hurt?”
“No,” he said.
“Did your mom get hurt?”
“No,” he repeated.
“Then everyone’s okay and there’s nothing to be sorry for. But you need to listen to your mom, okay?”
“Yes,” he replied weakly, and though I didn’t know why, I felt the need to hug this child. I held onto him and he seemed so small when he wrapped his tiny arms around my neck. I felt that lump in my throat again. I looked at Britton over Gee’s tiny shoulder as she wiped her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was crying or not, and I didn’t want to do the wrong thing, so I put Gee down.
“Can we go find Ben now?”
All was forgiven, and apparently forgotten.
“Who’s Ben?” I addressed Gee.
Britton replied, “No one,” as Gee said, “He lives here.”
I glanced back at Britton. “What?”
She’d said she wasn’t married, but it never crossed my mind that she might live with, or be dating, someone. My jealousy flared more than the green monster that observed everyone else’s love this evening. I didn’t want to think of someone else with her.
“He doesn’t live here,” she emphasized to Gee. “He’s just staying for a while.”
“Who is he?”
“No one to concern yourself with,” she said as she waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss the subject.
“I don’t want to hold you up, Gavin. Let’s walk back to the party.” She held out her hand for Gee, who took it.
We walked in silence again as Gee skipped between us. At one point, he grabbed my hand and looked between Britton and I in the dark. His hand was so tiny in mine, and I relished the soft warmth between us, but something in Britton’s eyes must have told the boy to stop, because he dropped my hand as we neared the Hutchinson home.
“Ben!” he ran off toward a teenage boy playing basketball on the Hutchinson drive, and the kid turned to face Gee after he took his shot.
“Watch out, little man. We’re almost done. Step over.”
Gee did as he was told and stepped into the grassy area where the girls still watched the boys play. I had no idea how long we had been gone, but Jess and Emily were no longer at the edge of the driveway. I took advantage of the darkness on this end of the drive to grab Britton’s arm and make her stop.
“He’s a teenager?” I growled at Britton.
“He’s my stepbrother’s son. Remember Steven? He’s divorced and I asked if his son wanted to come up here for the summer to help me with Gee.”
“Why all the secrecy? Was that such a big deal to tell me?” I was growing exasperated.
“It’s been a long time, Gavin. I don’t know how much you want to know or not. What does it matter anyway? The past is the past.”
I was about to speak when I heard my mother’s voice.
“Gavin?” she called loudly, as if summoning me home for supper on the farm.
“Yes?” There was almost an echo, as if someone else answered with me, and I looked in the direction of my mother standing on the grass near the group of girls.
She looked down at the teenagers as I stepped into the light for her to recognize me.
“There you are,” she said as I approached her. I could feel Britton following behind me, but keeping her distance.
“Mum, do you remember Britton McKay?” I turned to Britton and the alarm in her blue eyes glowed despite the dim light shining on the drive.
“Of course, lovie. How wonderful to see you again. Did you enjoy Gavin’s movie?”
“Yes, I did, Mrs. Scott.”
Mum smiled. She looked so thin with the backlight of the garage outlining her body.
“What was your favorite part?” She was addressing Britton, and I looked at her as well with curiosity.
“I liked the part about the moonlight. Where the girl, Esmerelda, teaches the boy the lesson about looking at the moon.”
I was shocked. Had she remembered?
“It’s rather romantic for such young lovers, don’t you think?” Mum questioned.
“Maybe,” Britton answered, “but romantic whatever the age nonetheless.” She smiled at Mum and bit her lip. She might have blushed even, but in the dim light it was hard to tell. Either way, she thought it was romantic, and that’s all I could have hoped for from her.
“That’s one of my favorite parts as well,” Mum responded and reached a shaky hand to touch my stubbly face. I hadn’t shaved this morning on purpose, going for the rugged look, and I knew by now I would have a bit more than the traditional shadow.
“Romance is all we can hope for, no matter what age,” she said softly.
On that note, Dad walked up to Mum.
“Ready, honey?” He placed a sweater over her delicate shoulders.
“Almost,” she said, and she patted my cheek again before she reached for Britton’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze. Then she looked over her shoulder at the boy on the ground and laced her arm around her husband’s elbow as he guided her to their car.
I placed my hand on the small of Britton’s back and asked her to join me in the backyard to see Jess. I felt a small spark of the burning sensation from touching her even in this innocent manner. Britton directed Gee to stay with Ben or find her in the back, but he was not to go home without her. She gave him a warning look, and he responded that he understood.
“You’re very good at that.”
“What?” She glanced at me.
“Being a mom.”
“Well, I’ve had years of practice. And most days I’m still not sure I’m doing it right.”
“Must be hard on your own. No husband. Boyfriend?”
“Quit fishing, Gavin.”
“Be honest, then.”
“Fine. No husband. Never was. No boyfriend. Now or before.”
“Where’s his father?”
“Where’s Jess Carter?” She made a show of scanning the now smaller crowd of people remaining in the back yard. She was dismissing the conversation again.
I gave up on our line of questions as my brother approached with Ella under his arm. I made the introductions and Ethan claimed to remember her, but I wasn’t so sure until he brought up the boat and red bikini.
“Who could forget her?” Jess said next. He reached out for a hug, which was not typical of him since he rarely physically approached people. Emily looked on, shocked.
“This is my fiancée, Emily Post.” Jess immediately made the introduction, putting his hand on her back, “Who will be my wife, finally, in one week.”
“Congratulations,” Britton shook Emily’s hand. “That’s very exciting.”
“It is exciting,” Emily said, “but I’m also a nervous wreck. There is so much last minute planning and organizing.” She paused for a moment. “Don’t I know you? You work at the bookstore in Traverse, right?”