“So where on the lake are we?” Caitlin asked when they got outside. “I’m a little turned around.”
“The public beach is that way.” He pointed.
“Okay.” She was looking around, getting oriented. “So the place that you and I used to sneak into is over there...and is this the tree we could see from that dock?” She gestured over her shoulder toward the oak. “The one that we thought must be so great for climbing?”
“It is that tree, and it is great for climbing, although it’s gotten harder since Dad had to take off the bottom branch last year. How much of a city girl are you?”
“If you are asking if I can still climb a tree, I assume so, but you’ll need to give me a stirrup.” She cupped her hands, showing what she meant.
He did so. She put one foot in his hands and then sprang up, catching a limb with her hands.
How light she was, like a plastic beer mug, the kind that you’re expecting to be glass so when you first pick it up, you almost throw it over your shoulder.
He looked up. Her calf muscles were strong and defined, curving down to her ankles. She was testing a big knot in the tree to see if she could use it as a step. He caught a glimpse of red panties.
“Did you pick your underwear to match the juror tag?”
She looked down at him, blank for a second. “Oh, right, yes. I called ahead.”
In a moment she was standing on one of the limbs, holding on to a branch overhead, inching her way out to make room for him. He took another good look up her skirt, then jumped, grasped the lower limb, and hoisted himself up.
“This is really stupid,” she said.
“Why?”
“We could fall.”
“But we won’t,” he said confidently. And if they did...well, he had face-planted from a lot higher up than this.
He gave her a hand so that she could sit down. It could have been a tricky maneuver, but she did it gracefully. You can take the girl out of the ballet studio, but you can’t... Then he reached through the leaves, grabbed another limb, and swung across so that he could sit facing her.
She was trying to wriggle her skirt down over her thighs. The big watch on her wrist made her hand look small. “I’m not wearing the right clothes for this.”
“I think you are.”
She stuck out her tongue at him.
It was nice, sitting here in the tree, watching the water. Bulldozers had been brought in to carve out the little public beach across the lake; everywhere else trees, grasses, and wildflowers sloped down to the rocky shoreline, the gray and brown rocks etching an undulated border between the patches of sun and shadows on the green slopes and the flat blue water. In the distance above the tree line were the Blue Ridge Mountains, their slopes covered with fine North Carolina hardwoods.
Snowboards were made of layers of resin, fiberglass, carbon, and glue, but at their core was wood. Some pros liked wood from obeche trees, but that wood had to be imported from Africa. That seemed wrong to Seth, snowboarding on something from a continent so dry and hot. The core of his boards was close-grained yellow birch from the High Country’s cool mountain slopes. His dad always had a couple of trees in the commercial forests flagged, and he and Seth would watch their growth. For Seth that was part of the magic, knowing the tree, feeling like it was your partner.
He heard the faint chug of a trolling motor, and in a few minutes a fishing boat eased around the point of an inlet, its little motor making a ruffled wake on the surface of the water.
“You must have visited your grandmother after you all moved to San Diego,” he said. “Why didn’t you ever stop by and see my parents? They liked you.”
“Seth, you dumped me. I wasn’t going to go sit in your mother’s kitchen and have your sisters feel sorry for me.”
He winced. “I didn’t really mean to dump you. I was a mess.”
“There’s no need to rehash this. We were kids. It was a teen romance. Teen romances end. That’s what they do.”
“Apparently your sister’s didn’t.”
She shook her head. “The teen-romance part blew up the minute she found out that she was pregnant, but they had to stay in touch because of the baby. Years later they came together as actual adults.”
Seth was twenty-five. In plenty of places that qualified for being an actual adult. He changed the subject. “On this gravity-heavy planet of yours, why are people using something as low tech as bullets?”
“It’s not my planet. I’m just paid to make it gorgeous, and who says that they are people?”
“Good point. How did you get into this?”
“I started in college, doing it for other students. After I graduated, I got what should have been a dream job in Silicon Valley. The work was good, but even though people wore flip-flops and board shorts to the office, it was still totally corporate with insane office politics and people stealing credit for your work. So I decided to go out on my own.”
“Is it going okay?”
“It’s a bitch and a half, especially in San Francisco, which is beyond expensive, but I’m doing okay. Now I’m ready to get down.” She was clearly done talking about her life in San Francisco. “How do we do that?”
“You can climb down by the same route, but I’m going to jump. It’s faster.” He switched his hand position and then lowered himself, extending his body so that he could drop and land lightly. “Now scoot down your branch and I will catch you.”
“Are you going to look up my skirt?”
“You bet.”
She eased herself down to the branch. He got hold of her legs as she dropped and eased her down, sliding his hands up her body.
“You don’t have a car in San Francisco, do you?”
She looked surprised and started to step back, but a light pressure on her waist kept her in place. “I’m a freelancer. Even if I could afford a beat-up junker, a parking space is way out of reach. Why are you asking?”
“I keep noticing how strong your legs are. Isn’t San Francisco pretty hilly?”
“For sure. We all have gorgeous butts out there because we walk up and down hills all day.”
How normal this felt, standing close to her, his hands on her waist. “You don’t really care that I saw your underwear, do you?”
“Of course not.”
He kept his hands at her waist. “It’s really good to see you again.”
“Same here.”
Were they going to play games? When they had been kids, she had promised that she wouldn’t do that. She had said she would be straight with him when she was ready. And she had been.
She put her hands on his shoulders. He could feel the weight of her big watch. “I’d like us to be friends,” he said.
She knew what he was asking. “With benefits?”
“If that works for you.”
“It works for me,” she said. Her hands started to move, caressing his shoulders.
He bent his head and kissed her.
And suddenly it was like being a boy again, that fierce magic, that ache, that overwhelming sense of desire, to smell the magic of her hair, feel the firmness of her arms, the trim curve of her waist and back, his fingers seeking the softness of her breast.
He felt her hand on the hand of his neck, her fingers separated and moving slowly. Her other arm was curved around him, and it was as if no woman had ever touched him before, as if it was all as new as it had been back when they had been in the woods together before.
“Do you want to go inside?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “We have the blanket.”
He took her hand and led her back among the trees. These trees were all younger than the oak, and their roots had dug deep into the light, sandy soil, leaving the earth smooth. He kicked aside a few pinecones, unfurled the blanket, and let it float to the ground. Then he unzipp
ed her skirt and pushed it down over her hips. Her red bikini underpants weren’t designed to be sexy. They didn’t have lace or skimpy strings at the sides, but they curved under her crotch with a snug, neat fit. As soon as they were lying down, he put his hand over the curve, and he could feel the warmth there and then all through her.
He knew that it would be all right to slip the panties off, open his khakis, and enter her now. She was ready. But then it would be over. And he didn’t want it to be over.
Or so matter-of-fact. You wanna have sex? This ought to mean something. Things didn’t mean enough anymore.
She was reaching for his zipper. He batted her hand away and sat up, pulling her with him so that she was straddling him, facing him. “Do you remember the first time you came?” This was how they had been that night, when they were sixteen and fifteen, her facing him, her knees on either side of him.
“I guess...yes, yes, of course, I do.”
They had already had intercourse, but they had never had enough privacy to be fully undressed together, and he still hadn’t been comfortable with her body. He hadn’t known any specific ways to stimulate her, and so when it did happen for her, it was almost by accident.
He had been kissing the upper curve of her breast that night, and then she had shifted a bit—maybe by accident, maybe on purpose—and suddenly he was feeling the little firm tip of her nipple against his tongue, and her hands dug into his hair, supporting herself, and she moved against him.
She had probably been wearing a T-shirt that night; she would have pulled it off over her head by herself. Tonight he unbuttoned her blouse. Her bra was flesh colored, lacier than her panties had been, but not matching them. When she had dressed this morning, this was not what she had expected.
He unhooked the bra...and then was suddenly confused. How had this worked back then? Her pressing her crotch against him, and him being able to—
Oh, right, of course. Even though he had started his growth spurt then, he hadn’t been finished. He had kept growing; he was taller now than he had been on that summer night so long ago. But he could make this work. His back was flexible and strong, and he was comfortable grasping her hips, bringing her closer to him, positioning her in a way that he wouldn’t have had the nerve back then.
An instant later he was both a boy again, arousing a girl for the first time, and a man, sure and confident, cupping the breast he was kissing while teasing the other with his free hand.
Was all this happening then or now? Both. The blanket was green wool; it was blue fleece. The afternoon sun was on his face; it was at his back. Her hair was pulled back; it was tumbling over her shoulders. She smelled like Dove soap; she smelled like grapefruit and lime. Both moments, then and now, happening as one.
Just as before, her fingers nestled into his hair, gripping his head, relying on him for support and balance. But she was experienced too, and in a moment she let go of his head, pulled back, and started to search for his zipper again. She wouldn’t have done that back then.
“No, no,” he said. “Let’s do it like before.”
So she relaxed into the glories of being pleased. Last time she had been able to move against his body. Now because of his height she had to kneel, but only the lightest flick of his fingers against her still scarlet-covered crotch left her gasping and her muscles convulsing.
Afterward she leaned against him, settling back on his thighs.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“I don’t know for sure.” It had been almost eerie, the feeling of two things happening at once, but she couldn’t have been talking about that. “It just suddenly seemed like a good idea to do what we had done before.”
“It’s hard to believe that it was exactly like that.” There was a smile in her voice. “Surely you weren’t that good as a kid.”
“No, but I was shorter and that made it easier.”
“Okay.” She didn’t get it. Obviously she hadn’t been thinking about the logistical difficulties. “But I’ve learned some things too,” she said.
And she had; of course she had. He had a fleeting thought about other men, other penises, but it was pretty easy to let that go because what she was doing to him was...well, it was pretty hard to think anything.
They lay quietly for a bit. Then she rolled to her side, facing him. “You know, I don’t think I have had sex outdoors with anyone but you.”
He thought for a moment. “I haven’t either...but I spend a lot of time in the snow, so outdoor sex might not be a great choice.”
“Are you in a relationship?”
“No.” What did she think of him, that he would have done this, if he were seeing someone? “What about you?”
“I live in San Francisco. All the men I meet are not only married, but they are married to each other. I’m usually the one straight chick in a room full of gay guys.”
She admitted that she was getting cold. They organized their clothes and went inside, eating on the screen porch, talking some, not about much or anything in particular. Afterward she carried the trash bag out to the car while he circled around the house to hide the key. When he came back, she was looking at her phone, leaning back against the car, one foot cocked behind her. Her leather purse was on the ground. Her retro sneakers were black canvas with white laces.
Seth thought of himself as a here-and-now kind of guy, live in the moment and all that. He was practical, down to earth. He gave little enough thought to basic Christian theology, much less anything woo-woo about a spirit world. But out there on the blanket it had truly seemed as if two moments were happening at the same time. It must be that the memories were so strong; that could be the only explanation.
Caitlin picked up her purse to put her phone away. She made a face. “I have to go back to court tomorrow.”
Seth cursed and pulled out his phone. He had the hotline number and his ID code on an old email, and yes, he had to report back tomorrow. “This is so wack. They’re not going to pick us.”
CHAPTER THREE
Caitlin did not have sex with men she had only known for an evening. It wasn’t any big moral issue. When you had sex with strangers, you didn’t know what you were getting into. The guy might turn out to be a Silicon Valley asshole or a clingy type who wasn’t going to let you catch your breath, wanting to see you on Tuesday...oh, you are busy on Tuesday, what about Wednesday? Thursday?
It had been great to be young and living in San Francisco. The city was beautiful, and there were always people on the streets, other young people ready for adventure. Caitlin liked prowling through the thrift shops, not caring about fashions or trends, but then having other girls stop her on the street asking her where she had gotten something. She could step into a crowded restaurant at brunch, and people she didn’t remember meeting would remember her and call her over, making room for her at their table.
Of course, you could go out for a long, boozy brunch every Sunday when you had a Silicon Valley paycheck. Not when you were freelancing. San Francisco was a lot better when you had money. Her apartment was tiny, tiny, tiny, but for the rent she was paying, you would think that it came with a herd of dairy cattle. She was able to get her health insurance under her father’s Navy’s Young Adult program, but that would end in another eighteen months. She had no idea what she would do then.
She stayed out of credit card debt. Too many women her age seemed to think of the money they spent on their clothes, their hair, and their bar bills as an investment, what you had to do to make sure that someday your prince would come. Caitlin viewed that as an extremely poor investment. Most princes these days had student loans to pay off.
If she had ever thought about having a prince for herself, it would have been when she was fifteen and in love with Seth. So technically this evening didn’t count as having sex with a stranger. But did she know what she was getting into? Absolutely not. Not a clue.
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She had acted all cool and hip as if seeing him hadn’t mattered. But this was Seth. Seth. How could he not matter? She just didn’t know if it was going to matter good or matter bad. Really, really bad.
Her parents asked about him, but they were only mildly interested. During those years when all she wanted was to spend the summer in North Carolina, she had always tried to conceal the fact that she wanted to come because of him. Then when her dad was transferred to San Diego and she was so devastated about Seth not calling, they didn’t really know how desperate she felt because Trina was still home, sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
Her parents were more interested in her day in court. When she said that the next case was a criminal trial that seemed to be having trouble getting off the ground, her mom said, “That must be—”
Her father interrupted. “That Caitlin doesn’t follow Carolina politics is in her favor. Let’s keep it that way.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.” She looked at him. Unfortunately he had his judge face on. He wasn’t going to tell her anything. “Is this going to be some big murder case where I am going to be sequestered for a year?”
“No. Not at all. And North Carolina doesn’t sequester juries. Of course judges could, but they don’t. It’s expensive, and the current thinking is that sequestered juries render bad verdicts.”
* * * *
Her grandmother had more of a clue of how intensely Caitlin had cared about Seth back when they had been kids. So when she was driving Caitlin to the courthouse the next morning, she had questions.
“Did you have a nice evening with him?”
“Yes, I did.”
“He has turned into a very good-looking young man, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he has.”
“I like a tall man.”
“Actually his height has been a problem for snowboarding. He is taller than most.”
“And he must be very fit.”
This conversation was getting weird. “Of course. It’s his job.”
The Fourth Summer Page 3