At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  He kissed her the way she had dreamed of being kissed, with strength and tenderness and a yearning that matched her own. Her lips parted slightly. He touched his tongue to hers, sweetly... so sweetly that she felt herself melt against him even though she hadn't moved an inch.

  The kiss lasted only a few seconds but those seconds changed their lives forever.

  Chapter Six

  Gracie had never lied to Gramma Del before in her life but there was no other choice. She couldn't possibly tell Gramma that she was seeing Ruth Chase's son. The merest mention of the Chases upset her grandmother so much that Gracie worried about her heart. Besides, she was seventeen now and entitled to a life that belonged to her alone. The days of sharing everything were gone and Gracie's happiness was laced with a bittersweet sense of regret.

  Noah's plan to work at the animal hospital went by the boards when Simon stepped in and made it clear that Noah's summer would be spent learning the newspaper business from the ground up. In a way Gracie was glad. She couldn't think when Noah was around. Something happened inside her brain every time she saw him or spoke with him or even knew he was somewhere in the vicinity. Her heart beat faster. Her hands trembled. Her concentration flew out the window like Old Man Horvath's runaway budgie. She fit all the other bits and pieces of her life into the spaces between Noah's kisses.

  There was a lot of talk about Noah around town. Everyone had a story to tell. He'd been spied in the back seat of Laquita Adams's Toyota. Somebody else claimed to have seen him with the principal's daughter out near the football field. Partying on Hidden Island, sneaking down to Portland, getting wasted at work when his father wasn't looking. They could talk all they wanted to because it didn't matter to Gracie. She knew the real Noah.

  "Sit down, missy," Gramma Del said one evening in mid-July when Gracie was particularly eager to run to Noah's arms. "You eat so fast you'll make yourself sick."

  "Sorry," Gracie said, chastened. She tried not to glance over at the anniversary clock on the credenza. "I'm starving!"

  Gracie ate dinner every night with Gramma Del unless Doctor Jim kept her late at the animal hospital. Gramma Del was in frail health but her spirit was as strong as ever. She kept busy knitting scarves and mittens for the church's winter carnival and playing cards with her friends, women she'd grown up with right there in Idle Point more than eighty years ago. Del's friends took good care of her. They even kept a close eye on Gracie, much to her chagrin. Suddenly Gracie's blameless life had become a crazy quilt of white lies and half-truths. She hated sneaking around but if that was the only way she could be with Noah, then that was what she'd do.

  At least she didn't have to worry about what Ben thought. Her father and his wife du jour were working for a shipbuilding firm up near Calais on the Canadian border. He'd been good about sending home money each month, which meant he wasn't drinking at the moment. Gracie was learning not to expect too much of her father. Gone were the days when she would bring home bouquets of A's and academic awards and wait, almost dancing with excitement, for her father to suddenly realize what a gem of a daughter he had. Of course that never happened. Ben remained as remote from Gracie as he ever had, but at least now it didn't hurt quite as much as it used to.

  She was finally coming to terms with the fact that she would never have the happy family of her dreams. "You're not responsible for your dad's failings," her high school guidance counselor had said to her last year when Ben didn't drive down to see Gracie awarded with the New England Merit Students Award of Excellence. "Don't waste your time trying to straighten up his life; spend your time learning how to live yours to the fullest. Perfection isn't possible, Gracie, but excellence is."

  She thought of those words every time she found herself envying someone for the things she didn't have. Sometimes it even helped.

  "Marie outdid herself with this casserole," Gramma said, reaching for the salt.

  "It tastes just like yours," Gracie pointed out. She pushed the salt just out of reach.

  "That's because she finally followed my recipe." Gramma Del knew she was the best cook in Idle Point and she wasn't above reminding people every chance she got. "I don't know what took that woman so long."

  They both laughed at Sam the Cat who meowed for her own serving of mac and cheese.

  Gracie cherished her time with her grandmother. Maybe she didn't have a normal family, but no girl had ever had a better protector than Gramma Del. For as long as she could remember, Del had been the one person she could count on. Gramma Del was the one who'd taken Gracie with her to an AlAnon meeting in the church basement a few years ago, where Gracie began to learn that she wasn't to blame for her father's unhappiness or his drinking or his string of bad marriages. Del had put aside her pride and sat there with her granddaughter even though that kind of public display went against everything she believed in. Gracie doubted she could ever repay her grandmother for that gift.

  If only she could tell Gramma Del about Noah. That would make life almost perfect. There were times when she thought she would die if she couldn't share her happiness with someone. She knew she couldn't tell her father. The memory of the night of the kindergarten Christmas play was still too vivid for her to be able to pretend he would understand. She would never forget the look of surprise, then resignation, on Mrs. Chase's face when Daddy threw the sweater at her.

  Whatever bad blood there was between him and the Chases, it still ran deep and hot. She'd asked him once, a few years ago, about that night but he'd looked at her with a blank expression on his face and said, "Graciela, I don't know what you're talking about," and she let it go at that. Her father had huge black holes in his memory. She didn't know if they were the result of booze or convenience and she didn't much suppose that it mattered. Either way the truth was lost

  So many secrets. So many forbidden topics. They were hidden upstairs in the attic, buried in the basement, stashed in closets and under mattresses and behind locked doors.

  Don't ask questions. Whatever you do, keep family business inside these four walls.

  When she was a little girl, she used to pepper Gramma Del with questions about her mother. Was she pretty? Do I look like her? What did she sound like? Did she love me? Did she sing to me? Would she like me if she met me today? Gramma Del's answers grew shorter and less forthcoming until one day she sat Gracie on her lap and said, "Maybe it's time we let your mother rest, child, and talked about other things." She never answered another of Gracie's questions again and, after a time, Gracie stopped asking. But she never stopped wondering.

  Oh, she knew bits and pieces of the story. Idle Point was a small town and people talked. Maybe not as much as Gracie would have liked, but enough for her to piece together part of the picture. They always said, "Poor Ben," when they talked about her mother. Said it with troubled eyes and tight lips then turned away from Ben and Mona's child as if they regretted saying even that much.

  "He loved your mother more than a man should love a woman," Gramma Del had said once in a rare moment of indiscretion. Gracie clung to that scrap of insight, examined it from every angle, in every light. The notion of loving too much seemed wildly romantic, like a real-life Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff crying out his anguish to the windswept moors.

  Am I like my mother, Gramma? Will I love one man deeply and forever? Or am I like your son? Tell me, Gramma. Tell me what she was like. Did she love Daddy as much as he loved her? Did she whisper his name when she died? Did she love me the way Mrs. Chase loves Noah? After all those years of waiting, did I make her happy?

  If only she could tell Gramma Del about Noah and how amazing it was to be loved in return. Of all the dreams she'd ever dreamed since childhood, this was the one she'd never believed would come true.

  He's so wonderful, Gramma. You loved him when he was a little boy. I know you'd love him just as much now. You're not working for the Chases any more. What difference does it make if I see their son? He's so good to me, Gramma. He's handsome and kind and he makes m
e feel like the princess in a fairy tale except I know our story will have a happy ending.

  But she didn't say it. Gramma Del was engrossed in Wheel of Fortune and, no matter how hard she tried, Gracie couldn't seem to find the words.

  #

  Idle Point was a typical small town. News traveled fast and usually it ended up being dissected at the coffee shop next-door to the Gazette. When Noah was little, the men used to gather at Nate's Barber Shop but when Nate went unisex the men moved down the block to the coffee shop in a show of male solidarity. Times changed and nowadays the band of happy gossipers included men and women. The only requirements were a love of caffeine and a juicy story to share.

  Ben used to take Noah for pancakes at Patsy's Luncheonette every Saturday morning before he was sent away to boarding school. Ruth would brush Noah's hair and dress him in a soft flannel shirt and jeans, then wave goodbye to the two of them as they drove off down the road. Noah had loved the way all the men stopped talking when he and Simon entered the room. "The boy can't stay away from your blueberry pancakes, Patsy," Simon said every single time as the place erupted in laughter. They all knew the truth. He was there to show off his son, his boy, the apple of his eye, the one who would carry on his name.

  As he grew up, Noah began to notice that there was more than simple pride involved in his father's eagerness to show him off. There was a sharp edge to his father's pride, a certain belligerence that he'd been too young to recognize before, almost as if Simon were daring Idle Point to contradict him. Noah asked his mother about it once, but she'd told him he was imagining things. "We waited a long time for you, Noah," she said. "You can't blame him if he's sometimes a tad heavy-handed."

  He accepted her explanation, but he never forgot the expression in her eyes as she turned away. He didn't want to know what made her look so sad.

  He didn't want to know why his father had never loved him.

  Noah's return generated a fair share of interest and before long it seemed as if the entire town knew what he was going to do before he did it. The guys at the Gazette teased him about prep school and his rich-boy haircut and the girlfriends they were sure he had by the dozen. If he talked to one of the typists, his father's pals nudged each other and exchanged winks. If he looked tired in the morning, they ribbed him about having had a big night before. They took breaks and lunches together at Patsy's same as ever, and the fact that Noah never joined them didn't escape their notice.

  Or Simon's.

  They'd asked Noah to join them for lunch that afternoon but he'd been halfway to his car and his mind was already consumed by thoughts of Gracie. He'd brushed them off with a shake of his head and kept on walking. It wasn't a big deal. At least it hadn't seemed so to him but it looked like he was wrong. Simon began reading him the riot act as soon as they sat down to dinner that evening.

  "They're good men," his father said to him. "They're the ones you'll need in your corner when you take over the Gazette."

  "I don't need them in my corner," he said, "because I'm never going to take over the Gazette."

  "You say that now but you'll change your mind."

  "I'm not going to be trapped in this place the rest of my life." He wanted to chart his own course, not follow in his father's footsteps.

  "You'll do what I tell you to do," his father had said, anger tightening the corners of his mouth.

  "You can't tell me how to live my life."

  "Many sacrifices have been made for you. I—"

  "Simon." His mother touched Simon's forearm with her hand. "There's no need for this."

  He had never seen his father look at his mother with such fury. "Maybe it's time he learned what was sacrificed so that he could—"

  "That's enough!" Fear laced her words, a fear so real Noah could almost smell it in the room.

  Suddenly he had wanted to get as far away from there as fast as he could.

  "Where do you think you're going?" his father had called out as he kicked back his chair and stood up.

  "Out."

  "Dinner isn't over."

  "Stay," his mother urged. "Have some dessert."

  "Don't wait up for me," he said. "I'll be late."

  Five minutes later he was racing down the road toward the lighthouse and Gracie.

  #

  Noah always parked just around the bend where the road split, making sure his tiny sports car was hidden deep in the shadows thrown by the lighthouse. Gracie slipped her ancient Mustang into the space between his car and the fence and darted swiftly across the rocks to where he waited for her on a slender strip of sand. He was lying on his back on the faded blue blanket they called their own, hands linked behind his head, looking up at the stars.

  Gracie threw herself down on the blanket next to him and kissed him. "I'm sorry I'm so late," she said as she snuggled down into his embrace, "but Gramma felt like talking and..." Her words trailed off. She didn't want to talk about what lay ahead. "I'm glad I'm here."

  He pulled her closer. His body was warm and hard and strong and she melted against it, amazed as always by the way they fit together.

  "I was afraid you weren't going to make it," Noah said after they'd kissed a few times, deep delicious kisses that made her restless and hungry inside.

  "Nothing could keep me away from you," she said, even though she knew you were never supposed to tell a boy how much you cared. "The worst nor'easter in the world wouldn't keep me away."

  He looked at her strangely for what seemed like forever. His beautiful blue eyes looked dark with shadows.

  "What?" she asked, forcing a little laugh. "Why are you looking at me like that?" You would think he had never seen her before, the way his gaze roamed across her face. Like he was memorizing every inch of it.

  He trailed his index finger down over her right cheekbone to her lips. Nobody had ever looked at her that way before, as if he wanted to disappear into her soul.

  "I love you, Gracie."

  She stopped breathing while the words flashed and sparkled in the air before her, brighter than Venus and Vega overhead. "I'm dreaming," she whispered. "Say it again."

  He did, more softly this time, and then he tilted her chin until she was looking directly into his eyes, same as he had the first time he'd kissed her, and in that instant she knew that he meant every word. For the rest of her life she would remember this moment when all of the stars in the summer sky swooped down from the heavens and lifted her higher and higher until she was sure she could reach out and touch the moon.

  "Gracie." His voice was low, urgent, wonderfully uncertain. "Don't keep me hanging..."

  "I love you." She knew she would never say those words to another man, not as long as she lived. "I've loved you from the very beginning."

  His eyes glowed with pleasure. "Yeah?"

  She kissed his chin, his cheek, his neck. "Yeah." She kissed his mouth, feeling shy and wild. "You told me to hang up my sweater in the coat closet so Mrs. Cavanaugh wouldn't get mad at me and I decided right then and there that you were my guardian angel."

  "I don't remember that."

  "I do," she said. "You even held a seat for me and because you liked me, the other kids decided it was okay for them to like me too. I'll never forget that."

  "You wore a red sweater," he said slowly, as it all came back to him, "with a tiny gold cross around your neck." He fingered the delicate chain that disappeared beneath her blouse and found a gold cross dangling from it. "This isn't the same one, is it?"

  "Same one." The tiny filigreed cross was all Gracie had of her mother. She never took it off.

  He trailed his finger against the curve of her breast. "Your skin is still warm from the sun."

  "Impossible." She shivered at his gentle touch. "I worked inside all day." He pressed his mouth to the base of her throat and the world seemed to spin around her. "In the air conditioning."

  His hand slid under her shirt, his long fingers tracing the line of her rib cage. "Warm and soft."

  "We should
n't..." His touch was magical, impossible to resist. "What if someone sees us..."

  "Nobody will see us." They'd been coming there every night for almost two months and nobody in town had any idea.

  It was a big step, the biggest step she'd ever taken, and the consequences could change her life forever.

  "I'm scared, Noah," she whispered, pressing her forehead against his shoulder and closing her eyes.

  "So am I."

  She frowned at him. "Don't make fun of me. I'm serious."

  "Here," he said, taking her hand in his. "Feel." He placed her hand over his heart. "See? Scared as hell."

  "I scare you?"

  "Right now you do."

  She drew in a deep breath then placed his hand in the center of her breastbone so he could feel the answering beat of her own heart.

  "I want it to be perfect for you," he said.

  "I don't want to disappoint you," she said. "I never—"

  "I know," he said. "That's why I'm scared."

  She had a million questions she wanted to ask him. Who and what and where and how many times but the answers held too much power. She was better off not knowing. The world was filled with beautiful girls who knew how to have fun without talking it to death. Girls who didn't plan their every move or worry about the consequences. Why couldn't she be one of them? Instead she'd been born plain and smart, careful and wordy.

  "Poor you," she said softly. "You could do so much better. You could be over on Hidden Island with the others and—"

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't say that." His voice was flinty with anger. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." His words poured over her like honey. She was more than he'd ever dreamed of... she made him feel he could accomplish anything... she made him want to be better than he was. She was dazzled by his words, drunk on them.