At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  "I wish I was beautiful," she said. "I wish I knew how to make you happy. I don't—"

  He stopped her with a kiss. His mouth was hot and sweet and she wanted to drink him in like champagne. She'd never had champagne but she knew it couldn't compare to Noah's kisses.

  #

  Gracie was so fragile in his arms, so delicately made that Noah was afraid he'd hurt her. His hands felt big and awkward as he slid her denim skirt up over her hips then removed her panties. She looked so beautiful, so incredibly vulnerable and trusting, as she lay there in the moonlight that tears sprang to his eyes and he buried his face in her thick brown hair and struggled to regain control.

  It wasn't like he'd never been with a girl before. He hadn't been kicked out of St. Luke's for being a choirboy. There were lots of girls in Portsmouth looking to have a good time with no strings attached, and his weekends were a blur of keg parties and one-night stands. He was smart enough to always use a rubber but beyond that he didn't much give a damn about anything but beer and good times.

  Nothing had prepared him for Gracie and the way she made him feel.

  He felt clumsy around her, like one of those guys who try so hard to impress but keep stumbling over their own feet. She'd breached all of his defenses before he had even realized what was happening. She'd awakened dreams in him that he'd almost forgotten.

  He had wanted to be a journalist once a long time ago, a foreign correspondent who moved from city to city, calling every place and no place home. He told her about Paris and how one day he would live there and write the way Hemingway did in The Moveable Feast. They would know him at the café and his table would always be waiting, the one out there on the sidewalk where he could watch the parade. He would eat garlicky oysters and wash them down with crisp white wine and the words he wrote would be clear and true. Gracie believed in him and in his dreams, the same way he believed in hers. She didn't know that without her by his side, Paris would be just another city.

  He'd never met anyone like her, anyone he'd wanted more to impress or understood less about how to do it. His parents loved him for the simple fact of his existence. They loved him because they had created him. Gracie loved him for who he was. Nobody had ever done that before. He had been loved for the way he looked, the family he came from, the money he had in his trust fund. Gracie loved him for his dreams. There was no cruelty in Gracie, no cunning. She asked for nothing from anyone but herself. When he saw how hard she worked toward her goals, he felt ashamed to have done so little with all that he had been given.

  She ran her hands down his spine, her touch tentative at first, then more assured. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to think of anything but the sweet smell of her body beneath his. Her fingertips traced the swell of his shoulders, tiptoed down his spine then quickly moved back up to his shoulders as if she'd sensed he was close to losing it.

  The ocean roared inside his head. His muscles tensed as if he were readying himself for battle. His senses took over, burning away words, burning away everything but the need to be inside her body, to feel her holding him tightly within her. He couldn't have stopped now if he wanted to.

  He was hard as rock, harder than he'd ever been before, and she gasped as he began to move against her, a gentle thrusting motion that came close to bringing him to climax. Knowing that he was the first, the only guy, to be with her this way made him feel he must have done something pretty great in another life in order to be so lucky. No matter what else happened in their lives, no matter where they ended up, he would always be there in a corner of her memory.

  A part of her heart would belong to him forever.

  #

  Gracie cried afterward. Noah had warned her that it would hurt for a moment and he'd been right but that wasn't the reason for her tears. She was so filled with emotion, so overcome by the power of love that she had to cry or dance or shout out her happiness to the sleeping world. Everything around her had changed. She had changed. All of the rough edges, the aching sadness that had been with her for as long as she could remember, the sense that she would always be alone—all of it had vanished and in its place was contentment. She felt connected to the world in a way she'd never known before. The air smelled sweeter. The stars twinkled more brightly. And all because Noah loved her. She never would have believed her own skinny and forgettable body was capable of experiencing such wonder.

  "I'm sorry," he was murmuring against her breast. "I didn't mean to hurt you that much. Next time it will—"

  She cupped his beloved face between her hands. "I love you," she said, then laughed through her tears. "I love you I love you I love you I love you—"

  Once again he silenced her with a kiss. "It will be better next time, Gracie. I swear to you."

  "It couldn't be better. This was perfect, wonderful, amazing..." She rained kisses on his head and neck and shoulders. "Why isn't everyone doing this all the time? How does anything ever get done in this world when you could be making love?"

  He tried to tell her that sometimes, with some people, it was nothing more than sex, but she didn't believe him. How could that be? Two bodies coming together then breaking apart. No magic. No wonder. Nothing more than a quick release. She tried to imagine the act without that soaring sense of joy but couldn't. She knew there would never be a time when the touch of his hand would be anything short of miraculous.

  "I'm glad it was you," she whispered. "I'm glad you were the one."

  "There's only you, Gracie. From now on... I'll never love anyone but you."

  "You can't know that. We're so young... what if you meet someone this year or when you go to college—" she smiled "—or Paris... anything can happen."

  "I love you, Gracie," he said again. "Nothing will change that."

  "You can't be sure. People fall in and out of love all the time. They don't mean for it to happen but it does just the same." All she had to do was look at her own father to know that was true.

  "It won't happen to us. This is forever." He chucked her under the chin. "Hey, aren't you the one who's supposed to be saying that?"

  "Oh, Noah," she said. "I'm so happy that it scares me."

  "Better get used to being happy," he said, "because that's how it's gonna be from now on."

  She heard the sound as the last of her defenses shattered. "Promise me nothing will ever come between us," she begged as the unknowable future hovered all around them. "Promise me it will always be like this."

  "I promise," he said and because she was young and in love she believed him.

  #

  It wasn't like Ruth Chase to drive around so late at night. For the most part Ruth was a homebody who rarely ventured out after dark unless she was going to a social function with Simon, and it had been a long time since her husband had wanted to go anywhere at all.

  The doctors said that depression often followed a heart attack and that Ruth shouldn't be surprised if Simon seemed despondent as the weeks wore on. June melted into July and suddenly it was mid-August and she found she couldn't remember the last time she had seen her husband smile. He didn't go into the office even though the doctors said he could. He didn't read or sail or watch television. He refused to drive over to Patsy's for breakfast or go to the club with Ruth. He sat instead in the library and stared in the direction of the window. Conversation was limited to monosyllables. Ruth tried everything she could think of in order to rouse him from his melancholia, but to no avail.

  "We can talk about anti-depressants at his next appointment," the doctor told Ruth. "His body has been through an ordeal. Heart attacks cause psychological trauma as well as physical. Simon's a strong man. Let's see how he does on his own a little longer."

  Simon's depression made an odd counterpoint to Noah's obvious happiness. Her son glowed with it.

  "Who is she?" Ruth had asked that morning over breakfast. "She must be very special to keep you out so late every night."

  He colored slightly and looked down at his stack of hotcakes. He offered no
names, no details, and a knot of something very close to fear formed in the pit of Ruth's stomach and it lingered with her, growing stronger as the day wore on.

  It was with her at the hospital where she worked as a volunteer. At the beauty salon. At the post office and even at Eb's Stop & Pump.

  "Why don't we go over to the club tonight?" she suggested to Simon and Noah at dinner. There were times she felt that the sound of her voice was the only thing keeping their family together. Nobody else made an effort. "They're having a jazz quartet and dancing. It would do us all good to get out together for an evening."

  Simon shook his head. Noah said he had other plans.

  "Go with your mother," Simon ordered. "She needs to get out."

  "Could we do it another night?" Noah ignored his father and directed the question to her.

  "That's fine," she said, eager to forestall more unpleasantness. "We'll check our calendars."

  "What's so important that you can't spend time with your mother?" Simon persisted. He loved his son. She knew that as well as she knew her own name. Why did he feel the need to bark orders at the boy?

  "Please, Simon." Ruth managed to keep her voice calm and even. "I'm not even positive the quartet will be there tonight. We'll do it another time."

  Unfortunately her husband wasn't finished with the boy. "I phoned the headmaster at St. Luke's this morning," he said, reaching for his coffee cup. "After some bargaining, I managed to convince him to take Noah back so he can graduate with his class."

  "I'm not going," Noah said. "I thought I'd finish out high school at I.P. High."

  "Yes," said Ruth carefully. "Remember we had that discussion, dear, about how nice it would be to have Noah around for awhile before he goes off to college and out into the world." Simon's health was precarious. It was time for some fence-mending before it was too late.

  "The decision has been made."

  "Why didn't you ask me?" Noah demanded. "It's my life. Don't I have any rights in this?"

  His father leveled him with a stern look. "No," he said. "When it comes to ruining your life, you have no rights at all. I know what's best for you."

  "You know what's best for you," Noah countered, "and that's the Gazette."

  "Do you know how many jobs would be lost if the Gazette went under? Think about it. Half the families in town would end up living in trailers like those Adams hippies near the river. Sometimes you have to make personal sacrifices for the greater good—."

  "Bullshit!" Noah kicked back his chair and stood up. "Just because your life didn't go the way you wanted it to, doesn't mean you can use my life to make up the difference."

  Simon's face went from pink to scarlet. Noah's aim had been true.

  Ruth rose from her chair and stepped around to his side of the table. "He didn't mean it," she said as the front door slammed behind their son. "He's young. He'll come around. He doesn't know what he's talking about... he couldn't."

  Simon looked up at her and he didn't say a word.

  She'd wandered the house after dinner, too restless to settle down. Simon took a sedative and went upstairs to bed and the house seemed almost unnaturally quiet.

  Finally, a little after ten o'clock, she told Simon she was going out to pick up some Advil at the convenience store on the outskirts of town and climbed behind the wheel of their Chrysler New Yorker. She drove slowly past the Gazette's offices, waving to some of the employees who were sitting outside in the warm night air. Patsy's Luncheonette was closed. Patsy's had been the favorite meeting place back when she and Simon were in high school. She still remembered the hush that had fallen over the crowd every time Mona Webb walked in the door, with her shiny dark curls and ruby lips and big wide smile.

  Almost forty years had elapsed since high school but it all still seemed clear and vibrant to Ruth. She had never hated Mona for her gift of effortless beauty. It would have been like hating the sunrise. Mona was lush where Ruth was spare; the sun to Ruth's moon. How could she blame them for loving Mona when there had been a time when she would have sold her soul to be Mona for just one day.

  She wanted to know how it felt to be the focus of attention everywhere you went.

  She wanted to know how it felt to be the love of a man's life.

  She forced her attention back to her driving. Over the years she'd learned how to compartmentalize her emotions, how to file away the dark and frightening memories in some dusty cabinet where they couldn't hurt her. The best way to navigate your way through life was to stick to the main roads. You could never lose your way on the main roads.

  Simon loved her. She had no doubt in her mind about that. She was a good and loyal wife, a fine mother, a concerned citizen. She never embarrassed him. She ran his house efficiently. She kept his life running smoothly. She had been there at his side during the good times and the bad, and she knew he recognized that and appreciated it enough to accept her one fall from grace. That had been a time long ago when it had all been in doubt, when it seemed as if the life she cherished would be taken from her, but somehow they had weathered that storm.

  They were partners, she and Simon, life partners and nothing would ever change that.

  So why on earth did she feel so uneasy, as if a nor'easter were brewing in the center of her soul?

  She'd lied to Simon about the Advil. She had enough Advil and Tylenol to ease every aching joint in Idle Point. She had come out in search of her son. Something didn't feel right to her and she couldn't put it to rest. All summer long the bits and pieces of the puzzle had worried but it wasn't until tonight that she forced herself to see. It seemed odd to her that he hadn't brought home any friends to use the pool or watch the big screen TV in the den. She knew how hard it must be for him, trapped all summer in a town he barely remembered. You would think she'd know more about what he'd been up to than the simple fact of his employment at the Gazette.

  He's practically a grown man, Ruth. He's been living his own life at school for over ten years now. Isn't it a little late to start hovering over him like an aging mother hen?

  She prayed he wasn't spending time with that Laquita, the eldest of the Adamses' eleven children. Laquita was a wild child who was frequently seen exiting the only motel in town at daybreak. One of the local beauty salon gossips had mentioned to Ruth that she'd seen Noah's car and Laquita's van out near the motel late one night but Ruth had laughed it off as a case of mistaken identity. It didn't take ESP to know the poor girl was heading for big trouble and Ruth was selfish enough to want her son to be far away when it happened.

  She had been so caught up in caring for Simon and seeing to his myriad needs that it seemed she'd blinked and discovered her golden-haired little boy was almost a grown man. She knew so little about him. His life had been lived behind the walls of St. Luke's and she had no knowledge of the forces that had shaped him once he left home. How she regretted the loss of those years.

  At the time, she had believed she had no choice. She had been so grateful that Simon stayed, so grateful for Noah, so grateful that from sorrow she had found joy that she had accepted the conditions of her happiness without question.

  She stopped at the traffic sign at the corner of Main Street and Beach Road a few hundred yards from the lighthouse. The absurdity of her situation suddenly hit her square in the face. What on earth was she doing out there, driving around in search of her son and his mystery girlfriend. What difference did it make?

  He was only seventeen years old. Little more than a child in the eyes of the world. Certainly too young to be making life decisions—or even thinking about them.

  Wiley pressed a wet, cold nose against her shoulder and she started in surprise. "You're right," she said to the dog. "This is ridiculous." Next month Noah would be back at St. Luke's for his senior year, thanks to another generous donation to the school's dormitory fund. After that there would be college, then graduate school, and then he would take his father's place at the Gazette. The summer he was seventeen would be nothing more than memory
.

  She checked the road and was about to execute a U-turn when Wiley nudged her again then barked three times. Each bark was more insistent than the one before it. Ruth turned toward the lighthouse and saw a tiny sports car parked in the shadows near the fence. What was Noah doing out here by the lighthouse? She hushed Wiley and peered into the darkness as two figures stepped back into the shadows. She looked more closely and noticed the beat-up old Mustang tucked in between Noah's flashy car and the fence. She knew that car. She had seen it many times in the parking lot of the animal hospital.

  Her son and Mona's daughter. The thought made her dizzy and she rested her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. This couldn't be happening. Out of all the combinations possible, that those two young people should find each other was the most terrible joke of all.

  There was no future for them. Surely they must know that. Simon wouldn't allow it and, she was certain, neither would Ben Taylor. There was too much history between the families. Those two children were doomed before they even started. She should get out of her car right this minute, march over to them, and tell them it had to stop before someone got hurt. Love had fangs and sharp claws. She was sure they didn't know that yet but they would in time.

  Ruth's eyes filled as she remembered Gracie as a little girl, the tiny hand placed so trustingly in hers, the look of joy on Gracie's face when she saw her Christmas sweater. Ruth would never forget that moment. The sweater was such a small gift in the greater scheme of things; that it could give a child so much pleasure caused Ruth physical pain. She had loved having Gracie at their house every afternoon and she had been very angry with Simon for a very long time after he put a stop to it. The child had never been any trouble at all. So much had been denied Gracie—and so much of it had been Ruth's own fault.