by Jean Stone
“We need to do whatever we can to get her together with Michael,” BeBe concluded.
“We could go to the movies tonight,” Roger suggested. “All of us, if you want. Then work it so she has to sit next to him.”
BeBe tweaked his cheek. “You’re brilliant, brother. But not a word to anyone. It will be our secret.”
He picked up his trowel and resumed his work. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to find her first. I saw her head down to the cove after breakfast.”
Michael Barton was not as good-looking as he had been yesterday. Liz maneuvered the rowboat around the small cove and let her thoughts drift from Michael to Josh Miller—the handsome, the untouchable, the forbidden. She set down the oars, closed her eyes, and let the warm remnants of sunset float over her, over every part of her.
She wondered what it would feel like to have his hands on her. She wondered what his fingers were like, if they were both strong and tender at the same time. She wondered what it would feel like to have his body above her, to have his dark eyes gaze into hers while he was touching her there and there and there, filling her with feelings and sensations and awakenings and …
Her eyes flew open. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching, if anyone could read what was on her mind by the flush that surely must be on her cheeks.
She touched a hand to her face.
Josh Miller, she thought. Oh, God.
She picked up the oars and began rowing again.
She had barely eaten dinner last night or breakfast this morning. Who could think of eating when all that mattered was when they would meet again, and where, and how …
She had decided how it would happen. She would be alone, at sunset, drifting on the water, as she was now. He would appear, slowly, calling for his dog. But then he would see her.
“Hey,” he’d say softly. “Great night.”
She would smile. “Yeah,” she’d answer.
“I lost my dog,” he’d say. “Again.”
“I’ll help you find her,” Liz would reply. Then she would row to the shore. He would hold the side of the boat to steady it, then he would take her hand to help her out.
Their touch would be electrifying.
She’d reach up and pull the barrette from her ponytail. She’d shake her hair free. She’d look off to the horizon, but his eyes would not leave her. She’d nod toward the sky and say, “Beautiful sunset.”
He would step closer, this hunk named Josh Miller. He would step closer and slide his arm around her waist. “Not as beautiful as the woman who’s watching it,” he would say into her hair. Then he would lean into her, his lips moving from her cheek to her ear, to her throat … then she would stretch her back in the slightest arch … then …
They would be married as soon as she graduated from high school. It would not matter that he was Jewish: the ceremony would be in the old South Church in Boston, and they would be so in love that no one—not even Father—could say they were not meant for each other.
And they would have children. Beautiful, olive-skinned children … and he would touch her forever, grazing his hand over and over her body, coming to know every inch of her being as if it were his own … and she would know his … the softness of a special place right there on his stomach, the firmness of his flesh that lay just below …
“Lizzie!” came a shout.
Liz jumped. One of her oars splashed into the water. Her heart pounded. Leaning over the boat, she reached for the oar. It was floating too far away. With the other oar, she tried to row toward it, but the boat went in a circle, no closer than before.
“Lizzie!” The shout came again, closer this time, and quite recognizable. It was BeBe.
“I’m here!” she called back, then stooped and reached again for the oar. This time, she fell in.
The water was early summer icy, its chill slicing straight to her bones. Breaking the surface, Liz saw BeBe standing on the shore, hands on her hips.
“What the hell are you doing?” BeBe asked.
“Hopefully not drowning,” Liz replied, wiping the cold water from her eyes and kicking toward shore.
“Good,” BeBe answered, “because we’re all going to the movies tonight and that includes you.”
The best part about The Island theater was that it was plunked on the corner of Circuit Avenue and Lake, next door to Darling’s, home of the famous saltwater taffy and, even better, the rectangular blocks of popcorn in pink and in chocolate.
They bought their popcorn blocks first, then smuggled them into the movies, as if no one else in there was doing the same.
The theater was packed with summertime kids, who were there to watch or pretend to watch The French Connection, which had come out last year but had just made it to the Vineyard. “Slow boat from Hollywood,” was how Daniel explained the delayed-movie phenomenon.
Liz followed BeBe down the almost-dark, narrow aisle, with Roger close behind. But when BeBe scooted into a row of empty seats, suddenly it was Michael who had moved in beside her. She sat down, took out her pink popcorn bar, broke off a piece, and pretended not to notice.
As the opening credits began to roll, something made her look at the silhouette of a boy as he moved down the aisle.
Then she realized it was him.
And he was holding out his hand to steady the elbow of a silhouette in front of him—a girl.
Liz’s heart seemed to stop beating for one long moment. Then Michael leaned close to her and said, “If you want, I’ll go get you a soft drink.”
No, she did not want a soft drink. She wanted to know who the girl was with Josh Miller. She wanted to know why he was there with her and if he was in love with her. But all she said to Michael was, “No thanks.”
The movie began. Liz did not pay attention. She was too busy looking over to where Josh was sitting. She studied the back of his head. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she didn’t think he had his arm around the girl.
Maybe she’s his sister, she speculated. After all, she was here with her brothers.
And with Michael.
A lump grew in her throat. Then, as she sat there, pretending to watch the movie, Michael rested his arm on the back of her chair. Her shoulders went rigid. A few days ago, Michael’s gesture might have given her goose-bumps, but today, she was afraid Josh might see it and think all the wrong things.
And they were wrong, weren’t they?
By the time the big car-chase scene had everyone but Liz sitting forward on their velveteen-upholstered seats, Liz thought she would die if she had to sit there any longer.
Then, thank God, the movie ended.
Daniel led them out of the lobby; Liz held back, lagging behind, doing whatever it took to have a chance to see his face again.
The chance came.
He moved through the crowd; he finally reached the spot where she stood.
“Hi,” he said.
She smiled. “Hi.” She was surprised that he was not much taller than she was; his broad shoulders made him look taller, bigger, than he actually was. And his skin … his skin was so smooth, so clear. She shifted on one foot. “Did you find your dog?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Snuffy. She loves to run away.”
His New York accent was mesmerizing. “By the way,” she said, “I’m Liz. Liz Adams.”
He grinned. “I’m Josh Miller.” He kept his eyes on hers. There was something there. A magnet, maybe. A big one. With his eyes steady on Liz, he said, “This is Deborah.”
The girl. Oh. She’d forgotten about her.
“Deborah’s my cousin. She’s here for a week.”
The lump, the tightness, and every other foreign sensation that had invaded Liz’s body now dissolved with his words.
My cousin.
Liz smiled.
“Welcome to the Vineyard,” she said.
“I think she’s bored,” Josh said. “It’s my first summer here, and except for the beach, I don’t know what else to do.”
Liz unlocked her eyes from his and tried to look as if she cared that his cousin was bored. “Saturday is the celebrity auction,” she told him and explained what it was, though inside she was secretly amazed that everything she was saying made sense.
“Would you like to go with us?” Josh asked.
Her thoughts ground to a stop. Go with them? Was he asking her for a date? “I, well …” she stammered. “I would love to. But my family … we all go together …”
“Can we meet there?” he asked. “I’ll buy you a burger and you can tell me about the island.”
“Well,” Liz replied. “I guess …”
“Liz!” BeBe’s voice bellowed through the crowd.
“Got to run,” Liz said.
“I’ll see you Saturday,” Josh said with a wink.
He had winked at her!
And as she moved on rubbery legs toward Daniel and BeBe and Roger and—oh, right—Michael Barton, Liz thought her heart was going to erupt it was beating so fast.
Chapter 6
It was hard to believe there could be this many people jammed onto the Vineyard and not have it sink into the sea. It was also hard for Liz to believe that Saturday had finally arrived, and that she’d survived the long wait. She stood under a canopy next to Daniel now and pretended she was scanning the auction crowd for potential bidders, not for Josh Miller. After all, Father had stressed the importance of this year’s sale. He had decided to contribute an original letter from King George to Thomas Adams, the first of their ancestors to set foot on New World soil in Weymouth, on Cape Cod, not far from the Vineyard. Hopefully it would cause a sensation, bring in big dollars, at least a thousand, and warrant a photograph in the Vineyard Gazette, which was why Daniel was scheduled to do the presenting. If anyone’s photo should appear as front-page news, it should be Daniel’s.
Her eyes roamed the table where some of the offerings had been set out: a watercolor from a famous TV news anchor; an autographed collection of a Red Sox baseball player’s cards; a sheet of original music from a mega-rock star turned islander. As she brushed away a small bee her gaze fell on Father, who stood laughing with Michael Barton as if they were old friends. On the other side of Michael was Evelyn Carter, who, for once, was not clinging to Daniel.
Liz adjusted her ponytail. Maybe Josh wasn’t coming.
“Don’t you ever get tired?” she asked, turning to Daniel.
He looked squarely at Lizzie, the way he looked at everyone who spoke to him—as if he or she were the most important person on the face of the earth. “Tired?” he asked her. “What do you mean?”
“Father is always making you do things. Just once, wouldn’t you like to do something you want, not him?”
Daniel grinned and ruffled her hair the way he’d been doing since she was about three, in a way that, coming from anyone but him, she would have detested now that she was sixteen. “You make Father sound like an ogre.”
“Sometimes he is. Sometimes I feel as if I have no right to my own thoughts, my own feelings. My own life.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Lizzie, what’s wrong?”
She wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him about these strange feelings she was having about this total stranger named Josh, about this attraction she could not seem to shake, even when Father paraded Michael before her, even when Michael himself looked at her and smiled. She wanted to ask Daniel what she was supposed to do with these feelings, but she supposed his reaction would be no different from BeBe’s. Liz had elected not to tell BeBe she’d be meeting Josh today: for the first time in her life, she had not shared “important” news with her sister. Neither could she now share it with Daniel. So instead of saying anything Liz just stood there, her eyes welling up with tears.
“Next we have Daniel Adams,” a voice announced over a rusty PA system. “With a most extraordinary offering. Daniel?”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Gotta go do this,” he said apologetically. “Wait here, okay?”
Liz looked wordlessly at her big brother.
“Daniel Adams?” the voice crackled again. “Are you here?”
He touched a finger to her cheek, then turned toward the dais. “Over here.” He stepped forward, the letter from King George in his hand.
The audience applauded. Liz blinked back her tears, looking absently over the crowd. Suddenly she stopped. She blinked again. There was Josh. He was standing by the homemade pie table, watching Daniel. And he was alone.
“You didn’t bring your cousin,” Liz said when she’d finally made it across the grounds to Josh. She tried to look pleasant and pretty, but inside she was a tangle of scared-child tremors.
“She went shopping instead,” he replied.
Up on the dais, the bidding for King George’s letter began at four hundred dollars.
Liz knitted her fingers together. “You didn’t bring your dog, either.”
Then he smiled and she felt she would melt right then and there, that she would turn into a small puddle at the bottom of his sneakers. “Snuffy?” He laughed. “She would have thought all these people had come to see her. She’s better off when I can walk her along the beach at midnight. I do that sometimes, and it’s just the two of us with no distractions, and no temptation for her to run off.”
His voice was deep, deeper than Michael’s, and his dark eyes sparkled when he spoke.
A woman in a pink-striped shirtwaist bid five hundred and fifty.
Liz motioned toward the dais. She felt oddly comforted by the sight of Daniel. “That’s my brother,” she said.
“Yeah. I know.”
“He just graduated from West Point.”
Josh nodded.
A man with a gravelly voice shouted, “Six hundred.”
“I go to Harvard,” Josh said.
That was a surprise. Somehow Liz had thought Harvard was exclusively for Yankee blue bloods, like the Adams family and other people King George had written to. Maybe Evelyn had been wrong and he wasn’t Jewish after all.
“In fact, my father teaches there,” he continued. “Hebrew studies.”
“Oh,” she said. Damn, Evelyn was right.
“Actually, Dad’s retired. He worked for President Kennedy, then Johnson. As an adviser on Israel.”
Liz nodded, hating that she had nothing intelligent to add, nothing important to ask. What did she know about Harvard except that it was across the Charles River from Boston? And what did she know about Israel? She’d long since given up trying to unknot the Middle East wars and peaces and everything in between. And all she knew about Jews was that Father would not want her hanging around with one, would not want her in love with one.
She turned her attention back to the dais. The woman in pink stripes jumped the bid to nine hundred. “Where do you live?” she asked. It seemed a safe question.
“New York. Westchester.”
She knew that, thanks to know-it-all Evelyn. “Oh,” she replied. “We’re from Boston.” Just as she said it, Liz spotted Father. He was not far from the dais, arms folded across his generous middle, eyes thankfully too busy staring at Daniel to notice that she was not where she belonged.
“One thousand,” the gravel-voiced man, who was buried somewhere in the crowd, responded.
And then Liz heard BeBe’s voice close in her ear. “Father planted that man,” she said, moving to the other side of Josh. As Liz began to protest, Roger stepped in. BeBe and Roger, her sister and brother, now flanked Liz and Josh like unwanted bookends. BeBe continued talking. “Father never would have left his fate up to something as simple as a bidding process. Don’t you agree, Roger?”
“Absolutely,” Roger said. “But it’s going great, isn’t it?”
Liz was confused. She looked from her sister to her brother. What were they up to?
“I think the woman is from Smith College,” BeBe said. “I wonder if she’ll go higher.”
Josh looked as perplexed as Liz felt. She forced a smile and gave a slight shrug.
&nbs
p; “Come on, Lizzie.” Roger grasped her arm. “Father will want us there when it’s sold.”
He tugged her—no, more like yanked her—from Josh’s side; she looked back, but did not know what to say. As Roger pushed her through the crowd, Liz noticed that BeBe had changed her position and now blocked her view of Josh.
As they reached the dais the auctioneer announced, “Sold! To the lady in pink for twelve hundred dollars.”
Evelyn surveyed the audience and savored the enthusiastic response to the King George letter and to Daniel as if she were the one being lauded, as if she were the one everyone loved. It was so apparent that Daniel would make an outstanding politician, just as Grandfather predicted, just as Will Adams demanded.
She sighed a little, wishing Grandfather could be there instead of in bed trying to regain his strength. And his mind.
Her eyes fell on BeBe Adams; no one could miss that pile of orange hair. Evelyn looked away, then back. She squinted, as if that would make what she was seeing easier to believe: BeBe was standing close to, talking to, playing up to that boy, that Jew from New York.
Evelyn caught her breath. It was easy to tell what BeBe wanted: anyone could see that Josh Miller was a hunk, though he wasn’t as tall as Daniel. And it wouldn’t take a genius to know that Will Adams would throw a fit if he knew one of his daughters was seeing—and being seen by—a Jew.
BeBe, of course, always went against her father’s wishes, almost as if she did it on purpose.
Josh was a hunk. And everyone knew that BeBe “put out.” As far back as Evelyn could remember, BeBe spent Vineyard summers doing every imaginable thing (and some that were not) to any boy who would let her, at least that’s what everyone said. There was even that fisherman’s son—what was his name? Tuna, or something disgusting like that.
She wondered how difficult it was going to be to have BeBe as a sister-in-law once she and Daniel were married and had a family of their own.
She was tired of being the good sister. Maybe that was what drove her to wait until everyone had gone to bed, then climb out her window—climb out her window!—and head toward the beach, where this afternoon Josh had said he sometimes walked his dog, Snuffy, at midnight.