2. 7
At the sound of her voice, he returned to meet her halfway.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She buried her face in his shirt, and he wrapped his arms around her. He held her there, rubbed her back and allowed her to wet the front of his shirt with tears.
Julia heard a shuffling sound behind her, and a voice cried, “William!”
William sprang back from Julia at the sight of her mother and grandmother.
“What on earth are you doing here?” her mother asked him.
In a low voice, he replied, “I brought Julia.”
“You brought – Julia,” she repeated. “You brought Julia? ”
“She wanted to be here. When she heard.”
Julia’s mother looked at him as if a sudden new thought had entered her mind – he had been with Julia. She didn’t know that. She looked him up and down, in his black leather jacket and boots, and said, “Well, thank you for your help, William. We can get her home safely.”
He looked to Julia, who smiled and nodded. He reached out as if to touch her, then, remembering himself, jammed his hands in his jacket pockets and turned immediately to go. On his way to the elevator, the doors opened and Alison emerged. She recognized him and waved. In fact, she was trying to say something to him, but he turned and bolted for the stairwell.
Alison watched him go, then jerked her thumb back in the direction he fled. “Where’s he going?”
Julia frowned at her mother. “Mom, why did you have to scare him off like that? He got me here in time for Rob to know that he wasn’t alone!” Julia’s grandmother appeared wobbly, and Julia caught her around the elbows. “He’s still with us, Gran; don’t worry. He’s just going in and out.”
Julia’s mother glowered. “Well then let’s not lose any more time arguing.”
When they had all gathered around Rob’s bedside, with Julia’s grandmother and Alison each clasping one of his hands, Alison asked, “Do any of you know why he was at Point Reyes?”
“He was feeling better than usual,” Julia’s grandmother explained. “I felt comfortable leaving him alone while I got some work done around the house. When I came back to check on him, he was gone. The car was gone, and so were the keys. I had no idea where he had gone until the police called to tell me where they had found him.”
“But you don’t know why he went there?” asked Alison.
Julia said, “He was lucid a little while when I got there. I asked him about that, and he just said, ‘Tim.’”
Julia’s grandmother smiled a bit, and went to dig around inside of her purse. She pulled out the small framed photograph that Julia and Alison had known all their lives, the one that always sat on her mantelpiece. A very old photo, the colors all fading to red. A very young Rob, with a very young Tim looking over his shoulder. Smiling, the both of them, their whole lives ahead of them. The water at their backs.
“I thought he might like to have it here with him,” Julia’s grandmother explained.
She opened the frame, pulled out the photo and turned it over. Handed it to Julia.
“Point Reyes,” it said on the back in Rob’s handwriting.
Now Julia knew.
Like a message from the hereafter. “Don’t be afraid of love.” Even with all of the regrets and lost opportunities, Tim was still the last thing he thought of; Point Reyes was still the last place he wanted to visit.
Julia buried her face in her free hand and wept openly. Her mother and grandmother both enfolded her in their arms.
Julia swiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make everyone feel worse.”
Her grandmother put a hand on Julia’s shoulder and said, “What were his last words? ”
“They’re not his last words,” Julia balked. But her grandmother fixed her with misty gray eyes, and Julia knew – they probably were. She thought for a moment, and with a flood of awe, she remembered them.
“Follow your heart.”
They lapsed into silence, too stunned and emotionally spent to respond.
Julia tried then to decide what those words meant for her, personally. Her mind travelled back over that night. The way that William had come to the party after all, even though he didn’t like Halloween parties in general. The look in his eyes as he put his hands on her. The way he gave her his only helmet, risking his safety, freezing himself halfway to death to get her where she wanted to go.
And yet, he had not brought an extra helmet. He had not planned to take her anywhere that night.
The regret she felt at this told her more about her feelings than anything else could. If her uncle wanted her to follow her heart, then her heart had never loved another human being more than it had grown to love William.
When Julia returned to class with Holly two days later, William already sat at his desk, tapping his pen as usual. Immediately his eyes locked on hers.
She could not stop the almost giddy smile from spreading across her face. Reddening, she looked away and bolted straight to her chair. She smiled down at her desk top, not daring to look at him again.
At their lab table, Julia looked up at William and whispered, “Can I talk to you after class?”
His eyebrows raised. “Yeah.”
Somehow they slogged their way through the day’s lab. After class, he followed her out the door, and she said in a low voice, “Come with me to my locker.”
He followed her silently, and when they reached her locker, she opened the door and stood in front of it. It would hide her from at least half the hallway .
He stood very close to her, leaned against the lockers. “Your uncle?”
She shook her head.
He put his hand on her arm. “I’m really sorry.”
Her eyes stung ominously. She reached into her backpack, slowly shelving a book or two in her locker. After a moment, the hand on her arm nudged her, and he gathered her up. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug, blinking back tears, and pressed the side of her face against his chest. Felt the nubbly texture of his blue uniform sweater against her cheek and heard the quick pace of his own heart. Smelled the spicy, masculine scent of his soap. He rubbed her back gently with his hand, put his nose in her hair.
A teacher’s throat cleared beside them, and instinctively they pulled away from each other. Julia resumed exchanging books in her locker, and the teacher eventually moved away again.
After a moment, she said softly, “Thank you. For the other night.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Will,” she ventured, “why didn’t you bring a second helmet with you to the party?”
When it finally dawned on him what she meant, he explained, “You told me you would never ride with me again.”
Her heart pounding, she considered her options. Kissing was strictly forbidden at Catholic school. Their manner toward each other had not escaped notice; several people stared in groups, whispering. Teachers stood all around, outside their classroom doors.
To hell with it.
She slid her arm around his waist. He started a bit, then pulled her into him willingly enough. She reached up and splayed her fingers along the side of his face. Caressed his lips with her thumb. A few guys nearby wolf-called in support.
“Don’t make me enforce it,” came a voice beside them. Julia’s English teacher, a young guy in his twenties.
She let go of William, smiled impishly up at him, and she could tell he was trying not to let his own smile overtake his face too much. She finished exchanging the books in her locker, and slammed the door. Cast him one more impish look before turning to go.
He caught her by the arm and whispered, “When can I see you? ”
“Maybe after school.”
He shook his head. “I have to go straight to work.”
“At work, then.” One more coy look before dashing away. He loosened his grip just enough to let his hand travel down the length of her arm as she walked away, ending with his fingertips on hers.
She carried the phantom sensation of his fingertips all through her next class period. To her surprise, when the class ended, she found William waiting in the hallway for her.
“Come with me,” he said.
He had that wolfish look again. He took her hand and she followed him silently, unquestioningly, through the halls into a little-used corridor. Out a long-forgotten back door, into an empty alley.
He was kissing her almost before she knew what was happening. She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt his hands sliding under her sweater, against the bare skin of her waist. While his lips traveled over her face and neck, his hands strayed up her torso. He wrenched her bra up and closed his hands over her breasts.
She gave a little exhale of pleasure, and at the sound of it, he did too. He lifted up her skirt and slid his fingers between her legs. She drew her breath in a quick gasp, and he took her hand and pressed it against the crotch of his pants so she could feel his erection.
She realized that if they carried on at this pace, they were going to have sex, right there in that alley. Her instincts propelled her onward; and yet, it was far from what she had always imagined. She didn’t even know how they would accomplish it. Standing up? He was so much taller, she couldn’t imagine how that would work. Lying down on the cold pavement?
Her sister’s warning drifted through her consciousness. “It’ll probably hurt the first time. And you might bleed.”
Reluctantly, she pushed his hand away and stepped back. Unable to look him in the eye, she yanked her clothes back in place and whispered, “We can’t do this right now.”
He froze, and she dragged her eyes up to his. For the second time in less than two days, he looked as if the spell had broken.
“Not in an alley behind school,” she explained. “I really don’t want it to happen this way. ”
She flung open the door and fled back inside.
Julia kept her head down for the rest of the day, terrified of seeing William again. At work, she managed to avoid him until after the restaurant closed, when she spotted him in the break room at the lockers. She stopped short and turned to retreat, but he had already seen her.
“Julia.”
Reluctantly, she turned to face him. He came to stand in front of her and said, “Will you come outside for a minute? I just want to talk.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she moved toward the back door. He followed her outside into the alley, where no one would see them.
After an awkward silence, he said, “I’m sorry. I swear, that’s not what I had in mind when I brought you outside today.”
“It’s okay.”
“I really—” He seemed to be struggling with what to say. “I really like you. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
She gave him a bemused look. “I like you, too.”
He frowned. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant exactly the opposite. I really like you. I don’t want you to think that all I want from you is—” The word sex stuck in his throat. He peered intently at her, allowing her to fill in the blank.
She smiled. “I really like you, too. And I don’t want you to think that all I want from you is sex, either. But I also really want to have sex with you.”
He gave a short, incredulous laugh, and reached for her. Put his hand on her arm, and stroked her hair with his other hand.
He was beautiful. Stunning, actually. His blue eyes, his face, his tall lean body. His heart that never gave up on her.
She reached for his hands, took them in her own. Kissed the tops of them, each in turn. Turned them over, kissed the palms as well.
He took her face in his hands and put his lips on hers, lingering there for a long time. When at last he broke away, his face was all joy, with no trace of the anxiety that had been there moments before.
She took his hand and led him back inside to the break room. She moved silently to her locker and gathered up all her belongings. Guessing her intent, he quickly did the same. She put on her coat and gloves and followed him out the back door, past her parents, past everyone. Let him lower the spare helmet onto her head, tighten it under her chin for her. Climbed on the bike behind him. Held on tight as he roared away.
His driving was hardly less urgent than it was the last time she was on his motorcycle. When he finally parked, she got off the motorcycle and he lifted the helmet off of her head. Pulled off his own helmet and touched her tumbledown hair. Kissed her mouth repeatedly. She opened her mouth, accepted his tongue.
When he pulled away again, he had that wolfish look that she knew all too well by now. She looked around. They were in front of his house.
“Why are we here?”
He touched her face. “Come inside with me.”
Her body screamed at her to do it. He stepped closer, tilted her head back. She exhaled as he pressed kisses into first one side of her neck, then the other.
“My parents saw me leave with you,” she warned him.
“Please,” he whispered. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
She looked up at him, into his eyes. “Okay.”
He took her hand and led her right to the front door. The house was dark and he unlocked the door as quietly as possible. They tiptoed through the shadowy entrance and he led her quickly, quietly through the in-law unit to his bedroom in the back.
Somehow, she was surprised to find it precisely matched her idea of a typical teenage guy’s room. A stereo in one corner. A guitar case leaning up against one wall. Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd posters. A single twin bed, just like in her own room.
He locked the door and came to kiss her. Took her hands in his, and led her straight to the bed. Kissed her deeply now.
She began to lift his sweater. He helped her, pulled it off over his head. She reciprocated, leaving her bra on for the moment.
He spent a while touching and looking at her face, drinking it in. She was beginning to fear that he was changing his mind, when he said, “I have a condom. ”
She smiled. “Have you ever done this before?”
He shook his head.
“Me neither,” she whispered. “And I’ve been on birth control pills since the first time you took me on your motorcycle.”
His eyes widened, and she laughed softly. He pulled her onto his lap, straddling him. His mouth hovered just over hers, his breath on her lips, and she felt a tugging sensation at the clasp on the back of her bra. Felt the unmistakable sensation of it popping open.
She lifted her eyes to his and held them there, giving him permission. With a sweep of his hands, the bra tumbled down the front of her body.
She felt his breath coming faster now against her lips, and he kissed her softly. Opened her mouth with his, and kissed her with his tongue. His hands swept up the subtle ridges of her ribcage to touch her breasts, and his voice made a little inarticulate sound.
He pushed her down on the bed. Pulled off her pants and underwear and took in the sight of her naked body, lying on his bed. Shed the rest of his clothes and came to lie beside her.
After a while, she pulled him on top of her. Felt the pain her sister had warned her about.
She was grateful it was him, and not anyone else. Grateful that he didn’t try to rush things, that he didn’t make her feel bad when she asked him repeatedly to stop, to wait. That he didn’t freak out when she bled. That he still came back and wanted to try again.
He grasped her hands in his, laced his fingers through hers and looked into her eyes, watching her reaction. She pulled his face down into her hair, muffling the sound of his voice as he came.
Afterward, he lay on his stomach and she saw his caged albatross for only the second time ever. She draped herself halfway over him and ran her hand across it, looking.
He said, “You know what I was trying to say earlier, behind the restaurant.”
“What?”
He lifted his head, looked into her eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
He rolled over, nuzzled her hair. “What did I do? ”
“How’s that?”
“When did you decide you loved me?”
“I always liked you, from the very beginning. But I think I really fell for you around the time you thought to take me on your uncle’s boat for my birthday.”
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I always liked you, too. But you had me from your conversion to Islam.”
They both laughed, remembering. Julia said, “If only I had known how easy it was to turn you on. Just tell you all the details about me that send rational guys fleeing for their lives.”
“I’m going with you.”
“What?”
“To Santa Barbara.”
She propped herself up against him to look in his face. “You’ll get a scholarship somewhere. You can’t give that up.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, except I want to be with you.”
“We can still be together, even if we go to different schools.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe in long-distance relationships. You’ll forget about me.”
“I could never forget about you.” She kissed him. “Don’t make any decisions right now. Especially since I haven’t even been accepted yet to UCSB.”
“You will be.”
“Let’s see how you feel after next summer.”
He looked uneasy, but let her reassure him with her kisses.
After a while, he said, “Are you ready to face the music?”
“What music?”
“Your dad.”
Her stomach churned at the prospect. “You’d better not come with me.”
“There’s no way I’d let you walk all the way home by yourself at this time of night.”
“Then you’d better pray he’s not waiting on the front step when we get there.”
“I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of. ”
“He doesn’t share your liberal sensibilities.”
She stayed with him as long as she dared, and then let him walk her the three blocks home. He stopped her in front of a neighbor’s house, in case anyone was watching out her window, and kissed her goodnight.
“When can we do this again?” he whispered.
“Pretty much anytime, at my house. My parents don’t get home until eleven at night, at the earliest. The only person who’s ever home is Alison, and she’ll leave us alone.”
He looked skeptical at the idea, but kissed her goodnight once more.
After he left, Julia tiptoed into the house and upstairs, dreading what waited for her there. But to her surprise, though the lights were on in the living room, her parents had gone to bed. At least she thought they had. She heard no noise emanating from their bedroom – not even their snoring.
Julia sought refuge in her own room, and switched on the aquarium light after shutting her door.
“It’ll probably hurt the first time,” Alison had said. Understatement of the year. Though he had been as gentle as possible, Julia felt torn open, shredded. She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of her bed and sat gazing at her fish for a long time, turning her uncle’s watermelon tourmaline over and over in her hand. After a while, she heard a tap on the door.
“Julie,” Alison whispered from the other side.
“Come in.”
Alison came in and closed the door after her. She came to sit beside Julia on the edge of the bed, and put her arm around Julia’s shoulders. The eyes she turned on Julia were serious, for once. Julia grasped the hand on her shoulder, and they gazed in silence at the aquarium.
The day before Thanksgiving, Julia walked the pier to Cardone’s to pick up the daily order for the restaurant, tugging the hood of her raincoat to shield her face from the cold rain beginning to fall. She slowed to watch the deckhands tie a boat to the pile with their load of Dungeness crab on board .
The fisherman disembarked, climbing the ladder onto the pier to operate the hoist. The two deckhands hooked their totes of crab to the hoist, which lifted it onto the pier. They all wore head-to-toe yellow foul weather gear, obscuring their faces. One of the deckhands turned to face her, and finally Julia recognized him.
She waved to William and picked up her pace. He climbed the ladder to the pier to join her.
“I didn’t know you were going out on your uncle’s boat today,” she said.
He gestured to the nearest tote, alive with wriggling crab. “Does your family do crab for Thanksgiving?”
“Oh yes. Some years we don’t even bother with the turkey.”
“Wait here,” he said, and disappeared into the plant. When he emerged, he added a bucket of water to the bottom of her cart. Then he reached into the large tote of crab, pulled one out, and held it up for her to see.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said, dropping the crab into her bucket. To that he added three more, one for each member of her family.
“Why don’t you add one more for yourself?” she suggested.
“What?”
“Come over for Thanksgiving tomorrow.”
His eyebrows raised. “Is this with your parents’ blessing?”
“It will be.”
He shrugged. “Go ahead and ask them. Let me know.”
She returned with her cartload of crab to the restaurant and wheeled it into the office to show her parents.
“What’s that for?” her mother asked.
“This is for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow,” replied Julia. “William figured it was the least he could do, in exchange for being one of the party.”
Julia’s father turned to peer sharply at her over the rim of his glasses. “Are you telling me that William is coming to our house tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner?”
Julia nodded.
Her father turned to his wife. “Did you know about this?”
Her mother hesitated. “Yes,” she lied .
Julia’s father turned away from them, clearly finished with the conversation. Julia smiled privately to herself, then caught her mother’s eye and shared it with her.
Later that evening, her mother came to the hostess’ station and touched Julia on the shoulder.
“Your father would never admit this,” she whispered, “but he’s always liked William a lot. So you can tell William to relax now.”
After the semester ended, William did something unprecedented and requested an entire week of winter break off of work. Julia followed suit, and they had the whole week to spend together.
One morning, Julia propped herself up in his bed and looked at him. “Every time I come here, that guitar case is sitting in the same spot against the wall, looking all shut up and forlorn.”
“Oh, no you don’t.”
“Oh, yes I do. Can you play it?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
He laughed a bit. “Mike taught himself to play when we were kids, and then he taught me. We used to think we were going to have a band one day, Mike and me. Actually, come to think of it, I think that was mostly Mike’s dream.”
“Well, I can’t picture you as a rock star. But I can picture you playing it for me.”
He shook his head. “I want to get you back in my bed again someday.”
She sat upright. “Oh, see, you have it all wrong. You won’t get me back in this bed again if you don’t play for me.”
“You are a vicious tyrant.” But he grinned and got out of bed to retrieve the guitar. He spent a few minutes tuning it, then began strumming. A Pink Floyd tune emerged.
“You forget, your brother told me all your secrets,” interrupted Julia. “I know you can sing. ”
He put his hand on the strings. “Oh no, I only agreed to play.”
“You have nothing in writing.”
He shook his head. “Please don’t make me.”
She grabbed his hand. “I have a confession to make. I’m getting back in your bed again, no matter what you sound like.”
He grinned and began strumming the guitar again. Played the intro to Wish You Were Here. Paused just before he was about to start singing, reddened and laughed nervously. Started over again, and sang.
He was nervous to be sure, and his voice cracked a bit in the beginning. He avoided her eyes throughout, looked down at the guitar or across at the wall. But after a while, his voice gained strength, he played competently, and in short, Mike had been right. He had a very nice voice.
When he finished, he lifted his eyes to hers with a little smile. Her own bright smile, applause and cheers were sincere.
“Now I know the real reason you’re such a Pink Floyd fan. You sound just like what’s-his-name, minus the British accent.”
“Don’t insult him.”
“Your modesty and hero worship are cute. But why such a sad song?”
“It’s a beautiful song. Rips my heart out more than almost anything else I’ve ever heard.”
“Exactly. I demand cheering up after that.”
He put the guitar back in its case. “I’ll have to find some other way to cheer you up, then.”
“Oh, promises, promises,” she said as he came to lie next to her.
He draped himself halfway over her and held her face in his hands, inches away from his own.
“How do you do this?” he said.
“Do what?”
“Make me wonder why I would ever want to be sad in the first place. Make me feel more like my own self than I have in years.”
“In years? You’re eighteen and a half, old man.” She brushed the hair back off of his forehead. “Just be yourself. You don’t need me or anyone else to give you permission. ”
He poked her in the shoulder. “Let’s go get breakfast. There’s somewhere I want to take you after that.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
They got dressed and went to eat at the 46 th Avenue diner. Afterward, he drove her to a residential area of the Inner Sunset and parked.
“This is obviously not where I was planning to take you,” he said. “But it’s not far away from here, if you want to walk.”
“How far?”
“Just over there,” he said, pointing up a hill. “I think you’ll like it.”
“Okay.”
He led her to a large hill with a long set of stairs ascending it. He took her hand, and together they climbed the stairs to the top of the hill. He helped her gingerly down a narrow path and across treacherous, uneven ground scattered with tree roots and rocks.
Finally, he tapped her on the shoulder and pointed.
“Look.”
She caught her breath in a gasp. It was a clear winter morning, and the city spread out before them, with downtown to their right, Golden Gate Park and the bridge in front of them, and the Pacific Ocean to their left. He led her to a bench to sit beside him. There was nobody else there, no one else crazy enough to brave that spot at that time. It was cold and windy, but it was beautiful.
He pulled her close beside him and put his arm around her shoulders to keep her warm. “I didn’t just bring you up here to show you the view and freeze your ass off. I wanted to give you a Christmas present. But I’m warning you, please don’t get too excited.”
“You can’t give it to me now,” she protested. “I don’t have your present here with me.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a box that was too big to be a ring box. He opened it, and held up a silver chain with a pendant on it.
“This is lame, I know, but it’s just a promise,” he said, fastening the chain around her neck. “I promise I’ll never stop loving you, no matter what. ”
She lifted the pendant to take a closer look, and smiled. “A mermaid. Now why on earth would that make you think of me?”
He squeezed her around the shoulders. “I’ll never forget that night as long as I live. I was so in love with you, and when I saw you, I really thought I could have died a happy man, right then and there.”
Her chest flooded with a familiar warmth. She laced her fingers through his and kissed him.
“You make me so happy,” she whispered.
“Good,” he said, touching the pendant. “Wear it as long as you still feel that way.”
She wrapped him in her arms. Held him there for a long time, the world spread out before them.
January, February, and March flew by in a frenzy of work and school. On their rare days off together, Julia and William explored the city and beyond on his motorcycle, finding every scenic point and secluded spot along the way. Julia ate dinner with him and his family at their house, or brought him to dinner at her grandmother’s.
One day in late March, Julia put her hand on William’s arm as he cleaned his station at the end of a busy shift at the restaurant.
“I got the fat packet,” she said.
He looked up without pausing from his work. “What?”
“The fat packet. From UCSB. I got it.”
He wiped his hands on a towel and wrapped her in a hug.
“Of course you did. Congratulations.”
She pulled away from him, held him by the arms and beamed up at him. After a moment, he took her by the hand and led her out the back door and onto the pier. Turned her face up to his. Put his hand in her hair on the nape of her neck, and kissed her.
Afterward, he rested his forehead on hers and just looked into her eyes. She listened to the sound of his breath as he caressed her hands and fingers with his.
“Shouldn’t you have heard back from USF by now?” she murmured after a while .
Silence. He brushed the hair back away from her face, and her heart sank for him.