Chapter Ten #2
So often, my mother told me how pretty I was, and other people did, too, but in the back of my mind was the idea that they were saying this so I wouldn’t feel as bad about my heart issue.
We used to joke about some of the boys in our class who primped their hair and had nervous breakdowns over a pimple here and there.
But so many times I studied my face in mirrors and wondered, Am I really so pretty?
Do I really look so much like my mother?
Despite his moods and attitudes, Daddy was a very good-looking man.
My hope was that this feeling of being offered compensation, flattery to help me accept my physical condition, was soon to be gone.
That would truly lift another weight from my shoulders.
It was with all that in mind that I awoke the morning of my appointment in Bar Harbor with Dr. Knox.
I thought about my tests and the final evaluation but was quite distracted by my hope to have lunch with Kyle.
It was almost as if I wanted to learn as much about myself when it came to such a date as I did about him.
I wasn’t quite eighteen. How would I handle a man as accomplished and as worldly and experienced as Kyle Wyman?
And would I recognize what he truly wanted from me?
Daddy showed up just as Judy had put together everything I needed for the short boat trip.
“Morning, Daddy,” I said.
He grunted something that gave me the feeling Grandfather was making him come. To him, it was probably just another exam.
“Your grandfather tells me you might stay in Bar Harbor for lunch with this artist.”
“Yes, maybe.”
Why did he sound so displeased?
“You didn’t ask me if you could,” he said.
For a moment, I was surprised. Did he suddenly really care?
“I’m only going to lunch.”
“Yeah, well, women are too emotional to make the right decisions when it comes to the important ones. Becomin’ eighteen isn’t goin’ to change that.”
“I think it will. You won’t have to worry about approving. Think of the burden I’ll be taking off your shoulders, with all you have to worry about as it is.”
He stared at me a moment. Did he miss the irony, or did it make him too angry to speak?
“Whatever,” he said.
“Let’s go,” I heard Grandfather call.
“The mastermind speaks,” Daddy said, and started out. Judy and I followed.
Could there be a day more important to me? I wondered. Nothing else, not my upcoming eighteenth birthday, not my high school graduation, came even close. Leaving the house, I finally felt a little trembling of concern.
The sea was as calm as I had ever seen it, and the sky with its powdery clouds here and there made it what people in Maine called a “wicked good” day.
But I wasn’t thinking that much about the weather.
As the breeze combed through my hair, I continued thinking about my exam.
It was a key put in a lock. Would it open my life or just not turn?
This exam was truly the seal of approval.
Daddy and Grandfather were up front arguing about something in the business, for sure.
I couldn’t hear them, but Daddy was stabbing the air while Grandfather just stared ahead.
Suddenly, Grandfather turned to me, clenched his fists, and shook them.
Daddy stared as though he had just realized I was on the boat.
I didn’t really get very nervous until we got into the limo at the Bar Harbor pier.
I was taking short breaths until Grandfather pressed my hand and smiled.
Everyone was pleasant and optimistic-looking as they took me through the blood tests, X-rays, and other exams. I barely spoke.
Grandfather and Daddy remained in the lobby, but from what I understood, Daddy spent most of his time on the doctor’s phone, arguing with a fisherman’s company. Finally, Dr. Knox arrived in my room.
“Our prognosis has been one hundred percent confirmed. I want you to finish the antibiotics you have, and after that do nothing more for an issue that is gone. The only restriction is never to be unhappy,” he said, smiling.
Grandfather stepped up. “How do you feel?” he asked. Daddy appeared at his side.
“Funny, like if I take the weight of this blanket off me, I’ll float up to the ceiling.”
Grandfather laughed.
“Women,” Daddy said. “Who else can make sense of that? Well, then, I’m off to see Branden.”
“If you lose us that fisherman, you go back to fishing to make up for it,” Grandfather threatened.
Daddy smirked and walked off.
“Branden?” I said. “That’s one of our most reliable accounts, over ten years.”
“Right. Your father thinks nickel-and-diming them helps our business. Forget that for now. Someone is waiting for you in the lobby.”
“Oh, my gosh, Kyle,” I said. I had been concentrating so hard on my exam that I had forgotten his invitation. “I’ll get dressed.”
“I suggested and then made a reservation for you two at Erik’s Viking. It has that semicircular window view of the bay,” he said.
“Then you approve of him, Grandfather, even though he’s that much older?”
“It’s not the age. I believe you are very mature and a very intelligent young lady. I’m not worried about you and your decisions. Your mother brought you up. Now it’s time for you to be in charge of your own social life.”
“Thank you, Grandfather,” I said with teary eyes. I hugged him.
As soon as I was dressed and had brushed my hair, I went to the lobby, almost as excited about this as I had been about the news the doctor had given me.
Kyle stood there smiling and holding a half dozen red roses. He looked even more handsome in his light blue leather jacket, tight jeans, and white loafers. He stepped forward quickly.
“Your father came out mumbling something about ‘she’s fine’ and ‘all yours.’ We didn’t even get properly introduced. How did it go? How do you feel?”
“It went well, Kyle. I have the final green light to live my life. It’s a different feeling, something so new and yet something I expected, like…”
“Putting on your first bra.”
“What?”
He laughed. “Something my younger sister always says. She even says it now when she feels something special.”
“You never mentioned a younger sister. Now that I think of it, you’ve hardly told me anything about your life.”
“We haven’t been alone that long.”
“True.”
“I will now,” he said. “Let’s go have lunch and celebrate.”
He handed me the flowers, kissed my cheek, and took my arm. He directed me toward a red sports car, top down, with the steering wheel on the English driving side.
“What is this?” I asked.
“My favorite car, a 1954 MG.”
“English, but why have an English car here?”
“I got it in a trade with an English man who’s a member of Parliament. And I love driving it, here or anywhere.”
“Car? In a trade?”
“He really wanted one of my paintings of the English countryside where he lived. I was there for most of one year. We negotiated for a while, and I finally just asked for the car. To him, it wasn’t that important. He would get another in a minute.”
“You’ve lived in England, too?”
He laughed and started the car. “And in Japan, and in Australia.”
“You’ve been to all those places?”
“I lift my paintbrush into the air, and wherever it falls, I go. My passport book is stamped full. I’d love to paint on the moon.”
I laughed as he took off, whipping me back a bit as the wind combed through my hair. I screamed, and he laughed, waving his arm.
“More of this from now on, huh?” he said.
By “this,” he meant just living on impulse, something I was terrified of doing.
“Yes,” I said. I almost had to shout.
He whipped around a turn and pulled up in front of Erik’s as if he had been there many times.
“Yeah, this is the view,” he said, and came around to open my door, something no one else but Grandfather’s driver would do.
He took my arm, and we entered the restaurant. Erik was there to greet us. He had very long licorice-black hair and was at least six foot three or four and wore a traditional Viking warrior outfit with the short pants and leggings.
“Hei,” Kyle said to him.
He smiled broadly. “How much Norwegian do you speak?”
“That’s about it, and Hvor er badet?”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“ ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ ” Erik said, and led us to the table with the best view.
It wasn’t until we were seated and had been handed menus that I realized I hadn’t called Jamie. Kyle was describing his times in Norway. He could see I wasn’t listening.
“Something wrong?”
“I forgot to call someone who is probably waiting for me to call.”
“Oh. Well, just go call. I see a phone at the end of the bar.”
I looked at it. What would I say? I went to the phone and called Jamie. He picked up before the line finished ringing.
“What happened?” he asked before I could speak.
“Sorry I took so long to call. It all went well. I’m cleared to… to be normal,” I said. “Just routine checkups. Not much different from anyone else.”
“That’s so great. Are you home? We’ll find a way to celebrate.”
“No, I’m in Bar Harbor having lunch.”
“Oh. With who?”
I paused. There were so many reasons not to do what I was about to do and so many to do it.
“Grandfather,” I said. “He’s done so much for me.”
He was quiet. “Okay. See you on Birdlane,” he quickly added, and hung up before I could say goodbye.
He knew I was lying. Jamie and I never lied to each other. I stood there holding the phone, feeling really bad. I saw Kyle staring at me and took a deep breath before hanging up.
“Everything all right?” Kyle asked when I returned.
Instinctively, I wanted to hide my relationship with Jamie.
“Yes. No,” I said.
He smiled. “Did you lie to someone to protect him or yourself?”
“Maybe both.”
He laughed. “Truth is the most slippery thing to hold,” he said.
The waiter approached with a small bottle of champagne. And two glasses! As soon as he walked away, I leaned over.
“I’m not quite eighteen, and besides, they raised the drinking age to twenty-one,” I whispered.
He leaned in toward me, our lips inches apart, and whispered, “Erik said if my glass spills into yours, it’s no problem. And what’s a celebration without a little champagne?”
Looking into his eyes so closely put an excited chill through me. When he put his hand over mine, I held my breath a moment. He smiled, I thought because he saw my reaction, and then sat back.
“Everything is different for you now, Lisa. The chains are off. You can be the young lady you were meant to be. My advice is carpe diem. It’s how I’ve lived.”
“ ‘Seize the day.’ ”
“Yes, don’t get weighted down or concerned about the long-term meaning of everything. A beautiful wave is a beautiful wave. It’ll come again and again. Don’t just discard it.”
He sat back, and we ordered sandwiches.
“Tell me about your sister,” I said.
“Oh, not much to tell. She fell in love about an hour after she was eighteen, was pregnant two months before she married, and—surprise—had another baby ten months after the first one, a boy and then a girl. She had intended to go to college and become an English teacher. Her husband scrounges out a living as a bartender. In her case, she took carpe diem too literally.”
“Meaning?”
“She was promiscuous at sixteen and pregnant at eighteen.”
“You never said her name.”
“Oh, didn’t I? Pauline. My father was hoping for a Paul, not that he was any better with boys.”
“Where do they live?”
“Some small town near Baltimore. I see them occasionally.”
“Do you think it’s harder to be a successful woman or man?”
He smiled. “Here?”
“Anywhere.”
“With the exception of Cleopatra, being a man is easier anywhere,” he said. “Wow, you are like someone just born, someone who just arrived on planet Earth.”
“Feels like it.”
He laughed, and we ate as he told me more about his world travels. Then he paused and stared at me hard.
“What?”
“I think you already know that I believe there is such a thing as intrinsic beauty. It’s why I don’t paint anything anywhere just because I’m offered a big fee.
You have the look of a newborn baby, fresh and pure.
Most girls your age would be insulted. They want to be thought of as experienced and sophisticated.
You have a great natural quality. Don’t let anyone tell you different. ”
He put his hand over mine and closed his fingers just enough to highlight the excitement I felt being with him.
Other older men had looked at me, and I could see them eyeing me for some fantasy.
But as soon as they knew who I was and what was wrong with me, they quickly turned away.
Most girls my age would giggle and flirt.
Maybe Kyle saw the maturity in me. Maybe it was a maturity I’d had to develop.
In so many ways, I did feel like I had skipped my childhood.
“No one has said otherwise,” I said.
He laughed and sat back. “You mean no one has dared.”
I laughed.
“For a woman your age, you have quite a strong personality. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were already in college. You have a strong sense of responsibility. It’s easy to see.”
Where is this going, these compliments? I wondered. And did I have any control over it anyway?