Chapter Thirteen #2
I put on my favorite blouse and skirt. The colors blended in a way that felt right: not too bold or plain, just enough to make me feel like myself.
I found some comfortable slip-ons and tied my favorite scarf around my neck, letting it drape gently.
I kept my makeup simple, a touch of color to brighten my face, and I wore no jewelry.
Somehow the absence of it felt better, lighter.
Kyle was already outside when I appeared after telling Anna where I’d be.
She nodded but didn’t smile. Worrying about my grandfather, I thought.
“Great night,” Kyle said. There were hardly any clouds now, and the breeze was soft.
“Special weather for Birdlane,” I said.
“I ordered it for tonight.”
I laughed. He sounded like he really could have.
We got into my car, with him driving. He had such a great profile, I thought, and he had such sensible control of things.
I was never as conscious of ascending and descending the hill as I was after meeting him.
I didn’t want to feel like some fantasy princess, but it was the way he made me feel, so special.
Truthfully, I never felt like a teenager.
I had to grow up faster than others; I was in a race against time, and now, being with him, someone with so much experience, I was more of a young woman than a mere eighteen-year-old.
He saw someone older from the start. Otherwise, why would he want so much to be with me?
I couldn’t imagine any of my girlfriends at school knowing how to go out with a man like Kyle. They’d be giggling and oohing and aahing. I was sure he’d be doing something bad. Never once did he give me that feeling.
When we stepped onto the pier, the man in charge of the boat hurried toward us.
“Your dinners are in the warmer; the champagne is on ice. Anything else?”
“No, that’s good, Tony. Thanks.”
I saw Kyle slip him a fifty-dollar bill. He helped us get into the boat. Kyle pulled the accelerator lever back hard, and we shot off away from the pier area so fast that I fell back in my seat. He laughed and asked if I was all right.
“I think so,” I said. “I have to catch my breath soon.”
He slowed down and started us in a wide circle. He slowed down even more and went to the warmer.
“It all looks good. Let’s get the music going and set the table as soon as I anchor.
I thought in the cove there.” He pointed.
It was the cove right below the Crest. Jamie and I had often gone there, mostly exploring.
We’d walk down from the Crest when no one was watching and find shiny rocks and stones.
It was a safe path, but still an incline, and Jamie would always be nervous about it.
As always, I’d threaten to go without him, and he’d be forced to come along.
Our lobster dinner was delicious, and I drank more champagne than I ever had. Kyle lay back on his arms and stared up at the sky.
“It’s when I do this,” he said, “that I feel the immensity of the universe and how small we really are. Diminishes your ego.”
“Yours? Why do I doubt it?”
He laughed. “I’ve never met a young woman so uninhibited. I knew some married women who were pretty independent.”
“You had affairs with them?”
He laughed again. “Let’s say they had affairs with me. I don’t look for trouble. Interferes with my work.” He patted the space beside him. “Look at the stars,” he said.
I lay beside him. We were silent.
“You live in a special place,” he said. “And you know I’ve been around.”
“Yes. My art teacher told me he never appreciated Birdlane until he left.”
“Must be something to do with us artists,” he said, and turned on his side, bracing himself on one elbow to look down at me. His smile was so attractive, his eyes so mesmerizing, that I felt comfortable being so close.
“You have the eyes,” he said, as if he could read my mind, or else he was used to women telling him how beautiful his were.
He reached back for our two glasses of champagne and handed me mine.
“What should we toast to?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I mean…”
“Let’s just toast to the stars.”
We clinked glasses and drank. Then he leaned down and kissed me. My mind reeled with visions of passion. I felt his fingers undoing my clothing. I liked the feeling of being helpless.
“We’ll be careful,” he whispered, and in moments, it seemed, we were both naked. He gently moved my legs and brought himself to me, hesitating slightly, perhaps to see if I would resist.
I didn’t.
The stars seemed to get bigger and brighter, filling the sky with an astonishing brilliance.
I felt their warmth as if they were exploding inside me.
When our lovemaking ended, I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, letting the night settle around me.
Kyle lay on his back beside me, his body warm against mine. We were quiet for quite a while.
“Funny,” he finally said, “but I feel the same way when I finish a work of art.”
“Am I a work of art?”
“Yes, but I can’t claim you,” he replied, and then he smiled and started to dress.
I rose slowly. What did this mean? I wondered. Was it a confirmation of love or just a sexual incident—one of many, I was convinced, for him? He surely realized what it was for me.
“Your father definitely has a girlfriend,” he said after he started the engine.
“How do you know?”
“I saw them in a sailboat going around the curve ahead. Do you want to see them?”
“No,” I said quickly.
“She could become your stepmother.”
“She’ll never be anything to me.”
He laughed and turned to the pier. “I saw you haven’t hung your birthday present yet.”
“I’m not sure where to hang it. I was going to put it in my room, but I thought not many would see it.” What I really meant was that as soon as Jamie saw it, he would know everything.
“Maybe the den,” Kyle suggested.
“Yes,” I said. “Maybe.”
I didn’t know what I expected Kyle to say about our lovemaking. It was almost as if it hadn’t happened. Was it so matter-of-fact to him? But as we approached the pier, he said, “We just made this into a perfect night.”
Was that enough? How I wished I had more experience; I felt at a disadvantage, something I wouldn’t feel with Jamie. Maybe Jamie put too much importance on it? Was I different now? Had I changed? Would anyone be able to look at me and know? Maybe I put too much importance on it.
The boat man met us at the dock and helped me out first. He and Kyle secured the boat.
“How was it?” he asked Kyle.
I looked at him.
“Wonderful,” he said.
Everyone was asleep when we arrived at the Crest. Kyle kissed me in my doorway and said, “You do make it a perfect night. Sleep well.”
I watched him walk off and then decided to look in on Grandfather. He was asleep, and sitting beside him, asleep as well, was Anna. I didn’t think she was merely a dedicated servant; I thought for sure she was in love with him.
Kyle left early in the morning because he had an early tour at the gallery. He left a note under my door: See you soon.
The next day, my guilt over Jamie was too strong. I could at least talk to him, I thought. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be my lover, but he was my best friend.
His mother answered.
“Hi, Mrs. Fuller. It’s Lisa.”
“Oh, how are you?”
“I’m good. Is Jamie home?”
“No. He’s going to be a few days late, maybe three. Their car broke down, and the garage had to send out for the parts. That takes a day or so, and there’s a day or so to get it fixed.”
“Oh. How terrible for them. Did you tell him I stopped by?”
“Yes, and I told him about your car.”
“What did he say?”
She hesitated. I could almost hear her take a deep breath. “He just said, ‘That’s nice.’ ”
“Well, if he calls, just tell him I called.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Thank you,” I said, and hung up.
I knew in my heart that Jamie had sensed everything.
We were too close to miss each other’s emotional changes.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about Kyle.
No question that he had turned me into a mainland girl almost overnight.
But it was like putting on a new pair of shoes.
You had to get used to it, and the question was, would I?
Before I left for school, I realized that Jamie would not be here for my graduation.
We had always talked about seeing each other graduate.
Today we were going through how to conduct the ceremony, so I had to go, but I was increasingly depressed about it.
I stopped on my way out and down the hill and got out of the car.
There was a spot on the side where my mother and I would stand sometimes to look out at the village and the sea. Sometimes we would just remark about how beautiful it was, but sometimes my mother would bring up a serious concern, usually offering advice she wanted me to carry into my adulthood.
When I was troubled, standing here brought her back to me. “You’re moving too fast,” I could hear her say. “Don’t let your ego overtake your judgment. Birds should feel like gods flying and looking down at us, but they are always careful.”
I stood there watching the gulls for a moment, imagining myself soaring with them.
The warm spring air brought the scent of seawater up to me.
Big cities like the places Kyle had been—Paris, Rome—didn’t have this natural world that made you feel a part of it.
The less you were surrounded by man-made structures—buildings, bridges, roads—the more free you felt.
The lights, the sounds, enveloped you. I could sense that just from the city part of Bar Harbor.
Could I just stop being a Birdie? Could a gull stop being a gull?
“You’re thinking too hard about it all,” my mother would say. “Those questions are part of growing up. Even a ninety-year-old man or woman is still searching for answers.”
Mommy had a way of relaxing me, even just when I thought about her.
I took a deep breath as the spring air brought the scent of the seawater up to the Crest. When I arrived at school, I learned that I had been given the English award and the math award.
I knew some of the students believed it was because of my family.
I called Daddy, who was too busy to pick up, but I reached Grandfather and told him.
He was very excited for me and said he had expected no less, especially in math.
When I returned to the Crest, Anna congratulated me.
Grandfather had already told her. But she also said there was a phone message left on my answering machine.
I paused before I headed to it. Did I want it to be Jamie or Kyle?
The fact that I even questioned it put all sorts of doubts in my mind.
I went to my room and pushed the playback button.