Chapter Fourteen #2
“Terrible,” she said. “They’re blaming it on him.”
“Grandfather says he was speeding.”
“Only for a few seconds, maybe, trying to get by a bad driver. Now they want to charge him with manslaughter.”
“You mean the person died?”
“They just want to make money,” she said.
“By dying?” I walked past her to the office.
Daddy’s desk was a mess, papers pushed over each other. I realized how many calls he hadn’t made. I organized it and began. Mrs. Hegal stood in the doorway.
“When I finish one call, put through the next,” I told her.
“How would you know what to do?” she asked.
“I passed kindergarten,” I said, and began my first call.
Grandfather called an hour or so later. “I’ve gotten the manslaughter charge dropped,” he said. “But it cost quite a bit. When he finds out, he’ll carry on, but he doesn’t know how lucky he is. He killed the son of one of the oldest families here, the Shanes.”
“Oh.”
“There’s surely somebody in that family you know from school. How is it going there?”
“Daddy left ten accounts on hold. Just finished.”
“Knew you would. I told him to take a vacation until things die down a bit. You don’t have to cover. I’ll be there.”
“Okay, Grandfather.”
By the time I got to the Crest, Daddy had come and gone, slamming doors and cursing aloud. Anna said she had just stayed out of his way. Jamie called to see how I was. We talked just like old times, trying to cheer each other up. I felt better when we hung up.
The news spread fast to Bar Harbor. Kyle called an hour later. But it was a different conversation. It was all about how he would cheer me up and get me to forget.
“Can’t have anything messing up our beauty,” he said.
He said the gallery was busy and he would have to move his arrival at the Crest another two days forward. He said he had already informed my grandfather and promised not to disappoint him.
I smiled. Grandfather? “What about disappointing me?”
He laughed and promised he wouldn’t. I then thought about something that would be a lot of fun.
“Can I pick you up in a Baxter company boat at the pier where you took me sailing? About nine thirty?”
“Sure.”
“See you then,” I said, and began to plan how I would sail myself to Bar Harbor that day.
When my grandfather came home, he looked exhausted.
“Lawyers,” he said. “When they see a good fish, they go after him. No worries, Lisa. All will be well. Everyone was impressed with you at the office.”
“I’m glad, Grandfather. It makes me feel…”
“Like your mother is still here.”
“Yes!”
“It’s the way I feel, too,” Grandfather said. “People like her never die. They live on in us.”
“Yes,” I said.
He walked away, looking older, sadder even. Could you cry on the inside and not shed tears on the outside?
All night, I thought and dreamed about my surprise sailing.
I practiced continually with Arthur during the days I waited for Kyle.
Arthur finally approved my solo sailings and told Grandfather.
I took the boat farther out than I had imagined I would.
With this kind of perfect weather, I felt safe.
I had thought I would always fear the sea because of what had happened to Mommy and Jamie, but in a strange way I took joy in overcoming that fear—strange because it became so important, even though my real love was art.
This was more like putting a life’s importance on recreation, but also the sea inspired.
While I was sailing, I was imagining paintings I could do.
Just before every solo sailing, I thought about inviting Jamie, but then I thought that it might be tormenting to him, and I didn’t want to have him hurt any more.
The morning I set out for Bar Harbor was extremely beautiful, with a calm sea. I brought along a bottle of good champagne and glasses, knowing Kyle would like to celebrate the surprise. I didn’t know he would have his own way to do that. I should have expected it.
The wind couldn’t get me there fast enough, but I arrived a good five minutes or so faster than the time it usually took.
As I drew close to the pier, I saw him looking out and not yet realizing it was me.
How fun that was. He looked like he was pacing, and then finally he realized it was me.
He burst into a smile of surprise and delight.
It filled me with a new sense of power. Look what I could do—me, who had had to be careful not to exert myself too much going up a hill or get too excited at things others my age could enjoy without any worry or restriction!
This really was the start of a new life.
“You amaze me every time I see you,” he said as I reached the port, and he took my line so as to be able to board. “Never thought you’d get here this fast.”
“Lot of time to make up,” I said after he hugged and kissed me.
He got into the boat, and the man on the pier threw the rope to us. In moments, we were on the way to Birdlane. I showed him the champagne.
“Wonderful idea, even this early, and I have one, too. Head for that inlet we found.”
I knew exactly what he intended, and it sent a chill of excitement through my body.
When we got there, we opened the champagne and reclined in the boat beside each other.
He talked about some of the visitors to the gallery, sharing his stories and feelings about it as if we were already a married couple.
I felt so comfortable that when he kissed me, I seemed to settle into my own body like I would into a warm bath.
In moments, he was caressing me and running his lips over and down my neck.
I leaned farther back, and our clothes seemed to fly off us.
At one point, the boat rocked so hard we both laughed. Afterward, we lingered for a while, both of us breathing hard but happily. Realizing the time, I rose and said, “We should get back. I don’t want Grandfather to worry.”
“Grandfather? What about Daddy?”
“He’s in hiding, and besides, I don’t think he would worry much.”
He laughed but said he understood.
Arthur was waiting for us at the dock and helped tie up the boat and helped us out.
We got into my car, me driving this time, and headed to the Crest. I noticed that Anna saw us and disappeared, surely to call Grandfather.
Kyle went to get his work, and I changed into a more conservative outfit to go to Daddy’s office. Kyle was outside when I headed off.
“See you later,” I said.
“Oh. I forgot to mention I made dinner reservations for us at the Sea Breeze at the dock.”
“You did? When?”
“Last night. Don’t worry, Anna knows.”
We kissed, and I left for work, smiling to myself and playing my radio too loud. I felt like I was lifting off from the earth and flying ahead. Grandfather and I did some of the work together. I couldn’t wait to get back to the Crest to dress for dinner. I wanted to do something special.
I told Grandfather, who just nodded. Why did he have such faith in me? I wondered, and before I left, I asked him.
“Because you’ve never behaved like a silly teenager. I think of you as a woman already well into her twenties, at least.”
Was that good or bad? I wondered. Shouldn’t I regret growing up too fast? No time to think of it now.
I did dress specially, choosing another of my mother’s favorite dresses, a green taffeta and black velvet with puffed sleeves.
After I fixed my hair and put on some light makeup, I looked into the full-length mirror and for a moment saw my mother looking back at me.
If I could only hear her voice, hear her advice. Kyle knocked on my door.
He was wearing a black blazer with a gray turtleneck. He had never looked more like a movie star.
“How beautiful you are,” he said.
“My mother’s dress.”
“I can see why people say you inherited the best of her.”
He took my hand, and we started out. Anna waited for us at the door. She pressed her hands together and smiled.
“I love when you dress up,” she said. “You know why.”
“Thank you, Anna. Where’s Grandfather?”
“He’s resting. Takes a while to get over dramatic things when you’re his age.”
“Sometimes any age,” Kyle said.
She nodded. “You’re a very handsome man,” she told him.
“Thank you. I work on it. We’re all pieces of art.”
She laughed, and we headed out. He drove down the hill to the Birdlane pier. It was a perfect night to have dinner near the ocean, and he had reserved the best table, looking out on the breakers and the lights on the horizon from the ships passing.
At dinner, Kyle talked more about his youth and the trials and tribulations he’d had with his father.
It was like he was peeling back the layers of his life for me to know him more and more deeply.
It felt like the kind of dinner conversation that tied two people closer to each other, as if they knew the future was waiting for them.
The restaurant was filled mostly with tourists, but I recognized a few local people who were looking at us and whispering. The only real reason I hated that they gossiped about me was that it would reach Jamie.
“So,” I said, “that is all why you ran away from home at sixteen?”
“Sure is.”
“You weren’t afraid to be on your own?”
“Are you?”
“I was, but… not now, not that I want to leave Grandfather.”
He laughed. “I have little doubt you can be on your own now. I never saw you as a teenager.”
“I never had a chance to be, but I don’t seem to regret it anymore.”
We had a wonderful dinner, and when we drove home, I leaned against him and clung to his arm.
When we arrived, he surprised me again. He had made a reservation at the Bird’s Haven Café almost all the way across the island.
If every time he was here I could look forward to these romantic nights, I couldn’t see not really falling in love with him, especially if I believed he was really falling in love with me.
Both of us went to work in the morning. The difference this time was he kissed me goodbye and said he was afraid he would lose his concentration on his painting thinking about me too much.