On Little Wings (26 page)
Again, a voluntary mention. My heartbeats hastened. “What did he do?”
“Nothing. I just met him while I was acting and I wanted to make a clean break when he left. I also had to make a real living when I lost my parents. No one was there to catch me if my Broadway career didn’t pan out.” She laughed at herself, mocking the idea of her success.
I ignored her self-effacing remarks and asked, “Will you sing me something?”
“What?” She cried. “No!” Again the disbelief widened her smile.
“I’m being serious.”
Her eyes narrowed, “Did Nathan tell you …”
I didn’t expect his name to stab so sharp. “No,” I cut her off. “He doesn’t talk to me anymore.”
“He doesn’t talk to you?” Sarah asked, all jesting abandoned.
“No, not
doesn’t
,” I stammered, “He
hasn’t
talked to me. Lately. With his work and everything. We haven’t seen him.” Despite my embarrassed blush I think I buried my mistake. A shallow grave, perhaps, but still …
“Well, I’d never just sing for no reason,” Sarah said. “Too scary.”
“You used to do it for an entire audience. And dance. And act. Why not sing for me?”
“Because you’re sitting too close. I can see you. And I’ve grown some pride since then.” She threw her head back and groaned. “Seriously?” she asked helplessly.
I shrugged, chagrinned.
“What do you want me to sing?” she asked.
“Just anything. Anything you like.”
“I’ll feel like a fool,” she said, covering her face in her hands like a schoolgirl.
“You shouldn’t. I won’t look at you.” I turned away, the air thick with her self-consciousness. I heard her rustle in her chair and sigh. After several long beats of silence I stopped listening for Sarah and started listening to the night. The wind and waves made one unified song, a sweeping of the air, like heavenly brooms brushing across the world and clearing away the daylight. Quiet and shy, Sarah’s voice entered the night. I knew if I looked at her face it would be scarlet and agonized so I kept my promise and watched Chester stalk across the yard. The first words were so weak she half spoke them. One of her notes faltered and her voice shook. But slowly, slowly, some instinct took over and her throat relaxed, letting the music come. She sang the same song that I overheard earlier. After the last, short verse, her song closed, handing the solo back to the night. “Sarah?” I asked softly. “Do you still love him?” I was still turned away, but now I did it for my own privacy and not hers.
“You always do, somewhere, in some way.”
It’s what I feared.
“Why all this tonight?” She asked. “The singing, the questions about John?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because we’re alone. Girl talk.”
That satisfied her and she leaned back in her chair. “I’ve missed girl talk. Even my pets are boys!” she laughed.
“You sing beautifully. Really. I could have listened for hours,” I told her
She avoided looking at me by pulling Charlie’s front legs onto her lap. His tongue flicked out and he dropped his jaw in an adoring dog smile. “See Charlie,” she cooed. “We can howl at the moon together.” I snickered and let the compliment lie. She could pick it up later, when no one was looking.
I wandered up to bed after lines, not feeling at all sleepy, but hoping to sort through my thoughts in the quiet of my bedroom. The clear night gave me a view of the moon scraping the tops of the pine trees and I opened the rickety, metal window to smell the clean air. As much as I loved Nebraska I would miss that – the wind surging in with no invitation. It never relented, even when it dwindled to the softest breeze. I pulled the desk chair under the window and carefully folded my grandmother’s quilt around my shoulders before I lowered myself into the seat. My thoughts darted in tangled paths until I found myself mentally retracing my walk with Nathan across the beach. My eyes got to the spot that he had declared the halfway point and stopped, watching the memory from afar.
I saw him turn and leave me, saw myself sink to the ground, my head drop under the weight of rejection. All the feelings from that night broke over me and I wished that I could comfort her – the me left alone beside the waves. She felt very separate from the me watching. And the separation itself was painful, as if she was torn from my flesh with the wound still fresh and gaping.
I took a deep breath and dragged my eyes from the spot on the beach, hoping that the end of the image would end the pain. I tried not to look at the trees that hid his house. It made his absence much crueler when my mind flattened a few scraggly pines and viewed him within shouting distance. Maybe too far for shouting. But certainly a good scream would carry.
If I screamed now, would he hear me?
I wondered as I dared a quick glance to gauge distance. It was in that glance that I saw someone move beside the large boulder where Sarah liked to sit. My first thought went to Little taking another late walk. If the half-moon lent enough light I might be able to see what she did when she went to the water alone.
The person moved again, a shadow on shadows. From my distant perch I couldn’t say who it was – only that it most certainly was not Little, from the stance and size. As he or she moved away from the boulders the beam of the moon reflected like tiny candles on the water and in the faint glow I saw Nathan peel off his shirt, leaving a sheen of light on his naked back. He took a few slow steps to the water and just as I was wondering what he would do next he plunged himself into the black, icy waves.
I yelled a wordless cry and smacked my hand against my mouth. I’d felt that water in the heat of the summer day and even then it threatened to curl the skin off my bones. He’d kill himself. I stood, trying to decide whether to panic, when his head bobbed back above the water and his arm flew out in a clean, powerful stroke. The light on the water broke and bobbed around him, glinting off his wet head as he cut through the lapping waves. My grandmother’s quilt dropped in a colorful heap as I fled the room, taking the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible. Sarah’s bedroom door was closed so I snatched up my sandals and tiptoed on flying feet to the kitchen and turned the doorknob slow enough to avoid creaking. Charlie hopped up from his cushion in the corner of the kitchen and clicked over the hard floor to me. I opened the door wide, letting him race out so he wouldn’t bark when I left.
And then I was running. Outrunning Charlie. Not stopping until I crested the ridge where I halted long enough to pull on my shoes. Charlie barked joyously at my hopping, running game but I clamped my fist around his muzzle and gave him a threatening, “Hush!” When I looked at the water again I saw Nathan striking back for shore. I watched his strong arms propel him through the blackness. He stepped back onto land just as I made it to the boulders.
“Is sea salt therapeutic?” I called out.
Nathan jumped and whipped around to me, his body dripping. “Excuse me?” He said, visibly shaken.
“The sea salt. Because you said you couldn’t come tonight because you had a headache. And last night you weren’t feeling well enough. The night before that you were just tired. So I’m wondering if a sea bath is good for headaches? Fatigue?”
“How did you know I was here?” he asked as he grabbed a towel and draped it over his shoulders.
“I saw you from my window. Talk about someone who looks like they’re committing suicide!”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not.” He leaned his head over and shook it vigorously, clearing water from his ear. His eyes were so belligerent I almost missed the soft arch of worry that crossed his brow.
“Good to know. But if you feel well enough to join the Polar Bear Club why didn’t you come to lines?” I shuddered in the cool of the night as the wind hit my bare shoulders. I could only imagine how icy Nathan felt.
His lips shook from the cold as he answered, “I don’t know.”
“Neither of us is stupid enough to let that slide,” I objected.
“Sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it. It’s not a requirement, you know.” He stretched his t-shirt back over his head, wet splotches appearing as the water on his skin soaked through.
“You’re doing the Mr. Hyde thing,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re mad at me. I don’t know why you won’t even talk to me for three days. I thought we were friends and I’ll be leaving anytime now . . .”
“Exactly!” Nathan interrupted. “You’re leaving. You don’t live here. You don’t belong here. Why do you care?” On each syllable of
why do you care
he pounded his towel into a smaller ball until it was a wet lump in his hand.
“You’ll wake somebody,” I hissed, stepping forward and pushing a warning hand on his cold arm. I knew the houses were too far for anyone to overhear, but the night felt so quiet. In the air I sensed watching eyes. After that touch I looked up into his unreadable face. Whatever I imagined I would feel standing in the moonlight, holding his wet arm, I was wrong. There was no lust trailing its fiery, forked tail through my body – only anger tinged with a determination to stand toe to toe with his temper. I would not be dismissed. I released his arm, but refused to step away. Pointing to the sand beneath my feet, I said, “I might not live here, but I belong here. Right here.” My arm flew out toward Shelter Cove. “My great grandfather built that second story. My grandparents are buried in this town. This is as much mine as it is yours.” My voice calmed. “I just didn’t know it until now.”
“Really?” His defiant word was tempered with an unexpected softness.
“Yes, really,” I gulped on my words.
“And when you leave?”
My heart paused before resuming its fluid beats. “I can’t help that, Nathan. But wasting time worrying about time doesn’t make any sense.”
“There are a lot of ways to waste time,” he ran his fingers through his sandy hair, dropping water on his shoulders.
“Like being mad at your friends?”
“Do you want to be friends, Jennifer?” He forgot to be flippant halfway through his sentence.
No. Not friends. Not just friends
. My brain beat the words against my eyes like Morse code, hoping he could see the flashing message as he studied me intently.
“Yes.” I answered weakly.
“Really?”
No.
“Yes.”
His cold, calloused hands closed around my upper arms and he leaned closer. For a breathless moment I knew he would kiss me, but I couldn’t close my eyes. Couldn’t even remember that I had eyes to close. “Then I’m sorry I upset you,” he answered. He studied my expression, questions running across his face. I can only guess that he saw it - some remnant of how I truly felt. He released me, not realizing how close my legs were to collapsing beneath me without his support. “I haven’t been a good friend. I’ll come back to lines tomorrow. I’ve just had a lot on my mind.”
I fingered the damp spots where his hands encircled my arms and tried to understand what just happened. Was I supposed to say I didn’t want to be his friend? Would he have kissed me then? I fought for some way to amend my words, but my brain was slugging through the shock of his touch. Like being submerged in fast, black water. Even I didn’t know where I would finally surface.
He gathered his shoes to leave and I groped for anything neutral, anything easy, to say. “You’ve been gone for days. I didn’t get to tell you that I … I saw the Jacks again today. And I saw Montague Muck.”
“What?” Nathan asked, confused by the turn.
“I went into town today with Claude. You weren’t at lines so I couldn’t tell you.
Nathan’s shoulders relaxed. I imagined him taking hold of this new strain of conversation like a shining life line flung over choppy water. “What did you think of Monty? Did He have that dog with him?” he asked, trying to smile but not quite able.
“
Is
it a dog?” I laughed, but my laughter shook, fighting against the fast thrumming of my heart. “Because I have never seen anything like that. What breed is it?”
“Mutt.” His eyebrows flicked down in concern as if he were asking himself if we really made it past the landmines so easily. “Love of his life.”
“Yeah, old men love weird things around here,” I mused.
“That’s why I need to get out before I’m old. I might end up starry eyed over a mule or something.” He leaned against the boulders and I took a seat at his feet, feeling the tension sink into the cool sand.
“There are no mules around here,” I bantered back. “I think you might start a torrid affair with a sea bass.”
“You wouldn’t know a sea bass from a swordfish, landlover.” He slid down and took a seat beside me.
“Welcome back, Dr. Jekyll,” I said with a gentle smile. Before he could get too self-conscious I dropped the subject and quizzed him on another point pricking my curiosity. “How often do you enjoy a nice evening swim like this?”
“Once in a while. When I’m stressed. You can’t worry about anything else after you jump in.” His arms rippled in a one big shiver, grazing my shoulder. Some beads of water still clung to the hair on his legs.
“Yeah, well, trying not to die of hypothermia can kind of bring things into perspective. But you should go with a partner. It’s not safe.”
Nathan’s smirked and rolled his eyes. “Are you volunteering?”
My laugh came out too loud in the quiet night. “Not on your life!”
“There you go. And a partner would negate the being-alone-when-you’re-
“What are you so stressed about lately? Claude?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A little of everything.” He yanked the towel tighter around his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter.” A fast pause before he said, “Sorry I yelled at you. You surprised me.”
“Ambushed you.”
“Kind of.”
“At least you didn’t slip and fall in! If you ever come to Nebraska I hope you’re scared of cows and fall in a mud puddle. Then we’ll be even.” Only after I said that did I realize that he had no reason to come.
“You found my secret. Terrified of bovines.” His lips pulled up on one side into an amused grin.
“Ah, so that’s your kryptonite, huh?” As I sat there I realized that my stomach was not sinking or soaring. My skin didn’t crawl or tingle or flame. I smiled at him happily, grateful for the easiness of the moment.