The Islanders (23 page)

“Oh,” Zoey said. Of course. “Well, then, what's the matter with Nina?”

Christopher laughed. “I thought Nina was always like this.”

“You have a point there,” Zoey said

“The movie is starting,” Lucas said.

“Aisha,” Christopher said, raising his voice a little. “It's not a date, all right? You have amnesty. I will not count this as a date. I won't even try to put my arm around you.”

Aisha's eyes blazed, but she stomped down the aisle, plopping next to Christopher. “That wasn't the problem. The problem was Nina wouldn't make up her mind.”

Nina promptly took the next seat and Benjamin fumbled for and found the aisle seat.

“I have an idea,” Lucas said brightly. “Let's all change seats again.”

 

CLAIRE SAT BESIDE JAKE ON
the bench seat of his beat-up old pickup truck. A song was playing over the speakers as they drove at no more than five miles an hour, making their progress along the shoreline last. There was no traffic on the road, no one in a hurry, and even with the music playing Claire could hear the surf pounding, the crunch of loose sand and rocks under the truck's tires.

“What's this music?” Claire asked.

“Lyle Lovett. It's one of my dad's favorites, but I kind of like it.”

Claire nodded. The songs struck her as melancholy, but then, maybe Jake was in a melancholy mood. They came to an intersection. The road going left led along the north shore of Big Bite Pond, the inlet that nearly cut Chatham Island in half, like a huge bite taken out of the middle of a croissant. Ahead, the road led out onto the Lip, a peninsula that was a favorite make-out location.

Jake hesitated.

“Let's drive out onto the Lip,” Claire said. “I like it out there. It's so isolated.”

They drove the few hundred yards of gravel road and stopped at the dead end. On the left was the placid, glass-smooth pond; just to their right, the more agitated water of the sea itself. Across the inlet was the Lower Lip, home to a colony of puffins, part of the nature preserve. The spit of land they were standing on was so narrow that thirty steps would take them from pond to sea.

Claire climbed out of the truck and looked across at the puffins, who were hopping around the rocks, purring and croaking and from time to time yelling out what sounded like
Hey, Al!
The tide was going out, sucking water through the inlet, and in the sky towering thunderheads floated over Weymouth, sending occasional jagged bolts of lightning down to the city. Directly overhead, the sky was still clear, with darkness falling fast and stars winking into sight, saying brief hellos before the storm clouds could advance and hide them.

“Hi, remember me?”

Claire saw Jake standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets. She must have been lost in thought for longer than she realized.

“Sorry, I guess I was spacing.”

Jake looked out at the storm. “You think that's coming this way?”

Claire nodded. “It will be here in about twenty minutes, I would guess. But it's an isolated storm cell, and the wind is veering west, so it may just miss us.”

Jake smiled. “Everyone thinks it's strange the way you're so interested in the weather.”

“Weather is great,” Claire said. “It's what keeps one day from being just like the next. And it's a system of incredible complexity, all sorts of forces interacting so that warm water five thousand miles away in the Pacific and a strong breeze in Africa all have an effect on what happens here.” She fell silent, watching the storm. “On the other hand, maybe I am just strange.”

“Is that what you're going to do in college? Study weather?”

“Meteorology, climatology, hydrography. Yes. And then later, while I'm working on my doctorate, I'm going to try to get an assignment in Antarctica. Antarctica is the home office of strange, unknown weather patterns.”

“Cold, isn't it?” Jake asked lightly.

“That's what I hear,” Claire said. “Ninety below zero in some places during the winter. Plus hurricane-force winds.”

“Sounds nice,” Jake said dryly. “But I guess it must be good to have something you want to do and really care about.”

“Don't you?” Claire asked, turning now to face him.

“I like football, and I'll probably make the team in college, but you can't exactly count on making the NFL. It would be great, but you have to have some backup. You know, a
real
job.”

“So what are you going to major in?”

He scrunched up his shoulders and made a face. “I have no idea. I thought about criminal justice. You know, become a cop.”

She tilted her head and looked at him critically. “I could see you in the uniform.”

“I can see you with ten layers of long johns and a fur hood and those big plastic boots, too,” he said. “But I like you better this way.”

Claire felt a wave of cooler air, a breeze pushed before the onrushing storm. “You just like me because you needed someone after Zoey hurt you.”

Instantly she regretted her words. Jake's eyes showed a wounded look, like she'd slapped him. She would have to try and be a little gentler. Jake wasn't like Benjamin, who seemed to be encased in unscratchable armor. She had gotten into the habit of being blunt and provocative with Benjamin. It was hard to remember just how vulnerable this big, powerful-looking guy could be.

“Maybe that's partly true,” Jake said softly. “I mean, I was pretty torn up . . . but that's not why I like you, not really.”

Claire took his right hand in both of hers. “I didn't mean that quite the way it sounded.”

“I always liked you, as a friend, at least,” Jake said. “And I always thought you were sexy.” He gave her a deliberately comic leer.

Claire searched her memory for the words Benjamin had snapped at her. “Then you don't think I'm isolated, lonely, and superior?”

“I don't know if you're lonely,” Jake said. “Are you?”

“Not when I'm with you,” Claire answered.

“Then you'll have to be with me as much as possible,” Jake said.

Claire raised his hand to her lips and kissed the hard, rough fingers. She looked at his face as his lowered eyes looked down at her.
Is this real?
Claire asked herself.
Is what I feel for him right this minute real? How could it be, when it all happened so quickly?

Had she secretly cared for him for months and years? She couldn't remember feeling that way.

Or was this just two people brought together by coincidence, both of them needing someone at the same moment?

Zoey had torn Jake's heart out. Benjamin had forced her to remember a truth she did not want to face. Were they just two drowning, desperate people clinging to whoever came along?

She felt his lips on hers. It was pleasurable, certainly.
Different from Benjamin, different from her memories of Lucas. Certainly there was something wonderful in feeling Jake's powerful arms around her, pressing her to his hard chest, and his shoulders, hunched forward, completed the sense that he was engulfing her, surrounding her with protection.

Jake was hot where Benjamin was cool; straightforward where Benjamin was subtle; bigger, stronger, yet touchingly vulnerable, where Benjamin so often seemed at once frail in his blindness and yet somehow invulnerable.

There could not be a greater difference between the two of them. And she realized that she herself felt different here, with Jake, than she did with Benjamin. As if she were literally a different person with Jake.

A nicer person.

She broke away, feeling slightly annoyed for no reason. She glanced toward the mainland and saw that the storm was advancing fast across the channel, whipping up the water, turning the choppy waves white.

“Here it comes,” she said.

“We'd better get back in the truck,” he said.

She was about to say that she wanted to go home now. That she wanted to put on her poncho and sit up on her widow's walk alone where she could revel in the storm at close quarters. But she stopped herself. Jake wouldn't understand. He would
think she was tired of him, bored, or somehow unhappy with his kisses.

It would hurt his feelings. And she couldn't do that to him.

They all took the nine-o'clock ferry, the
Titanic
, back from the mainland after the movie. It was the last homeward-bound ferry of the night, and missing it would mean being stranded on the mainland or having to pay the exorbitant cost for the water taxi. The
Titanic
was the ferry that carried cars and had a smaller covered space than the
Minnow
, but the rain drove them all inside, watching lightning strikes through steamed windows.

The rain had cleared away by the time they reached the island, leaving behind glistening cobblestones and a fresh, electric smell in the air.

They split up at the ferry landing, Nina heading north, Christopher heading south along Leeward Drive, leaving Aisha looking slightly annoyed. Lucas and Benjamin, Aisha and Zoey walked in a group as far as Camden before Aisha went on ahead, making the tiring climb up the winding road to her parents' inn on the ridge.

Benjamin, always diplomatic, went alone into the house, leaving Lucas with Zoey in her front yard, the first privacy they'd had that evening.

“Well, that was an interesting night out,” Lucas said, putting his arms around her. “What's the deal with Aisha and Christopher? Do they hate each other or like each other?”

“I think Eesh really does like him, but she can't admit it to herself yet. She's like a train, you know? She's on track, going a certain direction, and you can't try to distract her.”

“I'm glad you're not that way,” Lucas said, drawing Zoey close.

“Me too,” Zoey said.

They kissed for a while, standing under a dripping tree, perfectly private on the quiet, dead-end street.

“I'd better get inside,” Zoey said at last. “Parents.”

“Yeah, I understand. Not that my parents give a damn if I come home late. They'd probably rather I didn't come home at all.” He spoke lightly, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“I'm sure your dad will lighten up,” Zoey said tentatively.

“At least he hasn't said anything in the last few days about shipping me off.”

“See? Maybe he's already calming down.”

“Probably,” Lucas said, smiling to make the lie more believable. His father never forgot anything, and he had never changed his mind that Lucas could remember. But there was always the chance that Lucas's grandfather in Texas would refuse to take
him in. His grandfather and his father were family, but not exactly friends.

“I'll think about you all night,” Zoey said, gazing at him with her huge, liquid blue eyes.

“And I'll think about you,” he said.

“Maybe we could meet in our dreams,” she said, half-seriously, half self-mocking.

He smiled. His dreams about Zoey often took on an explicitness that would have shocked her. He wanted her badly, constantly. But there was no way he was going to risk the one decent relationship in his life by asking for something she didn't want to give. Even though each time she kissed him with her impossibly soft lips, her body pressed to his, he thought he might explode.

“Good night,” she said, turning to go down the sidewalk to her front door.

He watched her go, savoring the sight of her, storing up memories of her every movement. “See you tomorrow.”

He went around the back of her house and found the dark dirt path that led from her backyard up the steep embankment, under his deck, and around to his front door. He went out onto the deck and looked down, just in time to see in the bright incandescent rectangle of her kitchen window as she walked in, executed a little twirl, and hugged her arms to her.

Her father came in, wearing his bathrobe. He looked at the
ceiling and shook his head, obviously teasing her, but she just pranced over, planted a kiss on his cheek, and left the room. Her father stood at the sink, setting up a coffee machine for the morning, a wistful, reminiscing smile on his face.

Lucas turned away. His own house was dark, as it had been for hours. His father was a lobsterman and got up each day before the sun, piloting his boat along the sheer mainland shore, winching up lobster pots, throwing back the undersized lobsters, replacing the bait, and lowering the pots again.

Lucas crept into his house, carefully climbing the stairs as silently as a burglar. It was a small house, just two bedrooms upstairs, a living room and the kitchen downstairs. But he had the use of his own bathroom, and his own private room where he could open and shut the door whenever he chose. It wasn't much, certainly not a third the size of Jake's house or Claire's. Even compared to Zoey's modest house, it was modest. But it beat a dormitory cell at the Youth Authority.

He waited until he had closed the door of his room behind him to turn on the light. A single bed, a white-painted dresser, a scratched wood desk with a rickety chair. The only personal touches were left over from two years ago.

It was a simple, uncluttered room, so the sheet of paper lying on his desk looked almost ostentatious. He stood over it, reading.

He stared at the words, forcing his mind to accept what was there in front of him. Saturday. Flight. Houston.

You are on.

He sat on his bed, holding the paper in his hands.

It had happened. His father was actually kicking him out of the house, just as he'd said he would.

Lucas had hoped his mother might find a way of changing his father's mind, but now he knew he'd been deceiving himself. It was his father who was the absolute ruler in this house, just as he was the absolute master of his boat.

Lucas inhaled. It felt like he had forgotten to breathe these last few minutes. Saturday. Three more days, and on the fourth . . .

No more Chatham Island. No more Maine. No more Zoey.

He would almost be glad, he realized, if it weren't for Zoey. His grandfather was unlike his father. He had gone down a different path. He was a tough old guy, but decent. Not the rigid, moralizing, humorless man Lucas's own father was.

He'd be relieved to go to Texas. Except there was no Zoey in Texas.

For the hundredth time he thought of telling his father the
truth, explaining what had really happened two years ago when he had so thoughtlessly confessed to something he didn't do.

But his father would dismiss it as another in a long string of lies. Even his mother wouldn't believe it.

Lucas turned off the light and lay back on his bed, still in his damp clothing, and hugged the meager pillow to his chest. He stared into the darkness and saw that rectangle of light, a picture frame holding the image of Zoey, twirling across her kitchen floor and thinking of him.