The Islanders (27 page)

“I'VE NEVER SHOWN THIS TO
anyone,” Zoey said later that same evening, pulling a heavy bound pad from the drawer of her desk. “I've been writing in it for years.”

“I didn't know you wrote,” Lucas said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Well, I write, I just never finish anything,” Zoey admitted.

“What do you write?”

Zoey made a face and smiled self-deprecatingly. “You'll just laugh.”

“I promise I won't.” He crossed his heart and looked solemn.

“I've written the first chapter of a romance novel about twenty-five times. Always chapter one, or else just a single scene. I have about a hundred and twenty pages altogether.”

Lucas smiled. “Romance novel? You mean like those books with the covers where some half-naked guy is groping a woman whose dress is falling off?”

“Yeah, and the woman always has these big double-
D
-cup buffers squeezing out of a
B
-cup bodice. Except in mine the heroine is always normal size. Maybe even a little on the small end of the spectrum.”

“And how about the hero?” Lucas asked. “Six five, big squared-off chest about a yard wide, smoldering dark eyes?”

“Lately he's been more like five ten. But he has a nice chest. And he does have smoldering dark eyes.”

Lucas gave her an exaggeratedly smoldering look. “Like this?”

“Smoldering, not nearsighted,” Zoey teased. Then she squealed as Lucas grabbed her and threw her back on the bed. She was still giggling and squirming when he kissed her. She closed her eyes and put her arms around his neck.

“By the way, they're not on the small end of the spectrum,” Lucas said when they paused for air.

“Trust me,” Zoey said. “Padding.” She felt his hand move, and she caught her breath.

“Mmm, not padding,” Lucas said in a husky voice.

“Lucas . . .”

“Yes?”

“That's, um . . . it's, oh . . . oh, what I mean is . . .”

“Tell me, in this romance novel you're working on, do the hero and the heroine ever make love?”

“Um, well, no. I mean, she never has.”

“Never?” he asked, looking at her skeptically.

“I think I would know if the heroine had ever done it,” Zoey said.

“Not even with . . . with the previous hero?” Lucas asked.

“No, not ever,” Zoey said, feeling a blush rise up her neck. “She's not ready. Besides, that part always comes much later in the book after the hero and the heroine have either been married in the cathedral, or maybe been thrown into a dungeon together where they think they're going to get their heads chopped off the next day.”

“Oh. Doesn't your hero
want
to, you know, make love?”

Zoey captured his hand with hers and raised it to her lips, kissing the tips of his fingers. “The hero pretty much always wants to make love. And it's not like the heroine doesn't. She has heaving-bosom syndrome, which is very common in romance novels. But being the heroine, she has to maintain a grip.”

“Poor hero,” Lucas said.

“Not really,” Zoey said. “He just needs to learn that it's not always about having. Romance is about wanting.”

Lucas made a pained face. “What if he explodes?”

“He won't,” Zoey said confidently.

He kissed her deeply, a heart-stopping kiss that left them both breathless. “What if our heroine explodes?” Lucas asked in a low voice.

“Now that is . . . oh . . . a real possibility,” Zoey said, closing her eyes. “But the thing to worry about is that if the hero does that again, he's going to get his hand smacked.”

“Did I do it wrong?”

“No, no, you definitely did it right. Believe me. Only don't do it again.” She pushed him back gently. “Maybe we should take a time-out. We have plenty of time.”

Lucas's face fell, and instantly Zoey realized what she'd said was untrue. They didn't have plenty of time.

Lucas sat back and smiled at her ruefully, shaking his head. “Bad choice of words. It can happen to any writer, I guess.”

“What are we going to do, Lucas?” Zoey asked, her voice betraying the desperation that came flooding over her again.

He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I don't know. I keep thinking there's something I've overlooked, some way to make it all work.”

“There has to be a way,” Zoey said. “It's ridiculous that some mistake you made two years ago would screw up our lives, maybe forever.”

He nodded and averted his eyes.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought that up,” Zoey said. “You know I think that's all ancient history. I know you're sorry for what happened, and you've already paid for it once. I just don't see why you should have to still go on paying. It's not fair.”

But Lucas didn't respond. He pulled away and rested his elbows on his knees, hanging his head.

“Did I . . . did I say something wrong, Lucas?” She put her hand on his shoulder, and after a moment's hesitation he covered her hand with his.

“No. No, you didn't say anything wrong.” He forced a smile and gently caressed her cheek. “Let's just not talk about it anymore. Heroes and heroines shouldn't be sad.”

“Hmm,” Jake muttered, thinking over Claire's question. “I guess red. It's bright, it doesn't fool around, it says, Look at me, I am definitely red. How about you?”

“Blue,” Claire said without hesitation. “Blue sky, blue water.”

“Can a red and a blue get along?” Jake wondered.

“Together we make purple,” Claire pointed out. “Now, greens and yellows, no way. You'd get brown.”

“Hmm,” Jake said.

“Hmm,” Claire replied.

This is good
, Claire realized.
This is good, and something I could never really do with Benjamin.
She was walking along the west beach barefoot, holding hands with Jake, the two of them swinging their arms back and forth. Talking about nothing at all. Just enjoying the stars and the moon and being together.
With Benjamin she had always been so serious.

No, that wasn't really fair, but it was how she felt. And as mean as it might be to think it, it was nice to be able to share the visual universe with someone, both of you enjoying the size of the moon, or the way the lights of Weymouth sparkled on the bay.

“Between Coldplay and Maroon 5,” Jake said.

“I have to go with Maroon 5.”

“Coldplay,” Jake said, shaking his head.

“Hmm,” Claire said.

“Hmm,” Jake replied.

“Okay, let's find something we agree on,” Claire said. “Soft, hot, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate-chip cookies.”

“I'm with you.”

“Um, okay, Jimmy Fallon over Jon Stewart.”

“No question,” Jake agreed.

“Cats over dogs?”

“No way. Dogs.”

“Well, let me try again,” Claire said, biting her lip in concentration. “Pepperoni, no anchovies.”

“Now you're back on track.”

“Classes where the teacher lectures instead of just assigning a lot of reading.”

“Definitely. Mr. Gondin instead of Ms. Boyer.”

“No contest,” Claire agreed. “See, we're doing pretty—
ahh
!”

“Run for your life!” Jake shouted gleefully as the surf surged suddenly, foaming over Claire's feet.

“Boy, that's cold,” Claire said. “I guess the tide must be coming in. What time is it?”

“Time for you to kiss me.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“You don't?” Jake asked.

“I didn't say that,” Claire said. She tilted back her head and let herself melt into his arms.

“Ahhh, ah
, let's move up the beach,” she said, breaking away suddenly as the freezing surf rose to cover her ankles and soak the hem of her jeans. “It's coming in fast.”

They climbed the slope of the beach, retreating beyond the reach of the surf, and flopped down onto the sand in a low sheltered spot between two grassy hillocks.

“I have one,” Jake said. “Beaches and surf over mountains and snow.”

“That's a close one for me, but I think I can go along with you,” Claire said. She nestled against his chest and gazed out across the water. Weymouth was over there, not exactly a metropolis, not exactly Boston or New York, but a city just the same. Full of people who typically did not know each other, people who
could come or go at random, not on whatever schedule the ferry kept. “Do you ever stop to realize how unusual it is living on this island?” Claire asked.

“Well, there are only about three hundred of us, so I guess that makes us pretty rare,” Jake agreed.

“I know there are other islands—Matinicus, Monhegan, all the ones down in Casco Bay, and so on—but even if you throw in places like Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, I'll bet there aren't as many people living on islands in this country as there are people over in Weymouth.”

“The few, the proud, the islanders,” Jake said ironically.

“Do you ever wonder about when we go off to college how we're going to fit into a world where you don't already know everyone?”

“I have to admit I haven't really thought about it.”

“Sometimes I'm jealous of those people,” Claire said wistfully. “It must be nice to be anonymous. It leaves you free to be whatever you want to be. You can reinvent yourself. If you make a mistake or do something awful, who's going to even remember? Whereas here . . . here it's just hard ever to live down your past.”

Jake cuddled her up under his chin. “I don't think you have anything to live down.”

“Maybe you don't know everything about me,” she said in a low voice.

“I've known you all your life.”

“You didn't know that blue was my favorite color,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted again.

“I know what's important,” Jake said confidently. “And I like it this way. See, over there in Weymouth, or I guess anywhere in the rest of the world, you can never be sure who your friends are. People can hide their true selves.”

Claire waited, listening to the surf crash once, twice. “You thought you knew Zoey,” she said in a near whisper.

She could feel the sudden heavy thudding of Jake's heart, the way his breathing grew shallow. “Yeah. I did, didn't I? Well, I guess that's a good point. I guess even here you can never be totally sure who you can trust.”

“No, you never can be sure,” Claire said.

“It's a hard lesson to learn,” Jake said. “It tore me up pretty good. It still does when I think about it. Not that I'm saying I miss Zoey or anything,” he added quickly.

She scooted around halfway to face him, and they kissed.

“Don't you ever do that to me, okay?” Jake said in a half-pleading, half-joking voice. “Don't suddenly turn against me. I couldn't take it twice.”

Claire was on the edge of reassuring him, of saying,
Of course not, Jake, of course I'll never betray you
, but something inside her choked off the words. She was already betraying him. “Kiss me again,” she said.

When he had pulled away he smiled at her, his open, honest eyes glittering in the starlight and the ocean's phosphorescence. “Just always be straight with me, Claire. That's all I'll ever ask.”

The words pained her, but the darkness hid her involuntary reaction. She couldn't bring herself to answer, to add a fresh lie on top of the old lies. Instead she distracted him again. “That's
all
you'll ever ask me?” she asked archly.

“Well—” He laughed.

She kissed him again. The serious mood was dispelled. His sad, hopeful pleas had gone unanswered. It was so easy to deceive Jake. It would have been so much harder with Benjamin. Benjamin would have instantly recognized her evasiveness and been on her like a cat on a mouse.

She pushed Jake away, feeling unsettled. It was fun, trying to manipulate Benjamin. Benjamin could take care of himself. Jake could not. She could lie to Jake forever. She could manipulate Jake as much as she wanted to. She already had.

“Is something the matter?” Jake asked.

“No,” she answered shortly.

“Did I do something wrong?”

She'd had two major boyfriends in her life, boyfriends that amounted to anything—Lucas and Benjamin. Neither of them easily hurt. Neither of them exactly saints. Jake was different. Jake was . . . was waiting expectantly for her to say a kind word.

“No, Jake, you didn't do anything wrong,” she said, a little wearily. “I doubt you've ever done anything really wrong.”

 

Diary:

Not much weather today, a perfectly clear night, and they say the high-pressure system may stay over the area for a week. Good weather is so boring. I need a storm.

Or maybe I'm just being cranky. I feel agitated and unhappy. I should feel great. I'm happy with Jake, really. He's such a relief after Benjamin.

Still, it's a big change. It's not just like changing clothes. I have to be different with him than I was with Benjamin. If I ever insulted Jake the way I sometimes did Benjamin, I think Jake would really be hurt. It's not that he doesn't have a sense of humor, he does. He's funny in a different way, though. Not as biting as Benjamin was. Nicer.

Nice. Decent. Sweet. Straightforward. Honest.

I like Jake a lot. I can't wait till I can be with him again. And I know he feels the same way about me. The problem is each time we're together, I feel like I'm tricking him somehow. I feel like I'm outsmarting him. And that just makes me mad, although I'm not sure if I'm mad at myself for being manipulative or at him for being so easy to manipulate.

I guess this is what it's like going out with a nice guy. No
wonder Zoey finally dumped him. It's too much pressure to live up to. It's a strain being around someone who's nicer than you are.