A Piece of the World(27)

Holding his hat between his hands, he kneads the brim with his long fingers. “I’m here to do you the favor of relieving you of some eggs. Can you believe they’ve entrusted me with this important task?” And then, conspiratorially, “Actually, they have no idea I’m here.”

“I’ll get my coat,” I say.

“Don’t think you need one,” he says. “It’s not actually—”

But I’ve already shut the door.

I stand in the dark hall, my heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know how to act. Maybe I should tell him that I’m needed in the— A rap on the door. “Are you there? All right if I come inside?”

I reach up to the coat pegs and pull down the first thing I find, Sam’s heavy wool jacket.

“Christina?” Mother’s voice filters down the stairs.

“Getting eggs at the henhouse, Mother.” Opening the door, I smile at Walton. He smiles back. I step onto the stoop, putting on the jacket. “Two dozen, yes? You can come with me if you want.”

“Butterscotch?” He holds out a piece of amber candy.

“Uh . . . sure.”

He unwraps it before handing it to me. “Sweets to the sweet.”

“Thanks,” I say, blushing.

He gestures for me to lead the way. “Lovely property,” he says as we stroll toward the henhouse. “Used to be a lodging house, Ramona said?”

The butterscotch is melting in my mouth. I turn it over with my tongue. “My grandparents took in summer guests. They called it Umbrella Roof Inn.”

He squints at the roof. “Umbrella?”

“You’re right,” I say, laughing a little. “It looks nothing like an umbrella.”

“I suppose it keeps the rain out.”

“Aren’t all roofs supposed to do that?”

Now he’s laughing too. “Well, you find out the answer and let me know.”

Walton is right; my brother’s scratchy jacket is too hot. After I’ve gathered the eggs, I peel off the jacket and Walton suggests we sit in the grass.

“So what’s your favorite color?” he asks.

“Really?”

“Why not?” The butterscotch clicks between his teeth.

“Okay.” I’ve never been asked this question. I have to think about it. The color of a piglet’s ear, a summer sky at dusk, Al’s beloved roses . . . “Um. Pink.”

“Favorite animal.”

“My spaniel, Topsy.”

“Favorite food.”

“I’m famous for my fried apple cake.”

“Will you make it for me?”

I nod.

“I’m going to hold you to that. Favorite poet.”

This is an easy one. “Emily Dickinson.”

“Ah,” he says. “‘Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.’”

“‘Or has it feathers like a bird—’”

“Very good!” he says, clearly surprised that I know it. “‘Or billows like a shore.’”

“My teacher gave me a collection of her poems when I left school. That’s one of my favorites.”

He shakes his head. “I never understood that last part.”

“Well . . .” I’m a little hesitant to offer an interpretation. What if he disagrees? “I think . . . I think it means that you should stay open to possibility. However it comes your way.”

He nods. “Ah. That makes sense. So are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Open to possibility?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. What about you?”

“Trying. It’s a struggle.”

He tells me that he is going to Harvard to please his father, though he might’ve preferred the smaller campus of Bowdoin. “But you don’t turn down Harvard, do you?”

“Why not?”

“Why not, indeed,” he says.



“HE LIKES YOU,” Ramona says, eyes sparkling. “He asks me all these questions: how long I’ve known you, if you have a boyfriend, if your father is very strict. He wants to know what you think.”

“What I think?”

“About him, silly. What you think about him.”

It feels like a trick question, as if I’m being asked to respond in a language I don’t understand. “I like him. I like many people,” I say warily.

Ramona wrinkles her nose. “You do not. You hardly like anyone.”

“I hardly know anyone.”

“True,” she says. “But don’t be coy. Does your heart pitter-patter when you think of him?”

“Ramona, honestly.”

“Don’t act so scandalized. Just answer the question.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a little.”

“Maybe a little. That’s a yes.”

As the summer progresses she goes back and forth between Walton and me like a carrier pigeon, carrying scraps of news, impressions, gossip. She is perfectly suited to the task—one of those girls with boundless energy and intelligence and no place to exercise them, like a terrier with a housebound owner.



AT FIRST MOTHER is formal and a little cool with Walton, but slowly he wins her over. I watch how he calibrates his behavior, deferring to her at every turn, calling her Ma’am, presuming nothing. He coaxes her outside for picnics and afternoon sails. “Well, the boy does have excellent manners,” she allows at the end of a long afternoon lunch on the shore. “Must’ve learned them at an expensive school.”