Envious Moon(16)

I followed the coastline and stayed as close as I could to the cliff. I had no idea how far it was in this direction. I had finished three-quarters of the bottle of wine and I was not drunk but I was starting to feel it, not foggy exactly, or euphoric, but somewhere in between. I did know that I wanted to come to the house differently. Not from the cove. It had been a couple of months since Victor and I had gone that way and no doubt it would have been fine but I didn’t want to chance it.

The sand was hard-packed beneath my boots and I made good time. At one point the cliff face jutted out into the water and I took off my boots and tied the laces together and rolled up my pants and slung the boots around my neck. To my left was the black sound and the light at Montauk. In between I saw the running lights of boats heading to the mainland. Above there was the crooked moon and the first of the stars. On one stretch of beach I heard voices drifting down from one of the houses. A man laughed heartily followed by the lighter laughter of a woman.

I came upon a wooden staircase built into the hillside. There were no lights coming from above and I didn’t hear anything. Two weathered rowboats, overturned on the sand, looked like they had lain undisturbed for a long time. I still didn’t know how close I was to the cove, but based on how far I had walked from the lighthouse, I figured it was not far. I climbed the stairs.

When I reached the top, a low-slung modern house sat across a lawn from me. Its large shiny glass windows reflected the moonlight. The wide lawn went as far as I could see on either side of it and I moved across it, heading for a stand of pitch pines.

Once under the trees I stopped and caught my breath. In front of me now was a high hedgerow, the end of the property. I went to it and touched it with my left hand. It was dense and nearly impenetrable. I looked both ways down the length of it. To my left it led to the cliff’s edge. The other moved toward the front of the house, and, I assumed, the road. I followed it this way.

I had to go only fifty feet before I came to a small white gate cut into the row. The gate was waist high and latched from the other side but I reached over and opened it. I stepped through it and then underneath some small trees and I found myself looking at the great house. I thought maybe it was two or three properties away but I stood now looking at the front of it. It was giant and still in the dark except for one lone light glowing orange in the turret window.

I kept to the shadows. I moved along the border of thin poplars and cedars that separated the lawn from the cliff walk. When I got about thirty feet from the house, I found a spot beneath three slender trees that afforded me a view directly into the turreted room. The leaves of the trees created an umbrella of shadows from the moonlight. I did not think I could be seen from the window. And if anyone came, I could run back the way I had come, or cut through the brush behind me to the cliff walk.

Through the window I saw a paneled ceiling and what looked like the headboard of a very large bed. But I did not see the girl. It was the only room that was lit. For a moment I thought about going around back as it occurred to me that in a house this big there were probably other rooms that had no relation to the front. And it was as I was thinking about this, that I saw her. It was fleeting and quick but there was no doubt. I stood stock-still. I stared at the window. Even if I had wanted to move, I do not think I could have. And in seeing her, I felt something give inside myself, a feeling I can only describe as becoming unhinged, and I did not know whether to yell or weep, whether to run to the front door of the house or to fall on the dewy grass and just lay there.

Come back, I whispered, please come back.

And a moment later, as if answering my plea, she breezed by the window again but did not stop long enough for me to get a good look. Like that, she was gone and then the light extinguished and I was alone in the dark.

For three successive nights I followed my exact path from the beach and stood in that very spot and looked into her window. I never asked myself at the time if this was okay. It was the reason I was on the island. I stood under those trees and I waited for more than a passing glimpse at her and on that third night, my wish was granted.

She opened the window. She opened the window and she placed her elbows on the sill and she looked out and over me to the ocean. I knew people looked to the sea for answers. What was it she wanted to know? The light was once again behind her and I could not tell the color of her hair or her eyes. And to be truthful it was her eyes I wanted to see because it was a woman’s eyes I loved the most.

But I was so happy just to watch her face, the high cheekbones and the full lips, the way the thin moonlight illumined her pale skin.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Otherwise, I did not move. At one point the breeze picked up off the water and she turned her face into it and the wind lifted her hair off her shoulders before settling it back down again. Was it only the truly romantic that fell in love with someone they had never met? For looking at her, I’m not ashamed to say that that was what I felt. Love. Inexpressible but as real as this great house in front of me. And there was also this: I felt present watching her, more present than I had ever felt before. It was like I had just woken up; it was like blood for the first time decided to pulse through my arteries and spill down my veins. I did not care about anything that came before and I did not care about anything that was yet to happen. I only wanted to watch this girl until she closed the window and turned off the light.





Later that night I sat on the rocky beach and I finished the last of the wine. The breeze coming off the sound was cool and I wanted a fire. But I could not have a fire since it might attract attention. Instead I pulled my coat tight around myself and I smoked until I grew tired.