Envious Moon(21)

“What boy wouldn’t?”

“It must be boring for you. All girls.”

“There are boys from other schools. They come down on weekends. Or we go up there.”

“Do you have a boyfriend from another school?”

“Nosy, nosy,” Hannah said.

“Just curious, that’s all.”

“No,” she said. “No boyfriend at another school. Satisfied?”

“Yes,” I said.

And we sat in silence after that and presently she rose and took our plates and brought them inside. I looked to where the sun was beginning its descent. The sunset to come was going to be magnificent. The sky was already turning a deep red. To my left was the moon, scarcely more than a tracing at the edge of everything.





I told Hannah what I could about fishing on the North Atlantic and she seemed to want to know it all. I told her about the long steams out to the swordfish grounds and all the busy work that went along with it. I told her about Captain Alavares, and about Big Al and Carlos and Ronny. I told her what it was like when we got weather, and how afraid I was sometimes. How sometimes the fear doubled back on itself and you almost forgot what you were afraid of, that the fear became the thing.

And with each word I uttered, every story I told, I felt her understanding of me grow and grow, and to that point I had never been more honest with anyone in my life. I know that sounds strange given all that I did not tell her that night. All that I left out. But I spoke from my heart and from nowhere else.

Then when I said all I had to say, Hannah said softly, “You can kiss me if you want.”

I turned toward her. I slid closer on the stone steps. She laughed at me, and said, “Are you going to?”

“Yes,” I said, and I leaned in and she did too and our lips brushed together and then apart.

“Give me a real kiss,” she said.

I leaned in again and this time I felt her tongue on my teeth and I opened my mouth and her breath was hot on my face. I had no idea what I was doing but I closed my eyes and we kissed like this for a while. The truth was that all I wanted to do was hold her, to feel her in my arms, and when we came apart, I wrapped my arms around her and I brought her to my chest. Her face pressed into my sternum. She smelled like soap and she was so warm. I lightly played with her hair. And after a few minutes I sensed her tears before I heard them, the sudden heaviness of her breathing against me.

“Hey,” I said. “You okay?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I just get sad sometimes.”

“I know,” I said, and I did, for I got sad sometimes too.

I let her cry then and she cried good and hard against my chest. I stroked her hair but I did not say anything else. In her small fist she balled up part of my T-shirt. I looked over her to the stars and we stayed like this until she fell asleep in my arms.

I wanted to move but I did not want to wake her. She was so peaceful. Her head was heavy against my biceps and when I shifted slightly, she turned her face inward and now I could gaze down onto it. Her soft eyelids and small nose, her pale, freckled skin. Her hair falling over my bare arms. I had never held anyone like this before and I decided then that it did not matter how tired my arm got, or how badly I wanted a cigarette, I was not going to move until she did. She could have stayed there forever for all I cared.





I left her at the edge of the stairs and kissed her good-bye and when she had climbed up and out of my sight, I returned to my camp on the beach. I lay on my bedroll and I did not want to sleep. I replayed in my mind the smallest of her gestures—and the larger ones, like the kiss, and I thought I saw in her eyes what had existed in my own for a long time now.

In the morning I returned to the house but she had already left. Another sunny day in a string of sunny days and I lingered around for a while but she didn’t return. I spent the afternoon on the beach. I took turns swimming and lying on my bedroll. I hiked to the general store and bought a sandwich for lunch. I lazily threw a line in at one point. It was a beautiful day and I had the sun and the water to swim in. I could fish if I wanted to. There was no work I needed to do. And, I thought, so this is love. For I had the sun and the water and all the time the summer afforded, and I wanted none of them. All I wanted was Hannah.

In the evening I returned to the house and this time she was sitting exactly where we had sat the night before and next to her was a pizza. A large pizza, a pizza for two. Her hands were across her knees and she smiled at me when I came across the lawn.

“I figured you’d still be here,” she said.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Not yet.”

“Where you been all day?”

“Work.”

I laughed. “You work?”

She looked away, toward the sea. “A condition of my father’s while I’m on the island,” she said softly.

“Oh,” I said. “Where do you work?”

“Benny’s Ice Cream,” she said. “I’m a scooper.”

“I bet you’re good at it,” I said.

“I’m okay.”

“I should’ve come and visited you. If I’d known.”

“We’re not allowed to have visitors.”