Twisted Fate(35)

So I did it. I did. I went over to his house because he invited me. And went up to his room. The house was amazing. Though it looked smaller than I thought it would be after seeing it from the outside. There were these tiny little paintings hanging all over. A whole wall taken up with miniatures that looked like they had been painted with a single eyelash they were so delicate. The house was really tastefully done. Not in the cozy New England style my mother preferred, but in a sophisticated way. Outside in the backyard there was a marble fountain with a single long smooth stone in the middle—it looked like one of those polished stone sculptures we studied in art history. I think the artist was Brancusi.

And I went up to his room. It was incredibly neat. Completely organized. It was more like a suite in a fancy hotel. He had his own bathroom connected to the room and the furniture was all really nice. He had a big old oak four-poster bed. The room was bright and on a corner with windows that overlooked the woods and also our house. His room was right across from our room. It was cool and quiet and he had shelves of interesting artifacts—things he said his parents and grandparents had brought back from traveling, or things people bought him as payment for the movies he made. He had more stuff than anyone I’d ever met. A massive record collection—I mean an actual vinyl record collection—that took up one wall of the room, another set of shelves from ceiling to floor lined with books, and another wall of electronic equipment—film stuff I guess. And then he had a closet full of stuff—some of it still in packages. Different kinds of cameras and lights and cables and microphones.

He also had an extremely thin flat-screen TV and that I guess is what we were going to watch his movies on—or that’s what he asked me over to do anyway: watch movies.

He hooked up his camera and I sat in a big comfortable leather chair in the corner by the windows and then he set up a tripod. He stood behind it looking at me and looking down at the camera every once in a while.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

“You’re really beautiful,” he said, and I covered my face, embarrassed.

“Okay,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Allyson Tate.”

He looked confused for just a second and then smiled.

“Where do you live?”

“Next door to you.”

“You’re the girl next door.” He smiled and looked up at me as he said it.

I could feel myself blushing. “I am,” I said.

“Where do you go to school?” He adjusted some things on the camera. Messed with the focus or the light or something.

“RHS,” I said.

“What kinds of things do you like to do?”

I shrugged. “I like baking.” It made me smile to think about. “I like riding my bike. I like going out in the boat with my dad . . . gardening.”

He was looking very intently at me. Studying me, but also smiling. Boys have looked at me, of course they have, but I don’t think any boy had ever looked at me like that. Certainly not a boy as handsome as Graham Copeland.

“Where do you work?” he asked.

“Pine Grove Inn.”

“What are your hours?”

“You know . . . after school until nine on Wednesday and Thursday and then Saturday mornings. I also just come when they need me.”

“You’re a fascinating creature, Allyson Tate,” he said, and I shook my head. Even I knew that wasn’t true. I was a capable Mainer. I loved my parents and my little town and I would probably end up buying a house like my parents had and fixing it up and going sailing with my own kids when I grew up. I knew I wasn’t fascinating, that I probably looked like some girl from an L.L.Bean catalog. But maybe being happy with all the traditional things is what made me interesting to him. Maybe being able to find blueberry patches, to make a good “lobstah dinnah,” to winterize an old house, or to love your parents—maybe those were some rare qualities I’d overlooked in myself.

He came around from behind the camera and sat next to me. And we both looked awkwardly at the lens for a while.

“I have one more question,” he said.

I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Because I thought I knew what he was going to ask. “Okay,” I said.

“Can I kiss you?”

I took a sharp breath and then laughed. “But . . . with the . . .” I pointed at the camera.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I mean, no if you don’t want to. Of course, if you don’t want to, but, uh . . . well . . . I just want to kiss you on camera so I can feel like I kissed a movie star. I don’t think I’ll believe it myself if I don’t have evidence. We can record over it. I just. I . . . ah. Never mind.”

I shook my head at him and laughed, and for a minute I didn’t even remember he was filming us at all. I didn’t care.

I could smell his hair, which was clean and smelled a little like cinnamon.

“I . . . um . . . sure,” I said. “Sure. Yes.” And I could feel my heart racing and I laughed again, not even knowing that I was going to.

And then he held my face in his hands and he kissed me. And then he kissed me again. And again. And again.





I felt so validated by the move to Maine. Things were going as planned. Graham was thriving. Simply thriving. He would have an amazing portfolio to send off to wherever he decided. And he seemed to have boundless energy. He wasn’t the shy, broken boy we arrived with. It was so gratifying for me to see him turning into a real artist. Someone who put the art before everything else. And just as I suspected that made him blossom, open up, start talking and thinking about things we were afraid he’d simply buried.