Once and for All(32)

“Thanks.” She smiled, then pulled down her mirror, taking out a lip gloss and applying a coat. Was this Milly? Someone else? Of course I wouldn’t ask. He hadn’t told me.

A moment later Ambrose came around the corner holding the scarf, the dog lunging excitedly at the opposite end. “Annika,” he said. “Namaste!”

She smiled. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“I am full of surprises.” He climbed into the passenger seat, then patted his lap. As the dog leapt in, Annika burst out laughing, reaching over to rub his head with one hand. Ambrose waved at me, and I nodded, then started over to my own car. When I looked back a moment later, they were pulling out of the lot, the dog’s head poking out the window. On the way home, I changed the radio station six times before I decided, finally, on silence.





CHAPTER


    8





“OKAY, SO that’s the Big Dipper,” I said, pointing. “See how it looks like a ladle? And below it is the Little Dipper. And under that, the little one that looks like a crown? That’s Cassiopeia.”

Ethan turned his head to the side: I felt his hair brush my cheek. “And what about that one?”

“Which?”

He lifted his arm, moving a finger in a circle. “That clump there, at the bottom.”

“I have no idea.”

He shifted again, this time facing me. “I thought you said you knew this stuff.”

“Some of it,” I said, rolling toward him as well. “Okay, I know those three.”

He laughed, that sudden burst that was even more startling close up. “And here I thought you could get us home strictly by celestial navigation.”

“Nope. We’d be screwed,” I told him. “Sorry.”

“Hey, at least you can name a few. I’ve always just made up my own.”

“Your own constellations?”

“Sure. It’s like inkblots. You can tell a lot about a person by what they see in the sky.” He moved onto his back again. “Take that weird square, over there. I’d call that Dented Laundry Hamper.”

“It just doesn’t have the same ring at Cassiopeia.”

“But it’s clear what it is.” He pointed again. “Okay, and that one, over on the left? That’s Dish Scrubber.”

Now that I looked, I could sort of see the resemblance. “So what does it say about you that so far it’s all household items that you see?”

“I’m glad you asked,” he replied, and I smiled, already recognizing this as a classic Ethan expression. “I think it speaks to my domesticity. Also, lack of imagination.”

“What about that one?” I asked, lifting my finger to point.

He didn’t even hesitate. “Potholder.”

“And that, the cluster by the Big Dipper?”

“EKG.”

“That’s not a household item.”

“Well, maybe not at your house.”

This time, I laughed, and as I did, he reached up, taking my pointing finger and pulling it toward him. I shifted my grip, interlocking my hand with his as he placed it on his chest, then curled up against him.

After the dance—sweet, awkward, perfect—we’d walked past the end of the world, through the shifting tides. It was then he’d taken my hand, wordless, easily. A stretch of dark, damp sand later, we found ourselves on the other side of the Colby peninsula. When the lights of the boardwalk appeared in the distance, we both stopped walking.

“Not yet,” he said, and I knew exactly what he meant. We sat down and started looking at the stars.

I’d always been nervous about boys. I wasn’t like Jilly, coming alive when faced with the opposite sex, the very presence of a guy causing the inherent glow in her to brighten. Instead, I was always jumpy, too aware of the particulars. The mechanics of a hand on mine, or an arm over my shoulder. The way my lips fit his in a kiss, specifics of saliva and tongue as if I was being graded on form. The kind of passion and attraction I saw in movies or read about in books seemed impossible to me, entirely too fraught with details and elbows.

From the start, Ethan was different. I felt so comfortable with him. Even just standing near him, there at the breaking waves, I’d wanted to lean in closer. It was the same way I felt now, as he reached his free hand to smooth back my hair. When he kissed me, I thought of nothing but how he tasted.

For the rest of that night, in my memory anyway, we were always in contact. My hand in his, his arm over my shoulder. The easy way he cupped my waist to pull me against him as we lay there in the sand, and later, crossed the length of the empty beach. We walked for an hour, maybe longer, talking the entire time, before we finally came up on the boardwalk.

Everything seemed bright and different after so long in the darkness, even though most of the businesses were closed. There was one neon sign lit, however, in the window of a narrow storefront. COFFEE AND PIE, it read. Two bikes were parked just outside.

I looked at Ethan. “We have to,” he said, answering the question I hadn’t even asked. I shook the sand out of my shoes, then dropped them onto the boards beneath my feet. My hair felt wild as I tried to smooth it, my lips raw from kissing. When I looked up at Ethan, I saw sand along his temple.

“Hold on,” I said, reaching up. As I did, he lowered his head, leaning into my fingers. It was such a simple, fleeting moment, but later, when I’d think of it, I would sob until my chest ached. The big moments with Ethan weren’t, well, big. Instead, it was these tiny increments and gestures that I clung to in order to hold on to him. It was why, now, I was never able to tell this story all at once. My memory fractured in certain places, wanting to just stop right there. On the boardwalk, in the thrown light of a neon sign. His head dipped down as I pulled my fingers through his hair. Sand falling onto my feet. That night still in progress, with daylight hours away.