Summer Nights (7 page)

Anne’s eyes blurred and spilled over.

Oh, Con, Con! You sweet, loving boy. You did all this for me! You care so much!

Anne turned in the press of hugs and friends to find Con. He was standing on top of a deck bench, one foot on the seat, one knee bent and that foot on the backrest. The wind blew his shirt into a hundred folds and his hair waved like the flags. Those dark wonderful eyes seemed open only for Anne. He kissed the air. She kissed it back. They caught each other’s kisses.

I can’t go after all, Anne thought. Leave this? This is what life is all about—love and friends.

T
HEY FORGOT ME, BETH
Rose Chapman thought. They didn’t even notice that I’m not on board. I suppose the moment Anne and Con got there, they started the engines and raised the anchor.

The vanishing
Duet
gleamed once more at the bend in the river, as if winking cruelly.

“At least,” said a friendly voice, “you have plenty of ice cream to eat.”

Beth turned. She was a girl who cried easily, but right now there were no tears. It was too awful for tears. She felt completely desolate. Her last good-bye, and she would never make it. The final summer night, and she was not part of it. And nobody noticed.

“Can’t be that bad,” said the boy who was facing her. The sun was right in his eyes and he wrinkled up his entire face against the rays, even his mouth and cheeks. Beth shifted position so he could see her without squinting. Why am I always the thoughtful one, she asked herself, but nobody is thoughtful back tome?

“I’ll miss the party,” she said dolefully.

The sun chose that moment to disappear. The glittering river went black, the hot breeze turned damp and chilly, and the river lay empty.

“Important party?” the boy asked.

She nodded. Her throat hurt.

“You want me to rent us a boat and I’ll catch you up to them?” he asked her.

Beth stared. “How clever of you!” Beth cried. “That would be wonderful. Where do we rent a boat? Yes, of course!”

He laughed and picked up half the ice cream. “You live in this town?”

“All my life.”

“And you don’t know where to rent a boat?”

“I’ve always gone on the
Duet,
if I’ve gone at all.”

The kid shook his head, as if he had come to expect that sort of idiocy from Westerly natives. Beth scooped up her share of the ice cream and walked in step with him. He was tall and thin, wearing cutoff jeans and no shirt. The shirt he had tied around his waist. It fluttered out behind. Around his neck was a single, thick, flat, gold chain and his dark hair was rather long and kept catching in the chain. She wondered if it bothered him. It would drive her crazy.

He was very tan. Probably hadn’t worn a shirt since June.

They arrived at the boat rentals. “Yep, I’m the guy,” a big bearded man assured them. He grinned from under coils of scrubby gray hair and beard. “Had this boat just waiting for you two.”

He made it sound like a date. Beth was a little taken aback by how small the boats were—little bitty dinghies, which looked very tippable. “I’m not a great swimmer,” she said nervously.

The boy was insulted. “I’m not going to require you to swim,” he said with dignity. “I am going to deliver you to your boat happy and dry.” He glanced at her. “Although maybe a bit sticky with ice cream.”

The boatman—“Calvin” was embroidered on the pocket of his workshirt—helped her into the skiff and she sat gingerly, right in the center, worried about breathing too hard and dumping them in the water. Calvin would certainly have the laugh of the day if that happened.

The boy jumped in, the boat swayed, the ice cream rolled around, and he sat down hard next to the engine. It had a rip cord which was very hard to pull, and when pulled, accomplished nothing. On the eighth try, with terrific effort, he got the engine going. Calvin was grinning from ear to ear on his deck, feet splayed apart, as if he purposely designed his engines to start no sooner than the eighth try. He winked at Beth Rose. The man had to be sixty, and he was irresistibly cute standing there half laughing at her. Beth winked back and they both laughed.

The little skiff shot out into the marina, swerving past the rows of docked boats, and avoiding the incoming motorboats. When they were free of the water traffic and out in the middle of the river, the boy turned to smile at her.

It’s him, Beth Rose thought. This is the corner. I turned it and didn’t even notice him there.

The boy’s mouth in repose was slightly open, as if he were about to speak or laugh. His face was no longer wrinkled in the sun, but long and thin, with thin features, as if he were a person of sharp edges and hidden thoughts. “We knights in shining armor always get our engines going in the end,” he told Beth.

She began to feel that missing the party on the
Duet
was going to have it advantages. A night on the river with this boy would be a wonderful ending to the summer.

She thought about that. It was more likely to be a wonderful
beginning
to the autumn. “What’s your name?” she said, eager for details. “You’re not from Westerly? Where do you go to high school? Are you here for the summer? Did you just move here?”

“Pick one,” he shouted over the roaring engine, “and maybe I’ll tell you.”

“Name,” Beth yelled back.

“Blaze.”

“Really?”

“Really. My parents are trendy.”

“I like it.”

She forgot to be nervous and leaned way forward to catch his words better. “Where from?” she yelled.

“Arizona.”

“What are you doing a thousand miles from home?”

“You ever take geography? You have any idea where Arizona is? It’s an awful lot more than a thousand miles.”

“Beth Rose,” she shouted.

“Beth did what?”

“No, no, not Beth stood up, Beth Rose, that’s my name, Beth Rose.”

He cut the motor during her speech. Her last two words resounded across the entire river. People on shore glanced over at them and Blaze laughed at her. “Beth Rose” seemed to echo all around them.

Beth blushed. “Would you like to drink some blueberry ice cream, Blaze? It’s homemade. The very best.”

He picked up an entire gallon and peeled off the cardboard lid. “Don’t mind if I do, Miss Beth Rose.” He drank deep from the blueberry ice cream and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. This seemed incredibly funny to Beth and she took the gallon from him and had a swig herself. “That’s disgusting,” she said. “I never drank blueberry ice cream before.”

“I’ll have your share. I liked it.”

“What are you doing here, instead of being safely in Arizona?”

“Having the most boring summer of my entire life.”

They were sitting knee to knee now. She could stop shouting and didn’t have to lean close to hear, but she stayed close anyhow. “There’s nothing worse than being bored,” she sympathized. “Especially for a whole summer. You have to come to our party. You’ll meet everybody. We’re mostly just-graduated seniors. Are you? It’s bad timing, because this is the last Saturday of summer. But at least you can have one night that’s not boring.”

“I’d like that,” the boy said. He nodded several times and took hold of the rip cord to start the motor again. Nothing happened. Not the second, not the third try. By the tenth he was gleaming with sweat. She wished she were a good swimmer. She would suggest a dive into the water for both of them.

Blaze said ruefully, “I don’t think we’re going to catch up to the
Duet
very soon.”

Beth could think of worse fates. “Well, here. Try drinking chocolate. That might go down even better than blueberry.”

The party goers were throwing confetti over Con and Anne as if they were a bride and groom. Anne was sobbing, Con laughing. Anne was passing from hug to hug like a basketball in a close game.

All that friendship.

Molly had never been a part of anything like that. Friendship rode the boat like a passenger, larger than all rest.

Confetti symbolized everything in Molly’s life for which she had had high hopes…and then nothing came of her hopes. New Year’s Eve, or Memorial Day parades—handfuls of confetti tossed high—beautiful aloft—paper rejoicing.

But for Molly the confetti was always on the pavement, to be ground underfoot by people who did not care.

Nobody hugged Molly. Gary sprang out to hug Anne like the rest, and wish her a fond farewell. Molly was left alone in the dark cabin, as the sun set and the wind strengthened.

Molly’s jealousy grew, and became a thing as large and as real as the friendship she yearned for.

Jeremiah Dunstan had taken all the film he reasonably could of these kids partying. Until something interesting occurred, he didn’t want to waste any more footage. How interesting would it be to look at them all milling around talking and eating?

He sat on a seat by the rail, staring back at the wake. Smooth waves of high water spread behind them like a forked dragon’s tail. A small motorized dinghy came up toward them. Jere could make out a boy at the tiller and a girl—

Look at that hair! Thick, long red hair, blowing around like a cloud, now lashing the girl’s face, now tugged out behind, now caught in the boy’s hand as he gestured while talking.

The dinghy pulled up close. The boy shouted, “I’m trying to deliver her to your party. She missed the boat.”

Jere nodded and went to tell the captain, who nodded back, and let the engine idle so the girl could be brought aboard.

Jere found her stunning. More real than Anne, this girl was sunburnt and freckled, and laughing, her wide, happy mouth puckered in embarrassment and pleasure. That great hair didn’t settle down now that the wind was gone, but stayed up, teased into a halo by the elements.

Who is this? Jere thought. I have to know!

Con and Gary helped the girl into the boat and he suddenly realized that something dramatic had happened, and he, the cameraman, had missed it entirely. He felt like asking the girl to get back in the dinghy and start over.

Her name appeared to be Beth, or Rose, or both, or maybe Rose was her last name. She was definitely popular; they were hugging her as much as they’d hugged Anne. Or maybe this was just a hugging crowd.

Probably another graduating senior headed for parts unknown. He would ask. He would definitely ask.

I
F BETH HAD HAD
a choice, she would have drifted all night in the dark with Blaze. She would have moved to Arizona with him, gone to the Arctic with him, pioneered on the moon with him. However, it seemed premature to announce this to Blaze, as boys were apt to vanish at the first syllable of serious intent.

Blaze was telling her about how this had been the longest summer of his entire life. The family situation certainly seemed complex. His mother’s corporation had promoted her to a position in California; his father’s corporation had promoted him to a position in Dallas. While his parents tried to figure out what they were going to do, Blaze got accepted at a college in New York City, and his uncle and aunt in Westerly offered to take him for the summer while his parents moved, wherever they ended up going. In the end, each parent had taken each promotion and now Blaze had no real home at all.

Beth could not imagine going off in the world without having an actual place to go back
to.
She would always have Westerly, and in some way, it would always have her.

“Going to college in New York City?” she repeated. She would have to introduce him to Kip. Kip would love it. A handsome boy from Arizona to escort her her first week in town.

But would I love that? Beth asked herself. My daydream come true. Finally, around the corner, there he is, the perfect boy. So I take him on board the
Duet
and who does he have his duet with? Kip, of course. A better, brighter choice than me, anyhow. Who won’t be hundreds of miles away, but right there, in the same town. Maybe even the same dorm.

Beth’s heart sank. Probably in the same classes, too, she thought, majoring in the same subject…

“So what will you be doing?” he asked. They all asked that. Tiredly she told him about the community college and waitressing. All her thoughtful genes won out, and Beth said, “I’ll have to introduce you to a girl on board, one of my best friends, who’s going to be in New York for college, too.” Beth steeled herself. “You’ll love her,” she added. Beth tried to remember Kip’s real name, since Kip intended a fresh, nickname-less start to college. “Katharine Elliott is her name,” she finished, feeling saintly.

“Hey, that’d be great. I’d love that. There’s only one problem, Beth. You can climb aboard, but I have to return this boat to the boat rental. Calvin didn’t seem like the type to laugh if one of his boats never returned.”

“Oh, if that isn’t just like life!” she said crossly. “Always boats to be returned to boat rental. I hate details. Life should be free of niggly little details. You should just be able to sail on to the next happy event without worrying about boats getting returned.”

He was grinning at her, and the thin features seemed momentarily hers, as if she owned them, or had blended with them. They talked about life’s annoyances for a moment. “What are you going to study in college?” he asked abruptly.

He thought I was interesting, Beth Rose mused. He liked what I said about boat returns. But now I’ll tell him what I’m studying and he’ll laugh
at
me, not with me. If only she could answer something thrilling like astronomy or automobile design. “I kind of want to teach sixth grade,” she said, “so I guess I’ll study a little bit of everything.”

“I loved sixth,” Blaze told her. “All the good stuff is in sixth. Ancient history and Stonehenge. I remember when we got to Egypt we built pyramids out of sugar cubes. We were bringing shoe boxes to school so we could make dioramas about early agriculture.”

Beth was delighted. “I loved all that,” she confessed. “It was the last time I was really terrific in school. My shoe boxes were always the best.”

“Not mine,” Blaze said. “I’m pretty good at grades, but I haven’t hit anything I want to do for a lifetime. I’m hoping to find the shoe box of my dreams at college.” He stood up, started the engine on the first rip of the cord, and set a course for the
Duet.
Beth no longer felt like shouting a conversation. Why had he broken off their talk like that? Of course, it was probably just that he was fulfilling his promise to get her to the
Duet.
But maybe she had gotten boring, and he was lying about sixth grade pyramids and couldn’t wait to get rid of her.