Summer of Love (16 page)

“Why, I thought you’d never ask,” she says and croons. “
Keep smiling, keep whatevering
…”

“Knowing you can always count on me — for sure…” I sing and then we join together for the last line, singing with our hard core ballad faces on, all crunched up and dramatic at which point applause echo throughout the room.

“Bravo, encore!” Charlie commands as he claps and nod, his tongue tracing the edges of his white teeth. How anyone could be near him and not have their pulse react is beyond me.

Arabella and I bow. “Want to come upstairs for a nightcap?” she asks and takes off her embroidered flip flops.

Charlie looks to me for an answer. I’m torn. But I know he’s planned something for tonight and I haven’t seen him all day. “Stay here,” I tell him, “I’ll be right down.” I follow Arabella upstairs and begin flinging my coffee-stained tee shirt off while simultaneously trying to fluff my hair out form its pony tail. I pull on slim-fitting navy blue pants, my go-anywhere red slides, and tightish white longsleeve scoop neck tee-shirt. Judging from how Charlie was dressed — e.g. not in his typical denim — I’m eschewing my love for my old khakis and trying for a bit more sophistication. Plus, the white shirt highlights my cleavage (in the good way, not the cover of a guy mag slutty way).

“Are you in for the night?” I ask Arabella.

“I am — I was hoping you would be, too. I came back early from — I came back to hang out. You know, it’s not as if we’ve had much time together in a while.”

“Yeah, I know. But let’s make time. How about tomorrow?”

“I’m working then I have a windsurfing lesson.”

I raise my palms in surprise. “You’re windsurfing?”

“I learned that summer I spent in Cornwall — when I met Toby — but I got out of practice. So I’m brushing up.” She flexes her arm. “It’s good for the upper body. What about the next day?”

“I’m working — and I’ll probably try to pull a double — I need the money.”

“Oh,” Arabella says, and doesn’t ask me why I need the money so badly. Even though she’s gotten into working this summer and earning money where she never really has before, she doesn’t get what it means to truly not be able to afford something. To really have things — either material objects or goals — out of reach. Arabella hands me her tinted lip balm and watches me slide a fingertip of it onto my lips. I look in the mirror. Not the best, not the worst. It’ll do. “What about the Fourth of July?”

“What about it?” I ask. “I thought you were doing the glam thing.”

“Please come,” she says. “Please? It’ll be so silly and we’ll just dress up and be funny and giggle. And watch fireworks.”

“But it’s at Henry’s house,” I say. “And he…we haven’t really seen much of each other lately.” As though that explains the tension, the snippy attitudes he and I have exchanged.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I can’t bring Charlie.”

“I thought he hadn’t asked you to do anything.”

“Thanks for that reminder,” I say and cross my arms over my chest. “he hasn’t. But I’m hoping…” I look at my friend’s face, how disappointed she looks. “I miss you, too, you know.”

She hugs me and the lets out a big ugh. “Are we too girly or what?”

“Pathetic.” I agree and she fixes my hair because she always does and I walk to the door. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” she asks.

“Okay, I’ll go to Trip Randall’s big bag on the fourth. But only because you’re my best friend and it’s important to you.”

“It’s my first American Fourth of July — I want it to be special.”

“It will be,” I say and feel like I’ve made the right choice, even though I’d rather be in a sweatshirt eating hot dogs and watching from the pier like everyone else. “Are you sure you’re okay here by yourself?”

Arabella seems to blush a little, but maybe it’s just the wine in her hand. “I’ll be fine. Go enjoy your midnight rendezvous with Prince Charlie.”

Of course, he’s not a prince but he treats me royally. Even as I think this I want to gag at my own mushiness.

“Oh, you’re going to live sappily ever after,” Chris says into my ear when he sees me and Charlie walking down the cobblestone street toward the harbor.

“Don’t ruin it,” I say. “I’m self-conscious enough as it is.”

“Have fun — wherever it is you’re off to at this late hour,” Chris says and mentions nothing about his big day of revelations with Haverford, which could mean he backed off from saying anything or it could mean he’s heartbroken but doesn’t want to say so in front of Charlie or it could mean his crush is finally fulfilled and they’re dating. But of course I don’t know which — if any —of these scenarios is correct because I am fully ensconced in my right now.

“Just where are you taking me, anyway?” I ask and feel like a fairy tale girl, little red riding hood or something — minus the always creepy element of a witch, a wolf, or a poisoned apple.

“Can you ever just wait and see?” Charlie asks. He holds my hand; our fingers interlaced and pulls me around a corner and up a small path.

“What is this place?” I ask and let go of his hand so I can stop and smell the roses — literally — that flank the walls of garden path. The narrow passageway leads us up from the street and the harborside to a set of stone steps into which a metal railing is set.

“Hold on as you climb — it make it easier,” Charlie says, going in front of me and the waiting. “Do you want to lead?”

It could be a loaded question — do I want to take the figurative reins of the relationship. “Do I want to make all the decisions?” I ask, slightly winded from the steep steps and steady pace.

“No — I meant do you want to go in front of me. That way, if you fall, I can catch you.”

Talk about words that sound like cheesy love songs that make me swoon regardless. “Sure — I’ll go first. As long as it’s not just an excuse to look at my ass.”

Charlie cocks his head to one side and smiles in the moonlight. “That, too.”

We keep going up, the steps winding around the hillside until they stop at an arched wooden doorway painted black but peeling. “Here we are.”

I step back and realize the door is attached to a squat small house right next to a lighthouse whose signal circles round and round, casting a sheath of light onto the grass, the steps, the water below, and then back again.

“Come on in,” Charlie says. The house is vacant and I’m suddenly a little freaked out. Charlie wasn’t the most upfront about being Mr. Money, who’s to say he isn’t hiding something else up his sleeve — like a knife. Okay, so maybe it was a mistake for me to go see that creepy movie with Chris last weekend while Arabella did god knows what at some bonfire on the beach.

“Are you secretly a slasher?” I ask.

“Yes,” Charlie nods. “You’ve found me out.” He holds his hand out to me so I’ll follow up through a strange little doorway and the minute my hand is back in his, all traces of freaky nerves disappear. “Only one more set of stairs — I promise.”

The stairwell is ancient and tiny, with sloping risers and whitewashed stone walls. Once we’re at the top, we go through yet another arch and then —

“Oh, Charlie it’s so great! Oh — and the…and it’s…” Love looses her language skills and instead opts for ogling. The steps led us from the keeper’s house over to the actual lighthouse and the room we’re in is the top floor. Circular, with stone walls, the room is set with a long table on top of which is a stunning variety of desserts.

“You said you like sweets so…” He motions for me to check out the goods.

Not that the food in front of me is super-friendly to bathing suit weather nor is it at all necessary, but it’s so — well, sweet. “You didn’t have to.”

Charlie goes to the far side (okay, not a side — I did get an a in geometry — but the far rim of the circle) of the room and lifts up the top of a wooden chest. “Why do you always think things are done out of necessity? Of course I didn’t have to drag you all the way to a lighthouse and I didn’t have to ask Paula Flan to make all this stuff…but I did it because it’s fun. It’s different.”

It
is
fun, it
is
different — and it’s also pretty extravagant. I could fly to California and back several times from the looks of the spread, unless Charlie managed to whip this all up himself — which, though he’s a talented industrious guy, I seriously doubt. But I try not to let my lurking financial fiascos pull me away from the moment.

From the chest, I watch Charlie take out several blankets, a white comforter that seems to expand when he shakes it, and a couple of pillows. I want to ask him if this is his lair, if he brings all his women here and woos them with sugar until their brains malfunction and they agree to whatever blanketfest he has in mind. But I don’t. “Paula Flan made these?”

I go investigate the food further. Chocolate ganache tore sprinkled with candied lavender; white chocolate-covered cashews, tiramisu, over-sized brownies, and good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies. I choose one from a silver tray and take a bit. “Paula Flan as in chef to the stars? Paula Flan who’s in the papers every two seconds for her desserts? I feel humbled to eat one.”

“I should’ve known you’d go for the ccc’s,” Charlie says, still arranging blankets. “Those I could make myself…”

“I always thought it was funny that her name is Flan and she’s a baker. Granted she’s like the baking mogul, but still…”

“You think it’s destiny — with a name like that?” Charlie asks, and comes over to the table. He dips a finger into the chocolate fondue and brings it to me to lick off. Yum. Food and love — perfect combo.

“Could be — I mean, it’s not like she became a lawyer — that wouldn’t be funny.”

Charlie thumbs to the cozy area he’s set up, all layers of quilts and pillows, and I take my shoes off so I can pad onto it and sit with my next round of treats. “Following that logic, you could say I’m destined for a life of financial investing.” I raise my eyebrows. “It sounds boring just saying it, let alone doing it. How all the Addisons tolerated doing the same thing for so many generations is beyond me.”

“And I guess I’d wind up being…” I shrug and wipe the corners of my mouth lest I get choco-grime in there. “A schoolmaster?” I can’t help but laugh. “Definitely not.”

“Bukowski…sounds more like you’re headed for the literary realm.”

I swallow my bite of pastry and look around for water. O course, Charlie’s thought of this and produces a bottle of sparkling water. I pretend to examine the contents. “This isn’t spiked, is it?”

Charlie lifts himself up into a squatting position and looks at me, half-smirking and half-serious. “Wait — don’t gloss over the writing thing. You might be able to hide to other people…but under your hot redheaded exterior…” He thinks I’m hot! I’ve never been called hot — maybe pretty or attractive but I’m not the typical hottie — so even though my self-esteem doesn’t depend on that, it’s still nice to hear. “Under this…” Charlie touches my hair and puts it in back of my shoulders. “Is a real writer, I think.”

I shake my head. “How do you know? We hardly…”

“When we first hung out you told me very clearly about your journals, your songwriting, your love of books….even your lists of words you like and hate — that’s language, that focus on words is something a writer does.”

“So you don’t think I’m destined to be a pop star or something?” I ask and tilt my head and mime signing into my dessert.

“I didn’t buy that rock star thing for a second. You’re way too academic for that. How many people go from Hadley Hall to superstardom.”

“Probably not many over the years — but there’s nothing saying I couldn’t be the first.” I put my unfinished treat onto a white plate and wipe my hands on a napkin. Charlie pours some of the sparkling water into a glass and I sip it like it is spiked with something even though it’s plain.

“Oh — and as for that other comment about me spiking the water?”

I smile over the rim of my glass. “I was just kidding.”

“In every joke there’s an element of truth, right?” Charlie removes his shoes, pulls off his guy-comfy grey sweater, revealing a slightly fitted waffle knit shirt underneath. Even though its summer, the Vineyard nights are cool. I’m chilled, too, and Charlie pulls back the puffy comforter and wordlessly suggests I get underneath. When I stay still he shakes his head, grinning. “Look — under no circumstances am I trying to seduce you.”

I look at the table of delights back to the nest (read: bed) he’s made and raise one eyebrow at him. It’s a thing I’ve always been able to do — and I taught Arabella eve though it’s an inherited trait (a useless show of genetics, but still). As I do it, I instantly think that Mable couldn’t do it, my Dad couldn’t do it, and that maybe it’s something my mother does. Maybe I have gestures or tastes from her and I don’t even know it. “Between the bed and the brownie booty — you could’ve fooled me.”

Charlie lies back on the blanket, his frame contrasting against the pure whiteness of it like he’s in snow. On my knees, I make my way over to him — not under the covers (as if this proves anything) but next to him so I can bend down and kiss him. He breaks away for a second to tell me, “I didn’t plan this night as a question.”

I sit on my butt, knees up, hair semi blocking my eyes and consider this. “You mean, this isn’t a
will you
?”

“Right.”

“So what is it?” I feel small, tucked into a tiny lighthouse, away from the island, the vast harbor, snug in containment.

“It’s just a night,” he says. Like his name is just a name, like a kiss is just a kiss and so on.

We kiss more, and then slide under the duvet, its weight giving me warmth and a cover for my own shyness. It’s not like I’m a prude and it’s not as though I’m rushing to remove my wardrobe, but it feels good to cuddle with him. Or maybe cuddle is too tame. But hook up doesn’t tell you anything, it doesn’t describe any feeling — and there are feelings there. I look at Charlie as he takes his shirt off and smile. He looks at me and kisses just under my jaw line. “Who needs fourth of July fireworks, huh?” Then blush overtakes his cheeks and he looks away. “I can’t believe how corny that sounded. It was much better in my head.”

“That’s like how I draw — in my mind it’s a perfect charcoal rendition of a figure and then on paper it’s all stick figure and smudged lines.”