We rounded the curve and looked down at the lights of the houses and the village. The glow shimmered in the evening air. It all seemed suddenly brand-new, as if the town had been quietly waiting for this moment. It all felt a bit different now, probably because I was seeing it through Kyle’s eyes, or maybe it was because I felt so brand-new myself.

  “I’m sure it’s a great feeling to be above the world you live in,” he said.

  “Not so much above the people. Just the view.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I took him through the village and then on a highway that I knew would bring us to a beautiful view of the ocean. Many people went there on warm summer nights, lingering beneath the stars, alive with voices. But tonight the world felt hushed, and there was practically no one there. I showed him where to pull in, and we both sat back and just looked out at the endless horizon where the sky melted into the dark waves.

  “You know, I wonder now why I don’t do more night scenes. It’s breathtaking.”

  He leaned toward me and touched my hair.

  “A girl like you should have many dates that end up here,” he said.

  Jamie flashed through my mind, but I realized there was always some underlying tension when he and I went somewhere alone, especially at night.

  “You have to make moments like this, scenes like this, special in your mind,” Kyle said in a half whisper.

  Then he brought his lips to mine. It was a kiss I had imagined, longer than a usual friendly kiss or even a slightly unsure kiss. This was a kiss meant to be, meant to make me feel what it did. There wasn’t the slightest sense of uncertainty. His firmness and determination didn’t frighten me as I’d imagined such a thing would; instead, they excited me. I didn’t pull away or look in any way upset.

  He smiled. “Just something I wanted to be sure happened to you,” he said.

  Then he surprised me. He started the car, and we drove back to the house silently.

  At the house, he thanked me for the tour of Birdlane as if nothing else had happened. Was I making too much of that kiss? He took my hand, and we entered the house. Everyone was somewhere else. We paused, and neither of us spoke.

  “Well,” he said. “I think we should get some rest. A big, long day and lots of work ahead.”

  I nodded.

  He kept holding my hand, and we started down the hallway. At my doorway, we stopped, but I held on to his hand, and he held on to mine. Something more was going to happen, I thought; it was more like I wanted it to happen.

  “Have a great sleep, and thanks for making me part of your great day,” he said, and let go of my hand, leaned over to kiss me on the cheek like a big brother, and walked on to his room.

  Maybe I had misjudged him. My expectations had led to disappointment, and I wondered if that was a weakness of mine. Should I have recognized right away what his real intentions were? How much experience did a girl need before she could see the right way to go?

  Of course, I hadn’t been here if Jamie had called, and there were no calls for the remainder of the night. In the morning, I got excited thinking maybe things would seem different when I saw Kyle at breakfast. But when I got there, Anna told me Kyle was already outside working. He had risen practically with the sun.

  Before leaving to go to school, I went around the corner and shouted to him, but he was so intensely focused on his sketch that he didn’t turn. I waited another moment. I was going to approach him and then thought maybe it was wrong to break his concentration. I hesitated and then went to my car to drive to school.

  At school, everyone knew about my good health report and most knew about my new car. Peggy Merton approached to tell me, “Well, maybe it was a present for getting better.” And I thought, did she believe I’d had control over that and that this was my reward for having made the right decision?

  “Yes, I just decided to do it,” I said as sarcastically as I could.

  She giggled. She’s my age, I thought. I understood what Kyle and Grandfather saw in me.

  Classes were mostly review for finals, and I found the conversation with my peers suddenly quite infantile. The giggling over what was meaningless to me made me wonder if I was feeling superior because I had an older man interested in me, but how interested? Was it showing how childish I still was to fantasize about it? I couldn’t wait for the day to end so I could return to the Crest.

  One way or another, I would learn if I was totally misunderstanding everything. Part of me just wanted it to be a platonic relationship, but a strong part of me wanted it to be romantic and mature. Maybe we did have two identities. We talked to ourselves, argued with ourselves. Growing up, especially romantically, meant accepting who you really were. Did I have the strength to do it?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When I arrived, Kyle was still out at his site, but this time he turned immediately, put down his brush, and started toward me.

  “How was school?” he asked as he approached. He brushed back his hair and straightened his shirt. It was a little gesture, but I took it to mean he didn’t want to look in any way untidy in front of me.

  “Pretty boring,” I said. “Review, because most of my classmates won’t do it at home.”

  He laughed. “Well, I think we can still do it,” he said, looking at his watch.

  “Do what?”

  “Save the day for you. I found a good place to rent a sailboat, and I thought we might go to Bar Harbor for dinner. With the weather this good, it will be enjoyable.”

  “Go to Bar Harbor now? Really?”

  “We’ll sail there, and your grandfather will have his boat ready to bring us back.”

  “My grandfather agreed to that? You’ve really charmed him.”

  He laughed again. “We share the same goal, pleasing you. Anyway, I was told about this small Italian restaurant with authentic Sicilian food. I’ve been to Sicily twice, so I can tell.”

  “Where haven’t you been?”

  “Topeka, Kansas.”

  “What?”

  “Just joking. Don’t worry. You’ll be a traveler for sure,” he said.

  Would I? I wondered. Maybe someone like him with his experience could see my future better than I could. I hurried off to change my clothes while he gathered his materials. I did have a sailing outfit. It was a vintage dark turquoise dress with a large button-down collar. My cotton sailing jacket would be great for the restaurant, too.

  I thought sailing or anything to do with it would never interest me again since Mommy’s accident, but that had happened in very bad weather, and right now I thought I’d want to go and do anything Kyle suggested. This had a sense of spontaneity, which made it all seem much more exciting. Most of all, I wanted to do things I hadn’t been permitted to do before. Flowers blossomed, doors opened, shades were raised in my new world.

  I stepped out of my room and heard Kyle clapping. He was standing next to Anna and chatting near the entrance.

  “The new young lady,” he said, and did a full theatrical bow.

  Anna laughed. “She is so much brighter that I hardly recognize her.” She looked at Kyle adoringly, as though he had accomplished this.

  “Sailing we shall go,” Kyle sang, and took my hand as we walked out to my car.

  “Have a nice time,” Anna called.

  “You drive,” I told him. I wanted to feel more like I was on a date and being catered to. Was I going to become that spoiled brat my peers assumed I was? I looked back. Anna was still out there watching us go.

  I suddenly had a new fear. Maybe Grandfather’s and Anna’s encouragement was part of a plan. The whole idea of doing a landscape of the Crest could be part of it. They wanted me to develop self-confidence as quickly as possible. What better way than having Kyle Wyman show me all this attention? What if even his choice of my painting was part of the plan? If I found this to be true, I didn’t think anything could depress me more. Grandfather wouldn’t have taken the chance, would he? I could hear my mother saying, “Why wouldn’t any man be interested in a girl like you?”

  It isn’t easy building self-confidence when you have been kept on a shelf all your life, I thought. But I had to do it. And I had to keep from showing any doubt.

  We drove to the pier and to Birdlane Sailing. The owner, Steve Rogers, knew who I was. I wasn’t sure what the expression on his face was—maybe that of surprise, mostly. The gossip was sure to start. He helped us launch, and as soon as we did, I could see that Kyle was a good sailor. I sat back as the wind started us on our short journey to Bar Harbor.

  “You are good,” I said.

  “Oh, this isn’t much of a challenge today. More like a dreamboat ride.”

  It was for me, I thought.

  He held the tiller that connected directly to the rudder and sat beside me.

  “Surely you’ve taken lessons,” he said.

  “Not really.”

  “Oh. Let’s start.” He put my hand on the tiller and changed positions. “You can almost feel the wind through it, can’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When the boat is moving faster, you can turn the tiller less to turn the boat, so don’t be afraid of the wind giving us more go.”

  “Who taught you?” I asked.

  “Not my father. I had a cousin who was in sailboat contests. That’s it. You’re doing well.”

  He drew me closer.

  “I can’t feel the wind through you,” he said.

  I was so excited steering the boat that I didn’t react, and then I thought, why wasn’t this something Jamie and I ever did? Of course, I knew the main reason. He was so extra careful with me. Maybe having him hovering about me like some worried parent was not such a good thing. Romance seemed to have taken second place. That, for sure, would never happen with Kyle.

  Of course, Jamie was brought up seeing the sea as his workplace, not his playground. Kyle, I thought, saw nothing as his workplace and everything as his playground.

  The sea spray hit us, and we both screamed with delight. I felt so loose and free, like a kite whose string had broken and was being carried by the wind. There was laughter, there were smiles, and all sorts of feelings were suddenly set free inside me. Kyle steered us over the small waves and then turned into the calm waters of Frenchman Bay. He kept his left arm around me the whole way. It just felt like a safe and welcoming place for me to be.

  Someone from Birdlane Sailing was there at the pier to take the line and get the sailboat set so we could step out. Kyle took my hand and moved me quickly toward the taxicabs.

  “When the wind is with you, go with it,” he said.

  I truly felt blown along. We were in the cab and on our way to the restaurant in what seemed like seconds. It was down a side street, and the restaurant looked like it didn’t hold more than twenty or so people, but it was cozy and decorated with Sicilian pictures and colors. We had a side table that was clearly the most personal and private in the restaurant. There was Italian music and the scent of delicious food. Am I in a dream? I wondered when we sat.

  When the waitress came to our table, Kyle shocked me by speaking in Italian. How did he know she spoke Italian? And how did he get so good at it?

  She left quickly.

  “What did you say?”

  “I ordered a special red wine from Sicily. I told her only one wineglass, but,” he said, winking, and reaching for my water glass, “we’ll accidentally spill some in here.”

  “You never said you spoke Italian.”

  “I lived for nearly two years in Rome, studying art,” he said. “Don’t look so amazed. Once you break out from Birdlane, you will have wonderful worldly experiences, too.”

  This was the way real love happened, I thought, the romantic love you read about in books and saw in movies. First, the door opened slightly when someone physically attracted you. However, a man could look like Adonis and have a very bad personality; it only took a few moments to realize it, and you would surely turn away from that. But a man like Kyle, who was so optimistic and excited about life and loved to share that feeling, opened the door a little more.

  When he then began to tell you his personal experiences, speaking in a way that seemed so honest and true to you, you were drawn further in, and when he did that while building your own self-confidence, you felt comfortable and ready to be embraced.

  Then he began to offer simple little touches and smiles that excited you in deeper ways. Your own imagination began to explode with the possibilities. Even while he was talking, you envisioned yourself with him in loving embraces; you felt his kiss and his touch, and your body trembled with new excitement. All the while you were telling yourself, Stay in control, don’t be easy, be sure.

  None of these thoughts and feelings were as sharp with Jamie because I could sense his caution as much as I could sense anything in myself. I felt no caution coming from Kyle, just that confidence that came from his experiences and molded his own life.

  When the waitress brought the wine, he ordered dinner for both of us after asking me about things I liked to eat. When she left, he poured the water out of my glass and poured in some of the wine. He then gave a toast in Italian to my health, explaining how important it was to make eye contact with the person being toasted. “Cin cin,” he said, and I sipped the wine.

  Mommy used to joke and sing, “Little sins mean a lot. Throw me a kiss from across the way.” I never relived her joy as much as I did when I imagined myself as being more like her.

  We laughed and ate the delicious food. Every once in a while, Kyle put his hand on mine and said something warm and complimentary. He talked about himself as though he was suddenly releasing his own hidden feelings. Was there a way not to fall in love with such a man?

  After dinner, we went for a casual walk. It was as if there were no other people around us and Bar Harbor was just for us. Without realizing it, I thought, we had reached the gallery. We paused and looked at the door to his upstairs apartment. Before he could ask or say something and turn us toward the pier, I said, “I’m not going to school tomorrow.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  What we were saying, or at least what I was saying, was code for what I felt and wanted. As if the words didn’t have to be spoken, he turned to the door, and we entered.

  “As I said, a surprising view for something like this,” he told me.

  We walked up the dark wood stairs to the door of his room. He hesitated a moment and then turned the knob. The room was small, with a simple double bed, a dresser, a bathroom on the left, and a small cooking area on the right. The window to our right on entering was unusually large, stretching almost from floor to ceiling, and it offered a sweeping view of the bay. The soft glow of the evening bathed the water in a gentle haze. We walked right up to it, drawn by the quiet majesty of the view. He didn’t put on any bright light; there was no need. For a moment, the world outside felt like a quiet dream, untouched and eternal.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Exactly what you said. Amazing view.”

  “For something like this. I’ve slept in a lot worse, especially when I first started traveling.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen. I got a job on a cruise ship drawing caricatures of the guests. I was able to do some seascapes during the day.”

  “Sixteen? Your parents let you?”

  He smiled. “I had a fake license showing me as eighteen. I ran off for a while.”

  “What happened when you returned?”

  “My father started charging me rent.”

  “What?”

  “It was all right. Made me more ambitious.”

  He stared for a moment.

  “The moonlight is dancing on your face,” he said, and touched my cheek. Then he put his arm around me and gently turned me toward him, fully embracing me.

  We kissed, and the feeling rippled down my body, making me feel absolutely naked, every part of me touched. His lips were on my neck and then pressed below. He lifted me gently and took me to the bed. Then he stood and took off his clothes. Naked, he knelt to take off mine.

  His kisses moved as smoothly as his paintbrush. It actually gave me the feeling he was drawing me, outlining me and then filling me with his passion as his lips caressed the nipples on my breasts and his body pressed closer to mine. For a long moment, we just stayed that way, breathing hard, anticipating each other’s touch. Then he kissed me again, but hesitated to do more.

  “How many days again until you’re eighteen?” he whispered.

  “Four,” I said.

  “I can wait.”

  I felt a deep disappointment, but the way he moved and the way we satisfied each other put it on pause. For minutes afterward, we lay there, breathing heavily. The moonlight fully illuminated Bar Harbor and lit up his room.

  “Better get back,” he said, and reached for his clothes while handing me some of mine. In silence, we got dressed. It seemed like hours had gone by, but it had hardly been that long. Minutes later, we were walking to the pier.

  We were both silent on Grandfather’s boat as it returned us to Birdlane, but before we reached the pier, I turned to Kyle and asked, “Did you hesitate to please me or to protect yourself?”

  He smiled. “I was waiting for that. I knew you would ask it. It’s one thing for a girl who is underage to be sexually active, but when an older man is involved, the law steps in, and it can get very unpleasant, not only for him but for the girl. I mean, some things should be public and some should not. Sound right?”

  “All this logic seems to take away from the romance and the mystery,” I said.

  “Not for long,” he replied, and kissed my cheek.

  I leaned against him on the ride up the hill to the Crest. When we arrived, he asked if I was still staying home from school.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then we’ll spend the day talking art,” he said.

  He kissed me good night at my bedroom door. I went in, not sure how to feel. I sat on my bed and thought about Jamie and our time at the oak tree. We had been hot and heavy, as they say, and then suddenly he’d said, “I’d hate to think that I was taking advantage of you.”

 

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