Beth jumped out of the car. “No, no, wait! I have the ice cream! You can’t leave without me!”
“Lady,” shouted the driver behind her, “you’re blocking traffic. Get back in and drive.”
She got in and drove desperately, finally pulling right up on the grass, crumpling the NO PARKING ON THE GRASS sign. The Duet pulled remorselessly away from the shore. She ripped open the door to carry her ice cream.
“You can’t park here,” said a policeman.
“I know, but I have the ice cream,” Beth said miserably, “and the boat—”
“Is gone,” said the policeman sympathetically. “Now drive back across the main road and park in the commuter lot. You’ll have to hire a boat to catch up to them, if you really want them to have that ice cream.” He looked in the backseat. “Not that anybody will want it now.”
There was no choice. She obeyed, parked across the road, and staggered across the stopped traffic with an armload of melting ice cream.
The Duet was too far out in the river even to yell at.
This is my life, thought Beth Rose. This is my entrance to adulthood. Kip goes to New York. Anne sees the world. Emily gets married. I sit on the dock with ice cream melting around my ankles.
I have truly missed the boat.
Chapter 11
JEREMIAH DUNSTAN SHOULDERED THE heavy movie camera and waited for the white convertible to appear. He had shot the arrival of each party guest and had a nice scene of them crouched down in various corners in the little boat. He was hot and tired and wished he could be a guest instead of a hired hand.
Back last summer Jere and his father had taken (as they always did) day trips downriver with people who wanted to fish. They were mostly working men who could fit only a couple days of fishing into their lives each year. They wanted action. Unfortunately, fishing on the Westerly River was not a high-action item.
Jere had been given a movie camera for his birthday, because at the time he insisted he would be a famous Hollywood director. It had turned out to be more work and less fun and a lot more expense than he had bargained for. Plus, who did you show these films to? You needed an awfully kind girlfriend and Jere hadn’t found one.
Then on one of the fishing trips, Jere brought the movie camera along. He was hoping to get good river shots for a film he wanted to make about a runaway kid. The client of the day, who had caught a small insignificant fish, shouted, “Film me! Film me!” He spent the rest of the trip focusing in on Mr. Stein reeling in, Mr. Falkland eating another roast beef on rye, Mr. Swanzey pretending to dive over the side. At the end of the day, they asked Jere if they could buy the film.
Jere was off and running. He advertised in four local papers and circulars, and had more work that summer than he could handle. Everybody wanted a movie of their wedding, Fourth of July party, or first baby’s christening.
Jere was a year younger than most of the guests at the party on the Duet. They had graduated in June and he still had his senior year to go. Since Westerly was a huge high school, he knew this crowd only by sight and they did not know him at all.
He hoisted the camera for the next quartet of guests. They would be immortalized together.
Molly parked next to adorable old Gary, who dated every girl once and hardly any girl twice. Only Beth Rose. Molly had never figured that one out. She had a feeling even Gary had never figured that one out. “Hi, Gary,” she said sweetly.
“Hey, Moll, how ya doin’, how’s summer been?” Gary sauntered on toward the dock. Molly fell in step with him.
Mike (Kip’s old boyfriend) and Toby (nobody’s boyfriend ever, so far) hopped out of a car to join them. Nobody mentioned that it was odd for Molly to be part of this particular gathering; only girls would think of that. Boys were so nice and thick, thought Molly contentedly. You could count on a boy never to spot the things that mattered.
She hooked her arm through Gary’s. Gary was pretty hard to surprise. He looked down at her arm and laughed, and when the kid with the movie camera focused on them, Gary lifted their two arms to wave. Molly pirouetted for the camera and lost Gary in the process; Gary always kept going, kind of like a tank; either you kept up or you got lost or crushed.
Kip was busy organizing the pile of goodbye presents out of sight, so that the gift wrap and ribbons wouldn’t glitter in Anne’s eyes and give it all away. Molly felt grateful that she was nothing at all like Kip Elliott.
“Okay, now everybody has to hide!” shouted Kip in her General-with-the-Troops voice. “There’s the cabin, the life-preserver cabinets, the benches. I want everybody to find a place and I’ll stand out on the dock and inspect.”
Inspect! Molly thought, laughing at her. Only Kip would make a party have an inspection. The girl is pitiful.
“Don’t you like it how Kip always has things under control?” Gary asked. “Nothing ever goes wrong if Kip is running it.”
Molly said to him very seriously, as if she really wanted to know the answer, “Why don’t you date Kip, Gary?” Boys always fell for that tone of voice and gave her honest answers. Girls were harder to fool.
“I’d date Kip all right,” Gary said, “but I don’t think Kip would date me. She wants the world. All I ever want is the next dance.”
Molly laughed and so did Gary. She thought, now there’s a possibility. I’d take Gary in a heartbeat. And maybe tonight, I will!
“Quiet!” Kip thundered from somewhere out on the dock. “No more whispering, no more laughing. I want utter and complete silence.”
Molly giggled. “Honestly, she is so—”
“Sssssssh!” hissed everybody else.
Molly sank back in her dark corner to sulk. But she came out of it quickly. She had gotten on board. And this was one party where they couldn’t make a crasher leave. There was going to be a whole river between Molly and her car.
Con drove to the river. He and Anne had parked there many an evening, winter and summer, staring at the water, staring at each other, hearts beating hard, words impossible to find, but action easy to come by.
Anne was afraid to look at him. She was swamped by her memories. Strange how the terrible moments became good when looking back, simply because they had been shared. They were part of the whole existence of Con and Anne as a pair, that had turned them into the two individuals they were now.
Anne wet her lips. She was beginning to melt. Not from the heat. From Con.
The Duet was docked, quietly rocking in the river awaiting its next journey. Its dark green paint gleamed, and the setting sun flickered tongues of gold across the gilt paint and brass fitting.
“Duet,” whispered Con. “We were one once.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I guess you’re a solo now,” he said lightly. But when she turned to look at him, a muscle in his jaw was twitching with tension.
“Dinner reservations aren’t for a while,” Con said, suddenly getting out of the car. “Come on. We’ve got time. Let’s just sit on the deck benches for a few minutes.” He took her hand and did not circle the convertible to open the door for her, but drew her to her feet and lifted her over the steering wheel and door. She laughed with delight. The wind caught her blue dress and lifted it like a balloon, and let it down again just as Con let her down.
Jere hoisted his camera as the white convertible drew up. He stood next to his father’s plain, unremarkable van, effectively camouflaged just by being too dull next to the glittering boat and the river in the sun.
The boy was Con Winter, greatly admired at Westerly High, definitely a big man on campus. Jere didn’t think much of the breed. Too pretty for his taste, too aware of themselves.
And with him, of course, Anne Stephens.
Jere loved photographing her. In her slender, cool, golden way she was so lovely. She moved with grace, slowly, as if concentrating on each step. Definitely a person who looked before she leaped. He slipped around his truck and knelt beside a large green trash barrel at the water’s edge. He got a wonderful picture of A
nne, close-up, dreamily looking out beyond the boat, toward the horizon.
She turned to Con, and they kissed, very lightly, and he caught it perfectly; they were silhouetted against the purple streaked sky and the wind was lifting her hair.
But it did not seem real to Jere. The couple was too lovely. They actually looked made for movies, and not for real life. He felt no envy for them, only delight that he could be the cameraman.
He swiveled to face the deck, ready for the burst of kids.
Anne had celebrated her seventh birthday on the Duet. She remembered her friends’ excitement. How everybody had Dixie cups of ice cream and wanted to throw the cups overboard when they had eaten, and pretend they were flotillas of boats, and have races with them. The captain said No, very sternly, it was Pollution. For years Anne thought pollution was something Dixie cups did.
She walked up the gangplank, which was a wide gray slab with narrow chain rails, dangling like iron ribbons. It seemed odd that there was nobody about to take tickets. Probably it had been rented for a private party and she and Con should not just—
“SURPRISE!” screamed fifty voices.
From every cabinway and door, from behind every bench and below each solid rail, leaped every single friend she had. Emily and Matt and Kip and Gary and Mike and Peter and Jody and Susan and Lynda and Jimmy—
“SURPRISE!”
“Happy good-bye party!”
“Bon voyage!”
“Good luck!”
“Sharon, that’s a dumb thing to say, you can’t have a happy good-bye party.”
“We’re not sad for her, are we?”
“No, we’re jealous of her! We get to say good-bye to our parents and she gets to say good-bye to the United States!”
“You wouldn’t get me to do it. All it is is sleeping in strange beds with different radio stations and getting jet lag and eating crummy hotel food and not understanding the languages. Ugh. You couldn’t pay me to go.”
“You could pay me to go! Please, please, somebody pay me to go!”
They had brought little gifts. Nothing big, they didn’t have the money and Anne didn’t have the suitcase space. Writing paper, a money belt, a pencil that said WESTERLY HIGH. Toby had heard there was terrible purse snatching in Rome so he gave her a can of Mace. Susan was afraid she would forget her own country, so she had xeroxed a copy of the Declaration of Independence. From Gary came two miniature American flags. “You be sure to wave them if you stumble into any anti-American demonstrations,” he told her.
Con was quite indignant. “If she stumbles into any anti-American demonstrations, she’s to leave, not draw attention to herself!” he said. “You think I want my girl hurt?”
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.
Chapter 12
THEY 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.