“No JD. No church candles, and no ghosts,” Gus said, grinning. “Just us. Tomorrow night?”
“I have to go to my grandmother’s summer house in Maine for the weekend,” Hallie said, rolling her eyes. “Once a year, Nick makes me go up there and pretend they’re family.”
“They are family,” Gus said. “Maybe you should give them a chance. Anyway, another time.”
“You could at least be disappointed,” Hallie blurted out.
“I stopped believing in disappointment a long time ago,” he said, as he walked away. He turned abruptly. “And besides—you and me? We’ve got time.”
“We do?” She wasn’t sure if her voice was audible, or if she’d just thought the question until Gus responded.
“Yup. All the time in the world.”
Chapter 10
All the time in the world. For a while, that’s how it felt. The way Gus’s face changed when she came into view made her almost certain it was the same for him. And yet he never talked about needing to see her right now, this second the way he had in the office, nor did he tell her his secrets like he had in the cemetery. And after three weeks, he still hadn’t kissed her.
“So are you two seeing each other?” her friends asked.
The simple answer was yes—almost every day, if only for a few minutes on the wharf when he got out of work. But seeing each other, the way people said in school? Hallie didn’t know herself.
A week before Labor Day, they sat on the pier at dusk. You could already feel the end of summer in the air, the subtle diminishing of the crowds. Gus had started preseason practice, and was trying to quit smoking, but that night he sneaked a couple of puffs with Hallie. They passed the cigarette back and forth, kicking their bare feet over the edge in a coordinated rhythm. “So are you ever going to kiss me?” Hallie asked.
Gus fixed his eyes on Long Point’s unwavering green light. “Maybe.”
Maybe? Was he teasing her? Hallie mashed out the cigarette they’d shared, and looked over at him.
Before she could read him, he was on his feet. “I probably should get going. Coach wants us to start getting to bed earlier.” His face was a mask, but clearly, he was lying. The coach’s rules would never keep him from spending time with a girl—if he was interested.
Later, lying in bed, she felt restless. She was tormented by the memory of Gus’s scent and the closeness of his mouth, but also by the fear that his feelings for her resembled hers for Neil. Friendship. An almost familial bond. Love, even. Just not that kind. Up on the widow’s walk at one in the morning, she promised herself she would ask him directly the next day. She practiced what she would say as she walked up and down the treacherous slates.
Do you remember last night on the pier when I . . . (Did she really want to bring up the most embarrassing moment of her life?) Gus, there’s something we need to talk about . . . (Wrong again: she sounded like her father when he wanted to discuss an issue.) Listen, if you want to keep our friendship the way it is, I’m cool with that. (But she couldn’t even say the words on the roof without her voice giving her away.) No, she wouldn’t allow anyone, not even Gus Silva, to turn her into a liar.
When she tripped over a loose shingle and came dangerously close to the edge, she felt the same exhilaration she’d experienced when she asked him to kiss her.
“Hallie! What are you doing up on that roof at this time of night? And who exactly are you talking to?” The voice seemed to come out of the night itself. But when Hallie looked down, she spied Stuart sitting on his balcony with someone else. Their faces were in shadow.
“Stuart! You should have told me you were there,” she mumbled, embarrassed to be caught talking to herself, and stunned to find Stuart with a date. It was the first time she’d seen him with another man since his partner Paul died four years earler. “I was, um, practicing for a play.”
Stuart laughed. “I know that play well, honey. In fact, I’ve played the lead more than once myself.”
“Do you have any idea how lovely you look up there in your pajamas, talking to the night? Your hair is pure gold,” his friend said. “Whoever he is, he isn’t worth it.”
“Michael hasn’t seen him, has he, Hallie?” Stuart added. He paused to sip his wine.
“Oh, he’s worth it, all right,” Hallie said, a mixture of hopelessness and pride flooding her.
“So come right out and tell him, then. None of this ‘maybe we should be friends’ stuff,” the man named Michael advised. “You’re already out there on the rooftop. Make the leap.”
“A poorly chosen metaphor, Michael,” Stuart said, nearly dropping his wineglass. “And, Hallie, much as I sympathize with the reckless impulses of the lovelorn, as one of your father’s closest friends, it’s my duty to tell you that you really must get off that roof. Now.”
Still embarrassed that her meandering soliloquy had been overheard, Hallie blew Stuart a kiss. “You won’t tell him, will you?”
“As long as you promise you’ll stay off that widow’s walk—at least not until Nick hires a contractor and gets some work done.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been coming out here since I was eight”—Hallie smiled—“and I haven’t fallen yet.” She opened her arms as if to tempt the wind.
“Please, girl! The heart isn’t what it used to be, and the only doctor in town is getting some much-needed rest. Now get inside. And, Hallie?”
She turned to look.
“I wouldn’t worry about the boy. I’ve seen him with you. Uncomplicated friendship is not what he has in mind.”
“Here’s to complicated friendship,” Michael said, clinking his glass against Stuart’s. “The best life has to offer.”
The next morning Hallie rode her bike to the West End and climbed onto the Barrettos’ dilapidated porch. The inner door had been left open, but the house was utterly still. Hallie thought briefly of turning back. Then she remembered how she felt on the wharf when Gus almost kissed her. Or almost didn’t.
She called his name, pressing the screen door open an inch.
She heard the sound of feet hitting the floor and then the word shit.
“Did I wake you up?” Hallie asked, taking a step backward when Fatima Barretto appeared at the door.
“Hallie? Jesus . . .” Fatima said, blinking at the light. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” Hallie said, though it was closer to seven. “I shouldn’t have come so early, but—” And then she stopped. Did she really expect Fatima to understand what it felt like to stay up half the night, talking to the stars about her doubts, her hopes, her wild overwhelming need to kiss Gus?
Before she had time to finish her sentence, Gus appeared behind his aunt. He was wearing only a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms.
“How did I forget? Hallie and I were supposed to ride our bikes to Truro this morning,” he said to his aunt. “Looks like I overslept.”
His aunt shuffled back to her room, muttering to herself.
“I’d offer you coffee, but we’re out of milk,” Gus said.
“I didn’t come for coffee.”
Taking her hand, Gus led her back to the stoop.
“You lied,” Hallie said.
Gus laughed. “Yeah, I lied, but it’s practically the middle of the night around here. I had to tell her something. Now I guess we have to ride to Truro—given how you feel about honesty and everything. Just give me a couple of minutes to throw on some shorts, okay?” He gestured toward a rusted green lawn chair on the porch before he started back inside.
But Hallie stepped into his path. His chest was smooth and taut. It took everything she had not to reach out and touch his skin.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I came?”
“You think I don’t already know?” he said. Then he walked past her and disappeared into his bedroom.
Hallie knew she should stay outside and wait as Gus clearly wanted her to do. Or better yet, she should leave. But instead, she followed him and pushed open the door
of his room.
Though the small bedroom was perfectly organized, there was almost nothing of Gus in it. His cousin’s old posters of the Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa remained on the wall where they’d been tacked up a decade earlier. Junior’s football trophies lined the bureau, their false bronze veneers peeling away. An ancient crucifix, probably brought from Portugal generations earlier, was affixed to the wall. Hallie switched on the light in the shaded room, wondering where Gus kept his trophies. Her eyes drifted to the corner of the room where his sports equipment was stored in a duffel bag—as if he still considered himself a visitor. The only personal object rested on top of the bureau: her old copy of David Copperfield.
“You didn’t think I’d really throw that in the harbor, did you?” Gus said, following her eyes. And suddenly Hallie felt ashamed of her impatience.
He stood in the center of the room, holding a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.
“It’s way too early, and I wasn’t invited here,” she said. “I’m gonna go.”
Gus stepped forward and kissed her forehead like a protective older brother. “I thought we were going for a bike ride.”
Hallie turned her back while he changed, wondering if that chaste kiss had been her answer. She closed her eyes and touched the spot where he had kissed her head.
“This place is basically an eat-and-sleep deal for me,” he said, reading her thoughts about the room. He pulled on his T-shirt. “Once I graduate, I’m gone.”
Where? she wanted to ask. Gus Silva, who transformed the air in a room just by speaking her name, or resting his hands on his hips the way he had when he suggested a bike ride, was still a mystery to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking off the question.
“Don’t be. I’m glad you came. Remember what I told you in the cemetery that day? I want you to know everything about me. And this, as it happens, is where I live.”
“I love it,” Hallie said. How could she not love the room where he slept every night, the window that framed his first morning view? “I’m gonna take a rain check on the ride to Truro, though.”
All she could think of was the words he’d said on the porch. He knew why she’d come. She was suddenly grateful that the dim light hid the color on her cheeks.
Gus walked her to the door.
Outside, she picked up the bike, but he reached out and touched her arm. “You can come back and get that later. I’ll walk you home.”
She was about to say he didn’t need to do that, but his eyes, usually so full of energy, were calm and thoughtful.
She leaned the bike against the house and started for the street while Gus fell in beside her silently, not quite close enough to touch. Still she felt his presence acutely, both as he was now in his familiar shorts and T-shirt, and as he’d been when she followed him into his dim bedroom—shirtless in his drawstring pajama bottoms.
Halfway to her house, Gus stopped abruptly. “So you want to know why I didn’t kiss you last night?”
“I haven’t really thought about it,” she said. The bay had just come into view.
Gus laughed. “Now I know why you hate lying so much. You’re a total failure at it.”
“Or maybe I just think honesty is really important.”
“Admit it, then. The reason you showed up at the house of the living dead this morning is because you wanted to know how any kid in his right mind could turn you down.”
“Don’t make me sound so pathetic! Or conceited! For one thing, I didn’t ask you to kiss me. Well, not exactly.” Hallie frowned. “Okay, maybe I did—but I won’t again. In fact, I wouldn’t kiss you now if you begged me—” She picked up her pace, taking the lead again.
Gus grabbed her arm, and tugged her back to him—perhaps closer than he intended. They were eye-to-eye, and for the first time since the cemetery, there was nothing between them. “I hope you know that once I start kissing you, I’m never going to stop. All these great conversations we’ve been having? Forget it. And we better tell our friends not to call for about a year cause we’re gonna be too busy. Hell, I might even have to give up football, not to mention my great career at the A&P.”
He took her by the shoulders and kissed her right there in the middle of the street. It was the shortest, gentlest kiss imaginable, but it pricked her, infected her, forever altered the colors of the landscape where she’d spent her whole life. And, yes, it answered the question that had driven her out of the house that morning.
“God, Stuart was right,” Hallie said, putting her hand unconsciously to her mouth.
Gus laughed. “Who’s Stuart? And what does he know about how bad I needed to kiss you?”
“Stuart’s my next door neighbor, and he’s very intuitive, especially when it comes to things like this. Last night when I was up on the widow’s walk thinking about you, he heard me.”
“He heard you thinking? Wow, I guess the guy is intuitive.”
“Okay, I was talking to myself, all right? Talking to myself and pretending I was talking to you. Are you happy?”
“Yeah, to tell you the truth, I am. This last month, I’ve been happier than I’ve ever been in my whole messed-up life.”
“Me, too,” Hallie said softly, but she didn’t dare to speak the words too loud. She knew about that kind of happiness and she mistrusted it almost as much as Gus did. It was in every photograph of her parents together. It beamed from Liz Cooper’s eyes as she smiled at the man behind the camera. Briefly, it had made her and Nick invincible, and then it stripped them naked. Happiness, Hallie thought, had ruined her father’s life. But now she understood Nick’s secret: it had been worth it. For him, it was still worth it.
“One favor?” she said.
Gus lifted his chin.
“Promise me you won’t fight this anymore. Promise me you’ll let us have it.”
Gus didn’t say anything. He just stood there with his hands resting on his hips. The answer was a blaze in his eyes, a subtle upturning of his lips.
“I’ll be over to get my bike later, okay?” she said, signaling she didn’t want him to come any farther. Then, while Gus stood on the corner where he had grazed her lips with his mouth, she wove through the colorful street. She started off walking, but by the time she reached her house, she was running. And breathless.
Later, Hallie went to the phone and dialed his number. It was after midnight, but she was sure Gus would be awake. He answered on the first ring.
“Do you want to see my roof?” she said.
“Now? Nick would probably nail me with Captain Thorne’s whaling harpoon if he caught me.”
“There’s a wrought-iron fire escape out back. No one’s used it in years, and it’s pretty rusted, so be careful. I’ll bring a flashlight.”
“You’re sure?”
“I went to your church,” she said. “Now it’s time for you to visit mine.”
When she heard the dial tone, Hallie thought they must have been disconnected. But within ten minutes, she saw Gus smiling up at her from the bay side of the house. She shone her light on him as he climbed the precarious fire escape to the roof. Then he sat beside her on the quilt. The stars were particularly bright against the black night. Her cathedral had never been more glorious.
When Hallie tried to speak, Gus put his finger over her lips. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk in church?”
“My church isn’t like that,” she started to say. But he shushed her with his mouth. The kiss began as gently as the one on the street, but this time nothing could keep back the hunger behind it. When a loose board crackled beneath them, Hallie pulled away. “Maybe we should go inside.”
Gus lifted the hatchway door that led to the attic. “You’re sure your father’s asleep?”
“He gets up at five,” Hallie said, as if that were an answer.
The attic was dark and littered with the detritus of the past. Stuart’s lights were still on next door, and not wanting to attract his attention, Hallie resisted the impulse t
o illuminate the space. In the weak moonlight, they could see the outline of old boxes filled with Liz Cooper’s possessions, things Nick found too valuable to throw away, though no one would ever use them again.
Gus kissed her in the center of the room. He lifted her up and spun her in a slow circle, still kissing her until they moved dizzily across the room, then pressed her against the wall. All the riotous emotions they had been storing up in the past month, maybe for all their lives, were in that kiss—wonder and love, hunger and thirst, and, yes, the wild happiness that had terrified them both. But didn’t anymore.
It ended when they tripped over one of her mother’s boxes, producing a clatter. “Ouch,” Gus cried out, clutching his shin and laughing, but still not letting her go. A moment later, the light flashed on in the hallway, followed by Nick’s voice. “Who’s up there?”
“It’s me, Nick. I was just, um, looking for something I need for a project,” Hallie said, watching Gus, who was already straightening his clothes, studying his escape route.
“At one in the morning?” Nick said. By then, he was just outside the door that led to the attic stairs. “What could you possibly need up there?”
Hallie turned on the light before Nick came any farther and saw she was in darkness. “Just some of Wolf’s old art stuff—and I found it. I’ll be right down.”
Nick hesitated, but didn’t immediately retreat. “Next time, work on your projects in the daytime, okay? I was in the middle of a good dream.”
“So was I,” Gus whispered, already standing near the ladder.
Hallie took a step closer, but he stopped her. “If you don’t go down now, your father will be up here,” he said. “And, besides—”
Hallie was confused only for a moment before her face erupted in a slow smile. “Yeah, I know. We’ve got time.”
Gus grinned before he disappeared up the ladder and through the hatchway onto the roof.
“Now you’re catching on.”
Chapter 11
After the night on the roof, time did funny things. It slowed torturously during the hours Gus was at the A&P, or when Hallie sat behind the desk in her father’s office, but then it raced ahead. They sped through the waning days of summer. And when they returned to school, Hallie would watch the clock obsessively, waiting for four, when Gus’s football practice ended.
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