“Hey, Leni,” Ms. Rhodes said brightly. “Can you handle teaching today? An injured eagle needs help at the center in Homer. I thought I’d go.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I knew you’d be my ace in the hole. Moppet is doing some long division and Agnes and Marthe are working on their history papers; you and Matthew are supposed to read T. S. Eliot today.”
Leni forced a smile as Ms. Rhodes left the classroom. She glanced at the clock, thought, Maybe he’s late, and then set about helping the girls with their assignments.
The day crawled forward, with Leni constantly looking at the clock until it finally struck three o’clock.
“That’s it, kiddos. School’s done.”
When the kids were gone and the classroom fell silent, Leni packed up her stuff and was the last person to leave the school.
Outside, she retrieved her bicycle and pedaled idly down the center of Main Street, in no hurry to get home. Overhead, a bush plane puttered in a lazy arc, giving its passengers a good view of the small town perched on a boardwalk along the water’s edge. The marshes behind town were in full bloom, clumps of grass fluttering in the breeze. The air smelled of dust and new grass and murky water. In the distance, a red boat moved among the thick growth on its way out to the sea. She heard hammering at the saloon, but there were no workers to be seen outside.
She came to the bridge. Normally, on a day this bright at the start of the season, it would be crammed with men and women and children standing shoulder to shoulder, lines in the water, the kids on tiptoes, peering over the edge into the crystal-clear river below.
Now there was only one person standing here.
Matthew.
She coasted to a stop, stepped down on one foot, rested the other on the pedal. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.”
Leni dismounted the bike and fell into step beside him as he led her back toward town. The bicycle clanged and thumped over the bumpy gravel of Main Street. Every now and then the bell made a shivering little ringing sound.
Leni glanced nervously at the saloon as they passed it, but didn’t see Clyde or Ted working. She didn’t want anyone to tell her dad they’d seen her with Matthew.
They hiked up the hill past the church and ducked into the Sitka spruce trees. Leni set her bike down and followed Matthew to the point that jutted out over a black rock cliff.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” Matthew said at last.
“Me, either.”
“I was thinking about you.”
She could have said the same thing but didn’t dare.
He took her by the hand, led her to the bower he’d made before. They sat down, leaned back against a crumbling, moss-draped nurse log. Leni heard the waves on the rocks below. The ground smelled fecund and sweet. Shade fell in star-shaped patches between the strands of sunlight. “I talked to my dad last night about us. I even went to the diner to call my sister.”
Us.
“Uh-huh?”
“Dad said I was playing with fire wanting you.”
Wanting you.
“Aly asked if I’d kissed you yet. When I said no, she said, ‘What the hell, baby brother, get going.’ She knows how much I like you. So. Can I kiss you?”
She barely nodded, but it was enough. His lips brushed tentatively against hers. It was like every love story she’d ever read; this first kiss changed her, opened her up to a world she’d never imagined, a big, bright, shining universe full of unexpected possibilities.
When he drew back, Leni stared at him. “Us. This. It’s dangerous.”