He laughed. “You want to try this?”
“Sure.”
Carefully, I moved to the seat. He put the oars in my hands, showing me how to hold them. He sat right behind me, his arms against mine, and began to show me
how to lift and pull the oars, how to turn the boat, and how to avoid splashing. “You’re doing well,” he said, but he didn’t move away. He pressed his lips to my neck and then gently moved them along with small kisses.
“I can’t concentrate on my rowing.”
He laughed and sat back.
I was really enjoying it now and feeling like I was accomplishing something. A motorboat came a little too close, the waves in its wake bouncing us about. I screeched with delight.
“You should rest,” he said. “You’ll get blisters on those dainty palms of yours.”
I paused and looked at my hands. They were red.
“Let’s just drift for a while,” he suggested.
He came forward and lifted the oars out of the water, resting them on the sides of the boat. Then he lowered himself to the floor of the boat and urged me to do the same, with my upper body against him. It was peaceful and warm, mesmerizing. The sounds of other people laughing and shouting floated gently over the lake, and the engines of motorboats droned softly around us. A very pretty little sailboat passed by, the man and the woman waving. I closed my eyes again. Aaron moved his fingers over my face to my lips. Then he slipped down beside me, and we embraced and kissed.
“Feeling better?” he asked. I was, but I didn’t want to say it. He could tell. “Don’t feel guilty for feeling better, Clara Sue. Surely no one wants that.”
I nodded. He was right. It just wasn’t easy.
“I know what could really make you feel better,” he said. He was moving his hands under my skirt.
“People can see us,” I protested.
“Not really. Besides, making love on the water adds something. You know, the bobbing and all.”
Casanova raises his head again, I thought, and squirmed away. “Let’s get back to what we came here for,” I said.
“I was.” He smiled. “All right, all right.”
He rowed again. We talked about other lakes he had been to and then about some other things we might do when our Christmas holiday began. His family wasn’t going to travel this year, because his sister was coming home again, although there was a chance they would go to New York City to see a show. I told him about my uncle Bobby’s show, and he said he would go to New York to see it with me. It seemed like we could make an endless list of promises and plans. He was even thinking ahead to when he went to college. William & Mary wasn’t far away. He would come home on weekends to see me so we’d never break up.
Is any of this real? I wondered.
Our rowing and the clear, crisp air made us hungry. We gobbled up everything he had bought. Nearly three hours later, we turned the boat around and began to return to the dock. I told him it was the best day I’d had since Willie’s death.
“We’ll just have to pile on some more,” he said. “What say we go for pizza and a movie? We’ll be home by six. I’ll drop you off to change and go home to change and come back. Think you can?”
“Yes,” I said.
But that was before I entered the house nine hours after I had left without telling anyone about anything I was doing.
Grandpa must have been watching the front gate. When we drove up, he stepped out of the house onto the portico and stood there with his steely arms folded, his hands tucked in under his arms, which was his usual posture when he was very, very annoyed. Except for his hoisted shoulders, his body was so straight and tense that he looked like a statue someone had just left there with the words “Angry Grandpa” carved into the base. As we drew closer, I could see how deep the lines in his face were. They seemed to be drawn on with a black crayon.
“Uh-oh,” Aaron said. “He doesn’t look happy.”
I wanted to be as defiant as ever, but there was something so new and fierce about Grandpa’s look of anger that I could feel my spine twinge and my confidence wither. In seconds, I was a little girl again, the very thought of challenging one of the adults in my life terrifying. My mind began to weave and spin excuses.
When Aaron didn’t get out of the car to open my door, I felt his fear, which only put the icing on mine. I got out slowly.
“Should I say hello?” Aaron asked.
“Not right now. Just drive extra slowly out of here and call me later tonight,” I told him, and closed the door. He looked relieved.