the sea, not quite human… well, we were in each other’s pockets for a while. And nothing good came of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“If your aunt were here, she’d say, ‘Stick to your own.'” Da looked over at the house, as if wishing Delia was on the front stoop to back him up.
But what if Billy is “my own”? I wanted to say. “That’s the Irish in you talking,” I said instead. “Things aren’t like that anymore.”
“I hope I’ve taught you one thing anyway — that saying a thing doesn’t make it so.” Da sighed. “Well, now. I’m an ignorant man, but I can see down a road. You can’t stop something that’s got to go on. I can’t stop this any more than I can stop the moon from rising.” Da looked at me, and he shook his head. I saw that something had happened without my noticing — he looked older. Gray at his temples, lines at the corners of his eyes. “I just want you to know, it will break my heart to see it. That’s all.”
Seventeen
New York City
November 1950
I was in his arms, against the kitchen wall, every inch of me against him. Billy’s hands were on my hair, my face. His mouth was soft and yielding, hard and so warm. Searching, searching for everything I had to give. Like he wanted to get to the very core of me.
One kiss had led to another and another and we couldn’t stop. It had been too long without each other. The kettle screamed and we ignored it. Finally, I broke away and turned off the burner and we walked, still kissing, to the living room, where we fell on the couch.
He was mine again, and he was leaving, going off to war. I’d never expected this; I had lived through a war and looked at other girls crying in train stations and bus stations and I’d only seen the romance of it, the luxury of so many tears. I hadn’t realized that inside all those girls was the terrible knowing that who they loved was going away and might not come back.
For a minute the former tenant flashed into my mind, Bridget Warwick, waiting in a quiet apartment, believing her husband would come back, and hearing the bell ring one day and a man with a telegram on the other side of the door.
“I just want to hold you,” he said. “I want to remember this.” He drew back and looked at my face. And then he yawned.
I laughed, and he laughed, too.
“Am I boring you?” I asked, and we both laughed again. Billy slid off the couch and leaned his head back against it.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so tired…. It was a long bus ride to get here.”
I patted the couch cushion. “Come on back up here.” We lay on the couch together, my head on his shoulder. He played with my hand. “This is nice.”
“Nice,” I agreed.
“It’s kind of like our dream, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is our dream,” I said, and the stab of guilt I felt made me feel queasy. It was a dream orchestrated by his father, the web that Billy had dropped into without knowing it was a baited trap.
I heard his breathing slow, and his hand slipped out of mine. Carefully, slowly, I drew back to look at him. His eyelashes on his cheek, his lips slightly parted, he looked peaceful and young.
He said he was changed. And I felt it, I felt the change. His kisses had been sweet and loving. He hadn’t pushed or pressed. Something was missing, and I could put my finger right on it. It was desperation.
All I felt was warmth and sweetness, and I fell back against his shoulder. He stirred and rested his head on top of mine. Then I thought of Nate, and I stiffened. Billy was here, and I should call his father. That had been our agreement. But how could I, with Billy right here? I couldn’t, not yet. I needed to hold this sweetness, my spoonful of honey. For just one more day.
I lay there stiffly now, afraid to move, afraid to wake him up, afraid to curl into him. Nate had come between us. What if Billy came to the club tonight, and his father was there? What if someone told him that Nate was there often, that Nate and I knew each other, that we’d spoken, that we’d even had a dance together? What would Billy say,