The Color of Heaven

  “Why am I friends with you?” Peter asked with a chuckle.

  “Because I’m your neighbor.”

  He was walking too slowly, so I turned around to walk backwards again. I let go of his sleeve and took hold of his hand instead. “Am I going to have to drag you the whole way?” I really wanted to go swimming. I wanted to feel the shock of the icy water on my skin.

  “Probably.”

  I smiled at him. His hand was warm, and I remember thinking that this was no longer a boy’s hand. He had grown tall over the past year.

  There were rough calluses on his palm. I ran the pad of my thumb over one of them, then felt a strange fluttering in the pit of my belly.

  Immediately, I dropped my gaze and let go of his hand, and he looked in the other direction toward his house. Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, I turned to walk beside him again.

  Neither of us spoke for a moment or two, then Peter nudged me in the arm, knocking me sideways. “I’ll race ya,” he said, and the fluttering in my belly faded away.

  “Not if I race you first.” We ran up the hill.

  I was breathing hard when we reached my gate. “See you in a few minutes?”

  “Yeah, we’ll meet back here.”

  I went inside to change into my swimsuit.

  A short while later, we met out front and headed for the path at the top of the street, which would take us through the woods to the lake.

  We rushed through the forest, running and laughing, leaping over exposed tree roots, ducking under low-hanging branches. It was a different world in the woods. The sea seemed a great distance away, almost non-existent. There was a quiet stillness in the air.

  Soon we left the cool shade of the pines and emerged onto the sunny beach. I kicked off my sandals, while Peter hopped on one foot, tugging at a shoe.

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he said. He dropped his shoe onto the sand, pulled off the other one, then stripped off his shirt.

  Suddenly aware of my heart beating faster as I stared at the muscles on his bare back and shoulders, I stopped unbuttoning my dress. Something had indeed happened to him over the winter. He’d not only grown talker, but thicker and stronger. He didn’t look like the boy I always knew. He was different.

  The next minute, he was sprinting into the water shouting, “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

  But I hesitated. I couldn’t seem to get past the third button of my dress…

  “Wooh!” Peter broke the surface and flicked his hair back. Silvery beads of water exploded all around him. He laughed and wiped the wetness from his face, then stood up, shivering. He stared at me for a few seconds, then his smile faded.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I cleared my throat and looked down. “One of my buttons is caught in a thread.”

  “Need some help?”

  Suddenly I was shy. I couldn’t even look at him. All I could do was keep my head down while I carefully unfastened one button at a time. “I got it. I’m fine now.”

  But I wasn’t fine. I didn’t feel like myself. Nothing seemed normal lately.

  At last I unfastened the final button, shrugged out of the dress and dropped it onto the beach beside Peter’s clothes. I picked my way barefoot to the water’s edge and dipped my toe in.

  “It’s freezing!” I shouted with a smile. “Whose idea was this anyway?”

  “Yours, and you’re not getting out of it now.” When I still didn’t make a move, he frowned. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve never been this slow before.”

  It was true. He knew me well. I was always the first one in – something I was rather proud of, considering I’d grown up with two boys for best friends.

  But something was unusual that day, and I didn’t really understand it. Was it because Matt wasn’t with us, and I was worried about him? Or was it something else?

  “Am I going to have to drag you in?” Peter asked.

  “Hold your horses. I’m coming.”

  Clenching my fists and tensing my shoulders, I advanced forward, wading into the frigid water. When it reached the tops of my thighs, I sucked in a breath and dove under.

  “It’s like ice!” I shouted as I broke the surface.

  Peter splashed me. “It was your idea, knucklehead!”

  Then everything returned to normal, and I was relieved to feel like my old self again.

  “Do you ever wonder if heaven really exists?” I asked Peter, as I lay on my towel next to him, watching the white cottony clouds drift slowly across the sky.

  Peter rolled to his side. “No, I don’t wonder that.”

  I shaded my eyes to look at him. “You don’t wonder because you know it exists? Or you know it doesn’t.”

  “I know it does.”

  I looked up at the sky again and laced my fingers together over my stomach. “How do you know? Have you ever been there?”

  He chuckled. “No, but I go to church every Sunday, and I believe in God, so I have to believe in heaven.”

  “You have to?” I asked. “Someone is forcing you?”

  “No. I just never question it, that’s all. And I can’t believe that you do. You sing in the church choir.”

  I watched a tiny cloud shift and roll toward the sun. “I suppose.”

  After a moment, Peter rolled onto his back again. “Why did you ask that question anyway? Are you worried about dying?”

  “We’re all going to die someday,” I said.

  “That’s depressing.”

  “But it’s true.”

  He turned his head to look at me. “Yeah, but it’s a long way off, Cora. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, so there’s no sense worrying about it now.”

  “Who says I’m worried?”

  “You’re the one who asked the question.”

  I leaned up on an elbow. “Would you feel better if I promised to worry about it later? When would be a good time? When I’m fifty? Or maybe sixty? How about seventy-five.” I smiled.

  He shook his head. “I don’t really think you need to worry about it at all. What’s the point? Because when you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  I slanted him a look. “But I thought you believed in heaven.”

  He stared at me, considering my point. “You think too much.”

  “And you don’t think nearly enough. You’re always so…”

  “What?”

  I paused, for I was having a difficult time trying to articulate what I felt. “You’re always so at ease with things, just the way they are. Nothing ever makes you crazy or frustrated. You never seem to want to change anything.”

  “Why should I? Life is good.”

  “Is it?”

  “Well… yeah.” He pondered the notion for a few seconds, then sat up and twirled two fingers through a lock of my long blonde hair. “Especially now.”

  The strange fluttering in the pit of my belly returned, and my heart began to beat faster. We looked at each other in the warm sunshine, while I became more intensely aware of his bare chest and the way his damp hair fell forward around his face. I watched his lips as he wet them with the tip of his tongue, and realized that I was breathing hard, as if I’d just run a race.

  He inched a little closer, then leaned forward.

  My eyes fell closed as his lips touched mine. How soft and warm they were, not at all what I’d expected. His hot, moist breath beat against my cheek, and I could smell the outdoors on his skin.

  The kiss lasted only a few seconds – seconds I knew I would never forget – then Peter drew back and gazed at me with a surprised look on his face.

  “You just kissed me,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah. Are you mad?”

  “No.”

  He was breathing hard, too. We continued to stare wide-eyed at each other until I had no idea what to say or do. I swallowed uncomfortably, and before I realized what was happening, he was leaning forward again and cupping my cheek in his hand.

  Then he did it again – he kissed me –
only this time he parted his lips and sucked a little on my mouth until my lips parted, too. Our tongues touched. The sensation made me sigh, and I was surprised at the sound, for it didn’t feel like any noise I’d ever made before. It wasn’t an unhappy sound. In fact, I quite liked the way his tongue tasted and the way it made me feel all weak and jelly-like inside.

  Peter eased me down onto my back and leaned over me, kissing me more deeply, sliding his hand down the side of my bathing suit to rest on the top of my bare thigh.

  I’d never felt anything like that before – such wild, heart pounding excitement. I reached out to wrap my arms around his neck and felt the smooth, contoured muscles at his shoulders.

  He lowered his whole body onto mine. Then something pressed against my thigh. I drew in a breath of shock, and all at once felt pinned to the ground under the weight of him. Immediately, I slapped my palms to his chest and pushed. “Peter, stop.”

  He instantly rolled off me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. “It’s okay.”

  We both stared straight ahead, across the lake. I listened to the ducks quacking, the fish splashing. I tried to slow my breathing and realized I was trembling.

  “That was weird,” Peter said at last.

  “Yeah. I’ve never been kissed before.”

  “I know.”

  Of course he knew. He was my best friend. He knew everything about me.

  But something felt very different now. It was awkward and uncomfortable, when it had never been before.

  “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I said.

  “You know I won’t.”

  I believed him, because he was the most reliable person I knew. I would trust him with my life.

  “We should probably go,” he suggested.

  He rose to his feet and offered his hand. I let him pull me up, then we dressed in silence. On the way home through the woods, we said very little. Only the sounds of twigs snapping under our feet and the occasional squirrel chattering from the treetops interrupted the dense quiet.

  When we reached my driveway, Peter said, “See ya tomorrow,” and kept walking.

  “Yeah, see you at the bus.”

  And that was that.

  For the rest of the school year and throughout the summer, neither Peter nor I ever mentioned what happened at the lake that day. In July, we both turned sixteen, and Peter worked for his father at the pulp and paper plant, while I scooped ice cream part-time at the Lick-a-Split and put in volunteer hours at the hospital and local animal shelter.

  As for Matt, as soon as school let out, he left town without saying goodbye. He went away to Chicago to live with his aunt, but by then our trio had become a duo. Peter and I had grown accustomed to it. We had given up on Matt.

  And so, we carried on, swimming in the afternoons and riding our bikes to the same old places on our days off, going sailing with my parents. Our friendship continued without awkwardness, as if the kiss at the lake had never occurred. Neither of us ever mentioned it. It was completely forgotten.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The ice and snow was slow to melt that year, but in time, the sun bathed the earth in its warmth. The cold ground grew soft and warm, and the crocuses and daffodils appeared, smiling with pretty faces in the gardens. The natural world was growing and budding, coming alive with fragrance and color. Lilacs bloomed on tall, leafy hedges, the grass grew lush and green, and fresh spring rains pattered on the rooftops like a song.

  Peter and I worked hard through the final days of school, turning in class projects, studying for exams and anxiously awaiting the first day of vacation.

  “You’re not going to believe what happened in fourth period,” he said to me one day after school, as he joined me on the bench at the bus stop.

  I was eating a chocolate chip cookie from my lunch box. Still chewing, I spoke through tightly closed lips. “What?”

  “Susan Nichols asked me to the prom.”

  I had some difficulty swallowing. “You’re joking.”

  “No. Can you believe that?”

  “Does she like you?”

  He chuckled in disbelief. “I don’t know, I guess so. I didn’t know what to say.”

  I dropped the half-eaten cookie back into my lunchbox.

  I told myself I was not jealous. Peter and I were just friends. But still, I didn’t like hearing that.

  “You must have said something,” I argued. “Did you say you’d go with her?”

  “Of course not,” he replied. “I don’t want to go the dance with her.”

  I exhaled sharply.

  “I told her I was taking you,” he continued. “Just as friends.” He paused a moment and regarded me awkwardly. “I’m sorry! It just came out before I could stop it. I had to come up with something.”

  Our eyes met and I felt a surprising ripple of pleasure run through me. “So do you really want to go? For real?”

  Neither of us had ever gone to a school dance before.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you?”

  I shrugged, too. “People get dressed up.”

  “Yeah, and everyone gets talked about.”

  The bus pulled into the parking lot and spit out exhaust in a great hissing fit. We stood and moved slowly to the curb.

  “Everyone knows we’re just friends,” he explained.

  The folding bus door creaked open. We climbed aboard, said hello to the driver, and moved to the back. I sat down first. Peter swung in beside me.

  “What would our parents say?” I asked.

  “Your mom would probably like to buy you a new dress. She’s always trying to talk you into going shopping.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” The bus pulled away from the curb. “Matt would have a heart attack if he found out,” I said.

  “He won’t. He’s in Chicago, and who cares anyway?”

  I gazed out the window. “Yeah. Who cares.”

  Our shoulders bumped occasionally as the bus rocked and swayed. For a long time we said nothing, then we talked of other things the rest of the way home.

  Finally we reached the bus stop at the bottom of our street. “See you kids tomorrow,” Mr. Hanover said, cranking the handle to open the door and let us off.

  “Bye,” I replied.

  We hopped down and headed up the street.

  “It wouldn’t mean anything,” Peter said, returning to the subject of the prom after the bus had driven away. “You’d just be saving me from going with Susan Nichols.”

  “How flattering. You sure know how to woo a girl.” I smiled at him.

  He grinned back at me with an appealing glimmer in his eye, and I wondered if he was thinking about that kiss at the lake. All at once, I became intensely aware of his masculinity – the way he carried himself and walked with an attractive swagger.

  “All right, let’s do it,” I said. “We’ll see what all the fuss is about, and we’ll make fun of the decorations, and see who’s going with who.”

  “With whom,” Peter said, laughing. “It’s a date then. Just friends, though.”

  “Of course,” I replied, and punched him in the arm. “As if I’d say yes otherwise.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Over the next few weeks, I found myself completely swept up in the important task of searching for the perfect gown and shoes for the dance, and contemplating the all-important decision of how I was going to wear my hair.

  My mother spared no expense. We went shopping together in the city, and flipped through dozens of fashion magazines, snipping out pictures and tacking them to the wall in my room. We talked about earrings and stockings and jeweled hair combs, stoles and pearls and different colors of lipstick. It was my first dance, after all. Everything had to be perfect.

  But sometimes, when I was alone in my bed at night, looking out at the moon and listening to the stirring sound of the sea outside my window, I wondered what Matt would think of my prom date with Peter. If he had not left for C
hicago, would he be going, too? Would we all still be friends?

  After a brief shopping excursion to Portland, I settled on a strapless, yellow chiffon number with a fitted boned bodice and rhinestones sewn into the skirt. On the night of the prom, my mother swept my hair into a stylish French twist. My long white gloves were silky upon my skin, and my mother’s expensive perfume, which I had dabbed sparingly behind each ear, was the perfect finishing touch.

  When the doorbell rang, I listened from the top of the stairs as Peter was invited in.

  “Don’t you look dapper,” my father said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Peter replied. “It’s a big night.”

  I descended the stairs, but stopped halfway with my gloved hand resting upon the rail. As soon as I saw Peter, my heart tripped over itself. How handsome he looked, dressed in a black-and-white tuxedo and bowtie. His hair was clean and tidily brushed. His black shoes were polished to a perfect sheen that reflected the light. I couldn’t help but smile, and knew my cheeks were flushing red.

  All eyes were upon me as I reached the bottom of the stairs. None of it seemed real. It was like a dream.

  “You look beautiful,” Peter said, and I was almost certain he was awestruck.

  When at last I reached him, he handed me a corsage in a box. My mother helped me pin it on, then my father took our picture in front of the fireplace and drove us to the dance.

  We gave our tickets at the door, and my heels clicked on the hardwood floor as we walked arm-in-arm down the wide hall to the gymnasium. The music from the orchestra grew louder as we approached.

  “Are you ready?” Peter asked, pausing at the swinging doors.

  Smiling at each other, we pushed through and stopped just inside, where we perused the gym in silence. Hundreds of tiny, white lights from a mirror ball swept over the walls like dancing starlight, and colorful paper streamers adorned the ceiling and concealed the basketball nets. The band on the stage played “Blue on Blue,” and all the musicians wore black ties and clean white dinner jackets. There were only a few dancers on the floor, swinging each other around the room, but it was still early yet.

  Peter and I took seats at one of the tables at the back and watched for a while. Other classmates soon arrived and joined us, and everything began to feel less formal once we were talking and laughing together.

  Eventually we stood up to dance, and from that moment on, we never left the floor. When the last waltz began, I placed my hand on Peter’s shoulder and felt the moist heat of his body through the thin fabric of his shirt, for he had removed his jacket earlier. His body was almost hot to my touch.