“Sure you are.” Duncan wandered out to the lobby and through the dining room. There were only four guests there that weekend, and compared to the crazy summer they’d just survived, it was too quiet. Even the cute Russian girls who were there to help out during the tourist season were gone.
He pushed open the kitchen door and headed for the refrigerator. He stuck his head inside and looked around.
“Get out of there,” Mellie said. “Dinner is in two hours.”
“But I’m starving.”
“Good, then you’ll have a nice appetite at the table. I’m making turkey tetrazzini.”
“That sounds like a disease.” He grabbed a banana off the counter, too fast for Mellie to swat his hand, and headed out the back door.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lena. As usual, she was curled up on a wicker chair on the side porch, her colored pencils and sketchpad in her lap and her Walkman headphones over her ears. She was wearing one of those stupid scrunchies at the top of her head. All the girls seemed to like them, but Duncan thought they looked like balled-up sweat socks. Who wanted to stick a sweat sock in their hair?
Duncan finished his banana and tossed the peel in a nearby trash can. He threw open the screen door and jumped from the grass to the porch in one leap. Lena gasped and looked up. He must have scared her.
“Sorry about that.”
She couldn’t get the headphones off fast enough. “Hey, Duncan!” She smiled at him the way she always did.
“Hey.” He eased himself into the next chair over and propped his feet on the wicker table. “What did you think of the track meet yesterday?”
“You were awesome. Totally awesome.”
“Thanks.” Duncan leaned back and put his arms behind his head. “So you saw me compete?”
“Oh, sure! We all did—except, you know, during the cross-country race when you disappeared because everyone ran into the woods, but we clapped when you crossed the finish line.”
“Yeah. That’s cool.”
Lena went back to drawing, but she kept her headphones looped around her neck.
“Did you stay for the long jump event?”
“Yeah. Congratulations on winning that, too.”
“Thanks.”
They sat there like that for a few minutes. Lena wasn’t the easiest person to talk to, because she was so quiet sometimes. But he thought it was cool that she went to his track meets. And swim meets. And soccer games. She went to more of them than anyone in his own family.
“What are you drawing?” Duncan leaned forward in the chair and craned his neck over her sketchpad. “Let me see that.” He snatched it from her lap.
“Hey! I’m in the middle of drawing!”
“Man, no kidding. One of these mermaids doesn’t even have a head.”
She clicked her tongue against her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Give it back.”
“Maybe.”
She snatched it from him before he could react, which made him laugh. Lena was all right, even though she was from a younger generation and everything.
“Is that all you do? Draw and paint and stuff?”
She put the pencils on the table and stared at him. “Of course not. You know I do other things, because you used to do some of them with me—you know, walk through the nature preserve, read, play backgammon, listen to music, watch movies . . . talk.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but most of that was from when I was sick, so I don’t do those things anymore.”
Lena smiled at him, but it wasn’t a “funny ha-ha” kind of smile. She almost looked a little sad. “I’m very glad you got better, but I do miss hanging out like we used to.”
She picked up the pencils once more and was about to replace her headphones when Duncan said, “Remember when you used to draw me?”
Lena’s head snapped up. She blinked at him. “Sure. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking that I should draw you sometime. You know, just to see if I can do it. I’m really into challenging myself these days, you know. I want to see how good I am at everything.”
Lena’s eyes got big. “You want to draw me?”
“Sure. Why not? There’s nothing better to do.”
So Lena turned the sketchpad over to a fresh page and asked him what he wanted to use as a medium.
“A medium what?”
She giggled. “You know, do you want to use charcoal, pastel chalk, pencil, ink, colored pencils—”
“God, I don’t want any of that art stuff. Just give me a pencil.”
“How do you want me to pose?”
Duncan was at a loss. “Man, I don’t know. Do what you normally do, I guess.”
“I’ve never posed for anyone before.”
“Why not?”
She laughed. “Because I’m always the one drawing, silly.”
“Oh.” Duncan propped the sketchpad on his knee and signed his name in big, dark letters at the bottom right of the page. For some reason, Lena thought that was funny.
“What’s the problem?”
“You sign it after you’ve finished, Duncan,” she said, smiling. “Signing a sketch is bragging to the world, ‘Hey, look, everybody! I did this!’ So right now you’re basically bragging that you haven’t done anything yet.”
Duncan thought about that for a minute. “Well, I am going to do something, Lena. I’m going to be famous one day, like compete in the Olympics, or play professional hockey, or maybe even be president of the United States. But I’m definitely going to become a Navy SEAL, so this autograph could be worth a lot of money someday.”
She squished her lips together, then said, “If you say so.”
After a few antsy minutes, Lena settled on a pose. She tucked her legs underneath herself and leaned an elbow on the wicker chair arm. He started to draw—but mostly erase, until he discovered that the less he worried about what was coming out onto the paper the better it looked. At one point he asked if she had a sharpener, and she did, of course, because she always carried around a big case for her art supplies. After about a half hour, she demanded to see it.
“Did you make me look like an opossum or something?” She laughed as she grabbed at the sketchpad. She stopped laughing. After a moment she looked up at him, confused. “I thought you didn’t know how to draw.”
He shrugged. “I don’t.”
“But . . .” She looked down again. “This kind of looks like me. You got the hair right, and the shape of my face, and the nose and mouth, which are the hardest to do.”
“You’re just messing with me.”
“No! Really. It’s kind of good!”
He knew that compared to how good Lena was, his drawing looked like it had been done by a kindergartner. Duncan reached over, yanked the page out of the sketchbook, balled it up, and tossed it over his shoulder.
Lena yelped like she’d been hurt. “What did you do that for?”
“Because it sucked.”
Lena jumped from her chair and snatched the wadded-up paper. She sat down and used the sketchpad to try to press it flat. “You’re too hard on yourself, Duncan Flynn.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She glanced up at him, frowning. “You think you have to be perfect now that you’re not sick anymore, like you have all this stuff you have to prove to the world.”
“That’s stupid. I don’t have anything to prove to anybody.”
“You’re not going to win every single race or every single jump, because you’re not perfect. You know that, right?” Lena’s eyes widened. “Nobody’s perfect, Duncan. No drawing is perfect.”
“Whatever.”
“But . . .” Lena smoothed the paper. “This drawing is good. See?”
Duncan rose from the chair, stood next to her, and bent down to check out what she was talking about. Lena used her delicate-looking finger to point out the things he’d done the same way she would have. “See how you added shadow here over the eye to give it depth? And how you suggested a lot of dark
hair without having to draw it all in?”
“I guess. Sure.”
“But more than anything, you saw me. What I mean is, you drew me, a little bit of my personality, not just some random person. And that’s why it’s good.”
Something snapped in him. He didn’t know what his problem was, but all of a sudden Lena wasn’t just Lena Silva, the little kid who’d been nice to him when he was sick. He suddenly smelled her, and she smelled like rain on summer grass. He felt how close she was to him. And all of a sudden Lena looked different, too. She was pretty, with those nice dark eyes and all that hair and that open smile of hers. She would probably grow up to be a very good-looking girl someday.
Duncan felt a rush of heat all over his body. He didn’t know what was happening to him.
Lena continued to talk about the drawing, and he leaned in closer. Without warning, she turned her head and their faces were almost touching.
Well, what was he supposed to do? Back away and make a big deal about the fact that their lips almost met? Because that would make her feel bad about herself, like she had rabies or something. And he didn’t want her moping around and crying.
So he kissed her. And oh, boy. Lena definitely kissed him back.
Everything went still. His brain began to hum and his legs felt weak. She placed her hand on his chest, and he almost cried like a baby. He rubbed her back and she arched into it like a cat. And the two of them seemed to hang in the middle of space, just kissing.
Duncan closed his eyes, and as he began to breathe with her, strange and wonderful feelings washed over him. For a second, it really felt like they were the same person, together, discovering stuff that no other two people in the history of the world had ever discovered before.
He pulled away and looked down at her face. Lena was shocked. Her mouth fell open and all she could do was stare.
Now, that was way weird. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, her mouth still open.
“I . . .” Duncan just realized something, and it made him feel like an idiot. “That wasn’t your first kiss, was it?”
She nodded again.
“Oh, man.” Well, that was a buzzkill. How could he have forgotten that she was three years younger than him? What he had done was probably illegal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. His da would haul him over the coals if he found out. Chief Pollard might even throw him in jail.
The only thing Duncan knew to do was pretend the kiss wasn’t great and it wasn’t special to him. Even though that was by far the best kiss of the seven he’d experienced, he had to convince Lena it was no big deal.
But how do you undo a kiss when it’s already been done?
Obviously, Lena wasn’t going to have any suggestions, since she still sat there and stared up at him like a space cadet.
“We should probably forget this ever happened, okay?”
That seemed to wake her up. “What?”
“This.” Duncan motioned back and forth between the two of them. “I never sat here and drew a terrible picture of you, and we never kissed, okay?”
Oh, man. That made her cry. So after all that, she was still going to mope around and cry anyway. Duncan wondered how long it would be until he understood girls.
He squeezed his head between his hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that, you know, I’m older than you. A lot more mature. I’m in eighth grade. And besides, you’re really kind of like my little sister.”
She didn’t say anything, just blinked, making tears roll down her face.
“Don’t be mad.”
She sniffed.
“I like you, Lena. A lot. It’s just that . . .” He couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him. At that point he realized that it didn’t matter what he said. He wasn’t going to make it any better.
“Okay!” Duncan smiled at her like it was just another day. “I guess I’ll catch you on the flip side, Lena.”
He cleared the porch steps in one leap and never looked back.
Chapter Fifteen
Lena got back from her swim about two a.m., too exhausted to rinse off the seawater and sand. She grabbed a glass of wine, locked the back doors, and headed upstairs, not even bothering with the lights. She made her way into the studio. Her plan was to sit in the dark, stare out at the moonlight on the water, and reach deep down inside herself to try to remember . . .
Why? Why had she been so sure all these years? Had she been a fool to believe? Had the time come for her to let it go? Let him go?
The sadness had been unshakable. She’d gone numb when Duncan said he didn’t remember the afternoon he made the pencil drawing. He didn’t remember! That afternoon had been the turning point of Lena’s life. It foretold her art, her passion, her career. And he didn’t even remember. Apparently, the moment they shared all those years ago wasn’t interesting enough for Duncan to file away even as a curiosity.
Lena let her head fall back on the chaise. She thought of the night she told her mentor, Jacqueline Broussard, everything about Duncan, the drawing, and the kiss. Their conversation had taken place just two weeks before Jacqueline died and, as always, her teacher had listened with care, speaking only when Lena welcomed her opinion.
“I received a message along with his kiss,” Lena had told her mentor. “It was clear and calm and very matter-of-fact, not the hormonal emotions of a girl. The message was from outside of both of us. It wasn’t the voice of anyone I knew, but I sensed she was a very wise woman—maybe even a goddess. Isn’t that bizarre?”
Jacqueline smiled. “You are an artist, my dear. You swim in a veritable sea of the bizarre. And there is nothing more bizarre than the human heart.”
Lena laughed at that.
“You feel deeply, Adelena, and your spirit travels beyond what most people are equipped to embrace. Now, please go on. Tell me about the message.”
Lena had looked down at her hands, embarrassed to go on. She had never told anyone the details, not even Sanders. And since she’d never told the story aloud before, she had no idea how absurd it would sound.
“It’s all right. I am not here to judge, Adelena.”
She looked Jacqueline in the eye. “When his lips touched mine, I understood something that had always baffled me—why my mother chose to come to Bayberry Island, of all the places in the world.”
“Interesting.”
“I got an answer even though I hadn’t asked.”
Jacqueline laughed. “Ah, yes. Isn’t that the way it usually happens? So what answer did you receive?”
Lena took a deep breath, aware she was about to step into seriously strange territory. “I suddenly knew, without a doubt, that my mother came to Bayberry so that Duncan and I could find each other. I don’t think she realizes this. I’m telling you, Jacqueline, the understanding was overwhelming, and even as a kid I realized I had been given a glimpse into something very old and very powerful, and it just blew me away.”
“Were you frightened?”
Lena shook her head. “I didn’t have time to be scared. The kiss was beautiful and intense, and all the while I kept picturing words in my mind: ‘It will take time. He must come to you. Do not give up.’” She looked at her teacher, wanting help. “So I’ve carried that message with me all this time, and I haven’t given up on Duncan Flynn.”
Jacqueline reached over and took Lena’s hands in hers. “Who do you think was speaking to you? You must have an idea.”
Lena stiffened at the question.
“You don’t have to say, my dear. I already know. And as far as this man goes, if he is in fact your destiny, then you can do nothing to hurry things along. Do you understand?”
Lena nodded.
“My only advice to you is this—live your own life and find joy in it. If Duncan is your true love, he will be drawn to your light, but only when you both are ready.”
Lena sighed, so wishing Jacqueline could be with her tonight. She placed her wineglass on the floor and covered her
face in her hands.
What a stupid move! She had been so excited about sharing her life and work with Duncan that she’d forgotten all about the drawing. For her it was a familiar part of every studio she’d ever worked in. She’d had it professionally framed with most of the money she’d earned from her first professional sale, and she’d taken it with her all over the world. And yesterday she’d been so focused on Duncan not seeing her charcoal sketch of him that she’d forgotten all about the old drawing. She hadn’t been able to get him out of the studio before he saw it.
There was anger in Duncan’s eyes when he’d turned to face her. He resented that she’d kept a piece of him. He bristled at the proof that they had a history. Good God! How awful would it have been if he’d seen her charcoal study of him—nude? She closed her eyes tight.
You can do nothing to hurry things along . . .
As the moon danced upon the water, tears slipped down her cheeks.
* * *
The Safe Haven kitchen was buzzing today. Though the clambake had started forty years before as a simple tourism-appreciation event put on by the Flynns, those days were long gone. The mermaids had taken over the planning when the fishery went under and the family could no longer afford to host the affair. That had led to a committee, ticket sales, professional caterers, disc jockeys, and banquet tables. Clambake tickets were now the hottest thing going during festival week. Clancy just informed everyone gathered in the kitchen that he’d arrested scalpers on the public dock that morning, trying to sell passes for twice their original value.
“Man, if I had known that, I would have hawked mine online,” Nat said.
“Who’da thunk?” Rowan said, grabbing another baking sheet from the cabinet. For reasons Duncan didn’t fully understand, the Flynns (and by that he meant his sister) insisted on providing some of the desserts for the clambake. She said it was a way to keep the family involved.
Duncan hadn’t helped the family with clambake preparations since high school, and right then he was kicking himself for getting hijacked on his way back from a run.
“Come help me with the mascarpone mixture,” Rowan had called out to him.