"So, whatever happened to Fin?" she asked.
It took a second for him to answer.
"Fin died in the war. His destroyer was torpedoed in forty-three."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I know he was a good friend of yours."
His voice changed, a little deeper now.
"He was. I think of him a lot these days. I especially remember the last time I saw him. I'd come home to say good-bye before I enlisted, and we ran into each other again. He was a banker here, like his daddy was, and he and I spent a lot of time together over the next week. Sometimes I think I talked him into joining. I don't think he would have, except that I was going to."
"That's not fair," she said, sorry she'd brought up the subject.
"You're right. I just miss him, is all."
"I liked him, too. He made me laugh."
"He was always good at that."
She looked at him slyly. "He had a crush on me, you know."
"I know. He told me about it."
"He did? What did he say?"
Noah shrugged. "The usual for him. That he had to fight you off with a stick. That you chased him constantly, that sort of thing."
She laughed quietly. "Did you believe him?"
"Of course," he answered, "why wouldn't I?" "You men always stick together," she said as she reached across the table, poking his arm with her finger. She went on. "So, tell me everything you've been up to since I saw you last."
They started to talk then, making up for lost time. Noah talked about leaving New Bern, about working in the shipyard and at the scrap yard in New Jersey. He spoke fondly of Morris Goldman and touched on the war a little, avoiding most of the details, and told her about his father and how much he missed him. Allie talked about going to college, painting, and her hours spent volunteering at the hospital. She talked about her family and friends and the charities she was involved with. Neither of them brought up anybody they had dated since they'd last seen each other. Even Lon was ignored, and though both of them noticed the omission, neither mentioned it.
Afterward Allie tried to remember the last time she and Lon had talked this way. Although he listened well and they seldom argued, he was not the type of man to talk like this. Like her father, he wasn't comfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings. She'd tried to explain that she needed to be closer to him, but it had never seemed to make a difference.
But sitting here now, she realized what she'd been missing.
The sky grew darker and the moon rose higher as the evening wore on. And without either of them being conscious of it, they began to regain the intimacy, the bond of familiarity, they had once shared.
They finished dinner, both pleased with the meal, neither talking much now. Noah looked at his watch and saw that it was getting late. The stars were out in full, the crickets a little quieter. He had enjoyed talking to Allie and wondered if he'd talked too much, wondered what she'd thought about his life, hoping it would somehow make a difference, if it could.
Noah got up and refilled the teapot. They both brought the dishes to the sink and cleaned up the table, and he poured two more cups of hot water, adding teabags to both.
"How about the porch again?" he asked, handing her the cup, and she agreed, leading the way. He grabbed a quilt for her in case she got cold, and soon they had taken their places again, the quilt over her legs, rockers moving. Noah watched her from the corner of his eye. God, she's beautiful, he thought. And inside, he ached.
For something had happened during dinner. Quite simply, he had fallen in love again. He knew that now as they sat next to one another. Fallen in love with a new Allie, not just her memory.
But then, he had never really stopped, and this, he realized, was his destiny.
"It's been quite a night," he said, his voice softer now.
"Yes, it has," she said, "a wonderful night." Noah turned to the stars, their twinkling lights reminding him that she would be leaving soon, and he felt almost empty inside. This was a night he wanted never to end. How should he tell her? What could he say that would make her stay?
He didn't know. And thus the decision was made to say nothing. And he realized then that he had failed.
The rockers moved in quiet rhythm. Bats again, over the river. Moths kissing the porch light. Somewhere, he knew, there were people making love.
"Talk to me," she finally said, her voice sensual. Or was his mind playing tricks?
"What should I say?"
"Talk like you did to me under the oak tree." And he did, reciting distant passages, toasting the night. Whitman and Thomas, because he loved the images. Tennyson and Browning, because their themes felt so familiar.
She rested her head against the back of the rocker, closing her eyes, growing just a bit warmer by the time he'd finished. It wasn't just the poems or his voice that did it. It was all of it, the whole greater than the sum of the parts. She didn't try to break it down, didn't want to, because it wasn't meant to be listened to that way. Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.
Because of him, she'd gone to a few poetry readings offered by the English department while in college. She'd sat and listened to different people, different poems, but had stopped soon after, discouraged that no one inspired her or seemed as inspired as true lovers of poetry should be.
They rocked for a while, drinking tea, sitting quietly, drifting in their thoughts. The compulsion that had driven her here was gone now--she was glad for this--but she worried about the feelings that had taken its place, the stirrings that had begun to sift and swirl in her pores like gold dust in river pans. She'd tried to deny them, hide from them, but now she realized that she didn't want them to stop. It had been years since she'd felt this way.
Lon could not evoke these feelings in her. He never had and probably never would. Maybe that was why she had never been to bed with him. He had tried before, many times, using everything from flowers to guilt, and she had always used the excuse that she wanted to wait until marriage. He took it well, usually, and she sometimes wondered how hurt he would be if he ever found out about Noah.
But there was something else that made her want to wait, and it had to do with Lon himself. He was driven in his work, and it always commanded most of his attention. Work came first, and for him there was no time for poems and wasted evenings and rocking on porches. She knew this was why he was successful, and part of her respected him for that. But she also sensed it wasn't enough. She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.
Noah, too, was sifting through his thoughts. To him, the evening would be remembered as one of the most special times he had ever had. As he rocked, he remembered it all in detail, then remembered it again. Everything she had done seemed somehow electric to him, charged.
Now, sitting beside her, he wondered if she'd ever dreamed the same things he had in the years they'd been apart. Had she ever dreamed of them holding each other again and kissing in soft moonlight? Or did she go further and dream of their naked bodies, which had been kept separate for far too long. . . .
He looked to the stars and remembered the thousands of empty nights he had spent since they'd last seen each other. Seeing her again brought all those feelings to the surface, and he found it impossible to press them back down. He knew then he wanted to make love to her again and to have her love in return. It was what he needed most in the world.
But he also realized it could never be. Now that she was engaged.
Allie knew by his silence that he was thinking about her and found that she reveled in it. She didn't know what his thoughts were exactly, didn't care really, just knew they were about her and that was enough.
She thought about their conversation at dinner and wondered about loneliness. For some reason she couldn't picture him reading poetry to someone else or ev
en sharing his dreams with another woman. He didn't seem the type. Either that, or she didn't want to believe it.
She put down the tea, then ran her hands through her hair, closing her eyes as she did so.
"Are you tired?" he asked, finally breaking free from his thoughts.
"A little. I should really be going in a couple of minutes."
"I know," he said, nodding, his tone neutral.
She didn't get up right away. Instead she picked up the cup and drank the last swallow of tea, feeling it warm her throat. She took the evening in. Moon higher now, wind in the trees, temperature dropping.
She looked at Noah next. The scar on his face was visible from the side. She wondered if it had happened during the war, then wondered if he'd ever been wounded at all. He hadn't mentioned it and she hadn't asked, mostly because she didn't want to imagine him being hurt.
"I should go," she finally said, handing the quilt back to him.
Noah nodded, then stood without a word. He carried the quilt, and the two of them walked to her car while fallen leaves crunched beneath their feet. She started to take off the shirt he'd loaned her as he opened the door, but he stopped her.
"Keep it," he said. "I want you to have it."
She didn't ask why, because she wanted to keep it, too. She readjusted it and crossed her arms afterward to ward off the chill. For some reason, as she stood there she was reminded of standing on her front porch after a high school dance, waiting for a kiss.
"I had a great time tonight," he said. "Thank you for finding me."
"I did, too," she answered.
He summoned his courage. "Will I see you tomorrow?"