The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [13]
—•—
That night, alone with all those empty beds, I couldn't fall asleep. I got up and went outside to the dock in my nightgown. I'd finished Gatsby, and I looked out at the lagoon, hoping to see a green light. But nobody's dock was lit up. Only one house had any lights on, and the light was just the blue of a television set.
I tried to understand what Henry had told me. But I worried about that, too. Other people might not try as hard as I did to understand him. I was always on his side, no matter what. My parents were, too. All he really had to do with us was show up. More had been expected of him as Julia's boyfriend and at that party. More would be expected of him everywhere. I didn't know what had happened between him and Julia. It scared me to think that my brother had failed at loving someone. I had no idea myself how to do it.
T H E
F L O A T I N G
H O U S E
Insisting on playing a game for which, after a fair amount of time, you show no natural aptitude is frustrating to you and annoying to all but the most complacent opponents.
—From Amy Vanderbilt's Book of Etiquette: A Guide to Gracious Living
It's the morning of our flight. Jamie sets my coffee and his on the night table and gets back into bed with me. This afternoon we'll be in St. Croix, the guests of Jamie's ex-girlfriend and her new husband. Now I sit up and, without giving myself the go-ahead, speak. "Honey," I say, "I suddenly have a weird feeling about this trip."
He looks over at me.
I try to think of how to say it. "I don't know these people."
He says, "You'll be with me."
Jamie has a beautiful voice, deep and private, and it stops me for a moment. Then I say, "It just seems awkward. Going on vacation with your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend."
He tells me that he doesn't think of Bella that way, she's just an old friend now.
I say, "What does your old friend Bella look like?"
He laughs and pulls me in for a kiss. "It was college." he says, pronouncing college the way I now pronounce high school.
While he takes his shower, I watch him through the clear parts, the oceans, of his world-map shower curtain.
When he gets out he says, "Trust me."
—•—
From New York to San Juan, Jamie sleeps. I take off his baseball cap and touch his hair, which goes back behind his ears and flips up. He wears a white T-shirt, old jeans, and sneakers. He is long and lean, all legs, like a colt.
Jamie is my first real boyfriend.
We are three months old.
For me, it started the night he told me he couldn't sleep with a woman unless he really loved her.
"I'm monogamous by nature," he said.
I said, "Same here."
—•—
We land in St. Croix and walk off the plane into a tiny airport. I see a man holding up a sign that says JANE AND JAMES, and I'm thinking, They sent a car for us? But Jamie laughs and says, "There they are."
Bella is turn-and-stare gorgeous—big dark eyes, long dark hair, smooth dark skin.
She says, "James," which sounds like "gems," and kisses him—cheek, cheek, cheek.
The man I thought was the driver introduces himself as Yves, Bella's husband, and when he cheek-cheeks me, I think, Grandmother, what soft lips you have.
Bella takes both my hands in hers, as though she has been waiting a long time to meet me. She says, "Janie," my childhood nickname, and I am so thrown off by her warmth that I say, "Belly."
For a moment I hope no one has heard, but, leading us out to their jeep, Yves whispers to me, "It's Bella."
The ride home is all wind. Jamie leans forward, in the space between the front seats, to talk to Bella.
When we pull up to the driveway, she jumps out of the jeep to unlatch the gate. First, though, she motions sweepingly to the sign on the wall, THE FLOATING HOUSE. Jamie squeezes my hand. I begin a joke about having known only generic houses, but the jeep lurches forward into the walled courtyard.
The house is cool and long, white ceramic tiled floors out to the veranda, and from every window you can see the blue-green Caribbean Sea.
Bella shows us the