"So?" I said laughing.
"I never told you why I stopped writing you, calling you, that year."
"You didn't have to Harley. We didn't owe each other anything."
"Yes we did, and that's why I stopped.'"
"I don't understand," I said closing my book and turning to him.
"I thought to myself. Harley Arnold, you have no right to write her, to call her, to cause her to believe you can take care of her and be the man she needs, so stop the game, stop pretending, stop daydreaming and go to work.
"Then, time passed. You saw other boys. I had dates. but I couldn't shake it. Summer."
"Shake what. Harley?"
"Your face from their faces," he replied.
My heart seemed to lift as if it had been sleeping in my bosom, waiting to be nudged for real, to be touched for real.
"What are you saying, Harley?"
"I'm saying I feel confident now, confident and competent and worthy enough to hope you might remember our wish. I know you're not really involved with anyone else," he added with a smile. "Roy's been my spy."
"Is that right? No wonder he's always around whenever I go anywhere with anyone these days,"
Harley laughed.
"Of course, he'd never admit that. He told me to do my own romantic dirty work, but he couldn't help telling me things every time we spoke on the phone or he came by to see me."
"I'11 have to bawl him out," I said.
Harley nodded, looked down, took a deep breath and reached into his sports jacket pocket.
"It's not out of the blue," he said. "It's not something I just decided. It's not any sort of last minute idea. This has been burning a hole in my pocket for some time."
"What?"
He opened his palm and held out an
engagement ring.
"It was my mother's," he said. "'Roy gave it to me and said, when the time comes..."
I thought the breeze had died, the world had stopped turning, all the clouds had frozen against the blue sky. I know I was holding my breath.
"We belong together. Summer. We're meant to be. I can't love anyone else. I hope it's the same for you. Is it?" he asked, his eyes fill of anxiety.
I looked away for a moment. Everything was right. Everything was suddenly so right.
"Yes," I said. "It's the same. It's always been."
He took my hand and put the ring on my finger and we kissed. Then we stood up, neither of us able to speak. We would go into the house to tell my parents. Uncle Roy surely already knew.
As we started up the path, I heard the familiar call of the blackbird and we both turned.
That was the only promise that counted, I thought. The promise in our wish.
The promise that came true.