We decided to head for home. We couldn’t figure out how to go back to our friends and hang out. When we walked away from the group, we were brother and sister, but we were coming back as so much more. To us, it was the most natural, beautiful thing in the world, almost like it had been fated all along. But we didn’t know how other people were going to react. So we figured we’d better just go—it was getting late in the afternoon anyway. We couldn’t leave without our stuff, though. I personally would have been happy to abandon my towel and bottle of suntan oil, and the paperback novel I was reading, but Nick still needed his car keys.
So, back we went. As if we’d agreed beforehand, we dropped hands when we got close to our friends. No use, though. Of course Suzanne had seen us kissing.
She had had a thing for Nick for a while, which I hated of course, but what could I say? I couldn’t tell her my brother was off limits. But she watched everything he did while we were at the lake, and that included what he did with me. While Nick and I had been off in our own little world, Suzanne had been watching and getting ready to pounce.
“So Juuuuulia!” she said, syrupy-sweet, as we walked up. “You sure do loooove your brother, don’t you? That was some kiss you gave him!”
“I don’t have a brother, Suzanne.”
“Who’s Nick then? You guys’ parents are married—sounds like he’s your brother to me!” Of course she was not saying any of this stuff in a normal tone of voice, and soon our friends were listening, plus some other people nearby.
“Give it a rest, Suzanne,” Nick said quietly.
“Oh, are
you embarrassed? Don’t you want me to talk about you kissing your sister right out in public? Do you want me to whisper about you FUCKING your sister?”
“Shut up, Suzanne,” he said.
“Make me, you filthy pervert. When you fuck your sister that’s incest, and it happens to be against the law!” If you saw a picture of Suzanne, you’d say she was a pretty girl. But a lot of the people who knew her didn’t think so. The poisonous expression on her face right then made her look about as pretty as a rattlesnake.
“Julia is no relation to me, not that it’s any of your business.” We had our stuff packed up by now, and turned to go. Our friends looked seriously uncomfortable, but they didn’t know what to do. Maybe some of them had seen us kissing, too.
“Run away, pervert! Go stick your tongue up your sister’s filthy twat, why don’t you?”
I could feel myself blushing at that. As we walked away, we could still hear her calling her venom after us. “Guess I should have asked your dad to adopt me, Nick. If I knew you were into INCEST!”
I walked stiffly beside Nick. I couldn’t even look at him. Was this what it was going to be like to be with him? People calling us perverts for the rest of our lives? We got back to the car and got in. It was hot as an oven inside, of course, so we rolled down the windows and Nick got us moving right away.
“So what do you think, Julia, was Suzanne maybe a little bothered about something back there?”
I laughed and said, “I don’t know, she’s just no fun anymore.” We both started laughing, much harder than our lame jokes deserved. It blew some of the tension away.
Nick said, still laughing, “What a bitch she is! You were right about her.”
Then I remembered what I’d said earlier and stopped laughing. “Yeah, but the bad part is, she’ll spread it all over town.”
“She will. Shit. I guess we do need to tell Dad and Lucy before they hear it from their friends.”
“Wow. This got serious pretty fast, huh?”
Nick held his hand out to me and I took it. We laced our fingers together. Being with him was worth it, no matter what people said about us. I leaned my head back against the seat, still looking at Nick while the wind blew my hair around.
“I’ve always been serious about you, Julia. I never wanted anything casual. Even though you were only fifteen that day in the restaurant, I knew I would wait until we were both old enough before I did anything.”
“So, do you think we’re old enough now?”
“God, I hope so!”
“Do you think Mom and Joe will think we’re old enough? I really don’t want the gossip to hurt my mom.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“It was really bad after my dad left. I don’t want her to have to go through that again.”
Nick was quiet for a while. Then he suddenly pulled the car off the road where a sign said, “Scenic Overlook.”
“Huh? What’s this?”
“Come on,” he said. “Just get out.” He ran over to the railing, pulling me by the hand after him. For a minute we looked out over the valley, seeing the patchwork of farmland and woods, and way at the far end, the outskirts of Greenwood.
He turned to me and said, “Okay. I know how we can keep Suzanne’s gossip from hurting us or our parents. And…we’d be doing this anyway in a few years, right?”
I was mystified until he went down on one knee in front of me and took my hand.
“Julia,” he said, and kissed my hand. “I love you so much. No matter what happens, I always will. Will you marry me?”
CHAPTER THREE
3
Nick
The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the just-finished ICU at Greenwood Hospital was a black-tie affair. I didn’t plan it, it was up to the PR Department of the hospital. I wasn’t thrilled about showing up in my monkey suit, but if it did any good I could deal. All the people were milling around in what was actually a waiting room done up to look ready for a fancy party. They had brought a piano into the room, and a pianist was playing light jazz, which competed with the sounds of talk and laughter. All of Greenwood’s movers and shakers were there. It was hard for me to remember that I was one of them now, not some green kid just getting started. They would come up to me and shake my hand, slap me on the back, congratulate me, all that kind of stuff. And they would ask me questions, like about business, and then actually listen to the answer. But it was kind of a boring party, if you want the truth.
When I saw Julia, though, I thought I would wear fifty tuxedos to fifty boring parties for the chance to see her dressed like she was that night. Her dress was red, and strapless, held up by magic as far as I could tell. It was made of some kind of material that had a sheen to it. But the thing about it was the way it hugged that girl’s curves. Good god. She had her hair piled up on top of her head, with like a pearl pin in it, and pearls on her ears and around her neck. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never see anything that looks better. In fact, I hope my memory lasts til the day I die, because I want my mental picture of Julia in the red gown to be the last memory I have on this earth.
When she walked in, she paused in the doorway like she didn’t know what to do. I gave her a big wave and yelled out her name, which maybe isn’t how people act at black-tie affairs. But Julia saw me, and her face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. We started moving towards each other through the crowd.
I took both of her hands and leaned in to kiss her, and she turned her smooth cheek towards me so I kissed that. “Julia, you look…amazing. Stunning.”