"Lon's handsome, charming, and successful, and most of my friends are insanely jealous. They think he's perfect, and in a lot of ways he is. He's kind to me, he makes me laugh, and I know he loves me in his own way." She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "But there's always going to be something missing in our relationship."
She surprised herself with her answer but knew it was true nonetheless. And she also knew by looking at him that Noah had suspected the answer in advance.
"Why?"
She smiled weakly and shrugged as she answered. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I guess I still look for the kind of love we had that summer."
Noah thought about what she had said for a long while, thinking about the relationships he'd had since he'd last seen her.
"How about you?" she asked. "Did you ever think about us?"
"All the time. I still do."
"Are you seeing anyone?"
"No," he answered, shaking his head.
Both of them seemed to think about that, trying but finding it impossible to displace from their minds. Noah finished his beer, surprised that he had emptied it so quickly.
"I'm going to go start the water. Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head, and Noah went to the kitchen and put the crabs in the steamer and the bread in the oven. He found some flour and cornmeal for the vegetables, coated them, and put some grease into the frying pan. After turning the heat on low, he set a timer and pulled another beer from the icebox before heading back to the porch. And while he was doing those things, he thought about Allie and the love that was missing from both their lives.
Allie, too, was thinking. About Noah, about herself, about a lot of things. For a moment she wished she weren't engaged but then quickly cursed herself. It wasn't Noah she loved; she loved what they once had been. Besides, it was normal to feel this way. Her first real love, the only man she'd ever been with-- how could she expect to forget him?
Yet was it normal for her insides to twitch whenever he came near? Was it normal to confess things she could never tell anyone else? Was it normal to come here three weeks from her wedding day?
"No, it's not," she finally whispered to herself as she looked to the evening sky. "There's nothing normal about any of this."
Noah came out at that moment and she smiled at him, glad he'd come back so she didn't have to think about it anymore. "It's going to take a few minutes," he said as he sat back down.
"That's fine. I'm not that hungry yet."
He looked at her then, and she saw the softness in his eyes. "I'm glad you came, Allie," he said.
"Me too. I almost didn't, though."
"Why did you come?"
I was compelled, she wanted to say, but didn't. "Just to see you, to find out what you've been up to. To see how you are."
He wondered if that was all but didn't question further. Instead he changed the subject.
"By the way, I've been meaning to ask, do you still paint?"
She shook her head. "Not anymore."
He was stunned. "Why not? You have so much talent."
"I don't know...."
"Sure you do. You stopped for a reason."
He was right. She'd had a reason.
"It's a long story."
"I've got all night," he answered.
"Did you really think I was talented?" she asked quietly.
"C'mon," he said, reaching for her hand, "I want to show you something."
She got up and followed him through the door to the living room. He stopped in front of the fireplace and pointed to the painting that hung above the mantel. She gasped, surprised she hadn't noticed it earlier, more surprised it was here at all.
"You kept it?"
"Of course I kept it. It's wonderful."
She gave him a skeptical look, and he explained. "It makes me feel alive when I look at it. Sometimes I have to get up and touch it. It's just so real-- the shapes, the shadows, the colors. I even dream about it sometimes. It's incredible, Allie--I can stare at it for hours."
"You're serious," she said, shocked.
"As serious as I've ever been."
She didn't say anything.
"You mean to tell me no one has ever told you that before?"
"My professor did," she finally said, "but I guess I didn't believe him."
He knew there was more. Allie looked away before continuing.
"I've been drawing and painting since I was a child. I guess that once I got a little older, I began to think I was good at it. I enjoyed it, too. I remember working on this painting that summer, adding to it every day, changing it as our relationship changed. I don't even remember how it started or what I wanted it to be, but somehow it evolved into this.
"I remember being unable to stop painting after I went home that summer. I think it was my way of avoiding the pain I was going through. Anyway, I ended up majoring in art in college because it was something I had to do; I remember spending hours in the studio all by myself and enjoying every minute. I loved the freedom I felt when I created, the way it made me feel inside to make something beautiful. Just before I graduated, my professor, who happened to also be the critic for the paper, told me I had a lot of talent. He told me I should try my luck as an artist. But I didn't listen to him."
She stopped there, gathering her thoughts.
"My parents didn't think it was proper for someone like me to paint for a living. I just stopped after a while. I haven't touched a brush in years."
She stared at the painting.
"Do you think you'll ever paint again?"
"I'm not sure if I can anymore. It's been a long time."
"You can still do it, Allie. I know you can. You have a talent that comes from inside you, from your heart, not from your fingers. What you have can't ever go away. It's what other people only dream about. You're an artist, Allie."
The words were spoken with such sincerity that she knew he wasn't saying it just to be nice. He truly believed in her ability, and for some reason that meant more to her than she expected. But something else happened then, something even more powerful.
Why it happened, she never knew, but this was when the chasm began to close for Allie, the chasm she had erected in her life to separate the pain from the pleasure. And she suspected then, maybe not consciously, that there was more to this than even she cared to admit.
But at that moment she still wasn't completely aware of it, and she turned to face him. She reached over and touched his hand, hesitantly, gently, amazed that after all these years he'd somehow known exactly what she'd needed to hear. When their eyes locked, she once again realized how special he was.
And for just a fleeting moment, a tiny wisp of time that hung in the air like fireflies in summer skies, she wondered if she was in love with him again.
The timer went off in the kitchen, a small ding, and Noah turned away, breaking the moment, strangely affected by what had just happened between them. Her eyes had spoken to him and whispered something he longed to hear, yet he couldn't stop the voice inside his head, her voice, that had told him of her love for another man. He silently cursed the timer as he walked to the kitchen and removed the bread from the oven. He almost burned his fingers, dropped the loaf on the counter, and saw that the frying pan was ready. He added the vegetables and heard them begin to crackle. Then, muttering to himself, he got some butter out of the icebox, spread some on the bread, and melted a bit more for the crabs.
Allie had followed him into the kitchen and cleared her throat.
"Can I get the table ready?"
Noah used the bread knife as a pointer. "Sure, plates are over there. Utensils and napkins there. Make sure you get plenty--crabs can be messy, so we'll need 'em." He couldn't look at her as he spoke. He didn't want to realize he'd been mistaken about what had just happened between them. He didn't want it to be a mistake.
Allie, too, was wondering about the moment and feeling warm as
she thought of it. The words he'd spoken replayed in her head as she found everything she needed for the table: plates, place settings, salt and pepper. Noah handed her the bread as she was finishing the table, and their fingers touched briefly.
He turned his attention back to the frying pan and turned the vegetables. He lifted the lid of the steamer, saw the crabs still had a minute, and let them cook some more. He was more composed now and returned to small talk, easy conversation.
"Have you ever had crab before?"
"A couple of times. But only in salads."
He laughed. "Then you're in for an adventure. Hold on a second." He disappeared upstairs for a moment, then returned with a navy blue button-down shirt. He held it open for her.
"Here, put this on. I don't want you to stain your dress."
Allie put it on and smelled the fragrance that lingered in the shirt--his smell, distinctive, natural.
"Don't worry," he said, seeing her expression, "it's clean."
She laughed. "I know. It just reminds me of our first real date. You gave me your jacket that night, remember?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I remember. Fin and Sarah were with us. Fin kept elbowing me the whole way back to your parents' house, trying to get me to hold your hand."
"You didn't, though."
"No," he answered, shaking his head.
"Why not?"
"Shy, maybe, or afraid. I don't know. It just didn't seem like the right thing to do at the time."
"Come to think of it, you were kind of shy, weren't you."
"I prefer the words 'quiet confidence,'" he answered with a wink, and she smiled.
The vegetables and crabs were ready about the same time. "Be careful, they're hot," he said as he handed them to her, and they sat across from each other at the small wooden table. Then, realizing the tea was still on the counter, Allie stood and brought it over. After putting some vegetables and bread on their plates, Noah added a crab, and Allie sat for a moment, staring at it.
"It looks like a bug."
"A good bug, though," he said. "Here, let me show you how it's done."
He demonstrated quickly, making it look easy, removing the meat and putting it on her plate. Allie crushed the legs too hard the first time and the time after that, and had to use her fingers to get the shells away from the meat. She felt clumsy at first, worrying that he saw every mistake, but then she realized her own insecurity. He didn't care about things like that. He never had.