The Islanders (18 page)

“Nothing,” he said. “I just wanted to say, you know, you can take a while to tell Jake. I'll understand.”

“I want to do it as soon as I can,” Zoey said. “I want it to be out in the open.” She reached for his hand again, and this time he grasped her fingers. “I'll be thinking of you all night.”

“Yeah, right,” he said, drawing her close.

“Well, just in case, you'd better give me something to remember,” she said softly.

He kissed her, feeling waves of desire and pleasure. Waves that almost washed away the lingering realization that these same lips, only moments before, had been on Jake's.

CLAIRE GEIGER WAS WALKING DOWN
Center Street carrying a plastic sack of groceries when she saw Benjamin ahead of her, outlined against a darkening sky as he crossed the street and aimed for her house.

She slowed her pace, hanging back so as not to overtake him. He was using his cane, swinging it from side to side, but only in the most casual manner. North Harbor was such a small town that he had counted out every street and knew exactly how many steps there were from corner to corner.

On this familiar turf Benjamin could move with the easy confidence of a sighted person, lithe and almost graceful. His dark Ray Bans, an integral part of his handsome, serious face, gave him a mysterious, strangely alert look.

Claire held her breath, hoping he didn't know she was here watching him, wondering whether she was ready to talk to him. They hadn't seen each other since he'd told her he knew the truth.
That he
thought
he knew the truth.

She made a decision and quickened her pace, breaking into a run to catch him before he reached her gate. “Hey, Benjamin.”

Benjamin stopped and turned, his shades aiming just slightly to the left of her. “I was wondering if you were trying to avoid me,” he said.

“Avoid you?” She touched his cheek, directing his mouth, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“Yes. You know, when you stopped by the kite shop.” He smiled his knowing half smile. “You have a distinctive walk, Claire. And you're wearing thongs. You can't sneak around when you're wearing thongs.”

Claire laughed as nonchalantly as she could. “You know, most girls would think the cool thing about having a boyfriend who's blind would be that he couldn't keep track of them. But, of course, they'd be wrong about that.”

“Actually, I think what most girls would like about a blind boyfriend is that he would never know if they were beautiful or not.” He reached toward her, letting his hand drift slowly at the right height, till his fingers touched her face. “Although I hear that's not something you'd ever have to worry about, Claire.” He looked at her wistfully. “Eyes as dark as your hair, Zoey tells me. But then, I still remember that from when we were little.”

“Were you heading over to my house to see me?” Claire asked, sidestepping his compliment. People had told her all her
life she was beautiful. Her relationship with Benjamin had been one of the few she'd had where her looks played no great role.

“Yes.”

“Just dropping by?” she asked, trying to make the question sound innocent.

“Nina's going to read to me,” he said. “And I wanted to talk to you.”

An island car went by, rattling along the cobblestones, its punctured muffler roaring.

“Let's go down to the rocks for a minute,” Claire suggested. “Nina will wait.”

“All right,” Benjamin said.

They walked the few yards to the end of the street and crossed Lighthouse Road. Claire kicked off her thongs and climbed out onto one of the many tumbled boulders that lined the shore at the northern tip of the island. Benjamin could only follow slowly. He used his cane to outline the nearest boulder, carefully defining the angle of its surfaces. Then he stuck out his left foot, felt the hard surface with the toe of his sneaker, and hopped onto it.

He stayed on a flat rock while Claire set down her bag of groceries and climbed a little farther out. The sea was calm, just a low swell running past the point, crashing and receding in quick, hushed strokes. The tidal pools formed by the crevices of
the rocks rose and fell, but only gently.

Definitely a front coming in, Claire noticed, with her usual keen attention to the sky. A line of red-and-gold-trimmed clouds off to the southwest was advancing, as if fleeing the dying sun. There might be rain, she realized, possibly even a small storm. A storm would be nice.

“I haven't seen you all weekend,” Benjamin said.

Claire was startled to hear his voice so close by. He had managed to work his way out to her and now stood confidently on a slanted slab of granite. One pants leg was wet from a misstep along the way.

“I didn't realize I was obligated to see you every day,” Claire said.

“You're not. It's just that the last time I saw you . . . well, you were reeling around the room and acting like the world was coming to an end.”

“Oh, that,” Claire said dismissively. “I was just woozy. I had a lousy night's sleep the night before, and I'd swiped a beer from the refrigerator before coming over.”

“So that's all it was,” Benjamin said, sounding neither skeptical nor convinced. “I thought maybe your reaction had something to do with my little theory.”

“Theory?” Claire said, trying to keep from sounding brittle. Benjamin had a deadly accurate ability to read tone of voice.

“Yeah. My theory that you were the one driving the car when Wade McRoyan was killed. That theory. Slipped your mind, huh?”

“No, it didn't slip my mind. And really, the truth is, Benjamin, it shook me up for a while. As you know, I've never remembered what happened that night, so I began to wonder if maybe you were right. I had to ask myself if it was possible.” She watched his reaction closely. The subtle superior smile faded. His jaw tightened. Claire grinned triumphantly.
Yes, I thought that might be the way to handle you, Benjamin.

“You're saying you still don't remember?”

“No, I don't,” Claire said. “Which doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, Benjamin. You may even be right. Maybe it was me driving drunk that night. For that matter, maybe it was Wade himself.”
There, let it go
, Claire told herself sternly.
Don't try to push it. Don't overdo it.

It was always a chess match with Benjamin. She had to be on guard all the time, particularly when she wanted to deceive him. He was not a guy who could be misled by an innocent look or a pretty smile.

She had turned him aside for now, but she could tell Benjamin was far from convinced. In the end, if she was going to keep her secret, she would have to get him out of her life.

Benjamin started to say something, then stopped. His brow
furrowed in concentration. Claire could see herself reflected in his black sunglasses. At last his brow cleared. “Claire, if you did remember . . .”

“Yes?”

“If you did remember, and what you remembered was that it was you, and not Lucas, who was driving the car, would you tell?”

Claire stared straight into the distorted reflection of her own face. “Yes, Benjamin. Of course I would. What kind of person do you think I am?”

A ghost of a smile formed on his lips. “I don't know, Claire. Do you?”

Nina looked from her window and saw Benjamin and her sister, side by side, coming across the road from the water. They were holding hands. Claire was carrying a bag of groceries. Benjamin was carrying her thongs.

Nina glanced at the clock beside her bed. He was fifteen minutes late.

Fifteen minutes. Well, fine, if he wanted to run around with Claire and waste fifteen minutes. She still got paid by the hour to read homework to him, and she was going to charge the Passmores for the fifteen minutes. After all, she could have used the time doing something else. She was a busy girl. It wasn't
like she was just waiting around for Benjamin to show up so she could read to him.

Wasn't like that at all. She had a life.

And if he spent the next ten minutes downstairs making out with Claire, fine, she'd charge his parents for that time, too. Ten dollars an hour. Ten minutes of making out, that would cost them . . . ten minutes was one sixth of an hour, into five . . . it would cost him about a dollar sixty-six. Maybe she would just point that out to him.

She grabbed the bottle of
Miss Dior
she'd bought at Porteous and sprayed a little on her wrists. She smelled it, shrugged, and checked herself in the mirror. She looked okay, in a great shirt she'd picked up at the Goodwill thrift shop in Weymouth, under a loose-fitting army shirt and shorts. She shoved her dark hair into approximately the right location. Pointless, really, since for all Benjamin knew she could be wearing a clown suit and a Bozo wig. But maybe the perfume would get his attention. After all, he could still smell.

He knocked at her door.

“Come in,” she said loudly.

He opened the door and stood there. “Is it safe for me to come in? I mean, have you strewn your floor with clothes like last time?”

“No, the floor is clear,” she said sharply, bending down
quickly to snatch a single boot and a bag of Doritos out of his path. “You're late, you know.”

“Sorry.”

“I do have a life, you realize.”

Benjamin tilted his head at her quizzically. “Are you in a bad mood? We could make this another time.”

“No,” Nina said quickly. “No. Let's do it now. Sorry I snapped.”

Benjamin made his way to her bed and sat down on the edge, then pushed off his sneakers and lifted his feet, making himself comfortable. He handed her a book. “It's poetry. Sorry about that.”

Nina rolled her eyes to the ceiling and shook her fist at an invisible fate. She hated reading poetry. She could never get the rhythm right. And Benjamin would correct her.
No, it's supposed to be accented on the third syllable.
It was so much harder than just regular reading. She hated it. “No problem,” she said.

“Thanks,” Benjamin said. “We're supposed to read Shelley.”

Nina made a face and silently mimicked,
We're supposed to read Shelley.
We were supposed to read Shelley fifteen minutes ago, but you were too busy playing slippery lippery with the ice princess.

“Percy Bysshe Shelley.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley
, Nina mimicked.
Why don't you get Claire to read Percy Bysshe Shelley to you?
She turned to the table of contents, found the right section, and dragged her chair over by the bed.

Benjamin frowned. “Is that . . . is that perfume?”

Finally. He noticed. “Um, I guess so. I mean, someone gave me some, and, you know, I may have spilled it or something.”

“Hmm,” he said.

Hmm? Hmm?
That was it? Seventy dollars on her dad's charge account for
Hmm?

“Does it bother you?” she asked.

“Naw. It smells a little like melons, doesn't it? I think the poem is called Indian something.”

Nina gritted her teeth and considered giving Benjamin the finger, but that seemed mean. It wasn't nice to take advantage of the fact that he couldn't see. Then she did it anyway, because it made her feel good. Then she did it with both hands because that made her feel even better.

She began to read.

It was a love poem, Nina realized. She looked sharply at Benjamin. A love poem? Was this really on the senior curriculum, or could it be possible that he was trying to tell her something?

Wait a minute. Here he was, in her chamber. Okay, probably just a coincidence, but still, the first thing he'd asked her to read was a love poem.

“Champak?” Benjamin asked.

“That's what it says,” Nina said. “Champak.”

“Would you mind looking it up?”

Nina got up and rummaged on her bookshelf for the dictionary. “Champak. It's some kind of tree that has fragrant flowers.”

“Oh,” Benjamin said. “Maybe that's where your perfume came from.”

Nina smiled. That was better than
Hmm
. He was relating the poem to her. She hurried through the rest of the second verse, which had somehow dragged a dead nightingale into the story. But the third verse was better.

Okay, this was definitely a love poem. And was it just her imagination, or was Benjamin listening to her more attentively than usual? Especially around the kisses raining on my lips part.

Nina gulped. Actually, her heart was beating fast. She shifted in her seat. It had to be deliberate. Benjamin was amazingly subtle, for a guy. He had to have known that having her read a poem like this, full of kisses and champak odors, while he lay back on her very bed . . .

Benjamin nodded thoughtfully. “You're getting better at reading poetry. You got some real feeling into that.”

Nina swallowed hard. “Well, it was more about something I . . . you know, I mean, it was more about . . .” She was sinking into her seat, her voice growing lower as she sank.

You're mumbling, Nina!
she chided herself.
Why are you mumbling? You never mumble with anyone else. Stop mumbling and spit it out.

“You mean it's something you identify with more,” Benjamin said helpfully.

“I guess so,” Nina mumbled.

“It's a love poem,” Benjamin said.

“Yeah, I kind of thought so, too,” Nina managed to say.

Benjamin smiled. “I never thought of you as a romantic type, Nina. Is it anyone in particular, or is that none of my business?”

Anyone in particular?
Had he already guessed? Was he just waiting, hoping that she would tell him how she truly felt about him?

It was the perfect opening, the perfect opportunity. He'd asked her to read a love poem, then he'd asked her if it meant
anything special to her. Plus, he loved her perfume. Or at least he had noticed it.