Page 9 of Summer Light on Nantucket

Bob was starting law school in the fall. He’d scored 170 on his LSAT, partly because his father was a lawyer who talked law constantly at the dinner table. Later, when they were on the verge ofdivorce, Blythe had reminded him that at their first meeting the first fact he told her about himself was his score on his LSAT.

Back then, in the beginning, Blythe had found herself charmed by this handsome, intelligent, and possibly insecure man—wasn’t blurting out his score numbers a sign of insecurity?

“I can’t remember any of my scores,” she’d said. Then, thinking she was absolutely hilarious, she’d said, “Icanremember my name. I’m Blythe Anderson.”

Bob had slid a patio chair around to face her. “Beautiful name, Blythe. Unusual. I’m Bob Benedict.”

“And our favorite band is the B-52s,” Blythe joked.

They’d sat out in the sweet spring evening, talking and laughing as the moon rose and the night began, while dozens of other celebrants danced and swayed out on the patio. Two men in tuxedos dove into the swimming pool. Two women in elegant dresses were tossed, squealing and laughing, into the water, and an extremely tall, slender man stood on the diving board and orated a passage of poetry. “Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly.” People cheered and clapped and other men began singing foolish drunken frat songs.

“That poem is by Langston Hughes,” Blythe told Bob. She wanted to tell him that poem would be woven into her classes when she taught seventh-grade English.

“Nice,” Bob had responded, clearly not impressed with the poet or his poetry.

Aaden would have known the poet’s name. He could have recited those words from memory.

But Aaden was gone, and Blythe was determined to move on. Langston Hughes could not be a deal-breaker, especially with a man this charming, intelligent, and handsome. She felt no heart-stopping chemistry with him, but that was a relief, a life buoy tossed into the unsettled sea of her life.

They’d talked past midnight, discussing everything in their worlds,parents, old schools, old friends, but especially plans for the future, hopes for the future, and how it felt that they were finally grown-ups, adults, even though they’d reached the legal adult age of twenty-one a year ago. When they discovered they both had connections to Nantucket, they were elated. It was as if the world was beginning, becausetheywere beginning, and Blythe sensed a bond with Bob because they were there, in that place, at the starting line together, that night.

That first evening, when most of the celebrants had left, they remained on the patio, and as the night grew dark and cool, they finally spoke about their broken hearts. Blythe told Bob about Aaden, and Bob told Blythe about Ginger, the girl who’d left him during his last semester of high school. He showed her a picture of Ginger. He still carried one in his wallet. She was very pretty, with long red hair and tilted green eyes and a cute snub nose and legs that went on forever. She wanted to be a professional dancer. Her dream was to join the Mark Morris Dance Group and eventually start a dance company of her own. Bob wanted to be a lawyer and join his father’s firm. Ginger told him she was moving to New York after graduation. He researched ways he could attend a college in or near the city. During Ginger’s last semester of high school, she made visits down to the city to explore professional possibilities. At the beginning of May, just before Bob would graduate and Ginger wouldn’t, because she hadn’t attended any classes that last semester, Ginger texted Bob that she wasn’t returning to Massachusetts. She was living with another dancer, Clark, who was also her lover.

“She didn’t even say she was sorry,” Bob told Blythe that evening, trying to sound ironic but sounding hurt. “It was as if a robot wrote the text. Sorry,” he said. “I’ve really got to get over her. It’s been four years.”

“True,” Blythe said. “But high school romances are famous for breaking hearts.”

“Still,” Bob said, “I thought we were special.”

He was such a nice man, and he looked so forlorn and Blythe was tired of herself for thinking about Aaden for four entire years.

On an impulse, she said, “Weare special. Because people who kiss each other even before their first date are extremely special.”

“What?” Bob looked confused.

Blythe rose from her chair and sat on Bob’s lap and wrapped her arms around him. The surprise on his face made her laugh, and she was still laughing when he pressed his mouth against hers. He put his hands on her waist and tugged her closer, completely focused now. She gripped his hair and he cupped her head in his hand.

When they stopped kissing, Bob said, “Do you know what would be really special?”

Blythe smiled. “What?”

“Having sex in the bedroom of the house that belongs to someone we don’t know.”

She laughed. “I don’t think so. Besides, that kiss was special all by itself, don’t you think?”

“Not special enough,” Bob said.

He lifted her up as he rose, holding her in the traditional crossing-the-threshold position, and carried her to the hammock hung at the back of the yard. He carefully laid her in the hammock, and very carefully climbed in next to her.

“Have you ever had sex in a hammock?” he asked.

“Canpeople have sex in a hammock?”

They were both laughing, and then they were kissing, and buttons were unbuttoned, and bare flesh was exposed, and the hammock rocked wildly as they tried to slide off their garments. Only half-undressed, Bob tried to ease his way on top of Blythe, and his movements were enough to send the hammock into a swirl that dumped them both in the grass.

They lay there chortling, ridiculously pleased with themselves.

“You know,” Bob said, “for the last ten minutes, I didn’t think about Ginger at all.”

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