She whispers, “Say my name again, the way you did in the rowboat.”
“Meredith.” I try to hold the syllables longer and let them sink in around us.
“No, the nickname you used.”
“Oh… oh. Merry? I don’t know why I said that, it just slipped out.”
“I’ve never had a nickname before.”
“First time for everything.”
The kisses get a little crazy. I can’t hold her close enough. Joe would be disappointed I hadn’t planned this better, waited until we were in the cabin, near a bed.
“Lemme finish the tour.”
More kisses. She likes the place right in front of my ear.
“Meredith, Meredith.”
She walks close as we pass down the other side of the deck. When the boat rocks with the breeze, she pulls herself even closer. Her fingers are like little ice statues, bent and hard against my palm, the way toothpicks roll. I can feel her tremble, shiver.
“It’s too cold out here,” I say. “Let’s go in.”
Because Nick packed for camping before I left, I’m fairly confident our cabin is respectable enough. In the dark my fingers crawl along the wall until I find the light switch. A glow appears in four corners, low-wattage bulbs powered by the battery. Meredith looks around. There are not enough bookcases, so there are boxes of books in every corner. Maybe she’s thinking about the bunk beds being dorky. But there’s no other real solution on a houseboat.
Nick’s prize landfill find, an old television set that’s bigger than a chair, sits on the built-in dresser we share. He’s wedged it in with a blanket and a bungee cord to keep it from shifting with the boat. It still sticks out over the top of the dresser about six inches. That’s the way they made those early TVs. But Nick has to be able to watch the soccer matches and South Park when Mom and Dad are gone.
I turn off three of the wall lamps. Although the battery’s pretty strong, I don’t want to take a chance. Dad’s been fierce about it all summer and fall, drilling us on emergency procedures and the proper care of a boat. It’s not that sailors are cheapskates. They just always preserve their options, forever considering how to maneuver their way out of a storm. A working battery and motor are crucial.
Without curtains, the windows reveal the same black sky from earlier. The louvered windows rattle in their tracks, a reminder that hurricane season is not quite over. As the wind rises the boat’s shifts have become more like lurches, not quite predictable. Meredith grabs the rail of the bunk bed to keep her balance.
“But there are only two bunks and you have two brothers.”
“Joe—the one with me in the car the other weekend—is at college, so he uses a sleeping bag when he’s here. It’s been just Nick and me the last three years. You met Nick? He’s thirteen. The soccer king. What can I say?”
“Which bunk is yours?”
Pointing, I choke out the words, “Want to try it?”
“To get the whole experience of life on a boat, I have to, right?”
I nod, totally choked up now. She’s up the ladder and lying down before I can even think how to answer her question.
“Like it?”
“Maybe you should show me how you fit yourself up here. You’re taller than I am.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When the lightbulb blinks and dies, it feels like hours have passed and we’re asleep. At least I’m asleep, exhausted after the most incredible hour of my life. Meredith wakes me up.
“Daniel. Did you see that? The light just went off. Is someone here? Or is it on some kind of timer?”
As the wind slaps the siding, the boat snaps back and forth on the mooring. I know I should be paying attention to the boat, but the feel of Meredith’s hip next to my thigh and her bare breast on my arm is way too distracting. She lifts her head off my shoulder and peers into the dark space, her chin just above mine. I kiss it.
“Those little lights on the deck,” she says. “Did you turn those off when we came inside?”
“Oh, jeez, I forgot.” I sit up and bonk my head on the ceiling. I sink back on the pillow. “Dad’ll kill me if the battery’s dead.”
She’s watching me. Her eyes shift back and forth like a cat’s in the dark room. “Silly, the lights are already off. I just wondered if you did it.” She kisses me and there’s no way I’m getting out of this bed to worry about the lights. Who needs light anyway?
“Dan.”
My hands are stroking that dip in her back, working around the bones in her spine. I take her hips and try to lift her enough to work things out. Or in.
“Daniel.”
It’s an amazing feeling. How two people fit like that.
“Stop. Daniel. We can’t… we need another one of those… things.”
“Oh, God, Meredith.” Her skin is so warm.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’re right. It’s just so hard to… you’re so beautiful and… so soft in the right places and…” I groan and wriggle out from under her. “I only had two.”
She starts to giggle. I have to laugh too. Great planner.
“First time for everything,” I say.
“Not anymore,” she says, laughing, and pushes me toward the edge of the bunk.
In the pitch black I grope around for my jeans. When I stumble on the plastic hook from my costume, I chuck it across the room. I’m laughing and telling her I’m going to check the battery, sorry about the condoms, is she okay, stay where she is, not to worry, I’ll be right back. I follow the bed rails with my hands until I feel her shoulder. With one foot on Nick’s bunk, I pull myself even with her face. I know what I want to say. The words are right there. The words. But all of a sudden, now that I know for sure it’s her first time too, it seems so self-centered to talk about how I feel, to just blurt it out like that. Without considering how she feels to have a dead guy in love with her. It’s not like she can look forward to going to the senior prom with me or that we can apply to the same colleges or put photos of each other on our yearbook pages.
“Merry,” I whisper instead, her lips so close I have to kiss them. “Thank you.”
The battery is fine. It’s just the bulb that’s burned out in the bedroom. Meredith thinks it’s the funniest thing ever.
“You were the one who panicked,” I say.
“Me? You were swearing and saying how your dad was going to go ape.”
“I did not say ‘ape.’”
“Did too.”
“Did not.” I have to silence that. I have to kiss her.
She’s trying to pull the black stretchy shirt on over her head while I’m trying to kiss her. It’s just that I’m not ready to let her go. If I get dragged off to Mexico, it could be months before there’s another chance for us to be alone.
“Dan. Daniel.” Her laugh is muffled in fabric. “Stop kissing me. I have to go home. Juliann and I agreed we’d both show up at one—that way, Mom could hardly be suspicious of either of us.”
“Does she know? About… us?”
“My mother?”
“God, no. Your sister.”
“Not yet.”
I’m being good. I smooth her shirt over her chest, slide my hands around her waist to help tuck it into her jeans. Just checking to be sure everything’s in place. God, she is so beautiful.
“What are you going to tell her?” I ask.
“My mother?”
“Funny. No, Juliann.”
“Maybe nothing.”
“This is not important enough to tell your twin sister?”
She looks away, reaches for her sandals, leans down to be sure she has the right one on the right foot. “I might just keep it to myself for a while. It’ll be different once she knows. Right now it’s just you and me. I like that.”