“There is no way I’m wearing something like that.”
Helen bats her eyelashes with exaggerated innocence. “And why not?”
“I can see through it!”
“Exactly!”
“No, Helen. No way!”
“Oh, Marlena,” Helen sighs. “If you are going to end up naked anyway, then what does it matter if Finn can see through what you’re wearing before you take it off?”
“I don’t know?” I cover my mouth and start to laugh. “I guess maybe it doesn’t?”
Helen drags me to another rack. “Finally, you are talking sense!”
I look at all the complicated black lace, and try to figure out how a person is supposed wear whatever is dangling from the hangers. “That looks so uncomfortable.”
Helen is admiring something satin and shiny. “You aren’t supposed to wear it all day.”
“Do you put on this stuff for Sonia?” Ever since the party Helen and Sonia have been dating.
“Sonia loves me in lingerie.”
“Does Sonia wear it for you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m the lingerie girl in the relationship.”
“Well, what does Sonia like then?”
Helen tears her eyes from the rack to look at me. “The better question is: what does Finn like?”
“Me?”
“Of course, you. You’re not exactly helping me help you, here.”
I think of the colors I see when I’m with Finn. “What about pink? Just not that pale washed-out color you showed me before.”
“Finally.” She leads me over to another rack.
At some point, while I’m trying things on, I text Finn, in my still very slow and labored tapping of the screen.
Me: You will never guess what I am doing.
Finn: Tell me.
Me: I’d rather show you when we go away.
Finn: Gulp. Stop killing me, Marlena.
I smile at this and put the phone away.
In the end, I get something simple, but pretty, and I am grateful when we return to dress shopping. After hours of looking, I find the perfect one. It is a bright, silvery green, with a halter that ties around my neck and a skirt that reaches to my knees.
“What do you think?” I ask Helen, when I emerge from the dressing room.
She looks up from her phone and smiles. “I think that’s the one.”
“Me too.”
“Well, then, buy it, so we can go to dinner. My feet are killing me!”
Later, when we are seated in a booth, waiting for our pizza, Helen asks me about my decision to be with Finn, and I ask her what it’s like to have sex with Sonia, and what made her decide she was ready.
Helen takes a sip of her Coke. “It was easy. I knew I wanted to, and she wanted to, so we did.”
“No regrets?”
“No way.”
Our pizza arrives, and we each pull a piece from the steaming pie.
Helen waits for hers to cool so she can take a bite. “Promise me I’ll get the full report, Marlena.”
I pick up a fork and knife to avoid getting burned and cut a piece, blowing on it a little. “I promise,” I tell her, and our attention turns to eating.
My road trip with Finn turns out to also involve a boat trip. We drive to a ferry, then drive the car onto the ferry so it can take us to an island disconnected from the mainland. There are no bridges or causeways. It makes it seem like Finn and I are heading across the ocean to be in a completely new world that is all ours.
The inn where we are staying is across the street from the beach, near a little downtown with shops and restaurants. It is so much like the town where I live, but so unlike it. This town, for instance, has never sold souvenirs with my image, and I can walk down its Main Street without fear of being recognized. And I can do it with Finn and not worry about being judged.
We head into the foyer of the big old house. “What do you think?” Finn asks.
There are little couches and nooks to sit and read, and a pretty porch visible through the windows. “I love it.”
When we get to our room, I feel shy. I’ve spent so much time with Finn, just Finn, but there’s something different about going away with a boy. It feels grown-up, in a way I’ve never been. In my bag, I’ve packed my perfect dress, and the underwear I plan to wear underneath it. When Finn runs out to the car for something he forgot, I put everything away in the closet and drawers. I don’t want him to see what I’ve brought just yet.
Finn and I go for lunch at a takeout place on the docks. We buy sandwiches and eat them sitting in the sun, our legs dangling over the water. Afterward, we drive all over the island, looking at the old houses, trying to decide which one is our favorite. Which one we would buy. If we got married someday, I think. All afternoon there is a flutter in my stomach about our dinner ahead, and about what will happen after dinner.
In the end, when it does happen, I’m not wearing the special dress or the lingerie Helen made me buy. It isn’t even at night after we’ve eaten, and gone back to our room, as I’d imagined.
When we return from our drive, the two of us go upstairs so I can put away the souvenir I bought in one of the shops. A little framed postcard of the exact spot where Finn and I ate lunch. I set the bag on the floor and begin digging through my suitcase for a hair tie. Finn is sitting on a chair next to one of the windows, flipping through the novel he bought at a bookstore where a cat was sleeping on one of the table displays, which made us laugh. I find the tie for my hair and put it up in a knot. Then I go to Finn and sit on his lap. He closes the book and sets it on the table. Finn turns me so I am facing him, my legs on either side of his waist. He leans in for a lingering kiss.
“This isn’t fair,” I say, when I can’t seem to pull away. “You know all my secrets.”
“And I’ve loved finding out every one of them.” His fingertips run up my back underneath my shirt and my cardigan.
“I was just going to sit here for a minute.”
“Well, I think you should stay longer.”
I kiss Finn’s neck, once, then again. “I know all your secrets, too.” I expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t. When I look up at him, his eyes are far away. “Where did you go?”
Instead of answering, he starts unbuttoning my shirt.
“I thought we were going to the beach for a walk before dinner,” I say, as Finn is sliding my shirt and sweater open, over my shoulders and down my arms. He undoes the clasp on my plain cotton bra and suddenly I don’t want to leave the room for anything.
“You really think we should go for a walk? Right now?” he asks as I lift his shirt up. He raises his arms so I can slip it off and toss it to the floor.
“No.”
I press myself against him. I love the feeling of my bare skin against his bare skin. We’ve been so careful not to be completely naked together—Finn’s rule. One of us has been, but not both of us. Not at the same time. Finn seems to have decided it’s my turn today.
He lifts me off him and I let him undress the rest of me, my jeans, then my underwear. “This really isn’t fair,” I tell him.
“I was naked last time,” he says, kissing my shoulder.
“Is this another one of your rules? We have to switch back and forth?”
“Maybe.”
He kisses my mouth and there is no more talking. Our kisses are like waves, swelling slowly, then rising more forcefully until we are a tumble of hands and limbs and mouths. His fingers on my skin, my back, my hips, my thighs, are a beautiful torment, his lips on my shoulders, my neck, my breasts, make it impossible to breathe. Like always, I want to be closer, closer to Finn, like I can never be close enough, pressing myself against him like I really could find a way to press through him.