She sat at the front of the canoe, facing backwards. Noah had said something about missing the view when he started to paddle, but she’d shaken her head, saying she was fine the way she was.
And it was true. She could see everything she really wanted to see if she turned her head, but most of all she wanted to watch Noah. It was him she’d come to see, not the creek. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and she could see his chest muscles flex with every stroke. His sleeves were rolled up too, and she could see the well-developed muscles in his arms.
Artistic, she thought. There’s something almost artistic about him. Something natural, as if being on the water were beyond his control, part of a gene passed on to him from some obscure hereditary pool.
She couldn’t think of anyone else who remotely resembled him. He was complicated, almost contradictory in so many ways, yet simple, a strangely erotic combination. On the surface he was a country boy, home from war, and he probably saw himself in those terms. Yet there was so much more to him. Perhaps it was the poetry that made him different, or perhaps it was the values his father had instilled in him, growing up. Either way, he seemed to savour life more fully than others appeared to, and that was what had first attracted her to him.
“What arc you thinking?”
She felt her insides jump just a hit as Noah’s voice brought her back to the present. She realized she hadn’t said much since they’d started, and she appreciated the silence he had allowed her. He’d always been considerate like that.
“Good things,” she answered quietly, and she saw in his eyes that he knew she was thinking about him. She liked the fact that he knew it, and she hoped he had been thinking about her as well.
She understood then that something was stirring within her, as it had so many years ago. Watching his body move made her feel it. And as their eyes met for a second, she felt the heat in her neck and breasts, and she flushed, turning away before he noticed.
“How much further?” she asked.
“Another half-mile or so. Not any more than that.”
A pause. Then she said: “Tell me, Noah, what do you remember most from the summer we spent together?”
“All of it.”
“Anything in particular?”
“No,” he said.
“You don’t remember?”
He answered quietly. “No, it’s not that. It’s not what you’re thinking. I was serious when I said ‘all of it.’ I can remember every moment we were together, and in each of them there was something wonderful. I can’t pick any one time that meant more than any other. The entire summer was perfect, the kind of summer everyone should have. How could I pick one moment over another?
“Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can’t control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That’s what it was like for me. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if you planned on falling in love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that’s why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I’ll never forget a single moment of it.”
Allie stared at him. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. Ever. She didn’t know what to say and stayed silent, her face hot.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, Allie. I didn’t mean to. But that summer has stayed with me and probably always will. I know it can’t be the same between us, but that doesn’t change the way I felt about you then.”
“It didn’t make me uncomfortable. Noah… It’s just that I don’t ever hear things like that. What you said was beautiful. It takes a poet to talk the way you do. and like I said, you’re the only poet I’ve ever met.”
Peaceful silence descended on them. An osprey cried somewhere in the distance. The paddle moved rhythmically, causing ripples that rocked the boat ever so slightly. The breeze had stopped, and the clouds grew blacker as the canoe moved onwards.
Allie noticed it all, every sound, every thought. Her senses had come alive, invigorating her, and she felt strangely satisfied that she’d come, pleased that Noah had turned into the type of man she’d thought he would, pleased that she would live for ever with that knowledge. She had seen too many men in the past few years destroyed by war, or time, or even money. It took strength to hold on to inner passion, and Noah had done that.
This was a worker’s world, not a poet’s, and people would have a hard time understanding Noah. Who did she know in Raleigh who took time off to fix a house? Or read Whitman or Eliot? Or hunt at dawn from the bow of a canoe? These weren’t the things that drove society, but she felt they made living worth while.
To her it was the same with art, though she had realized it only upon coming here. Or rather, remembered it. She had known it once before, and again she cursed herself for forgetting something as important as creating beauty. Painting was what she was meant to do, she was sure of that now. She was going to give it another shot, no matter what anyone said.
Would Lon encourage her painting? She remembered showing him one of her paintings a couple of months after they had first started going out. It was abstract, meant to inspire thought. Lon had stared at it, and then had asked her what it was supposed to he,
She knew she wasn’t being completely fair. She loved Lou, and always had, for other reasons. Lon was a good man, the kind of man she’d always known she would marry. With him there would be no surprises, and ‘there was comfort in knowing what the future would bring. He would be a kind husband and she would be a good wife. She would have a home near friends and family, children, a respectable place in society. It was the kind of life she’d always expected to live. And though she wouldn’t describe theirs as a passionate relationship, she had convinced herself long ago that this wasn’t necessary for fulfilment. Passion would fade in time and things like companionship and compatibility would take its place. She and Lon had this, and she had assumed this was all she needed.
But now, as she watched Noah rowing, she questioned this assumption. He exuded sexuality in everything he did, everything he was, and she caught herself thinking about him in a way that an engaged woman shouldn’t. She tried not to stare, but the easy way he moved his body made it hard to keep her eyes from him for long.
“Here we are,” Noah said as he guided the canoe towards some trees near the bank.
Allie looked around, not seeing anything. “Where is it?”
“Here,” he said again, pointing the canoe at a fallen tree that was almost completely obscuring an opening.
He guided the canoe around the tree, and both of them had to lower their heads to keep from bumping them.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, and Allie did, bringing her hands to her face. She felt the movement of the canoe as he propelled it forwards, away from the pull of the creek.
“Okay.” he finally said after he’d stopped paddling. “You can open them now.”
THEY SAT in the middle of a small lake fed by the waters of Brices Creek. It wasn’t large, maybe a hundred yards across, and she was surprised at how invisible it had been just moments before.
It was spectacular. Tundra swan and Canada geese literally surrounded them. Thousands of them. Birds floating so close together in some places that she couldn’t see the water. From a distance, the groups of swans looked almost like icebergs.
“Oh. Noah,” she finally said softly, “it’s beautiful.”
They sat in silence for a long while, watching the birds. Noah pointed out a group of chicks, recently hatched, following a pack of geese near the shore, struggling to keep up.