Part 13 (1/2)

It's our first weekend away together, a February long weekend. The day we leave, I buy a new coat on impulse-a camel-hair coat, long and belted at the waist. It's soft and it drapes. I get it on the last day of the Bergdorf 70 percent off sale, and though I'm a four and it's an eight, I must have it. The back has a deep vent, and it swishes when I walk. And in the store mirror, I don't see a flushed-faced girl in a too-big coat; I see Katharine Hepburn. I hand over my ”for emergencies” credit card. The saleswoman cuts off the tags and packs my old coat in the lavender shopping bag. I slip the new one on and walk out onto Fifty-eighth Street near the Paris Theatre and the drained stone fountain by the Plaza.

On the way up to the Vineyard, we hit a winter storm. I spend most of the flight with my face buried against him, saying prayers I thought I'd forgotten. With every pitch and drop of the small commuter plane, I squeeze his hand. After circling for an hour, we're stranded on the mainland for the night. Everyone claps when the pilot lands in Hyannis, and we step off woozy into the dark night. John drops coins in the pay phone and wakes someone, the housekeeper at his grandmother's, to let them know we'll be spending the night. ”We're set,” he says. It's easy.

In the taxi on the way over, he admits he was frightened, too, but I never would have guessed it. His face showed nothing.

When we finally get to the Vineyard the next day, it's foggy. We stock up at Cronig's Market, then follow the lonely roads, ones I've never seen, past shuttered Victorians and s.h.i.+ngled farmhouses. By Chilmark, the land turns bare and wild, and when State Road splits, we take the lower fork and turn onto an unmarked dirt road. Bert, the caretaker, has opened up the main house, and that's where we'll stay. But in the afternoon, John takes me to the Tower. It's been shut for months. He holds the door open, and I step into the new-wood smell. When I come back with him that summer, and those that follow, the Tower is where we stay.

The next morning, he takes me to the cliffs. The sun's out, and he wants to orient me. My sense of direction is usually good, but the island has me turned around. We drive up Moshup Trail. Gray heads of houses nestle in the scrub, and as we near the top, I can see the lighthouse-one I know from postcards-and its faint beam hoops over us. ”Gay Head Light,” he says. Outside the car, it's cold. The souvenir shops are boarded shut, but there's the smell of salt, and I can almost hear the phantom linger of wind chimes and seash.e.l.l mobiles. I push my hands into the silky pockets of my coat as he strides ahead. He nods to one of the shacks and smiles. ”Great chili fries.”

We reach the promontory, the very western edge of the island. The sky is as bright as water. It was called Gay Head then, all of it-the land, the towns.h.i.+p, the cliffs below. But years later, when I returned after his death, it would be known by another name, an older one-Aquinnah-for the Wampanoag people who have lived here for thousands of years and who, in summer, run the shops and sell the chili fries. In legend, a giant named Moshup created the channels and islands by dragging his toe across the land. He lived in his den in the cliffs and caught whales with his bare hands. Until the white man came, he taught his people to fish and plant, and he watched over them. Some say that he still does-that when the fog drifts in, he's there.

I lean against the railing, with the windy sea below, and he tells me these stories. And in my new coat, I'm hoping I look something like the French Lieutenant's Woman. The wrong color, I know, and there's no hood, but that's the idea anyway.

”There's Cuttyhunk.” He points, his arm on my shoulder; the other holds my waist. ”Nashawena, then Pasque. Naushon's the long one.” Except for Cuttyhunk, these are all private islands and mostly deserted. Then he turns in the opposite direction-south toward Squibnocket Pond and his mother's beach. I follow his gaze to an island on its own some miles off. ”That's Nomans Land.” Nomans Nomans, I repeat after him, and decide I like that one best.

When it's warmer, we will sail to Cuttyhunk. When the leaves are tipped with red, we will hike on Naushon. We'll camp for a night on Nomans, a moonless sky and the Milky Way arched above our small tent.

We get a late start. On our approach to Nomans at sunset, his mother's Seacraft threatens to run aground near some old pilings, and I swim ash.o.r.e with our gear piled on my head. It takes three trips. Then I watch from the beach as he dives with a knife in his teeth and after many tries succeeds in anchoring the boat. Damaged, he says, but afloat. That night, we roast bluefish, corn, and potatoes and drink wine under the stars.

In the morning, I hear engines. I nudge him awake. Outside the tent, mongrel seagulls peck at the singed tinfoil around the campfire. I look up. A plane is buzzing low. Now, in daylight, a large sign with DANGER DANGER painted in black letters glares at me. He'd told me it was illegal to land here but neglected to say that while a third of the island is a bird sanctuary, the rest is a navy bombing practice site. As I scramble, cursing, for the boat, I can hear him: ”Don't stress, this is the painted in black letters glares at me. He'd told me it was illegal to land here but neglected to say that while a third of the island is a bird sanctuary, the rest is a navy bombing practice site. As I scramble, cursing, for the boat, I can hear him: ”Don't stress, this is the bird bird side!” Later, his mother will berate him, and not only for the injury to the boat. ”But you were with Christina,” she keeps saying, to remind him that I was there, in harm's way, alongside him. side!” Later, his mother will berate him, and not only for the injury to the boat. ”But you were with Christina,” she keeps saying, to remind him that I was there, in harm's way, alongside him.

And one August morning-it may be the last summer we're together-we will kayak to the back end of Nashawena, hide the boat in the brush from the caretaker, and climb to the headlands, where the sheep are. We'll sit in the scratchy gra.s.s flecked with blue chicory and look out over Vineyard Sound, and he'll tell me the names he likes. ”Flynn Kennedy-it's got a good ring. What do you think of Flynn?”

I don't like Fleur, his girl's name. I prefer Francesca, Isabel, and Kate. But Flynn I like. Or it might be the sleepy look on his face as he says it.

But all that will happen later. Right now, it's windy and his arms are around me and I can see in all directions. Which way is east? I say, and he spins me a quarter turn from where I'm guessing. Away from the sea, away from the cliffs, in the direction of Gay Head Light.

In the afternoon, the wind dies down, and we take the jeep to the beach. As soon as we cross the uplift of dune, he jumps out, scales the car, and orders me into the driver's seat.

”Just do it,” he yells when I say I can't drive.

I hear him laughing on the roof, and I spin the jeep in circles, as tight and as fast as I can.

”Now you!” he says.

”I can't.” But somehow he gets me up there, camel-hair coat and all. My fingers dig into the sides of the roof as he pushes down the gas. After, I catch my breath from laughing and slide down the driver's side into his arms, and we walk to the water's edge. It's a winter beach, mottled oysters, mussels the size of my thumbnail, threads of papery black and white seaweed, and the dirty foam the surf has left. Billows of it. He kicks it as we walk.

”Don't you know the story?” I ask.

”What story?”

”Mermaids have no immortal soul-they live three hundred years and then become the foam on the sea.”

”What are you talking about?” He's picking up small stones and skipping them, a singsong on flat water.

I go on to tell him the Hans Christian Andersen tale, of the red flowers in the garden of the Sea King's daughter, her desire for a soul, her love of the black-eyed prince she rescues from drowning, the potion that turns her tail into legs. But each step's a sharp knife, and the cost is her tongue.

”Then what happens?” he asks. His stone skips three times, and we whistle at his prowess.

”He marries someone else and she becomes a spirit of the air.”

He hands me one he likes. It's freckled, and I save it from skipping.

”You know strange things.”

”It's not strange,” I reply, slipping the stone into my pocket. ”It's a fairy tale.”

”You're a funny girl,” he says. He turns to me. He's thinking of something, and his eyes get smaller.

”Funny,” I say back. I was hoping for something else. Beguiling, maybe. And I imagine myself a b.u.t.terfly on velvet-pinned, prodded, examined. Denuded of mystery.

”You're different. Intriguing,” he continues, his voice dispa.s.sionate in a way I've never heard before.

I look away from him down the beach. The wind dries my eyes, and I fix my gaze on the tender way these shallow waves. .h.i.t the sh.o.r.e.

After some time, he pulls me toward him, his fingers looped in the belt of my new coat. ”Hey,” he says, softly. ”I have no doubts about you or what's happening. I have everything I want here and now. I only think I'm crazy it didn't happen sooner.”

”You do?”