The Bay at Midnight

My dark looks, however, came with a price.

The summer I was seventeen, the intensity of my attraction to Ross had deepened to the point of obsession. Not only was he handsome, he was brilliant as well, getting straight A’s in his private high school and being accepted to Princeton for the fall, where he would follow in his father’s footsteps by studying law. It seemed, though, that we would never be more than friends. Ross would often give me a ride to parties and other get- togethers, and on the way home, we would talk about who we were attracted to, who we would like to go out with. You, I wanted to say. It’s you I want to go out with. It was hard for me to listen to him say he liked Sally or Delores, when my longing for him was eating away at my insides. I played the game, too, though, telling him I had a crush on Fred Peters, the best-looking boy in our group. Ross only responded that he thought Fred was interested in me, too.

The change came when I was crowned queen of the Summertime Gala, an annual Point Pleasant event. It featured a small parade, and I rode on a little float pulled by a few of the boys from my gang, Ross and Fred included. I was dressed all in white from head to toe and wore a crown. My envious girlfriends treated me coolly, but my fifteen minutes of fame seemed to alter Ross’s view of me.

He drove me home after the parade. He turned the car onto Shore Boulevard, but instead of continuing down the road to our houses, he pulled over and parked in front of the woods.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He glanced at me, then smiled almost shyly. “I want to tell you something, Maria,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“You made a very beautiful queen,” he said. Ross had never said anything like that to me before. He’d never commented on my looks in all the years I’d known him.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I hope you don’t think this is silly of me,” he continued, “because I know we’ve always just been friends, but I thought about you over the winter. I thought about how swell it was going to be seeing you again this summer.”

“I thought about you, too,” I whispered.

“You did?”

I nodded.

“I went out with some girls in Princeton, you know, but I was thinking of you the whole time,” he said. “I’d look at pictures my parents had of you and me…you know, sailing and in our tennis clothes and…you know those pictures.”

I nodded again, my heart brimming with joy and gratitude. These were the words I had longed to hear from him and had heard only in my imagination—and in the lies I told my Westfield girlfriends.

“Today, when I saw how other men looked at you…” He shook his head. “I knew I had to let you know how I feel. I couldn’t take the chance of letting you get away.” He took one of my hands in both of his. “I’m in love with you, Maria.”

I was sure that my smile lit up the car. I let go of his hand and reached out to hug him. “I’ve loved you for years,” I said, my lips against his ear.

He drew away from me, then leaned over to kiss me, so tenderly I barely felt it. He raised his hand to my breast, touching it through my silly white queen dress, sending a spark through my body.

“I want you.” He smoothed my thick hair behind my ear.

“I want you, too,” I said.

“Tonight,” he said, “let’s break away from the gang at Jenkinson’s. We can go out on the beach under the stars.” He lifted my hand and drew it to his lips, and I nodded.

“All right,” I said. I knew what I was saying, what I was agreeing to, and I knew it was a sin. But I didn’t care.

That night at Jenkinson’s, we danced, both with other people and with each other, trying not to be too obvious. Around nine o’clock, Ross and I stepped out onto the broad porch and down the stairs to the beach. We slipped off our shoes and our feet had barely touched the sand before we were kissing. We made love beneath the Jenkinson’s boardwalk, while the band played Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller songs almost directly above us. It was the first time for me, although I was sure it was not for him. I lost my virginity to Ross that night on the beach. I’d lost my heart to him years before.

Ross and I began going out separately from our gang of friends. He’d come to pick me up, and my parents, who had always liked him, were delighted at seeing us together. Of course, they had no idea how far our relationship had gone. They invited him to dinner or to play cards with us, and I felt proud of how easily he slipped into my family. Our relationship, always based in friendship, became more sexual than I ever could have imagined. It was rare that one of our evenings together did not end with lovemaking, often in the sandy lot across from our bungalows, where a crescent of blueberry bushes provided the right amount of cover. It was not the sort of tender lovemaking I’d grown up imagining, but rather a hungry, animalistic devouring of each other. During daylight hours, when I would be helping my mother around the house, the memory of being with Ross the night before would make me suck in my breath with a sudden blaze of desire.

Ross and I rarely spoke about the fall, when he would be going to Princeton and I would study teaching at the New Jersey College for Women, but we did talk about the future.

“I’d rather you study art than education,” he said one night. I was lying in his arms, encircled by the protection of the blueberry bushes, my dress draped over my bare skin. Hanging on a chain around my neck was his high- school ring, which he’d given me the day before. I couldn’t stop myself from fingering it.

“What could I do with an art degree, though?” I asked him. “I’ve always wanted to teach.”

“That’s because you’ve been thinking you’ll have to earn a living to support yourself,” he said, kissing my nose. I heard the smile in his voice.

“What are you saying?” I asked.