Abe pulled her close and Betty wanted to stand that way forever. “Honestly, sometimes I forget my grandparents aren’t my actual parents.”
That was a wishful lie. For the past fourteen years Betty only pretended to forget that the two people who were meant to love her most had left her behind. One day she would tell Abe how, for years, she looked for her parents everywhere—in crowds on the beach, at High Holiday services, on walks, in her dreams that took her under the sea and up in the sky. She looked for Tillie and Joe in everyone, especially strangers she noticed from the back who were the right height and build, or almost.
This summer she was still without parents, but she was with Abe. Attentive, caring, smart, dreamy Abe. They’d started something. They were building something. No way was she letting her parents ruin tonight’s mood. “Will you take a walk with me?” Betty held out her hand and Abe clasped it.
She steered him across the lawn and toward the beach. They sprinted onto the sand and it scattered at their feet as if clearing a path. Laughter drifted behind but didn’t follow them. Moonlight and the glow of a nearby hotel lit the way as they ran far from lights and sounds and the well-meaning passersby of Betty’s life. Privacy was elusive but not impossible.
“Where are we going?” Abe asked.
“To one of my favorite places on earth.”
Betty and Abe climbed the dunes that rose to the east past the cabins, the tennis courts, and the staff parking lot. Most people didn’t know this was part of her grandparents’ property. A natural boundary between her family’s resort and the Atlantic Hotel, the dune remained untended and overgrown. That’s what made it a perfect childhood hideaway, where Betty played house among the brambles, where she had a mother home after school and a father who read her bedtime stories.
She pushed through the brush and the grasses, eager to show Abe her personal refuge. Stepping on fallen branches, she kicked them out of the way. At the top she turned back toward the lake and sat in the sand.
Abe chuckled and sat next to her. “You could’ve done that on the beach.”
“But then I wouldn’t see this.”
The not-quite-full moon hung as if by a string and its light cast a glistening vertical stripe in the water. They were backlit by distant resorts, and Betty knew without that remnant glow the air around them would be as dark as Mabel’s dark-chocolate molasses cookies. Betty leaned her head on Abe’s shoulder without hesitation or permission and pointed while gazing straight ahead.
“I used to play back there.” Betty tipped back her head and Abe turned a bit, not far enough to see but enough that she knew he was listening. “I played house and school, but my favorite was cops and robbers. I was both.”
Abe placed his hand on hers. “Of course.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s unexpected, like everything about you.”
Betty had never heard herself described that way. All her life she’d tried to do what had been expected of her—more than was expected. She couldn’t risk her grandparents changing their minds. Then what would have become of her?
Oh, her grandparents adored her, she never really thought they’d send her away, but Betty had never been prone to taking chances. She achieved good grades, was accepted to a fine college, kept up her appearances, pitched in at the resort, made her bed, used polite manners.
“What’s back there anyway?” Abe asked.
“Dense bushes, I guess. I haven’t been here in years.” Betty popped up her head. “There used to be a patch of beach grass. I had picnics there. Stole cookies out of the cookie jar, although I always confessed later. I wonder if it’s all grown over. It’s too dark back there to check.”
“Next time we’ll bring a flashlight,” Abe said.
Next time.
Abe tugged on Betty so that she’d turn to him. “Did it bother you that Eleanor bragged about a date with Marv?”
“Bother me? God no. Why would it bother me?”
“I think he has a thing for you.”
Whether he had or not was of no concern to Betty. “I’ve known Marv since we were children. We’re just friends.”
“So, you’re not upset they’re together?”
Betty hadn’t thought about it before. “I’m happy that they each found someone.”
“Are you happy for us?”
Betty sucked in a breath and looked at her shoes, the shiny pennies in her summer loafers staring at her like a wide-eyed hopeful friend. “There’s an ‘us’?”
“There is for me.”
Bashfulness washed over Betty. She said nothing, as if she had nothing to say. Pressure spread inside her chest, resulting in a shortness of breath like the times she’d swallowed mouthfuls of lake water. The ache was proof. This was really happening.
Betty raised her head and stared into Abe’s blue eyes again. Neither of them glanced away. She was safe there, gazing at him, safe this close to him. She was not at risk of losing any part of who she was, or what she wanted. Abe liked her spirit, her ambition, her unexpectedness.
His eyes were rimmed in specks of yellow. His nose a little crooked from a childhood tumble from his bicycle. His lips curved and slim, but not thin, and a pale shade of pink she might have chosen for a silk slip.
Abe placed his hands on her waist and caressed her with his thumbs, but he didn’t move his hands. Betty’s reticence dissolved. Her shyness whirled into desire. She rested her palms on Abe’s chest. He smiled in the way that deepened his dimples, and her longing.
When would he stop being such a gentleman?
Abe leaned toward her. He kissed her full on the lips, deliberate and soft. The touch was tender and new, but somehow familiar. Then he pulled away.
Don’t stop. Did he have regrets? Betty stared at his smile as it brightened his face. She knew he wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her.
