Owen got Sarah a burger, a handful of salt-and-vinegar potato chips, and a soda, doctored with a shot of rum, and they sat on the sun-warmed dunes to slap at the mosquitos. When the fire was burning low, he led her into the darkness. They lay down together, and, without a word, he turned to kiss her. Usually, Owen talked to her—Can I kiss you? he’d murmur into her ear. Is this okay? That night, he was silent and intent, his hands possessive, almost fierce. When they broke apart, he pulled back to rest his forehead against hers, gazing into her eyes. Sarah knew what he was asking, and she nodded, thinking, Yes. Please. Whatever she could give him—love, comfort, even just a distraction—she would.
They had felt inevitable. Everything they’d done, everything they’d told each other, as they’d progressed from kissing to making out to everything-but. Finally, on the Wednesday before Labor Day, when they’d both be going home, and then to college, Owen had taken Sarah to Slough Pond, and she’d dared him to swim the butterfly across it, and he’d said, What will you give me if I do it? Once he’d won the bet and carried her out of the water, he’d spread his towel on the pine needles, laid Sarah on top of it, and stripped off her swimsuit with something like reverence, kissing up from the arches of her insteps to her ankles to the soft, ticklish flesh behind her knees. Kissing and nibbling, higher and higher, until her thighs fell apart and she found her hands fisted in his hair. “Show me,” he’d whispered. “Show me what you like.” She’d been so ashamed. She’d always imagined this part happening in a bed, in the dark, not out here, in the bright midday sunshine, where anyone could come down the path and see, but Owen had been insistent. “Don’t worry,” he’d murmured in her ear. “No one can see us. And no one ever comes here. Do you trust me?”
Sarah had nodded.
“Then show me. Let me make you feel good.”
Face flaming, she’d squeezed her eyes shut, letting one hand slip down her belly, letting her fingertips stroke, first gently, then faster. Owen, it turned out, was a quick learner; or maybe this was a thing he’d already learned, with other girls. She would have dwelled on that thought, only Owen’s fingers and lips and tongue soon had her in a state where she couldn’t hold on to any thought at all. When she’d cried out, at the height of her pleasure, a blue jay had burst from the tree above them, chattering and scolding as it flew off. Owen had laughed and wiped his face. Then he’d pulled a condom out of his pocket and looked at Sarah.
“Okay?” he’d asked, his eyes steady on hers. “We don’t have to. Not unless you want to.”
“Yes,” she’d said. “I do. I want to. Please.”
She hadn’t regretted it. Not any of it. Not even the night before she’d left, when she’d ridden her bike to the Camp to say goodbye to Owen. She’d been walking down the rutted road toward Papa Bear when she’d heard Sass, her voice bright and cutting, talking to one of her friends.
“Is he still seeing that girl?” the friend had asked. Sarah held herself still, trying not to move, not to blink.
“For now,” said Sass, in her drawling voice. Sarah saw a bluish curl of cigarette smoke snaking through the ripped screens. “He’s besotted.” Sass sounded amused at the idea of her son being besotted with Sarah, who held herself perfectly still. Part of her wanted to make noise, to call out a greeting so Sass would stop talking. Another part, a more persuasive part, wanted to hear more.
“And her mother’s a novelist, right?” asked the friend.
“Uh-huh. Hasn’t published anything in years, but she must have done quite well. Owen says they live in one of those…” Sarah could imagine Sass gesturing with her cigarette, her bright-pink lip curled. “… showplaces up on the dunes.” The word “showplaces” was freighted with just as much scorn as “besotted” had been. The friend said something Sarah couldn’t hear, to which Sass replied, “Well, those people know how to hold on to their pennies.” She’d laughed a tinkling, breaking-glass laugh, and said, “Maybe Miss Weinberg will be the one to save us all.”
Those people. Sarah’s hands had felt icy; her lips, still swollen from Owen’s kisses, had stung as if she’d been slapped. Was that why Owen was with her? Part of her wanted to deny it, utterly and completely. Another part remembered the first thing Owen had told her about his mom; how she treated getting married like it was her job. Maybe he’d inherited his mother’s worldview. Maybe he did see Sarah as a means to an end, the one who would rescue his family.