What I Saw and How I Lied

Chapter 15

A fat custard moon was splat in the purple sky, and a few stars were beginning to pop like fireworks. We left our shoes in the sand and walked down to the water. The baby waves lapped at our toes.

"Funny thing about the moon," Peter said. "When I was overseas, I'd look up at it, and I couldn't get that the same moon was over here, too. Everything happens underneath the same moon. Things you never thought you'd see. Or do."

I knew he was talking about the war, and I felt I shouldn't ask about it. So I kept quiet. I ducked my chin and looked up at him sideways, like Lauren Bacall in the movie we'd just seen.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking down the beach. "When I enlisted, I didn't know anything. What did I know? All I did was ... play tennis, be a rich man's only son."

"But you have a brother."

"Oh, yeah. But the expectations were all on me. Dad wanted me to go into the navy — he nearly busted a gut when I chose the infantry. I got tossed into the worst of it right after basic training. Went from sweltering in basic to freezing my ... well, freezing. All I knew how to do was march. Which didn't help me much. We didn't march in the Battle of the Bulge. We scrambled. I guess you read all about it in the papers."

"We didn't know Joe was in it until later. But we were scared he was." We'd known, even during the battle, how badly it was going. Nineteen thousand U.S. soldiers had been killed. Nineteen thousand. One of them had lived two doors down — William Armstrong, twenty years old. I remembered him as being the best whistler. Whistling "Chattanooga Choo Choo" as he walked by our house. Going to pick up his sweetheart, Rose Natalucci, on Saturday nights. The sound coming in my open window like a brass band, only it was just Billy Armstrong.

"Mud and snow and idiots. That was that."

"Did you meet Joe then?"

It was like he only just remembered I was there. "Hey, I'm not dumb enough to keep talking about the war with a pretty girl. Let's talk about you."

I shrugged, searching for something to say. Every

Young Girl's Guide to Popularity had always said to talk about the boy, not yourself.

"Tell me about home," he prompted. "Start there."

"Well, everybody's always in your business in my neighborhood. Everybody knows everybody, practically. And we live with Joe's mother. I'm supposed to call her Grandma Glad."

Peter snorted. "And she's a battle-axe, right?"

"How'd you know? Anyway, Mom keeps saying the house is too small now. So maybe we'll move. Maybe here," I said. "Since Joe and Mr. Grayson might buy the hotel."

Peter laughed softly. "Yeah, so I found out tonight.”

“What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I guess. I don't get it, though. I thought Joe was selling those new washing machines."

"He's tired of it, he says."

"I wonder how much he's putting up."

"Nothing, he says. He's going to run it."

Peter shrugged. "I don't see what Grayson gets out of the deal. Or what a swanky couple like that is doing here in the off-season."

"I was thinking that maybe they're spies."

Peter laughed. "You've got some imagination, kiddo."

"It's just that... she's not happy, she just pretends. And he never talks about himself if he can help it. And she's always taking off alone. There's a big airbase here. Who knows what secret things they might be doing. She carries this big bag —”

“Full of spy stuff, right?"

"Well, what better cover would there be than owning a hotel? And I don't think she's very patriotic."

Peter nodded solemnly. "Definitely Commie spies."

He was treating me like a kid, which was definitely not a good thing.

"Do you ever think about moving here?" I asked. "Because of your father's business interests, I mean."

"Right. No, I haven't given it much thought. But maybe I should. Isn't that what your mother said, people need to start fresh?"

"That's just what I thought. I don't want to go home," I said.

He looked at me, smiling just a little. "Poor little bunny. Why is that?"

I forgot to tuck in my chin and look up, but it didn't matter.

"You're irresistible," he said. He leaned down and put his mouth on mine.

It was only a second. A quick kiss. He didn't even put his arms around me. But it was a kiss, a real kiss. Right on the lips. I felt his whiskery stubble against my chin. I was being kissed, and by a man, not a boy.

I understood the word swoon. It felt that way, like sweep and moon and woo, all those words smashed together in one word that stood for that feeling, right then.

"I shouldn't have done that," he said. "It's just that you looked so adorable."

"You didn't see me resist, did you?"

"That, my adorable one, is the problem. I don't mind being a heel occasionally, but I don't want to be a snake."

"You couldn't be a snake if you tried. Or a heel. You're a whole shoe. Laces and everything." I giggled, remem­bering my conversation with Margie. It felt so long ago.

"You're a nut," he said, smiling.

And he kissed me again, but it was on the tip of my nose, so it hardly counted. As a matter of fact, a kiss on the tip of the nose was probably less than a kiss.

"I wish a lot of things," he said, "and one of them is, I wish you were back in that house, with your battle-axe Grandma Glad."

It sounded like the most romantic thing anyone could say. As if we were falling in love, and we knew it was wrong, but we'd do it anyway. We'd follow our foolish hearts. We'd listen to the crazy moon.