Don't I Know You? Read Online Free Page B

catch up to it.
    *   *   *
    The lights were still on in the painter studio, where I could see someone moving around. Emilio probably, he liked to work at night. I circled around the back of the lawn to the greenhouse, which was dark. No sign of John. I thought about Larry, and my parents, and felt a little sick. But maybe he just wants to talk, I thought. Maybe he’s just missing his family.
    â€œThere you are,” he said. He saw the blanket. “Good girl,” he said with a laugh. I held up my little baton of 6-12. He showed me a flashlight.
    â€œLet’s go the front way. We don’t want to run into Emilio.”
    In the shadows we crossed the lawn, wet with evening dew, to the road. There were no streetlights, no moon. But if we kept feeling the gravel under our shoes that would mean we were still on the road as it rose toward the top of the hill and the cemetery.
    â€œI can carry that,” he said softly, taking my blanket. When we were out of sight of the school, he said, “I brought some candles too.”
    Candles! He was so not Larry, who had to have the hockey game on the car radio when we went parking.
    As we made our way into the cemetery, I felt flat bare rock underfoot. John’s light found the inscription:
    ESTELLE CHRISTINA BETZNER BORN 1910, DIED 1959.
    I lay down on the stone and crossed my arms over my chest.
    â€œ Here lies Estelle/she’s not very well, ” I said, laughing nervously. John shone his light on my hands and then my face. His face had an odd, bright expression.
    â€œUp you get,” he finally said, giving me his hand. The night was cool; I thought I could even see my breath. The starry blackness above us seemed curved, like a cupola.
    â€œWill we see the Northern Lights?” he said.
    â€œNo, of course not. This isn’t the Arctic.” Americans, I thought.
    â€œWhat do they look like? I’ve only seen pictures.”
    â€œSort of like curtains. Spooky green curtains that billow and move across the sky. I saw them a couple times, up at camp. Usually all we can see from Burlington at night are the lights of Buffalo.”
    â€œMary has a great romance about the aurora. She was jealous that I might get to see them up here.”
    â€œWell, we won’t.”
    I didn’t want to know too much about him, or Mary. That wasn’t part of our story. I was proud of understanding the rules without him having to spell them out. It would be only this time for us, and only here in Doon. When the week was over, we’d never see each other again.
    Looking up at the blackness was making me dizzy. I spread the blanket under the apple tree, our spot.
    â€œWait,” he said. He cleared the grass away from a flat tombstone close to the roots of the tree, and lit a candle. He let it drip onto the stone and lit the other candle, rooting them both in the warm wax. The flames wavered but the night was still and they kept on burning. We lay down. John wrapped the edges of the blanket around my back.
    â€œI’m a virgin,” I said with my face inches from his.
    â€œSure, okay,” he said, “I wondered.”
    â€œIt’s not a big deal either way, I just, I want to wait.”
    â€œIn a sense that makes things easier.”
    â€œBut I’m up for anything else,” I said brightly.
    He laughed and slipped his hand inside my rust Shetland sweater. “I can see that, Miss McEwan.”
    John Updike kissed me. Our teeth clicked at first; he seemed to have a lot of them. His mouth was warm and his tongue felt quick and intelligent and questing, just like the rest of him. Blue light blossomed behind my eyelids as the kiss went on, changed, settled.
    â€œYou’ve obviously done this before,” he said.
    I was so happy in the crook of his arm like that, looking into his shiny, candlelit eyes.
    â€œYes, I’m an old whore at kissing.” I felt cocky and comfortable. He was married to