Read Online To See You Again by Alice Adams - Free Book Online Page A

“But I’m afraid it won’t sound all that terrific to you.”
    Unhelpfully she looked at him.
    “The
Yale Review
,” he said. “They’ve taken an article I sent them. I’m really pleased.”
    He had been right, in that the
Yale Review
was meaningless to Dylan, but his sense of triumph was real and visible to her. She
felt
his success, and she thought just then that he looked wonderful.
    September, once Labor Day was past, was much clearer and warmer, the sea a more brilliant blue, than during the summer. Under a light, fleece-clouded sky the water shimmered, all diamonds and gold, and the rocky cliffs in full sunlight were as pale as ivory. Even Dylan admitted to herself that it was beautiful; sometimes she felt herself penetrated by that scenery, her consciousness filled with it.
    Whitney Iverson was leaving on the fifteenth; he had told Dylan so, naming the day as they sat together in the library. And then he said, “Would it be okay if I called you at home, sometime?”
    The truth was, they didn’t have a phone. Flower had been in so much trouble with the phone company that shedidn’t want to get into all that again. And so now Dylan blushed, and lied. “Well, maybe not. My mother’s really strict.”
    He blushed, too, the birthmark darkening. “Well, I’ll have to come back to see you,” he said. “But will you still be here?”
    How could she know, especially since he didn’t even name a time when he would come? With a careless lack of tact she answered, “I hope not,” and then she laughed.
    Very seriously he asked, “Well, could we at least go for a walk or something before I go? I could show you the beach.” He gave a small laugh, indicating that the beach was really nothing much to see, and then he said, “Dylan, I’ve wanted so much to see you, I
care
so much for you—but here, there would have been … implications … you know …”
    She didn’t know; she refused to understand what he meant, unless he was confirming her old suspicion of snobbery: his not wanting to be seen with a waitress. She frowned slightly, and said, “Of course,” and thought that she would not, after all, see him again. So much for Whitney Iverson.
    But the next afternoon, during her break, in the brilliant September weather the library looked to her unbearably dingy, and all those magazines were so old. She stepped outside through the door at the end of the porch, and there was Mr. Iverson, just coming out through another door.
    He smiled widely, said, “Perfect! We can just make it before the tide.”
    Wanting to say that she hadn’t meant to go for a walk with him—she was just getting some air, and her shoes were wrong, canvas sandals—Dylan said neither of those things, but followed along, across the yellowing grass, toward the bluff.
    He led her to a place that she hadn’t known was there, adip in the headland, from which the beach was only a few yards down, by a not steep, narrow path. Whitney went ahead, first turning back to reach for her hand, which she gave him. Making her way just behind, Dylan was more aware of his touch, of their firmly joined warm hands, than of anything else in the day: the sunlight, the sea, her poorly shod feet.
    But as they reached the narrow strip of land, instead of turning to embrace her, although he still held her hand, Whitney cried out, “See? Isn’t it fantastic?”
    A small wave hit Dylan’s left foot, soaking the fabric of her sandal. Unkissed, she stared at the back of his shirt collar, which was more frayed even than his usual shirts, below his slightly too long red-blond hair.
    Then he turned to her; he picked up her other hand from her side, gazing intently down into her face. But it was somehow too late. Something within her had turned against him, whether from her wet foot or his worn-out collar, or sheer faulty timing, so that when he said, “You’re so lovely, you make me shy,” instead of being moved, as she might have been, Dylan thought he