He said “I don’t love you,” behind sunglasses either protecting his expression held always in his eyes, or, the usual, protecting from the sun—a sun that had been gone so long (like him) that this first fake summer day in the spring with it’s record-breaking temperature and the luxury of being close to the summer solstice, had brought with it’s glare a certain giddy wonder.
The longing for a long day like in summer was actually happening—there was a certain anticipation; “Life is going to get fun again; anything can happen.” It was a magical day to be sure. There was a connection, an understanding that the time of year we relish in a small eastern Long Island deserted town during the winter suddenly lights up. People reacted to the hint of excitement; new people here anxious to make money from other people, late afternoons nearly melding into evenings on beaches and boats, a wake-up call! It’s a tourist town. That’s all it is to many and so much more to me because for now its home. I don’t want East Hampton to be home, I want it to be a place I visit. So, he has an advantage right away. He has homes, and that among other things allows him an air of superiority he uses well, needling me under the guise of humor. But he’s funny and I’m self-effacing so I laugh and miss the point. Or pretend to, as one tiny part of me takes a hit until eventually my entire psyche is in ashes; months away from this day, though. It’s the beginning of everything, after all,
I look back now that midsummer’s gone and you can feel everything waning and I’m looking out the same window in a sense of deadened confusion with no relief to reach for. Hello pain, how long do you plan to stay? He had to say “I hate you” before I had to leave. He’s that good at switching his charm and motives, like a snake, curling you around his tongue when you try to leave—until he’s done you.
That early summer day though, he sits there, his pull on me starting when I was a child, a feeling I never could seem to let go of even if he was gone for years, even when I never heard a word from him; through so many boyfriends and a marriage I couldn’t give everything to—and there he is sitting on that lounge chair gracing me unexpectedly with his presence. My mother detects the gravel parting and crashing, the engine exuding its power that demands men to pay the price to buy certain cars, and he arrives while I am still clueless in my apartment (to be generous) on my mom’s property and I get this call while curled up staring at the computer all flustered and angry at my last foolish social media fruitless yet time-consuming attempts to master it—even though a glimpse outside that morning made me aware of the upbeat rush of the first truly beautiful hint-of-summer day we have had since last September—and I get a call from my mother saying, “Guess who is here?”
He is leaning back in a lounge chair by my pool opened that day, sipping my vodka and ice on a Saturday afternoon with one hand holding my thigh down and an ice cube from his drink in the other, which he’s slipping upward in between my legs in circles and my breathe gets heavy I close my eyes the ice slowly moves closer, closer, it winds up to my no-underwear (such an easy catch—like bluefish in season) whispering in my ear with his tongue circle the rim and I am there I am practically exploding with his touch and the sun’s heat and his control and he whispers, “I don’t love you. I never will.”
