It was she who stopped. She planted herself in front of him thinking how he would not be here long, maybe never here again, and as he looked at her she had time to wonder if he knew what she meant, but there was no worry in her wonder, worry had been left back in the yellow-lit room with the potted poinsettias where the cups had white coins of eggnog left, and the embers were red in the fireplace and the talk of nothing close to anyone’s heart, she thought, at least not like here where worry left off. Where she was now with Walter Vail the world was a deserted stage set, the sounds padded off, muffled behind the beaded curtain of snow, the slender houses with their narrow fronts and granite steps and paper layer of down, a lantern tied with ivy near the door, a wreath in shadow, the glint of a knocker and down the street the dark shape of a person walking a dog. She stopped. Her hand rested on an iron gate post and she brushed off a little peak of snow coyly and looked him in the eye. She was weightless and strangely bold. It was a wonderful thing to look into a boy’s eye and not be ashamed. Walter Vail’s eyes, dark in the center, were like another land and she found gazing into that land to be the most natural thing in the world. It was a landscape she could have flown over, taking in the different casts of light: clear sky here, then dark clouds there, off in the distance a still field, and closer by, trees blowing on a round hill. It was dusk, evening, the beautiful hour. Looking into his eyes, she believed in treasure. She could have gazed forever, still young enough to think of forever as a possible length of time.

He put his hands on her shoulders, brushing off snow, and her head leaned back when his face came close. She closed her eyes, shy to be this near, and was stunned with what happened inside her. There was a deep pounding and she swooned. Her eyes parted slightly to see his cheek magnified this near, and there was his nose brushing hers. She’d never imagined such an altering. It was as if she’d become velvet blackness. Her head was no longer of any consequence, and her body felt so many new things. After a moment she gasped for air.

I couldn’t help — Walter Vail began.

Oh, no, Lilian said, falling toward him.

He kissed her again and the miraculous disturbance continued.

It was some time later that, beaded with snow, she lifted a sleepy, glistening face to Walter Vail, and bid him goodnight at the Fairfield Street door. It is finally happening to me, she thought.

10 • You’re some girl

10 • You’re some girl