tension? I mean we all take midterms, even dreamers, right?” There was a certain street wise quality to Veronica’s analysis.
‘’I’ll show you how I do it. Come on,” Jack said, getting up.
Veronica followed Jack across the field to the student parking lot. Jack’s maroon jeep was far down in the lot in the sophomore section. They got in and he sped out of the lot and off campus onto the open road. Veronica, bemused, sat beside him with childlike curiosity about where they were going, happy to be getting away from the intensity of campus, instantly trusting Jack.
“Where are we going?” she asked after a moment, her dark hair pushed back by the wind blowing at her with the Jeep’s top down, her intensity abating, giving way to the animated interest of a fun-loving kid.
“Does it matter?” Jack questioned.
“No, not really,” Veronica chuckled, her dark eyes drinking in the open road.
They took a drive out into the country. They did not go very far, just far enough so that you could feel the pace change. All the activity of campus passed away behind them. It was as if they had been listening too long to music played too loud and now, with the drive out into the country, that annoying music stopped. The country was slow-paced, unobtrusive, and open. No uproar-no rush, toned down, nothing but open space. It was the perfect antidote to the tumult of campus before midterms.
The sun shone brightly on the road before them; the air was clear and pleasant. Long stretches of road rolled under the jeep’s wheels in an easy, rhythmic flow. And Jack drove on, apparently without any specific destination-relaxed, just going with the road.
“Sometimes I think the dynamos out of control,” he said.
“We do seem a tormented lot,” Veronica agreed.
“Not out here, we’re not,” Jack said. “We have to get back here to the country and, somehow, we have to take it with us wherever else we go.”
As he said that he slowed down to make a turn. They had come to a ridge where a dirt road crossed their road. A vista of burgundy grass extended away from the intersection toward hills in the distance on both sides. The grass swayed in a mild breeze so the field looked like a crimson wave moving toward, then away from them from north to south, the wave broken only where the road cut into it. He turned right, off the road, onto the dirt road and headed south toward some hills. He drove three or four miles over dusty roads, like a boat sailing through a choppy red sea until he came to a second ridge. He climbed the ridge and then started slowly down the other side. As the ridge dropped down they could see, well before the hills but framed by them, a crystalline lake. The lake sat like a blue jewel in a sea of blood red grass. It was a narrow but long lake fed by a small river that entered and exited in the middle on both sides. Jack looked at the lake in awe.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” he said.
“It looks like a Cross,” Veronica commented.
“I know,” Jack said.
“Are you religious?” she asked.
“The Cross means something to me,” he said.
“What?” she asked, looking at the lake.
“Sacrifice, renewal,” he said, “and goodness.” Jack continued gazing at the lake.
“God, I love the outdoors. That’s why I like it here so much. I guess you could say this place is my church and my religion.”
“Meaning?” Veronica asked.
“Meaning this lake with its shape and with its own special beauty is my symbol. We all need working symbols,” Jack said.
“Is it just symbolic for you, then?” Veronica inquired.
“No. It’s real, as real as you are,” Jack said, “and it kind of blows me away, like you do.” Jack shifted his gaze from the lake to the sky and back. “It’s starting,” he said.
“What is?”
“The show, look.”
With light playing over the field and lake, first illuminating, then muting both, a magnificent display occurred. All in an instant the wide field flamed a burning red and then the flame diminished to a ruddy glow. The blue lake sparkled and shined, then darkened, subdued to navy in the shade. Jack had been here before and knew the light and how it changed and how the colors did. He pulled the jeep to the side of the road and stopped. For several minutes the entire scene played out repeatedly, as the light came and went, shined and died. It was like watching a magical stage from perfect seats where not a nuance could be missed and the stage genius operating the lights, with utmost dexterity and keenly aware of his guests attention, did not fail to put on his best show. There was such ineffable magic going on in such a golden silence. And through it all, Veronica, with Jack beside her, felt a child’s sense of wonder. Never had she felt so immediately attracted to someone and not nervous about it, but joyous.
“This is amazing,” she said.
“If you get too close it’s not the same. You have to know how to look at it,” Jack said, “and it’s the same with school. It’s probably the same with everything. You just have to know how to look at it.”
Veronica thought about everything they’d seen: the ride out, the rolling country road and the quiet, beautiful, hills. She thought about campus, subdued by distance and mood now. She thought about seeing things with Jack. She looked at Jack and couldn’t stop looking.
In the afternoon’s falling light he glowed intermittently-like a flickering candle. His tousled hair was burnished gold, his bright blue eyes warm and clear with kindness and attention. His eyes were the eyes of someone who had just given a special gift and couldn’t help being a little delighted. Delightful is how she saw him. There is magic in the world. That is what she knew. He proved it. There was never any rush. It all came naturally after that. Two hands, warm together.
Once they had met, their life together felt as if it were lived outside of time with the only urgency their love. Their seasons were seasons of affection and they followed an orbit that had them revolving around each other.
But now, at the hour of their departure to Taylor Island, an alien quality emerged, a tension hitherto unknown. It was as if Time had caught up to them and they heard at last the inevitable tick tock of its breath.
Veronica had readied herself according to Jack’s desire and met him outside her apartment. Jack’s reassuring smile put her more at ease and he loaded her bags into the jeep. Then he got behind the wheel and Veronica took the passenger seat.
“I feel like we’re escaping from something,” she said with a look of still unsatisfied curiosity. Jack squeezed her hand in his.
“Not escaping, embarking,” he answered, aglow with anticipation. “Other worlds than this await us.”
“Do they?” Veronica worried.
5
Jack and Veronica stayed the night in Boston, and took a bus to Cape Cod at an ungodly hour to make the earliest ferry to Taylor Island.
The prow of the boat cut a V-shaped wake through the
