Boots is in the kitchen early. Theo is sleeping.
“Where’s Jake?”
“That is a mystery. He’s shut himself in the study. I think he’s painting.”
“What’s he painting?” I ask.
“That’s about the one thing I don’t know,” says Boots.
Suddenly I lean over and kiss Boots.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“I like you.”
“No, you love me,” says Boots.
George knocks and comes into the kitchen. “Jake called and said he was busy today,” he says.
“The car,” we say together.
“My father is lending me the boat today. Want to go out? It’s sunny. We’ll take Rafiki. We don’t have more interviews until tomorrow.”
Boots looks at me. She gives a quick, almost unseen nod. I run upstairs and put on my bathing suit.
When I come down again, Boots hands me a towel and her beach bag. And when George and I leave the house and I look back, Boots is standing at the door looking after us.
Rafiki jumps into the boat, happy to be going somewhere. We motor out. There are white clouds in a blue sky.
The ferry is going out to the mainland. There is a sudden pang in my stomach as I watch it, thinking of the end of summer, of going back to school, of leaving the island.
George drops the anchor and sits next to me on the bench.
We don’t say anything. We’ve had a week of words, of interviews.
And then Rafiki jumps off the boat into the water.
“Can he swim?!” I call to George.
“I’ve never seen that.”
I run to the stern of the boat and jump in. “Rafiki?”
George begins to laugh. Rafiki is swimming around me. Suddenly, I feel a cramp in my leg. I try to tread water, but I can’t.
“What’s wrong, Louisa?”
“A cramp in my leg.”
George takes off his shirt and dives into the water beside me. He holds me up.
“All right, Louisa?” he asks, holding on to me.
We are very close together, his face close to mine.
“I think so,” I say.
We look at each other.
And then George kisses me.
Then he leans back.
“What is this?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “But you can do it again.”
And he does.
Our bodies are as close as friends can be.
And to make him feel better, I kiss him back. And we begin to laugh, our lips together, like Jake and Boots laughing while they kiss.
Rafiki paddles over to nose us, making us laugh more.
“Is this nakupenda?” asks George suddenly.
There is shock on his face that he has said it.
“Like a tablecloth?” I joke, echoing Eliasi’s words about “like” and “love.”
“No,” says George. “Not like a tablecloth.”
I burst out laughing and he laughs more.
And then, because we don’t know what to say, we climb back up on the boat and help Rafiki up.
Rafiki shakes water off his coat.
A cool breeze makes me shiver. I dry myself with my towel and hand it to George. We don’t say anything the whole way back to shore except for once.
“Your curls shine from the sea, Louisiana,” says George.
Nakupenda.
When I walk into the kitchen, Boots is alone.
“Where’s Theo?”
“Off with Dahlia and Marco.”
“Where’s Jake?”
“Still in the study, doing whatever he’s doing.”
I sit down at the kitchen table.
“George kissed me,” I say in the stillness of the room.
“Of course he did,” says Boots.
I stare at Boots.
“I kissed him back,” I say as if it is a confession.
Boots smiles. “Of course you did.”
I stare at her, a sudden sense of relief coming over me like a soft blanket.
“Jake and I were in sixth grade when we kissed each other for the first time,” says Boots. She pauses for a moment.
“It was a sweet beginning,” she adds softly.
I stare at her across the table.
“Theo, Dahlia, and Marco will be here soon. You might want to get into dry clothes.”
I nod. I walk to the stairs and go halfway up, then turn.
Boots still smiles at her own memories.
Theo, Dahlia, and Marco come clattering into the kitchen, carrying their paintings. I am startled to see George with them.
We look at each other, then away.
Dahlia unrolls her painting of Billie.
Billie with her muted red hair, her figure soft—several birds at her feet and a titmouse in her hand, with its large staring black iridescent eye.
“Billie will love this painting,” says Boots.
Jake comes into the kitchen carrying a large canvas. He peers at the painting.
“You’ll grow up to be a fine painter,” he tells her.
He looks at us all.
“I have a painting of my own,” he says.
He looks embarrassed. I have never ever seen Jake look embarrassed.
“The car?” George and I say together for the second time.
Jake looks at us, amused.
“More important than the car,” he says.
Jake turns the canvas around.
I am stunned.
It is a painting, hazy, but it is clear to me that it is Boots. You can’t tell her age by the painting. It is almost Boots at all ages, like an impressionist painting. Boots young and older.
No one says a thing.
“I wanted to paint Boots as I saw her then and see her now, before my eyes get worse,” says Jake, almost apologetically.
Jake peers at me.
“That bad?” he asks.
“That perfect,” I say.
“And much more important than your car,” says George.
“Yes,” says Theo.
“You’re a painter too,” says Dahlia.
“Only a painter of Boots,” says Jake.
“I look perfectly beautiful in this painting,” says Boots.
“You are perfectly beautiful,” Jake says. “And you were beautiful the day I first kissed you in the eighth grade.”
“Sixth,” says Boots, laughing.
George and I look at each other shyly. Theo notices.
“What’s up with you two?” he asks.
George shrugs. I shrug.
Theo turns away.