A DIFFERENT KIND OF SUMMER... some ripples (Part 45m)

The first five weeks of Summer school had flown by but the last week seemed to drag. One good thing was that the Economics instructor wanted to get a head start on his vacation so gave us the final exam on Wednesday. Rose was very good note taker so as we studied for the Drama final I felt very confident. The only drawback was the promise I’d made to Rose to go to see Inherit the Wind with her that Friday night after our final exam. Elle had fully recovered and I really wanted to spend that last night before going back to work with her. I was committed to returning to work that Saturday and this was messing that up. But, a promise is a promise and I really felt that my being paired with Rose for the course pretty much guaranteed that I got a good grade.

Rose preceeded me out of the exam room. She was waiting in the hall and I knew I’d done well. She could see the big smile on my face and she ran up to me a gave me a big hug. I should’ve been the one giving the hug. I'd loaded all my clothes and things from Van's house so all I had to do was follow her out to her house. We both had the tops down and, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel any pressure.

It was just past noon when we got to her house. I was somewhat surprised that no one was there. Since we had about eight hours to kill until the play I wondered just what we’d do. Rose made up some things to eat and got a bottle of wine and we went out on the patio that looked out on the harbor. We couldn’t see it through the trees but it was nice just knowing it was there. I really can’t say why I drank any of the wine because I wasn’t a wine drinker... but I did. After a while she asked if I wanted to see the house. What could I say? As I said before, it wasn’t a mansion but it was big. There were four bedrooms with her parent’s master bedroom being huge. It was the first house I’d been in where there was a bathroom inside the bedroom. There were two bedrooms that faced out towards the East and the harbor. As Rose had told me, you could see a bit of the harbor from the small balconies. As I stood there trying to see the harbor I could feel the effect of the wine. The bedroom that belonged to Rose was still decorated as it had been when she was much younger. She didn’t seem to be embarrassed about it though.

Once back downstairs she asked if I wanted to go see the harbor. With nothing else to do I agreed. As we were leaving the house she grabbed another bottle of wine and I wondered what she intended to do with it. We walked down the hill from her house and reached a narrow winding road. It wasn’t far to the water from there. I saw a small house with a fairly short dock that protruded out into the harbor. There were about 20 dinghys on racks right next to it. When we reached it a young man came out of the house and asked Rose if she wanted the family dingy to be taken down. Rose looked at me and asked if I wanted to row out to her father’s boat. Again, there wasn’t anything else to do.

Rose was wearing a pair of pale yellow shorts with cuffs. The leg openings were fairly wide and, as we were settling into the boat I got a nice view up one of them. I rowed the boat and Rose sat on the rear seat. After getting the quick peek I hoped there would be more but it wasn’t to be. Her father’s boat was a Chris Craft about 35 feet in length. Back then, Chris Craft was among the elite of boat builders and I was impressed. It was moored almost in the middle of the harbor. As warm as it was rowing turned out to be work. I approached the boat from the stern. I had no idea what the name, ”Sogno“, meant. Rose laughed as she told me it meant ”Dream“ in Italian.

Getting on the boat from the dingy was going to be a little difficult, especially for Rose. I couldn’t do much to help her as I had to use both hands to hold the dingy close to the boat. She used a railing post to pull herself up on the deck. My face wasn’t more than inches away from her bottom as she ooched her way up. I think it was the closest VPL I’d ever seen. Once she was on deck I passed the bottle of wine to her and then pulled myself up. It was the biggest power boat I’d ever been on. Rose went to this cabinet that was attached to the cabin and took out two deck chairs and then went to the cabin door. I watched as she felt around in her pockets, obviously looking for the key. I heard her swear in Italian and then she gave me this hang dog look as she turned the palms of her hands up. At that point all I wanted was something, anything to drink. As I had mentioned, rowing out there in the hot sun was work. Even though I wasn’t a wine drinker, anything at that point was going to taste good.

We had no cups since Rose couldn’t get into the cabin so we drank right from the bottle. It was a sweet wine so it went down easily. There wasn’t much wind and I was perspiring just sitting in the sun. I moved my chair to the shade and within minutes I was asleep. The next thing I knew Rose was shaking me awake. I honestly didn’t know where I was. I remember Rose asking me if I wanted to go swimming. That... woke me up.

To be continued...