Will nodded. “Kristen said you were a smart person, Jim. You are insightful, as well.”
“What do you mean?”
Will said, wistfully, “Once upon a time, I loved somebody in a way similar to the love you describe with Kristen. I will love that person until the day I die. That love is no longer mine, though. She’s in love with another.”
“Kristen will always love you.”
“I wasn’t talking about Kristen, Jim.”
I didn’t know what to say. Kristen hadn’t told me anything about Will having a serious relationship with anybody except her. It was possible that Kristen didn’t know everything about Will, but that was very doubtful. All the same, something inside me told me that Will’s statement was an out and out lie. Why would Will want to lie to me?
We continued walking around until Kristen found us.
When Kristen and I found ourselves alone together for a few moments, Kristen asked me if I talked with Will.
“Yes, I did.”
“And…?”
“He’s a very lonely man, Kris.”
Kristen didn’t say anything, but nodded.
Thanksgiving meal was the feast that you would expect from a quaint New England inn for that holiday. Soup, plenty of turkey, and for the adventurous, there were desserts from a bake shop within the Inn that were guaranteed to double your weight in a single meal.
We spent the night in Sturbridge, and the next morning, Will drove us back via the “Mass Pike” into Cambridge.
Since Will needed to do a few things on Friday, Kristen took me on a tour walking down Massachusetts Avenue from Central Square (near M.I.T.) to Harvard Square (near Harvard University) and back. It was busy, being the day after Thanksgiving. There were many places to eat; cuisines that I never experienced before.
Kristen led me by the hand and we walked around the quaint little place. I saw so many things that my mind just reels when I try to remember it, but I do remember being in a huge campus bookstore that seemed to specialize in Harvard and M.I.T. paraphernalia as well as mountains of books. It was obvious that Cambridge was a bustling college town, and those two prestigious institutions were very daunting to me. In my heart, I knew that my future would probably involve music, and neither institution specialized in that particular subject, although it was possible that one or both might actually have an excellent music curriculum.
From Cambridge, we took the subway (the “T”) to the North End of Boston, where we saw Paul Revere’s house, the Old North Church, and many little Italian restaurants. My only knowledge of the North End was from a bunch of spaghetti commercials with a woman yelling “Anthony!”
Kristen and I ate lunch at a very tiny restaurant on a busy main street. We could smell garlic as soon as we entered the restaurant and we scrunched together on a tiny table for two in the corner next to the shop window.
I noticed the menu on the wall. “Most of the dishes here are calamari,” I noticed.
Kristen grinned. “Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s…”
“I know,” I interrupted. “It’s squid. I don’t think I ever ate that before.”
“They have shrimp scampi if you don’t feel like the calamari, as well as other fish,” Kristen said.
“I’ll try anything once,” I said.
“Let’s order the fried calamari appetizer first, and then decide what you want for the main meal.”
We did just that. The appetizer was huge, and the squid didn’t have much of a fishy taste. For our main meals, Kristen and I ordered calamari with white sauce over linguine, which they served to us straight off the stove in the same skillets they used to cook it!
One thing I was learning about Boston was that there was an awesome selection of seafood!
During lunch, I asked Kristen how she knew so much about Boston, and she told me that she stayed with her brother a couple of times, the last time staying a month last July. She seemed to know every place to go, and we didn’t have much time to do our exploring.
We took the “T” back to Cambridge and met Will in Harvard Square. When Kristen kissed him, Will laughed and said, “Lunch at the Catch today?”
“Of course!” Kristen giggled.
I was curious as to how Will knew where we ate. Will saw this and said, “Your bodies have absorbed nearly a pound or two of garlic. It’s quite obvious where the two of you have been!”
Kristen and I laughed at this. For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant and I learned that I enjoyed lamb curry and tandoori chicken.
Kristen and I told Will all about our explorations of the city over dinner, and Will seemed to enjoy our stories.
After dinner, we started walking back to the apartment. When I was sure where I was in relation to everything, I said, “Excuse me, Kris. Would you mind if I take a walk around for a half hour or so?”
“By yourself?” Kristen asked.
“Yeah,” I answered. “There are some things that I need to think about alone, and I thought I’d look around the square again.”
Kristen looked at me concerned. “I guess,” she finally answered, sounding dubious.
“Maybe I’ll be an hour,” I said. “I have change, and if anything happens, I’ll phone you guys.”
“Are you sure that you know your way around, Jim?”
“Yes, Kris. I’ll stay near Massachusetts Avenue. I won’t get lost.”
Finally, Kristen said, “OK. Don’t take too long.”
There was an ulterior motive for my taking a walk. Kristen and her brother Will used to have a relationship before I came into their life, and as brother and sister, I figured the two of them should have some time alone. Whether they talked or even fucked during that time was their own business. It hadn’t been an easy decision for me to make, but I owed it to Kristen, and, somehow, to Will as well.
I also brought some money that Kristen didn’t know about. In the weeks before I left, I pestered my parents for an allowance for doing chores. Even Merry, the big money grubber of my family, stopped insisting on doing things for me, figuring that I needed money for this trip. I wanted to find something special for Kristen to let her know that I was thinking of her.
Money was the biggest obstacle between Kristen and me. She had lots of it, and I didn’t have very much. I always felt uncomfortable with Kristen paying bills at restaurants and at the mall, and Sherry’s accusation about me being only after Kristen’s money alerted me to the fact that others may think the same thing.
At the same time, money was the least important thing to me. I mean, it was nice to be able to pay for a great meal at a restaurant, but it didn’t cost a fortune to buy some ground beef and some bread to make a great hamburger. There’s an old joke that says, “You’re a musician? I didn’t know you were broke!” I more or less expected that money wouldn’t be flowing from water taps for me.
This was a very difficult situation for me. I could be forever proving myself to everybody on the earth that Kristen’s money wasn’t the reason that I loved her, and it would be fruitless. Kristen seemed to be happy with me, and I made very few demands on her, especially financial ones. I never got any vibe from Will that he harbored any such suspicions about me.
I thought about Will. He was a very handsome person, and could easily have a harem of girls if he wanted them, but I knew that he didn’t. He was completely infatuated with Kristen, and I was certain of that. I saw him look at her. There wasn’t longing in his eyes, but instead, I found wistfulness. They seemed to know each other’s moods and playfully touched each other, not as brother and sister, but something closer. I knew where their closeness came from, but for the first time since I knew of Kristen’s ongoing relationship with her brother, I found that I was no longer jealous of their relationship.