Chapter XXXVI

April 20th ~ Patty's Place

Diary, shall I tell you something? If you should find yourself crinkled and warped, if your ink is smeared and loosely scrawled, then that is because, dearest of books, you are being held above steamy water and rested upon damp knees as I attempt to write in you.

I have been resisting, HOW I have resisted, giving into this feeling inside me. Such a silken river flows within me, and the only thing that can contain it is this coppery bathtub. I don't know if it's the culmination of an old dream or the dawning of a new that has conjured this longing. The girls are becoming understandably fed up with me spending all hours in the washroom, which is why I went to spectacular efforts, heating up buckets of water at dawn and lugging them upstairs so that I could bathe in the quiet of my room.

It is not yet seven, Convocation is in three hours. The sun is attempting to creep through my curtains and paint fingers of light on my skin. But I shut it out. I want to lie in the dark, look up at my starry ceiling and yield to this ache. Can I tell you something else, Diary? I am wearing the heart pendant. I often put it on only to take it off again. But not this morning. Do you know what I love to do? Take it in my mouth like a piece of candy. I roll it around on my tongue and suck it. I can almost taste it, musky and sweet. I zip it back and forth on its chain the way Stella does ~ but I cannot write so well when I do that, so I press it against my palm and feel it pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…

Later...

Two hours till Convocation. I still haven't dressed. I can hear Stella running up and down the stairs seeking out her onyx bobs. I can hear Priss assuring her for the third time that she put them back exactly where she was told to after borrowing them. I can hear the front door slam as they run out to help with the Reception committee. No doubt I will soon hear Phil knocking at my door asking when I plan to empty the tub and return it to the washroom. But I can't begin to do something so every day and ordinary.

When I got out of the bath, I stood before the mirror and stared at myself for the longest time. The water ran down my skin in blissful drips and left goosebumps all over me. I looked at myself and I loved that girl. I loved plain Anne Shirley. I loved her big grey eyes and her seven freckles. I even loved her hair (it was wet enough to pass for auburn.) I loved her long white neck, her tiny waist, her pointy breasts and her strong rounded thighs.

I belong to you, I told myself, and I love everything about you. Your contrariness and your steadfastness, your courage and your failures. I knew there was someone I was failing right then. Knew it even when I'd never felt so true. I stared at that heart nuzzling against my throat and wished I never had to take it off. But I will, I will...

Just not yet.

Later...

One hour to Convocation. Apparently, Phil had the foresight to bathe last night. "We have to grab the chance when we can, honey, you are a positive mermaid. I suppose Youth's Friend has asked you to write about one."

I could easily do so, Diary. I understand more than I ever how Andersen's mermaid must feel: to be filled with desire yet unable to speak of it. I used to wonder why she would be content to return to the waves. Now I know.

What I do not know is how to choose.

Two boxes arrived for me just now, delivered with haste by Phil. "Naked or not," she said, "we are leaving in thirty minutes." And placed them both on my desk.

One I recognised immediately because Roy never gets his flowers from anywhere else. The other was a yellow striped box that would have once held a small purchase from Lawsons. I could smell what it was before I removed the lid. A handpicked posy of lily-of-the-valley.

I know I shouldn't feel this way. But I can't undo what we once had any more than he can.

He is thinking about me.

He is about to claim the most prestigious academic prize that Nova Scotia can offer and he is thinking about me.

He is about to stroll off into a future of acclaim and promise, one that resulted from his own superlative efforts and self-belief. And he is thinking about me.

Our starry ceilings ~ he is thinking about me.

The little pink heart ~ he is thinking about me.

The word games we played, and the songs at the piano.

Our dreams for each other, our memories. Years ago, when we sat under the birch tree where lilies grow wild, and wove them round our heads like laurels.

"For future Doctor Blythe," I said.

"For plain Anne Shirley," he said.

"Plain Anne Shirley?" I said. "Thank you for your compliment, I'm sure."

"It's the biggest compliment I could give a person, Anne," he said to me. "You couldn't give the world more than who you are right now."

I scoffed at him, of course. I pulled that wreath off his curly head and socked him on the nose with it.

"You're only saying that so that I don't go to the trouble of trying to best you in English, or Latin, or all the noble works we will study come September."

He laughed at me, but then became serious. He didn't often get serious, I suppose that's why I remember that day so well.

"I'd never do that," he said. "I could take High Honours and win every prize going but it wouldn't be the same without you by my side. Whatever we achieve at Redmond, Anne, I hope we achieve it together."

Roy doesn't know, nor should he, the strength of will it took for Gilbert and me to get here. Roy is content to make a good showing in his classes and go onto other adventures. He's never had the kind of life that compelled him to want more for himself. And in that I would say he is blessed. He and I share a bond that has had every good thing showered upon it in order to make to us bloom. But like the bouquet of hothouse violets inside his box, we have never yet known what it's like to have the wind tear at us, or the sun bear down with unrelenting heat.

I need for us to know that too. I want to know that if I should hurt Roy or let him down he will still want to know me; he will still be thinking of me.

I want to be understood, I want to be known. The way Gilbert knows me.

…

April 20th Mayberry Avenue

She was looking at me.

She was wearing my flowers and she was looking at me.

She was dressed in my favourite gown, green and cream, like my lilies-of-the-valley pinned at her waist, and she was looking at me.

I went up to accept my prize and listened to Professor Radcliffe, Doctor Meares, and Sir Herbert Downie laud my diligence, integrity, passion, and force of will, and she was looking at me. At that point everyone was looking at me, but Anne was the only one I noticed. I couldn't get used to the feeling of her eyes seeking mine. Not glaring at me, or pitying me, or avoiding me completely. But looking at me with that open candid stare that floored me the first day I met her.

I forgot to blink. I shook one man's hand twice and ignored the other fellow completely. When they all stood to applaud, Anne was the first one to her feet, besides Mam and Pup. Though they never really sat all but hovered over their chairs; four years of anticipation waiting to be clapped out of their hands.

My eyes never left Anne. She tried to make my way toward me as the crowds dispersed, but we couldn't get closer than forty feet. There was always someone who wanted to shake my hand, someone who wanted to kiss Anne's cheek. Eventually that someone was Gardner. He didn't kiss her, he turned her round and lead her to the foyer. As she got to the doors I saw her turn, just once, and she was looking straight at me.

…

Patty's Place

What have I been doing? I read over that ridiculous account I wrote earlier this morning and I want to cry. No, I want to laugh. Idiot, idiot, idiot girl. Ungrateful, faithless idiot!

"Can I dance with you, Anne?" he says to me. As though he wasn't about to marry someone else. Phil was right. About everything. Gilbert Blythe has been killing himself with work in order to be good enough for Christine. It was all for her and I am a FOOL.

That heart, those lilies, were mere tokens of days gone by. A friendly send off, a brief farewell. Nothing more. Of course, nothing more. Why should there be something more? Why should Gilbert go to the trouble of telling me he's marrying somebody else?

I would have told HIM. I would have at least given him the care and respect of letting him know, instead of leaving him to find out as though he barely mattered. He actually looked offended when I declined the offer of a dance. Clearly, he forgets I am not the sort to fall at his feet. But to have to stand there as he walked back to where his folks sat chatting with Christine. Christine, who didn't wear his flowers. No doubt because it would distract from her perfect silhouette. Or because instead of a sprig of lilies she has vast bouquets of something utterly Christine-ish waiting for her at home. Violets for those violet eyes no doubt.

If only I had worn mine. Poor, dear Roy. What was I thinking putting Gilbert's flowers before Roy's; that Roy would simply bat me on the head with them and give me a wink? Instead he pulled me away from the crowds, unable to think of anything else. Not congratulation, not joy, just what happened to his flowers? Of course, I didn't have an answer ready. I pinned those lilies to my hip without thinking much at all. Did I even mean to? I was in such a rush to make it to the ceremony after wasting all that time in the bath, I could have easily grabbed the wrong posy.

"Did you not receive my violets?" Roy asked me. "Tell me they arrived on time! I could not live with myself if you thought I had forsaken you!"

I lied to him. I told him the lilies were a reminder of Green Gables days; that as Marilla couldn't be there I was wearing them for her.

"But you did get them," he asked once more, "you did receive my violets?"

It took some time before he believed me. Roy is such a sensitive soul, no doubt he knew I had told him a falsehood. I have never seen him look so hurt ~ and that is saying something. To think I wanted to be sure of his feelings for me. I don't deserve him, Diary.

But Gilbert and Christine? I'm sure they're perfect for each other.

…

Mayberry Avenue

I don't love her anymore. I don't. I really don't. It feels strange. Stranger than seeing my name in one of her stories. Odder than seeing my flowers pinned to her waist. Yet it's true. I don't love her. I've loved her since I was thirteen years old, and now I don't. It's gone, it's dead, it's forgotten. Truly I am already forgetting what it was like. And if I begin to remember I just make myself think of her face saying no to me tonight.

The anger in her eyes. If she'd slapped me I could not have felt more stunned. I had to remind myself how to make my legs work as I walked away from her. Mr. Cooper Prize? Mr. Prize IDIOT. Well, not any more. Next time I see her I'll be sure to thank her for what she did. I can go back to the Island now and never think of her again.

Anne doesn't love me, I've known that for a long time. But this time it's different. Because now I don't love her.

...