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dozens of people listening in on our conversation, “I’m somewhat of an Anglophile. I’ll probably end up living in London.”
    We walked on. The breeze played havoc with my hair, but I didn’t mind. The water, the sunshine, and his soft, almost melodic way of talking made me feel so warm and contented in a way I hadn’t ever felt. Maybe I was just relaxed and had never really been.
    “So what do you want to be?” he asked after a few moments of silent walking.
    I paused and for the first time really thought about it. My guidance counselor, Mr. Martin, couldn’t get me to do this. Maybe it was because more time had passed, or maybe I didn’t feel threatened by any answer I might express.
    “I think I would like to be me,” I said.
    His laughter turned Marcus and Lynette’s heads. They paused and looked back at us. Then they walked on.
    “I think I know exactly what you mean,” Larry said. “How do you like that?”
    “Oh? Why do you think so?”
    “I wrote a poem that goes Most of my life I’ve been looking into mirrors and seeing only what others see of me. I put on the clothes they expected I would wear. I went to places they expected me to go. I said the words they expected me to say, and then one day I went naked. I didn’t go anywhere and I was silent and suddenly, I was born and a stranger in the eyes of those who had known me. The stranger was myself.”
    He looked away quickly.
    “I love that,” I said. It’s exactly how I feel.”
    He smiled.
    We walked on.
    Somewhere inside me, a stranger stirred.
    Larry was a few steps ahead of me.
    Impulsively, I reached out and seized his hand.
    He turned and he smiled, and it was as if everything that I had felt and known before was like the tide washing over the shore and out to sea, leaving the sand sparkling like new jewels in the sun.

FOUR
     
    There is something about a secret romance that makes every kiss sweeter, every embrace warmer, every lustful look of longing more forbidden.
    In the beginning I often felt Larry thought he had to sneak around to protect me. I soon learned he had no one from whom he had to keep our romance a great secret. His parents had separated, never really bothering to get a formal divorce, when he was only eight and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. She passed away the year before he began his college education. He had been admitted with scholarship aid and he worked in the school library for his expense funds. He rarely saw either of his parents now.
    “I’m my own family,” he told me.
    We didn’t start dating immediately. After our day on the beach, we returned to the college in the evening. Those girls who saw me get out of a car with Lynette didn’t think much of it. I had gone places with her and her boyfriend before, and Larry was not that obvious to them. He remained in the station wagon. We said good-bye and I told him much I had enjoyed the day with him, but he didn’t ask me if I wanted to do anything else with him. He simply said he was pleasantly surprised at how much he enjoyed the day as well.
    When I closed the car door, I felt a deep sense of disappointment. I imagined that he didn’t enjoy himself with me as much as he had claimed. I also remember thinking, Oh, well, perhaps this is best. After all, how could I bring him home to Mother?
    I was so quiet that Lynette thought I had not had a good time.
    “Don’t be upset, Megan. From what Marcus tells me,” she said, “Larry isn’t all that comfortable around girls of his own color, much less rich, pretty white girls. He becomes a real turtle.”
    “No, he wasn’t like that at all!” I exclaimed, perhaps with more enthusiasm than I had intended. Lynette’s eyes widened and she smile.
    “Oh, really. What was he like?”
    “He was . . . real,” I said. “Sincere, and he recited some of his poems, too.”
    “He did that? What did you do, girl, because whatever it was, Marcus is going to want the copyright or the pattern so he