The Notebook Read Free Page A

Forest. They rode in canoes and watched summer thunderstorms, and to him it seemed as though they’d always known each other.
    But he learned things as well. At the town dance in the tobacco barn, it was she who taught him how to waltz and do the Charleston, and though they stumbled through the first few songs, her patience with him eventually paid off, and they danced together until the music ended. He walked her home afterward, and when they paused on the porch after saying good night, he kissed her for the first time and wondered why he had waited as long as he had. Later in the summer he brought her to this house, looked past the decay, and told her that one day he was going to own it and fix it up. They spent hours together talking about their dreams—his of seeing the world, hers of being an artist—and on a humid night in August, they both lost their virginity. When she left three weeks later, she took a piece of him and the rest of summer with her. He watched her leave town on an early rainy morning, watched through eyes that hadn’t slept the night before, then went home and packed a bag. He spent the next week alone on Harkers Island.
    Noah ran his hands through his hair and checked his watch. Eight-twelve. He got up and walked to the front of the house and looked up the road. Gus wasn’t in sight, and Noah figured he wouldn’t be coming. He went back to his rocker and sat again.
    He remembered talking to Gus about her. The first time he mentioned her, Gus started to shake his head and laugh. “So that’s the ghost you been running from.” When asked what he meant, Gus said, “You know, the ghost, the memory. I been watchin’ you, workin’ day and night, slavin’ so hard you barely have time to catch your breath. People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin’ to forget. And with you, I knew you was tryin’ to forget. I just didn’t know what.”
    He thought about what Gus had said. Gus was right, of course. New Bern was haunted now. Haunted by the ghost of her memory. He saw her in Fort Totten Park, their place, every time he walked by. Either sitting on the bench or standing by the gate, always smiling, blond hair softly touching her shoulders, her eyes the color of emeralds. When he sat on the porch at night with his guitar, he saw her beside him, listening quietly as he played the music of his childhood.
    He felt the same when he went to Gaston’s Drug Store, or to the Masonic theater, or even when he strolled downtown. Everywhere he looked, he saw her image, saw things that brought her back to life.
    It was odd, he knew that. He had grown up in New Bern. Spent his first seventeen years here. But when he thought about New Bern, he seemed to remember only the last summer, the summer they were together. Other memories were simply fragments, pieces here and there of growing up, and few, if any, evoked any feeling.
    He had told Gus about it one night, and not only had Gus understood, but he had been the first to explain why. He said simply, “My daddy used to tell me that the first time you fall in love, it changes your life forever, and no matter how hard you try, the feelin’ never goes away. This girl you been tellin’ me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, she’ll stay with you forever.”
    Noah shook his head, and when her image began to fade, he returned to Whitman. He read for an hour, looking up every now and then to see raccoons and possums scurrying near the creek. At nine-thirty he closed the book, went upstairs to the bedroom, and wrote in his journal, including both personal observations and the work he’d accomplished on the house. Forty minutes later, he was sleeping. Clem wandered up the stairs, sniffed him as he slept, and then paced in circles before finally curling up at the foot of his bed.
    Earlier that evening and a hundred miles away, she sat alone on the porch swing of her parents’ home, one leg crossed beneath her. The seat