Changing Seasons

By GoddessOfSpring

 

The sun was setting over the land as True Love finally approached its resting place in Capeside. Joey perched on the rail and watched the fiery orange ball descend toward the land as Pacey tied up the sail. They were quiet, each absorbed in their own thoughts, and unwilling to break the strange bond their return forged between them with words.

 

It had been a long summer. Long and tiring, despite the strange romance of sailing the salty seas, living off fish and sleeping in hammocks that swayed gently with the waves of the ocean. Joey wanted nothing more than to grasp at something familiar, whether it was Bessie’s pancakes or the ladder to Dawson’s room.

 

Joey shuddered involuntarily. She hadn’t wanted to think of Dawson, but it was a reflex, as much as holding Pacey’s hand in public throughout the summer in the tiny fishing hamlets they haunted. It was just a motion, a gentle squeezing of hand and mind, respectively. It meant, frankly, nothing.

 

The boat slid into the slip, and Pacey anchored it firmly into place, brushed off his hands and walked around the cabin to join Joey at the hull of the boat. He leaned against the rail next to her and followed her gaze to the sunset. The indefinable change that had come on gradually during the summer had settled between them, and Pacey knew it. He wet his lips, tried to speak, and failed. Joey turned to face him, her eyebrow arched in a quizzical expression that held no trace of anger or irony, and waited. When he didn’t speak, she stood and moved toward the cabin, where her packed bags, a couple of Indian-print satchels she had picked up in Florida, sat.

 

She emerged shortly and began to disembark when Pacey spoke. “Joey?”

 

She turned. “Yeah?”

 

He paused. I’m sorry it wasn’t everything it should have been, he wanted to say. “I’ll see you later.”

 

“Yeah,” she repeated and turned. Her feet hit the dock and her footfalls quickly faded as Pacey remained on the railing of True Love, lost in his thoughts. The sun disappeared from the horizon, and darkness found Pacey in the same position several hours later.

 

Neither of them knew where they had gone wrong. In the beginning, if there ever was a true beginning, it was exciting and slightly forbidden and wild and adventurous. And that had been even before the boat had set sail. Once they had embarked, all the romance and spark that had made their quest for each other slowly faded as they were unable to avoid their individual feelings of reticence and fear. Their embraces had become shorter, as had their conversations. Their intimate nights seemed so very detached from their days of sailing, working, shopping. It was as if they were two different people from the couple who had strove so valiantly simply to be together.

 

Joey contemplated all this as she picked her way through the brush on the bank of the creek heading toward the B&B. The moonlight glimmered on the surface of the water, and the sound of crickets filled the air. I didn’t have to leave to find magic, she thought somewhat dazedly. Yet the thought brought her no comfort.

 

She approached the B&B and was warmed temporarily by the sight of its lit windows and glowing lanterns. She paused, taking in the scene, and slowly went to the door. She opened it, the feel of the brass knob under her hand new and unfamiliar, and went inside.

 

Pacey finally arose from his position on the railing and stretched. Night had fallen, and a lovely night it was. The gentle lapping of the water against the sides of the boat complemented well the sounds of an occasional ship down the channel signalling a turn, the slow jazz wafting from the transistor radio an idle boatman had turned on a few boats down. Pacey turned around once, taking in the darkness and the solitude, and went into the cabin. It still smelled of her, her gentle natural perfume, but the smell wasn’t comforting. Nor were her early sketches that still hung from the walls, dreamy images of birds and boats and coastal panoramas.

It was his boat, his True Love. Yet it seemed like it wasn’t his at all.

 

Pacey couldn’t remember ever feeling so devoid of feeling. He wasn’t hungry or itchy or angry or sad, exactly. Yet he knew he had lost something vital. Another man in his position, perhaps, would have cried or raged or pounded his anger out with physical activity. Pacey took off his shirt, curled up in his hammock and closed his eyes. Minutes later he was asleep.

 

“Joey! Oh my God,” Bessie put Alexander on the floor, raced up to Joey and enveloped her in a huge hug. “I’m so glad you got back safely!”

 

Joey smiled and gamely accepted her sister’s embrace. Bessie grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Well, you look … healthy. Rested.” Bessie peered at Joey more closely. “But how are you, really?”

 

Joey lowered her gaze and shrugged. “I don’t know. Fine, I guess.” She hesitated, started to speak, but then smiled brightly. “How was your summer? Were you able to manage okay?”

 

Bessie touched Joey’s hair and, sensing the veiled pain in her voice, stepped back and said “There are leftovers in the fridge. Help yourself. I’ve got to get Alexander to bed.”

 

Two hours later, Joey found Bessie curled up in a chair on the porch, reading. Joey tentatively approached her, and sat on the edge of the matching chair. “Bessie?”

 

Bessie looked up from her book, her lips curved in a smile that was a haunting reminder of their dead mother’s. “Yes, Joey?”

 

Joey searched for her words for a minute. “Have you ever … felt—I mean, did you ever have the feeling like you didn’t know what to do with what you had?”

 

Bessie sighed. “Joey, what happened?”

 

Joey shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems so stupid and infantile right now, but I guess I was maybe overwhelmed by the reality that I had what I wanted, and I didn’t know what to do next. I just feel so—strange.” She looked up, her expression troubled.

 

“Do you have any regrets?” Bessie asked quietly.

 

“Well … I guess I regret that it was so messy. I feel like I was so selfish when I think of what went down last spring. Our—feelings, the feelings Pacey and I had for each other were like a bulldozer.”

 

“Had?” Bessie’s face was serious.

 

Joey stuttered, fell silent. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m sorry.” She arose, her hands stuffed into her pockets, her shoulders hunched, and headed into the house.

 

The barest hints of autumn began to color Capeside. The stately oaks displayed the smallest hints of orange and yellow, small children wore zippered sweatshirts out to play, and the ships began to arrive at the industrial docks with a greater sense of urgency. Dawson noted this with a keen eye as he disentangled the neck straps of his two cameras and knelt to frame a shot of a fisherman heaving barrels onto a small salty.

 

It was the last Saturday before school started, and Dawson intended to make the most of it. He had awoken at sunrise and took off early, so he could spend the majority of the evening in the darkroom and hopefully come up with a handful of shots to frame and hang. His new love had fueled an almost complete renovation of the Leery household, but his parents didn’t mind. His stark black-and-white and color shots of local life complemented well the casual décor of the house.

 

Dawson snapped the shot, adjusted his shutter speed, and took another before the fisherman disappeared into the wharf. He straightened, checked his watch, and proceeded toward downtown. He hoped to catch some street musicians in the last flush of tourist season, before they traveled south or holed up in Boston homeless shelters.

 

Suddenly he stopped short. About a hundred feet ahead of him, Joey appeared from the wooded trail and strode toward the water.  Dawson heart seemingly froze in his chest. She looks beautiful, he thought, his lover’s eye still intact even after a long three months apart. But another thought occurred to him. She’s alone. Why is she alone? He studied her face and saw there a new expression, one of introspection and a new kind of pain, yet the familiar dignity and pride still remained. It was his Joey, he thought. But now she’s different. And it’s not because of me.

 

Dawson found himself slipping into his old mindset and snapped quickly into focus. I’m different, he thought. And I shouldn’t be trying to read her mind. Instinctively, he brought his camera to his eye and snapped. Her long hair blew gently in the breeze, and one arm was gracefully raised against the glare of the son.

 

Later that day in the darkroom,  Dawson watched the photo develop through the solution, and studied it as he hung it to dry. The shoulders, the proud head, the hands were all the same. Study in brown, he thought indifferently. Maybe I’ll show it to her someday.

 

The halls of Capeside High filled with the clatter and bustle of hundreds of teen-agers for the first time in more than three months. New jeans, clean backpacks and squeals of delight over renewed friendships dominated the precious first fifteen minutes before the first-period bell. The new principal stood poised in the hallway outside the main office greeting students pleasantly.

 

By grace of alphabetical order, no member of the terrible trio—Dawson, Pacey or Joey—saw another as they worked the combinations of their lockers that were entire hallways apart. The bell brought a rapid metamorphosis to the corridors and as quickly as students congregated, they dispersed into classrooms, fighting to beat the final bell.

 

Joey stumbled into her first-period English class with a loose shoelace and immediately noticed both Pacey and Dawson in the room. They sat on opposite sides. Pacey did not make eye contact; Dawson did, with an expression that held no specific emotion—not hurt nor sadness nor joy. Joey looked away and slunk into a front-row seat.

 

By the end of the day Joey wanted nothing more than to retreat to the B&B and possibly take a nap before helping with dinner. The hours of probing stares had taken their toll, and she had spoken to virtually no one, except for teachers during roll call, and Jen and Andie during lunch—even then, superficially. Even they had had questions in their eyes, but Joey’s locked-down expression and curt conversation told them to back off.

 

She arrived home to find Bessie on the floor playing with Alexander. “Hey, Joey,” Bessie called out. “The last guest took off this afternoon. I think we’re clear for a day or two. Why don’t you try to get some sleep.” Bessie looked at her younger sister knowingly, remembering the sound of footfalls in the kitchen and on the porch late last night.

 

Joey nodded and smiled gratefully and headed for her bedroom. She sprawled across the bed and fell asleep minutes later.

 

She awoke several hours later. It was dark, and she was momentarily disoriented. There was no gentle rocking or lapping of waves to lull her, and the room seemed frighteningly quiet and empty. She arose, rubbed her eyes, rocked on her feet, and saw her reflection in the mirror. Who is that girl with the snarled hair and the red eyes, she thought? She had no answer; instead, she donned a pair of frayed canvas shoes, grabbed her keys, and left.

 

She knew exactly where and how she would find Pacey. He was dozing on the floor of True Love’s cabin, an open book beside him. Joey picked it up, dog-eared it and set it aside. “Pacey,” she whispered urgently.

 

Pacey’s eyes fluttered open and he mumbled unintelligibly.

 

“Pacey,” she said again, softly, and kissed him. She broke away after a moment and looked at him. The ghost of a smile appeared on his face, and she kissed him again, stretching out beside them. He embraced her and pulled her on top of him as she kissed him, deeply and more hungrily. Neither of them stopped to say a word.

 

Two hours later, she reassembled her clothing and put on her shoes as he lay beside her, fast asleep. She took one look around, at the cluttered cabin with its old drawings on the wall, and left.

 

True Love would be Pacey’s home until the weather grew too cold for it to be practical. Unfortunately, Gretchen had settled comfortably into his bed/sofa at Doug’s place, so he had hoped a viable Plan B would come up by the time he would be displaced. Unfortunately, Gretchen showed no signs of going anywhere, the Witter home was no more an option than a Dickensian orphanage, and he quickly ran out of options. So he did the only thing he could think of; he bought a sleeping bag rated for down to 40-below chill. True Love was beginning to look like the only home he’d have for a long time.

 

That reality, however, didn’t shield him from the pain of knowing it was also the home of what relationship he and Joey had shared, however briefly. He worked to quell the emotion, and Joey didn’t take notice as she lounged briefly in her disheveled clothing during her occasional midnight visits that he had taken down her drawings and removed the second hammock.

 

As the snow began to fly, however, the solitude and quiet that had quite independently enveloped Dawson, Pacey and Joey began to change into something more tangible, more desperate, and infinitely more dangerous. Pacey showed up at school less and less frequently, and when he did his hours were characterized by listlessness and boredom. His work was no less subpar than usual; but there was less of it. He ignored the continual warning looks of teachers and skipped meetings with the school counselor. There only in body, he decided that his days in school were just as numbered as the days of the throngs of graduating seniors that surrounded him.

 

Joey’s quietness genuinely disturbed few. She conversed in a friendly but detached way with Jen and Andie and the few other acquaintances with whom she was friendly at Capeside. Bessie watched her sister methodically clean the house, play with Alexander, cook simple meals and do homework with no awareness that Joey slipped out occasionally during the wee hours to embrace a person and activity that seemed the antithesis of her state of mind. When she dutifully finished her daily work, she went for long walks down back roads or retreated into her room with her sketch pad and turned out beautiful pencil and charcoal drawings of her surroundings. The intricate scrollwork of her antique dresser, the gnarled branches of the old oaks and birches her window framed, the carved wood figurines on her dressing table.

 

Dawson seemed, perhaps the most well-adjusted of the three. He watched movies with Jen and Andie, chatted with his old childhood crush Gretchen as she washed bar glasses at Leery’s Fresh Fish, and spent endless hours in his darkroom. He developing print after print of tranquil Capeside through the change of seasons, savoring the rich fall colors and the bare white stillness equally, finding beauty in the details: a child rolling her first snowball of the season, an old man picking soggy leaves out of his rake. He occasionally took out the print he had made of Joey at the water, with her slender arm poised high in contrast to her stooped shoulders. He considered enlarging it to better capture her sorrowful expression, but thought better and tucked it safely away in a small drawer, like a guilty secret just bursting to be revealed.

 

Joey awoke with a start early one Saturday morning in November. A two-inch blanket of snow had materialized overnight, and she peered out the window to a world transformed. The weak early sun had picked up the diamonds in the flakes, spreading a glittering shawl over the tree branches and the ground. She stared in awe for a few minutes, and then quickly donned a couple of layers of clothes.

 

Joey’s boots left shallow imprints in the fresh snow as she ventured away from the B&B toward the rutted trail she routinely followed on her frequent walks. Lost in idle thought, she reveled in the solitude to which she had grown accustomed during the past few months, needing no outward outlet for her jumbled ideas and emotions as she crunched through the snow-covered leaves. She continued absently along the familiar trail for  a couple of miles before she realized she was not alone. Two beings on the edge of the road suddenly shared her space: Dawson, with a 35-mm camera in hand, and a small doe, frozen in fright, about 100 feet ahead of him.

 

Joey halted abruptly, acutely aware that both had heard the approaching footsteps, and both had frozen in fear. The deer, in fear of the growing human presence, and Dawson, in fear of losing the shot of the beautiful creature, whose eyes and ears betrayed her alert panic, and whose graceful limbs twitched with the urge to flee. Joey heard two rapid clicks, and the spell was broken. The doe disappeared into the woods, and Dawson turned around.

 

If he was shaken, he didn’t let it show. “Joey … hi,” he said quietly.

 

Joey trembled lightly and wet her lips. “Hi, Dawson.”

 

It wasn’t any more than the sum of what they had said to each other since Joey’s return, but because they were alone—completely, since the frightened doe’s departure—they knew they had to say more.

 

Joey gestured at the camera. “How do you think that one turned out?”

 

Dawson shrugged. “For every great picture, I have dozens of bad ones. Overexposed, slow shutter speed. It’s really a gamble.”

 

Joey smiled tentatively. “You must really enjoy it. I mean, you seem to carry that camera with you just about everywhere.” It took Joey a second before she realized she had revealed more about her daily observations than she intended.

 

He played with the lens cap for a moment before replying amiably, “Well, it’s not too hard. Just a matter of trial and error, I guess. Anyone could do it.” He paused, and then jerked his head to the side, gesturing toward the trees. Before she knew what was happening, Joey was trailing Dawson into the woods.

 

He stopped before a huge, gnarled oak tree and knelt. “Come here,” he said and gestured to a spot next to him. Joey crouched at his side. He handed her the camera and said “See how the bark peels away from the curves of the knotholes? Even that’s worth a picture. Not necessarily a great one, but it’s interesting.”

Joey hesitated, looked through the camera’s viewer and looked back at Dawson. “Go ahead, take a picture if you want,” he said encouragingly.

 

Joey pushed the button and heard the snap. She remembered the sparkle of the diamonds on the snow in her yard and thought, it’s everywhere. It’s part of us. She subconsciously realized for the first time that nature has a strange, quiet way of explaining human nature. She handed the camera back to Dawson and they exchanged a long look, perhaps understanding each other more fully than they had in months.

 

“Joey.” Dawson broke into her thoughts. “Will you come with me?” he asked somewhat timidly. She nodded wordlessly and rose. The two walked side by side back down the rutted road, an echo of their childhood selves.

 

As they approached the Leery house some 30 minutes later, Dawson said curtly “Wait here.” He reemerged shortly with a manila envelope and gestured toward the creek. A thin carpet of ice blanketed the creek, by appearances solid, but the waters were still navigable by canoe. They climbed into the canoe and Dawson grabbed the paddle. He steered the tiny vessel toward downtown Capeside, and when he arrived at the first small dock, he roped it to a post and climbed out, offering a hand to Joey. As they walked up the dock, he began to speak in a low, hesitant voice.

 

“I wanted to show this to you from the moment I took it. It just seemed so much like you, and yet it revealed more than I could have possibly anticipated when I saw you. It just seemed so personal. I knew something had changed—not just with us, but with you, and with me. But it’s still really beautiful, and I just decided I should share it with you.”

 

With that, he opened the envelope and pulled out the print, a lovely black and white likeness that, with the help of filters, had left her face virtually in silhouette. But it still caught the furrow of her brow, the sad twist of her lips as she shielded her face from the sun. Joey caught her breath, but the newfound discipline she had adopted in the past few months prevented her from reacting further. She turned to Dawson and said softly. “Thank you. It’s incredible.”

 

For a moment the familiar old loving look crept into his face and he fought with his emotions briefly before saying “I’d like you to have it.”

 

Joey looked at the photo again and Dawson looked at her in profile, the same loveliness which enchanted him two long year ago reappearing in her expression, the stubborn brow and full lips and crinkle in her forehead. The man and the boy inside Dawson grappled with this reality, this image of the girl he loved so close to him, and because of that closeness the boy in him gave in to the madness of his feelings. He leaned in toward Joey, intending to kiss her full on the lips, but at the last moment catching her cold, ruddy cheek softly with his lips, and the reality of the moment and the situation flooded his mind, sending him reeling back into reality. This wasn’t his Joey; it was the cool, beautiful, hurting Joey of his photograph. And he had no claim on either one.

 

He broke away and she looked at him, that strange distance returning to her expression and she offered him a smile both sweet and sorrowful, and for the first time in months he had the urge to weep.

 

Joey rose. She sensed something in him that wanted her, badly, but she knew it wouldn’t last and she was grateful, for she didn’t want him at all. She looked him squarely in the eyes. “Thank you, Dawson.” She walked away, photograph in hand. She did not look back.

 

That night, Joey crept into True Love, where Pacey lay sleeping fitfully in his sleeping bag. She crouched down and stroked his brow and he awoke. “Hey,” he said sleepily. She undressed and crawled into the sleeping bag with him and demonstrated an aggressiveness Pacey hadn’t seen in the several months they had been lovers. At one point Pacey stopped and attempted to push her hands up and off him, but with a power neither had known she possessed she forced her hands free and continued her movements, her thighs gripping him, viselike.

 

Afterwards, she crawled out of the sleeping bag, gathered her clothes and began to dress.

 

“What was that, Jo?” Pacey said, reverting back to the affectionate diminuitive he had used months ago.

 

Her voice was startlingly flip. “What is any of this? Does any of this really mean anything?” She pulled her sweater over her head and started to work the knots out of her shoelaces.

 

He sat up, his face showing the stress of his emotional state as well as his physical lifestyle. “Well, it’s obvious this hasn’t been a relationship for quite a while. So we’ve been using each other, right? And that’s all right with you?”

 

She shrugged as she worked the sleeves of her coat right-side out. “I think it’s pretty obvious that we don’t know each other at all—“

 

“But we did.”

 

Joey smiled a twisted, sarcastic smile. “Yeah, we did. But we aren’t any of us what we once were.”

 

Pacey reeled as if he had been slapped. “What do you mean, ‘any of us’?” Joey shook her head. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “What do you mean?! Christ—is this about Dawson? Are you dragging him into this for some stupid, sadistic reason?”

 

She twisted out of his embrace. “I don’t need to drag anyone into anything to see that we’ve all changed. And I don’t think we’re better people because of it, and I don’t think we can benefit from each other any more. Now, if you’ll excuse me …” Joey left the cabin and Pacey sank to the floor in disbelief. It seemed utterly incomprehensible that this woman with whom he had shared so much was reduced to a cold, spiteful creature. And that, for some reason, some completely intangible reason, he was the cause of it.

 

Three nights later, Joey made one last pilgrimage to True Love. It stood docked in the same spot as always. But when she peeked into the cabin, she saw it was completely empty. No hammock, no sleeping bag, no accoutrements of daily life. It stood stripped and though Joey felt more than a twinge of anger and hurt, she wasn’t surprised. What Pacey had turned into wasn’t a person who was meant to operate within the confines of normalcy, and though she understood and respected that, she knew the sybiotic relationship of man and woman wasn’t suited to him and her with her inability to find peace in anything or anyone. And she knew that whatever change that took place in him was all her fault. Joey suddenly felt very old.

 

Meanwhile, Pacey was on a Greyhound headed out West. He wasn’t sure where he would end up. He didn’t care. Something about the transient lifestyle comforted him, and he let it. Because he knew that whatever had happened to wreck the brief joy he and Joey had shared was all his fault.

 

Dawson was pained by his encounter with Joey, but not as pained as he would be to see her face become more drawn during the following several months, her body thinner and her eyes more haunted. He felt strangely unaffected, as if the weight of adolescence itself was lifted from his shoulders. He continued to take pictures, but fewer of nature and more of people. He loved to see people captured mid-expression; it was as if a little slice of honesty and humanity was capture in the blink of a shutter.  He knew Joey one day soon would leave, and he decided to actively pursue happiness elsewhere. He certainly could—and should—take responsibility for the devastation that unfolded in front of him, but what good would that do, he thought?

 

Winter turned to spring turned to summer, and Joey finally packed her bags—this time a large trunk and a few pieces of sturdy nylon luggage. She was headed for Wellesley, where she would study political science. Her sketch pads were buried in the bottom of her dresser drawer at the B&B, as were her pencils and charcoals and paints. As hyper-dramatic as it seemed, art represented emotion, and therefore pain. She would have no part of it any longer. She would study and work and lead a long and purposeful life. She would not die of a broken heart or any such Emily Dickensonian affliction, because she understood once and for all that life was not a dream of the seven seas and the beauty of winter’s starkness.

 

The End.