Deeper

by Megan Hart

  On impulse, clutching her plastic bag of gaudy, tie-dyed clothes, Bess crossed the square and went into the shop. The bell jangled on the door the way it always had, and she couldn’t help smiling. The bored teenager behind the counter barely glanced up. She looked about sixteen, with dark, thick hair pulled into a ponytail, and rectangular glasses perched on the end of her pierced nose. She yawned as Bess came up to the counter.

  “Help you?”

  “I’d like a large tub of the caramel corn.” Bess hadn’t bothered reading the menu, but surely Sugarland still sold the gooey, secret-recipe caramel corn that had been so popular.

  The girl waved a languid hand toward a small pyramid of tubs. “We only have small right now.”

  Bess couldn’t forget the hours she’d spent bending over the hot vat of sugar, corn syrup and melted butter. Mr. Swarovsky, Sugarland’s owner, had insisted on fresh caramel corn every day. “Is it fresh?”

  Bess winced the instant the words slipped from her mouth. She sounded just like every uptight tourist who’d ever made her crazy. The girl didn’t react much, just shrugged.

  “Sure, I guess. Hey, Dad!” she called over her shoulder toward the back. “Dad!”

  The man who ducked out of the back room took up a lot of vertical space. His broad shoulders and lean hips gave the illusion he was taller even than he was, though Bess estimated him at over six feet. Dark thick hair spiked off his forehead, and glasses nearly identical to the ones the counter girl wore would have hinted at the family relationship even if she hadn’t called him Dad. The man’s smile stretched across his face and revealed straight, gleaming teeth. It transformed him instantly from geeky to gorgeous, and Bess wondered what she’d done to deserve such a look.

  “Bess? Bess McNamara?” The man came around the counter, oblivious to his daughter’s goggling stare, and reached for Bess’s hand.

  She gave it, and he pumped it up and down. “Yes? I mean, yes. I’m Bess.”

  “Bess.” The man held her hand tight in both of his for a few minutes longer than necessary before letting go. “It’s me. Eddie Denver.”

  It was rude to gape in disbelief, but Bess did anyway, scanning him up and down while he laughed. “Eddie? Oh my God, Eddie…wow!”

  He laughed and ducked his head, and that gesture cemented it for her. “Yeah. Times change, huh?”

  Bess wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t introduced himself. Gone were the acne, the braces, the scrawny, perpetually hunched shoulders. Eddie Denver had grown up. “How did you know it was me?”

  Eddie’s smile brought a twinkle to his eyes evident even from behind his Elvis Costello-style glasses. “You haven’t changed at all.”

  Bess laughed, feeling self-conscious. Her turn to blush. “Oh, sure.”

  Eddie shook his head. “No, I mean it.”

  She touched her hair, left loose around her face today. She wasn’t going to point out the silver threads there, or pat the extra curves in her thighs and ass. She looked around Sugarland. Eddie’s daughter was still goggling.

  “What are you doing here, Eddie? Don’t tell me you’re still working for Mr. Swarovsky!”

  Eddie tipped his head back to laugh, and Bess marveled at his easy self-confidence. “No. I bought the place from him about five years ago. Oh, this is my daughter, Kara.”

  Kara wiggled a few fingers and went back to looking bored. Eddie laughed. “She’s thrilled to be here, can’t you tell?”

  Kara rolled her eyes. Bess gave a commiserating smile. “Your dad and I used to work here together.”

  The teen nodded. “Yeah. He told me all about it, oh, about a million times.”

  Bess and Eddie laughed together at that.

  “Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself,” Eddie said. “I haven’t seen you since that last summer you worked here.”

  Bess started to speak, stopped, laughed. “Oh, you know. The usual. Married, kids. Nothing exciting.”

  Eddie glanced around the empty shop, then back at her. “Hey, let me buy you a cup of coffee and we’ll catch up. Can you? Do you have time?”

  For an instant Bess caught a glimpse of the old Eddie, the one who’d never been able to look her in the eye. It was endearing, that hint of times past, and she nodded. “Sure. That sounds great.”

  “Watch the shop, Kara. I’ll be back.”

  Kara rolled her eyes again and shooed them with her hand. “Whatevs, Dad. Go.”

  Eddie gave Bess an apologetic look as he held the door open for them both to leave. “Sorry about Kara. She’s not too thrilled about having to work in the shop.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” They paused to let a car go by before crossing the street to the coffee shop. “I’ve got two boys. I know how teenagers can be.”

  Eddie opened the door for her at the coffee shop, too. His manners gave Bess both a little thrill and a pang of regret that such courtesy should be somehow notable. He even stepped back to let her choose the table, and asked her what she wanted, then went to the counter to order for both of them. It seemed a little old-fashioned but definitely flattering. Bess couldn’t help studying him as he gave his order to the counter staff with confidence. Not much like the stammering, blushing Eddie she’d known back then.

  “Thanks,” Bess said when he brought her café mocha and a plate of chocolate-dipped biscotti. Her stomach rumbled and she bit off the end of a dry, crumbly cookie. “Wow, good.”

  Eddie dipped his into his coffee before nibbling. “Yeah. I swear I should buy stock in this place. I’m here every day.”

  “Maybe you could set up a trade agreement. So many cups of coffee for so many tubs of corn.”

  Eddie gave that infectious laugh again. “Yeah, sure. Except sadly, nobody’s interested in my popcorn since Swarovsky’s opened up down the street.”

  Bess hadn’t followed, and her face must have shown her confusion.

  “When I bought the place from old Mr. Swarovsky,” Eddie explained, “I wanted the rights to the secret recipe, too. The old man was willing to sell me the store because Ronnie supposedly didn’t want to take over, but when it came time to give up the family recipe, the old man hemmed and hawed. I tried telling him Sugarland wasn’t worth much without the caramel corn. He died while we were in the final negotiations. I got the store for a song…but not the recipe.”

  Bess made a face. “Ouch. And then Ronnie opened up his own place?”

  “You got it. Just down the street.” Eddie shrugged. “Apparently he had plans to do it for a while, but he and his dad didn’t see eye to eye on it. When his dad died, Ronnie got the recipe and I got the old shop.”

  “Eddie, that’s too bad. I’m sorry.” Bess reached automatically to pat his arm. He glanced up at her touch, for another fleeting instant looking the way he used to. She took her hand away.

  “It’s okay. I’m doing a nice business with the ice cream, and I do sell a couple different varieties of popcorn, but we can’t really compete with the genuine Swarovsky’s. Even if I wanted to be a jerk and use the recipe…which would be stealing. You know how people are about that stuff, Bess. You remember.”

  “Loyal,” she said with a nod. “Yeah, I remember.”

  Eddie rapped the table with his knuckles. “Hey, enough of that. Tell me about you. Your life. What grand and exciting things did you go on to do?”

  Bess’s laugh wasn’t quite as vibrant as his. “I wish I had a lot of stories to tell you, but I don’t, really. I went to school. Got married. We had two boys, Connor and Robbie. Connor’s eighteen. Robbie’s seventeen. They’re going to be coming down here in about two weeks, as soon as school lets out.”

  “If they need jobs, send ’em my way,” Eddie said seriously. “Right now it’s me and Kara, but once the season really gets going I’ll need a couple other kids.”

  Bess smiled. “I’ll let them know. Thanks.”

  Eddie sipped more coffee and eyed her over his mug. “What about your job?”

  Bess turned her mug aroun
d in her hands. “Oh, that. Well, I worked for a little while, but when I got pregnant with Connor I quit and just never managed to go back.”

  “You were going to be a counselor,” Eddie said. “That’s too bad you had to quit. Not that staying home to raise your kids isn’t an important job,” he added hastily. “God knows someone should stay home and raise the children. I just meant…”

  “I know what you meant,” Bess said quietly. “I wanted to do a lot of things I didn’t. Having Connor changed a lot.”

  She and Eddie stared at each other over their cooling coffees and biscotti crumbs. He sent her another smile, not so broad or wide, but sweeter for being so tentative.

  “Kara’s mother, Kathy, and I never got married. We, umm…well, I can’t even say we dated,” Eddie admitted. “The year after your last one here, I shot up about four inches, lost the braces. My face cleared up. I wasn’t Quasimodo anymore.”

  “Oh, Eddie.”

  He shook his head. “I know what I looked like, Bess. Anyway. I guess the sudden transformation sort of went to my head. I got cocky. A little careless. Kathy was the daughter of one of my mom’s friends from church. Both our moms tried to hook us up, but I wasn’t really interested in marrying a preacher’s daughter.”

  Bess swept biscotti crumbs into a pile. “But you had a baby with her?”

  She hadn’t meant to sound judgmental, and Eddie didn’t seem to take it that way. He gave her a rueful grin and crunched the last of his biscotti.

  “She wouldn’t marry me. We both should have been more careful, but Kathy was the one who said she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life married to the wrong person just because she’d made a mistake. We share custody of Kara. Kathy married an accountant from New Jersey.”

  Bess wiped her fingers free of chocolate with a paper napkin. “And you?”

  “Never got married.” He leaned back in his chair to study her, his head tilted. “Never found the right woman, I guess.”

  Heat tickled Bess’s cheeks. “You look good, Eddie. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well. Really. Even if you are still a townie.”

  They both laughed.

  “With beachfront properties selling in the millions, being a townie isn’t quite a slap in the face, you know. Not that I have a beachfront house,” he amended. “Kara and I have a place in Bethany Commons. The condos. It’s not so bad, even if we do have to share it with you tourists.”

  “Hey,” she protested. “I’m officially a townie now!”

  Eddie gave her the familiar head tilt and an entirely unfamiliar slow, assessing grin. “Cool.”

  “What about everyone else?” she asked, looking away. “Have you kept in touch with any of them?”

  “Ah, well, obviously I don’t hang out with Ronnie Swarovsky at the country club.”

  “Obviously.” She laughed. “Did he and Tammy get married?”

  “They did, actually.” Eddie filled her in on twenty years worth of gossip and news. Bess was surprised at how many of the people they’d known back then still came back for the summer, or lived here year-round.

  “Melissa Palance lives over in Dewey.” Eddie crunched biscotti between his white, even teeth.

  Bess gave him a questioning look, but figured out who he meant a few seconds later. “Missy?”

  “She goes by Melissa now.” He laughed. “She’s got four kids and is married to some real-estate bigwig.”

  “Wow. Four kids?” Bess shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  “She stops into the shop sometimes. You wouldn’t even recognize her, Bess. She’s not blond anymore, for one thing.”

  Bess twirled a strand of her shoulder-length hair. So far the silver wasn’t overpowering the gold, but in the next few years she figured she’d have to decide whether or not to go gray gracefully or start coloring. “Who is?”

  Eddie ran a hand over his dark, shaggy hair, where no signs of white glinted. “My dad’s in his seventies and doesn’t have a gray hair.”

  “Wow! Good genes.”

  Eddie laughed. “He’s bald.”

  Bess eyed Eddie’s thick hair. “You don’t look like you’re in any danger of that.”

  “Let’s hope not. How about you? Do you keep in touch with anyone? Brian?” Eddie paused, sounding casual. He sipped coffee and settled back in the booth. “Nick?”

  “I…” Bess stopped to drink some coffee. “I lost touch with Brian after college. And Nick…no. I never kept in touch with him.”

  “You didn’t?” There was no mistaking the sound of pure pleasure in Eddie’s voice, even if he did try to mask it with surprise. “You guys were pretty hot and heavy. Weren’t you?”

  He knew they’d been. “Yes, but…it didn’t work out.”

  “So he’s not the guy you married.”

  Bess looked up, shocked that Eddie might have thought so. “God, no! Can you imagine?”

  She couldn’t, actually. Married to Nick? How her life would have changed.

  Eddie shrugged. “I didn’t know. He up and disappeared. Missy said she thought he joined the army. I thought maybe he went with you.”

  “No. I married Andy.” She paused. Eddie had only met Andy once. From what she could remember, Andy hadn’t been too nice.

  “Ah.” Eddie didn’t ask any more questions. “Sounds like you’ve been doing well. I’m glad for you,” he added, though something in his face told her he hadn’t quite been convinced she was doing as well as she pretended.

  Of course, maybe she was just projecting the truth she knew onto him.

  “I should get going,” Bess said. “Thanks so much for the coffee. It was great seeing you.”

  “Tell your boys about the job offer.” Eddie stood, too. “And don’t be a stranger, Bess.”

  “I won’t.” This time, she held the door open for him.

  Eddie paused on the sidewalk. “You’re staying at your grandparents’ house?”

  “It’s mine now. But, yes. Same old place.”

  “Yours?” Eddie whistled low, then grinned. “Nice.”

  Bess laughed. “By default. I lucked out. Mom and Dad didn’t want to deal with the hassles and the taxes.”

  “Even so. It’s a great property. They had it up for sale for a while, didn’t they?”

  She nodded. “Yep, but then decided not to sell.”

  “I know.” Eddie grinned. “I tried to buy it.”

  “Eddie Denver,” Bess said in admiration. “You really are a mover and a shaker, huh?”

  He laughed and made the same sort of shooing motion Kara had given them in the shop. “I wish. Someday, maybe.”

  Bess joined his laughter and looked toward her car, still parked close to the market. “I’ve really got to go. I need groceries.”

  “You know there’s a Food Lion now, right? It’s bigger than Shore Foods.”

  “There’s a lot of stuff that wasn’t here before,” Bess told him. “It’s like I’ve got to relearn the whole town.”

  “If you ever want a tour,” Eddie offered, “you know where to find me.”

  She smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Well. See you.” He waved and loped across the street, back to his shop.

  Bess watched him go, trying to fix the memory of the old Eddie over this new version, and pleased to find she couldn’t.

  CHAPTER 10

  Then

  Bess wanted a shower. She wanted to wash away the smell of sticky sweets from her hair and skin, and stand under pounding hot water until the faint headache behind her eyes went away. That was all she was thinking about, a shower and bed, when she closed up Sugarland and found Nick waiting for her again.

  “Hey,” he said as casually as ever, as if there was nothing odd about him showing up there.

  “Hi.” Bess made sure the doors were locked, and tucked the keys into her backpack. “What’s up?”

  Tonight he wore the bandanna again, along with a black, tight-fitting T-shirt with white letters that read Better to B
e Dead and Cool Than Alive and Uncool. Somehow Bess doubted Nick had ever been uncool in his life.

  “Nice shirt.”

  He glanced at it, then gave her a grin that squinted one eye. “Thanks. They sell them at the Surf Pro.”

  “I’m sure they do.” Bess laughed. “I’m sure they’re very popular, too.”

  Nick shrugged. They stared at each other. The orangeish light from the streetlamp made his eyes look more gray than brown, and she wondered what it did to her blue ones. Probably turned them some nasty color the way it did her skin.

  “So…” Nick got off the bench where he’d been lounging and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You going home?”

  Bess nodded. “I was planning on it.”

  “Want to walk along the beach?”

  “With you?” The question blurted out, potentially insulting, but Nick didn’t seem offended.

  He looked from side to side and held out his hands. “I’m the only one asking.”

  She crossed her arms. “How do you know that? Maybe I have tons of offers for moonlit walks along the beach.”

  Nick saluted her, mocking. “Maybe you do. But you also have a boyfriend.”

  “Sort of.” This blurted out, too, and she frowned.

  Nick’s eyes gleamed. “What does ‘sort of’ mean?”

  She waved a hand. “Nothing.”

  Nick the Prick is only friends with girls he’s fucking. Missy’s warning should’ve meant less than nothing, but Bess couldn’t forget it. Nick wasn’t fucking her. But they weren’t friends, either. Were they?

  “Is that like sort of being pregnant?”

  Bess laughed. “No.”

  Nick grinned again. “C’mon. You have to walk home. Why not walk with me along the beach?”

  “What about my bike?”

  “Leave it here.” He nodded toward her ten-speed, chained safely to the rack. “You don’t have to work too early tomorrow. You can walk.”