Dangerous Engagement

by Charlotte Byrd

  When our food is ready this time, we are not as lucky with finding a table so we take our tacos to the beach. The breeze coming off the water is soft and warm and the roaring ocean of only a few months ago is nothing but a memory. We walk past the grasses and bushes that scatter along the coastline and find a quiet dune where we can be alone.

  I only manage to eat one taco this time, watching him polish off the other three. After we are both satiated, I lean against his shoulder and watch the waves break in front of us. They aren’t very big today, nothing worthy of surfing, but that’s what also makes them calm and relaxing.

  “What are you doing working on my father's boat if you live in New York City?” I ask.

  “Jobs for summer people pay quite well and I’m off anyway during this time. So, I figured I’d come home, spend some time with my mom, and make some money.”

  “Off from what?”

  “I teach high school during the year.”

  “Why haven't I seen you before? Is this your first summer?”

  “The job on your father's boat is temporary. I'm filling in for someone. Normally, I work at the Southampton Yacht Club.”

  “What do you do there?” I ask.

  “A little bit of everything, but mainly bartend. I've been working there since I was fifteen. So I get to bartend as much as I want.”

  “Is that the best thing to do?”

  “Yes.” He nods and laughs, probably at my naïveté.

  “That's where you get all the tips. And summer people, the good ones anyway, tip pretty well.”

  Suddenly, I have an overwhelming urge to find out as much as possible about him. I want to know where he was born. I want to know what he was like growing up. I want to know if anyone has hurt him or broken his heart. I want to know about his mother.

  But when I turn to face him and open my mouth to speak, he kisses me. The kiss is soft and airy, moving along with the waves. I curl up snugly into his armpit, noticing how nicely my body fits into his.

  He wraps his arms around me and I intertwine my legs with his.

  His fingers run down my side as his tongue finds mine. I arch my back against his strong lean stomach. I feel the bulge in his pants growing in size as I press my butt against it.

  I'm about to say something when his hands start to make their way down my breasts. My nipples perk up as if they have been awakened from a deep sleep. My whole being gets energized. I arch my back again and again as his fingers start to massage me. His hands are soft yet firm and knowing. They're deliberate like the rest of him. He knows his way around my body as if he has done this a million times before. There is a strength in that and the feeling is completely disarming.

  The sound of loud laughter interrupts our solace. It comes from the gaggle of teenagers rounding the dune and setting up their blankets right next to ours. All are too drunk to notice or care about our presence. One of them builds a fire and another one blasts house music from a speaker. The rest start to dance by swinging their hips and shoulders from side to side, in the same direction.

  “How about we go somewhere else?” Henry asks.

  I nod.

  He holds out his hand to help me up to my feet. I want to go somewhere private, where we can be alone and together. I want to feel his hands all over me and me all over him, but he doesn't suggest a place like this. Instead he takes my arm and walks me around the corner to a rowdy, loud bar.

  “This place makes cocktails as good as any of the ones I had in those craft bars in Manhattan. And they don't cost eighteen dollars a pop,” he says.

  I don't want to go inside because I want to keep him to myself. But it's too soon. We have just met. I look at the menu that the bartender hands me and quickly order the first thing I spot, a cucumber margarita.

  The bar is busy but we manage to find a seat in a dark corner, somewhat away from the music that's blaring out of the speakers. Everyone else is straining to talk, screaming at the top of their lungs to barely make themselves heard.

  But here, in our little space, the music is at just the right level. It sets the ambience without being overpowering or obnoxious. When our drinks arrive, I watch him take a sip of his Old-Fashioned before trying my margarita.

  “Wow, this is really good,” I say, nodding my head and noting that all of the ingredients are fresh. Nothing is prepackaged or processed.

  “They make everything from scratch,” he says.

  “I am shocked that they have the time to do this given how busy this place is.”

  “A little known secret of the restaurant trade is that it's actually much cheaper to make things from scratch,” he says with a shrug. “But it does take a little bit more time. I know the owner of this place, I went to high school with his son, and he's very old-school. That's why this place is as popular as it is.”

  We drink our drinks in silence for a few moments and he takes my hand in his. I like the way he runs his thumb over the back of it and I can't help but let my fingers intertwine with his, but our solitude doesn't last.

  A guy with a cool haircut approaches and Henry quickly gets up to give him a hug. He quickly calls over three of his friends and they all embrace, exchanging complicated handshakes. Henry introduces me as Aurora Tate, but the name doesn't register. Instead, they ask him about the yacht club. I’ve never heard anyone talk like this about us before. They think of the rich as others might think of animals at the zoo; something exotic, something worthy of admiration but something completely different from them. The yacht club is the epicenter and they talk about it with a mix of envy, jealousy, and contempt wavering between hating the summer people and wanting to be them.

  4

  Henry

  I didn't particularly want to see my friends tonight, but there is no getting around it. At first, I think that they are going to recognize Aurora from the gossip magazines that she is often featured in, but they don’t.

  Instead, they just talk about themselves. Half an hour is all that I'm going to give them, I decide. That will be enough to not be rude, spend some time with them, and then cut things short since we are on our first date.

  Taylor Portman, of course, dominates the conversation. He is tall and attractive and he knows it. He's finishing his last semester at city college and his dream is to make millions on Wall Street.

  I met him in the neighborhood, but he is about four years younger than I am. Once, after more than a few drinks, I made a mistake and told him that I wanted to be a writer and ever since then he has been mercilessly making fun of me. The mocking got worse when I got my short story published in the New Yorker, the epitome of success, and got paid $320 for my efforts. At eight cents a word, the pay is significant for a literary magazine and yet paltry at the same time.

  Tonight is no exception. As soon as Taylor has two beers in him, he goes off on me.

  “You know what this guy does for a living, right?” he asks. When she doesn’t respond, he covers his mouth and laughs. “Oh, shit, did I just blow your secret?”

  “I know that he is a writer.”

  “Wait, is that what you are? Or are you just an aspiring writer?” he continues. “‘Cause I think you have to at least pay the rent with your job if you’re doing it for real.”

  I hate him for being this way; callous and cruel. I try to remember why we’re friends at all.

  “You talk about it like you think that there’s something wrong with it,” Aurora says to Taylor.

  “Well, you have to admit it's a little bit silly. It's like wanting to be an astronaut.”

  “But you would agree,” she challenges him, “that there are people who are astronauts.”

  "Yes, of course.”

  "So, what would be so wrong with wanting to be one?”

  “It's just so…unrealistic. Actually, being an astronaut is probably a lot more realistic than being a writer. In this day and age. I mean, who the hell has time to read anymore? Am I right?”

  “No,” she says sternly. “You're wrong. The
re are a lot of people who like to read and there are a lot of people who make their living writing. What you don't know about it could fill the whole ocean out there."

  Taylor narrows his eyes and stares daggers into her. But she doesn't waver. Instead she broadens her shoulders and sits up.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make everything so tense. Are you a writer, too?” he asks, taking a sip of his beer.

  “No, I'm not,” she says without wavering in her gaze. “I'm Aurora Tate, of the Tate Media empire. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”

  Taylor's mouth physically drops open. She leans in closer and flicks the bottom of his chin to shut it.

  “What's the matter?” she asks. “Cat got your tongue?”

  My friends don’t stick around long after that. A group of attractive local girls come in and they drift away in search of a warm body to curl up to. Taylor hangs around the longest.

  I'm not sure what he's waiting for but it certainly feels like he's waiting for something. Eventually, a pretty girl approaches him and he finally pulls away. Aurora finishes her margarita and asks for another one, with a glass of water.

  “I need to stay hydrated,” she says, “otherwise, all of this alcohol is going to go straight to my head.”

  “Of course,” I say. “There’s no need to explain.”

  I have already finished two Old-Fashioneds, and I'm working on my third one. I'm not big on alcohol but being here with her makes me nervous.

  When our next round arrives, I turn to her and raise my glass.

  “I want to thank you for something.”

  “For what?”

  “I want to thank you for standing up to Taylor. He has an annoying habit of making fun of me for that. Perhaps I should have never told him the truth, but at one point I thought that we were actually friends. That's the only reason why he knows that I write.”

  “Do you usually not tell anyone?” she asks, surprised.

  I shrug and look down at the table. "It's a difficult thing to talk about,” I admit.

  “Not everyone understands,” I add. “I'm not sure exactly why it's so difficult but somehow, telling people, it's like revealing this secret part of me.”

  “You had no problem telling me earlier today,” Aurora points out. I shrug.

  “You're a stranger and frankly, I wasn't sure if we were going to hit it off at all. I guess I didn't think I had anything to lose.”

  "How very valiant of you,” she says with a smile, keenly aware of the fact that what I have just said is a lie.

  I pick at a little speck of dirt on the table with my index finger. It doesn't come off. It's just a deformity, so I put my palm flatly against it to feel the indentation.

  “So, you don't think I'm stupid for doing what I do?” I ask.

  “No, not at all,” she says, shaking her head. “In fact, I think you are very brave.”

  “Brave?”

  “You're pursuing your dreams, what can be braver than that?”

  I take her hand into mine, wondering if she is in fact real.

  “Besides, it's actually very refreshing to meet someone who isn't just after money,” Aurora says.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I guess it's hard to find a man in New York City who isn't that singularly focused.”

  “You don't know how true that is.” She laughs.

  “What about your friends?" I ask.

  “What about them?”

  “What would they think if they had heard this about me?”

  “They would think that I am dumber than they even knew,” she says, rolling her eyes and taking another sip. It’s meant to be a joke but the delivery falters.

  “Is that okay with you?” I ask.

  She shrugs and looks away.

  “I don't really want to talk about my friends,” she says. “Let's talk about something else.”

  5

  Henry

  We don't stay at the bar long because it gets louder and more rowdy with each passing hour. Instead, we go on a walk. I hold her hand as we meander up and down the empty streets of the small summer town where no one walks and everyone drives.

  Surprisingly, the streets are welcoming to pedestrians and we enjoy the view of the large expanse of lawns and the weeping willows, along with a few thick oaks.

  “Did you grow up in a house like this?” she asks, pointing to an enormous four-bedroom home that sits on two acres.

  I stare at her and shake my head from side to side. She tilts hers as if she has no idea what I'm talking about.

  “Do you really think I would be poor if I grew up in a house like this?” I ask.

  She looks at the house again.

  “It's probably only three-thousand square feet,” she says. “That's not very big. Not for a house in the country.”

  I want to laugh but I don't want to make her feel bad. Instead, I tell her that my own house is about seven-hundred square feet.

  “Wait a second,” she says, “but I thought you grew up in a two-bedroom?”

  “I did.” I nod.

  “Well, that's not nearly big enough, right?”

  I shrug.

  “That's all my mom could afford. My dad left when I was two and I haven't seen him since then. She only has a high school diploma, so she wasn't qualified to get any job besides being a cashier at the local grocery store. That's what she did for years.”

  “How much does that pay?” Her asking this takes me by surprise and I shake my head no. I don't want to answer.

  “I'm sorry,” she apologizes. “I shouldn’t have asked that. I didn't mean to pry. The thing is that I have never really talked to anyone who came from so little.”

  I shake my head again.

  “That sounds terrible,” she says.

  “Yes, it does,” I agree.

  “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  I think about that for a moment. “No, I’m glad you did. How about this? I'll tell you the details of my life and you tell me the details of yours. ‘Cause I never really talked to anyone who came from so much either.”

  Aurora smiles, pushing her hair behind her ear, and shakes my extended hand.

  “My mom made minimum wage for about twenty years.”

  “And a minimum wage is what exactly?” Aurora asks.

  “It was around $7.15 when I was little and they raised it to $11.10.”

  “An hour?” she gasps and shakes her head. “And she works forty hours a week?”

  “No, she usually works sixty hours a week. And it's still not enough. The rent is $1300 and then there is food, utilities, and all of the medical bills.”

  I look away, suddenly a mountain of guilt covers me as if it were an avalanche. Maybe I should've been a better son. Maybe I should have paid more attention to money and not just been out there pursuing my senseless dreams.

  But it was my mother who always encouraged me to go after what I want. She was the one who said it was okay to pursue whatever degree I wanted in college. She was the one I wanted to see my dreams come true.

  Hell, that makes me feel even worse. Perhaps, I should've gotten a degree in finance and have spent the last five years working on Wall Street and sending every penny of that back home to make her life easier, but the truth is that she would never have had it that way.

  She always said that the most unfair thing about not having enough is that you have to compromise your dreams. She always wanted better for me. I don't go into all of these details with Aurora, instead I steer the conversation back to her.

  “What about you?” I ask. “How much does your father make?”

  “Well, it's actually both my father and my mother. She’s the CFO there.”

  I wait for her to answer my question. “Are you going to tell me how much they make?”

  “It’s hard to say,” she says with a slight shrug. “But they are both individually featured in Forbes’ richest people in the world list.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” I press her.

  “I
don’t know what their exact net worth is because there are different ways of calculating that but it’s billions. Many, many billions.”

  “That is so much money, it's actually difficult to comprehend,” I admit.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she says with a shrug. “It's stupid but I feel like no matter what I will do in my life, it will never be good enough. I will never be able to step from behind their shadow.”

  “And what is it that you want to do?” I ask. Shrugging, she looks down at the ground.

  “That's the whole problem,” she says. “I have no idea. I know what it is that they want me to do, but I'm not exactly sure if I can do that.”

  “What's that?”

  "They want me to take over the company.”

  “You don’t want to?”

  “It’s not that, it’s more that I don’t know if I can. It’s their baby, more than I ever was, and they want me to raise it exactly as they would. They want me to run it exactly as they would run it.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Yeah, tell that to them.” Aurora laughs. “On top of that, they don't trust me to make any decisions.”

  “Do you even want to?”

  “Not under these conditions, but I’m not sure if I’ll have a choice.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. She takes my hand in hers and gives me a weak smile.

  “Let's not talk about this anymore. I don't have the energy.”

  Her wish is my command. I don't press her for anything more. Instead, I try to make her laugh. I do impressions, the ones that I taught myself how to do through YouTube and the ones that have always worked well on my mother.

  President Obama. President Bush. Britney Spears. Cher. Madonna.