What I Thought Was True

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  “I will if you will, Jim,” I said. In the light of the open door I saw Cass flash me a quick glance, frowning, but Jimmy didn’t look back, wedging himself out of the car.

  The door crashed behind him and suddenly the air in the car seemed to evaporate, suffocated out the window. Gone. Cass felt too close, the whole space too crowded, like I couldn’t move my arm without nudging against his, or shift my leg without it sweeping past his, or have a thought without it being about him. But his profile was remote and distant, eyes on the road, hands set on the steering wheel, responsibly at ten and two. Then he pulled one off, fisted it, let it go. Clench. Unclench.

  Silence settled around us like a hot wet blanket. But what was I supposed to say?

  “Full moon on the water. Make a wish,” I muttered finally, just to say something. Mom always said that, pointing out the pretty. Suddenly I so much wanted my mom to put her arms around me and fix everything, the way she could when I was five.

  “What?”

  “Full moon on the water. Make a wish.”

  He shook his head slightly, shrugged, jaw tight. I swallowed, pulled the hem of my dress down farther over my thighs. Then we were crunching up on the crushed clamshells of my driveway. The Castle Estate, I thought grimly.

  He shifted into park, took a deep breath as if he was going to speak . . . I waited.

  “Welcome home,” he said finally.

  Silence. I wiped one of my eyes, rubbed my finger dry on my dress, leaving a black smudge against the scarlet fabric.

  Cass reached over, flipped open the glove compartment, handed me a stack of rough brown napkins from Dunkin’ Donuts. Home away from home for the swim team with their early meets. Of course he would keep them neatly piled in the glove compartment, not shoved in haphazard, the way Nic or I would do in the Bronco. He put his hands back on the wheel, rubbed his thumbs back and forth on it, staring at them as if they were moving independently. “Are you okay? Did anything . . . bad happen to you?”

  Nothing I didn’t bring on myself, I thought. Then I realized he was asking if I was . . . forced or something. I shook my head. “There was none of that. Nothing but my usual gift for doing stupid things with the wrong people.” I wiped my eyes, shoved a brown napkin into my coat pocket.

  Cass winced. “Point taken. If you’re going to do stupid things, Spence is a great choice. You had to know that.”

  “He’s your friend.”

  “Well, yeah. Because I don’t have to date him.”

  “This was not exactly a date.”

  “Yeah, what was this? Another little kick in the heart?”

  “What do you care about my heart, Cass?”

  He opened his mouth, shut it again. Folded his arms and stared stonily out the window. Rigid. Faintly judgmental. Which brought a pull of anger out of my coil of shame. What right did he have, anyway?

  “Big deal, anyway, Cass. It was just sex.” I snapped my fingers. “You’re certainly familiar with that concept. Thanks for bringing me home.” I searched around for the car handle and pushed it open, but before I knew it, Cass was standing outside it, reaching out his hand for me.

  “What are you doing?”

  He looked at me as though I was either crazy or not very bright. “Walking you to the door.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m . . . really not the kind of girl who gets walked to the door.”

  “Jesus Christ, Gwen!” he said, then shook his head and pulled on my hand. “Just let me get you safely in.”

  “I can make it from here.”

  “I’m walking you to the door,” he told me, leading me up the worn wooden steps. “Not taking the chance that you’re going to go throw yourself off the pier or something. Because, forgive me for noticing, you seem a little impulsive tonight.”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “Gwen . . . I . . . Would you . . . I mean . . .” He stopped on our doormat, beside Nic’s sneakers and one discarded rubber fishing boot of Grandpa Ben’s, apparently running out of words. “I’d like to . . .” He shut his eyes, as if in pain.

  I waited, but after a second he just said, “Never mind. The hell with it.”

  And turned, crunching back across the clamshells to the car.

  Did I use Spence? Did he use me? I don’t know. In the end, did it even matter? We’d just been bodies. Arms, legs, faces, breath. Just sex. No big deal.

  Still.

  Explaining that night was never going to be easy. Not then, to Cass. Not tonight, to Nic. Not ever, to myself.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cass is apparently fighting with a bush when I pass him the next day on my way home. He’s got hedge clippers and is whacking away, making a big dent in the side of one of Mrs. Cole’s arborvitaes. It’s completely lopsided now. As I watch, he stops, takes a few steps back, then starts making a dent on the other side. The bush, which used to resemble an O, now looks like the number 8. After a few more unfortunate trims it looks like a B.

  I can’t help it. I stop, cup my hands around my mouth, and call, “You should quit while you’re ahead—it’s only getting worse.”

  He turns off the hedge clippers, “What?”

  I repeat myself, louder, because Phelps, Mrs. Cole’s terrier, is yapping away inside the house, scritching his claws frantically on the screen door. Cass sighs. “I know. I keep thinking I’ll fix it and . . . I don’t want this woman to come out and have a heart attack. She seems a little high-strung. Screamed when I knocked on the door to ask where the outdoor plug was.”

  I study him. He seems to have shaken off our weirdness from yesterday, and the whole Henry Ellington . . . thing.

  He takes a few steps back again, tilting his head, scrubbing his hand over the hair at the back of his neck. “D’you think she’d notice if I dug this up and replaced it with another bush? That may be my only hope.”

  “Got a spare arborvitae up your sleeve?” At least today he actually has sleeves, as in a shirt, thank God. I open the gate and walk in. “Maybe if you just trimmed down that top part and made the other side a little flatter?”

  He revs up the hedge clippers, begins trimming on the wrong side. I wave my hands in a stop motion. Cass flips the off button again. “What now?”

  “Not that side! You’re making it worse again. Just hand it to me.”

  “No way. This is my job.”

  “Yes, and boiling the lobsters was my job. You had no problem barging in there.”

  “Christ almighty. Can we move on from the lobsters, Gwen? You honestly have this much of an issue with accepting help?”

  “I’m pretty sure the issue at the moment is you not being able to accept help. Just give me the clippers.”

  “Fine,” Cass says. “Enjoy.” He hands the clippers to me, pulling his hands back quickly and shoving them in his pockets. Then he studies my face. “Actually, you do seem to be enjoying yourself. Too much. You are planning to use those on the hedge, right? Not on me?”

  “Hmmm. That hadn’t occurred to me.” I turn the hedge clippers on and look him over speculatively. He bends down, wrenches the plug out of the wall.

  “Hey! I was trying to help.”

  “I didn’t like the look on your face. It made me worry for the existence of my future children. I haven’t forgotten that butter knife that was the only thing standing between you and Alex Robinson singing soprano.”

  “I just never thought I’d see you be inept at anything. Haven’t you done this before?”

  “Hey, I’m not inept. I’m just not . . . ept yet. And since you’re so curious, no, mowing our lawn is my only landscaping experience.”

  “Did Marco and Tony know this when they hired you? Why did they hire you?”

  “I don’t know. My dad talked to them first, and when I came in they just asked if I minded hard work and being outdoors most of the day. I figured I’d be mowing. Period. Maybe some weeding. I didn’t think I’d be planting and trimming and tying bushes to fences and I sure as hell didn’t th
ink I’d be raking the beach.”

  I’ve plugged in the hedge clippers again and now I turn them on and start in on the top of the hedge. “You can always quit,” I shout over the whir.

  “I don’t quit. Ever,” he shouts back. “I think you’re making it worse.”

  I lop off a few more branches, then run the clippers down, making the bumpy side as flat as the other. Then I stand back.

  It definitely looks better. I move over to the matching arborvitae on the other side of the steps and start working on that to make it look the same.

  “Now you’re just showing off,” Cass calls. “I can do the rest.”

  “No way, Jose. Clearly you can’t be trusted.”

  This sentence drops between us like a brick shattering on the pavement.

  Again I get a flash of his white-knight rescue from Spence’s party. Granted, a cranky white knight, but still . . .

  Jaw tight, Cass walks over to the Seashell truck, pulls a plastic bin out of the back, and starts scooping the severed branches into it. I buzz the sides of the other tree flat.

  “There you are, garota bonita!” Grandpa Ben calls. He’s trudging along up the road with his mesh bag full of squirming blue crabs, holding Emory’s hand and dragging the unenthusiastic Fabio by his leash. Em is in his bathing suit, clutching a sandy-looking Hideout and looking sleepy. “I bring you your brother. Lucia is working tonight and I have the bingo.”

  “Superman! Hello, Superman! It Superman,” Emory tells Grandpa, his face lighting up.

  “Hey there, Superboy,” Cass says easily. My brother runs over and immediately throws his arms around Cass’s leg. And kisses him. On the knee. Cass seems to freeze for an instant, then pats Em’s bony little back.

  “Hey buddy. Hello, Mr. Cruz.”

  “Superman,” Emory repeats. Clearly, for him, all that needs saying. He gives Cass his shiniest smile and plunks down in the grass, nuzzling Hideout against his neck.

  “I will not lie, querida. He’s been cranky. Está com pouco de bug today. We got ice cream, but no. No help.” Grandpa Ben pulls his watch out of his pants pocket. It’s not a pocket watch, but he keeps it there, out of habit, afraid, from his fishing days, that it would snag on something. “I need to go now. I get there late, Paco stacks the deck.”

  “Where’s Nic?” I’ve babysat for the last four nights that Mom has worked late. So, Nic’s turn.

  “The swimming,” Grandpa Ben says. “Be good for your sister, coelho.”

  Emory ignores him, focused on Cass coiling up the extension cord.

  “Which beach?” Cass calls. “I’m pretty much done here.”

  “Sandy Claw.”

  “Huh.” Cass finishes wrapping and loops the cord between his shoulder and his elbow, which shows off his biceps nicely. I think he’s even fitter than before—already. Bring on the Yard Boy Workout. “Maybe I’ll get on down there and give him a run for his money. What do you think, Gwen? Want to come check out my form?”

  He flashes the dimples at me.

  Oh dear Lord.

  I wrinkle my nose, toss my hair back. “I couldn’t care less about your form.”

  “Right,” Cass says. “I can tell.”

  I examine his face sharply, but his tone is completely innocent.

  Maybe it’s the total contrast between the terse, tense Cass on that March night, when I had no way to read him, no compass at all, and the sunny, smiling one now. Maybe I’m just lightheaded from the heat . . . But I give him the tiniest of smiles. And get a full-on grin in return.

  I tell myself it’s okay to feed Em fast when we get home, use those nasty frozen dinners Mom relies on, Emory doesn’t mind, and Grandpa and I despise, dumping crinkled French fries out on a baking pan, letting Em consider ketchup a vegetable. I assure my conscience I’m not hurrying through the shower, or Emory through his bath, for any reason at all.

  If there were an Olympics for kidding yourself, I’d take home the gold.

  Then Em doesn’t want to go to the beach. He’s sleepy, wants to be lazy, cuddle. He settles himself on Myrtle, Fabio collapsed and drooling heavily on his thigh. He points at the screen. “Clicker.”

  “Fresh air,” I say firmly.

  “Clicker. Pooh Bear. Dora.”

  “Jingle shells. Boat shells. Hermit crabs,” I counter.

  Emory’s lower lip juts out. “Seen today already,” he says.

  “Superman?” I coax, finally.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I don’t have much hope that Nic or Cass will still be there when I get to the beach. Em wouldn’t walk, so I had to plunk him, Hideout, and Fabio into our old Radio Flyer wagon and drag it down the hillside. Not really drag, more like run ahead of it, because it picks up speed as we descend, and Fabio remembers being a puppy and hops out, nipping at my heels and yelping all the way down.

  My cousin and Cass are apparently facing off at the end of the pier, ready to dive again. Viv is sitting on one of the wooden pilings, counting down on Nic’s watch as Em and Fabio and I walk out.

  “To the breakwater again?” Cass asks, breathing hard, hands on his bent knees.

  “The far one this time,” Nic answers. He swipes his arm across his forehead, then shakes his head, sending droplets of water flying. He squints and points at the second wall of rocks, blue-black, jagged edged, barely visible above the waves. Cass nods, shortly.

  Viv shields her eyes, evidently on shark watch.

  “Want me to count off?” I call. “On five, four—” And Nic dives before I say “three.” Cass shoots a what-the-hell look back at me, then he’s in. We watch Nic’s arms flashing. Viv’s shouting, “Go Nico, go Nico!” Fabio leaps around, yipping, happy to be part of the action. I feel this impulse to cheer for Cass. Against my own cousin? Blood may be thicker than chlorine, but hormones seem to scramble the equation.

  “Go!” I shout loudly, not quite sure for who. “Go!” I shout it again, drowning out my thoughts. Drowning out another memory of the summer Cass spent at Seashell, the first year we were all old enough to swim out to the breakwater alone. Of him, little-boy skinny, standing on the rocks, pumping his fist in triumph, slapping Nic’s back, high-fiving me, and then doing his ear-blushing thing, missing his two front teeth.

  Nic is ahead, thanks to his unfair advantage.

  Then there’s another splash, a sharp bark from Fabio, and I whirl around. Em’s not there. Em is not there and I didn’t put his life jacket on. For the first time ever, I forgot. I wasn’t holding on to his hand or leg or a fold of his shirt, which I do even when I have put a life jacket on. I’m hurling myself off the pier in an instant, Viv’s screams echoing in my ears.

  It’s high tide.

  High tide. Emory’s in his Superman pajamas, which are darkish blue, the color of water. I’m swishing my arms around wildly, grabbing for his fingers, his hair, his big toe, anything. Coming up for a choking breath, then plunging down again, clawing through the cold depths. Then I touch warm skin, his leg, oh thank God, yank him toward me, his head bumping up against my shoulder, hauling us to the surface with an inhale that sounds like a sob. He’s coughing . . . he’s coughing, so he’s breathing, but he immediately starts to cry. I’m towing him toward the steps that lead from the deep water to the pier, gasping into his hair.

  Then I feel someone beside me.

  “You got him,” Cass says, warm hand around my waist. “He’s safe. You got him. Breathe. Both of you.” Emory howls louder and I can hear Viv gabbling, “Oh my God oh my God.” This is my fault. I looked away at the wrong time. I didn’t put a life jacket on him. Cass has his hand on my back now, steering us up the steps.

  Viv is waiting with a towel and I wrap Em in it and gather him into my lap. “Em, talk!” I order. “Say something.”

  “Hideout!” Emory bursts into even stormier tears. “My Hideout. He wanted to see the water. He drownded.”

  Cass turns to me for clarification.

  “Stuffed animal,” I say, combing my fingers over Em’s s
calp, feeling for bumps. He keeps crying, shoving my hand away.

  “What color?” Cass peers into the water. “Brown? Black? Blue?”

  “Red.”

  “Perfect.” He dives back in, so cleanly there isn’t even a ripple.

  Nic has reached the steps now and hurries up, eyes worried. “Dude, you cool?”

  “Hideout!” wails Emory. Vivien, Nic, and I debate taking him to the ER just to have him checked. Teary-eyed Vivien and I are in favor, Nic tells us we’re overreacting.

  “Remember the time you fell off Uncle Mike’s boat when you were, like four? You were fine. Same thing.”

  “But it’s Emory,” I say. Em was born so early, at twenty-eight weeks, a fragile two pounds. Then when he was four he had viral meningitis and a fever of 106. Whenever he gets a cold in winter it always, inevitably turns into bronchitis. Pretty much everything that could go wrong does go wrong. I’m clutching him so tightly that he stops sobbing to say, “Ow. Be nice.”

  “Here you go, buddy.” Cass has climbed up the ladder from the water to the pier thrusting out a bedraggled, waterlogged stuffed hermit crab.

  Em’s tears turn off, his lips part, then wing into a smile. “Saved him. Superman saved Hideout.” He snatches the crab from Cass, hugs it, squeezing out a bucketload of water, fingers its head for bumps, kisses it, then scootches over and puts his hand on Cass’s cheek, petting him the way Mom does to Em himself.

  Cass clears his throat, shuffles one foot on the wet wooden slats of the pier. “No problem, man. He might need a little CPR—and a dryer—but he’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks, Somers. Quick thinking.” Nic nods at him, chin lifted, arms crossed.

  “Not as quick as your footwork on the dive,” Cass says coolly. Nic’s jaw tightens.

  “Badly played, man,” Cass continues. “Very un-CGA.”

  Nic’s face shades stormy. He looks quickly at Viv, then me, then down at the pier.

  “Three-second advantage,” he scoffs at last, like Whatever.