by Kaira Rouda
Tade yelled, “Hey, lazy, come on, let’s play.”
“Oh, all right, but you guys better watch it. I’m feeling powerful tonight,” Dorsey said, running to the edge of the surf, carrying the Nerf football. “Go long, Tade.”
“What time is it?” Dorsey asked, shooting up straight in bed the next morning.
“Relax, honey,” Jack said, hugging her from behind. They were lying in his bed, entwined, after a night of gentle lovemaking. “You’re off today, and Tade’s parents are actually paying attention to him. I hope. At least for half a day, poor kid. You had a lot of, ah, dreams last night.”
“What did I say?” she asked.
“Something about that Chad guy, and your dad, and red. You always talk about the color red,” Jack said, stretching. Jack loved how she looked in the morning, her hair a tangled mess, her small body curled up next to him, dressed only in one of his t-shirts. Jack slept in boxers only, and right now, he could pull those off and, well. He rolled onto his side, kissing the tip of her nose. “You’re getting better. I mean, you used to cry in your sleep. Now you don’t. I think we’re making progress.”
“What would I do without you?” she asked, snuggling into Jack’s side.
“Hey, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for too,” Jack said, breathing in her flowery scent, feeling her warm embrace. “I mean, besides being beat up, I’ve never been this happy in my whole life. Except that I need to find a new job, and well, I gotta get on that.”
“Should I try to fix it, just one more time with Steve?” she asked. At the mention of the jerk’s name, Jack realized he needed to focus on getting both of them off the island. No messing around this morning, unfortunately.
“I don’t want you around him,” he said, stretching and getting out of bed. “We should just plan on leaving. As soon as possible. I’m thinking next week.”
Chapter 19
Dorsey
Dorsey needed to pack, but she was dreading it. Dreading starting over again. Hating the idea that she’d have to leave Jack behind, but knowing it was the right thing to do. This place was his dream, not hers. And she was the one who was ruining it for him.
She hadn’t been home to her cottage for two days. She’d been avoiding the inevitable. She had to leave Jack before she ruined his life. The night before during sex she’d almost cried realizing it would be the last time. Somehow she had told herself to treasure every moment instead of dreading today. That’s why she’d awoken so suddenly. Today was the day she was giving him up.
She carefully inserted the key into the back door, and turned the lock slowly, pulling the door toward her first, knowing that muted the sound when the lock gave way.
And there sat Tade.
“Geesh, you scared me,” she said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were with your parents today?”
“I wanted to be with you,” Tade said. “I want to show you the cemetery.”
“Creepy,” Dorsey said. She’d have to take the little guy. He didn’t have anyone else to be with. And she couldn’t pack in front of him. “Okay, let’s do it. How did you get in my cottage anyway?”
“I have my ways,” Tade said grabbing her hand. “Come on!”
Of course, Dorsey didn’t want to tell him about the flasher she’d encountered with the girls a week earlier, and nobody else had reported any similar incidents. They’d be fine, and they both carried their oogles.
“If you see a marker with only one name, that was a slave,” Tade explained as they walked through the old cemetery, hidden behind sand dunes and among kudzu vines at the end of the island, above Bloody Point beach.
“Sometimes plantation owners would let the house slaves use the family’s last name. Most of the time though, that’s how it was. Like here,” he said, pointing to a weather-beaten, crumbling headstone.
Dorsey squatted down to read, “Dolly Scott—ever submissive” and next to it, “Our Flora.” On one tiny stone, she read: “Tribute to Dorinda. Age 19.”
“In Charleston, the Gullah tour guide took us to a black cemetery—well, really what used to be the cemetery for city slaves. It had been turned into a parking lot for a church. The old tombstones were stacked against a chain-link fence, kinda in a pile. And on the other side of the fence, there was this house. The people there had used tombstones to make their back patio. They had the barbecue grill sitting on somebody’s headstone.” Tade looked down. “I wanted to go beat them up.”
“That is horrible, this is horrible. It should be protected or have a fence around it or something,” Dorsey said, looking at the untended grounds.
“It’s way better over here than on the mainland. What else are we doing today?” Tade asked.
Dorsey looked over at the boy and smiled gently. His blue t-shirt made his eyes an even brighter blue. Could she tell him she was leaving? Her eyes filled with tears. No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell either of them.
Dorsey and Tade made their way back to the plantation as the sun was low in the sky. The sky had taken on a gray hue that matched the water, a seamless horizon devoid of color. Storm clouds were building but there was still time to share her last sunset on the island with Jack if she could get Tade to stop collecting arrowheads and hurry. They finally made it to the Kids Cottage to find Tade’s mom waiting for them.
“Thank God you’re all right,” she said to her son, not addressing Dorsey at all.
Dorsey had a feeling Tade hadn’t told her where he was going. She’d probably lose a star over this. Well, it didn’t matter anymore.
“I’m fine, Mom. See you next time,” Tade said, giving Dorsey a high-five.
“Next time, kiddo,” she said, keeping her sunglasses on so he wouldn’t see the tears.
Dorsey jogged to Jack’s cottage and burst through the door.
“Where have you been?” he asked. Jack’s eyes flashed. His jaw was clenched and his hands were on his hips.
“Tade wanted to show me the cemetery at Bloody Point,” she said, speaking slowly, gently. “We took longer than I expected, but there’s still time to see the sunset.”
“Nobody knew where you were, you didn’t call me, or leave a note at the Kids Cottage. You just vanished,” he said.
“Well, he came to my cottage and we left from there. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think –”
“You’re an adult, Dorsey, you better start thinking. You can’t tell your boss you’re breaking the rules and you can’t go running off with Tade without telling anyone when we have someone, probably our boss, trying to get us fired, or worse,” he said. “I think you’re spending too much time with Tade, with make believe. It’s time you grew up.”
“Don’t you dare say anything about Tade,” Dorsey said, glaring back at Jack. “Are you finished?”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” Jack said.
Dorsey turned and walked out the cottage door into the now dark night.
Dorsey packed quickly, throwing all of her belongings into the two beat-up suitcases she had arrived with. She’d tell the bus driver to stop by her cottage in the morning on the way to the ferry. She closed and locked her cottage and jogged to the inn. She needed a place to sleep, away from Jack and she figured she could sweet talk the lonely front desk clerk, Sam, into giving her a room.
Dorsey had finally realized she was counting on Jack to save her from her past, just as she had relied on Chad before him. What she needed to learn was how to save herself. That would start now, she told herself.
By the time she reached the inn, she felt like a chill had penetrated her bones even though it was another warm, damp evening and the rain hadn’t started to fall yet. The air was thick with moisture. She ached all over, both from what she couldn’t explain to Jack and from the profound helplessness that flooded her soul. She’d regain control instead of being controlled by unknown bogeymen hiding in the bushes, first in Ohio and now here, on Indigo Island. She had to, or she’d lose herself.
When she reached the front desk in the othe
rwise empty and quiet lobby, Sam, the night clerk, nodded in her direction.
“Evening, Dorsey. May I help you?” he asked. He had kind blue eyes with droopy eyelids, perfect for a night clerk. He was tall and lanky, the kind of body that had lots of angles and implicit awkwardness. “You’re all wet. From the fog?”
“Uh-huh, I guess,” she mumbled, just noticing her clothing clinging to her like a slick piece of cold spaghetti. She shivered.
“You need a change of clothes.”
“I’m fine, really.”
Sam emerged from behind the counter with a nubby blue wool blanket. “I keep this back here for just this sort of emergency,” he said, draping the rough throw around Dorsey’s shoulders. “Follow me.”
Doing as she was told, she followed Sam through a door and ended up behind the bar of the now-closed members’ pub. The dark wood walls and floors were comforting, like a cozy cave where nobody could find her. She climbed into the worn leather barstool seat and felt better already. “I have something that will fix you right up.”
Sam pulled a snifter off the hanging glass rack, slid a bottle of brandy off the mirrored shelf of the bar, and poured. He walked to the coffeemaker glowing in the corner of the dark bar, pulled the hot water valve, and filled a teacup with hot water. After adding a tea bag, he placed the steaming cup on the low counter of the backside of the bar, next to Dorsey.
“I’d recommend mixing them together,” he said.
She did as she was told, and soon felt the grip of cold and grief release just a little bit. She also saw an image, a memory float by in her mind, of sitting in Barbara’s house.
“I need to get back over to the front desk,” Sam said, after they had sat for a while in comfortable silence. He smelled faintly of peppermint, and Dorsey liked his company.
“I’ll come with you, if it’s OK,” Dorsey said, standing, this time without shaking legs. “Oh, and I need a reservation for the first ferry to Hilton Head in the morning.”
“Sure,” Sam said. “You’re not leaving for good are you? That’s what the last Kids Club gal did. Lila was her name. A real beauty. Never came back.”
“I heard about that,” she said, wondering again about Jack’s relationship with Lila, and about Steve’s. “Why did she leave?”
“Um, I don’t really know. She was freaked out, though. Spent the whole night with me and then left on the ferry. Nice girl. Kinda looks like you, but she had brown hair.”
Dorsey followed Sam back behind the front desk, wondering if there were any other similarities between her and Lila. It didn’t matter anymore, she reminded herself. She was going to be gone in the morning. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she brushed them away before he could see them. When Sam excused himself to go gather the ferry departures and checkouts and arrivals for the next day, she slid over to his spot behind the computer. She Googled Lila, but realized she didn’t know her last name. Let it go, she told herself.
“Sorry it took me so long,” Sam said from behind her, making Dorsey jump. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Oh, no, it’s not you, you’ve been great. I hope you don’t mind, I used the computer,” she said, trying to stop her arm from shaking.
“No, course not. I use it all the time to creep on old girlfriends on Facebook. Guess ’cause I don’t have anybody to keep up with in real life.” Sam blushed. “I mean, you know, my family and friends and stuff are all here, I mean over on Hilton Head and all. That’s what I meant.”
“Oh, I knew what you meant,” Dorsey said reassuringly, understanding the justifications of the lonely all too well. She’d been just like him, until she’d met Jack. She realized, sadly, she’d be just like Sam again now. “Plus, with this kind of job, you work when everybody else is asleep. That’s got to be hard.”
“Well, there’s actually a lot of stuff that goes on at night. More people awake than you’d think, really,” Sam said, settling into the chair next to her. “Plus, it’s quiet and you can think. I like it, this time of night.”
“What do you mean other people are around? I haven’t seen anybody,” she said.
“Maybe you won’t, but believe me, they’re there,” Sam said, nodding to himself with assurance. “See look, they’ve been doin’ this all week.” Sam pointed to two lights glowing on the master console in front of them. “Room 107 and 285. I think it might be love.”
“But are they married—I mean to other people?”
“Probably were. I’d say she’s seventyish. He’s older. They’re cute, really. Now, in another twenty minutes, Mr. McCurdy will appear, looking for booze. I’ll have to tell him the bar’s closed. He’ll slip me a twenty, and voilà, the bar will magically open. Just like it did for you,” Sam said.
Dorsey realized Sam was really lonely, eager to share his trade secrets with a fellow outcast. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open, even as she listened to his stories. She needed a room, if only to get a few hours of sleep before the ferry.
“So, say, do you have an extra room I could crash in? I need to get some rest before the early boat,” she said.
“Sure, let me check the system,” Sam said shrugging. He propped his feet, crossed at the ankles, up on the front desk.
Dorsey envisioned Paula fainting at the sight of Sam’s big, white, sweaty-boy feet on her front counter, dangerously close to the apples, and it made her smile.
“Oh hi, Mr. McCurdy. Bar’s closed,” Sam said, snapping to attention, preparing to pocket his twenty-dollar tip. The old man continued on to the bar. “Be right there. Hey, all those things I said—well, those were all our secrets, right?” Sam asked, holding onto the room key as if it were symbolic of their pact.
“Secret. Sure,” she agreed. Dorsey walked down the first-floor corridor to the very end, as Sam had instructed. She turned the key and opened the door to a magnificent ocean-front walk-out suite. It was beautiful, and excessive, and just added to the confusion of the evening. She found the huge bathroom, took a long hot shower, and finished by wrapping up in a plush white robe. She fell asleep on top of the covers of the bed, exhausted and broken-hearted.
Chapter 20
Jack
Jack couldn’t find Dorsey. She wasn’t at her cottage, and she hadn’t come to his place. He’d been waiting for hours to apologize, jogging back and forth between their cottages. He’d been so pig-headed, yelling at her for doing her job and babysitting Tade. How could he not support her? And as for Steve, he was an expert at tricking people. She hadn’t meant to tell him the truth about their relationship, of course she hadn’t. She’d been through so much, with her father and then the body washed up. Of course, she’d freaked out.
But where was she now? Jack looked at his watch. Two a.m. He was back at his own cottage, pacing the living room. And then he had an idea. He’d call an old friend, Lila. Lila was a gorgeous brunette who had worked at the Kids Cottage the summer before and they’d become friends, well, friends with benefits, truth be told. She’d left Indigo suddenly after a run in with Steve.
She’d never even told Jack goodbye.
But he still had her number.
After catching up for a moment and apologizing for the late call, Jack said, “Lila, what happened with you and Steve?”
The woman was silent on the other end of the line, but Jack could hear her breathing.
“I’m not really comfortable talking about it,” Lila said. “But, Jack, he’s awful. He kept asking me out, sometimes in front of the kids. One night, I was locking up the club, it was late, after a midnight movie night, and he appeared, out of nowhere. He grabbed my wrist and started pulling me behind him. I screamed and luckily, a couple walking on the beach heard me and ran over. Steve sweet-talked them, told them I’d just been spooked. They walked me to the inn.”
“Lila, my God,” Jack said, his heart racing. “Why didn’t you tell me?” What had he done by not listening to Dorsey? They should have left the island a week ago.
“It was the scariest m
oment of my life. I thought he was going to rape me,” Lila said. Jack heard her take a deep breath, and he knew she was crying.
“I’m so sorry, Lila. I had no idea,” he said.
“I didn’t tell anyone, just my mom and dad. I called them from the inn and they arranged a flight home from Hilton Head the next day. Sam at the front desk gave me a room to sleep in, but I was too scared. I just sat with him, overnight, until the first ferry departed that morning.”
After they hung up, Jack called Sheriff Smith. He reported Dorsey’s beating, his beating and Lila’s incident.
“You need to believe me. Steve is responsible for all of this,” Jack said. His heart was pumping.
He heard the man sigh into the telephone. “Son, I only have three more days until retirement.”
Jack ran to the inn. Sam sat alone at the front desk, feet propped up, looking bored but quite awake.
“This night is ridiculous. What are you doing here, Jack?” Sam asked.
“Dorsey’s here, right? Tell me her room number,” Jack said. He knew he was being terse, but he needed to find her.
“She’s here, but what if she doesn’t want to see you? She’s leaving on the first ferry in the morning. Somebody has upset her, she’s running. I’m not leading him to her,” Sam said.
Jack blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Look man, I’m in love with Dorsey. I’d never hurt her. Steve on the other hand, would, has. Have you seen him around tonight?”
“Ya, he was here, twenty minutes ago.”
“Did he ask for Dorsey’s room.”
“Ya.”
“You didn’t. Oh my God.”
“It’s room 120, at the end of the hall. Follow me,” Sam said, as he leapt from behind the desk and the two men ran through the lobby and down the hall.