by Lisa Duffy
“Missing how?”
“Missing as in he can’t find them. He thinks they got caught out in the storm that came through a while back. They’d have to travel quite a bit to get to you, but keep an eye out. He’s blue and white.”
Like I needed him to tell me Bitty’s buoy colors. Like I wasn’t the one in these waters every day.
“Tell Jess I hope she feels better. You should be home with her,” Boon said. “Manny said you were coughing up a lung this morning.”
“You’re breaking up, Boon.”
“You can hear me fine.”
“Didn’t catch that. Hanging up now.”
“Catch this. You’re an asshole,” I heard him say before I ended the call. The last thing I needed was Boon and his Clara Barton act. Plus, I wanted the line free in case Jess called. I hoped I hadn’t given her whatever I had.
Not that I’d seen her lately to pass on anything to her.
She used to wait around for me after she finished at the shop in the afternoon. I’d motor in and see her lounging on the pier near our skiff, her feet in the water. She’d come on the boat and talk to me, or help me clean up, coiling the lines, or wiping the deck. Then we’d throw her bike in the bed of the truck and head home.
Now she was never around. It was mostly my fault, with my not getting back to the dock until after five or six. But even the days I was in by four, I’d duck in the shop, and Boon would shrug and tell me I just missed her. Then I’d get home, and she was either not there or locked in her room with the door shut.
Thinking about home now reminded me of Hope. I wondered if she was still angry about last night.
I hadn’t meant to sleep through dinner. But when I got home after work yesterday, Hope had been cooking, and she’d taken one look at me and said go lie down before we eat. So I had, and the next thing I knew Hope was shaking me awake, telling me to change out of my work clothes.
I remember the toothpaste against my teeth was ice, the heat from my fever lighting up my face in the bathroom mirror.
I told Hope not to kiss me when I climbed into bed, that I didn’t want her to catch my cold. I didn’t want her to feel how hot I was either. She’d been on me to go to the doctor, even made an appointment two weeks ago that I’d skipped. I didn’t have the energy to argue with her about it. I’d had colds before. They ran their course. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me that.
When I’d climbed into bed, Hope had started talking about Peggy. I couldn’t follow it. I had my back to her, half-asleep, and I heard her say she’d been waiting all day to talk to me about this and I’d slept right through dinner.
Are you awake? she asked, and I mumbled, Mm-hmm.
She kept talking, and then she was shaking me, and I turned my head and said, “Jesus, Hope. What?”
“Why won’t you talk to me about this?” she demanded.
“We need to talk about this right now?” Not that I knew what this was.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Peggy’s husband?”
I craned my neck at her. “Who?”
“Ryland, Jack. Ryland Finn? The guy you picked a fight with me about after our party?”
“I told you I knew him.” I turned over, closed my eyes.
“You told me he was an asshole. That was it.”
“He is an asshole.”
“Well, he told Peggy the same thing about you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? Why? Why would he say that?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like my cooking,” I said into the pillow.
“That’s not funny, Jack. I’m serious.”
I didn’t answer because Ryland Finn was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I hadn’t thought about him since I’d cut his traps more than a month ago.
“Peggy said he told her your traps are in his territory.”
I pushed up on my elbow and looked at her. “Hope. Peggy’s your friend. I get that. Keep me out if it.”
“I know you don’t like her husband. But I’m asking you why he would say that.”
“And I’m saying it has nothing to do with you.”
“What has nothing to do with me?” she said, standing up, her voice getting louder.
I turned over, pulled the covers up to my shoulders.
“Jack. Wake up. Sit up.” She leaned over and shook my shoulder.
“Go to sleep, Hope.”
“I’d like to know what happened between the two of you.”
I stayed quiet. She didn’t want to know what happened. But I couldn’t tell her this. I couldn’t tell her any of it.
“So that’s it?” she asked.
When I didn’t answer, she sighed. I felt her eyes on me. It was a moment before the bed dipped and she got in.
I felt her fingertips on my shoulder. I reached back and grabbed her hand, pulled it across my middle.
“I’m on your side, Jack. Whatever it is. I’ll be on your side.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She leaned her forehead against my shoulder, and I felt her nod.
I was sorry. Sorry about the side of the story she knew nothing about. Sorry about the side of me she knew nothing about. Hope turned off the light, and there was darkness, overtaking me. A thick black oil spreading through my body, heavy and suffocating, making it difficult to breathe. I wondered if I had brought this year to us; if losing her was payback for my mistakes; the universe handing me what I deserved.
They say the sea hates a coward. That it finds out everything you did wrong. That sooner or later, the sea will catch up to you. Demand of you. Make you suffer the truth.
13
Jess
I didn’t tell Alex that I faked being sick to get out of work just so I could go with him.
He’d patched the crack in my sailboat and wanted to take it out for a test sail on the river behind the Salt House, where the current was calm and the riverbank just a short swim in case the repair didn’t hold.
He thought I had the day off from work, and we’d left it that he’d pick me up at my house just before noon, when the tide was almost high.
Mom was supposed to be out of the house first thing with Kat and Grandma for their trip to Boston. My plan was to call in sick after they left. But Mom slept through her alarm. And Grandma took forever on the phone with Roger. Then Mom kept popping her head in my room to see if I changed my mind about going with them. I thought about faking sick right then, but I knew Mom would cancel their plans and stay home if she thought I wasn’t feeling well. I finally left the house to avoid talking about it anymore.
Which is why I had to go to work and then pretend to be sick.
It was a foolproof plan until I got on the phone with my father and acted the way that I did. I hadn’t planned on getting angry with him. But hearing his voice made me furious. I wanted to shout into the phone, See—your ridiculous rules are making me sneak around like a child. But he wouldn’t see it that way. In his eyes, I was a child.
When Dad said he’d motor in to take me home, I thought I’d blown it. But then Boon had walked in, and I’d used the moment to duck out.
And my plan had worked.
I’d raced home on my bike and changed my clothes. I left a note on the table for my father that I’d felt better and had gone to Betsy’s house and would be home after dinner.
Alex had picked me up, and we’d launched the boat from the dock right at high tide, and spent the afternoon taking turns tacking.
Alex was just as good at fixing the boat—the repair held up great—as he was sailing it, and we got her moving a couple of times. We tied up to the mooring in the river and spent the rest of the day lounging on the boat, dipping in the water when it got too hot. We stayed on the boat until the tide started to ebb. My father and the shop a million miles away. This morning a lifetime ago.
Now we were parked in the lot at Breakwater Light, eating clam chowder from to-go cups and watching tourists take selfies atop the rock cliff; the ocean spr
ead out in the background.
The Clam Shack at the base of the lighthouse was famous for its lobster rolls. But I’d suggested it for dinner because it was at the end of a long road up on Elk Point, almost the end of the earth, and one of Alden’s busiest tourist spots because of the view.
I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. And by anyone, I meant my father.
In front of us a handful of picnic tables sat overlooking the water. The sun was still hot, even though it was almost dusk, so we parked in the shade and rolled down the windows. The ocean breeze cooling us off, but forcing us to jam our napkins under our legs so they didn’t fly away.
Alex was sitting next to me, a lobster roll balancing on his leg, and the empty chowder cup on the seat between us. I’d opted for a hot dog, and Alex insisted I was just being polite since he was paying, refusing to accept that lobster wasn’t one of my favorite foods. He hadn’t let it drop since we started eating.
“I just don’t get it,” he repeated again, taking a bite of the lobster roll, pausing while he chewed. He wiped his mouth with his napkin several times before he spoke. “I mean, is it that you think it’s too much work to get it out of the shell, or you just don’t like it?”
“We serve fresh lobster at the shop. Getting it out of the shell is part of my job. It’s messy, but not hard.”
“But you secretly hate it. Of course. A lobsterman’s daughter—animal-rights advocate at heart—is forced into butchering the lowly crustacean and becomes a vegetarian, taking a moral stand against cruelty to animals. That’s it, isn’t it?”
My mouthful went down the wrong way, and I chugged my soda to swallow it. “I’m eating a hot dog,” I pointed out when I could finally talk. “I’m all for animal rights, but there’s a food chain, and I’m okay with that.”
Alex shrugged, apparently out of theories.
“I guess I’d eat it if it was, like, the last thing left on Earth to eat. But I don’t love it. Not like you do,” I offered.
“Not even when it’s like this?” He held up the remainder of the lobster roll. “Buttered and toasted. Open on the top. Perfect amount of lettuce. Not too much mayo.”
I shook my head. “Maybe one a year. Definitely not like you eat it.”
He eyed me suspiciously, as though I’d just told him an elaborate lie. “All right, then,” he said after a minute. “What is your favorite food?”
I shut one eye, thinking. “Cheeseburgers.”
“Drink?”
“Um, Diet Coke. No wait. Lemonade. But only the kind they sell at fairs—fresh squeezed, with lots of sugar, and if you order a large, you get the oversize plastic cup with the lid and the straw. I’m a sucker for a good cup.”
“Dessert?”
“My grandmother’s date nut bread,” I said, and laughed when Alex’s nose wrinkled. “Just kidding. Probably ice cream. Black raspberry. But it might be a tie with crème brûlée. My dad makes a mean one.”
Alex gave me a funny look. “Really? I can’t picture that.”
I shrugged. “He just likes using the torch.”
Alex gazed out the window and nodded, as though this made perfect sense.
“Now you,” I said. “Favorite food. Drink. Dessert.”
He breathed in, looked up. “Lobster. Root Beer. Tapioca pudding,” he said in one breath.
I stared at him. “Ew,” I said finally.
“Ew to which one?”
“All of them. Pudding? Out of all of the desserts in the world, you choose pudding?”
“Have you ever had homemade tapioca pudding?” he asked. “It’s delicious.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever had tapioca pudding, never mind homemade.”
“Well, then you are not qualified to judge. Someday we’ll visit my hometown, and we’ll sit at the counter at the Corner Café, and you will have the homemade tapioca pudding, and you will be a changed woman,” Alex said with satisfaction. He pointed at me and gathered up the empty bowls, napkins, and spoons. He piled them on the disposable tray and got out of the truck. He shoved the door closed with his foot, balancing the tray in his hands.
I watched him walk to the trash barrel on the other side of the parking lot. He’d been joking, of course. But the thought swirled around my head. Us. Together. In his hometown. My elbow was on the door, and I put my chin in my hand, covering my dopey grin in case Alex happened to look back at the truck.
We’d spent the last several weeks having lunch almost every day on the hood of his car in the town parking lot.
We talked about movies. Books. His family. And mine. His friends. And mine. We talked about the future. How he wanted to start a boat-building company. How the smell of a bilge on an old wooden boat, the mixture of cedar and salt water and pine tar was one of the best smells on Earth.
I told him I had my eye on Emerson, my mother’s alma mater, but my home would always be in Maine, where the seasons changed just when you got used to the one you were in. We talked about everything.
Everything that is, but us.
The truck door opened, and Alex slid in next to me. I was turning to face him when I felt something vibrate against my thigh. I shifted my weight forward and reached behind me. Alex’s cell phone was wedged in the crease of the bench seat. I dug it out and held it out to him, the word Amy flashing on the screen in white letters.
“It’s ringing,” I pointed out casually. He took it with a blank look, and silenced the phone, mumbling something about a friend from back home.
“A girlfriend?” I teased, and he blushed, a dark crimson coloring the top of each cheek.
A heat crept up my face in response. I hadn’t been digging for information—he’d already said he’d dated a girl in high school, but they’d gone their separate ways after graduation—but his reaction to my comment made my stomach flip.
The phone was still in his hand, and instead of putting it in the pocket of his board shorts, where he usually kept it, he reached across me and shoved it in the glove compartment. When he snapped the door shut, his wrist brushed against my leg, and I thought I saw him flinch.
There was an awkward silence between us for a moment—a first for us.
When we’d gone to the Salt House weeks ago to see the crack in the boat, I’d been nervous. But after just minutes on the ride over, my nervousness simply vanished. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on. . . . It was all just . . . easy. I couldn’t even remember how we seemed to fall into the habit of having lunch together. It just happened. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Alex fidget with his hat. He was focused on something outside of his window, his face turned away from me. I shifted to see what held his attention, but there was only a row of parked cars.
He turned suddenly, looking down at his watch, and then up at me.
“I should get you home,” he blurted, starting the engine before I answered him. He waited for me to fasten my seat belt, and we reversed out of the spot. “I don’t want you to be late,” he called over the noise of the engine, and I nodded, resisting the urge to point out that it was barely seven o’clock, and I hadn’t said a word about needing to be home.
We were quiet then. I told myself it was because the windows were open and it was loud in the truck. But the tips of my knees almost touched the glove compartment, where Alex’s cell phone was tucked away and out of sight. I wondered if our quick departure had something to do with the call he’d refused to take.
When we pulled up in front of my house, Alex put the truck in park but kept the engine running.
Every inch of me wanted to stay in the truck with him. But my father’s truck was in the driveway, and I was praying he didn’t look out the window so I could avoid making up a story about why Betsy was dropping me off in an old beat-up truck instead of her shiny VW Bug.
I got my things together quickly and said good-bye to Alex, hopping out of the truck and shutting the door behind me, waving as I walked away.
&
nbsp; “Hey, Jess,” Alex called out through the open window. “Wait a second.”
I hurried back and leaned in through the window, anxious to have him pull away from the curb before the noise from the truck engine made it up to the house.
“I’d feel better if we took her out for a sail one more time,” he said. “There was some moisture on the bottom when I was putting her away. It’s going to bother me until I know for sure it’s safe. Will you come out with me again?”
I nodded, glancing at the house as I backed away from the truck, gesturing that I’d call him. He watched me, leaning forward as I backed away, a puzzled look on his face at my hasty exit. I jogged up the steps and went in the foyer and quickly switched off the outside light. I let out my breath when I looked out and saw his truck finally pull away from the curb.
The house was quiet, and I didn’t see my father until I turned on the light in the living room. He was asleep on the couch, his coat and work boots still on. Like he’d literally walked off the boat and collapsed on the couch.
“Dad?” I said, shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and sat up. It always amazed me, his ability to go from asleep to awake in one second.
“I was waiting for you,” he said.
He coughed then. It came out a bark. There was a crease on the side of his face from where it had been pressed against the arm of the couch. “How did you get home?”
I frowned at him. “I got a ride. Your cough sounds bad.”
“I’m glad you feel better,” he said, ignoring me. “I was worried about you. You didn’t sound like yourself on the phone this morning.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Was your day okay? You look tired.” I didn’t know why I said this. My father always looked tired lately. His face was naturally angled, but now in the dim light, it looked gaunt.
“Whatever you had, Manny got too. He went home sick, so after I was done hauling, I had to work the weigh station.”
“What about Boon? Couldn’t he do it?”
“Boon was covering the shop. Turns out Doris was mad that we fired her. She wouldn’t come in.” He gave a weak smile.
I knew how much work the weigh station was—and Manny was younger than my father. Whenever Boon had to cover for Manny, he complained about being sore for weeks.