Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

**

  From that moment on, we were inseparable. He taught me to swim that summer, to ride waves the next. Over time we began taking his canoe out into the sound, where the calm water led to patches of tall weeds and hidden islands, undiscovered until found by us. And on rare rainy days the yard would flood, and we’d canoe right there. Sometimes the beach road flooded badly enough that we could ride the torrent of running water all the way into town, and my grandpa would somehow know we were there and drive us and the canoe back home without a word of reproach.

  We were shockingly unsupervised during those summers, home only for meals, and sometimes not even then. At night we all played together – about 15 of us from Charlotte, including Brian, Nate’s best friend after me, and a handful of local kids. All the distinctions that would later divide us — age and gender and class – were not yet a factor, I suppose because with limited playmates no one could be overly choosy. And even then, whether it was baseball or ghost-in-the-graveyard, Nate and I were a team.

  One summer we took an island as our own, calling it Sullivan-Pierce Island after our last names — his name got to go first as he’d done most of the rowing. We built a fort there that would last years into the future. For a brief time the fort was our obsession, and as soon as we woke we were off in the canoe, with lunch Mary had packed and small trinkets from home. We never brought anyone to our fort, or even told anyone, as if by mutual agreement we knew something special would be lost if we did.

  One afternoon, on the way home, I asked him why he didn’t have a father.

  He was neither offended by nor interested in the question. “He left. He was one of you.”

  Even then, at age 8, I knew what he meant. Not a townie. His dad was one of the summer families. “In Old Cove?” There were lots of summer families, but only 15 mansions along mile-long Old Cove Road, numbered simply. The houses were famous, though I didn’t know it at the time. People hours inland knew them by family name, but we just knew them by number. I lived in 11.

  “He lived in 3.”

  “Ethan lives in 3,” I told him. I was often sent down to Ethan’s to collect my brother for dinner.

  He nodded. “He’s my cousin.”

  My jaw dropped. It had never occurred to me that Nate might be related to one of us. It made him seem exotic, like a foundling prince.

  “So why don’t you live in 3?” I asked. I was a little scared to suggest it, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him yet and might change things. Nate had always lived in our carriage house. I wouldn’t want him to leave.

  “They don’t want me there,” he said, kicking at the smooth glass of the water a little angrily.

  I wanted to comfort him. “3 is a stupid house anyway.”

  **

  I never looked at Ethan’s house quite the same again. It took on the trappings of fairy tales I’d read. Unfair as it was, I saw Mrs. Mayhew as the evil queen, Mr. Mayhew as the gullible king, Ethan the usurper to the throne. It was wildly unfair, actually. Nate’s dad had skipped town long before Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew took over the house. And Ethan was always nice to me. Nicer, in fact, than any of Jordan’s other friends. I kind of wished he’d be mean just so it wouldn’t tamper with my story.

  “Go down to Graham’s and look for your brother,” my grandmother told me, pointing imperiously at the front door. “And if he’s not there, look at Ethan’s.” With anxious excitement, I went to Ethan’s first.

  His mom answered, looking very pregnant and tired. Her pregnancy was another thorn in my side. She didn’t much look like an evil queen, all sweaty and bedraggled, walking toward me with lurching steps and swollen feet.

  “Honey, you’ve got to go up there and get him yourself,” his mother said, sinking in a chair beside the door. “If I walk those stairs one more time this baby’s just gonna fall out of my stomach.” I hurried away, a little horrified by the image she’d conjured. I renewed my vow to never have children.

  I went upstairs, looking at all the rooms in wonder. Thinking how unfair it was that Nate didn’t live there. And how selfishly glad I was that it had worked out the way it had.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Dude,” groans Jackie when she saunters out of bed at noon the next day, wearing only underpants and the shirt she wore out last night. “Your brother’s friend is so hot.”

  I grin. “He’s okay.”

  “Shut up!” she laughs. “You totally want to bang him and you know it!”

  I shrug. “Maybe.” The truth is that I totally don’t want that, not yet, but Jackie doesn’t understand that gray area between mild interest and desperate arousal. It’s all or nothing with her. And it’s usually “all”.

  “So, what’s the deal? Was it a date? It looked like a date,” she says, grabbing a two-liter bottle of diet soda out of the fridge and drinking straight from it.

  “Jackie, that’s so gross,” I scold, watching her chug.

  She shrugs. “What do you care? You don’t drink diet, you skinny bitch. So date or not a date?”

  I smile. “He kissed me, so I guess it was.”

  “Yay!” she says, doing a little happy dance beside the fridge. “Are you going to see him again?”

  “He’s picking me up after Tricia’s party tonight.”

  “You are totally going to sleep with him,” she insists.

  I laugh. “Jackie, how long have you known me? Have you ever known me to sleep with a guy on the second date?”

  “I would,” she argues.

  “Yes, Jackie, I’m well aware of that,” I grin.

  For my second date with Ethan, at Jackie’s insistence, I dress slightly less conservatively than I did the night before, but it’s still pretty conservative. I wear a striped mini-dress with a flouncy little skirt and spaghetti straps, covered by a cardigan. It’s more 1960s schoolgirl than stripper, which is the way I like it. I am enjoying the party, not least of all because of a pleasant sense of anticipation, the knowledge that something is going to happen and it’s potentially good.

  I have less than three months left with these people, my closest friends for the past four years. In many ways, they feel more like my family than the people who wait for me to return to Charlotte at the end of May. And it’s this family I’ll miss when I go to law school in the fall, and not the one that raised me.

  As if she’s read my mind, Tricia comes over and throws a heavy arm around my shoulders, already drunk enough that odds are she will not retain a single memory of this party.

  “You can’t leave!” she cries. “I’m taking you back to Greenville with me!”

  I giggle and lean my head against her arm affectionately. “I’ll miss you too. You can always come visit.”

  “Seriously, Maura? Exactly how many planes would it take to get to BFE Michigan?”

  “It’s like an hour from Detroit! You make it sound like I’m going to school in the Alaskan wilderness!”

  “I don’t understand why you have to go so far!” she whines. “Go to Duke or UVA! They’ve got great law schools.” I stiffen at the suggestion, though she’s far too inebriated to notice. There are literally a thousand words in the English language that destroy me. Innocent words, common words – ocean, canoe, fort, UVA, beach, baseball, virginity. If I could remove them all from the dictionary I would. I wonder how long it will take before every single reminder of him doesn’t blow through me like some kind of natural disaster, taking away every vestige of happiness I was feeling the second before?

  “Nope, sorry, it’s kind of a done deal,” I tell her, desperately trying to claw back the happiness that floated away so easily. “Since when are you going back to Greenville? I thought you hated Greenville.”

  “I do hate Greenville,” she says, deadpan. “But the odds of me finding a job in Charlotte or Richmond between now and graduation are pretty slim, and my parents say they’re done paying for my shit. We don’t all have trust funds there, princess.”

  “Fuck off,” I laugh. There are people who are allowed to give me shi
t about it, and people who aren’t. Tricia doesn’t dislike me for it. That’s why she’s allowed.

  “Oh, boy,” she says, looking over my shoulder. There’s a mixture of trepidation and glee in her voice that can only mean one thing. “Look who’s headed your way.”

  “Hey Maura,” Tyler says, coming up from behind me, already sounding morose. I grit my teeth and Tricia moves away from us as if we’re on fire.

  “Hi Tyler.” I try to sound friendly and upbeat as I turn around, but my voice is strained. I really don’t want to have this talk with him. Again.

  He’s standing so close that I have to crane my neck up to see his face. I’m 5’9”, and there aren’t a lot of guys tall enough to demand that of me, but he’s one of them.

  “You look good.”

  “Thanks,” I say, looking around a little desperately and wishing one of my friends would rescue me.

  “I miss you,” he says, running his hand over my bare arm. God, when I first met him, that brush over my arm would have brought goose bumps, but now it just makes me wish I hadn’t removed my cardigan. He’s attractive, but there was something more about him, initially. Something that made me hope he’d be the one who was different. But he wasn’t, and now the brush of his hand is about as appealing as a mosquito landing there.

  “Tyler,” I sigh. I don’t want to repeat what I’ve said before. We barely dated for a month, and he’s spent twice as long harassing me about it. I’m continually surprised that, with as many girls as he has salivating over him, he’s still mourning me.

  “I just don’t understand,” he says, beginning to show his frustration.

  “I’m leaving soon,” I say. “You’re staying here, and I’ll be at Michigan in the fall, so it would have to end anyway. And I really have to spend every free moment between now and then getting my senior project done.” This is entirely true, and entirely unrelated to why I don’t want to be with Tyler. I chose him for the wrong reasons. I chose him because his height and his eyes reminded me of someone else. I feel bad about it, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.

  “I could visit, Maura,” he says earnestly, gripping my elbow, and I feel slightly ill. “I could visit all the time. There’s no reason it can’t work.” I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt any of them, and yet I can’t seem to stop doing it. I can’t seem to stop deluding myself with the hope that gray eyes or the flash of an up-to-no-good smile can bring back what is gone.

  I shake my head, disengaging myself. “Tyler, I’m so sorry. I don’t want to be serious with anyone. I’m still young. I haven’t even started law school yet. I’ve got a long haul ahead of me and I just need to focus on that right now.”

  It’s at that exact moment that I see Ethan’s head above the crowd, moving toward us. His timing could not be worse. A lie is necessary. “My brother is here,” I say, nodding at Ethan. “I’ve got to go.”

  I make a beeline for Ethan and pull him back toward the street without saying goodbye to any of my friends.

  “Are you that ashamed of me?” he grins. Ethan has always been good-looking. He doesn’t believe for a minute that I’m ashamed.

  “No,” I sigh. “That was my ex-boyfriend. I was just giving him the whole talk about why we broke up and how I don’t want to date when you walked in. I told him you were my brother.”

  “Really?” he asks, pulling me into him. “Would your brother do this?” He leans over and kisses me slowly. I push back, scared that Tyler will see.

  “Don’t,” I whisper. “Please. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  “Okay,” he laughs. “Then let’s go someplace where I can do that without hurting his feelings.”

  We go to a bar down the street, and get a drink. He doesn’t kiss me again until a slow dance comes on. I like him, I like kissing him, but our common background hangs over my head like a warning. There is something so pre-ordained about this – he’s my brother’s best friend, our parents are friends. Shoot, our grandparents were friends. This could never unfold naturally. We will either wind up married or the whole thing will go down in flames, an awkward memory I’ll relive again and again until I’m old and withered.

  We go back to my apartment. We sit on the couch and he picks up my legs and lays them over his lap.

  “You know, I always had a crush on you,” he says.

  I laugh. “No you didn’t. You’re four years older than me. I was still playing with Barbies when you started driving.”

  “God you looked hot playing with those Barbies,” he jokes.

  “Ewww,” I laugh. “I think I want you to stay away from my niece from now on.”

  He grins. “We gave Jordan shit about you for years, calling dibs, that kind of thing. But then you turned 16, and all of us started to mean it, and he flipped out. He said no one could lay a finger on you until you graduated college.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He nods. “I’m a few months early, but I had to get a jump on Graham.”

  “I’m failing to understand why you’d listen to my brother at all.”

  He smiles. “First of all, because he’s my best friend. More importantly, because he was a defensive lineman in college. I wanted to date you without risking hospitalization.”

  I grin. “My brother would never beat you up.”

  He shrugs, and the playfulness leaves his voice. “You were always with Nate anyway.” He watches me carefully, assessing my reaction. He wants to know if I’m over it.

  I attempt to look detached. “That was a long time ago.”

  “You guys were so serious, though, for all those years,” he says slowly. “What happened?”

  I feel it, like always. The sick thud in my stomach, the sensation of my lungs caving in, the scraping in my throat that warns of tears. I can’t do this now. “He wasn’t who I thought he was,” I say simply, flatly, unwilling to convey any emotion with the statement.

  He appears relieved. “I could have told you that,” he smiles, leaning over to kiss me then, pulling his own legs on the couch so we are almost laying side by side. He hovers over me, not rushing, kissing me languidly. He runs his mouth over my neck, over my bare shoulders, my collarbone. He pulls the straps of my dress down and reaches inside to cup my breast. I let him, and I enjoy it. I’m not in the throes of ecstasy, but then again, I never am. Not anymore, anyway.

  He runs his hand along my calf, and glides to the center, trying to part my thighs.

  “Ethan,” I warn.

  He smiles ruefully. “Too much?”

  “I didn’t even know yesterday was a date until you kissed me. Just give me a little time.”

  He laughs. “What do you mean? Why did you think I called you if it wasn’t a date?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe it was one of those brotherly ‘check on little Maura and make sure she’s being fed’ kind of things.”

  “Maura,” he sighs. “I drove up here to see you. Just to see you.”

  I look at him in astonishment. “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I wasn’t lying before. Your brother said not until you graduated. And I wanted to make sure Graham didn’t get to you first. Am I freaking you out?”

  “No,” I say, sounding a little freaked out. “I’m just surprised.”

  He smiles. “You’ll get over it.”

  I laugh. “I’m even more surprised that you thought you had to worry about Graham.”

  He grins, and lowers me back down on the couch again. And it’s okay. It’s pleasant. But he’s not Nate.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jordan and Nate had never really gotten along. I’d seen anger flit across Nate’s face again and again – every time Jordan made fun of me, or cheated at games, or held a kid’s head under water.

  And I’d seen it flit over Jordan’s face even more — every time my grandfather praised Nate, joked with him, mussed his hair.

  My grandfather wasn’t born into money, and I think he saw a lot of himself in Nate
, in the flash of intellect that crossed his face as he listened, in his sweet nature, in the crooked smile that popped up long before anyone else got the joke. Nate didn’t have a father, he didn’t go to private school, he didn’t have a tutor or instructor for every subject and every sport. But in spite of that he thrived – he grew smarter and stronger and better each year. And with every year, Jordan grew more annoyed that it was the housekeeper’s son, not even a relative, who was my grandfather’s favorite.

  It wasn’t until I was nine that their animosity reached a peak. Jordan challenged Nate to a race – the loser would give the winner his bike. Jordan knew what he was doing: without a bike, the loser wouldn’t be able to get to the field we played on at night, and would spend the summer shut out from the rest of us. Not a big deal for my brother, who had multiple bikes and also – two years Nate’s senior – didn’t stand a chance of losing.

  Jordan may have been two years older, but Nate was a born athlete, and somehow, impossibly, he won. And as Jordan endured the ridicule that followed, his dislike of Nate took on a new form. He never gave Nate the bike. Instead, he began making fun of him, calling him a “townie” or “the help.” He did his best to exclude him – if Nate wanted to play, Jordan would say the teams were full, or that no townies were allowed. Soon Jordan’s friends were doing it too, not just to Nate but to all the local kids.

  There were plenty of us who didn’t join in. Brian, in particular, refused to ever play on the Charlotte side if teams were drawn. But the damage was done. There was never a game or an interaction, after that point, that didn’t hold some element of “us” against “them”.

  Nate and I, however, were fine, too close and too much alike to let the dispute taint our friendship, even when my brother was at its core. That I took Nate’s side irritated Jordan even further. He taunted me every time he saw Nate and I together.

  “You know what Mom would do if I told her how much time you spend with him?” Jordan would ask. I didn’t really believe him, but it was the first time I’d ever thought our friendship could be challenged. Little did I know that there were far greater threats to our friendship than Jordan coming down the pike.