Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I wonder what they did with Mary’s belongings, and who took over the carriage house. Did he have to come here and box up his mother’s stuff? As much as I hate him, there’s an odd ache, a fissure in my chest, as I imagine him doing it. I can hate him but still love who he once was, the little boy who waited outside my window. I’m sad for that version of Nate.

  My mother stays with us for only one night, and for the first time I begin to see why it’s always been that way. Dinner, only the three of us, is so tense it’s painful. The only thing my mother and grandmother seem to agree on is that Ethan is wonderful and that me ending up with him is the inevitable conclusion to this story. There is no other topic – not politics, not family friends, not even shopping, that they don’t find a reason to snipe at each other over.

  At some impasse in their bickering, I ask the question that’s been lodged in my throat since we arrived. “Is Stacy in the carriage house now?”

  My grandmother looks surprised and then, quickly, guarded. “Well, no,” she says mildly. I look at her expectantly, and she offers no further explanation.

  “So what did you do with it?” I ask. I’ve come this far, so I may as well press my point. She and my mother exchange a look.

  “Her son lives there now,” she replies flatly, with distaste.

  “Stacy’s son?” I stammer, knowing even as I say it that Stacy can’t possibly have a son old enough to live on his own.

  “No,” says my grandmother with a weary sigh, focusing intently on her plate with lips pursed. “Nate.”

  I press my feet to the floor as if I can root myself there to contain the fountain of excitement, of panic, that flows through me. I want him to be here and I so don’t want him to be here that every nerve in my body is firing, screaming, celebrating, mourning. I hate my reaction, and yet I can’t stop myself.

  “Oh,” I say quietly, biting down on every thought exploding in my head.

  It’s been five years. The last time I saw him I was a girl. I was young and naïve and inexperienced. Now I’m a grown woman with a boyfriend and a degree and an apartment in my name waiting in Ann Arbor, and this – whatever it is – this joy, this panic, this need – it should have changed, it should be gone. I’ve grown, but this thing in me is still 17. It hasn’t aged a day.

  CHAPTER 17

  I spend the next two days going to the beach and pretending to read while I think about Nate. And then I go home and I wait and I listen for him, even as I tell myself I’m not. I justify my stalking by saying I just need closure, but I know it’s more than that. The sound of his truck rumbling over the gravel goes off like a gunshot in my head, but the huge pines my grandmother has installed screen the carriage house now so I can no longer see him walk in or out from my window. It wears me down a little more each day, until I would give anything to stop thinking about him. If only there were something to give.

  I’m relieved that Ethan is coming down for the weekend. I need the distraction.

  He calls from his car on Friday. “Where’s my girl?” he shouts into the phone.

  I smile. “Sitting on the beach. Where else?”

  “Oh God. Tell me you’re wearing that little black bikini you wore in high school.”

  “Actually, I’m wearing a red bikini that’s even tinier.”

  “Shit. Stay there.”

  Five minutes later, he walks on the beach, still dressed in his suit. His shadow falls over me and I burst out laughing. “Why didn’t you change?” I ask.

  “I haven’t even gotten to the house yet. I was crossing the bridge when you lured me here with talk of a red bikini.”

  “You could have waited. The bikini doesn’t turn into a parka at five.”

  “You might have been able to wait, but I couldn’t,” he says, offering a hand to pull me up. “The bikini is fantastic. Too fantastic. Let’s go take it off.”

  “And where exactly do you plan to do that?” I smile. “I’m pretty sure public nudity is still frowned upon here.”

  “I think I need a really thorough tour of your room. One part of it specifically.”

  “My grandma will love that,” I say dryly. “Maybe she can bring up a plate of cookies for us once we’re done.”

  He pulls me in for a particularly lingering, public kiss, his fingers “accidentally” grazing my breast as I push away. “I can’t go through a whole summer of this,” he says. “I will literally combust if I have to spend an entire summer at second base with you dressed like that.”

  “I think second base is optimistic,” I giggle.

  “I don’t care if grandma is sitting a foot away and we’re in church, I’m at least hitting second base,” he groans.

  He walks me back to the house, refusing to let me carry my towel and backpack though it gets sand all over his suit.

  I turn on the faucet to rinse off and he grabs the hose from me. “What are you doing?” I ask warily.

  “Just being a gentleman, helping you hose off,” he says, all too innocently. He gently sprays my feet. “See?”

  But then the hose rises. “Your ankles are sandy, too,” he says.

  “Ethan,” I warn.

  “And your calves.” The hose goes higher, and his smile grows devious.

  “Enough.”

  “And your thighs.”

  “Okay, seriously, if my grandma’s watching you are never going to be welcome here again.”

  “Your grandma loves me. Turn around.”

  It seems safer, so I turn.

  “God you’ve got a great ass, Maura.”

  Before I can even yell at him, I hear it. The low thump of a car pulling into the driveway behind the house. I turn, too quickly, and Ethan hits my stomach with the water. I can’t even feel it, because I’m looking at Nate Sullivan for the first time in five years.

  He has been the principal figure in every single fantasy I’ve had for my entire life, no matter how often I’ve tried to replace his face with someone else’s. I thought when I saw him in person he’d finally lose some of that searing perfection he held in my mind. But he doesn’t. He is everything I remember, and more, and I stand stunned and frozen by it as our eyes meet.

  He looks the same in some ways, radically different in others. He has those same cloudy gray eyes, that same smudge of dark lashes, that same mouth – his upper lip just full enough that it draws your eye.

  And yet he’s so different. The last time I saw him, he was a lanky 19-year-old, with a sweet smile that crept over his face without hesitation, with adoring eyes that looked into mine like he knew things about us that no one else knew. Which I guess he did.

  He’s an adult now, broader, his body a solid wall of muscle, but the most important difference is difficult to pinpoint. The sweetness of his eyes, his smile – it’s gone, replaced with something that falls between anger and calculation. What was once mischievous is now deadly serious, perhaps even a little dangerous. I know what kind of person he is, and all the things I loved about him are gone, so I can’t account for the fact that I feel my chest dropping into my stomach at the sight of him, that my legs are rubbery. That the things I always felt for him haven’t just lingered – they’ve doubled down. Seeing him should fill me with rage, but instead it leaves me weak with thirst. He says nothing to either of us. Ethan never even looks over at him. And then he turns and walks away.

  He is not the person I remember at all, so why am I leaning against the wall for support, letting Ethan spray my breasts without murmuring the slightest objection?

  **

  I’ve seen everyone at home for holidays, but they still jump up from the table and encircle me like I’m a returning war hero when we arrive at the bar.

  It’s funny how different everyone looks, without really having changed at all. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but when I left they were kids and now they are not. Perhaps it’s just that we’re all legal, sitting in an outdoor bar called Oak and drinking gin and tonics instead of warm, pilfered six-packs beneath the pier.r />
  “So you’ve stolen Ethan,” says Kendall, “which means we get Jordan and Graham.”

  “Uh, I was hardly going to fight you for Jordan,” I laugh. “But given that he’s married and has a kid, his wife might.”

  “All right, Heather,” says Kendall. “I’ll arm wrestle you for Graham.”

  For the first time, it feels good to be back. After a few drinks, Nate merely hovers somewhere in the back of my mind, in a place I can ignore. I rest my head against Ethan’s arm, and feel, for a moment, that maybe I could keep doing this. It’s nice being with Ethan. Maybe, once I’m done with school, this could work.

  Everyone is talking about the lawsuit, and everyone but me fully supports the idea.

  “How can you?” I ask, looking particularly at Kendall and Teddy, who are among the people that will have to drive a mile instead of walking a block. “The beach is public property!”

  Kendall shrugs. “I can still use your walkway.”

  “But think about what that will do to property values! All those houses that are a block from the beach become, for all practical purposes, a mile away.”

  “It’s not like my parents plan to sell it anyway, so who cares?” she argues.

  I’m stunned by her ambivalence, and by the degree of self-interest that surrounds me. Not a single person here cares to consider how this will impact anyone but them.

  “Let it go, Maura,” booms Graham. “There’s no way they can win.”

  “They could bring a lawsuit against Old Cove,” I suggest.

  Graham snorts. “Sure, until they run out of money.” His point being that they can only sue as long as they can afford to sue, and the families of Old Cove can afford it for a hell of a lot longer than anyone else.

  Ethan tickles me and leans down to kiss my ear. “What a little do-gooder you are, Maura. Your grandpa would be proud.” I let the discussion go, wondering vaguely what my grandfather would think of me with Ethan. I’m kind of glad I’ll never know.

  **

  As soon as we leave Ethan starts groping me.

  “Ethan,” I laugh, disengaging myself. “I think this is going to be a very hard summer for you.”

  “Literally,” he jokes, pressing his crotch briefly against my thigh. “Come on. We’ll just walk on the beach.”

  “I’m not having sex with you out there,” I warn.

  “What a dirty mind you have. I just want to walk,” he laughs.

  The second we’re on the beach he’s got his hand up my dress, his tongue in my mouth. I’ve been sleeping with him for nearly two months, but my unwillingness to do this with him here, now, is so overwhelming I can barely put words to it.

  “This isn’t like any walking I’ve done before,” I complain, pushing him away.

  “Maura, you’re killing me,” he says, reaching for me again.

  “Please, Ethan,” I beg, holding him off.

  He throws his hands up. “Okay, okay! If this is just a ploy to get a ring on your finger by the end of summer it’s working,” he laughs.

  The joke falls with a sick thud in my stomach. There is so much implied there, but mostly I don’t laugh because I don’t think he was joking.

  He walks me to the back door. I stand on the steps where I once kissed Nate, on a night just like this. Ethan cups my jaw with his hand. “My parents want you to come for dinner tomorrow,” he says.

  My heart beats rapidly, and it’s not from excitement. “I’m going to Heather’s,” I lie, so quickly and so poorly that I have to assume he knows, but he shows no sign of it.

  He pouts. “I drove all the way down here to see you and you’re ditching me for Heather?”

  “I’ll see you at the beach tomorrow,” I remind him.

  “I guess I’ll have to settle for that,” he says unhappily.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. I feel bad that I am freaked out by this. Ethan Mayhew is the guy that every girl I know wants, the guy that my whole family wants me to marry, but here I am reluctant to go meet his parents, suddenly so unnerved by physical contact that I can barely function.

  “I’ll forgive you,” he murmurs, tugging at my waist and bringing his mouth next to mine, “If you promise to make it up to me.”

  I am spared making a promise that I’m not sure I can keep by Nate, who seems to materialize out of thin air. “Hey Ethan,” he says, as if they’ve just run into each other at the diner. As if he and Ethan are friends and not two people who’ve barely exchanged a word in over a decade. “Maura.” He says my name with decidedly less civility.

  Ethan steps back in surprise, releasing my waist with clear reluctance. “Hey Nate,” he says. He is being perfectly polite, but I hear the strain in his voice. I wonder which element of this is troubling him – that Nate is his cousin? That Nate is my ex? “How’s it going?”

  This should be Nate’s cue to go, to give us a meaningful look that tells us he knows he’s interrupted something. Nate has never been clueless, but he makes no move to leave. “Going well,” he answers, never looking at me. “Are you down for the summer?” He’s speaking loudly. He knows not to do this. He knows that at any minute the kitchen light will flip on and my grandmother will be standing there with her arms crossed, sour and disapproving.

  “No,” says Ethan. “Just here for the weekend.” He shoots a glance at me, to make sure Nate knows why he’s here.

  Nate apparently does not see or care. He continues to ignore me. “So who else is in town?” he asks, his voice still loud in the quiet evening.

  I don’t hear Ethan groan, but I feel it, as if it’s a weight that ties his feet to the ground. A second floor light goes on inside, like the sound of thunder in the distance. I watch as Nate’s eyes flicker to the light, and then to me. He barely conceals his smirk.

  He did it on purpose.

  It wasn’t enough that he broke my heart in the worst way possible. He’s going to find little ways to keep hurting me. And none of those little ways are nearly as painful as the fact that he wants to hurt me at all.

  “I’d better go,” I say. “I think we woke her up.” And just because I’m so pissed at Nate, I place both hands on Ethan’s face and pull him in for a lingering kiss goodnight. When I pull away, Ethan looks a little dazed, and Nate is glaring at me with utter hatred. And now it’s my turn to smirk.

  **

  To my chagrin, Heather’s unwilling to fully cover for me the next night. “You can come over for dinner, but I’m not staying in on a Saturday!”

  “It’ll be fun!” I wheedle. “Like old times. I’ll paint your nails and you can tell me all about how Teddy’s cousin touched your ass in church and tried to make it look like he was swatting something off of you.”

  “Maura, that was barely interesting five years ago. And I don’t want anyone touching my nails. These are acrylics and they cost a fortune. What’s wrong with you anyway? Ethan’s your boyfriend, and you already know his parents. What’s the big deal?”

  I know I can’t possibly make sense of it for her. “I just feel overwhelmed.”

  So I end up with the worst of all possible worlds: I have to make polite, strained conversation at dinner with Heather’s parents, and then I still am out with Ethan, wishing I could make myself want the things that want me back.

  CHAPTER 18

  Signs go up around town, seemingly overnight, against the proposition to close off public access to the beach. There’s a web address listed, and I check it out when I go home. The movement is well-organized. My family and the others are under the impression that no one would dare fight them, that no one can afford to fight them, and they are wrong. At least for now.

  And they have Peter Folz, my grandfather’s attorney, heading up the lawsuit. I don’t know him well, but I know that if my grandfather trusted him, it’s in good hands.

  **

  Nate walks into Oak that night. Our eyes lock, for just a moment, and I watch as his fill with contempt. I still can’t believe he has nothing to say to me – n
o explanation, no heartfelt apology. He broke my heart but acts as if I’m the villain, and it enrages me.

  I focus my eyes straight ahead, but I can feel him, even when he’s not looking at me, like a heater blowing too hard from a vent. When I go to the dance floor with Heather or Kendall or one of the boys, I dance with my back to him, refusing to meet his eye, but he is everywhere regardless of where I look. My seat at the table is facing the dance floor, so I can’t avoid seeing him dancing, first with a brunette in a slutty little skirt, and later with a blonde in an even sluttier dress.

  Good, I think bitterly, my hostility so sour that I can taste it. Go saddle yourself with a nice townie girl, Nate. More your speed than I ever was.

  But he leaves with the second girl, his hand on her ass, and I spend the next hour gripped by emptiness before I call it a night. His car is there when I get home. I feel a rush of ease, a release, that I can’t explain. And then, overhead, a girl laughs in the carriage house, and it’s gone, replaced with a fury so severe I have a hard time getting my key out of my purse.

  **

  It suddenly seems as if I can’t escape him.

  On Wednesday we are out, and Kendall is telling us how she got caught giving someone a blowjob in the church stairwell back home. Teddy is laughing a little too hard, blushing at the same time, making me fairly sure that he was the unmentioned recipient in this story.

  “Jesus, Kendall, what could they possibly have been talking about in church that would get you guys that worked up?” Robert laughs.

  “There’s a lot of kinky stuff in the Bible!” she insists. “Tell me you don’t think there’s kind of a whole hot submissive thing about Mary Magdalene washing Jesus’s feet.”

  My head is thrown back laughing, and before I’ve even brought it up I sense a shift in the air. The laughter at our table hasn’t changed, hasn’t decreased, and yet the air has a different tang, less sweet, more salty, and my head comes off the chair.

  Nate is passing our table. He’s with a girl. She’s a pretty girl, tiny aside from her 34DD’s. I deflate at the sight, and for the next hour, my only goal is to pretend I am not deflated, not affected at all, really. Everyone at the table is watching me. They all remember how we were. I am with Ethan, but not a single person here doesn’t wonder if a part of me isn’t still with Nate. I scramble desperately, trying to prove them wrong, and I only manage to prove to myself that they are right.