Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I listen for the sound of his car. I sleep fitfully, jolting awake at the smallest sound, but he never comes home.

  **

  Ethan calls me every night. He tells me about work, he asks how my day was. I feel ridiculously idle, and young, in describing it. What did I do? I ran, I swam, I laid out, I took a book to the beach and fell asleep after one page, and then I met Heather and Kendall and they snuck vodka out in a flask and we were so good and liquored up by the time we got to the bar that it’s all kind of a blur.

  He is talking to me like we are adults, like we are a married couple — “How was your day, honey?” — and I answer like a child who is telling her dad way, way more than he wants to hear. We are in different places, but he doesn’t seem troubled by it.

  Our relationship might not offer the breathless excitement I felt when I was a teenager, but it’s a comfort. I like seeing him beside me when we’re on the beach, the pressure of his hand as we walk out of my house at night. His presence saves me from Graham too, who suddenly thinks he’s my brother in Jordan’s absence, and insists on walking me home every night. And Ethan is a buffer, a reminder as I watch Nate that I have something better, and that I’m no longer supposed to care.

  **

  Nate’s with that same girl on Friday. I wince as Ethan and I pass them on the way to dinner. In my head I’ve nicknamed her “Bitsy” because she’s so little and cute and simpering and pointless. Nate and Bitsy walk beside each other, and she looks up him as doltishly as you’d expect of someone named Bitsy. They are there again, later, at Oak. I wish to God he’d find a new place to hang out. With every drink I’m increasingly compelled to ask him if there’s not a townie bar he could hang out at instead, but of course, this is a townie bar. I hate my thoughts, how arrogant and ugly they are. I’m becoming the exact kind of person I once loathed.

  Later, we attempt to have sex in Ethan’s tiny BMW. I want it desperately, in a way I haven’t ever wanted it with him before, and that makes it so much more frustrating that his car is too small to manage a single position.

  I groan my frustration as I climb back into the passenger’s seat. “Maybe you should trade this in for a van.”

  He grins. “Don’t suggest it unless you plan to follow through.”

  I laugh. “I swear on my grandma’s life that if you show up in a van I will follow through.”

  At the back door he runs his hands through my hair and pulls me toward him. His lips glance off mine, softly, before he presses against me and deepens the kiss. He’s good at this, and, in the safety of my grandma’s porch light, I’d probably enjoy it, were it not for the pulsing expectation that Nate is somewhere here, watching.

  **

  All day Sunday Ethan sits beside me, running his hand along my arm, my leg, my back.

  Finally, he kisses me goodbye. “I’m going to try to get back down here by Thursday. My mom wants you to come over for dinner.”

  This time, this far in advance, there’s really no excuse I can make. “I’ll have to check with my grandmother,” I hedge.

  As soon as he leaves, Kendall collapses back into the sand. “Oh my God I’m so freaking jealous!” she screams. “He is so into you! And he’s so affectionate. I’ve never, ever seen him like this with someone.”

  I haven’t either. I wish it was still true.

  **

  It feels like a weight’s been lifted that afternoon when I’m finally alone. I swim out, past the breakers, to the sand bar and back. The beach is nearly empty when I’m done, and I collapse on my towel, letting the sun warm me. I lay on the sand and wonder if this is the last time I’ll feel free between now and when my plane lands in Michigan in August.

  I am half asleep when I realize that something is blocking the dim light that remains. I open my eyes. Nate stands in front of me, shirtless, in a swimsuit. He is not the boy I knew. His shoulders are broad now, and his entire body ripples with muscle. I feel a shot of lust fire through me before I can stop it, before I can remember how much I hate him.

  “Hello Maura,” he says, his mouth twisting. There’s nothing friendly about the words. He’s not extending an olive branch. He’s throwing down a challenge. His eyes are flat and angry as he observes me, his mouth grim.

  I don’t even bother to sit up. “Nate,” I say, as coolly as possible. I look up at him but I am trying not to look at him, trying not to allow his looks to register. Despite my efforts, his effect on me is palpable. “You’re blocking my sun.”

  He doesn’t move.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asks with a sneer.

  “He went back to work,” I say pointedly, though I don’t make much of a point. Nate clearly has a job now too. “Why do you care?”

  There’s just a hint of confusion in his eyes before it turns back to anger. “Good point,” he says. “I don’t.”

  I flip over onto my stomach and close my eyes, just to make sure this conversation is done. Just to make sure I don’t have to spend one more second watching the boy I loved for almost all of my life looking at me with disgust.

  CHAPTER 19

  I remember the way it seemed there weren’t enough hours in the day here when I was younger. The way I’d burst out of bed the moment the sun crept into my room, and fight sleep at night until I couldn’t fight anymore.

  I’ve only been at the beach for a few weeks, and it’s already grown tiresome. There is never any variation. If I’m not at the beach, I’m sleeping or drinking. It’s not enough. Perhaps it is boredom, more than anything else, that leads me to Peter Folz’s office.

  “Little Maura!” he proclaims, and seems happy to see me. “And not so little anymore! What can I do for you?”

  “Well,” I begin, suddenly nervous. “I wanted to find out what’s going on with the defense against Old Cove’s proposition.”

  His face clouds, slightly. “Well Maura, I don’t know that I really can talk to you about that. You’re kind of the opposition.”

  “I want to help,” I explain, wondering if he’ll believe me. “I just don’t know how. I’m going to law school in the fall, so I’d love to get the experience, but it doesn’t have to be legal stuff.”

  He pauses. “Does your grandmother know you’re here?”

  I sigh. “I’d rather she not know,” I tell him. “It’d avoid a lot of arguments all summer. But I am 22, sir. I don’t exactly need her permission anymore.”

  He says he’ll let me know if anything comes up, but it’s obvious from his polite smile and dismissive tone that I won’t be hearing from him.

  **

  When Ethan knocks on my door Thursday night, I know by his smile that something is up, before I ever look out to the street. It’s a van. A big, new, shiny Honda Odyssey.

  “You didn’t,” I gasp.

  His laughter echoes off the porch roof.

  “I did.”

  “Well, shit,” I say, at a loss for words.

  “Don’t worry, I just borrowed it.”

  I say a silent prayer of thanks. As flattering as it’d be to have him give up his BMW just to have sex with me, I really don’t want to ride around in a van all summer, and I really don’t want him making permanent changes on my behalf.

  “Not ready for the minivan with carseats in the back? It even has a DVD player.”

  “That’s at least a decade away for me,” I say firmly, just in case he was really asking. “Who the hell loaned you a van so you could have sex in it?”

  “I may have borrowed it under false pretenses,” he grins.

  I laugh. “You told someone you were moving, didn’t you?”

  “What can I say?” he asks. “I’m getting desperate here.”

  It comes out over the course of the night that Ethan has brought a van down for the weekend. At one point everyone climbs in and he turns on the DVD player, so we can watch 30 seconds of “Go Diego Go!”

  “Fold up the seats!” shouts Kendall. “It can be our weekend party bus.”

  Ethan laug
hs. “That’s a great idea, but I’m afraid it’s time for you all to leave. I need some alone time with my girlfriend.”

  He pulls in back of the parking lot at Kroger.

  “Oh God,” I say, looking around. “Really?”

  “You promised,” he reminds me.

  “Getting caught in a van behind Kroger is so much worse than getting caught on the beach.”

  “Come on,” he kids. “It’ll be fun. All the locals do it.” I laugh, but his words make me think of Nate and the slutty little town girls he’s been bringing home. Somehow the thought makes me far more willing to follow Ethan to the back of the van than I was moments before.

  **

  “You’re having dinner at the Mayhews tonight,” my grandmother says over breakfast.

  “Good news travels fast,” I sigh.

  “His grandmother told me,” she says.

  I find it unnerving that even our grandmothers are in on this. “It’s just dinner,” I say, a touch sourly.

  “Of course, hon,” my grandma soothes. “I’ll have Rebecca get some wine for you to take over.”

  I make the long walk to his house that night, feeling jittery. I’ve known his parents my entire life, but this is different. It feels portentous, somehow, like the first scene of a movie that tells you how the rest of it will go down. This is how it starts, with me at their big formal table, being brought into the family. I haven’t entered the door, and they already fully expect that this is one of a thousand dinners, that this is the prequel to the story of me and Ethan and the two perfect grandchildren we’ll provide them. His mother probably made this walk, once. His grandmother too. I walk slowly and my legs feel heavy.

  There is the squeal of brakes of an old car slowing beside me. For some reason I expect it to be Ethan, in the van, but it’s not. It’s Nate, in the truck that belonged to his mom.

  He idles beside me, so I stop walking and look toward him. I remember the old Nate in the same moment I’m protecting myself against the new. He was so sweet. God he was sweet.

  “Going to Ethan’s?” he asks, something inexplicably angry in the way he says it.

  “Yes,” I reply warily.

  He takes a look at the bottle of wine in my hand with disgust. “Of course. The big ‘welcome to the family’ dinner.”

  “No,” I say stonily. “It’s just dinner.” His anger makes absolutely no sense. He’s acting like I’m the one who abandoned him.

  “I’d offer you a ride,” he says between gritted teeth. “But I guess it’d be bad form to show up with your first … everything, wouldn’t it?”

  My jaw drops and anger surges from somewhere deep in my stomach, so forceful I can feel it rocketing out. After what he did, he has the gall to bait me about it? My head whips toward him. “You’d know all about bad form, wouldn’t you Nate?” I hiss.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he snarls.

  “Think about it, asshole. And stop following me.”

  He hits the accelerator so hard that the tires spin before he peels away.

  I take deep breaths all the way to Ethan’s to compose myself, until only a slight heat on my cheeks is left to remind me of my anger. And really, Nate has done me a favor, because I am suddenly glad that the Mayhews are here, that they want me. That I’m with Ethan, who would never dream of treating me the way that Nate just did.

  I ring the bell, and Ethan pulls me in for a quick kiss before we hear his mother’s feet tapping across the floor. I want to linger in the comfort of him, and he laughs at my reluctance to pull away. “Nervous?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Maura Pierce!” she cries, enfolding me in a hug and then backing away. “Let’s look at you!” And she really does. She even has me turn, as if I’m modeling a dress she may purchase. It’s ridiculous on many levels, particularly because she just saw me in Charlotte a month ago, and I doubt I’ve changed much.

  “I always knew you’d be a beauty,” she says, linking arms with me as we walk toward the formal living room. “Even when you were a baby we knew it. But really, you’re even more stunning than I ever imagined. Lord, what a figure you’ve got.” She grins over her shoulder at Ethan. I feel desperately uncomfortable now. I half-expect her to ask me my bra size next. Ethan’s dad is in the parlor. He stands and, to my vast relief, is much more restrained in his greeting.

  “Maura,” he says genially, kissing my cheek. “It’s lovely to see you again. How are your parents?”

  “They’re doing well, sir. I think they’re traveling at the moment.”

  He nods. “And Jordan is a father. You must all be very excited. They had a boy?” There’s something about him that I find both comfortable and yet unsettling at the same time, but I can’t pinpoint what it is.

  His mother chides him. “You never listen, Stephen! They had a girl. Catherine, right?” she asks me.

  I smile. “Yes. She’ll be 10 months old next week.”

  “Your mother is so lucky,” sighs Mrs. Mayhew, winking at Ethan. “I can’t wait to have grandchildren.”

  A server in uniform sets a tray of canapés on the table– carpaccio on thinly sliced crackers, watermelon and feta on skewers, tiny miniature quiches and crabcakes. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to when your guest is only 22.

  The uniform troubles me too. Perhaps it’s standard here, but we only do that in my house on special occasions, and I really don’t want them to consider this dinner special.

  “So Ethan tells me you’re headed to law school?” Mr. Mayhew asks.

  “Yes sir,” I answer. “I start at Michigan in the fall.”

  “Well, if you want to get your feet wet, you can help with the proposition to privatize the beach,” he suggests.

  Ethan laughs uncomfortably. “I don’t think so, Dad. Maura kind of falls on the other side of the equation.” He turns to me sheepishly. “My dad is the one heading up the proposition.”

  I’m a little stunned to be learning this now, with the number of times the proposition has come up around Ethan over the past month. I manage to squelch my surprise, but not the tiny feeling of revulsion I suddenly feel for Ethan’s father, and a bit for Ethan himself.

  More than a thousand people will be impacted by this, the greed of 15 families. And all of their efforts can’t possibly combat Stephen Mayhew, with his power and his bottomless checking account.

  I’m not a deceitful person, but revulsion and anger and indignation coalesce. Even if Peter Folz won’t accept my help, knowing what the opposition has planned may be of use to him at some point.

  “I’ve changed my mind about that,” I say, my heart hammering hard as I begin telling a lie I’d never planned to tell. “Now that I’m back and I see what a nightmare the beach is becoming with all the crowds, I’ve got to say I’d welcome a little privacy.” I’m a little shocked at myself as the words leave my mouth, but I don’t regret them, either.

  Ethan looks at me questioningly, but his dad just nods his head. “They get worse every year. I can barely get a spot on the beach anymore.”

  Over dinner they recall stories about Ethan, Graham and Jordan as boys, stories I’ve never heard. I hadn’t realized, until tonight, that my brother was considered the ringleader, which is really just a euphemism for being the one with all the worst, most dangerous, ideas.

  I watch the way Ethan treats his sister, a far cry from the way Jordan ever treated me. He teases her about boys, but in an affectionate way, not a mean one. I don’t want to think it, or admit it, but he’ll be a good father some day.

  When dinner is cleared, his mother gives a little start of surprise that feels slightly premeditated. “Maura, I just realized, you’ve probably never had a tour of the house.”

  I grin. “No, I think the only time I was ever here was when grandma sent me down to get Jordan.”

  Ethan laughs, looking a little ashamed. “Jordan got you to come up to my room once. He told you we had candy. And then he locked you in the closet and s
aid there was a ghost inside.”

  “God,” I laugh. “I’d totally forgotten. You guys scared me to death.”

  “Ethan Mayhew!” his mother scolds, though it was over a decade ago.

  He throws up his hands. “I know! I’m not bragging about it, Mom!” He grins at me. “I think, technically, that makes you the first girl I ever had in my room.”

  I smile at him gratefully, remembering now his role in the whole thing. “You rescued me.”

  “Lily, take Maura around and show her the house,” she says with a smile. “I’d send you,” she says to Ethan, “but I don’t want you locking her in any closets.” Ethan gives me such a lascivious look that I kind of wish he was giving me the tour.

  The house is a lot like my grandma’s, not surprising as they were built around the same time — the same creaky old pine floors and high ceilings and elaborate wainscoting at every turn.

  The rooms here have been decorated in this century, however, which is a radical departure from ours. Lily proudly shows me hers – black and neon and purple, covered with tacky slogans and posters, the exact kind of disgusting room I’d have wanted when I was 14. I guess there’s something to be said for a grandmother who doesn’t embrace change. I’d hate to be sleeping in a room decorated by my teenage self.

  Before we head downstairs she places a hand on my forearm to stop me. “Mom told me not to ask,” she whispers, casting a furtive glance over the banister. “But can I be a bridesmaid? Not a junior bridesmaid. A real bridesmaid.”

  I feel like I’m listening to a conversation occurring in a parallel universe. “Um, where?”

  “At your wedding,” she laughs. “Duh.”

  “I’m not engaged,” I say, feeling panic begin to emerge from beneath my calm surface.