Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  “He’s sleeping with half the girls in town, so odds are one of them was going to look a little like me at some point.”

  “And you want to be friends with someone like that?”

  “Yes, because the key word is ‘friends’, Ethan. I don’t want to date someone like that. I don’t want to date someone like Graham either. That’s why I can be friends with him.”

  “You weren’t always friends,” he mutters.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I know you slept with him,” he hisses.

  “And how exactly would you know that?” I snap.

  He hesitates before answering. “You don’t date someone as long as you did and not sleep with them.”

  I sigh. “Do you really want to start exchanging our sexual histories? Because I’m sure yours is a lot more interesting and varied than mine.”

  “The difference is I’m not ‘friends’ with any of them,” he says acidly.

  “You slept with Heather and Kendall and Maura Lite. I’m not sitting around crying about it. And speaking of Heather, she’s picking me up in 45 minutes so I’ve got to go.”

  I hang up, fuming, and jump in the shower. I put on a semi-sheer cotton sundress that ends just below my ass, solely because my grandmother will hate how revealing it is. Normally even I hate how revealing it is.

  “Where are you going?” she demands when I come downstairs.

  I stop in place with a look that dares her to continue this conversation. “Out,” I say, and then I leave without another word. I’ve spent my entire life slightly cowed by her, wanting to do things just right, never sure when I’d violate one of her lofty standards of behavior. The one good thing to come of what happened between Nate and I is that I no longer give a damn what she thinks.

  Graham takes one look at my tense face when Heather and I walk into the bar and gets me a gin & tonic.

  “Thanks,” I say, unsmiling. “This will be refreshing while you explain why you called my boyfriend and told him I went home with someone else.”

  “Well,” he equivocates. “You did go home with someone else.”

  “There is a world of difference between getting a ride with someone and going home with someone and you know it,” I hiss.

  His face grows contrite. “I’m sorry, Maura. I was just worried. Ethan really likes you, and you know, you and Nate … have a history.”

  I sigh. “You don’t need to worry about me and Nate, and neither does Ethan. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he agrees.

  Graham is annoyingly attentive for the rest of the night, to the extent that I wish I hadn’t chastised him in the first place. The second my glass is empty he’s got another drink in my hand. Things grow pleasantly hazy. Graham pulls me to my feet to dance, and at last my anger at him and my grandmother floats away. When the song ends, Graham pulls me in for a hug.

  I laugh when he doesn’t let go. “Jesus, Graham,” I finally say, shoving him off of me. “Even my parents don’t hug me that long.” When I push back I see Nate. He’s sitting at the bar, watching us, and he’s scowling.

  Guilt rolls over me. For all of my tears and apologies yesterday, what my grandmother did wounded him far more than me, and here’s the proof: I’m out tonight laughing and dancing with our old friends, and he’s sitting at the bar alone, watching. Here after a week at work while all the rest of us, tan and indolent, prepare for another day spent wallowing in money we didn’t earn.

  I walk over to him. “Hey,” I say hesitantly.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “Do you want to sit with us?”

  He shakes his head and looks over at the table, where several of my friends are watching, Graham in particular. “I don’t think I’d be welcome.”

  “Of course you would,” I breathe. “They’re your friends too.”

  He shakes his head again. “That’s okay. I’m meeting someone anyway.” I wonder if it’s a girl. Of course it’s a girl. My stomach knots, and I’m embarrassed I came over here at all.

  “Do me a favor, Maura,” he says, looking back at our table. “Watch out for Graham.”

  “For Graham?” I laugh. “He just drinks too much. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

  “I think you’ve spent so much of your life around him that you can’t see how he’s changed,” Nate says. “I don’t trust him.”

  “That’s silly,” I smile. “It’s because I’ve spent so much of my life around him that I know I can trust him.”

  Nate prepares to disagree just as Graham walks over and puts his hands around my waist. He steers me back toward the table. “Go sit, Maura. I’ll get the drinks.” He means well. It makes his big-brother-like condescension difficult to object to.

  I sit and pretend to rejoin the conversation. What I actually do is watch Nate with scientific observation as he waits for his “friend.” When she arrives, my gin and tonics threaten to come back up. She’s blonde and cute – the kind of girl he might actually date, not just sleep with. He kisses her cheek and pulls out her stool, glancing back at me as he does it. I quickly look away.

  I guess I should be happy for him. I’ve found someone, and maybe he’s found someone. He deserves a little peace, a little happiness. Just not with her, I think. Let him wait to fall in love until I’ve left for school, until I’m far enough away that I don’t ever have to come back and see it firsthand.

  I try not to watch the way she rests her hand on his thigh. The way he grins at her knowingly, the way he once grinned at me. I try to listen to my friends as they drunkenly argue about the shittiness of one college football team versus another.

  But at a certain point, nothing can be achieved by feigning happiness. After about 30 minutes, I’m at that point. I stand to leave, and Graham stands too. “I’ll walk you,” he says.

  “You don’t need to,” I sigh. Graham’s chivalry grew tedious about one week into the summer.

  “Of course I do,” he insists.

  I walk quickly, trying to march off some of my irritation at Nate, as misplaced as it is. The old Nate, the one of my youth, had so much sweetness about him. His devotion, his focus, was fierce and unrelenting. And it was mine. I need those things to stay gone. I can’t afford to think about what it would be like if they were mine again. And I can’t stand to think they might be someone else’s.

  “God damn, you walk fast Maura!” laughs Graham. “Where’s the fire?”

  “I’m just tired,” I apologize, without slowing my pace. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Long day laying around on the beach?” he teases.

  “You’re one to talk. Shouldn’t you be working by now?” I hadn’t given it much thought, but Graham doesn’t seem to be moving on with his life the way his friends have. Ethan has his MBA and a good job and he’s talking about buying a house. Jordan and Sammy are married and have kids.

  “I’m just taking some time off,” he says vaguely.

  We get to my grandmother’s house, and I sense his hesitation. He seems to waver, stepping closer to me instead of heading back down the street. Nate’s warning echoes in some distant part of my brain and I move away quickly, walking into the yard. I wave airily over my shoulder. “Thanks Graham!” I call, relieved to see that he isn’t following me.

  “See you,” he says. Does he sound a little disgruntled, or am I reading too much into it thanks to Nate’s warning?

  I’m tired, but not tired enough to sleep. I lay in bed listening, listening, listening. The sound of Nate’s truck never comes.

  CHAPTER 26

  I’m just returning from a run the next morning when he pulls in. I draw in a deep breath, trying not to hate him for doing exactly what any other 24-year-old male would probably do if he could score the way Nate does.

  “Want to swim?” he asks with his lopsided smile. He’s in an unusually good mood, at least compared to mine, and it only pisses me off more. I have a pretty solid idea about the source of his good mood.

  “You’re still
in last night’s clothes,” I say sourly. I clearly didn’t try hard enough to dampen my irritation, and that this pleases him only irritates me further.

  “Come on,” he says. “You know there’s nothing you like to do more after you run, and besides, it’ll cheer you up.”

  “I’m surprised you have the energy after your long night,” I say pointedly, kicking myself as the words leave my mouth. I sound bitter, jealous even.

  His smile widens. “Five minutes. Loser buys breakfast after.”

  I groan. He knows I can’t turn down a challenge. I race upstairs without a word to anyone, not that I’d speak to my grandmother anyway, and am back down in less than four minutes. He’s already there, as I knew he would be, his smile unabashed.

  By unspoken agreement we swim out to the sandbar. The waves that break here are much larger, and it used to be that if you caught a good one it would carry you all the way back to the shore. I’m still tired from my run, not sure how many return swims I have in me, so instead we go further into the waves and tread water.

  “So what happens with Ethan when you leave in August?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, a tad defensively. I’m growing tired of the assumption that I should change my plans for a guy I’ve only dated for four months.

  “Is he going with you?”

  “No, of course not,” I reply too quickly. “His job is here.”

  “But you guys seem pretty serious.”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. You know how it is here. We all know each other too well. Assumptions are made.”

  He’s grown oddly still in the water. “It’s pretty easy to clear up those assumptions if you want to.”

  He doesn’t understand. I can’t explain how my family is, how they would implode if I stopped seeing Ethan. I can’t explain that it’s comforting to have Ethan here, while I’m so consumed with wanting things I can’t have.

  “I don’t know,” I repeat. “I’m leaving in two months. That should take care of things all on its own.” He looks dubious, and I don’t blame him. I’m a little doubtful myself.

  **

  We go to the diner my grandfather always took us to, where they used to make Nate’s eggs and bacon into a smiley face, and my pancakes into Mickey Mouse.

  “I’m not going to miss a lot about the south, but I’ll miss this,” I ruminate, looking around. Unlike other areas of Paradise Cove, I have only good memories associated with this place.

  “You make it sound like you’re never coming back,” he says quietly, watching my face.

  I focus on the mug in my hands. “I’m not sure I plan to,” I tell him. “There are a lot of things here I’d prefer to avoid.”

  “Like what?”

  I take a sip of my coffee. “Just all the expectations. My mom’s already disappointed in me for not being engaged. If I stay here I’ll end up married and pregnant, and the next thing I know I’ll be just like her, hanging out at the club all day, playing tennis and planning auctions.”

  He watches me. “Which of those things don’t you want?”

  “I don’t know if I want any of them,” I say. “Name one happy marriage.”

  He looks at me oddly. “I’ve seen people happily married.”

  I sigh. “I wish I could say the same, but I can’t. I don’t want to be my parents, or my grandparents. And I definitely don’t want to be Jordan and Mia.”

  “But you don’t have to be any of them,” he says adamantly. “Don’t you want to know that there is one person in the world who knows exactly who and what you are and loves you because of it and in spite of it?” he asks. “Don’t you want to know that there’s someone who will fix you when you’re broken?”

  This is the sweet side of him, the earnest side. I’m touched by it, and I don’t want to be. “Beautifully spoken by the guy who goes home with a different girl every single night,” I tease.

  “Maybe I’m just trying to deal with the fact that I can’t have the one I want.” He looks away then, as if he’s said too much.

  I don’t know if this is the emergence of the old, sincere Nate, or the new one – the one who will say or do anything he thinks might get him laid. But I seem to be susceptible to both, and that’s not a good thing.

  **

  Ethan calls that afternoon. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “You were right last night, and I was totally out of line.”

  “It’s okay,” I reply, perhaps made more amenable by guilt. I spent two hours straight with Nate yesterday, and nearly twice that today.

  “So you and Nate are … friends?” he asks hesitantly.

  “Yes,” I answer firmly, recognizing as he must that my lack of certainty on this topic has disappeared completely. “We’re friends.”

  “And now that you’re friends is he going to stop staring at you?” he asks snidely.

  I sigh. “Ethan, he never did stare at me, and he can’t stop doing what he never did in the first place.”

  “Whatever,” he says. “Even if you’re not, I’ll be keeping an eye on him.”

  **

  Two days later Nate is waiting for me again when I return from my run. Thankfully, this time he’s not just coming home.

  “Swim?” he asks.

  I laugh. “Don’t you have a job?”

  “Really?” he asks, smiling. “You’re giving me crap about not working?”

  Each day we seem to stretch out the time a little more. Our swim takes longer, our breakfast takes longer. While we eat, a girl comes over to our booth to talk to Nate, eyeing me curiously. She’s cute but not at all Nate’s type. Of course, based on what I’ve seen this summer that doesn’t necessarily mean he hasn’t slept with her. “I’m Beth,” she says, reaching across the table to shake my hand. I’ll give her points for being both polite and ballsy if she did sleep with him.

  “Maura,” I say, shaking her hand.

  A smile crosses her face. “The Maura?” she asks Nate with an eyebrow arched. She looks delighted with this for some reason.

  Nate sighs. “Yes,” he mutters, shooting her a warning glance. “Beth is a bartender at a place in town I go to sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” she laughs. “You were there every night of the year until this summer.” He shoots her another look, and a secret smile crosses her face as she looks back to me.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Maura,” she says with emphasis, grinning at Nate one last time.

  She leaves and I look at him, waiting for an explanation.

  He says nothing.

  “Well?” I ask.

  “She’s a friend,” he mutters, not meeting my eye. “Your name may have come up once or twice.”

  He looks so embarrassed by the whole thing that I resist the temptation to give him shit about it. I settle for being quietly pleased.

  We leave the diner and he takes a meandering route back home, from one end of the island to the next. When we approach the graveyard I feel him hesitating.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?” he asks, surprising me. I hesitate, because it seems like such a private thing, before I agree.

  We walk past the graves. I trail my fingers over my grandfather’s, a quick hello to him on my way. Nate stares at it for a moment.

  “I miss him,” he says simply.

  I sigh. “So do I.” Especially now. He’s the anchor my family needs. Without him, we all seem adrift.

  We get to Mary’s grave and Nate stares at the flowers there, just beginning to wilt.

  “You came here,” he says.

  I flush, feeling as if I’ve intruded somehow. “Yes,” I reply reluctantly.

  “Why?”

  “I miss her too, Nate,” I almost whisper. “And I wanted to apologize.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says.

  “But she didn’t know that.”

  He never looks over at me, but his fingers reach for mine, e
ntwining again as if things never changed. We stand there wordlessly, still holding hands, and when we leave it feels like some of the weight has been lifted. It feels like she really knows now.

  **

  That afternoon I head over to Peter’s office and begin culling through relevant briefs again. I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t just busy work he’s created for me out of pity.

  He comes out of his office and sits on my desk. “I have a favor to ask, and it’s a little awkward.”

  I nod warily.

  “Work is beginning on the new walkways. The problem is we don’t know when, exactly, they’ll attempt to destroy them again.”

  I dread the request I know is coming.

  “You’re dating Stephen’s son,” he says. “You may be the only chance we’ve got of finding out what they have planned. I’m hoping you’ll just keep your ears open.”

  It’s a whole new level of duplicity, one that could potentially lead to the arrest of Ethan’s father. What Mr. Mayhew is doing is wrong. But I’m not sure it’s any more wrong than what I’m about to agree to. “Okay,” I tell him reluctantly. “Although I doubt I’ll be much help. It’s not the kind of thing they’re going to discuss in front of me. Couldn’t the police just stake it out?”

  He shakes his head ruefully. “Police aren’t touching this with a ten-foot-pole. At least not the higher ups. Whoever’s behind this has deep pockets, and probably has enough power to make sure our chief-of-police is out of a job if need be. They’ll try to shove it under the carpet. Probably won’t even send out a patrol if we call it in.”

  “If the police aren’t going to help then what’s the point in trying to catch them?” I ask.

  “They can still help us if we play it right. If an officer on our side just happens to be driving by, just happens to see it and arrest the guys doing it, and it just happens to gets leaked to the press, it’ll force the issue.”

  “This sounds kind of farfetched, Peter,” I say. “What are the odds the right cop is going to be driving by just as it happens?”