Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  “Don’t worry about that part of it,” he assures me. “If you find out when they’re doing it, I promise you the right people will get there.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Ethan calls on Friday afternoon. He doesn’t even say hello. “Are you wearing that red bikini again?” he growls.

  I laugh. “I’m afraid not, baby.”

  “Please be the cut-off shorts, please be the cut-off shorts,” he says, almost like a mantra.

  “Sorry, dude. I’m sitting on my front porch with Jordan and Jackie and a pitcher of margaritas and I am fully clothed.”

  “Jordan and Jackie?” he asks, sounding troubled.

  We haven’t seen each other in two weeks. I suppose it’s reasonable he’d be less than thrilled that I have a friend visiting. On my end, having her here is a relief. Every time I see Ethan, every time he pulls me into his lap, holds my hand, climbs on top of me … it feels like I’m slipping a little further into a hole I won’t be able to climb out of. Jackie will help me keep my footing.

  And my isolation here is beginning to make me question everything – why am I the only one who doesn’t feel this whole marriage thing with Ethan is a little premature? I need someone, anyone, to tell me I’m not crazy.

  “Yeah, they beat you by an hour.”

  “They rode down together?” he asks, the words a little strained.

  “Yep,” I say. “Are you almost here? Do you want to swing by?”

  “Sure,” he says, sounding remote. “Be there in five.”

  I watch Ethan climb out of his car with new eyes, with Jackie’s eyes, because I’m trying to imagine what she sees. Ethan is hot. He’s tall, he’s got a good body, a great smile, clear blue eyes. In his suit pants and his button-down with the tie pulled off he is irresistible. Jackie will drag me into therapy if I tell her about my reluctance to get more involved with him. He smiles at me, and despite all my confusion I’m happy to see him. I want him cuddled up beside me on the porch swing, I want the feeling of his leg pressed against mine, the way he’ll take my hand once he sits.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “You sounded a little off on the phone.” He grabs a beer out of Jordan’s cooler and sits beside me.

  “I was just disappointed about the bikini,” he grins. “You’re wearing way too much clothing right now.” His smile falters a little, though, and I wonder what it is that he can’t tell me.

  **

  Jackie fits right in when we go out at night — helped, no doubt, by the four beers she pounds within the first hour.

  “Holy fucking hotness,” she moans, looking over my shoulder. I feel my stomach sink at her words. Nate isn’t the only guy who could elicit those words from her mouth, but he’s the most likely to. And sure enough, there he is, sitting at the bar. He smiles at us both when I look over my shoulder. It’s not his real smile. It’s his dirty smile, the one that offers you five minutes with him in a bathroom stall, and as far as I can tell it works 100% of the time.

  “I’m in love,” she sighs, flinging her hair over her shoulder and trying to maintain eye contact with him.

  “Don’t,” I say, far more sharply than I intended.

  “Wuh – what?” she asks, seeming to sober suddenly as she looks at me in confusion.

  I try to soften my voice, checking to make sure Ethan isn’t listening. “Please, Jackie. Not him,” I say quietly.

  “Why?” she cries, a little distraught.

  “Please,” I beg. “I’ll tell you later. Please just don’t.” I look her in the eye to let her know I’m serious, to see her confirm that she understands.

  “Okey dokey,” she sings, raising a brow at me. She looks back over at Nate. “You and him, huh?”

  “Not here,” I hiss, as Ethan turns back toward us.

  “God damn I want to be reborn as you, Maura,” she laughs.

  We stay at Oak far later than I would like, and we do so for only one reason: I’m not leaving here without Jackie, and she doesn’t want to leave. I love her, but she’s had a lot to drink, and I don’t know if she’ll keep her promise.

  “Ready to go, baby?” asks Ethan, kneading my shoulders.

  “I can’t leave Jackie,” I say.

  “Jordan’ll take care of her,” he says.

  “I don’t know,” I say, looking nervously at Jordan. He’s not much of one to take care of people other than himself.

  “Jordan!” calls Ethan. “Make sure Jackie gets home, will you?” I shoot him a dirty look. He’s now put me in an impossible situation, because I absolutely do not trust Jordan to take care of this.

  “Go ahead, Mom!” shouts Jackie drunkenly. “I’ll be home by curfew.”

  I’ve never been so reluctant to leave this bar.

  Ethan drives me home, but as we walk through the yard he tugs me sideways. “Come here,” he whispers.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, pulling slightly against his hand, trying to head to the back door.

  “Come on,” he tugs again. I go reluctantly. He pulls me behind the shed, and then grabs my hips and pulls me into him.

  “You look so unbelievably hot in that dress,” he murmurs against my ear, his mouth moving over my neck while his hands lift the hem and rise beneath it.

  “Not here, Ethan,” I say, squirming a little without actually moving away from him.

  “Maura, I’m a grown man,” he says, his voice muted against my skin. “It’s been weeks, and I can only stand so much hand-holding, especially if you’re going to dress like that.”

  I don’t want this. I feel sick thinking about Jackie coming home with Nate. And I feel sick thinking of the way Nate once kissed me here, pulling me off my bike like he would die if he waited a moment longer.

  “I’m sorry,” I beg. “I can’t do this here.”

  Ethan walks me to my grandmother’s door unhappily, trying hard to salvage his mood and failing. I hate that he’s leaving unhappy. I hate even more that I left Jackie behind. I lie awake, waiting for her. I wait until it’s so late that there’s only one conclusion I can come to, and then I just wonder why I didn’t hear him bringing her home.

  When I wake, Jackie is there, asleep on the mattress on my floor, still fully clothed. I sit up and stare at her, trying to determine how I can get through the rest of the weekend hating her the way I do at this moment. I would like to send her home, and I know I can’t, particularly since she rode here with Jordan.

  “Why are you staring at me?” she mumbles through heavy-lidded eyes.

  “I can’t believe you did it,” I hiss, and even I am surprised by the venom in my voice. It wakes her up immediately.

  “Did what?” she asks, but she looks frightened enough that it’s an admission of guilt all on its own.

  “You fucking slept with him!” I cry.

  “Um,” she mumbles nervously. “Sorry?” she says, flinching at the look on my face.

  “I begged you, Jackie. I begged you,” I say, and I feel tears forming.

  “Wait,” she says, confused. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Nate!” I hiss. “How could you? What have I ever asked of you, in all these years, aside from that one thing?”

  Realization dawns on her face. “I didn’t sleep with Nate,” she says firmly enough that I’m inclined to believe her. I still watch her suspiciously.

  “Then what were you apologizing for?” I ask.

  Her eyes widen and she remains silent.

  “Who did you sleep with, Jackie?” I demand.

  She looks down at the mattress, and still says nothing.

  “Did you, or did you not, sleep with Nate?” I ask, voice rising. I realize now that I am too angry to keep her here. I am too angry to ever look at her face again if she slept with him.

  “I did not sleep with Nate,” she repeats, still not meeting my eye.

  “Then who … ?” I ask, trying to puzzle it out. She slept with someone, clearly, and it’s someone she thought she needed to apologize for.

  “Ethan?” I
ask, my voice more surprised than upset.

  “No!” she gasps, shocked. “How can you even ask that?”

  And then I know, because there’s only one other person it could possibly be.

  “Jordan.”

  She says nothing.

  “Did you sleep with Jordan, Jackie?” I ask coolly.

  “I’m so sorry, Maura,” she pleads. “We were really drunk and I didn’t even think about who I was with until we were in the middle of it and then it was too late.”

  I spend all of 10 seconds being stunned that it happened, and 20 more being stunned that I didn’t figure it out sooner. Them riding here together. Her on Jordan’s lap at graduation, Jordan not coming home that night, and Ethan’s strange reaction to them yesterday. “This wasn’t the first time, was it?” I ask.

  She hesitates, not meeting my eye. “Please don’t say anything,” she begs. “I know it was a mistake, and he knows it was a mistake. Please don’t make it worse.”

  “A mistake is something that happens once,” I tell her. They traveled here together. There’s no way this is as unintended as she wants to make it sound.

  We go to the beach with Ethan, and by midday Jordan joins us. I don’t meet his eye. My loyalty should be to him, not to Mia, I tell myself. But also I remember how he failed to come home the last time he and Mia came to the beach, and I think about how withdrawn she’s become. And I realize that I don’t need to tell Mia. I’m pretty sure she already knows.

  CHAPTER 28

  “I’m going to explode if we don’t find a place we can be alone together,” Ethan tells me over the phone on Monday night.

  “That’s super romantic,” I say dryly.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “But if you don’t want to have sex against the shed or on the beach you’re going to have to start coming on business trips with me.”

  I laugh. “That’d probably be a little more appealing if all your trips weren’t to Houston. See if you can get sent to Paris next time instead.”

  “Do you want to go to Paris?”

  “I like Paris, but it was just a joke.”

  “Let’s go this weekend.”

  I laugh. “We can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  I have no good reasons. “I don’t know. We just can’t.”

  “Because you’re just dying to hang out at Oak for the 45th consecutive night?”

  He has a point. I’m torn, although I’m not sure why. Surely not because I enjoy the strained silence of our house, where my grandmother and I continue to ignore each other. Not because seeing Nate out with other girls is any more tolerable. Suddenly Paris seems like a spectacular idea.

  On Tuesday afternoon, Nate catches me in the side yard. “Going out tonight?”

  “No,” I say, squirming a little. “I’m going out of town in the morning, so I need to stay in and pack.”

  He holds himself very still. “Going home?”

  I push my hair behind my ears, embarrassed on a number of fronts. Primarily because I feel like a spoiled little shit jetting off to Europe on a whim. “Paris, actually,” I say with obvious shame.

  “With Ethan?” he asks quietly.

  “Um, yes,” I reply. “It’s pretty uncomfortable around my grandmother right now.” It’s a lame excuse.

  He calls me on it, with a smirk. “Sure, that’s how I deal with discomfort too. I run off to Paris with my boyfriend.”

  “It’s just the weekend,” I shrug, not helping the situation at all.

  “Have a good trip,” he says coldly, and he turns and marches off to his truck.

  **

  Ethan and I fly out separately and meet at the gate at LaGuardia. His smile is huge and unabashed when he sees me, and I fall into him. He feels safe. He is the one person this summer that I’ve been able to count on. The one person who hasn’t hurt me in some way. I sleep on his shoulder all night, and he never complains or moves me once.

  The porter sets our suitcases on the luggage stands, and I go out to the balcony, looking over the Champs Elysées, watching morning rush hour unfold before me. He comes out and wraps his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder. This is what it would be like to be married to Ethan. Just like what it was to grow up a Pierce – flying first class, staying at the best hotels, having things miraculously taken care of. Is it so wrong that I like these things? I like the lemon-scented hot towels in first class. I like not having to carry my own luggage, taking a limo in from the airport instead of the train. Perhaps it’s not the hearts and butterflies I imagined as a teenager, but doing this with Ethan is a hell of a lot better than doing this with my parents.

  I rest against him. “Where to first?”

  Laughter rumbles in his chest, and his hands slowly lower onto my hips. “I think we’ve got some things to take care of here first.”

  “Did you seriously fly me across the Atlantic just to fuck me?” I laugh.

  “Are you seriously surprised?” he grins.

  We don’t get out of the room until it’s afternoon. We’ve both been to Paris before, so there’s no pressure to do much of anything at all. We wander the streets, hand in hand. I buy a ridiculously expensive dress for Catherine at Chanel, and we find a place where we can sit outside for dinner. We linger over it, and the night is really pleasant. In spite of all the great things I imagined adulthood would be, lingering over duck confit and a nice bottle of Côtes du Rhône on the Left Bank is probably as good as it’s going to get.

  Over the course of the next two days, we spend so much time in bed that we might as well have stayed at his townhouse in Charlotte. It’s a lot of time and expense for something we could have done just as easily at home, particularly since it hasn’t been all that satisfying for either of us. I haven’t finished once all weekend. He hasn’t mentioned it, but I can tell it bothers him.

  A few hours before we return to the airport, he lays beside me, wrapping a coil of my hair absent-mindedly around his finger.

  “If we were married it’d always be like this,” he says.

  I smile. “You clearly haven’t spent enough time with Jordan and Mia. If we were married I’d be pissed at you all the time for not helping with the baby, and you’d be pissed at me for not being any fun.”

  He grins. “I’m not Jordan and you’re not Mia.”

  “That’s how married couples always are.”

  “Not us.”

  “That’s because we’re not married.”

  “Fine, when we do get married, it won’t be us.”

  I say nothing. He’s venturing into dangerous territory, and I can’t think of a way to transition out of it.

  “You know I’m going to propose eventually,” he says quietly.

  “You know I’m leaving for Michigan next month.”

  “I can wait. Or you could transfer back. There’s a law school in Charlotte.”

  “I want to go to Michigan,” I say, feeling tension steal over me.

  “That’s fine,” he replies. “Like I said, I can wait.”

  “This is moving a little quickly for me,” I venture tentatively. I don’t want to hurt him, but I can’t help it. My chest feels like it’s caving in.

  “I love you, Maura. We’ll go as slow as you want.” It’s the first time he’s said those words to me, and I can feel his expectation lingering between us. He’s waiting for me to say it back.

  Of course I love him. I’ve known him my entire life. He’s practically family. It’s not a big deal to tell him I love him, to make him happy, is it? This is what I tell myself as I say it back, even as I feel the noose tighten further around my neck.

  He rolls on top of me then, kissing me slowly, pulling up my t-shirt, gripping my nipple between his teeth. God knows he’s good at this, but it all feels distant somehow, as if he can’t really reach me. He isn’t going to stop trying, and I have a feeling there isn’t a single trick in his arsenal that’s going to work.

  So, at last, I give in to the thing I’ve denied mys
elf all weekend, the one thing he most wouldn’t want me to do. I think of Nate, and I come less than a minute after I allow him into my head.

  CHAPTER 29

  I get back to the beach fairly late on Monday night, but I slept for most of the flight home, so I have the driver drop me at Oak and take my bags on to the house. I don’t question the impulse to go to a bar and a group of people I’m somewhat tired of.

  “Maura!” they all shout, as if I’ve been gone for months.

  “Where’s your little beret and easel?” asks Graham sourly.

  I arch a brow, a little surprised at the attitude. “In my suitcase.”

  Nate is playing pool. The sight of him seems to heal something in me, some slight abrasion I tried to ignore all weekend, not realizing until just now how much it bothered me. I see him look over at us, and he lifts his hand in a tepid half-wave. He approaches with clear reluctance when I go to the bar, looking exhausted.

  “You forgot to shave,” I tell him, touching a finger to his jaw line. He flinches and I withdraw my hand.

  “How was your trip?” he asks. His voice is neutral, but he is grim and distant.

  “It was fine.”

  “Yes,” he says sarcastically. “That’s how people always describe Paris: ‘fine’.”

  I smile. “Isn’t that the slogan? ‘Paris, the most adequate city on earth’?”

  His smile is so slight it’s barely evident. “So no ring on your finger yet?” he asks, glancing down at my hand.

  “No!” I say, astonished. “Is that what you thought? That we were going there to get engaged?”

  It’s as if a storm has blown away, the way his face, his whole body, relaxes. “It crossed my mind,” he says. “Kind of the place for it. It’s the kind of thing he’d do.”

  Nate is totally right. Ethan is sweet and romantic and thoughtful and generous. That would be just like him to fly me to Paris to propose.

  “There is no ring. There will be no ring,” I say adamantly. “I’m leaving in six weeks. I don’t even want to get married.”

  “To him, or to anyone?” he asks.

  I don’t know why he feels the need to persist with this line of questioning. “To anyone. It’s a crappy, pointless institution. Just a lot of hype to disguise the fact that a year later, you the wife are sitting home by yourself with a squalling baby while your husband goes on like nothing’s changed.”