Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I don’t respond, because I can feel the sadness welling in my throat, and anything I say right now would lead to tears. We enter my neighborhood in silence. I give him the gate code and we head down the lane toward my house. When it finally comes into sight, he says nothing, but I feel the shift in him, a wall that is descending, separating us.

  He pulls into the circular drive. My father’s Range Rover is parked in front. “Do you want to come in?” I ask. Bringing him to meet my parents would be disastrous. I want him with me in spite of it.

  All of his light-heartedness is gone. “I’d better get going,” he says. He’s grown completely aloof over the course of two minutes.

  I want to beg him to come back to me, to be the person he was just minutes before, but I can’t find the words. I could tell him that it’s all meaningless, and that my parents don’t care where he comes from.

  But it’s not entirely meaningless, and they absolutely do care.

  **

  Mrs. McDonald, desperate as always to have her fingers in every part of this wedding, has invited all of Elise’s friends and their mothers for a dinner that couldn’t possibly be a less fun start to a bachelorette weekend. It is held – predictably – at the club. Do they never get tired of being here?

  My mom is already there, huddled on a couch with Stephanie Mayhew. They call me over. It’s an effort to walk toward my mother, knowing what I do, to look at her without scowling.

  “You’re late!” my mother scolds. “What happened?”

  I can’t even pretend to be apologetic. “Other things came first.”

  “I thought you were riding up with Heather,” she states, clearly expecting an explanation for that too.

  “I never said that,” I reply, watching both of them fight the impulse to ask who I rode with.

  “We were just talking about how nice a spring wedding would be here,” says Mrs. Mayhew, who looks slightly alarmed by the tension between my mother and I. “It’s just too hot in Charlotte for a summer wedding.”

  I manage a smile. “I’m sure Elise’s wedding will be just fine.”

  She demurs. “Oh, I wasn’t trying to imply that it wouldn’t be. But don’t you think, given the choice, a spring wedding would be lovely?”

  I shrug. I see where this is going, and I can’t come up with a single polite way to steer it in another direction. “I guess.”

  They seem satisfied by that, and as I walk away I tell myself I haven’t agreed to anything, though the weight in my stomach tells me differently. I escape to my friends, and they are hardly better. Our friend Cristina is there, just back from her post-graduation cruise – and as I approach she starts singing “Here Comes the Bride.”

  “I think you’ve got the wrong girl,” I say with a strained smile, throwing an arm around Elise. “This is the bride, remember?”

  She winks at me. “Yes, but from what I hear you’re next.”

  I grab a drink and go out to the pool, where rounds of ten are set up for dinner, complete with twinkling lights. Mrs. Mayhew is right. It’s way too hot for a summer wedding here. I begin sweating the minute I get outside.

  Ethan has texted, suggesting we cut out of our respective dinners early and meet at his townhouse. And the funny thing is that I want to do it — I want to escape from all of this and forget, even though in a way he’s the thing I want to escape from. I don’t reply right away. Instead I feel the tug of rebellion, the fervent wish that my life contained something more than it does.

  I text Nate: I HAD FUN TODAY. JUST LIKE OLD TIMES. THANKS.

  He replies right away: ME TOO. AND JUST LIKE OLD TIMES, YOU STILL CAN’T SING FOR SHIT.

  I laugh out loud, the sound echoing loudly off the cement deck. A moment later, he sends another text: HOW ARE THINGS OVER THERE?

  I reply: STIFLING IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

  He answers immediately: SHOULD I COME SAVE YOU?

  I smile: I WISH YOU COULD.

  He answers: I COULD IF YOU’D LET ME.

  My heartbeat speeds up, just a little. I wonder if he means it, and I wonder at the impulse that lies behind it. Does he want me? Is he just being a friend? Am I just a challenge because I’m with Ethan? I have no idea.

  I want to say yes, but I don’t, because I already know it’s not possible. He can’t save me from tonight – with my mother and her friends and my friends all expecting me to play my part. And not tomorrow, or next year either, because they will always expect it. And I will always give in.

  **

  We are not entirely successful in ditching our mothers until Saturday night. After countless bars, and countless drinks, we’re in the suite we checked into earlier in the day. Elise lays on the couch with her feet in my lap while we wait for the rest of the girls to stagger back.

  “It’s funny how it’s all worked out, isn’t it?” she muses, a kind of drunken melancholy in her smile.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember all the shit we planned when we were teenagers?” she asks. “We were going to have this awesome loft in New York City and I was going to be an executive and wear really cool suits with a short skirt and stilettos and be a total bad-ass, and you were going to be an architect, and then we were going to have a double wedding at St. Patrick’s Cathedral – me and Brian and you and Nate.”

  She is no longer smiling, when she concludes, and neither am I. Her lip trembles. “At least we each got a little of the dream. You’re still going to be a big shot somewhere.”

  “And you’re marrying Brian,” I add, trying to sound cheerful. But suddenly she is crying, huge gasping sobs, her face buried in her hands.

  “Oh my God, Elise,” I cry. “What’s wrong?” It came out of nowhere. I must be the worst bridesmaid ever — somehow I’ve made her cry at her own bachelorette party.

  “It’s all happening so fast,” she sobs.

  It’s really not been fast at all. She’s been planning this wedding since she was 16.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I just don’t know if I’m making the right decision,” she weeps. “I’m never going to leave. You know that right? I’m never leaving. Brian doesn’t want me to interview now. Not even after the honeymoon. I was getting my resume ready and he said, ‘Why are you bothering? You’ll be pregnant by Christmas.’”

  I understand exactly what she is feeling – the sensation of being swept away by a current you can only fight for so long.

  In movies, you stand your ground and this miracle occurs where everyone else discovers the error of their ways. But in real life, you stand your ground and the people who loved you just a moment before now think you’re petulant and selfish and unreasonable. And when that happens, you don’t stand your ground for long. At some point you let the current take you, because over the long haul it’s too hard to fight.

  Maybe we’ve both given up. She’s just been swept farther to sea than I have.

  I try to comfort her, saying the only things I can, things I don’t really believe. “You’re imagining life would be so much better in New York or someplace, and it’s probably not. And you can always tell them no. It’s not too late.”

  She just shakes her head, raising her tear-stained face to me. She looks sober all of a sudden, her face a mask of sad recognition, as if she’s been handed a death sentence and accepted it. “Of course it’s too late,” she answers, regarding me with what looks like sympathy. “It was always too late.”

  **

  On Sunday I ride home with Mrs. Mayhew and Lily. She drives the speed limit the whole way, the radio on an Easy Listening station that makes me want to stab my own ears.

  I could be riding with Nate. I caved to the pressure, as always, and now I’m paying the price. But it wasn’t just the pressure. I think about my response to him, the thoughts he can inspire without even looking at me, the way I wanted to beg him to keep driving after we’d reached Charlotte, and it just seemed safer to avoid a repeat. I texted to tell him I was riding with Mrs.
Mayhew and he never responded. I guess he’s hurt, and I guess I can’t blame him.

  Mrs. Mayhew spends roughly half of the drive talking about weddings – how she thinks tulips are “so common these days they’re almost like carnations”, how she likes the idea of having a groom’s cake, how strapless wedding gowns are “unseemly”, how destination weddings are “thoughtless” and outdoor weddings are “too dicey.” I suffer through all of it, trying to neither agree nor disagree.

  At some point, to my infinite relief, Lily cuts in to begin grousing about the bachelorette events she wasn’t invited to, insisting that she shouldn’t have had to leave the beach at all if she wasn’t going to get to go out with us.

  “I still don’t see why I couldn’t just stay at the beach with Daddy,” she says.

  Mrs. Mayhew clucks her tongue. “He was just very busy with a project he’s working on this weekend. We’ve gone over this.”

  “What project?” Lily demands. “His office is in Charlotte. It wasn’t even open this weekend. What could he possibly have to do?”

  “It was a special thing,” Mrs. Mayhew says, with a wary glance at me. “You’ll see him tonight.”

  “But what could he need to do at the beach?” Lily persists. “He never works on weekends.”

  Mrs. Mayhew glares into the rear view mirror. “Lily,” she says with finality. “That’s enough.”

  It could mean anything, but it’s definitely strange. I dial Peter’s number before I’ve even entered the house.

  **

  Nate is nowhere to be found. Not at Oak, not at home. On Tuesday morning, his truck is in the driveway but there’s no sign of him. On Wednesday there’s still no early morning rock against my window. Finally, unable to stand the strain, I text him:

  I’M SORRY ABOUT SUNDAY. ARE YOU MAD?

  His reply sets me somewhat, but not entirely, at ease:

  NOT MAD, JUST BUSY. SEE YOU SOON.

  It’s the kind of reply he’d send if he were busy. It’s also the reply he might send if he were mad.

  On Thursday morning, Peter calls. “We caught them,” he says, expelling a long breath. But he doesn’t sound particularly happy about it.

  “Them?” I ask. “Mr. Mayhew and who else?”

  I hear the disappointment in his exhale, before he’s said a word. “It wasn’t Stephen Mayhew. Police rounded up about 16 guys – migrant workers, all of them here illegally. The case is being turned over to Immigration.”

  “Oh,” I whisper, as my stomach sinks. “But they’ll still be questioned, right?”

  He sighs. “I think someone’s trying to shove this under a rug. My contact is talking to a reporter he knows – if the press presents this the right way it may force the issue. But I’m not too hopeful.”

  I hang up and rest my face in my hands. I thought I’d feel guilty if Ethan’s dad got arrested, but this is so much worse. My family and the Mayhews are selfish and entitled and greedy. But none of them have ever gotten anyone deported.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Don’t be mad.”

  It’s never a good start to a conversation.

  “You’re traveling again, aren’t you?” I sigh.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ethan says. “You have no idea how much it pisses me off, especially with you leaving for Michigan in a few weeks.”

  I’m legitimately disappointed that he won’t be here. Though my relationship with him has felt slightly risky all summer, it’s nowhere near the level of danger I feel in my friendship with Nate. I think about our ride to Charlotte, how much I’ve missed seeing him this week, and it seems like the absolute safest thing I can do is stay away from him. But without Ethan here, I’m not sure I’ve got the strength.

  **

  Any good intentions I may have had grow shaky the minute I see Nate smile at me from across the room on Friday night. If he was mad before, he seems to be over it. I’ve sworn to myself that no matter what he says I’m going to avoid him until I leave the beach, but the minute he gives me that lopsided grin I begin to falter.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asks.

  “He had to go to Houston for work again,” I reply.

  “You sure it’s work? Maybe he’s got a secret family down there.”

  I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”

  “You’re right,” he says. “Ethan’s too boring to have a second family.”

  “Are you done?” I sigh.

  “Insulting Ethan?” he asks. “No, probably not. So what are you going to do without him hovering around you all weekend?”

  I should make up plans. I should tell him I’m packing, or seeing my friends, or something, anything, that means I’m not free. But already I’m standing here with him and I don’t want to walk away. It’s too late. My resolve is absolutely, positively gone.

  “Nothing much,” I say.

  “Meet you outside at 8:00?” he asks.

  “Okay,” I reply with a guilty smile. I so shouldn’t be agreeing to this.

  “Sun-up to sun-down, just like old times,” he states, but there’s something tentative in the statement, bravado masking a real question.

  “Of course,” I say. Maybe he’s joking about spending the whole day together. But damned if I won’t be outside at 8:00, ready for an entire day, just in case.

  I return to my friends, enveloped in a haze of slightly inebriated joy, though I’ve only had one drink. I hear Nate’s truck pull in shortly after Kendall drops me off, and to my immense happiness, there’s no extra door slamming, no second pair of feet.

  **

  The moment my eyes open the next morning I bolt out of bed, put my swimsuit on under shorts and a tank, fix my hair, brush my teeth, and I’m out the door. Nate sits on the bumper of his truck, waiting, his whole face brightening when I walk outside.

  After we’ve gone swimming, we head to the diner. We’ve been here together so often in the past few weeks that they know our order. He’s grabbed today’s paper off one of the stools by the counter, and the front page catches my attention. The lead story is about the destruction of the walkways. I see the story’s subtitle –

  “INS Says Detainees Will Be Questioned” – and I can’t hide my pleasure.

  He looks at me curiously. “What are you smiling at? This is bad news for you.”

  I shake my head. “Not really. I’m glad they were caught. Old Cove has no right to close those walkways.”

  There’s something tender in the way he looks at me then. “You’re more like your grandpa than you know,” he says with a small smile.

  I flush with pleasure. It’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.

  “So what happens after Elise’s wedding?” he asks, grabbing the bacon off my plate he already knows I won’t eat. “Are you coming back here afterward?”

  “I hadn’t really decided,” I say tentatively. It really doesn’t make much sense to come back down.

  “Your flight doesn’t leave until the 18th,” he says. “That would give you almost another full week at the beach.” He strives to sound neutral, but I know him too well. I know by the way he avoids my eye, by the way he focuses on stirring his coffee, that he doesn’t want me to see that my answer matters.

  And he’s remembered the day of my flight, even though I told him that nearly a month ago. Suddenly the idea of leaving him after next weekend is untenable.

  “You’re right,” I tell him. “I think I will come back, just for the last few days.”

  He looks so relieved and happy and sad in response that I don’t know what to say. I’m staying only for him, and he wants me to stay, and we are not together, so why do either of us care?

  After breakfast we bike down to where Paradise Cove ends, crossing the narrow, one-car bridge that leads over to North Shore, which is bigger and more modern. The people here live in condos. If there were mansions here once, they are gone now and nobody seems to miss them.

  I didn’t come here much as a kid. I wasn’t allowed to cross the b
ridge when I was younger, and by high school I no longer wanted to, sucked into a kind of unconscious snobbery about the higher standards of Paradise Cove. But today we do, heading to the boardwalk, where there are probably more shell shops and ice cream stands than there are people.

  I like walking with him here, where no one knows us, where our combined appearance isn’t something that will induce whispers and concern. I like that not a single one of the crappy little storefronts sells anything with arugula or herbs. There’s a small amusement park on the boardwalk now. It wasn’t here when I was a kid or Nate and I never would have followed the rule about the bridge.

  We go on the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Octopus and the Scrambler, all rides that involve centrifugal force spinning you uncontrollably close to your partner. I do my best, the first time, not to crash into him, not to create another moment we have to awkwardly ignore. But I’m fighting a losing battle, and by the second ride I give up, allowing myself to be pressed hard against him.

  His arm goes around me, holds me in place, and I tell myself that it is fine, what we are doing, because it will stop when the ride ends. It does stop, but then we choose the same kind of ride again and again, and each time I curl into him a little more, memorizing the feel of it, the smell of his shirt and his skin. His hand grows familiar, the way his fingers press against my arm, his breath on my neck when he turns to glance down at me.

  We go into the ocean later. It’s far more crowded here, and yet it feels intimate, because no one knows us. No one knows what we were or who we are or all the reasons I shouldn’t be smiling at him like he’s the only thing I can see. He picks me up and throws me in the water, and doesn’t even pretend not to watch as I try to adjust my bikini. We are different here. It’s as if we’ve wrenched this small moment out of our history, out of the present, and none of our actions count.

  We bike back as the afternoon winds down. There’s a party on the beach tonight that I promised Heather and Kendall I’d attend. It seemed like a good idea at the time, a welcome reprieve from the same drinks, same table, same people at Oak. But now I resent it, the way it looms with finality at the end of our day. We roll our bikes into the shed, and I look at him wordlessly, feeling distraught at the prospect of parting from him.