Undercurrent

by Tricia Rayburn

  Because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Parker was just being a friend. Even if things were perfect between Simon and me, I could still have guy friends—especially if they were immune to my abilities.

  “Why don’t you rest while these are in the dryer,” Parker said, nodding to my wet clothes on the floor, “and then I’ll take

  you home?”

  “Don’t.”

  He looked up, surprised.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  “Can you just stay here awhile?” I hardly believed the words as they came out of my mouth. “The clothes will dry on their own.”

  I was counting on the assumption that he, like me, would rather not be alone. And it seemed I was right. He draped my wet clothes on the doorknob and across the back of a chair, and then sat next to me after I moved over to make room.

  He’d changed, too, but I could still feel the coolness of his skin inches away. He didn’t say anything and neither did I, and soon I was relaxing, breathing easier, no longer worrying about whether what I was doing was wrong.

  The next thing I knew, early-morning light filtered through the blinds over the bed. Parker was exactly where he’d lain down hours before, but now I was curled up next to him, my arm across his stomach. His arm was around my waist, his hand on my hip.

  I lifted my head and peered past him to the nightstand, where my phone, peeking out of my purse, flashed red. Careful not to wake Parker, who breathed deeply, I slowly reached over, took the phone, and opened it.

  V, at the lake house. Where are you?? Please write or call.—S

  CHAPTER 19

  “HE’LL COME AROUND,” Paige said, opening the Beanery door the following Monday.

  “He came around,” I said. “Twice in person and eighteen times on the phone. And I missed him.”

  “I still can’t believe you slept through all that. You must’ve been exhausted.”

  I had been, but she didn’t know the real reasons why—or where I’d been sleeping when Simon had tried to reach me. She could tell something was up when I met her at her house after leaving Parker later that morning, so I told her about the visits, voice mails, and text messages. But I said that I’d missed them because I’d crashed early at the lake house—not because I’d been swimming and snuggling with Hawthorne’s most notorious player.

  My reasons for meeting Parker were somewhat understandable, but besides the strange, simple fact that I’d wanted to, there was no good reason for why I’d spent the night.

  “He said he was sorry, didn’t he?” Paige asked. “For not getting back to you right away?”

  “Yes, but when I didn’t answer, his messages went from worried to frantic. And then he didn’t pick up when I called him back, and he hasn’t tried again since.”

  “Well, when he does pick up, you’ll apologize and explain what happened. No biggie.” Paige stepped aside to let me pass. “True soul mates cannot be stopped.”

  I tried to return her smile as I entered the coffee shop, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. Because I had apologized. I’d given him my somewhat-but-not-entirely-true explanation. I’d tried contacting him dozens of times since waking up to his initial text two days ago. But when I called, his phone went straight to voice mail. When I texted, my messages went unreturned. So it seemed soul mates could be stopped—by sheer stupidity.

  “I’m starving.” Paige dropped her backpack on an empty table and started toward the counter. “Want anything?”

  “I’ll treat,” I said quickly. “Since you drove the whole way back yesterday.”

  “I would’ve done it for nothing, but since you’re offering, chicken soup seems like appropriate compensation.”

  She returned to the table as I went to the counter. I’d suggested the Beanery for lunch, and since we had the first meal period, it was barely eleven o’clock: post–early-morning rush, pre–afternoon pick-me-up. We’d never been there at this time, and I was happy that the coffee shop was nearly empty, its staff keeping busy by filling sugar bowls and napkin dispensers.

  It was the perfect chance to confront my mysterious seaweed server.

  “Excuse me?” I said to the only employee behind the counter, whose back was to me. “Is Willa in?”

  “Is the sun up?” the woman said pleasantly, turning around. “What can I do for you?”

  Her eyes were lowered to the napkin dispenser she held, and I took advantage of the distraction to give her a quick once-over. She was thin, about my height, and wore a brown apron over baggy khakis and a loose-fitting white button-down shirt. Her hair was tucked up under a brown Beanery baseball cap. Her hands were pale, wrinkled, and showed the first signs of liver spots. They trembled as she tried to close the dispenser.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  “That’s okay, I think I’ve—” She glanced up. Our eyes met. The napkin dispenser slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.

  Heart thumping, I hurried around the counter to help clean up the mess. Another employee reached her first, and they squatted and gathered napkins. I tried to decipher their whispers as I backed away, but a third employee chose that moment to turn up the volume of the jazz playing overhead.

  “Sorry about that.” Willa stood and patted her hands on her apron. “Caffeine jitters. That’s what I get for drinking too much free coffee.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  She took a deep breath and smiled at me. Her face confirmed what her hands had suggested: she was older. She was at least three times older than the other Beanery staff members, most of whom were college students. Her cheeks sagged. Shallow folds lined her forehead. Her brown eyes looked out from under pale, drooping eyelids.

  “What would you like?” she asked, wiping down the counter. “Cappuccino? Espresso? We have a fantastic quiche today, right out of the oven.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll have a piece of that, a chicken soup, and two iced teas.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I watched her head for the kitchen, then looked behind me. Paige sat at the table, reading a newspaper. I waited for her to glance up so I could let her know soup was en route, but she was too engrossed.

  “Are you a model?” a guy three stools down asked as I turned back.

  “No,” I said, too nervous to worry about whether to respond or ignore him.

  “Really?” He rested one elbow on the counter, placed his cheek in his palm. “I feel like I’ve seen you before. Like, on bill-boards. Wearing pretty dresses. Generously sharing your beauty with all of Boston.”

  I leaned across the counter, tried to peer into the kitchen.

  “You’re too striking for catalog work. What about runway?”

  “I’m not a model,” I said, turning toward him. “I’m a student. That’s it.”

  He frowned and sat back. “Well. That’s a shame.”

  I was about to apologize—it wasn’t his fault he was drawn to me—but stopped when I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Loud, unhappy voices. They were accompanied by what sounded like doors slamming.

  Two minutes later, a male employee emerged, face flushed, fists clenched. A minute after that, Willa followed, carrying a round tray. If she had been involved in the backstage brawl, she didn’t show it.

  “Here we are.” She placed the tray in front of me. “Can I get you anything else?”

  I took a quick sip from one of the glasses of iced tea. When it was bitter, I tried the other. “There’s no salt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In my drink.” I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “Last time, you put salt in my iced tea.”

  Her furry white eyebrows lifted. “Did I? Sorry about that, I must have confused it with the sugar. Here.” She ducked and took something from under the counter. “Your next one’s on the house.”

  I looked at the complimentary beverage card without taking it. “What about the seaweed?” I asked.

  “What’s that?” She cupped one ear with her hand.

  M
y heart was beating a million miles a minute now—but out of confusion, not nervousness. “The last time I was here, your coworker gave me a green drink in a shot glass. He said it was courtesy of you, and that he thought it was wheatgrass.” I paused to let that sink in. “But it was bitter. Salty. Like a seaweed smoothie.”

  Her face was blank as I recalled this encounter. It wasn’t until I was done that her eyes widened slightly. “I remember now. Sometimes vendors send us new products to sample, and we try them out on customers. Last week we got in a box of all-natural energy drinks. That’s what you had.”

  “But the barista said it was from you, specifically. From my friend, Willa.”

  “Hey, Marty,” she said.

  The guy three stools down looked up.

  “Who’s your best friend here at the Beanery?”

  “Wily Willa, of course,” he said with a grin.

  She turned back to me. “I’ve been here a long time. I’ve got lots of friends.”

  I opened my mouth to fire off another question, but the only one I could think of was whether it was possible that I’d been wrong. Willa’s thoughts on the matter were obvious, so there was no point in asking.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled instead, leaving the beverage card but taking the tray.

  “Vanessa.”

  Now my heart seemed to stop. I looked down at the pale, wrinkled hand on my sleeve.

  “Are you all right?” Willa asked quietly.

  My eyes lifted to hers. “How did you—”

  “Are you?”

  I nodded once. “I think so.”

  Her fingers tightened around my arm before releasing it. I stood there, frozen, until she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Paige groaned lightly as I joined her at the table. “Remember that accident? With the bus?”

  “Yes,” I said, barely hearing her.

  “Remember the confusion about whether some of the kids who were supposed to be on the bus really were? Because not everyone on the coach’s roster was accounted for?”

  “Right.” I glanced at the counter, the kitchen door.

  “They’re not confused anymore.”

  Paige held up the Globe. The glaring headline was impossible to ignore: Bodies of Four Missing BU Terriers Found at Logan.

  “The airport?” I asked.

  “They were floating in the harbor at the end of a runway. Two pilots spotted them last night.”

  I took the newspaper and flipped quickly through the pages. “Does it say anything about what they looked like? When they were found? Were they—”

  “No,” Paige said. “It doesn’t say.”

  I exhaled a small sigh of relief. If they’d been smiling, the article would’ve said so. That was too grotesque an image—and too valuable a detail—to omit. I folded the newspaper and slid it under the lunch tray, out of sight.

  “When you were with Betty this weekend, did she happen to mention if… ?”

  Paige took an iced tea and fiddled with the lemon wedge perched on the rim of the glass.

  “Did she say if anything… strange… was going on? Or if she was maybe hearing things she shouldn’t?”

  She took the sugar dispenser, held it over the glass, and studied the white powder as it streamed toward the liquid.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I know it’s uncomfortable. I just—”

  “Don’t you think I’d tell you if there was anything you needed to know?”

  I sat back. Paige had never spoken to me like that before.

  Her face crumpled immediately. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. It was just a hard weekend. Like I said in the car coming back yesterday, Betty was emotional, which made me emotional… and I guess I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

  “You don’t have to talk about anything. And I’m the idiot. It’s just, my mind automatically goes there whenever something like this happens.” I nodded to the corner of the newspaper sticking out from under the tray. “Even if it’s silly and illogical. I can’t help it.”

  The sound of glass breaking made us jump in our chairs. Remembering Willa’s caffeine jitters and the way they’d made her drop the napkin dispenser, I stood, ready to help her pick up whatever had slipped this time and demand to know how she knew who I was.

  But it wasn’t Willa. It was a barista—the same one who’d served me the shot of seaweed.

  “Of course,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Of course this on top of people crying family emergency and leaving in the middle of their shifts.”

  Mumbling, he grabbed a broom and started sweeping. I looked around the coffee shop’s main room, stepped toward the counter and scanned its length, and then peered into the kitchen.

  Willa wasn’t there. But every other employee I’d seen since we’d gotten there was.

  “Vanessa?” Paige asked as I turned toward the door. “Where are you going?”

  “Be back in a second,” I called behind me.

  Outside, I looked up and down the sidewalk. When Willa wasn’t in front of the café, I found a narrow alley down the block, darted between dirty brick walls, and ran. A strip of pavement divided the businesses running along this street and the one behind it, but tall fences made it impossible to see the back of the Beanery. I kept going, dodging trash cans and Dumpsters, and shot out onto the sidewalk. Ignoring the appreciative smile of a middle-aged man cleaning windows of the pizzeria next to me, I veered left—and almost slammed into another man.

  His back was to me, but I recognized the frizzy white hair floating around his head and the red wool peeking out from under the hem of his jacket.

  Dad was downtown. In the middle of the day. Even though he’d told us at breakfast earlier about the amazing Thoreau lecture he was giving at ten o’clock. His lectures lasted an hour, minimum, and it was just after eleven. Even if he’d kept his talk short, there was no way he could’ve made it here from Newton that fast.

  I was about to call out to him when he raised one arm and waved to someone in front of him. I followed several feet behind, staying close to the buildings so I could duck inside if he turned around.

  He’s just meeting Mom, I told myself. Or a colleague. For an unexpected lunch date.

  When he slowed to a stop, I was in front of a vintage clothing store. A long rack lined with winter jackets stood on the sidewalk; I took a pink peacoat, held it up so that it hid my face and torso, and peered around it. A cluster of people waiting for a bus prevented a clear view, but between their shifting heads and shoulders, I caught quick glimpses.

  Of a hug. A kiss on the cheek. Two Beanery coffee cups.

  One for him.

  The other for Willa.

  CHAPTER 20

  I WANTED TO yell. I wanted to run over, shove them apart, and demand to know what was going on. But the second I realized who he was meeting, my mouth went dry. My legs trembled beneath me. I grabbed the clothing rack to steady myself, and when I looked up again, they were gone.