Jennifer E Smith

by This Is What Happy Looks Like (v5. 0) (epub)

  Quinn furrowed her brow. “You don’t know?”

  “I have to run an errand,” she said, which was as close to the truth as she could manage. “But hopefully I’ll make it back in time.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ellie could see Graham approaching from the opposite direction, and she was relieved when he turned toward the boat. Her eyes slid back to Quinn. “You’ll be there?”

  She nodded.

  “With Devon?”

  “Of course,” she said, her tone abrupt, but then she caught herself, hesitating for a beat before inclining her head. “And Graham?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellie said honestly.

  Quinn looked thoughtful, her features void of the sharpness that had lately become so routine when they were together. “Well, maybe we’ll meet up.”

  “I hope so,” Ellie said, trying not to sound too eager. But she was overcome by a sudden and powerful wish for things to go back to how they used to be. She wanted to stand on the beach and watch the firecrackers go twirling out into the darkness. And she wanted Quinn to be at her side. Not this Quinn, exactly, but the old one. She wanted her best friend.

  “I’m late,” Quinn said, and to Ellie, this felt like the worst kind of dismissal. “I should go.”

  “Okay,” she said. “It was really good to see you.”

  The expression on Quinn’s face was difficult to read, and it took a long time for her to respond, so long that Ellie was certain she wasn’t going to say anything at all. “Your e-mail,” she said finally. “I didn’t get a chance to write back…”

  “It’s okay,” Ellie said quickly, and Quinn hesitated for another long moment before nodding, her eyes soft.

  “It’s gonna be hot today,” she said. “Don’t forget to put on some sunscreen.”

  Ellie smiled. “I won’t,” she said, but what she was thinking was, Welcome back.

  As she made her way over to the harbor entrance, she felt a peculiar buoyancy, a lightness that carried her toward the boat. The sound of the seagulls was bright against the dull rush of the waves, and everything seemed to glint beneath the sun. The morning felt like a mixing bowl just waiting for its ingredients; there was a sense of possibility to it, a promise of something more to come.

  When she pushed open the gate that led to the docks, it was to find Graham waiting by the boat, looking unnervingly handsome even in yesterday’s wrinkled clothes. She searched his face for any signs that he’d checked in with Harry during the time they were apart, trying to gauge whether anything had changed, but there was nothing but his usual smile, a smile that seemed to be just for her.

  “Ahoy,” he said, lifting a hand as she approached. “Ready to set sail?”

  “They were okay with you borrowing it?” she asked as he held out a hand to help her climb aboard. She hopped over the gap between the starboard side of the boat and the dock, landing unsteadily on the wooden baseboards of the interior. It was much bigger than it looked from afar, and older too—not made up to look old, as she’d suspected, but properly old. She’d half expected it to seem fake, more like a movie prop than a real working lobster boat, but other than a few metal cinches attached to the sides to fasten the cameras and hold them steady while filming, it bore no signs of the production.

  “Totally fine,” Graham said lightly as he stepped in after her.

  The water looked calm, but already Ellie felt the deck swaying beneath her feet, and she held on to Graham’s shoulder as she dropped her backpack onto a wooden bench along the port side. There was a small cabin in front with a glass windshield and an old-fashioned-looking wheel for the captain. In the back, several empty lobster traps knocked against one another, and a few red buoys rolled back and forth in time with the waves.

  Ellie stepped over one of the many ropes that were coiled securely at various places along the deck. Up the hill, the sounds of the band drifted down to the water. They would play all day, she knew, and if she were to stop by later this afternoon or even tonight, they would still have the same energy to their songs, which were powerful and brassy and patriotic, the perfect send-off for a sea voyage.

  “Ready to go?” she asked Graham, who was examining the many dials at the helm. The key chain that dangled from his hand had a squishy orange float attached, in case it went overboard.

  “Sure,” he said, holding it out for her.

  But Ellie only stared at it. “I thought you were driving.”

  “What?”

  She nodded at the key chain, which was still swaying between them. “Aren’t you driving?” she said. “It was your idea.”

  Graham shook his head. “It’s a lobster boat,” he said, and when she didn’t respond, he widened his eyes, as if it should be obvious. “You’re from Maine.”

  “So you just assume I can drive a lobster boat?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “Can’t you?”

  “Do I look like a lobsterman?” she asked with a frown. “I thought you knew how. I saw you driving the other day.”

  He looked at her blankly. “When?”

  “When you were filming.”

  “It’s a movie,” he said and groaned. “I was acting.”

  Ellie sighed. “Well, why would they lend you a boat if you can’t drive it?”

  “I never said they lent it to me.”

  It took a moment for this to register, and when it did, she reached out and punched his shoulder. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “You stole the keys?”

  “I told you,” he explained, rubbing the spot where she’d hit him. “They won’t mind if we borrow it.”

  Ellie opened her mouth and then closed it again. She turned around and walked to the far end of the boat, where she stood looking up at the town, trying to decide whether it was too late to get to her mother’s car.

  She was still there when Graham appeared at her side.

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “I know enough.”

  “How?” she asked, without looking at him.

  “They had me take a few lessons before the shoot. It’s enough to get us there and back. I just figured you might be more of an expert.”

  She turned to face him. “Because I’m from Maine.”

  “Because you’re from Maine,” he agreed.

  “Well, I’ve been driving Quinn’s ski boat for years,” she said. “But this looks pretty different.”

  “We’ll figure it out then,” he said. “Between the two of us.”

  “Between the two of us?” she said, and he gave her a sheepish smile.

  “Well, mostly you.”

  She held out a flattened palm, and he dropped the keys into her hand. “That was some pretty good acting the other day, then,” she told him, “because you looked like a regular sea captain out there.”

  “Then you don’t need to worry,” he said, leading her back to the front of the boat. “If you’d seen my other movies, you’d know that I’m also a magician.”

  –Uh-oh.

  –What?

  –I forgot my phone.

  –So?

  –So how am I supposed to e-mail you now?

  –I guess we’ll just have to talk.

  Once they were out of the harbor—through the precarious maze of buoys and docks—Graham relaxed. The open water stretched out ahead of them, blue-green waves tipped in white, like some great confection coated with powdered sugar, and the thin line where the paler sky met the darker ocean with perfect symmetry. Everything shimmered under the gaze of the sun, and Graham closed his eyes against the wind and the spray of the wake on either side of the boat as they sliced through the water.

  Beside him, Ellie stood with one hand on the wheel, moving it back and forth every so often, the tiniest of adjustments that went unfelt as the boat barreled ahead, leaving behind a trail of white foam. At first, they didn’t speak; the rush of the wind was too loud in their ears. But even without words, there was a complicity to the moment that felt louder than all the rest of it. Together, they had made
their escape.

  “See?” Graham shouted over the wind, and Ellie cocked her head in his direction. “You’re a pro.”

  She shrugged. “Turns out it’s not all that different from a ski boat.”

  The last time he’d been out here, Olivia had been the one at his side, and in between takes she’d brushed the flecks of water from her face and scowled. They had only two more days of filming left, and he knew she was excited to get back to L.A. For her, this was nothing but a time-out, an unwelcome break from her regular life, which consisted of photo-ops and fancy parties, manicures and meetings.

  But now that Ellie had returned to him, Graham felt the last day approaching with a deep sense of dread. He would miss watching the fishing boats go out in the morning, the way the sun broke across the village green, the sound of the waves that seemed to follow you throughout the town. And, of course, he’d miss Ellie. He didn’t feel ready to say good-bye just yet, and the thought of it was something he’d been chasing from his mind with alarming frequency.

  “Can I try?” he asked, and Ellie stepped aside, leaving two fingers lightly on the wheel until she was sure he had it. He peered out through the glass, watching the bow of the boat moving up and down like a rocking chair.

  “You’re a natural,” she said, and to his surprise, she leaned against him, coming to rest beneath his free arm, which he looped around her shoulders. He was embarrassed by how tall this made him feel, how adult, with one hand on the wheel and his girl at his side, and he straightened his back and lifted his chin and let out a happy sigh.

  “I think I’ve found my new calling,” he told her, and she laughed and slipped away from him again, quick as a minnow. She reached for her backpack and pulled out a water bottle, taking a sip, and then offered it to Graham, who shook his head. “I feel like Ahab,” he said. “Off on another quest.”

  “Hopefully a more successful one this time.”

  “It will be,” he promised.

  “And if not, at least we’ll have found you a backup career for this whole acting thing,” she teased. “Sailing the seven seas.”

  “That’s not the worst idea,” he said. “It sure beats L.A.”

  She sat down on the bench that ran the length of each side of the boat, a place to stow tackle and nets and buoys. “I don’t know,” she said. “The circus probably never thinks the towns where they stop are boring either.”

  “Are you saying I’m the circus?”

  She grinned. “I’m saying you’re a clown, anyway.”

  “Thanks,” he said, laughing as he looked out toward the shore, where enormous houses were perched along the rocky coast. They passed a sailboat, and the couple aboard waved. Graham lifted a hand in return.

  “This is going to make things worse, isn’t it?” Ellie asked, and he glanced over at her. “Taking the boat.”

  “It might,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s not like we’re smuggling drugs or anything.”

  She looked at him sideways. “Does chocolate count?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure that’s okay.”

  “Good,” she said, pulling a bag of candy from the backpack and tossing it over to him. He caught it with one hand, then held the wheel with his forearm while he opened it. The chocolate was soft from the sun, and it melted on his tongue. He felt a spreading warmth expand in his chest, and he wished they could stay out here all day. But he knew they were on a mission of sorts, and it was there in Ellie’s every move: a grim sense of resolve.

  “So are you nervous?” he asked, passing the bag back over to her. “To see your dad?”

  She nodded, her lips pressed into a straight line.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  This time, she didn’t answer, and Graham wondered if his words had been whipped away by the wind; it almost seemed like she hadn’t heard him. But then she pushed her sunglasses up on her head, and he was able to see her green eyes again, focused on him with an intensity that made his heart skip like the bow over the waves.

  “Remember that poetry course?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for him to respond. “It’s a big deal to get in. And I really want to go.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “I thought you were.”

  “I am,” she said, a bit too fiercely. “But I’m still short. And there are no scholarships.”

  Graham sucked in a breath as he waited for her to continue, biting back the question he wanted to ask, though he knew it would be the wrong thing to say right now; the moment felt delicate, easily breakable, and so he kept quiet.

  “I’m gonna ask him for the rest,” she said, and her words came out in a rush. “I can’t ask my mom for that much, and it’s not like he doesn’t have it.”

  “How much—” he began, unable to help himself, but she cut him off, as if she hadn’t heard him.

  “And it feels like he owes me at least that,” she said, digging at a groove in the wood with her fingernail. “All these years, and nothing. And it’s not like I’m using the money for something crazy or frivolous, like a car or a tattoo.”

  Graham raised his eyebrows. “That’s true.”

  “It’s for school,” she said. “It’s for Harvard.”

  Against his better judgment, he cleared his throat. “How much do you still need?”

  She raised her eyes to meet his. “A thousand dollars,” she said quietly, the words almost lost to the breeze, and then she bent her head over the wood again.

  A thousand dollars, Graham thought, ashamed at how small the number seemed to him. He was reminded of the money his parents had used to send him to private school, how enormous that had seemed at the time, how much it had cost them to use it. Now things were different. A thousand dollars. Just last month, he’d paid a contractor almost twice that to build an indoor pen for Wilbur in the back of the laundry room. He’d seen his costars drop that much on a celebratory meal, and he was sure the many purses strewn around Olivia’s trailer added up to at least that, and probably even more.

  He looked over at the curve of Ellie’s shoulders as she sat there on the bench. For her, a thousand dollars was clearly an insurmountable obstacle, enough to send her off on a stolen boat to seek out her estranged father. How easy it would be to write her a check, to hand her a thick stack of bills, to surprise her by sending the payment to Harvard without saying a word. But this wasn’t a movie, and he knew her well enough to guess that she wouldn’t consider him a hero, and she wouldn’t throw her arms around his neck in gratitude. There was a fragile pride to her that would never allow her to accept that kind of charity. This was something she had to do herself.

  “What if…” Graham began to ask, keeping his shoulders square to the windshield. “What if he says no?”

  Behind him, Ellie slung a hand over the side of the boat, letting her fingertips catch the spray of the water. “Then I’m not going,” she said, her voice flat. “But how could he say no?”

  What Graham didn’t say—what neither of them said—was that he would almost certainly say no if last night’s episode were to land him in the gossip columns just as he was revving up his fund-raising campaign. Graham realized now why she’d been in such a rush to leave. She was trying to outrun the news.

  She stood up and sidled around him, reaching out to take the wheel. He stepped out of the way to let her drive, and she shifted the boat into a higher gear, the nose lifting out of the water as the engine dug in and they picked up speed.

  When he looked over the side of the boat, Graham could see the dark shadows of fish beneath the surface. If things had turned out differently, he might be out here with his own father right now, their lines dangling, an easy silence between them as they waited for something to bite.

  The shoreline was rougher here, the looming estates had given way to smaller fishing cabins, and he thought of all the other pairs of fathers and sons that might be gathering their gear at this very moment, ready to spend the holiday in quiet company. They all seemed so peaceful, so serene, these homes that dotted th
e shoreline. How nice it would be to have a house up here—nothing fancy, just a little cabin set back along the coast, a place to visit when he grew tired of the plastic landscape of Los Angeles, a way to keep this particular piece of the world with him even after he was gone.

  “Hey,” he said, twisting around and pointing toward the shore. “Do you know what town this is?”

  Ellie turned to look, then shook her head. “How come?”

  “It just looks nice is all.”

  “Look it up,” she suggested, and he felt for his phone in his pocket before remembering that he’d left it back at the hotel. He hadn’t done it intentionally, and he’d only realized this as they were gliding out of the harbor, but it wasn’t the worst day to lose his tether to the rest of the world. There was nobody he wanted to hear from at the moment, not Harry or Rachel or Mick or anyone else. Without it, he’d thought he might feel unhinged, but all he felt was free.

  “I don’t have mine, remember?” he said. “Can I borrow yours?”

  It was balanced on the dashboard in front of her, and she nudged it in his direction. He pulled up the map feature, waiting for the radar to register, a slow dance of pixels arranging themselves across the screen. The wind lifted the hair from his forehead, and he squinted out at the church steeple that rose from the trees along the coast, the idea of his future home growing more solid in his mind.

  He was about to tell Ellie what he was thinking when they cut across the wake of another boat, their own vessel popping up like a skipped rock, and the phone went flying out of his hands in slow motion, pinwheeling end over end until it landed soundlessly in the water. The surface was too busy with foam to see even a ripple, and in seconds they were past it, the little square of metal probably halfway to the sandy bottom.

  “Uh,” he said, his back still to Ellie.

  “What?” she asked from behind him.

  “Your phone…”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “I’m afraid it’s swimming with the fishes,” he said, stepping over to her with what he hoped was a sufficiently apologetic look. “I’m really sorry. It just slipped.”