True North

by Liora Blake

  They probably assume I’m a new au pair, up until the point when Trevor sidles up to me, snakes his arm around my waist, and lets his hand fall to rest on the upper curve of my hip. He leans in and whispers some raunchy things in my ear before planting a biting wet kiss on my neck. Well, maybe they still think I’m the nanny, just one who he also happens to be screwing.

  High-pitched voices of children start to punctuate the air and they all seem to emerge from the building at the exact same time, in a perfectly timed chorus. There are a hundred or so kids, dressed in the same blue jumpers and pants, with matching white shirts, their shining bright faces and ruddy cheeks looking especially adorable. Trevor cranes his head looking for McKenna, and when he spots her, he waves up high.

  She’s an appallingly cute kid, all weighed down with a backpack that threatens to topple her and grasping some kind of construction-paper creation in one hand. When she sees him, her face breaks into a child’s wide grin. Embarrassingly, I think I have the same one when I see him. She breaks into a run as Trevor weaves through the other little ones and meets her down at the end of the sidewalk. I melt as he bends down to hug her and then removes her backpack from her precious pint-sized shoulders. While he kneels down, she crawls onto his back to wrap herself around him, and when he stands up, he hefts the backpack exaggeratedly, feigning that it is simply too heavy for him to carry.

  McKenna throws her little head back and laughs, making her pretty, fine blonde hair wisp into the afternoon sunshine like rivulets of summer wheat. When they start to walk toward me, he’s grinning and pretending to buckle at the knees.

  I know it isn’t physically possible, but I think my ovaries start to yearn and croon just watching him. I tell them to pipe down so I don’t accidentally get pregnant from holding his hand, because that’s how bad I want it for a split second.

  Arriving in front of me, Trevor stands up straight and gives up the your bag is so heavy act. McKenna is still holding her construction-paper art in one hand, something covered in glitter and glued-on cotton balls. She’s waved it around enough as they walk that some of the glitter has shaken off, landing on Trevor’s cheek and I see a few glints in his hair.

  “Panda Cub, this is Kate. Kate, meet McKenna.”

  Waving at me and grinning with her unreasonably cute mug, McKenna giggles. “Hi, Kate. Uncle Panda talks about you all the time.” She draws out the word “all” for effect and lolls her eyes around.

  “It’s nice to meet you, McKenna. I talk about Uncle Panda all the time, too, so we’re even.”

  I really just wanted to say the words “Uncle Panda” aloud and shoot Trevor a smirk, so he knows that I think it’s the silliest, sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. My stupid ovaries start in again when he looks at me and bites his lip into a smile. He shouldn’t touch me for a good long while because who knows what might happen.

  “Auntie Devon always says that you must suck tires . . . Wait, I don’t remember . . . What does she say, Panda?”

  Her little voice is confused and she taps Trevor on the shoulder to prompt him. More glitter flies off her paper and some lands on his nose now.

  He snorts a laugh and looks at me. “Be able to suck tires off a semitruck.”

  My mouth drops open. “Trevor!”

  “What? I didn’t say it, my sister did. She has a mouth like a drunken sailor on leave. It’s not my fault. But I can’t say I disputed her when she said it.”

  He purses his lips together to suppress a laugh and swings McKenna down so she can crawl into the back of the car. Thankfully, she’s already distracted by the time he shuts the door. I take a swing at him and land a reasonable punch against the top of his arm. He ducks and then winks at me. “Have you tried? I bet you totally could. That mouth of yours is fucking incredible.”

  Driving from the school, Trevor heads back down to the highway and eventually pulls off at a quiet little recreational park by the ocean. I open McKenna’s door and she stands on the floorboard, holding her arms out to me. Taking her prompting, I lean in and grasp her, thinking she just wants help getting down. Once I lift her up, she swings her legs around my waist so she is sitting on my hip. When Trevor comes around from the back of the car, she’s running her hand down my hair.

  “Your hair is pretty.”

  “Thank you. I like your hair, too.”

  When he sees us, he stops and I can see him swallow before locking eyes with me. I’m pretty sure if he had ovaries, they would be serenading him with a heartfelt tune right about now. I turn away so he can’t say anything that might knock me up right there. We walk down a sandy path lined with native grasses and end near the water’s edge, where I let her down so she can pull off her shoes and socks.

  She and Trevor move toward the water, drawing in the sand with sticks, dipping her toes in the foamy edges where the surf has rolled in, and picking up seashells for their mutual inspection. I head back up a ways and sit on top of a picnic table, where I can watch them.

  Using all his beautiful strength, he picks her up as the water rolls in, making her laugh and squeal every time like it’s never happened before. When she wants him to pay attention, she waves her arms in the air and he drops to his knees so he can take in every word she says or see everything she wants him to.

  After a while, he wanders back, leaving McKenna to stack and arrange the pile of shells they’ve amassed into little towers. Striding up to me, he makes a move to crawl up on the picnic table behind me so I can sit between his legs.

  “You better sit over there.” I point at the far end of the table.

  “Why?”

  “Because watching you with her makes me worried I might get pregnant if you just breathe on me.” I raise my eyebrows at him.

  “Well, it doesn’t help when I find your beautiful self with a pretty little one on your hip like you were.”

  He shakes his head and still sits behind me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders to draw me in. Letting his chin rest on my shoulder, I let my head drop to the side so it rests against his arm.

  “You adore her, don’t you?”

  “Pretty much. She can do no wrong, if you ask me.” He leans back and starts to rub my back, kneading down along my spine. “I owe it to my brother to take care of her. And I owe it to her for losing him so young.”

  I want to say something, prompt him to tell me more or maybe say he doesn’t have to tell me anything. Instead, I stay silent and let his hands work over my skin.

  “When Nic died, she was barely a year old. He loved that little girl so much, even though he was a total mess in every other way. For a while, I wanted to shut her out because it hurt so fucking bad to even look at her, just remembering how Nic would hold her. Then a few months after he died, I was at my mom’s, trying to avoid McKenna, but she crawled onto my lap and fell asleep. My mom told me she kept pointing at my pictures in the house and confusing me with Nic. I gave up trying to push her away because I realized she needed to be able to look at my face and see a little of her dad. I couldn’t take that from her.”

  His hands drop from rubbing my back and he leans in toward me. Bowing his head down into my hair, he pulls me closer. I keep my eyes on McKenna, but lace our fingers together and squeeze. When he starts to speak again, he keeps his head ducked down, adjusting just enough so he isn’t mumbling into my hair.

  “I went back home for a few days after my third record came out. I needed a break from everything. My mom had been telling me that he was using, but I still thought we could hang out and it would be like it always was. Our dad disappeared when Devon was born, so Nic was practically like a dad to me. So when I got home and saw him strung out and living on the streets, I almost fucking cried.”

  Trevor takes deep breath and then exhales slowly.

  “I tracked him down where everybody said he went to score. I sat there for three hours, waiting for him. He finally showed up, but all he did was fidget and tell me how junk-sick he was. I was so fucking disgusted that I just wanted him
out of my sight. He asked me to take him to a house where his girlfriend, Raquel, was crashing, and I didn’t even give a shit that I was leaving my brother at a crack house in the fucking ghetto. When he asked me for some money, I gave him all the cash in my wallet, probably five hundred bucks. Then he got out and walked into that house. He never said thank you, fuck you, or good-bye. I drove off thinking he was the biggest piece of shit I’d ever known.”

  I hold my breath, feeling the anger in his hands where they grasp mine.

  “They found him the next morning. OD’d on a huge stash of shit he bought with the money I gave him. When my mom called me, I swore I could see his blood on my hands. I punched the bathroom mirror in my hotel, just to cut my hand open and feel the pain of it. The fact that I drove him there, handed him a stack of cash, and watched him walk away, it was like I held his arm down and shot him up myself. If I hadn’t acted like a selfish asshole, he might not have ended up the way he did. When he OD’d, Raquel packed up her shit and disappeared in the middle of the night two days later. Raquel was clean while she was pregnant, but Nic never got straight, so it was too easy for Raquel to slide right back into it with him. She bailed and my mom started raising McKenna after that. So I owe everything to that little girl.”

  Shit, this is part of what people keep babbling about. All the talk from Rob and Damien, about him being not as tough as he seems. McKenna waves at us and smiles. We wave back, our hands intertwined. I can’t look at him. If I do, I’ll start to bawl and want to hold him so hard that he can’t breathe. We stay motionless, wrapped against each other, gazing at the lovely little girl who is spinning around on her toes in the sand.

  “Trevor.” When I say his name, he doesn’t respond, only presses his lips to the back of my head and exhales. “Please tell me you know that isn’t true. The money, the anger, all of it, those things didn’t kill him. I know it doesn’t feel like that. Not here.” Pulling our threaded fingers and hands up together, I lay them over my heart. “But that’s grief and love and pain talking. I get exactly how that feels, so hear me when I say this, no matter how often I have to repeat it. It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

  His face burrows into my neck and I hear him suck in a deep, rasping, wet breath. His body starts to shake a little, so I pull our hands tighter together over my heart. Over us.

  When we drop McKenna off at his mom’s, I want to stay in the car, but he won’t let me. Between the exhaustion of his confession and the plain old anxiety of meeting his mom, I’m not sure I can do it. He kisses my forehead and insists we won’t stay long, convinced that I can handle a few minutes at least.

  Marilyn Jenkins looks just like the kind of woman who raised three kids in the projects, lost one son too early, and manages to keep another son in check despite his being a multimillionaire celebrity. With auburn hair covered in chunky blonde highlights and wearing too much makeup, she’s thin in a way that speaks to having spent years going without because her kids needed an extra serving of the boxed mac and cheese they got from the food bank. Even now, when she can fill the fridge to her heart’s content, she probably doesn’t ever feel that hungry anyway. She’s drinking iced tea out of a Super Big Gulp cup lined with lipstick prints and ironing McKenna’s school jumpers in a sprawling laundry room when we come in through the mudroom entry.

  Trevor bought her a beautiful house in the suburbs when she left Cleveland for LA. The kind of neighborhood where upper-middle-class families try to keep their heads above the mortgage while making sure there is enough left over for little Johnny to take expensive pitching lessons and young Sara to be on a competitive cheer squad. I can’t image what it was like for the neighborhood when Trax and his brood came sweeping in.

  “Trevor, if that little girl is covered in sand again, I swear I will beat your ass. In front of your girlfriend.”

  Marilyn turns from her ironing and looks accusingly down at the tile floor, where we’re all standing. The sound of sand under our shoes is making gritty little noises no matter how much we try not to move. I take one quick peek around. It’s immaculate; everything in view is neat, folded, and meticulously arranged. At the far end of the hallway I can see that the living room carpet even has those freshly made vacuum lines in it. McKenna is holding my hand and I consider shaking her off so I won’t be fully implicated in the sullying of this impeccably neat home.

  Trevor walks away and leaves me there. “Jesus, I’ll sweep it up.” He sounds like an angsty fifteen-year-old boy.

  Marilyn looks at me and narrows her eyes just a bit, taking a long slug off her iced tea. I raise my hand up and wave.

  “Hi. I’m Kate.”

  “I know. I’ve heard nothing out of my son’s mouth for the last six months except for your name.”

  McKenna giggles when Marilyn says this and then she abandons me, too. Dropping my hand, she flops her backpack on the floor and heads just down the hallway into the kitchen, where I can hear her opening the fridge.

  Marilyn watches me steadily and calls into the kitchen.

  “McKenna, go take your bag upstairs, change your clothes, and wash your hands. Grandma will make you a snack.”

  The fridge door shuts with a thud and that little munchkin darts back into the room, grabs her bag, and goes tearing up a set of stairs down the hall. I instantly feel like I’m in the middle of a hyena exhibit at the zoo, covered in ox blood.

  Marilyn sweeps past me and starts to pull things out of the fridge. Before I can make a quick escape, nervously eyeing the door we came in, Trevor emerges from the garage carrying a broom and a dustpan.

  “Glad to see you’re still here. I figured you would have made a run for it by now.” He grins and juts his eyes in his mother’s direction.

  Marilyn sighs. “I can hear you, smart-ass. Keep sweeping.”

  Sliding along the floor, he pushes the broom, and when he meets my feet, he nudges me to lift up my legs so he can finish the job. I step away and shoot him a look of desperation as I make my way toward the kitchen.

  “Don’t look at me like that. She’s a total hard-ass. I can’t help you.”

  Really? Is he incapable of just shrugging and keeping his cute mouth shut? Aren’t couples supposed to be able to exchange knowing looks in these situations and provide silent solace to each other? He sucks at this. Good thing he has that body and that face to make up for it.

  “So, Kate, how long are you staying?” The lilt in her voice at the end of the sentence sounds hopeful that I might be leaving in an hour.

  “Another couple of weeks.”

  “And after that?” She gives me a quick look while she cuts an apple into wedges using a knife that looks disproportionately large for the job. I give a small involuntary gulp. “Then I go home.”

  “And after that?” The knife whacks down on the cutting board.

  I stammer and my heart is fluttering too fast. “Well . . .”

  “Christ, Ma. Do you want me to drag her into the basement under a bare lightbulb so you can really interrogate her? Waterboarding is illegal, so don’t even think about it.”

  He’s holding the dustpan up and walking toward the trash can. After he empties it, he walks over to her and wraps his arms around her in a bear hug, then whispers something in her ear that I can’t hear. She sighs audibly and looks at me. Her eyes soften and the heavy purple eye shadow looks prettier now that she’s not glaring quite so hard at me.

  “Are you hungry, Kate?” She holds a slice of apple out to me. “Have some apple. You’re too skinny.”

  I shake my head and grin, reaching out gingerly to take the slice from her hand. The knife is still too close within her reach, so I step back as quickly as I can. Never can be too sure in a hyena cage.

  When we leave a little while later, heavy gray clouds cover the sky and the scent of impending rain is thick in the air. Trevor holds my hand in the car and kisses the back of it repeatedly. At home, we open the windows, letting the cool air in. After dinner, we sit out on the deck, watching the sun disap
pear until the air chills, so much that we can’t even push it away by wrapping our bodies together under a wool blanket.

  Overnight, the clouds hover closer and it starts to rain, drizzling off and on for hours. Our bodies lie curled together in bed all night, limbs tangled and the rain making our skin lightly damp against the cool sheets. Through the raised windows above his bed, the sound of rain slides in. Occasionally, it comes down so heavily that raindrops land against the screens and mist onto us.

  In the dim morning light of dawn, he wakes me with his hands running all over my body. Rolling me over onto my back, he draws the sheet down off my body and tiny, minute raindrops hit my bare skin. The mist mixes with his mouth and hands as he travels down over my breasts, my belly, the curve of my waist, and the tops of my thighs. It’s nearly silent in the room. I can only hear the ocean in the distance, the rain falling, my own quiet moans, his low breathing. When he pushes my knees apart, I roll my head and arch my back, already desperate for what I know is coming. He lowers his pretty face, and I hold my breath until his wet mouth starts in. Long, lapping strokes drive my hips up into him, while short staccato notes with the tip of his tongue against my clit send me to the edge, taunting me.

  With every move of him against me, I only want more. More of his skin, his mouth, his body. Sliding one finger in, he starts to pump his hand leisurely, curling his finger inside, because he understands exactly what that slow cadence does to me. He knows I’ll start twisting my hips into the pressure, trying to get him to give me more. He knows. The fact that he does is both terrifying and liberating.

  He’s focusing intently, licking his lips as he dives forward, slipping another finger inside and ratcheting up the force and the tempo, his hand moving in perfect sync with each touch of his tongue. I grit my teeth as every pore of my skin flushes, my hips rocking faster with every little shove, tumbling closer until with a few more thrusts of his fingers and his thumb moving just so, I come apart in a low gasping moan. It goes on and on until I finally wilt into the mattress, exhausted and satisfied.