by Alexis Bass
I give her a fake smile, pretending that I find this amusing, too. But I’ve met Edisons before, maybe not with money of his caliber, but I still know the type. Elite, but thoughtless. Rich, but classless. Your typical scoundrel. Probably handsome in a devastating, knee-knocking way. But vapid. Nothing past his eyes. Nothing in his chest cavity serving as a heart.
And I’d bet the only reason Chelsea can survive him is because she has a heart big enough for two.
Chapter 13
In the morning, Chelsea picks the peach dress. Then changes her mind and goes for the green one that brings out her eyes. And I am here to witness all this because the storm doesn’t let up. The New Browns enjoy being cooped up together, hearing each other’s musings, backed by the consistent noise of the rain and the wrinkling of the newspaper, the occasional laugh from the baby.
“I hope it stops raining for the clambake tomorrow,” George says now that we’re left alone in the living room, since Trisha and Phoebe are napping and Chelsea has vacated for another wardrobe change. The weather. This is all we have to say to each other these days. At least it’s a safe topic.
“Me, too,” I say, wondering if that’s where I’ll see Finn again. Everyone on the cove comes out for it, according to Chelsea.
“Have you ever been to a clambake before?” he asks.
I laugh. “When would I have been to a clambake?”
But that was too far. We’ve wandered over a land mine; we both know it. George has no idea about my life, and in moments like this, it becomes obvious.
I pretend to be done with my magazine, flipping it closed.
Chelsea takes two steps into the living room before she decides against the blue dress she’s wearing and scurries upstairs to change again. By not revealing his flight arrival time to Chelsea and promising a surprise, Edison was actually promising torture. Patience is not Chelsea’s strong suit.
I get off the couch and head toward the stairs, using her needing my help as an excuse to get away from George. There’s a knock at the door. Since I’m closest, I answer it.
Finn is standing there wearing dark jeans, a navy polo, with his jacket shrugged off his shoulders and up over his head in a poor attempt to shield himself from the downpour. His hair is dark with rainwater, sticking to his forehead, and he is beautiful in the full light of day, more so than I remembered, even with the huge bruise on his left eye.
“You,” I stammer. I’m too elated to be embarrassed by this reaction. How did he find me?
He gives me a smile that is something. Slightly uneasy. He’s nervous, maybe?
His eyes move past mine.
“Well, invite the man in!” George calls from behind me. He gets up and walks toward us. “For goodness’ sake, get out of the rain.”
I barely manage to step out of the way as Finn moves around me. George opens his arms to him.
“I’m soaking,” Finn warns.
“Aw, no worries. It’s great to see you!” George envelops him in a hug.
I’m having an out-of-body experience. I can sense that I’m standing there, mouth open, hand still on the doorknob, staring dumbfounded. My brain is screaming at me to move, act casual, close the door at least. But I am frozen.
“You must be Maris,” Finn says. He attempts to shake the water off his hand before holding it out for me.
“Yeah, this is my other … my daughter,” George says. He steps forward with his arm out, like he’s going to pat me on the back. He stops short and instead walks around me to shut the front door.
It’s awkward enough that I’m able to return to my body.
“Nice to meet you,” he says, reaching for my hand. His fingers give mine a quick squeeze before he pulls away.
Trisha appears at the top of the stairs, cradling Phoebe in a pink fuzzy blanket. She leans over the banister and peers down at us. “Edison, is that you?”
“In the flesh,” he says. I lean into the wall to keep from falling over. It hits me like a shot in the chest, that the something his smile was holding when he first arrived was an apology. He knew. He knew that this was why we’d see each other again. Why wouldn’t he have told me—why would he bother to lie? But all too suddenly, I know the answer. Because he can. Why not attempt to seduce your girlfriend’s estranged stepsister under a full moon? Why not give it a go with champagne and a blanket—a blanket, for crying out loud. Why not forgo payments you owe from a high-stakes poker game? He told me himself—this is what they mean when they say you have to always listen when people tell you who they are—he said, he’s in it for the game. The bluffing, the strategy, the high stakes. And that’s all I was to him.
There’s a crash from upstairs—as though Chelsea has caught wind of Edison’s arrival and tried to run through the wall to get down here. There is a ridiculously large smile on his face, like he knows she’s coming.
“EDISON!” Chelsea shrieks, flying down the stairs. He soars toward her, too, and they meet on the third step from the bottom. Edison catches her with one arm, using the other to hold on to the banister and keep himself upright as Chelsea barrels into him with her whole body.
I stand there silently choking on the air, watching as she kisses him, right in front of Trisha and George and Phoebe. And he kisses her back, in front of me.
“Hi, princess,” he says when they break away. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? Literally.”
Chelsea doesn’t laugh at his comment. She’s a mess of “Oh, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” and soon: “Oh god, what happened to your face? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Oh god—”
“It’s okay,” he says, gently removing her hands from where they were probing at the bruise. He holds them to his chest, close to his heart. “I’m clumsy, and I fell,” he says. He lifts up his pant leg to reveal his bandaged ankle. Chelsea gasps. Edison smiles, seeming to adore this overreaction from her.
“I’m fine,” he reassures her, spouting off a weak explanation about slick, wet cobblestone and tripping over his own two left feet. He’s so convincing, though he has an unsuspecting audience. “And how are you?”
“Better now. Perfect now.” The way they gaze into each other’s eyes, I can’t watch.
I’ve got that sickening feeling now that I know I’ve been wrong about everything. One of life’s tricks. You can go with your gut. You can pick someone to trust. You can be wrong.
If the girls of the New Brown Family and Edison weren’t blocking my way up the stairs, I would be pouring out excuses to go to my room. But now they’re all moving toward me. Trisha says she’s going to make us all tea, perfect for the rainy day. Phoebe bounces with delight, her hands in the air as she breezes past in Trisha’s arms. Edison and Chelsea are a blob of a person, tucked together with their arms wrapped around each other. She fits perfectly in the crook of his shoulder.
“Eddy, did you meet Maris?” Chelsea says.
“Yes,” he says with cheer in his voice.
“He sure did,” I say.
He should be afraid of me, I think. He should be downright terrified. I know things about him he doesn’t want anyone to know. What would Chelsea say if she knew her beloved Edison has actually been in town for days, that he stabbed someone during a fight over poker money, and is in possession of an untraceable phone? He let me think his name was Finn. He met me in the middle of the night with a blanket and champagne, and he kissed me back. Didn’t he?
“You’ll have to tell us everything about being overseas,” Trisha says as if Edison has been away at war and not just at school.
“How were finals?” George asks.
Edison groans, and Chelsea rubs his back as he complains about multivariable calculus.
Trisha waves at me, motioning for me to join them from where I’m still standing befuddled in the living room. She’s set out enough teacups and chairs for everyone, including me. Chelsea takes her shining eyes off Edison to look at me and call me over. The elation in her expression is like something I haven’t seen since I was
much younger, when excitement was bursting and I was fully sustained on fairy tales and expectations.
I take a seat in the last chair available, which incidentally puts me directly across from the happy couple and right next to George.
“It’s hard,” Edison tells us. “I spend all my time studying. It’s such a drag.” He laughs, and everyone else does, too. “You’ll see next year, princess.” He pushes Chelsea’s hair behind her ear, then sets his hand back on top of hers. He seems to be incapable of not touching her, and I hate that I can so easily recall what it was like when he touched me. “College is not the party we were promised it would be.” He winks at her. She is entranced. They all are.
“What’s it like over there,” Trisha says, “across the pond?” She struggles trying to fill the teakettle while holding the bottle to Phoebe’s mouth. George is up in a flash, taking the kettle from her, turning on the stove, and Trisha and Phoebe are able to join us at the table. It’s small. But he never did helpful things like that for my mom. Never for me either.
“Look out the window, Trisha,” Edison says. “That’s England.” He looks at Chelsea for the last sentence. “It’s all rain, all the time.”
“You probably couldn’t wait to get into Cross Cove for some sun, and you’re greeted with this downpour!” Chelsea pouts. “You missed it by a day.”
Edison nods, his eyes shifting to me for only a second, and I hate that I’d expected it, that I’d been waiting for it.
“Chels said it was pouring in London when she spoke to you yesterday and you were afraid of another flight delay,” Trisha say.
This time, he is careful not to look at me as he shrugs and leans back, letting one arm rest along the top of Chelsea’s chair. “I got lucky.”
Edison is more charming than Finn. Edison is smooth, always engaging. His eyes sparkle with his smile. His expressions are fluid in a way that makes you forget the giant bruise on his face isn’t supposed to be there. As he goes on and on about Jaffa Cakes and Hyde Park, talking basketball with George, asking Trisha about the pottery classes she’s been taking, bouncing Phoebe on his knee, all the while staring at Chelsea like she’s the whole universe and managing to completely ignore me, I try to see through how much of Edison is real and how much is a façade to keep his long-distance girlfriend happy, to keep her from ever questioning his devotion.
He stays and stays, past tea, past dinner, where he sliced tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce and was the first to volunteer to do the dishes. Chelsea is notably impressed, which is fitting because from what Chelsea has told me about the Duvals, you’d assume he’s gone his whole life without doing common chores.
We are not sure there will be a fireworks show tonight since the rain only died down around seven and the clouds are barely beginning to pull back to show off the sky. But the routine commences, and George and Trisha snuggle with Phoebe on the screened porch, and Chelsea rushes outside.
I offer to grab the lawn chairs in case we want to sit, since the sand is wet. Anything for a moment of reprieve. Unfortunately, Edison is still under the guise of a gentleman and follows me, insisting he help.
The chairs are stored in the closet under the stairs, through a door accessible in a small hallway past the kitchen that leads to the garage. The second we’re inside the closet, Edison pulls on the string dangling between our heads to turn on the light. Then he shuts the door.
Chapter 14
“I know what you’re probably thinking,” he says quickly.
We’re so close in this closet, inches from each other. He smells different—like cologne, not the way I’m used to him smelling, like the ocean.
“I promise you don’t.” He starts to say something back but, no, he doesn’t get to tell me what I’m thinking. “I’m thinking that you’re an asshole.” I unleash on him before he has the chance. “And a liar.” He smiles at me with this Edison smile that Finn didn’t have, as if I’m tossing compliments at him instead of insults. “And you don’t deserve Chelsea.”
That, at least, makes his smile falter.
“Fair enough.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me who you were?” I demand, even though asshole and liar and how he likes the game and his apparent need to test how far he can stretch things, how much he can get away with, explain this. You’ll see me again, Maris. I can promise you, he’d said—and I’d thought of stars aligning. Remembering makes me feel tricked all over again. I had plans for us, and that’s the crushing part—the embarrassing part. We were going to meet under the stars every night. There would be casual run-ins during the day, each one taking us by surprise; he’d find me the way I found him. And we would rescue each other, even if it was only from boredom that we needed to escape.
I’d liked that he was mysterious, exciting, trouble—but this was not what I had in mind.
“When you told me your name, that really tipped me off.” He says this calmly like it’s a perfectly reasonable excuse. “I probably should have figured it out sooner, like as soon as Chels told me she spent the day at Honeycomb Island with her family and her stepsister wandered off and made their parents worry. That should have made it obvious. But it went right over my head.” He waves his hand over his head, making a whistling noise.
“You’re busted either way.”
The smile returns, larger this time, and he’s shaking his head.
“You thought I was some random girl,” I say, painting the picture for him, the same way I’m going to paint it for Chelsea, “and you met me in the middle of the night—”
“I needed my phone back.”
“Twice,” I remind him. “And you brought a blanket and champagne.”
“Those were perfectly practical things to bring. We needed something to sit on. As for the champagne, well, my mother always taught me to never arrive empty-handed.”
“It’s your own bad luck that I turned out to be your girlfriend’s sister.”
“It would seem that way, but it’s actually good luck.”
“How do you figure?”
“You don’t want Chelsea to know you were out meeting me any more than I do.”
“You think I won’t tell her? You think I’ll let her continue to waste her time with someone like you?”
“I’m going to call your bluff on that one.”
I roll my eyes.
He takes a deep breath and crosses his arms. “If you tell her how you really know me, then you’ll have to admit you’ve been sneaking out. Chels told me about you, you know. How you’re sort of…” He pauses, at least smart enough to know to be careful with his words here. “In trouble. And you’re here to give your mom a break and to get you away from some boyfriend or something. And she told me that your dad wouldn’t hesitate to send you back if things became too … difficult. Like if he knew you were sneaking out in the middle of the night, for example. I also got the impression that if he thinks you’re up to no good, but decides not to send you back, he’ll instead spend the rest of the summer breathing down your neck. There goes your plan to have the ‘best’ summer.”
He’s completely right about why I won’t tell, and that is unnerving.
“So great,” I say. “You’ve had your fun. If this is all a game to you, you should leave Chelsea alone.”
“Game? Oh no, Chelsea isn’t a game. I’m crazy about her.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
He chuckles as he scratches his head. The gesture makes his elbow brush against my shoulder. He looks away quickly, so I know he noticed.
“The last thing I ever want to do is hurt her.”
I scoff, even going so far as to let out a grunt so he’ll know how full of shit I think he is.
“Didn’t she tell you about me?”
“The boyfriend she told me about was named Edison and was supposed to be in England.”
He puts up his hands. “If Chelsea knew about the poker and the way I tried to get out of paying, and that I lied to her about it and got cau
ght up with some stranger”—he gestures at me—“who helped me escape the brutal beating that I definitely had coming, it would only wreck her summer. Turn me into a disappointment.” He pauses in his sulking to look at me. “Turn you into a disappointment.” I shake my head at him for the way he keeps reminding me that I have something to lose, too, should the truth come out. “Chelsea wouldn’t want to date someone with a gambling problem.”
“I don’t know, Edison. She knows about the horse and she’s still around.”
“What horse?”
“Your eighteenth birthday.”
“Oh, that.”
My anger at him flares up again. “It’s not a small thing. The horse was lost forever. It probably died because of you. When she told me about it, she was laughing. Maybe a gambling problem would make her laugh, too.”
He’s quiet for a second, and then he says, “Maybe.”
“The sneaking out to meet me would make her less happy.”
“What can I say?” he shrugs. “You were my hero, remember? And I liked spending time with you.” The lie comes out of him like syrup, appealing and delicious. But it’s too Edison slick and unabashed, not like a real confession.
“She would like the kiss even less.” I threaten him with this, remind him of what I could let slip at any moment, as if it’s still an option, like I haven’t already decided not to say anything to avoid George’s further disappointment, another reason for my mother to sigh and say, “Really, Maris? You’ve only been there a few days and already you’ve snuck out in the middle of the night and kissed your stepsister’s boyfriend.”
I’m more interested in how he’ll respond to the mention of our kiss than I should be. I half expect him to blame it all on me, since I’m the one who took that particular risk.
“It was hardly a kiss,” he says. “Nothing to worry about.”
Maybe it was “hardly a kiss,” but I think of the way our lips connected, his hands gripping my shoulders, then my waist. I think of how I used to chase his smile, want it, wish for it, and how his laughter made me feel like I was doing something good. He’s close enough now to kiss. I allow myself only a glance at his lips. I look up and notice he has not limited himself to just a glance.