by Alexis Bass
This is an adventure for her. She’s imagined him here, working with the Duvals, and now she gets to see it for herself. A dream coming true, the picture of her future getting more and more real. I want to think she’s silly, to be filled up by the extravagance, but then I taste the coffee, and it is a dream. The croissants are fluffy and the chocolate in them pure heaven, like the kind Edison brings over.
We find a table by the windows and look down on the town, out at the blue sky.
“His last name isn’t Duval,” I say, giving up on beating around the bush. I want to know everything about him. “How is he related to them?”
“He’s not.” Chelsea says this like it’s an admission. “But he is in all the ways that matter,” she says, talking fast, her tone more defensive than I’ve ever heard it. “They love him, and he loves them. He’s not a charity case just because his mother died and his father’s been in prison since he was two—he was a part of their family even before his mother died. They don’t treat him like an outsider, because he’s not. He’s one of them. They’ve known him for a long time, and they knew his mother, Franny.”
A family bound by something other than blood. This is how it’s always worked for her.
“They’re his family,” she repeats. “When he brought me home to meet his family, his mother, we went to the Duvals’ home. Because that’s more of his home than anywhere else has ever been.” She seems insistent on this, and that says to me that she is ashamed, and the things she’s ashamed of have to do with secrets Edison kept from her, too. Not knowing where Edison resided when he wasn’t at the Duvals’, not ever knowing where he grew up. I wonder if she’d ever thought to ask or if he avoided these kinds of questions, instead showing her only what he thought she would like to see.
I think of his worried face in the driveway, his fingers turning white clenching the package.
“Why is he still getting mail from her?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What was she like, when you met her?”
Chelsea doesn’t ask why I’m so curious. There’s this thumping in my chest, a single track in my mind that only wants more information about him, like a craving; like he’s mine to know about. Chelsea has the keys to the doors I’m locked out of.
“She was … she had plans for Edison. I only met her that one time for dinner with the Duvals. She seemed really happy to meet me. She told me she had heard all about me and was glad Edison had someone like me in his life. After she died, he was heartbroken.”
“How did she die?”
“She had a rare blood disorder. She was perfectly healthy until one day she wasn’t. She was barely in the hospital for a day before she died.”
The more I know about him, the more I can peel away at who he is and separate all the dimensions of him that are what he wants us to see instead of what is really there.
“He’s okay, though,” she tells me. “He left for school right after she died, but he told me he was getting through it. And the Duvals took care of everything—hospital bills, putting her things in storage, the funeral. He’s still sad about it sometimes, of course. But he’s okay; he really is.”
I nod, trying to decide if I believe her—if I think he’s truly let her see any of his real sadness; if I think he’s let anyone see, unless they stumbled onto it by accident.
Chapter 27
Sepp and Edison retrieve us from the break room about forty minutes later. They are both smiling. Sepp wants to celebrate. He’s holding a bottle of tequila and a bottle of champagne.
“A successful meeting,” Edison explains.
Chelsea is innocent chic. “You sold a lot of cement?”
This makes Sepp laugh manically. He swigs directly from the tequila bottle.
We order delivery from Sepp’s favorite Chinese restaurant and go on the roof to eat it. The view up here is preposterous, stretching out for miles. Steeples and mansard roofs poking through a sea of full round trees. The sunset turns the sky purple and orange. Sepp is still elated, and none of us can keep up. He opens the champagne bottle and lets it spray everywhere, so there’s hardly any left to drink.
He screams into the open sky. He whoops and cheers. He shouts, “This is it!”
“Over here,” Sepp says, taking my arm and moving me to the other side of the rooftop. Chelsea follows closely, curiously—probably protectively also. He positions himself in between us when we’re a few feet from the edge and swings an arm around each of us, letting his hands dangle over our shoulders. The bottle of tequila knocks against my elbow. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Chelsea and I exchange a glance—Chelsea covers her mouth so she won’t laugh out loud. Edison joins us, standing beside her.
Sepp drops his arms from around our shoulders and gets closer to the edge. He leans against the railing.
“Come get me—I dare you!” he shouts at the sky, his voice ripe with excitement. “I dare you!”
Edison shakes his head at Sepp, laughing, so we’ll know not to listen to him. But I always listen to Sepp, because I don’t think Sepp says things for no reason.
I move slowly toward the edge of the roof so I’m shoulder to shoulder with him.
“Maris—” Chelsea’s abrupt warning trails off into nervous laughter. She’s afraid. She thought Sepp didn’t care about anything, especially not about the Duval business, but here he is, looking like he’s just been spared, celebrating like he means it.
I hold on to the railing; maybe that will calm some of Chelsea’s fears.
Sepp leans against the barrier and faces me, the wind dusting up his hair as he points to me with his bottle-holding hand. A teardrop of tequila glides down his chin after he takes a sip. His face puckers like he’s no longer enjoying it. “Eddy’s always been lucky. And me, well, I’ve always been invincible.” He holds out his hands, standing up all the way, backing up like he’s showing me his kingdom. “I bet I could fly right off this roof.” There’s something so sad about him right then, even as elated as he seems.
I remember feeling like that, like I could inhale the world and hold it in my lungs; like if I felt that invincible, then who was to say I wasn’t. I was good at tricking myself.
“Take it easy,” Edison says to him.
“Grow up.” Sepp turns on his heel, downing another drink for the ages. “I own this world, and this world owns me!” he yells, leaning forward and letting the railing hold him up at the waist.
“Be careful!” Chelsea calls.
“I’m invincible!” he screams. It’s a feral noise. Chelsea reaches for Edison, but he is walking toward Sepp.
“We know,” Edison says. His voice is calm, soft. It works, and as soon as Sepp is close enough, Edison tucks an arm around him and pulls him away from the edge. He starts toward the door, and Sepp goes with him. Chelsea and I follow closely behind.
“I’m invincible, and you’re the luckiest bastard alive,” Sepp tells Edison, when they’re stalled in front of the door, but in that moment, he is looking right at me. He swivels in Edison’s arms, putting a hand on Edison’s cheek, like he’s steadying his face, so they’re looking right at each other with their matching eyes. “I’d do anything for you. And I have, haven’t I?”
Edison nods slowly.
Sepp smiles; his eyes are shiny. “And now we will be unstoppable.”
Later that night, after we’ve finished dinner and the sky is dark, Edison and I find ourselves alone at the elevator in the dark office, waiting for Sepp and Chelsea to get out of the restrooms.
“I saw who you were meeting with,” I say. It seemed like another ambush, I don’t add.
He motions to his face. “Still conscious, no fresh bruises.”
“It went better than the last time.”
“It went exactly how it was supposed to go.” That’s all he says.
“Sepp seems relieved.”
He nods. “We both are.”
“You don’t have to worry about them anymore, then? Or Archaletta?�
�
Edison looks to his feet, takes a quick breath before he answers. “No, not anymore.”
Chelsea comes back, and moments later, Sepp joins us so I don’t get to ask if they paid the guys from the island or if Archaletta was there, too.
“All in a day’s work,” Sepp says into my ear, leaning against the wall of the elevator as we travel down to the lobby.
“Selling cement?” I say, knowing I shouldn’t reveal that I know anything else.
“Putting out fires.” He smiles. He holds out his hands. “Look, Maris, no burns.” He laughs. For a second he turns serious and his eyes half close as he looks down at me. “I earned every ounce of that champagne.” Then he’s laughing again.
This must be how the Duvals handle problems. They are solved fast and celebrated hard.
Chapter 28
The next day Chelsea and I sit blindfolded in the back of Edison’s boat, holding hands as the wind cuts at our faces. In the cargo are our overnight bags. The Edison charm convinced George and Trisha to let us go in the first place.
Chelsea peppers him with questions, trying to guess where we’re going, and he finally lets us take off our blindfolds.
We are surrounded by ocean, no shore in sight. This makes Chelsea overjoyed—Where are you taking us?! And I am the same, but keep my excitement under wraps.
It starts as a small speck, and soon we’re upon it, its sandy base stretching out before us—an island.
“That’s it,” he tells us with a smile, Chelsea’s arms around his neck as he steers.
It’s small; we can see the curve of it. It’s like Honeycomb Island in the sense that it’s sandy on the edges and full of shrubs in the center.
Oswald, Warren, and Karen are on the dock to greet us, along with the owners of the island: the Smiths.
The Smiths—Gloria and Renee. Older women, one in silk, the other in linen, wearing matching six-carat diamond wedding rings. They’re in the business of construction and property development and have nurtured a friendship with the Duvals for decades. Their yacht is anchored next to the Duval yacht. It is bigger.
Sepp and Kath arrive shortly after we do in a red speedboat. Sepp greets the Smiths by kissing them both sloppily on the cheeks. The wives, he calls them.
We have a quick lunch of caprese sandwiches on the deck of the Smiths’ yacht, and then the parasailing boat arrives.
Chelsea and I go together. We’re strapped in the harness, smiling so hard with anticipation that our cheeks get sore. The boat propels out in front of us, and we shoot higher and higher into the air. My heart races as the world opens up beneath our feet. The trees on the island get smaller and smaller, and I can see shadows moving under the ocean. I close my eyes and concentrate on the wind on my face, the occasional feeling of weightlessness, and pop them open, getting a rush from how distant the ground is, how far we could fall, afraid to miss any of it.
Chelsea screams at the top of her lungs. A happy sound. And when we land in the water, she has this gigantic smile on her face. She goes again with Edison and comes back with the same smile.
“It was like flying,” I tell my mother on the phone afterward, sitting in the outside area of the upper deck on the Duvals’ yacht, watching Chelsea and the Smiths and Karen and Kath hover around the chocolate fountain inside, dipping in strawberries and shortbread.
After I hang up with my mother, I take the stairs down to the main deck and see the Duval men through the glass doors. They stand in a huddle talking. But I can’t hear them. It’s quiet down here and shaded. I’m tired from the parasailing and the heat, and I am enjoying this reprieve, so I stretch out my legs and ease back on the padded bench facing the back of the boat.
There’s a commotion behind me. Footsteps and loud voices and the sound of a door sliding open.
“Stop telling me to calm down.” It’s Edison. “This was never part of the deal. And you promised me I didn’t have to stay.”
“It won’t be too much longer,” Sepp says. “The first part is done. We did exactly what we were supposed to do in that meeting.”
“Then I should be able to go. You don’t need me for the rest,” Edison says.
“Yes, we do, and you know very well that we do,” Warren pipes up, his voice booming with anger.
“You never told me it would go on this long.”
Warren snaps, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you today, Eddy—”
“Warren.” Oswald tries to cut him off with a warning. “Come back inside. Let him have some air.”
“Well, he knows how it works,” Warren says. “He can get far away from us and Cross Cove and everything that he hates as soon as all this bullshit is over.”
“It’s going to be okay, Edison.” Oswald’s calming voice is the last thing I hear before the sound of the door sealing shut. Next comes a sigh I recognize as Edison’s.
I slouch lower in my chair and in doing so knock my phone onto the floor, where it lands with a thump. So I have no choice but to sit up, let Edison see that I’ve once again been exposed to the parts of his life he tries to hide. To my surprise, Sepp is still with him.
Edison shakes his head, then shrugs, defeated. He wipes his hands over his face like he’s too tired to make up an excuse. Behind them, lingering on the stairs, is Chelsea. I wonder how long she’s been there and if she heard the Duval men fighting like I did.
They notice me looking past them and follow my gaze behind them, to the left.
Edison’s hands drop, and his face falls. Chelsea leans into the railing, like she wishes we didn’t see her. She frowns when she notices me, like it somehow is worse that I’ve heard it, too, a flaw in Edison that would be easier to ignore if there was no one to witness it. No secrets on this yacht. Big and expansive, but we are all too close and drawn to each other, and nothing is safe or sacred.
“I don’t know how to be here,” Edison says to her, like he’s begging her to understand.
“Careful,” Sepp says to Edison. It sounds like a warning.
“Without her—” He breaks off, shaking his head. I think he means his mother, even though that wasn’t what the fight was about at all, and the most troubling part for Chelsea about what she overheard isn’t whether or not it’s hard for Edison to be back because of the painful memory of his mother; it’s that the reason he’s in Cross Cove is wrapped up in the Duvals’ business. They insisted he be here and that it has nothing to do with her. “At school, it was like I was on a different planet. It was easier.”
“I’m sorry it’s not easy for you to be here,” she says with a forced smile, tears lurking. “I’m sorry things aren’t better.”
I follow Chelsea to the upper deck, where Kath, Karen, and the Smiths are lounging and drinking white wine. Edison follows her, too. She smiles at all of them, but it never reaches her eyes, and I can tell by the concentrated wrinkle in between Chelsea’s eyes that she’s trying to sort out some of what she’s heard. Her disenchantment is more apparent now that we’re surrounded by everyone else, all of them smiling, laughing, relishing in this day, carefree as ever.
“It’s hard to be back, princess, that’s all,” Edison says, leading her away from everyone and over to the deck railing. He gives her a smile that is so Edison I wonder if she’s comforted by it. Or if now she can see through it.
“I understand,” she says quietly. He kisses her then, quickly at first. The next kiss he gives her is slow and delicate. He kisses her to quiet her. To reassure her. To promise her.
It’s a kiss that leaves me with a hollow feeling in my chest. There’s distance in the kiss. It is just lips. Just hands. It is only for show. With pieces of perfection chipping away, I can see the force in their sweetness. He pulls back, and our eyes meet over her shoulder. He seems surprised to see me there, watching, and looks away fast, keeping his arm around Chelsea as he steps to stand beside her so his back is to me. After a few minutes, they are whispering and laughing, and Chelsea is smiling as though she never stopped.
/> But it’s too late. I am thinking what I am not allowed to think: he would be different with me.
Chapter 29
The Duvals and the Smiths. With their large diamonds and their larger boats and their fresh seafood delivered and prepared and served to them with a side of yellow wax beans and arugula. Their private islands and designer champagne and parasailers.
We’re here with them so this is all ours for the day, too. But I can feel it now, how this is borrowed time. There’s splintering under the surface that money does wonders to cover up.
After dinner, we enjoy a walk on the beach. It’s a calm day, the sun is fading, the wind is sparse, the water tepid. Karen sprawls out on a lawn chair, wearing her bikini, soaking up the last of the evening’s fading sun. Warren has joined Sepp and Kath, where they are attempting to make a fire. Edison and Chelsea are leaned up against a fallen tree trunk with their feet in the sand.
Oswald’s smiles are the warmest I’ve ever seen, and he gives them freely to the Smiths as the three of them walk, shoes in one hand, champagne in the other, spilling over sometimes when Renee talks with her hands or Gloria bumps into her when they encounter uneven sand. I walk next to them, and they let me.
The Smiths and Oswald are talking about things I cannot imagine, private island parties and house seats at the symphony and charity galas to save polar bears. Shoes that pinched all night. The cliff-side structure that wouldn’t support a hot tub. Like the first time I met the Duvals, I find these non-problems relaxing, and I sink into that place of envy thinking about what life would be like if these truly were the only troubles that existed. Except now I know they’re not. Money and beautiful homes and long stays in Europe can’t fix the way it must feel for Edison to return to a paradise that’s missing his mother; it only serves to help him run away, gives him some semblance of temporary denial, and creates a distraction, and looking around, nothing familiar like the desert, I can see that appeal too, even if there are daggers beneath the surface, easy to reach if you let yourself remember.