by Susan Wilson
Heavy. She needed to talk to Will and the subject was heavy. If she didn’t tell him herself, there was the very real danger that someone else would; a danger illustrated by Conor’s wanting her to say hello to his parents. A danger looming every time someone who remembered her from the club saw her with Will. A danger made imminent with Will’s upcoming sailing lesson. It wasn’t that people didn’t know about Will. It was just that he was the Harris’s grandson in the abstract. At first her parents had declared that the child and his mother would not be welcome at Hawke’s Cove. That was their initial reaction to Kiley’s unwelcome news of her pregnancy and anonymous lover. But soon the baby Will had endeared himself to his grandparents, proving to be the most perfect grandchild. Once he was old enough to be away from his mother, they began to suggest he might come and stay with them while at the summerhouse. Maybe they’d been unable to refrain from speaking about their clever, charming, handsome grandson; but they never found it necessary to explain his existence, always letting Hawke’s Cove friends assume a normal—acceptable—genesis. So, Kiley reasoned, the MacKenzies might know about Will, but not really know who he was. And she wasn’t going to change that. But, it was clear that one change had to be made.
“Will, are you very tired?” They were on the porch steps.
“No, I’m still pumped up from the fireworks.”
“I have to tell you something.” Kiley sat down and patted the arm of the other rocking chair.
“I know you do.” Will took the empty chair.
She took a deep breath. “Once, long ago, I loved two boys.”
“Mack and Grainger”—a statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
She rowed them away from Blithe Spirit, the boys not speaking to each other, or to her. An impasse had been reached.
The dinghy’s bow ground onto the beach. The three jumped out and the two boys dragged the rowboat up onto shore. Suddenly, Grainger was gone.
Kiley ran to catch up to Grainger. At her touch on his bare back, he turned. “I have to go to work.”
“I know. I just wanted to say…” What words were there?
Grainger gently stroked the length of Kiley’s blond hair, touched her cheek as if in blessing, and smiled at her with kindness. She felt the pang of loss, of waste. “There’s nothing to say, so don’t try.”
“Will you be home for dinner, Grainger?” Mack was close behind her.
Again Grainger smiled, suddenly much older than they. His leadership of their troupe and his authority had so far outstripped them that he was looking at them as already in his past. “No, Mack. I’ve told your mother I’m going to stay in Great Harbor until I report for duty.”
“Why?”
Grainger turned away.
“What about the race?” Mack’s voice was tense and a little throaty. “You’ve got to help us sail her.”
He didn’t turn around to answer. “No, I don’t. She’s yours, Mack. Blithe is yours.” Grainger left them standing together, Mack’s height over Kiley’s, his chin on her head.
Suddenly bereft, she fought back tears. “Why can’t he just accept us? Be happy for us?”
“Because he loves you too.” Mack’s tone was without surprise or jealousy, even matter-of-fact.
As if, she thought, he loved Grainger as a brother, but loved her in a stronger, deeper way. As a man loves a woman. He didn’t begrudge Grainger his love; neither would he allow it.
It should have been easier, not having Grainger around to remind them of the fracture in their threesome. But this strange new partnership had no framework. It was as if she and Mack had to redefine themselves.
Every day Kiley found some pretext to call Grainger at the motel, ready to hang up if she got his father. When Grainger answered, she’d blurt out, “We’re going to the movies, want to come?”
“No.”
“Then, are you coming to the dance Friday?”
“No.”
“Are you ever going to say yes to anything?”
“No. It’s okay. You guys only have a few days left together. You don’t need a third wheel.”
“Grainger, you’ll never be a third wheel.”
After this last attempt, Kiley hung up the phone and leaned against Mack’s chest. “He hates us.”
“Can we not talk about Grainger? Let’s have one day when we don’t worry about him. He’ll get over it. You’ve got to stop worrying about him.”
Something primal had taken place. It wasn’t that he didn’t still want Grainger’s friendship; it was more that he was willing to sacrifice it for her. Their boyhood friendship was less important to him than having Kiley. She should have been flattered; instead she was dismayed. She had come between best friends. In less than two weeks they were going in three different directions, and this thing between Mack and herself might not survive winter’s separation. They had destroyed the best thing they had for a transitory pleasure.
Kiley wouldn’t let Mack touch her. Angry at him for caving in to his desires, more angry at herself for letting him, she pushed him away and walked home. As she had feared, loving the one didn’t mean she loved the other less.
When Mack came to collect her that evening, he carried a rose, presenting it to her like a courtier. “Forgive me?”
“Just what am I supposed to forgive?”
“My being a jerk about Grainger. Of course I’m worried about him too. But I think that we need to go on. I mean, we can keep trying to get him to accept us, but we also need to be together, to enjoy what we have before it’s gone.”
He was right; they needed to focus on themselves, on what they had chosen to be, together. This time was so brief, Kiley no longer wanted to waste any of it on argument. “I know. I just can’t bear thinking that he’s alone.”
Mack began kissing her neck. “Promise me that you won’t mention Grainger again tonight?” He moved to her lips. “It makes me think you feel that you’ve made a mistake, picked the wrong guy.”
“No, Mack. That’s not true.” She heard how thin her words sounded and pressed her lips against his.
They were in his father’s car, the stick shift between them. Mack had driven to Bailey’s Beach, parking off to the side of the narrow road. They got out and walked under a pretty moon illuminating the shimmering sandy path leading through the woods and field to the beach. Mack carried an Indian-print spread and a basket. It looked like they were on a moonlight picnic, and his romantic gesture surprised Kiley a little.
Mack spread the blanket on the sand beneath the dune, and she stripped off her jeans and sweatshirt, running to the edge of the black water in her bikini. Kiley heard Mack’s feet pound the sand behind her, and his hands caught her up to throw her in the cold water. Kiley screamed and he put a hand over her mouth. “Shh, Kiley, we don’t want to alert anyone that we’re here.”
She giggled against the restraint of his hand. “Who?”
“Smugglers, wreckers, other lovers.”
“Lovers?”
Mack kissed her, his kiss tasted like Chiclets. Kiley was still cradled in his arms, and it felt different from all the other times he had playfully scooped her up until he walked into the water, flinging her away with a great splash. She came up laughing and swam to him, wrapping her legs around his, letting the seawater float her. They kissed some more; then Kiley realized he wasn’t wearing a suit. His fingers released the three simple strings that held her suit in place. His lips and tongue touched her where he held her up, the water floating her into and out of his reach. His erection touched her and suddenly it seemed like there was nothing more in her life she wanted than for him to enter her. Right there, in the water where the salt taste of the sea mingled with the salt of his body, the salt of her happy tears. That single word floated above her head, a name for what they were, what they were to each other. Lovers. Their act had sealed them together.
Race day dawned pinkish gray, a streak of mackerel sky foretelling tomorrow’s storm. Kiley and Mack rowed out t
o Blithe Spirit in silence. When he’d tried to kiss her hello, she’d turned her mouth away from him, afraid suddenly that their new intimacy would be spelled out for all to see. No, not for all—for Grainger to see. Grainger was already aboard Gemini, crewing for the Doublemints. Kiley shipped the oars as Mack grasped the sailboat’s grab rail and hauled the dinghy close to the Beetle Cat. She took his hand as she stepped from one craft to the other, but let go as soon as both feet were in the boat.
This morning, they were shy with each other. Tentative. Kiley had lain awake most of the night, wrestling with guilt. Not from having had sex, but the guilty aftertaste of knowing she may have made a mistake. As hard as she tried to convince herself that Mack was the one, that what they’d done was the natural outcome of a prolonged, if odd, courtship, it was Grainger who kept haunting her sleeplessness. She had begged Mack to say nothing.
“What kind of guy do you think I am? Kiss and tell?” he’d protested.
“I think you’re his best friend, and best friends tend to tell each other everything. Yes. You have to promise me.”
“I promise.” Mack looked slightly disappointed.
Grainger was standing in the stern of Gemini. He waved and Kiley waved back, glad of the distance between them. Just as he knew they’d paired off, surely he would know that they had carried their relationship to this new plane.
Mack climbed into the cockpit, blocking her view of Grainger for moment. “Ready?”
“Yeah, sure.” Kiley hauled on the mainsheet. The sail rose easily, the breeze filled it and they were off, heading for the start of the race. As they moved away from the other boats, Kiley turned to look again at Gemini. Grainger was seated, one arm casually around one of the twins. From the distance, Kiley couldn’t see if Grainger was touching her, or simply resting his arm on the gunwale behind her.
Mack snickered. “Looks like he’s doing all right with the Doublemints. He could get a twofer.”
“That’s gross.” Kiley felt a knot of something begin to twist itself in her gut. Some foreign emotion she couldn’t quite define.
Mack chucked her under the chin as if she was a sulky child. “Come on, cheer up. We’ll beat ’em.”
“No, we won’t.” Kiley knew she sounded snappish, though Mack didn’t deserve it. “We just aren’t the sailors they are.”
Suddenly quiet, Mack guided the little boat along until they reached the area where other boats in their class were circling like wary opponents, waiting for the committee boat to signal the start.
“I think maybe you’re sorry about what happened last night.”
Kiley shook her head. “No, I’m not.” She reached out and took Mack’s hand. “I’m just a little tired.”
Mack squeezed her hand, then brought it to his lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” But she knew that she didn’t mean it in the same way he did. Mack was good and kind and fun…but he wasn’t Grainger. Kiley kept her face turned away so that Mack wouldn’t read the truth so plainly written there.
The next day Kiley drove to the Seasaw Motel, a two-story concrete building with little affectations of the seaside in the electric blue fake shutters that framed each window and the pots of geraniums outside each door, cigarette butts poking out of them like pegs. She could hear screaming children and splashing coming from the pool behind the building. Cars with out-of-state licenses filled the parking lot, and it was hard to find a free space. Kiley didn’t know which room was theirs and, even as she went into the small office reeking of cigarette smoke and damp rug, she worried that she might come face-to-face with Grainger’s father.
Mrs. MacKenzie had asked her to deliver a letter to Grainger. Postmarked “Boston,” it was hand-addressed. “I think he should have it right away. Will you take it to him? Mack won’t get home from work until four.”
It was as if the hand of God had come to guide her. After the race Saturday, Kiley had avoided Grainger except to congratulate him and the twins on their third place finish. But avoidance was no good, the wrong fix. She needed to see him, to speak to him, to explode this bubble of uncertainty lodged in her gut. She needed to know that she had made the right decision. There seemed no way to accomplish that until now, deus ex machina, she was being sent to Grainger. She was nervous. What if he got angry that she just showed up, when so clearly he, too, was distancing himself?
No. No matter what, he was still her friend. And she had been sent. Kiley shook off the nervousness.
She asked the desk clerk which room belonged to the Egans, steeling herself against meeting Mr. Egan, steeling herself to look Grainger in the eye.
The desk clerk was about Kiley’s age, a little hard around the eyes, and she took a long drag on her cigarette as she flipped through the guest register. “One oh one. First on the left.”
“Is Mr. Egan there, or is he out?”
She stamped her cigarette out, grinding it as if pondering the question. “Beats me.”
“Thanks.”
Kiley clutched the envelope in her hand. She had no idea what she’d say to Grainger, assuming he was there, assuming he would talk to her. She had never struggled for words with either of them, and maybe it was that they’d never said a serious thing to one another in all those years. Always teasing, jousting, gossiping. Never sitting down and explaining what they were really made of. Never telling each other that they loved one another. In those days, so distant to her now, it felt incomplete to be with only one of them. When waiting for one or the other of them to arrive, it was a temporary bifurcation, soon brought into balance. Now, nothing was in balance—as if her ballast had shifted and she was in danger of sinking. She should be dizzy with love, not weighted with guilt.
Kiley was standing on the cement walkway, the envelope in her hand, staring at the number on the motel door, when it opened. For a moment she thought that Grainger had been waiting for her, had known she was coming.
“What are you doing here?” Grainger’s voice was sharp, surprised.
Kiley could only hand him the letter.
He accepted it without taking his eyes off her until she blushed, wondering if he could see in her face what she and Mack had done. “Come in.”
“Your father…”
“Out. Fishing. I’m by myself.”
The room was tidy, the television on, and Grainger shut it off. Take-out wrappers were scattered on the small round table under the window. He’d been eating and must have seen Kiley through the half-closed curtains. Grainger stuffed the papers and napkins into the trash and gestured for her to sit down. She took the only chair. He sat in front of her on one of the double beds. “Why did you come?”
“Mrs. MacKenzie thought you’d want that letter right away, and Mack is at work. So I brought it.”
Grainger looked at the letter. An ordinary number ten envelope, plain white. He studied his name, handwritten on it, as if trying to decipher a code hidden in the neat letters. Kiley leaned a little closer, her curiosity aroused by his long contemplation of it. Where the return address should have been, there were only black lines, someone’s deliberate crossing out of the business address.
“Open it.”
“Later.”
“Why not?”
“I’d just rather open it alone, okay?” His voice wasn’t gruff or even annoyed, but his excluding words hurt.
“Okay. Read it in peace.” Kiley had the door open before he called her back inside. This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t have come.
“I’d ask you to stay, but that isn’t fair to Mack. Or to you.” He kept his gaze on the envelope still in his hand, but the longing in his voice called to her, the same longing she felt for their old friendship.
But no, it was different. There was something else in his voice. Her eyes were open now. “Grainger?”
“Everything is different now; you’ve chosen Mack. You’re right for each other. I’m happy for you.”
Kiley pressed the metal door closed, and the sound of the latch cli
cking shut felt like her heart clicking open. He loved her, and she had been too blind to see it. No, not too blind, too disbelieving. “Grainger, why didn’t you speak first? Why didn’t you say something?”
“What difference would it have made? I never stood a chance.”
Kiley moved away from the door. “It would have made all the difference.” She reached across the divide between them and touched his face. “All the difference.”
He moved away from her hand as if he’d been burned. “Mack is my best friend.”
“And you’re his.”
“You were ours.”
“I wish Mack had never said anything to me. He changed everything.”
“But he had to. You can’t go on feeling like this and not say something. You can’t suppress these feelings. If he’d only told me long ago, come clean to me first, then I would have…”
“What?”
“Let go of my own dream.”
“For Mack’s sake? What about your own?”
“You don’t understand. His family saved me, gave me a new start in life. How could I repay them by taking away his dream? What kind of friend would I be?”
“What kind of friend are you to me? Where do my feelings come into this? You two decide who gets me?”
“We didn’t decide; we never planned this.”
“I never wanted to choose between either of you.”
“Then why did you?”
“I didn’t know how you felt. If I had…”
Grainger paced across the small room, then came back and took her hand. “If Mack had said nothing and I said nothing, which one of us would you have chosen?”
Grainger stood in front of her, the shadows of the room somehow enlarging him into a prototype of the man he would become. Kiley could smell him, his sweat from honest labor mingling with the pungent smell of arousal. They were standing close now, too close. It was so easy to have his arms around her, a snug harbor. Tears rolled from her eyes, and she made no move to stanch them.
It was all clear. What she felt for Mack was childish, insubstantial. A mere shadow of the feelings flooding her at the touch of Grainger’s cheek against her hair, his breath against her forehead. Lifting her chin, she breathed in deeply to receive it, hoping to find his mouth coming to meet hers. “You, Grainger. You.”