Marriage Mistake

by Lively, R. S.

  Grant starts talking, and fills me in about everything he's seen and experienced in college. The world he describes sounds glamorous and unattainable, and I'm rapt with attention. We throw away the wrappers and napkins from our ice cream, and Grant keeps talking. I barely even notice the intensity of the sun or the sweltering temperatures as we roam around Magnolia Falls, visiting favorite spots from his past. Finally, he asks me about the plans I have for when I leave for school, and it's my turn to talk with the same enthusiasm and life he did. I don't have as much to say, and I'm fairly certain that even after my first few years at Duke, I still won't have experienced even half of what he has, but I can't hold back my excitement. Soon it seems we've talked ourselves so far into the future there's nowhere to go but back, and we end up in the past again. Hours slip by as we tell stories and share memories, and all the nervousness and insecurity I initially felt around Grant slips away with them.

  I can't believe how late it has gotten by the time he walks me up to my front door. Once we reach the welcome mat, I turn to smile at him. My heart pounds in my chest and I’m shaking slightly, but I can’t tell if it’s the cool breeze or the reality of having spent almost the entire day with Grant Laurence.

  Is he going to kiss me?

  I feel like he is. This is the moment I’ve envisioned countless times before. But he doesn’t. Instead, he traces the side of my face with his fingertips and smiles at me.

  “I had a good time today,” he says. “Thanks for hanging out with me, Emma.”

  I nod.

  “It was fun,” I reply.

  “Goodnight.”

  I watch Grant walk back down to the street and disappear around the corner as he makes his way back toward the main village. He’s going in the direction of his house, but I know he very well could be going to the main village for the rest of the night. Though there isn’t much happening in Magnolia Falls this late.

  I walk into the house, feeling like I’m floating. If this is the one perfect day I’m going to get this summer, I’ll take it.

  Turns out, it wasn’t.

  The next day, Grant shows up at the ice cream shop at the same time as the day before. I’m standing at the front window this time, and I wonder if he went around back first. He smiles at me and steps up to the window.

  “Hi,” I say. “Another ice cream craving?”

  “I can’t resist,” he says. “Just too sweet to pass up.”

  His eyes lock on mine, and I feel myself blush. I wonder how undignified it would be to wrap myself around one of the huge containers of ice cream to lower my body temperature back to normal.

  “What can I get for you?” I finally manage to ask.

  His eyes glance over me so briefly, I wonder if I imagined it.

  “One scoop of raspberry, one scoop of chocolate, and one scoop of vanilla bean, in a waffle bowl.”

  I grab one of the freshly-made waffle bowls and carry it over to the freezer, quickly filling it with the biggest scoops I can manage. I bring it back to the counter and set it down.

  “With whipped cream and sprinkles?” I ask.

  “And a cherry,” he says.

  The burn in my cheeks returns, and the heat creeps down the back of my neck and onto my chest. I get to work, trying to regain some control. Once the bowl has a dome of snow-white cream and an ample scattering of sprinkles, I bring it back to the front window. Plucking one of the maraschino cherries out of the clear plastic bucket in front of me, I set it on top of the cream like a jewel, and hand the concoction over to Grant.

  “Looks delicious,” he says.

  I offer him a plastic spoon.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He digs the spoon down into the ice cream and plunges the bite into his mouth. I watch as he slowly draws it back out through his lips, savoring each drop. Honestly, I could watch him eat the entire bowl and be perfectly content.

  “When do you get off?” he asks.

  Forget wrapping myself around a container of ice cream. I’m going to have to jump inside of one.

  “An hour,” I say.

  Grant nods as he takes a step backward away from the shop.

  “I’ll be here,” he says.

  Unlike yesterday, today was fairly busy, and the constant flow of customers helps get me through. During the slow times, Sarah taps away on the counter and stares blankly at a magazine. Occasionally, something in one of stories or pictures inspires a little gasp or a muttered comment, but she rarely raises her head.

  Grant looks at her for a questioning moment as he approaches, then turns to me.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Are you finished?” he asks. “Ready to go?”

  “Sure,” I reply. I take a few steps toward the door, then pause and look at him again. “Are we coming here again, because I could just make our ice cream myself and carry it out to you.”

  Grant laughs.

  “No. I have something else in mind.”

  I nod and head for the door.

  “What do you have planned for today?” I ask when I step outside to meet him.

  “I thought we’d take a ride over to Sun Valley Ranch.”

  “The water park?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’ll be a good way to cool off.”

  The day had ushered in even higher temperatures than yesterday, and after a few steps, I already feel like I’m going to melt. But Sun Valley Ranch?

  “On the mainland?” I ask.

  Grant looks at me strangely.

  “You act like it’s some distant mythical realm. You’ve been off the island before. You’re going to school much, much further away than the water park.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t have a bathing suit with me.”

  “We’ll swing by your house.”

  The nervous feeling is still fluttering around in my belly, but I’ve run out of excuses. I nod.

  “Sure.”

  Grant grins, and we start in the direction of my house.

  I’m enjoying the walk with him so much, I’d be happy if this was all we had planned for the day, but soon we arrive at my house, and I remember he wants to go to the water park.

  “Do you want to come inside?” I ask. “It will only take a minute for me to grab everything.”

  Grant nods and I open the door, feeling relief as I step into the blast of air-conditioned living room. He looks around, and I feel a flicker of self-consciousness.

  What’s he thinking? Is he surprised?

  “It smells wonderful in here,” he says, and I melt a little.

  “My mother must have made bread this morning,” I say. “She says the heat and humidity makes the stuff at the store too gummy, and that homemade loaves stand up better.”

  Grant smiles.

  “I’ll take her word for it. I’ve never had homemade bread.”

  “Never?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “My mother isn’t exactly a baker, and the cook just orders in bread from the bakery.”

  His words bring me right back to the staircase in his house, and the afternoon I spied on him through the crack in his bedroom door.

  “You can wait here,” I say, gesturing toward the couch. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just go change and grab some towels.”

  I rush toward my bedroom and make sure the door is locked before digging through my dresser to find my bathing suit. Evaluating myself in the full-length mirror, I step into my simple black one-piece suit and wish I had gone for something more interesting at the mall. Something strappy. A two-piece. Anything. As it is, my bathing suit is a testament to my tendency to make logical, rational choices rather than ones with personality. I very rarely get near the water, but when I do, it’s because I’m sitting in a lounge chair reading, or doing slow, awkward laps. Neither of those warrant an interesting bathing suit.

  I walk over to my dresser and grab my brush. Sweeping my hair back, I brush it into a tight
ponytail, then braid it and secure it with a second elastic band. The last thing I need is for some of the wispy strands to come loose while I’m on any of the attractions. Other girls can go into the water with hair to their waists and come up looking perfect, walking in natural slow motion as the lingering droplets sparkle on their skin, but I’m under for three seconds and come out looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon with my hair stuck all over my face. Not an image I’m dying to share with Grant.

  Once my hair is out of the way, I throw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, feel grateful for having already painted my toenails as I put on my flip-flops, and head toward the living room. I take a detour to the linen closet to grab sunscreen and towels. I had forgotten today was Mom’s day off until I get back into the living room and she’s a few sentences into her proud mama bear speech about all my accomplishments. Grant looks up at me from the couch, a chunk of homemade bread slathered with butter in one hand.

  “Are you ready to go?” I ask.

  He nods and stands.

  “Thank you, again, for the bread,” he says to Mom.

  “You’re welcome,” she says. “If it doesn’t take you the whole hour to get to the water park and down to the pool, you be sure to wait before you get in. You don’t want a cramp. That’s how people drown.”

  “It’s a piece of bread, Mom. Not a pot roast. I think he can handle it.”

  Leave it to my mother to wrap up a friendly conversation with a warning about impending death.

  Grant takes another bite of his bread as we head down the street. It didn’t occur to me that we walked here and are going to have to go to his house for a car to make it to the water park. But I’m fine with that. It just means more time beside him.

  “Did she offer you any preserves?” I ask.

  He shakes his head as he swallows.

  “No. What kind of preserves?”

  “I made strawberry and blackberry preserves at the beginning of the summer. The pantry has a whole shelf full of jars.”

  “Then you’re just going to have to invite me back to your house so I can try some,” he says.

  I smile.

  My nervousness doesn’t come back until we’re in his car and making our way over the water in the ferry. It’s a short trip from the island over to the mainland but being in the car with him makes it feel like we’re heading to another world. We climb out of the car as the ferry leaves the dock and stand by the edge to gaze out over the bay. I can feel him looking at me, his eyes following the curve of my neck and down my arms as they rest on the railing.

  “Have you ever thought about how strange it is that so many different things can use the same word?”

  I blurt it out like my brain just couldn’t handle the tension any longer and had to fill the silence, so it just chose the first thought available.

  “What?” Grant asks.

  “Words,” I explain, already committed. “There are so many things that are completely different, and unrelated to each other, and yet they use the same word. Language is pretty arbitrary when you think about it. It’s completely fluid. People made up words for things all the time, and still do. Yet the same ones got recycled over and over. Like the word ‘bay.’ You have bay like the water. And bay like the leaf you can’t leave in food after it cooks. And bay like where a plane sits. And bay like a wolf at the moon. None of those things has anything to do with the other ones and yet…”

  “Bay.”

  “Right.”

  Grant smiles.

  “I can honestly say I have never thought about that before.” He leans a little closer. “But, being around you makes me think about a lot of things.”

  I don’t know how to respond. I’m not even sure what he means. Fortunately, it’s time to get back in the car so the ferry can dock, and I don’t have to say anything at all.

  The ride to the water park isn’t as far as I remember. That was when the idea of getting into a plastic tube and plummeting toward a pool that may or may not be deep enough to accommodate the impact sounded like fun. I tell myself I should be excited. This is the kind of thing that should happen during my last summer before college. As we walk toward the front entrance and Grant pays for our tickets, I listen to the screams of the riders, and remain unconvinced.

  “Are you alright?” he asks as we walk through the turnstiles.

  I nod.

  “I’m fine,” I say, managing a smile.

  “Are you afraid of the water park?” he asks.

  It doesn’t sound judgmental or mocking, but like he’s genuinely concerned.

  “Some,” I admit.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “If I’d known, I would have suggested we go do something else. Do you want to leave?”

  I shake my head.

  “No. We’re already here.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “We can do something else, Em.”

  I shake my head more emphatically.

  “No, really,” I explain. “I want to be here. I haven’t been in a long time, and I think it’ll be good to face my fears. Personal growth before college and all that.”

  Grant grins.

  “Good,” he says. “Then let’s go get a locker.”

  We go to a locker at the back corner of an open-air room, and Grant kicks out of his shoes and unhooks his belt. The swim trunks he reveals when his shorts drop are nearly as long as the shorts, but a bright green color that gives me confidence I won’t be able to misplace him in the wave pool.

  He tosses those into the locker, then pulls off his shirt. My stomach clenches and my heart thumps loudly in my chest as his body comes into view. It’s even better than I remember, and the hint of a tattoo on the back of his shoulder when he twists to put his shirt into the locker, makes my mouth water. He looks at me, and I realize I haven’t moved at all since we got to the locker. He’s now barefoot and in swim trunks, and waiting on me.

  I slowly peel away my clothes and see Grant trying his best not to stare as my one-piece is revealed. Filling my palm with sunscreen, I start to smooth it into my skin.

  “Let me do your back,” he says.

  I swallow hard.

  “Ok,” I reply. “Thanks.”

  He takes some of the lotion, and I turn so he can massage it into the skin exposed by the scooped back of my suit. I shiver as his skin touches mine, and my knees grow weak. His hands move to my shoulders, and I feel them slip beneath my straps to get full coverage. I don’t want him to stop, but too soon I’m fully UV protected, and his hands leave my body.

  “What do you want to start with first?” he asks as I put everything into the locker and he closes the door.

  My brain is still fogged with the sunscreen massage, and I look at him questioningly.

  “What?” I ask.

  He points with his thumb over his shoulder toward the slides

  “What do you want to do first?” he asks again.

  “Oh.” I peer toward the tangle of brightly colored slides. “I don’t know. What do you suggest?”

  “Well,” Grant says with a glint in his eyes. “If you’re nervous, I think we should just dive right in, so to speak. The Mind Melter.”

  “Mind Melter?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

  “Sure, it does,” he says, starting away from the lockers. “Biggest, fastest slide in the park. Get through that, and you’ll have nothing else to be afraid of. All of the other slides will seem like the lazy river.”

  “Can’t we just actually do the lazy river?” I ask.

  Grant laughs.

  “Maybe after we get our brains melted.”

  Perfect. Just perfect.

  Grant notices my hesitation, and reaches for my hand, taking it and pulling me toward the line. The feeling of his hand holding mine sends warmth through my body, and I get a boost of confidence right before we start climbing the winding stairs. He holds tighter as we climb, and I try to concentrate on the laughter coming from the water below, and not the screams.
>
  “You said you’ve been here before, right?” Grant asks.

  I turn away from my rather poor decision of staring out over the railing and nod.

  “Yeah. It was years ago. When I was still really young. Six.”

  “You were six, and you weren’t afraid of the slides?” he asks.

  “Well, most of the slides weren’t here then,” I say. “The ones that were here were a lot smaller and not as complicated.”

  “I know some of these were here,” he says. “I came here, too. If you weren’t afraid then, why are you now?”

  I sigh and point toward a slide hunkering in the corner of the park. It’s the only one not vibrantly colored in the red, blue, or green of the other slides. Instead, this one is black. Or, at least, it used to be. Years in the intense summer sunlight have bleached parts of it gray, but the result does nothing to ease the foreboding appearance. Instead, it makes the slide look scarred.

  “Black Out?” he asks incredulously. “That slide is the most over-hyped attraction here. I remember the year it opened. They advertised it for the whole season before, and weeks leading up to the park opening. Everybody was so pumped to ride it. They kept saying it was the scariest water slide in the area, and riders would be plummeted through pitch darkness and not know what was coming next.”

  “I remember, too,” I say. “I came opening day.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. I remember that day clearly. Going to amusement parks wasn’t something we did often. Carina wasn’t interested in the rides and Mom hates virtually anything involving water, but always insisted on us doing things as a family. The result was them rarely wanting to go sit at a park all day for only Dad and me to go on rides. But when we did, it was amazing. I loved spending time with him. When it was just the two of us, it was the best thing I could imagine. We’d been talking about coming here and going on Black Out since they announced it. He was worried I wasn’t going to be tall enough, but just a few weeks before the season started, they announced the height requirement; I barely made it.”