Safe Harbor

by Judith Arnold

  “What happens if I do this?” he asked, toying with the bow that held her bikini top on.

  “You die,” she said simply, spinning around and slapping his hand.

  He was laughing. “In that case, I’ll stick to the safe stuff.” Before she could stop him he dove underwater again, wrapped his arms around her knees and gave a jerk. She grabbed his shoulder, holding him down as she went under. He poked her ribs, she prodded his stomach with her knee, he shoved away and shot back up into the air a split-second before she did.

  “You’re a creep,” she scolded. This wasn’t as much fun as it had been last summer—or as recently as last Friday. For one thing, she was afraid of his accidentally pulling off her bikini. For another, she was afraid of his pulling it off not by accident. Maybe he thought there was something silly or affected about her wearing a swim suit she had no business wearing. Maybe he resented the fact that she could get herself up in something sexier than usual, even if it didn’t look particularly sexy on her.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. He was standing solidly, his hands on his hips, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. His dark eyes peered at her through water-spiked lashes. He had lost his playfulness; obviously he could sense her anger.

  Suddenly she was ashamed of herself. What a narcissist she was, to be so obsessed with a stupid bikini. “Nothing,” she said apologetically. “I just...I’m a little tired. I’m going out.”

  Kip accompanied her, slogging through the water until they reached the beach. Shelley gave herself a quick wipe with her towel, then dropped onto the blanket, slipped her sunglasses on, bunched her towel into a pillow and stretched out on her stomach.

  Kip spent a bit longer drying himself before he donned his sunglasses. “You want me to put some suntan lotion on your back?” he offered.

  “No. I’m too wet. Maybe later.”

  He shrugged and stretched out beside her, cushioning his head on his crossed arms. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Never been better,” she said tersely. She didn’t like lying to Kip, but since she honestly wasn’t sure what was bothering her she figured she might as well not go into it.

  He stared at her. She closed her eyes, but she could still feel his gaze on her, assessing her. “Have you got your period or something?”

  Shelley laughed. She couldn’t imagine discussing something like her period with any boy back in “America,” but with Kip she felt perfectly comfortable talking about things like that. When she was eleven he’d told her he’d seen Diana buying tampons at the general store, and he and Shelley had snuck into Diana’s bedroom, found the box in the closet, and stolen a tampon. Carrying their loot up to the cupola, they had unwrapped the tampon, examined it, and decided that the very concept underlying such an object was gross. The following summer, when Shelley had begun menstruating, Kip had questioned her on why she didn’t get grumpy the way Diana did, and whether the cramps hurt as much as Diana claimed they did, and whether she used tampons.

  Shelley had answered all his questions honestly. She knew he’d reciprocate. When she’d asked him what a “wet dream” was he’d told her. When they’d overheard a couple of crude guys down at the harbor using the term “beaver” in reference to a woman, Shelley had asked Kip what that meant and again he’d told her. It was part of the magic of the island—the magic of her friendship with Kip—that they could talk candidly about things.

  “No,” she said now. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Kip. I think...”

  “What?” he coaxed her, lifting a wet strand of hair that had unraveled from her braid and tucking it behind her ear.

  “I’m upset about my father.”

  “Oh?”

  A warm, soothing wind swirled around the cove, bouncing off the cliff behind her and dancing across her shoulders. She twisted her head so she could view Kip. “You won’t tell, will you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well...I think something’s wrong with him,” she confessed. It felt so good to put her feelings into words. She’d tried to raise the subject with her mother last night, as they’d nibbled on salads and watched a Sixty Minutes rerun on the tube. Her mother had immediately cut her off, insisting that nothing was wrong with Shelley’s father other than his being overburdened with work.

  “Is he sick?” Kip asked. He shifted so his head was closer to hers on the blanket.

  “No, nothing like that. It’s just...” She exhaled. Maybe her mother was right; maybe she was imagining things. “He didn’t come to the island ‘til Saturday morning,” she said. “Last summer he always came Friday afternoon, but this summer he doesn’t come ‘til Saturday--if he comes at all.”

  “He only missed one weekend,” Kip reminded her.

  “Your father never misses a weekend.”

  Kip shrugged. “If he missed a weekend, my mother would miss her weekly bee shot. He’s got to come.” Last spring Kip’s mother had gotten stung by a bee and gone into anaphylactic shock. As a result, she was on a regimen of desensitizing bee-venom injections. Since there was no pharmacy on the island, Kip’s father had to bring her weekly dose with him when he came down from Boston.

  But Shelley knew that wasn’t the only reason Mr. Stroud came without fail every weekend. He came because he wanted to be with his family. She and Kip rarely saw each other on the weekends because Mr. Stroud wanted to spend as much time with his son as possible—even if all they did was paint deck chairs.

  The Stroud family was wealthier than Shelley’s, and unlike her family their wealth went back several generations. But they weren’t zillionaires; Mr. Stroud worked for a living. Yet Shelley suspected that even if things were difficult for him at his real estate management firm he would never miss a weekend on the island with his family.

  “Has he said anything?” Kip asked. “I mean, about how come he can’t come on Fridays?”

  “Just that he’s got too much work to do.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Kip said. “He’s working.”

  She wished she could accept her father’s vague explanation as easily as Kip could. “I don’t know. There’s something about him. He seems so wired. When I talk to him about the stuff we’ve been doing all week, he just nods and says, `That’s nice.’ He’s distracted all the time.” She paused, searching Kip’s deep-set brown eyes and finding in his sincere gaze the courage she needed to continue. “He and my mother fight.”

  Kip absorbed her declaration. “You mean, like, physically?”

  “No—they argue.”

  His lips relaxed into an easy smile. “Big deal. All parents argue.”

  “I bet yours don’t,” Shelley contended.

  “Of course they do.”

  “About what?”

  He had to think long and hard. “Well, my father likes French roast coffee and my mother doesn’t.”

  “Wow. World War Three,” Shelley muttered. She had been at the Stroud place a few Friday evenings; she’d seen the way his parents behaved with each other. The closest they’d ever come to a fight was when Mrs. Stroud would ask Mr. Stroud to do something he clearly didn’t want to do—repair a broken piece of molding on the stairs, for instance, or check the insulation on a lamp’s electrical cord. He would invariably give her a plaintive smile and say, with just enough sarcasm to be hilarious, “Yes, dear.” Then they’d roll their eyes at each other and laugh, and Mr. Stroud would wind up kissing his wife on the cheek.

  They were so openly affectionate, so obviously in love with each other. They must have been married at least twenty years, yet sometimes they acted like dating teenagers. They held hands and communicated with their eyes, and Mrs. Stroud fixed the collars of Mr. Stroud’s rumpled shirts and he gave her loving pats on her behind when he thought no one was looking.

  “What do your parents argue about?” Kip asked.

  “I don’t know,” Shelley admitted. “That’s the worst part of it, Kip. They wait ‘til I’m upstairs and they think I can’t hear, and the
n...they talk to each other in these tense, strained voices, and my father says things like, ‘You push me too far, Mary. There are limits. I can only go so far before the whole thing falls apart.’”

  “What whole thing?”

  “I don’t know.” She realized she’d answered too many of his questions “I don’t know,” and that, of course, was part of the problem. She wished to God she knew what was going on. “They argue in the winter—but that’s in `America.’ They never used to argue here. We’d come down to the island and everyone would mellow out. This summer, though—” she fought against the quiver in her voice “—my father isn’t mellowing out. He needs to, Kip. And when I try to talk to my mother about it, she says he’s just overworked and I shouldn’t worry.”

  “And you’re worried.”

  “Yes.”

  Kip sighed. “Maybe your mom’s right, and it’s just some mess at work or something.” He must have read disbelief in Shelley’s expression, because he added, “Or maybe it’s something real.” He reached across the blanket to give her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “I don’t know what to say, except that I’m here if you need me.”

  She smiled. What Kip had said was exactly what she wanted to hear. He was with her, willing to listen, willing to be her friend. Knowing that she could count on him and confide in him was far more important than having him compliment her on her daring new swim suit.

  If he’d complimented her, he would have been lying, anyway. Instead, Kip gave her his honesty—the most precious gift in the world. No matter what trouble was brewing with her parents, Shelley had Kip. She was a remarkably lucky girl.

  Chapter Two

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you aren’t coming?”

  “Shelley...” Her father’s voice emerged through the long-distance static on the telephone line. “Princess, don’t make it harder on me than it already is, all right? I’d come if I could, but I can’t.”

  “Why not? Couldn’t you at least come on Saturday?”

  “Don’t nag.” He paused, then asked, “Did your mother tell you to call me?”

  “No. She told me not to call. But I thought maybe, if I could only talk to you myself...” Her voice wavered as she battled the urge to cry. When her mother had informed her he wasn’t going to come to the island that weekend, Shelley had decided not to give up so easily. Perhaps if she let him know how very, very much she wanted to see him, he might change his mind. “Please, Dad. Please come.”

  “Shelley, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. The earth isn’t going to stop spinning if I skip a weekend. Now pull yourself together. I’ll see you when I can.”

  She closed her eyes, stung by his harsh words. He made it sound as if her wanting to be with her father was selfish, as if she was being totally unreasonable by asking him to spend the weekend with his family.

  What he’d said was true—the earth wouldn’t stop spinning if he didn’t come. And yet...more was at stake than one weekend. Shelley sensed, from the tense undertone in her father’s voice and the grim set of her mother’s mouth as she turned a page of the New Yorker magazine she was perusing, that something was gravely wrong, and that if her father didn’t come to Block Island it would get worse. She was fighting for something far more consequential than whether she would get to spend time with her father that weekend.

  If only she knew what it was.

  “I miss you, Dad,” she whispered into the phone.

  After a brief silence, he said, “I miss you, too, Shelley. But you’ve got to grow up and face reality. I can’t come.”

  She sighed. Bad enough she was nagging and pleading. She wasn’t going to beg. “I’ll talk to you later, then,” she mumbled before lowering the telephone into its receiver.

  To her chagrin, several tears seeped through her lashes and skittered down her cheeks. Her father was right; she ought to grow up and face reality. The reality, in this instance, was that he would rather work than spend time with his daughter. Surely there must have been some way he could have contrived a trip to the island—even if he’d arrived on the last ferry Saturday night and departed on the first one Sunday morning. He could have managed it if he’d wanted to come badly enough.

  But he hadn’t managed it, because he didn’t want to come. She suddenly felt cold, abandoned.

  “I told you not to call,” her mother muttered without looking up from her magazine.

  Shelley gazed through the doorway separating the kitchen from the parlor. Her mother sat on the sagging couch, her feet propped up on the ugly wrought-iron table in front of her. Clad in a T-shirt, designer jeans and espadrilles, her figure trim and her shoulder-length ash blond hair brushed casually back from her forehead, she looked younger than her forty years. Closer examination of her face revealed the truth, however. Her eyebrows were indented in a perpetual frown, the smile lines radiating from her eyes had evolved into squint lines, and the corners of her mouth seemed frozen in a permanent downward turn. There was a hardness about her, a shadow of discontent darkening her features.

  Shelley slouched in the doorway, swallowing the lump in her throat. Maybe if her mother weren’t so grumpy her father would come. Maybe if someone told Shelley what was going on, she would be able to solve everything and make everyone happy.

  “Why won’t he come?” she asked her mother, detesting the tremor in her voice.

  “Who knows?” Her mother reached for the glass of sherry balanced on the table next to her feet. She took a sip and shrugged. “Maybe he’s having an affair.”

  Shelley gasped.

  Her mother looked up from the magazine. “That was a joke.”

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  “Well, nothing is funny this summer, is it.” Her mother’s tone was wistful when she added, “I’m sorry. I’m not happy about your father’s absence, either. But it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “If he’s having an affair—”

  “He’s not,” her mother said with enough certainty to persuade Shelley. “It’s just that there are lots of things going on at the bank.”

  “He could bring work with him to do here if he had to. Other people bring work with them. Kip’s father—”

  “Kip’s father is in a much more secure situation, Shelley. The Strouds are a solid family; they’ve got lots of money behind them.”

  “Are you saying we aren’t solid?” Shelley asked, even though she didn’t think she wanted to hear the answer.

  Her mother took another sip of sherry. “I’m not saying that, no,” she clarified. “I’m just saying, we didn’t inherit what we’ve got. Your father has to work hard for every nickel. He’s gone far and climbed high, but it isn’t like he can tap into a family fortune when times are lean.”

  “Are times lean?”

  “No.” Her mother sounded infinitely weary. “Times are fine. It just takes your father a little more effort to get what’s coming to him.” She rolled her head back on the cushions and stared at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Shelley. I should be trying to cheer you up, and I’m not doing a very good job of it. I’m angry, too. I’m angry with him for not coming, and I’m angry with myself for wanting him to when he obviously can’t. And now I’m angry with you for whining to me about it. I’m sorry.”

  Gnawing her lip, Shelley turned away. She felt bad for having pestered her mother. She should have expressed sympathy, instead. Her mother probably missed her father even more than Shelley herself did.

  “I’m going out for a while,” she announced, searching the kitchen for her sandals.

  “Going out where?”

  “Kip’s house.” He would comfort her. He would say whatever she needed to hear. Unable to locate her sandals, she pocketed her key and strode barefoot out to the porch, listening to the hiss of the screen door as it whipped shut behind her. The sky was fading as the sun slid below the horizon, and the air shimmered with the summer song of crickets.

  Shelley padded down the steps and straddled her bike. She pulled a rubber
band from a pocket of her jeans and fashioned her hair into a pony-tail so it wouldn’t blow into her face as she rode. Then she cruised down the rutted driveway and steered toward Kip’s house.

  Five minutes later, she reached the break in the stone wall where the Stroud driveway met the road. She slowed and turned onto the property, then pedaled along the edge of the broad carpet of lawn that spread in a gentle incline toward the front veranda. Lights spilled from first- and second-floor windows; through an open window came the sound of a Baroque flute concerto. The Adirondack chairs glowed in their new coats of white paint.

  She alighted and stood her bike against the wooden lattice that underpinned the porch. Then she climbed the steps and tapped on the screen door. Within a moment, Kip’s mother appeared in the front hallway.

  “Shelley! Hi, come on in,” Mrs. Stroud welcomed her, holding the door open. Shelley’s mother was arguably prettier than Mrs. Stroud; certainly she was more chic. But Kip’s mother exuded maternal warmth. She did nothing to camouflage the silver streaks in her dark hair; she dressed with shabby gentility, in cotton chinos, baggy blouses and canvas sneakers. Her eyes were gentle, her smile genuine. Shelley always felt comfortable in her house.

  “Is Kip home?” she asked.

  “Last time I looked, he was. Kip?” she bellowed, her voice echoing against the high ceiling of the center hall.

  Kip swung through the kitchen door, a half-eaten apple in his hand. As soon as he saw Shelley, his face broke into a surprised smile. “Hey, Shelley!” he greeted her, then abruptly stumbled to a halt, his smile fading. Despite Shelley’s brave expression, he must have realized that she wouldn’t have bicycled over unexpectedly unless something was wrong. “Want an apple?”

  Something might be wrong, but coming here definitely improved her spirits. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  His mother tactfully disappeared through the arched doorway leading into the living room. Once they were alone in the hallway, Kip approached, his bare feet noiseless on the faded runner rug. “Wanna go upstairs?”