The Ocean Inside

by Janna McMahan

  Lauren stepped into the laundry and began to fold clothes. She found that Sloan’s clothing choices had become more refined since she started seeing the Wannamaker boy. He’d invited her to the Lowcountry Yacht Club and to Al’s by the Creek, so she’d necessarily had to take more care with her appearance. Lauren folded a couple of blouses and cute short skirts she had purchased for birthdays and holidays, clothes that had previously languished in the back of Sloan’s closet in favor of paint-stained T-shirts and ratty jeans.

  This new boyfriend had shocked her out of her malaise over her sister’s illness. Sloan was quick to point out that they were just dating, that they were not a couple. It had only been a few weeks, and Lauren was sure this boy kept other love interests, but he seemed content to spend his weekends with Sloan.

  Lauren also got the distinct feeling Sloan was going to sleep with him if she hadn’t already. She suspected Sloan had been with a couple of boys from school, but it had all been very quiet and had never resulted in anything, so Lauren had held her tongue. Lauren believed Sloan suffered from a confidence deficit, which probably stemmed from a suspicion that her father had more interest in her younger sister.

  And it was the truth, in Lauren’s opinion as well, that Emmett had a distinct preference for Ainslie’s wild ways. Sloan and her father had unaddressed issues. Conventional thinking was that a girl would find either a boy to fill Daddy’s shoes or somebody so very different and inappropriate it would shock the father into paying attention. Cal Wannamaker seemed to be neither, but Lauren wasn’t completely taken in. She’d dated enough rich boys in college to have a feel for the games those types played. She just hoped Sloan was smart enough to keep the upper hand.

  Hormones poured off those two when they were around each other, a physical connection Lauren recognized from the first time she set eyes on Emmett. It happened, and when it did, it was hard to ignore, so there would be no fighting the Sloan–Cal connection. That situation was going to run its course.

  Last week, Lauren had walked into the girls’ bathroom when Sloan was getting ready for a date. There were still a few things Lauren could do to establish a physical bond with her daughter, and brushing her hair was one of those things. Lauren held up a brush.

  “Okay,” Sloan said and sat at the vanity. Lauren made long strokes. Sloan’s hair fell in waves like a 1940s movie star. After a while, Lauren asked her, only once, if she knew what to do when it came to protection.

  Sloan rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, Mom, I learned that in, like, seventh grade.”

  It was insane how quickly children were growing up today. That music channel was so saturated with sex it was basically soft porn—women in hot pants and string bikinis grinding their asses into the laps of rappers and rock stars. And the female rock stars were no better, basically strippers themselves.

  How had society changed so much so rapidly? Lauren had been shocked to see her first transvestite in college. But now they attended public high school just like the rest of the students. How anyone could know they wanted to be a transvestite at that age was just one of the things that stunned Lauren. But people didn’t fall in line anymore, do the expected thing, play by the rules. Nobody wanted to be the overachiever, the band leader, or the president of the student council. Perhaps it seemed obsolete to care too much in a time when students passed through metal detectors to get into school, businesses required urine samples, and road rage could end your drive home in the hospital or worse.

  Lauren finished folding clothes and took the pizza from the oven, sliding the tray onto the eyes of the gas stove. She heard the mailman’s boxy vehicle pull into their drive and went to meet him. Some days he couldn’t fit their mail into their box, so he brought it to the front door.

  Lauren saw his figure swim in the cut glass and opened it before he had a chance to knock. Today, his arms appeared to contain more happiness than misery.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Got another big load for you today.”

  He thrust a thick pile of colorful cards at Lauren.

  “How’s she doing?” the postman asked.

  “Pretty good right now. Thank you for asking.”

  “She must be a popular little girl.”

  “It’s nice people care.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You have a good day now.”

  Inside, Lauren separated bills from pastel envelopes and made a pile for Ainslie. Forty-two cards and a couple of packages for her. This all started a few months after Ainslie became ill. First it was the church, with all the children making cards. Then there was the Nintendo GameCube and games the congregation provided. Of course, there had been food at first. Lauren had served grits casseroles and barbecue to her family until they cried for fresh vegetables. She’d frozen the rest, but too soon even the frozen food had dwindled. There was still the occasional vat of soup that came their way, but mostly people had stopped with the food.

  What had become strong was the flow of cards and gifts into their home. Someone posted Ainslie’s story on the Internet and people began to flood them with attention. Every day cards arrived, sometimes toys or nail polish or stickers, frequently photographs of other children who survived this illness. Lauren had to be careful that letters from bereaved, slightly off-kilter parents didn’t make it into Ainslie’s hands. The doctors said keeping positive was the most important part of treatment. The whole family had to believe in the treatments. Everybody had to be upbeat. Well, none of them had been exactly stellar on that account. Still, although Ainslie was tired and sad, she hadn’t had a strong reaction to anything that had happened to her so far. It was almost eerie how calm she had been.

  This day’s haul seemed safe, mostly children’s scrawl on the envelopes. Lauren climbed the stairs and knocked lightly on Ainslie’s door.

  “Hey, Miss Popular. You’ve got another pile of mail,” Lauren said.

  “Just put it over there on the table,” Ainslie said. She was playing a game called Animal Crossing on her GameCube. “Mommy, do you think somebody would give me a Wii if I asked?”

  “Probably, baby. Do you really need a Wii?”

  “Exercise.”

  “I see. Well, we’ll talk about it.” She slid onto the bed beside her daughter and ran her fingers through Ainslie’s fine, reemerging hair. It seemed like such a small thing, so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but she prayed her daughter’s hair would grow back straight and shiny like before. She’d heard chemotherapy changed the composition of some people’s hair, straight hair became curly, blonde hair became brown. Ainslie stopped playing and leaned into her mother for comfort.

  “It’s growing back in,” Lauren said.

  “I know,” Ainslie said. “But it’s still all over the bathroom from before.” How long had it been since she had touched the girls’ bathroom? She’d cleaned up after sickness, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had scrubbed the tub or swept the floor. A swift moment of anger flashed her mind when she realized Sloan should have offered to clean her own space, but she quickly dismissed this thought. What kid, even a teenager, would voluntarily scrub a tub?

  “That’s okay. I’ll clean it up.”

  Ainslie turned back to her video game and was immediately immersed. Lauren watched her and thought about what she’d heard from this room last night. She’d been passing by on her way to bed and she heard soft voices.

  “Are we poor now?” Ainslie had asked.

  Sloan sighed. “I don’t know. I guess we’re lots more poor than before.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Ains, stop it. None of this is your fault. I mean, seriously, it could have been any one of us. Nobody blames you.”

  “But if it wasn’t for me, then everything would be okay.”

  “You get well and everything’ll be fine. Mom and Dad always take care of us. You’re going to be okay. I just know it.”

  Lauren had slipped away then. She couldn’t stand to hear more. Downstairs she washed dishes with a venge
ance. Not actually washed, but loaded the dishwasher so violently she dared dishes to break. She slammed them in, not bothering to line them up for maximum capacity. She stopped when she realized that if she broke her plates there was no money for more. She’d be digging her old college crap from a box in the attic. She stopped and assessed as she so often did now. She could make it to the end of this day and then she would close her eyes and go to sleep and get up in the morning and face life all over again. But right now, right now she had to get control of herself. One. More. Time.

  CHAPTER 14

  New Friends

  The direct flight from Atlanta to Cancún International Airport would take only a couple of hours, but the party had already started. The cabin pulsed. The flight attendants were gay, cracking jokes over the intercom. There was a loud couple who sounded as if they’d enjoyed cocktails along with breakfast. There were other groups of college students like theirs, but also families going on vacation and others who appeared to be returning home. A handsome Mexican guy smiled at Sloan and she returned his gesture. She had been on a number of airplane trips, but people on their way to New Jersey were never this happy.

  Cal was scrunched forward, peering out the oval window of the opposite aisle. His buddies hugged their girls in anticipation of the action they would be getting. Sloan quickly realized she had filled the position of necessary female friend in Cal’s vacation plans. She also realized that by coming on this trip she had agreed to sleep with him. She intended to anyway but had been putting him off, assessing him.

  And he did seem to like her. He’d taken her to Charleston to meet his family on their first date. That day she learned he knew her father from a party. Since then, he’d picked her up from school on the Fridays he was home from college. He’d been everything a boyfriend could be without actually asking the big question. And Sloan knew he wasn’t going to shut down his options for a high school girl.

  The intrepid travelers finally stepped from the airplane into the colorful, sleek airport. Outside the terminal, the kids stood mesmerized by throngs of people, all nationalities, jammed together, horns blaring, vans and cabs jockeying for position. A man with a pleasantly round face and skin like good leather held a sign Cal recognized. Once they were loaded into the Imagine Resort shuttle van everyone grew quiet.

  Their driver felt it necessary to fill the void of conversation by giving his riders a free history lesson. He told them that thirty-five years ago the peninsula of Cancún had only six hundred residents. He said that in August of 2007, Hurricane Dean had demolished most of the area, but they were used to repairing after storm damage, and most of the hotels were open for business in only a few months.

  There seemed to be little lasting effects of Dean. The peninsula was a palm splattered ribbon where upscale resorts grew from white sidewalk, like brilliant Lands of Oz, and shoppers strolled under festive market lights, fingering native textiles and jewelry. As they drove south, hotels turned gaudy and the clientele became smoothly tanned young adults who draped themselves from stools at open-air bars, silver shining on their tawny arms.

  At the resort, a bellhop opened the taxi door. “Welcome to Cancún Imagine Resort, our friends from South Carolina,” he sang. “Would you like a glass of champagne or perhaps a beer?”

  The resort rose like a stone-stacked Mayan temple. Inside, artwork was contemporary. Sloan’s father would have admired the simple Mexican architecture. Their rooms were on the top floor, off the center corridor of a five-story triangular breezeway. This hotel, though immense, reminded her of Charleston shotgun homes with their sides open to the sea for ventilation.

  The bellman situated their luggage and bowed out of the room. Sloan stepped over the high threshold onto the balcony. The Caribbean spread out before her, blue and clear, water she had never experienced. It called to her with intensity, engendering a longing to submerge beneath its silky motion. The breeze was perfect. She noticed tile beneath her feet and she thought of the hurricane last year and wondered if this room had been flooded. She stepped back inside.

  “Are we supposed to tip the bellhop?” Heather asked.

  “No. This is an all-inclusive resort. Tips are built into the price,” Ethan said.

  “So we don’t ever tip anybody?” she asked.

  “Nope. And we can eat all the food we want and drink all we want.”

  “Awesome,” Heather said.

  “Hey, guys,” Cal said, “I hate to interrupt, but let’s go get drunk.”

  The four couples lined up at a right angle around two sides of the thatched-roof bar on the beach. Sloan took one of the rope swings with wooden seats that dangled around the cabana. Her white legs were bright against the blue of her sarong. Her eyes fell upon the brightly polished nails of the other girls and Sloan realized with horror that her toes were ragged and unkept. The guys ordered beers, but Heather and her friends ordered margaritas on the rocks. Not a big fan of beer, Sloan ordered the same. They toasted each other and stared out at the crystal clear water.

  Sloan sipped her yellow-green drink and wondered what her parents would say if they could see her here in Mexico with a bunch of college students. Probably they wouldn’t say a thing. Cal had bought Sloan’s airline ticket and the room was already covered, as well as food and drinks. Sloan had her own spending money, but Cal had taken care of nearly everything so far. When she told her parents she was going to Mexico with girlfriends, she had seen their disbelief, but they hadn’t questioned her. She had been poised for a confrontation or at least for some inquiry. She had wanted them to care that she was doing this crazy thing, to show any reaction at all, and she wasn’t sure they even heard her accurately. All she got was the same disconnected void she always encountered when they were occupied with her sister’s health issues.

  “Where are you getting the money?” her mother had asked. Money was one of the few things that registered with them.

  “It’s already paid for. Somebody dropped out,” Sloan had said. And it was nearly true. True enough to get her here.

  Her mother had said, “We’ll talk about this later.” But they never did.

  Sloan wondered why she had even bothered with such a thin lie, but it was somehow comforting to all of them that she keep up pretenses, not make them confront her and put more strain on the family. Sloan had never been terribly wild, and when she did choose to do something questionable, she had always been careful to shield her parents. She’d never gotten herself into a situation she couldn’t handle, but she’d also never been this far from home before, with people she barely knew, and as she sat there, a little ball of fear leaped into her throat. They were sharing a room with another couple. What if Heather and Ethan started having sex right there with them in the room? What if Cal wanted to do the same? Or, worst of all, what if they decided it would be fun to mix it up a little? Sloan had some sexual experience, but nothing that would qualify her to take on that.

  The thickly shellacked bar was embedded with shells and starfish. Cal leaned across this frozen sea and motioned to the bartender.

  “Barkeep,” he called, “another beer and a margarita for my lady.”

  He turned his megawatt smile on her.

  “Here you go, little darlin’,” he said. “Cheers.”

  The group wandered the hotel grounds, up and back down the beach where tanned locals jumped from white boats to hawk snorkeling trips and hang gliding. Dark banks of seaweed moved in the white sand and water. People lay immobile on lounge chairs, their skin shining in the sun. The breeze meant that the sun’s burning rays fell like silk against skin, so Sloan reminded herself about sunscreen. On a few white vacationers, the sun’s burn was already pink in Sloan’s polarized sunglasses. Others were hardened by exposure, dark as polished wood and healthy-looking despite a future of sun damage.

  That night, with her shoulders slightly sun-kissed, Sloan considered her clothes. Everybody had decided on dancing, but as Sloan sorted through her suitcase she rejected nearly everything
as too high school or too dark. There was a knock on their door. Heather answered, and suddenly the two other girls appeared, rolling suitcases into the room.

  “Grab your shit,” one of them said to Cal. “Guys are watching soccer in our room.”

  The boys obeyed and went to the other room, towels in hand. The girls cracked open suitcases and began a fashion show on the beds. They stripped down, pulling on skirts and tanks, handing clothing around as communal property.

  “I’ll order us some margaritas,” Kristin said.

  “Room service!” Emma screamed. Emma was usually the quiet one.

  Heather said, “Sloan, come here and try this on. I bet you can rock this look.”

  Sloan allowed herself to be dressed. A short red skirt and a black tank only made her look more pale.

  “You really should have gone to the tanning bed before you came,” one of the girls said in a critical tone.

  “I don’t tan,” Sloan said, almost apologetically. “I mean, I can’t.”

  “Here, try this self-tanner.” The girl pitched a bottle to her. “It works fast. Go in the bathroom and don’t get it on your clothes. It dries in, like, ten minutes.”

  Sloan shut herself in the bathroom and unfurled the towel from her head. She stripped naked in front of a wall-length mirror. She was pale, with no bathing suit stripe. For a second she wondered if she were dreaming. Would the others come bursting into the bathroom any moment to laugh at her, pale and heavy-breasted, her hair unruly? She squirted a dab of tanner into her hand and per instructions began gingerly and thoroughly smoothing it over her face. The change was immediate, and she smoothed and smoothed until an even glow came to her, a goddess before her own eyes.

  When she stepped from the bathroom, the girls squealed.

  “Oh, I get to do her hair,” Kristin said.

  As they blow-dried her hair straight with skills she had only passing acquaintance with, Sloan was thrilled. They brushed and discussed and considered small bottles of goo. Sloan was mesmerized by their intensity with appearance. When Kristin was through with her flatiron, Sloan’s hair was as straight and silky as a shampoo commercial. After an intense thirty-minute makeup job and borrowed shoes and jewelry, Sloan was shocked to see a twenty-five-year-old woman staring back at her from the mirror.