The Ocean Inside

by Janna McMahan

  Lauren was trying to shove a box of envelopes back into its slot and step around the end to say hello, when she heard Emmett’s name come up.

  Lauren didn’t even realize she was holding her breath, but she froze, one hand poised in midair, all her senses homed on the voices.

  Marguerite said, “I would never have suspected Emmett Sullivan of the like. There they were, in broad daylight. Granted they were back under a tree and all, but they were fighting right there in his truck. You should have seen them, yelling at each other.”

  “In the parking lot across from town hall?” another woman said.

  “I saw it with my own eyes. And you know people don’t get all emotional like that unless they’re…well, you know what I mean.”

  The women hummed knowing replies. They knew exactly what Marguerite was talking about, and it wasn’t a savory situation.

  “Poor Lauren,” one of them said. “You think she has any idea?”

  “Probably not,” Marguerite said. “She’s just been at her wit’s end trying to take care of that poor little girl. I swear, that child just gets sicker every day and that husband of hers just doesn’t seem to be any help at all. Well, I mean, you can tell Lauren’s just run ragged and there he is practically making out with that Caroline Crawford right there for God and everybody to see.”

  Lauren set the envelopes down at her feet, clutched her purse to her chest, and ducked out as quickly as possible. In the car, she felt sick and shaken. Suddenly, the door to Litchfield Books opened and the women walked out, their heads down in discussion, expensive handbags dangling from their elbows. Lauren caught her breath when she realized she was parked beside Marguerite’s car. She fumbled her keys, crammed them in the ignition and nearly backed into the approaching women, still deep in conversation. Lauren didn’t stop as she tore out of the parking lot and gunned her way onto the highway. She headed toward home and then realized that Ainslie was with her physical therapist in the opposite direction. She pulled into a parking space at the Hammock Shops and let the engine idle.

  Lauren sat there, numbly looking at the resort wear in the windows of a swanky women’s shop. What was she going to do? Her suspicions had been warranted. Emmett was cheating on her. That explained a lot. Maybe he wasn’t always at The Pub or the office or running. Maybe some of those times when he’d gone unaccounted for he’d been otherwise occupied with the city manager. If Marguerite was spreading the word, then half of the town would know by tonight. Lauren flung open her door and gagged. Nothing came up, but a line of drool escaped her mouth and she felt faint. She pulled herself upright and cranked the air conditioner to full blast, directing the vents toward her face, pulling her hair back and leaning close. Something crawled at the edges of her memory, and she suddenly remembered her bag of rice still on a ledge in the bookstore. That was when she burst into tears.

  Lauren collected Ainslie from physical therapy, barely registering his assessment of her daughter’s progress and his instructions for the week. Back home, Lauren gave Ainslie ice cream and distracted her with Cartoon Network.

  In front of her closet now, Lauren yanked up her slacks, but they slipped down again until they were hip huggers and the crotch seemed halfway to her knees. She hadn’t been this thin since college. Somewhere in the back of her closet was a box of clothes she’d kept from that time in her life. She pushed into the depths of the closet hunting for the box of sorority shirts and skinny jeans.

  Even though she’d been only twenty when Sloan was born, she’d never returned to her svelte size four. She gained two full dress sizes during her first pregnancy and ended up at a curvaceous size eight. After Ainslie was born she’d gone from an eight to a large-size ten, which still looked good on her frame. She’d fussed and starved on occasion trying to get back into single-digit dresses, but until now, she had been unsuccessful. Emmett had never complained. He had always assured her that he found her womanly, but Lauren had never grown accustomed to the fat pockets that rode the crest of her hips, nor the extra flesh that rounded out her face.

  Now she had no more baby weight on her, but along with her new body came thin hair, sallow skin and deep hollows beneath her eyes. She was slender, but she didn’t look or feel healthy. She’d have to take care of that. She was still attractive. She’d start taking vitamins. She’d exercise again. She’d show that bastard Emmett that two could play his game.

  Over the course of their marriage, their sex life had gone from four or five times per week to four or five per month, and then finally she could count on both hands the times they made love in a year. It was as if Emmett’s libido went on permanent vacation. His lack of interest had worried and hurt her, but she’d never been the type to initiate sex. Their love-making had become so sparse that Lauren considered herself basically celibate.

  But when Ainslie became ill, Lauren started losing weight, and Emmett woke up. For the first time in years, he told her she was beautiful, he touched her more. Suddenly, he wanted intimacy. But rather than being able to enjoy her husband’s advances, Lauren felt betrayed by his sudden interest in her. She was shocked he could even think about pleasure when things were so wrong in the family, that he would ask one more thing of her at a time when she was so utterly exhausted. Now that she was ready to have a nervous breakdown, now that she was emaciated, she’d suddenly become interesting to him.

  So maybe he’d been waking up to more than just her. Maybe when she turned him away he’d sought out Caroline Crawford. So what? That didn’t make this her fault. She’d always been aware of the flirtation between her husband and the city manager, but Lauren thought Emmett had enough character not to cheat. And even if he was going to cheat, surely he had enough brains to pick somebody besides this woman. But he hadn’t. He’d picked one of the most high-profile women in town, a woman everybody had an opinion about. Was he in love with her? What had they been fighting about?

  Lauren found the box of clothing marked COLLEGE. On the floor of her bedroom she arranged her life before—before marriage, before babies. She arranged a pair of jeans flat and bent one leg out at the knee. She topped the jeans with her pink-and-white Chi Omega baseball jersey and raised the arms at cheerful angles. She took one of her big pink bows and placed it where her head would be. She’d been the consummate sorority girl—hair bows, duck shoes, and kelly green pants. Her clothes still smelled faintly of Chloé perfume. She found photos in the bottom of the box and she slipped out an eight by ten headshot of herself, all hair and smile. Here she was, the girl Lauren had been years ago. Before cancer. Before divorce.

  Tears burned the back of Lauren’s throat, but she pushed them down. She had worked so hard to be in the sorority. Had held two part-time jobs to pay the dues and all the fees. In the box, she found her pledge pin, a ratty brown corsage still in its clear plastic box, concert tickets, and her garnet-and-black gamecock pompoms. She’d loved to go to football games, loved the spectacle of the massive cheering crowd.

  Lauren shed her clothes and pulled on her old jeans. They zipped smoothly over her hips but were snug in the waist. Next she pulled on her Chi O shirt and found a black hat with USC on the bill. She stood in front of the mirror examining herself from all angles.

  There was a whistle from the doorway and Emmett was there. He still held his satchel from work, his tie was askew. He had the bleary-eyed look she now associated with his post-office stops at The Pub.

  “You look hot.”

  Lauren had expected to scream at him when she saw him, but instead she felt sick on the words caught inside her.

  He moved toward her and slid his hands around her waist. She stiffened at his touch but her husband didn’t seem to notice. “You look good, babe,” he said as he bent to kiss her on the neck. “Like the day we met.”

  Lauren quickly sidestepped him.

  “I’m not the girl you remember,” she hissed.

  A puzzled expression washed his face. “Well, hey, whatever. Come here.”

  She pushed h
im away. “Don’t you dare come near me.”

  His drunken smile disappeared. “Lauren, what’s wrong?”

  “I know about Caroline Crawford.”

  His eyes widened and his mouth hung open.

  “You must think I’m pretty stupid. How long has this been going on?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play stupid. I know you’re fucking her.”

  “What? No. I don’t know why you’d think that.”

  “People saw you. Together.”

  “Where? When? I’ve never been with Caroline Crawford.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying. I’ve never been with Caroline Crawford. I’ve never touched the woman.”

  “Don’t lie to me! People saw you.”

  “Who saw me?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter. I deserve to know who my accuser is.”

  “You don’t have an accuser. Nobody told me anything. I found out on my own.”

  “Considering the fact I haven’t done a goddamn thing wrong, why don’t you just tell me what you think you found out so we can get it all out in the open and talk about it?”

  “Don’t you dare be condescending to me, Emmett Sullivan. You’re practically a damn drunk! You’re never around when the children need you.”

  “That is not true.”

  “You can’t even keep us in the black financially.”

  “There! That’s what this is really about. It’s about money.”

  “How dare you! Don’t try to turn this around on me. This is not about money. This is about loving your family and doing the right thing. Something you don’t seem to be able to do.”

  “Stop.” Emmett held up his hand. “Stop, just stop, Lauren. This is crazy. I know what you are referring to now. I was sitting in the parking lot of the courthouse last week and we were in a heated discussion about zoning ordinances.”

  “Zoning ordinances.”

  “That’s right. I think she’s in bed with Trip Wannamaker. She’s helping him push his agenda through on a project that affects this entire area.”

  Lauren folded her arms across her chest and made her stand.

  “That’s not the only time you’ve been seen in the company of Caroline Crawford. Everybody at the Wannamakers’ party saw you go under the stairs with her. What were the two of you doing back there?”

  “I didn’t do a goddamn thing with her.”

  “If I recall correctly, you were doing coke with her.”

  “There were about a dozen people there that night. I wasn’t with her by myself.”

  “Get your stuff and get out. I don’t care where you go. You can go shack up with her for all I care. I’m done with you.”

  “Lauren, I’m begging you to listen to reason. Give me a chance to explain.”

  “Get your stuff and get out or I’m calling the cops to remove you. I’ll think of something to tell the girls. You’re here so little anyway, I doubt they’ll even notice you’re gone.”

  Emmett opened his mouth as if to protest, but words seemed to escape him. He reached for her.

  “Listen to me,” he pleaded.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Lauren, listen to me.”

  “No. You listen to me. You’ve been drinking down at The Pub with your cronies and finding all sorts of excuses so you don’t have to be home and now I find out you’ve been messing around with Caroline Crawford. You get your shit and you get out of here.”

  “You’re right.” He held his hand to his forehead. “I need to leave before this goes any further and we end up saying things we’ll regret later.”

  “You do that.”

  “I’m going to Larry’s.”

  “I don’t care where you go.”

  But that wasn’t true. From the upstairs window seat Lauren watched her husband throw his bags into the truck bed. He paused and glanced up at the window where she was, but she knew from experience he couldn’t see her when the lights were off. He looked forlorn and tired. As tired as she felt. She watched Emmett drive away. She went into her bedroom and cried until she could cry no more and then, for the first time in months, Lauren slept through the night.

  CHAPTER 29

  Bluffing

  Common Good Insurance was headquartered in Raleigh-Durham. It was a half day’s drive from Pawleys Island. Emmett felt lucky their insurance company wasn’t in California or Michigan, where it would be harder and more expensive to arrive on their doorstep. As Larry had advised, they had accepted Common Good’s offer of mediation, another delay tactic and a way of negotiating with desperate policyholders. But Larry’s plan was not to mediate, but rather to use this audience to launch their attack against the company.

  Emmett had been giddy the night before, eager to tell his wife that he and Larry would be butting heads with the enemy today, but Larry had advised him to keep quiet until they were through.

  “You just never know how things are going to turn out,” Larry said. “It’s better not to get her hopes up.”

  Larry had planned their strategic attack for months, and yesterday, for the first time since this whole ordeal began, Emmett felt hopeful. He had gone home fully intending to go against Larry’s advice and tell Lauren what they had planned the next day. But Lauren had been crazy when he arrived home. Who had been gossiping about him and Caroline? People were always interested in their neighbors’ business, good or bad, but this was just an outright lie. This whole blow-up was his fault. He should have been more careful. No. He should never have flirted with Caroline or responded to her advances. Then they wouldn’t have been fighting in his truck and there would never have been anything for anybody to see and report on.

  “Lauren’s going to divorce me if this doesn’t work,” Emmett said.

  “Did you tell her we were doing this today?”

  “I’d told her last week it was a possibility, but I think she was so pissed off last night she forgot.”

  “You’re in sad shape, my friend.”

  “It would be different if I’d actually done something wrong, but I didn’t do anything.”

  “I believe you, but I’m not the one you’ve got to convince.”

  “I mean, shit. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it. I had. But I’m not guilty of actually doing a damn thing. And I resent being accused of something I didn’t do.”

  “That’s not the avenue to take. I think contrition might be a better move.”

  “God, why did I get married in the first place?”

  “Tried it once. Didn’t like it.”

  Tall, slender pines blurred by in Emmett’s peripheral vision. A headache threatened, and Emmett lay against the headrest of Larry’s car and closed his eyes. He had to be calm, take one thing at a time. Lauren would come around. Or not. But after everything that had transpired between them over the past few months, after enduring her disappointment and derision, this accusation just might be the last straw. Emmett wasn’t exactly sure he wanted to work things out. Right now he needed to focus on one thing—getting these insurance bastards to pay for Ainslie’s treatment. Then he could worry about everything else.

  “They’re just trying to wait us out until Ainslie dies,” Emmett said as they drove north on I-95. “Now that she’s had a spinal tumor they really won’t want to pay. How could they do this to her?”

  “Don’t make it personal,” Larry advised.

  “How can I not make it personal?”

  “When you let things get personal you lose perspective. This is a big-picture situation where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And today, we’re going to be the squeakiest fucking wheel they’ve ever seen.”

  “Mike’s going to meet us there?”

  “He’ll be there.”

  “That should scare the shit out of them.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Larry’s old college buddy Mike, a producer for CNN, had experienced a similar sit
uation with a different insurance company years ago. Mike’s son had struggled with an unusual type of lymphoma, and while the company debated the benefits of what they considered experimental treatment, Mike’s son had died. Later, the treatment the insurance had denied was found effective. It was now standard protocol. Emmett had never had an occasion to be grateful for the loss of others, but today he was glad to have Mike on his side.

  “Would CNN actually do a story on Ainslie?”

  “No. We’re just running a bluff.”

  “Really.”

  “It doesn’t take much media attention to get the ball rolling in the right direction. Mike’s pitching a series on the insurance industry at CNN. He’s waiting on approval, so if he gets caught with the van out today he’ll just say he’s researching, getting some stock shots of the outside of the building for a future story. He’s got himself covered. He’s shooting another story in the area anyway.”

  The Common Good parking lot was manicured and Emmett quickly assessed their landscaping. Nothing outrageous. Nothing like his dreams. No commercial monolith. An unassuming building. Corporate identity took forefront, branded elements at all entrances and a looming presence in the cold glass lobby, with furniture meant to move along rather than comfort.

  “Where’s Mike?” Emmett asked as they walked toward the giant rounded front desk.

  “Don’t worry. He’s coming,” Larry said.

  Larry told the receptionist why they were there. She directed the men to have a seat and she would call someone to escort them up. They walked to the windows out of earshot. Larry made a phone call. He said, “Hey. Okay. Great.” And snapped his phone shut.

  “I’m nervous,” Emmett said.

  “Shake it off. Don’t say a word unless you’re asked a direct question. Then defer to me. I’ll let you know if it’s okay to answer.”

  The elevator swished open and a young secretary, dressed more severely than her youth could carry, came toward them in sensible heels.

  The men followed her up to a boardroom with a long shiny conference table and paneled walls hung with more corporate logos and official-looking documents.