The Ocean Inside

by Janna McMahan

  “Stop it. I don’t need your help.”

  He handed her a wallet, sketchpad, and manila envelope. She snatched them, shoved them in her bag and walked off toward Ainslie.

  “Sloan, I’m sorry…it’s just. Hey, don’t walk away from me!” He followed her. She tried to suppress tears, but they crawled up and out of her fast.

  He was there in an instant, leaning close to her, his voice softer, lower so Ainslie couldn’t hear. “Baby, forgive me. You don’t know the pressure I’m under. I need this money. My dad won’t give me money anymore. He says my grades aren’t up to par.”

  “Then you do it, Cal. I don’t need money.” Tears fell freely onto her sketchpad.

  “I want to go to Europe this summer. I wanted to surprise you and take you with me. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You want to go to Europe, don’t you?”

  She faced him, still crying. “I can’t believe it. You’re doing this so you can go on vacation with your spoiled friends?”

  “Don’t judge me and don’t judge my friends. You’re lucky we include you.”

  “Lucky? I’m lucky you include me? Well, sorry to make you slum it. No shirtsleeves for you, huh?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “It’s your grandfather’s platitude. Is that how you feel? That you’re lowering yourself to be with me? Well, here’s a fix for your problem, Cal. We’re finished. I don’t want to see you or your snotty friends ever again.” Ainslie was already headed out of the fountain area. Sloan caught up and began to push her fast, but he was there in an instant.

  “You can’t break up with me. I won’t let you.”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her away from Ainslie.

  “Hey, you let her go!” Ainslie cried.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Sloan. You love me, don’t you?”

  “Let go.”

  “Because I love you.”

  His grip was beginning to hurt.

  “Don’t pull away from me,” he hissed.

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re hurting me.”

  “I’m hurting you? Sloan, do you know how much you’re hurting me? You can’t break up with me. I love you. Didn’t you hear me say that? I love you.”

  She was crying then; she stopped trying to yank her arm free and simply stood there swiping at her face with her free hand.

  “Cal, let me go,” she said, but she put up no resistance when he led her away from her sister.

  “I’m sorry,” Cal pleaded, near her in a whisper. “Sloan, I said I’m sorry. Baby, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean it. I’m just really fucked up. You understand, don’t you? I know you do. Nobody understands me like you do.”

  “I can’t talk to you about this right now,” she said.

  “Can I call you later?”

  Ainslie was twisted around in her wheelchair.

  “Tell him no,” Ainslie said. “Tell him no.”

  Sloan was crying openly. “Shut up, Ainslie. You don’t understand,” she said.

  Sloan knew she should say no, never to call her again. But he said he loved her. He acted in love or what she thought in love should look like. But he was controlling. That was so not cool. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe he was coked out and he’d come down and reconsider. He’d be sorry for how he’d treated her. He was sorry now.

  She said, “Okay. Call me later.”

  “That’s more like it.” He caressed her hair, but she ducked away and pushed her sister’s wheelchair toward the exit.

  He stood where he was.

  “I’ll phone you later tonight,” he called after her. “I love you, Sloan. You remember that.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Jezebel

  Lauren couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to church. Maybe it had been Easter. She stayed so exhausted she wasn’t able to drag herself out of bed on Sundays anymore. Neither of the girls would attend with her. Even Ainslie refused now, pleading she couldn’t stand the attention. Lauren felt ashamed to arrive by herself. Judged was probably the word, sitting there alone while other families packed whole pews. And to be honest, she had grown tired of fielding questions about Ainslie’s health. And to be even more honest, she’d been avoiding church out of fear people had learned Emmett had moved out.

  She’d never told a soul Emmett was gone and so far, not one person had had the guts to ask her what was going on, but she figured the topic might come up at lunch today. Some of the women from church had called her. She thought at first that they were checking up since she hadn’t been to worship for so long, but instead they had invited her to The Rice Mill Restaurant in the Hammock Shops to organize a book club. Lauren thought it was about time she did something for herself. She realized she was becoming terrible company with no interests other than Ainslie. Something that, according to the therapist, was not good for her or Ainslie.

  So here she sat in the same lot where only a week before she’d had her “Emmett’s cheating on me” breakdown. She contemplated how she should respond to questions about her family. This attempt to shake things up and do something positive could backfire. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in this book club, particularly if they were going to read books on theology or some other topic that would cause them to discuss God. She was in crisis about her own faith and she certainly didn’t need other people imposing their own take on her situation. But if they wanted to read something like an escapist beach book or even one of those more literary novels she was always telling herself she needed to read, Lauren might actually enjoy it.

  None of these people were anyone Lauren had ever called a real friend, only what she considered polite social acquaintances. She’d tried to be a part of the social fabric of the coast, had dragged poor Emmett to those fundraisers so she could pretend, if only for a while, that she was welcome. It wasn’t that she wanted to be around these people all the time. She just needed to know she could belong if she wanted to.

  Her husband played the community golf courses and that was fine with her. She’d never been the type to want to belong to a country club. That had been her intention when she’d joined a sorority in college, to belong. But something about that life hadn’t really suited her either. It had been so much work and somehow seemed forced. While she still had a couple of friends she kept up with from college, overall, the sorority thing hadn’t yielded the lifelong bonds she had hoped it would.

  Now it was Sloan, who had always showed open disdain for Lauren’s attempts to socialize, who suddenly had entrée into the moneyed world she’d always criticized. It was interesting to watch her try to rationalize her new place in life. Suddenly, her little girl was opening up and taking chances. Doing things she’d never done before, with that Wannamaker boy. Love and money made an intoxicating mixture.

  Lauren wanted to tell her daughter that all the money in the world wouldn’t make you happy. But then that wasn’t exactly true, was it? It was one of those things people paid lip service to so willingly. People without money.

  Lauren checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror and fluffed her hair. The Rice Mill wasn’t too pricey, but if they wanted to meet at places like this, then Lauren would have to watch her money. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard. It wasn’t as if she ever ate much anymore. She shook off her negative thoughts and refocused on the meeting. She could be pleasant and social for an hour.

  Inside the restaurant, Lauren found the loud gathering of women on the sun-drenched enclosed patio. They were festive in floral dresses and animal-print blouses. Lauren knew at least half of the fifteen women. They ordered white wine or sweet tea, then shrimp and grits, mustard barbecue sandwiches or chopped salads. While they waited for their drinks to arrive, the conversation was about their families. Lauren sat quietly, prepared to answer questions about Ainslie. She fiddled with the salt shaker, turning it slowly, exposing a few golden grains of rice there to capture moisture.

  Somebody at their end of the long table said, “W
here’s Bitsy? Isn’t she supposed to be here?”

  “Didn’t I hear Bitsy was sick?” somebody said.

  “No,” someone else said. “Heard she’d gone to a…” and here the woman made quotation marks in the air, “spa.”

  “Oh, bless her heart. She’s drinking again.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I’d drink, too, if my husband was treating me like that. I mean, everybody knows.”

  The women nodded as if they all knew something Lauren didn’t know.

  She wanted to shout, What? Now you’ve got to tell me. Instead, she kept her mouth shut. Her patience paid off.

  “It’s just depression.”

  “Well, I’d be depressed if my husband was cheating on me with the likes of that Caroline Crawford.”

  “Maybe she just needed to get away. Maybe it’s not, you know, rehab.”

  “Well, if she turns back up in twenty-eight days, then you’ll know what’s what.”

  Lauren’s shrimp and grits turned sour in her mouth. Was this true? Was Bitsy’s husband the one having the affair? So Emmett had been telling her the truth. Caroline Crawford was in bed with Trip Wannamaker, probably in business, too, just like Emmett said. And she had kicked him out. She had accused him of being unfaithful. And he had taken it. And he had left.

  She wanted to leave—to fly out the door and drive to Emmett’s office and fling herself on his mercy. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. That she had been wrong. That she was crazy to have doubted him. But she didn’t. She sat there, her meal growing cold in front of her. A tight smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as someone at the head of the table called out, “Now, let’s talk about books.”

  Discussion began, but Lauren wasn’t thinking about books. She was thinking about the churchy gossiping busybodies seated around the table and how they should learn to keep a bridled tongue, because conniving Caroline Crawford, with her alluring Jezebel spirit, might just set her sights on one of their husbands next.

  When books and meeting places had been selected, Lauren made her courteous good-byes and walked slowly to her car. She hadn’t volunteered her home for a meeting as some other women had. No one expected her to host a meeting while her child was ill. It was all she could do to pull together a small party for Ainslie’s birthday.

  Lauren forced her thoughts to the small cookout she was planning to celebrate her daughter’s tenth birthday this evening. With everything so crazy, Lauren had let Ainslie’s birthday slip up on her. Ten was supposed to be a big birthday, but Ainslie was still so weak she couldn’t take the excitement of a large party. So Lauren had called her parents and invited them up from Summerville for dinner. A party of five would have to do. Ainslie could have a big blow-out tenth birthday party when she felt better.

  But in order to have a big party there would have to be more children, and since Ainslie had gotten sick her roster of friends had dwindled to nothing. All her friends from school had been overly attentive when Ainslie first became ill, calling, visiting the hospital, stopping by to drop off a stuffed animal. The mothers all brought food and stayed for a while to have a glass of tea. But people’s patience had grown thin with her daughter’s recovery. While other children were developing and changing, Ainslie remained a stark reminder that things could go very wrong. After her relapse, even the most hardcore friends had lost interest. It was as if they had decided to cut their emotional losses.

  Lauren drove toward where Abraham Washington usually parked his truck on Saturdays. He always had the freshest shrimp and he never underweighed. Lauren needed three pounds of shrimp to complete her frog-more stew for the cookout. This Lowcountry boil was one of Ainslie’s favorite meals, although when she was smaller Ainslie had made her mother promise that there were no frogs in the stew. Lauren reminded herself that she needed to stop at the ice cream shop and pick up the cake she’d ordered. Her parents were coming at four. The plan was to have the yard decorated and everything ready when Sloan brought Ainslie back from Brookgreen at five.

  Lauren hoped Ainslie wouldn’t be disappointed by her small party. She knew how important parties and friends were to girls Ainslie’s age, and it hurt to think of her child as lonely. Friendships at Ainslie’s age were mercurial. Two girls who were best friends one day could be estranged the next. It was only natural for friendships to shift and dissolve and re-form, and it wasn’t the fault of the children. And apparently some kids, like Sloan, didn’t feel the need for lots of friends. Still, the real problem was that Ainslie was isolated in her illness. There were simply no new children for her to befriend. Lauren was incensed when old playmates slowly stopped calling and extending invitations. It wasn’t as if Ainslie was incapable of going to a birthday party or coming over to watch a movie.

  Lauren realized she was being a hypocrite, since the one person she should have invited to Ainslie’s birthday party was Emmett. Ainslie would be hurt when her father wasn’t there, but Lauren didn’t have the guts to call him now. What would she say? That she was sorry she’d unjustly accused him, but she wasn’t sure she wanted him to come home? That it was easier to be the one completely responsible and not expect anything of him? That life had been less hassle without him there to disappoint her?

  Lauren thought back on the book party and how the women had talked about Bitsy. That was another complicated situation to consider. While Lauren was sorry Bitsy’s husband was having an affair, she was incensed that someone with Bitsy’s overindulgent lifestyle could get insurance coverage to go dry out in Arizona while Ainslie couldn’t even get the medical coverage she needed to stay alive.

  The irony was enough to make a person laugh—or cry. Lauren drove into the lot where Abraham Washington’s truck was parked. Before she got out, she found her cell phone in her purse. Her finger hovered over the speed-dial button for her husband, but she didn’t push it. Hadn’t Emmett said last week that he and Larry were supposed to go Raleigh-Durham? He hadn’t called to tell her the results of their trip. Had they failed and he was too ashamed to call? Or had he succeeded and he was not calling to punish her? And wasn’t she doing the same to him by not inviting him to Ainslie’s birthday party? So this was what they were reduced to.

  The sun was out in full force, flashing off windshields of passing vehicles. Lauren plucked a forgotten pair of Sloan’s sunglasses from the seat next to her and shoved them on her face. She wouldn’t call Emmett. He had to be the one to call her. She needed more time to figure out just how she felt about their situation. Maybe he needed time too.

  CHAPTER 32

  Winds of Fortune

  Shrimp trawlers were not like other boats. They were a part of the family, working every bit as hard as the fishermen and shrimpers who toiled on their sun-kissed decks. Abraham Washington’s boat, Jumbo, had been named by LaShonda when she was just a child. The Jumbo was like heavy construction equipment when in action, chains and levers and gears clanking, but she was also a graceful dancer, moving smoothly through the water, swaying and rocking in turbid ocean.

  The morning was overcast, but LaShonda’s father said it would burn off. In the pilot house, he took the wheel, steering a straight, slow course. LaShonda was trussed in the cumbersome orange life preserver, although none of the crew was required to wear one. Dolphins surfed their bow wave. Solemn pelicans perched on rigging, wearing expectant looks. All sound was muffled by the comforting grumble of engines.

  LaShonda loved the vessel’s outriggers, spread wide like the wings of a giant flying insect, black nets swagged down, then lowered into the water and dragged behind. The nets fanned out in the boat’s wake, opening a hundred feet wide before sinking in the hazy water. The first two hours of the morning were spent eating bacon and eggs in the galley then sipping coffee on deck until the sun made an appearance, a blinding reflection on the surface of the sea.

  When the time arrived, the crew jumped to action. Suddenly, everything came alive and the deckhands focused on pulling in the catch. The men shouted to each other as they ac
tivated winches to haul in lines. Pulleys and hardware clattered as winches ground and lifted the old black nets heavy with water and life.

  Nets were cranked in one at a time on rollers the size of tractor tires. A bulging teardrop of net was muscled over a counter-height boxed platform near the stern. They jerked a ripcord on the bottom of the net and the catch fell, sliding in a slick wave to the sides of the sorting box.

  With rapid, practiced movements, the crew plucked shrimp from the writhing mass of sea creatures. The men whistled while they worked, their caps ringed with salty sweat, their rubber boots squeaking. In only minutes, plastic laundry baskets were filled with twitching shrimp. Pelicans and seagulls became aggressive and impatient, screeching and diving onto the deck, trailing the boat ready to snatch the random ray or crab flung back to sea. After the shrimp were collected, by-catch was scraped through a hatch at the stern with a flat deck shovel. Sea birds went wild over the dead starfish, flounder, jellyfish, and silver eels.

  Her father ran a tight ship, so LaShonda jumped in to help, hosing down the deck. A prehistoric-looking pelican perched near her and she squirted him with the water hose. Her father laughed. The bird fell backward and glided away.

  “You never did like them birds,” he said.

  “I hate how they stare at me,” she replied. The crew laughed.

  Her father inspected the catch stored in iced holding tanks. It was roe season and the white shrimp were large and plump and plentiful. Everyone would be well paid today. By afternoon they were chugging back to the dock, where her father would sell part of his catch to the purveyors at the fish house.

  Her father saved some of the roe shrimp for himself, they headed out on his rounds, stopping at the back doors of a couple of restaurants where chefs came out and lifted the lids of the foam coolers. A smile jumped to their faces when they peeked inside. After the restaurants, her father drove to their favorite spot by the highway. It was Saturday and it would take them no time to sell the last of their catch to the locals. Her father proudly displayed his hand-painted signs with curled pink cartoon shrimp and waited for customers to arrive. Road prices were always better than at the fish house, so her father held back more and more shrimp to handsell. Commercial prices had held steady for years, but demand was down overall. With gas prices double what they were a few years ago everybody was struggling. Her father complained that the Americans now shopped at big-box stores for cheap, frozen, ammonia-laced shrimp farmed in crowded, man-made ponds in India, China, and Mexico.