Dangerous Engagement

by Charlotte Byrd

  “While they are on their date, the Bible salesman persuades her to go up in the loft and to take off her prosthetic leg,” he says. His words come out smoothly, naturally even. “He then shows her the inside of one of his Bibles that contains a bottle of whiskey, condoms, and cards with naked women on them.”

  “When she says no to his advance,” I finish the story for him, “the Bible salesman tells her that he collects fake legs and takes off with hers.”

  “What do you like about the story?” he asks.

  "Who said that I liked it?” I ask him.

  He smiles.

  “You have to.”

  “I have to?” I ask.

  “You know it so intimately and innately that they must've made an imprint on your soul,” he says.

  I gaze into his eyes. I have lived for twenty-five years and not once have I ever spoken with another human being about the existence of a soul. Yet here is a stranger, a simple worker on my father's yacht, who speaks of it as if it's second nature, as if it's as real as gravity.

  “I think what I like about it, and what I like about Flannery O'Connor's work in general is her sense of irony,” I say. “It's comedic. The title of the story is Good Country People, and that's exactly what her mother thinks the Bible salesman is. And yet he is the furthest thing from that. And even she, with her advanced degree, is someone who should know better, but she doesn’t. It’s almost funny. But then again, my own mother thinks I have a perverse sense of humor.”

  “I think we might have that in common,” he says.

  Our voices die down and all we are left with is a sweet silence that is both comforting and comfortable. I want to stay in this moment forever but we are quickly interrupted.

  “Hey, you missed one hell of a lunch! Did you get some of that alone time you wanted?” Ellis Holte asks. She plops down on the lounger next to me and asks the guy who I've been talking to for a refill of her drink.

  “No, he doesn't do that,” I interject. But he just shrugs his shoulders and says he will get it for her anyway.

  “Are you seriously at this point, already?” she asks.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I'm talking about,” she says, pointing to her index finger adorned with a three-carat diamond ring in my face. It’s not an engagement ring, it’s a just because ring. “Are you already messing around with the help? I thought we would only be doing that when we are seven years into boring marriages, not while we are still single.”

  "I'm not messing around with anyone," I say sternly.

  I don't even know his name I note to myself. I run my tongue over my lower lip and repress the desire to talk to him again. Why do I even care?

  Why am I so interested all of a sudden?

  He is one of the only people that, no correct that, he is the only person who I have met who hasn't bored me. I couldn’t predict anything that was going to come out of his mouth and I want more of that.

  Unfortunately, I don't see him again until later that night. His boss is watching his every move to make sure that he is doing a good job cleaning all of the decks of my father's boat. Of course, I could go up and talk to him myself, but I'm not quite ready to go that far out of my comfort zone.

  After spending the whole day drinking, talking, and reading magazines, the girls are ready to shower, do their hair, and go out for a night on the town. Begrudgingly, I go through the motions as well. I finish before the rest and take a circle around the yacht, hoping to run into him again.

  Him. The guy whose name I don’t even know.

  Though I don't see him, I do see the manager. Mr. Madsen is in his sixties and has worked on my father's boat, overseeing all personnel, for as long as I can remember.

  “Mr. Madsen, do you happen to know where I can find the guy who was cleaning the decks earlier today?” I ask as casually as possible.

  If he wants to give me a knowing smile, he doesn't. Mr. Madsen is the epitome of professionalism.

  “We had a few people working that position today. Henry Asher, Tom Cedar, and Elliot Dickinson.”

  “Um, he was about six feet tall with broad shoulders and thick dark hair.”

  “Oh, yes, you're referring to Henry Asher. He is probably downstairs in the crew quarters.”

  “Thank you very much,” I say, going straight to the staircase.

  Appalled, Mr. Madsen rushes over to me and blocks my way.

  “I will, of course, get him to come upstairs to see you, Miss Tate,” he says quickly. “If you don't mind waiting in the living room.”

  I don't really want to wait, but I decide to go along with it. The guests are not supposed to go down to the crew quarters. It has been that way since the beginning of time. Besides, I don't really want my friends to see me going down there anyway.

  Before I have the chance to glance at my watch for the second time in five minutes, he appears in the doorway. He looks just as tall, dark, and handsome as he did earlier today, only this time the angles in his face and his muscles look even more defined as a result of the tan settling deeper into his skin.

  “Hi,” he says, hanging his head just a little, before turning his eyes up to mine.

  “Hi,” I say quietly.

  “You wanted to see me?” His hair falls slightly into his face as he leans on the side of the wall like some sort of modern day James Dean.

  What the hell do I say now? This is the first time I have ever even made an inkling of a first move on a guy. It feels foreign and unnatural and yet exciting at the same time.

  “I was just wondering,” I say slowly, “if you wanted to join me ashore tonight?”

  He raises his eyebrows before smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Of course,” he says confidently. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, I was going to go out with my girlfriends. We’ll probably go dancing or something like that. Nothing is set in stone.”

  Henry takes a few steps closer and sits down on the couch right next to me. I turn my body toward his so that our knees are nearly touching.

  "Well, if it's not set in stone,” he says, “what do you think about doing something else instead?”

  “Like what?”

  “How about dinner at one of my favorite taco stands? Followed by a few drinks at a shitty but incredibly fun dive bar?”

  Anyone else in his position would try to impress me by taking me to some fancy five-star restaurant and fumble through the wine list. Anyone else would try to pretend that they were a lot more worldly than he is, even though we both know that he works crew on my father’s boat.

  But he doesn’t.

  I am intrigued and surprised by his audacity. He is a breath of fresh air that’s so intoxicating, it leaves me disoriented.

  2

  Henry

  At first, I thought that she was just like the rest of them. Rich, spoiled, and completely disconnected from reality. I had no interest in talking to her. Yes, she is pretty, gorgeous even, but there’s more to a woman than beauty, or there should be.

  But as I watched her that morning, I saw that she was different from her friends. She didn't laugh as much, it was cursory at best. She smiled even less. It was like she was being forced to be there. It was like she was only complying with them.

  But it's her boat, or rather it’s her father's yacht. How different could she be? It's hard to explain what came over me that afternoon, when I saw her sitting there on the deck all by herself while her friends were inside nibbling on their salads, getting drunk on rosé, and taking selfies.

  Why didn’t she join them?

  What is she reading on that tablet of hers?

  It would have to be something stupid, right? There's no way she could know anything about real literature.

  That’s why I approached her in the first place; as a joke.

  I wanted to say something meaningful and being who I am, Flannery O'Connor was the only thing that came to mind. And that's when things g
ot interesting. An obscure 20th century short-story writer somehow opened the door for me to someone I didn't even have an interest in talking to.

  After her friends came back, and Mr. Madsen gave me a stern lecture about interacting with the owner’s daughter, especially in such a casual manner, he put me on downstairs duty cleaning all the bunk rooms, floors, toilets, and every other dirty job he could think of. I didn't see her again for the rest of the day until she called me upstairs and asked me to go out with her.

  She asked me out on a date even though she did it in such a way that it wasn't supposed to look like a date. She asked me to go out with the whole group as if we were friends, and as if I could give a shit about anyone there besides her.

  No, she is the only one that I am interested in. She is the only one that I want to get to know.

  We take a dinghy over from the yacht to shore, and on the way, Ellis Holte whispers into Aurora’s ear, occasionally glancing over at me. I can't really hear what she’s saying over the sound of the boat splitting the waves and its roaring motor. I can only hope that she doesn’t change her mind. When we get to shore, she takes a step toward me and grabs my hand. I text Lyft, a ride-share app, on my phone and leave Ellis and her other dumbfounded friends alone on the dock.

  “So, is this your favorite place to eat?” Aurora asks, looking at the outside of the place with a tilt to her head.

  I laugh. “I know that it doesn't look like much but trust me, this is the place for the best fish tacos in the whole of the Hamptons.”

  She looks around the place, not exactly impressed. I do have to admit that Jack's Crab Shack has seen better days. They used to have a place to sit inside, but one of the big winter storms flooded the place and they never reopened that part to the public.

  Now, the restaurant is something of a fast food joint. You order what you want through a glass window and pick up the food at another window. There are about ten wooden picnic tables out front where you can bury your feet in the sand and all of them are occupied. She doesn't know what to order, so I order for her.

  By the time our tacos are ready one of the picnic tables clears out. Taking a sip of her Sprite, she looks up at me and shakes her head.

  “What?” I ask, shrugging my shoulders. She shakes her head again and bites into her fish taco.

  As soon as she swallows, I can tell that I have converted her to my side.

  “Are those delicious?” I ask. She nods vigorously and quickly takes one more bite and then another and another.

  Once her taco disappears before my eyes, she reaches for mine. At first, I protest but she shakes her head and puts her index finger up to stop me and I quickly give in.

  After she's done, she takes a few more sips of her drink and gets up. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to eat your whole dinner.”

  “Yes, you did.” I smile. I nudge her and she nudges me back.

  “Come on. Let me make it up to you.”

  I follow her to the back of the line, which has grown substantially since the last time we stood in it.

  “I can't believe you just ate my dinner," I say, shaking my head. “What the hell was that about?”

  “I was hungry,” she says, tilting her head and smiling widely.

  “Still, that's no excuse for lack of manners.”

  “Lack of manners?” she asks. “You just took me on a date to one of the dingiest places ever!”

  “So what? It’s delicious. You, me, and everyone in this line knows it. You ate both your dinner and mine in five bites.”

  “Yes, I'm not arguing with that,” she says.” All that I'm saying is that it’s not the kind of first date that I'm usually used to.”

  “Did you ever eat like that on any of your other first dates?” I ask.

  She shakes her head from side to side.

  “And how many of those first dates resulted in second and third dates?” I ask.

  She starts to laugh.

  “What's so funny?” I ask.

  “Well, you seem to be so certain that there is going to be a second date here.”

  "I am.”

  “And why is that?”

  I don't have an answer. I just look into her eyes and lose myself there. She opens her mouth just a little bit to say something else and I can't help but reach for it.

  I touch her lower lip with my thumb, parting her lips slightly. I move an inch closer. My hand runs down her neck and then up toward her hair. I tip my head toward hers and open my mouth.

  When our lips touch, my tongue searches for hers. I bury my hands in her hair, tugging slightly.

  She opens her mouth wider and kisses me again. I taste the salty air and the warmth of her body all at once. I wrap my arms around her waist and feel her fingers and nails digging into my back. She sends shivers down my spine that make my knees weak.

  Who are you? I wonder. And where have you been all of my life?

  3

  Aurora

  The kiss takes me completely by surprise and yet it feels like the most natural thing in the world. The moment is just right. His lips are soft and effervescent. His hands are deliberate and knowing. Tugging at my hair, he runs his fingers softly down my neck. Each one of his moves makes my breath quicken just a little bit, following the beat of my heart.

  “Who are you?" I ask him when we pull away from each other.

  My eyes focus deeply on his. There are specks of green and yellow and blue in there and they all twinkle under the harsh fluorescent lights of the taco stand.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  “I am Henry Asher. I am twenty-seven. I live in New York City. I grew up in Montauk, not too far from here, in a two-bedroom house with my mother. She still lives there. Montauk is a place that no one ever really leaves so moving to New York a few years ago is one of my proudest accomplishments. That and getting my short story published in the New Yorker. Your turn.”

  My mouth drops open. I stare at him in disbelief.

  No one is this dishonest with a total stranger. Why isn't he trying to impress me like everyone else out there? What kind of game is he playing?

  “Are you not gonna tell me who you are?” he asks.

  “You already know, don't you?”

  “I know some things, I guess."

  “Like what?”

  “Like your name is Aurora Penelope Tate and your parents started Tate Media. Your father owns that yacht we were floating on all day and you don't seem to like your friends very much."

  I stare at him, cross my arms, and even take a step away. “What gave you that idea?” I ask, defensively.

  He’s not wrong, I’m just embarrassed by how obvious I had been when I thought that no one could know the truth.

  “Just the way you were with them. Standoffish. It's like you are just tolerating their presence.”

  “They are a little bit too much sometimes, I guess,” I admit. “But that doesn't mean that I don't like them.”

  He tilts his head, unconvinced.

  What he just said is of course the truth, but he is a stranger and this is going too far.

  “So is there anything else about you that I should know?” he asks.

  We’re almost at the window but the people in front of us place an order for twenty tacos so we’re not as close as I had thought.

  “Well, you seem to know everything already, I'm not sure what else I can share with you.”

  “I doubt that,” he says, refusing to take his gaze off me.

  His stare is so intense I can barely look away. When I try, I can't.

  “Tell me something… True about you,” he says.

  This is not how first dates are supposed to go. There's supposed to be a lot of joking and laughing and talking about nothing in particular.

  But Henry is so intense, and that intensity is completely disarming. I'm tempted to make light of this, but I don't wanna ruin the moment. He wants to know something about me. H
e's the first person in a very long time who has not seen me as an heiress, a trophy, or simply an extension of my parents. Why does this scare me so much?

  “I know that I want to do something important with my life, but I don't know what that is,” I finally say. “Everyone wants me to be somebody. My parents want me to be the perfect daughter and the perfect heir to their fortune. My friends want me to be the perfect girlfriend, someone who laughs at their jokes even when they're stupid, and drinks way too much and gossips about what everyone else is wearing. I try to be these things to the people in my life, but most of the time doing that just makes me sick to my stomach. And the more time that passes, the more afraid I get that they're going to find out the truth about me.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That I'm not their perfect daughter or friend, and I'm not interested in running Tate Media.”

  “Let's say, that they do,” Henry says. “What happens then?”

  I shrug. He waits.

  “I don't know,” I whisper. “I just feel this enormous pressure on my shoulders all of the time to be this person for everyone else, this person that I am not really at all. I'm afraid to tell anyone any of this because the truth is that I don't really know who I am except that I'm not her.”

  “How can I help you?” the cashier asks through the glass.

  “We’re back,” I say.

  “It happens,” she says, completely unfazed and unimpressed.

  Henry orders two tacos each this time and refuses to let me pay.

  “I may not have much money, Aurora. But I can certainly afford four dinners at Jack’s Crab Shack.” He smiles and I laugh.

  “I wasn't insinuating that you couldn't, I was just trying to be nice.”

  “Well, you're on a date with me, why don't you let me worry about being nice. Besides, we're going to a bar after this, so you can cover that tab if you want.”

  He drapes his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. When I look up, his lips collide with mine. The people behind us have to physically nudge us to get us to move. A part of me is embarrassed at all of these public displays of affection, but another part of me could not care less. I want to kiss him as much as I want to and I want him to kiss me for as long as he wants to.