Saving Ben

by Ashley H. Farley

  Disappointed, Emma reached over and stroked a lock of Honey’s hair in an overly familiar way. “Well your hair is very pretty. Exactly the color of honey.”

  Honey tucked all her hair over to one side and turned her back on Emma. “Anyway, about the file. Our sorority has received a lot of letters written on your behalf, most of them by your mother’s friends. Have you given any thought to pledging Chi Delta?”

  “Right now our focus is on getting ready for classes. Right, Emma?” I looked at Emma and she smiled, bobbing her head up and down.

  “Which is exactly why we defer our rush until January,” Honey explained. “College is such a big adjustment. It’s better for first-year students to get settled before they have to think about making such an important decision.”

  “You mean all colleges don’t defer their rush?” Emma asked.

  Once again Honey ignored Emma, this time to the point of blatant rudeness. “It’s against rush regulations for you to come by the house, but I’d love to meet you, Katherine, for coffee one day, or maybe lunch.” She removed a small tube of hot-pink lipstick from her shoulder bag and turned toward the mirror. “I understand you’ve been accepted into the nursing program. We have several nursing students who would love to answer questions or offer guidance on course selections and teachers.”

  “Thanks. I’ll remember that,” I said over my shoulder as I turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute. Let me give you this.” Without so much as a glance in Emma’s direction, Honey handed me a card with her initials scripted in pink in the center and her name and cell phone number printed below.

  I’d witnessed some horrible snubs in my life, most of them directed at me, but Honey’s indifference to Emma was unspeakable. Much to her credit, Emma didn’t let it bother her. If anything, she appeared to be even more interested in Greek life than before. As we left the bathroom and made our way through the crowd, she peppered me with questions about the rush process.

  “Honestly, Emma, I don’t know that much about it. But it’s my understanding that, if you have a relative who belonged to a sorority or fraternity, then that organization is obligated to give you special consideration.”

  “And what if you don’t have any connections?”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t seem fair they would hold that against you. But then again, what do I know?”

  While we waited in line for another hot beer, Emma studied the crowd in silence, but once we were back out on the dance floor, her mood lifted and her confidence returned. She raised her arms high above her head and clapped to the beat of the band. The provocative sway of her hips attracted the guys like hummingbirds to nectar. This time she did not deny them. She made her rounds on the dance floor before settling in with a guy who had the build of a football player and the sweet face of a six-year-old boy. When the band played a slow song, the giant wrapped his muscled arms around her and pulled her close, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh. I scanned the crowd, wondering which group he belonged to, hoping there was more where he came from. But no one seemed to be paying any attention to them except the yellow-haired girl, leaning against the wall on the other side of the dance floor. Honey’s lip curled up over her top teeth, and I could almost hear her snarl over the loud music. Whether the guy was her boyfriend or merely a love interest, clearly he meant something to Honey. And Emma, whether she’d seen the two of them together earlier or whether she’d simply picked the wrong person to dance with, had made a horrible mistake.

  Four

  I partied more during those first two weeks of college than I ever had in my life. I found it impossible to say no to Emma, whose answer for a hangover was happy hour. She didn’t communicate like most college freshman, through texting or Facebook or e-mail, but somehow she managed to know where to find the best parties. I’d always felt alone in a crowd before, but not with Emma. She was a magnet for attention, and standing next to her placed me in the direct line of vision for the cutest boys on campus.

  After a few too many Tahiti martinis at the FIJI house one night, we were stumbling across the green on our way back to our room when, out of the blue, Emma blurted, “I’m gonna marry someone rich one day. I mean . . . the kind of rich that’ll buy me all the servants I want, maids in black uniforms bringing me champagne and strawberries in bed every morning. I want the cars and the clothes. And I want the plastic surgeon to keep me looking young, when I’m ready for one of course.”

  Two weeks with Emma and I’d grown accustomed to listening to her ramble. “Give me a break, Emma,” I said, hiccupping. “I’m pretty sure you are never ever going to need a plastic surgeon. You’re so beautiful, you can have any husband you want.” I laughed at the irony in my statement. “I mean . . . any man you want. Don’t take someone else’s husband, for God’s sake.”

  Her heel got stuck in the dirt and she grabbed a hold of me to keep from falling. “Ow! Shit! That hurts.”

  “Take off your shoes, silly, before you break your ankle.”

  “Fine.” She held on to my shoulder while she slipped off her pumps. “I’m tired. Let’s rest a minute?” She relaxed all of her muscles at once and dropped to the ground like a rag doll. “Come on. Sit,” she said, pulling me down beside her.

  “Ahh, feels sooo good to lie down.” I stretched out on the grass beside her, but when the earth started to spin, I sat back up. “Uh-oh. Bad idea. How many of those Mahiti Tartinis did we have anyway?”

  Emma burst into laughter. “That’s a good one. Mahiti Tartinis.”

  “You know what I mean.” I swatted at her arm but missed. “Whatever you call them things. They were strong.” I brought my knees up to my chest and propped my elbows on top.

  I was surprised when she pulled a cigarette from her bag. “Since when do you smoke?”

  “When I drink sometimes.” She offered the pack to me. “Want one?”

  “Sure.” I took a cigarette and held it between my teeth while she lit it with her little pink lighter. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the taste and the buzz. “Wow. It’s been a long time since I had a cigarette.”

  “What about you, Katherine?” she asked, stuffing the pack of Marlboro Lights back into her bag. “What kind of guy do you want to marry?”

  “Hmm . . . let’s see . . .” I stared up at the dark sky. “The kind who gets up at night to feed our baby a bottle, even though he has to go to work the next day.”

  “No, dummy. I’m not talking about the kind of father you want for your children. I’m talking about the kind of man you want as your husband.”

  I took another drag from the cigarette and then flicked it down the sidewalk, watching the sparks fly as the cherry burst apart. “I want to marry a man, not a boy, someone who’s older than me. Someone who is world-wise and street-smart, but honest and kind, too.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” she said, sarcastically. “But come on, don’t you want him to be successful? A doctor or a lawyer, someone who makes a ton of money?”

  I shrugged. “Money doesn’t matter that much to me.”

  “Ha! That’s because you already have plenty of it.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. Having money definitely comes in handy at times, when you need it, like when your car breaks down or—”

  “Or when your computer crashes on the day before you leave for college and your parents can’t afford to get it fixed or buy you a new one,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip.

  I sobered a little as another piece of the puzzle that made up my roommate fell into place. “Why didn’t you say something?” I leaned into her a little. “It’s not the same as having your own, but we can work out a schedule for you to use mine.”

  “That’d be great. Thanks,” she said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. “My family is not rich like yours. You already know my father is a professor, but my mother is . . . well . . .”

  I could see the tears glistening in Emma’s eyes. “Well what?” I grabbed her elbow and squeezed it. “Come on, I’m your roo
mmate. You can tell me anything.”

  “My mother is a cafeteria worker at a local nursing home.” Emma took the final drag off her cigarette and ground it out on the bottom of one of her pumps. “But no one knows about this, so can we please keep it between us?”

  “Of course, Emma, but earning an honest living is nothing to be ashamed about.”

  “It might be honest, but I’d hardly call it a living. Neither of them makes much money and collectively they can barely pay the bills. There’s no room for extras like shopping or visits to the salon. Hell, they can barely afford a texting plan for our cell phones. I’m on a full academic scholarship. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be here. So it’s easy for you to say money doesn’t mean that much to you when you’ve never been poor.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I said, sucking in my breath as though she’d punched me in the gut. No doubt I was that girl, the one who would’ve run out to the Apple Store and bought a new computer the minute mine crashed.

  We were quiet for a minute, both of us lost in thought. “So what is important to you, Katherine?” She grabbed a hunk of my hair and yanked on it playfully. “If not the finer things in life?”

  “Helping people in crisis. That’s why I want to become a nurse.”

  “Why not a doctor?”

  “Because I can’t imagine spending the next decade of my life in school. The doctor may be the one who finds the cure, but the nurse is the one who can make or break the patient’s recovery. I want to work in the ICU, where the patients and their families are truly in need.”

  Emma stood and offered me a hand. “You know, Emma, you’re a really smart girl,” I said when I was on my feet, face-to-face with my roommate. “You don’t have to settle for some guy you don’t love just because he’s wealthy. If you choose the right career, you can make plenty of money on your own.”

  “Why would I want a career when I can have money without having to work?” She looped her arm through mine and dragged me toward our dorm. “And don’t worry. I plan to be plenty in love with the man I marry.”

  ***

  Emma and I were so tied up with our new freshman friends, two weeks passed before we saw Ben and Spotty again. It was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the first UVA football game of the season. We were all leaving the stadium at the same time, in the middle of the third quarter, not only because our team was losing but because it was steaming hot in the stands.

  “How much have you had to drink today?” Ben asked me.

  “Nice to see you too,” I said, looking first at him and then at Spotty.

  “So we’re going to play it that way,” Ben said, crossing his arms. “Are you having a nice day, Kitty? Is it hot enough for you, Kitty? How much have you had to drink today, Kitty?”

  I swatted at him but missed. “Actually, I haven’t had anything to drink. It’s so hot the thought of it makes me sick. Why do you ask?”

  “Because we’re going on a road trip and you’re driving.” Ben hooked one arm through mine and one arm through Emma’s and began dragging us toward the gate.

  “Ooh, a road trip,” Emma said, skipping alongside Ben. “I’m in.”

  “But we don’t even know where he’s going,” I said to her, and then to Ben, “Exactly where are you going?”

  “To the river, of course.” He quickened his pace. “But we need to hurry if we want to beat the game traffic.”

  “Wait a minute, damnit.” I stopped walking and jerked my arm away from him. “I haven’t said I’d go yet. What about Mom and Dad? Are they down there?”

  “I just got off the phone with Dad. They’re going to a party tonight, but he said they’d see us in the morning.”

  “Where’s Reed? Is he going too?” I held up my hand. “Wait a minute. Let me guess. He’s at the beach.”

  Spotty nodded. “Surfing the waves as we speak.”

  I looked back and forth between Ben and Spotty as I considered their invitation. “I don’t know about this. I have a lot of work to do this weekend.”

  “And what better place to do it than sitting around the pool or out on the dock,” Ben said. “According to Dad, the weather’s nice down there, a lot cooler than here.”

  “Just where is this river, and how long is the driver?” Emma asked.

  “The Northern Neck of Virginia, which is on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay. It’ll take two and a quarter, probably two and a half with Kitty driving,” Ben answered. “And if we leave now, we can make it in time to get pizza from the River Market before it closes.”

  “Okay, that’s it.” I stomped my foot. “No fair tempting me with my favorite pizza.”

  “Think about it, Kitty,” Spotty said. “We can spend the whole day tomorrow out in the boat.”

  Emma clasped her hands together. “Please . . . it sounds like so much fun.”

  “Alright, already. What choice do I have anyway with the three of y’all ganging up on me like this?”

  “Yes!” Ben pumped the air with his fist. “Hurry up and get your stuff. We’ll meet you at my car in the lot behind the house in twenty minutes.”

  By the time I reached the interstate, thirty minutes later, everyone in the car had already surrendered to their afternoon buzzes. Ben slept in the back with his head resting on Spotty’s shoulder, and Emma sat in the passenger seat next to me, a thin stream of drool dangling from her mouth onto my silk halter top she was wearing.

  I cranked the tunes and set the cruise control and allowed my thoughts to drift to the river. My fondest memories traced back to our cottage, not the modernized version my parents created after my grandparents died but the 1920s Arts and Crafts style house in its original form. I appreciated the amenities the renovations offered—new bathrooms and kitchen, central air conditioning—but I missed the creaking boards in the random-width oak floors and the smell of sea grass wafting through the open windows. What I really missed were my grandparents, Herbert and Mabel Langley, a small-town doctor and his country wife. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Ben and I spent every summer of our youth with Dock and MayMay while our parents were off somewhere, finding themselves on one of their many pre-midlife crisis adventures. Every day we made explorations of our own. If we weren’t traveling by boat or picnicking on one of the many area islands, we were working in MayMay’s garden, staking tomatoes and picking butterbeans. We set our pots for peeler crabs and dug in the mud for clams. We cast our nets for minnows to use as bait for fishing in the rivers and at the mouth of the bay. Every day we worked like watermen and farmers, and every night we feasted from the land.

  All three of my passengers stirred, as if on cue, when I turned on my blinker and made a left-hand turn onto Highway 3. As we headed toward the Rappahannock River Bridge, Ben and Spotty moaned about their hangovers and begged me to stop for more beer, but once we were on top of the bridge, they grew quiet while we watched the orange ball of sun begin to set.

  “Emma, if you look to your right,” Ben said, “you can see past Stingray Point where the Rappahannock River meets the Chesapeake Bay.”

  Taking it all in, Emma pointed out my window. “What’s down that way?”

  “The mouth of our creek, Carter’s Creek, is at ten o’clock,” Ben explained. “And further past that, on the same side, is the Corrotoman River. On the opposite side, at about seven o’clock, is the little town of Urbanna where the famous Oyster Festival is held every year.”

  “Yuck,” Emma exclaimed, curling her lip. “I’ve never been a big fan of oysters.”

  Spotty stared at the back of her head. “That kind of talk is not allowed in this car We were all raised on oysters. Our mothers use to grind them up in a blender and feed them to us in our bottles.”

  “Ooh, Spotty,” I said, catching his eye in the rearview mirror. “That’s just gross.”

  “Oysters are gross,” Emma said, sticking out her tongue. “They’re so slimy, like boogers.”

  Spotty laughed. “Now who’s being gross?”

  I wi
nked at Emma. “Give her a break. She’s just never had an oyster fried, à la Ben.”

  “Wait a minute,” Emma said, shifting in her seat to face Ben. “You can cook?”

  I caught Ben’s eye in the rearview mirror and he glared at me. The subject was off limits. Despite the fact that he’d learned all his culinary skills from our grandfather, whom he considered the most masculine of men, in Ben’s mind cooking was a sissy task.

  “He’s a really good cook, actually,” I said to Emma. “Our grandfather taught him how to prepare everything from frying soft shell crabs to smoking shark meat. Except lately his cooking has been limited to burgers or steaks on the grill.”

  “That’s because it’s no fun to cook it if you’re not the one who caught it,” Ben said to me in the mirror. “Unlike Dock, Dad’s answer to a seafood dinner is buying a dozen crabs, already steamed, from the Yellow Umbrella Seafood Market in Richmond and bringing them down here to eat.”

  “True,” I agreed. “He’s neither the cook nor the waterman that Dock was.”

  “Okay, so who the hell is Dock?” Emma asked.

  We all laughed, and for the rest of the way into White Stone to pick up the pizza and then back to the house, we told Emma all about our summers on the creek with our grandparents.

  Carter’s Creek isn’t narrow like a brook or stream, the way most people might think. It’s a branch of the Rappahannock, a tributary, more than a quarter of a mile across in some places. Situated up high on a peninsula, our property is surrounded by 270 degrees of water.

  The house stands four stories tall with large airy rooms and twelve-foot ceilings. A game room takes up the basement space with a walk-out terraced area that leads to the summer kitchen. The main floor houses the living room, kitchen, and two guest rooms. Ben’s and my bedrooms are on the third floor with our parents’ on the fourth. At the corner of the house, off the dining room on the main floor, is a large unscreened porch—our tree fort. With wide-open views of the creek in both directions, we spend all our time here, drinking coffee in the morning and eating candlelit suppers in the evening. There’s no better place to watch a storm roll in or fireworks on the Fourth of July.