The Shark Club

by Ann Kidd Taylor

  I saw him cast a look of dread at the door. Looping my arm through his, I said, “The first five minutes will be the worst.”

  “Right. And in no time they’ll all be too drunk to whisper about me.”

  Perri had outdone herself this time. Chandeliers and tea lights threw flecks of light across the dining-room walls and pink roses and faux seaweed cascaded out of giant clamshells on the tables. Costumed characters were everywhere, as if spilled from a bizarro literary piñata. They sipped wine, holding little glass plates, wandering through the French doors onto the terrace where the Hurricane Trio played. Guitar, keyboard, and steel drum. The lead singer, who was known only as Dinah, and who claimed Otis Redding as a distant relation, was singing a calypso version of “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.”

  As we cut through the crowd, my fins slapping the marble floor, I tried to step in time with the music. Robin and I made our best guesses at the costumes: a Nancy Drew, a Poe, Hermione and Harry Potter, Jane Austen, a girl with a dragon tattoo. The philosophers in togas were pretty self-explanatory. The Holden Caulfield required a name tag. Peter Pan was a no-brainer.

  Mindy appeared across the room in a silvery ball gown with an enormous hoop skirt. She’d turned up as Cinderella after all. Robin hurried toward her, and I froze, fearing she might turn her back, but she opened her arms. Apparently she was sticking with him.

  I pushed the mask to the top of my head and looked around for Perri. Finding her on the terrace, I paused and took in the sight of her. My God. She wore a long, tattered, white satin dress, gloves with missing fingers, and strands of garish gray beads around her neck. A disheveled veil the color of yellow beeswax floated around her head, held in place by a wreath of dead, crispy-brown flowers.

  I walked over to her. “Miss Havisham?”

  “What do you think? Not bad, right?” She hiked the hem of her skirt to reveal she was wearing one white shoe.

  “You nailed it,” I said. “And before you comment on my outfit, I’m not dressed as myself. I’m Sylvia Earle. An oceanographer and a writer.”

  “It’s perfect,” she said.

  Hazel materialized at my side.

  “Look at you, Angelina Ballerina,” I said to her. Dressed as the dancing mouse in paper ears, a pink leotard, and a gauzy skirt, with a tail made of rope, she held the tail, twirling it like a lasso.

  “Who are you?” she asked Perri.

  “I’m the jilted old bride in Great Expectations,” she told her.

  Hazel looked at her blankly. “Grandma is Sherlock Holmes. Look at her pipe.”

  Van trailed Hazel in a real-deal houndstooth deerstalker hat, a sheer brown capelet around her shoulders, pretending to puff on a pipe. We laughed over each other’s getups and watched the guests dancing on the terrace. When a waiter came by with a tray of Gruyère-stuffed mushrooms, we each took one, except Hazel, who wrinkled her nose at the brown buttons.

  “Why don’t we find something for you to eat,” I said, leading her to Daniel’s buffet table. She wandered past the tenderloin, shrimp, and salmon, past the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, charcuterie, goat cheese and Stilton blues, past the spinach orzo salad, the crostini, and olives, all the way to the fruit. She stabbed toothpicks into strawberries and watermelon chunks, filling her plate.

  We sat at a high-top table on the terrace, where she devoured the lot of them.

  Marco wandered up in monochromatic gray, his pants tucked into rain boots, a Cape Cod fisherman’s cap on his head. I eyed his name tag. CALL ME ISHMAEL, it said.

  “I need to borrow this mouse for a second,” he said, and Hazel hopped down and followed him.

  Minutes later, Perri’s voice came through the band’s speakers. “Thank you all for being here. I’m thrilled you came to celebrate the Hotel of the Muses’ annual Book Bash.”

  She stood at the end of the terrace, the Gulf stretched endlessly behind her. She was flanked by two of the rose-filled clamshells on pedestals. In her outlandish Miss Havisham wedding dress, and with the sun turning gaudy colors behind her, the scene was theatrical.

  Daniel slid into Hazel’s vacated chair. “What’s going on?” he whispered, as Hazel and Marco sidled up next to Perri.

  I shrugged. “Beats me.”

  Hazel was holding a sand bucket in one hand, twirling her mouse tail with the other.

  “I’m grateful for this place,” Perri said. “For twenty-five years it’s been a hotel, a book haven, and home. And tonight, it’s where Marco and I are getting married.”

  I gasped. Applause broke out.

  “Did you know about this?” Daniel asked.

  “Not a clue,” I said.

  “Maeve and Robin, would you join us?” Perri asked.

  I duckwalked over to her, Robin falling in beside me, giving me a stupefied look. The priest from the island’s Episcopal Church emerged from the crowd dressed as, of all things, a priest. The wedding was happening, officially and spiritually, and I felt the joy and rightness of it. Almost against my will, I pictured myself at a wedding altar with Daniel promising to love and cherish till death do us part, and I was surprised at the odd hesitation that rose up in me. Glancing back at Daniel, wanting to reassure myself, I saw him watching Hazel with an adoring expression. One of the things that most drew me to him was his love for her, but this time it didn’t quiet my anxiety. My flesh spiked with heat and disconcertion under the wet suit. I tried to focus on Perri, who looked cool and ready and content.

  I leaned in close to her ear. “You’re finally doing it,” I whispered.

  “What can I say? It’s our time.”

  As the priest led them through their vows, I felt Robin’s hand on my shoulder. I reached up and squeezed it. I looked for Daniel, but didn’t see him.

  When the priest pronounced them husband and wife, Marco cued Hazel, who stepped forward with the sand bucket, slowly tipping it to create a circle of Gulf sand around Perri and Marco. They shared a kiss then, and Perri gleefully announced, “Reader, I married him.” A famous line from Jane Eyre. The crowd burst into laughter.

  As Marco and Perri danced in the center of the terrace, a small hand slipped into mine. Hazel. She was still holding the sand bucket.

  “You did a good job up there,” I told her.

  “Let’s dance,” she said.

  “Yeah? You want to?”

  I set down my champagne flute and pulled off my fins, leaving them under a table. Following suit, Hazel placed the bucket next to my glass and began taking off her ballet slippers.

  “You don’t have to take your shoes off, too,” I told her. “I only did it because there’s no way I can dance in fins.” But she was already lining them up beside mine.

  She skipped out among the other dancers. I took her hands, swinging her arms side to side, not really sure what to do.

  “Twirl me,” she said.

  I spun her around. Again and again. Each time she pivoted more quickly and with more energy, her tissuey skirt floating like a spiderweb. Through the wide French doors, I saw Daniel inspecting the food on the buffet. As he stepped to the edge of the terrace, I waved my hand in the air.

  “Hazel, where are your shoes?” he asked, joining us on the dance floor.

  “Maeve’s barefoot, too,” she said.

  “But you know where they are?”

  She nodded.

  “You want to dance with me?” he asked her.

  I relinquished her to him and wandered to the sideline, where I observed Hazel on her tiptoes and Daniel doing his best not to step on her feet. Finally, he picked her up. She seemed to enjoy the view from up high, her head twisting right and left, taking in everything. Gazing at them, I was filled with love for her.

  It suddenly hurt to keep watching, and I knew what was coming—the terrible thought that had wanted to come for so long. It welled inside of me and this time,
I let it. I’d returned to Daniel. But I’d stayed because of Hazel.

  When the song ended, Daniel put Hazel down and dipped her. I lowered myself into a chair. The wave of heat I’d felt earlier congealed into a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach. Loss, dread, inevitability, and relief. On the other side of the terrace, Van clapped and Hazel ran to her.

  The band broke into “How Deep Is the Ocean,” and Daniel came over and led me back onto the dance floor. The sun was gone, the sky had gilded over. Servers moved past us lighting the torches. Inside, beyond the long windowpanes, the chandeliers were dimmed and candlelight flickered.

  “Here, take this off,” Daniel said, and reached for the mask around my neck. I stretched it over my head, my hair snagging in the rubber strap, and let it hang from my elbow. I looked at his throat, unable to meet his eyes.

  Everything between us felt tenuous, threadbare, about to split open. Dinah swayed as she sang, lifting her arms like the wings of a frigate bird. Daniel pulled me closer, and I felt myself pull back the tiniest bit. I think he felt it, too.

  Since I was a kid, it had always been Daniel. Even when we were apart, I’d lived with the ghost of him. I’d made a nightly pastime of remembering and imagining him.

  Resurrecting what used to be. Idealizing what we might have had. I’d circled back to the place where he’d been severed from my life, trying to graft him back on. What I loved was the memory of him, the hope of him. I loved Daniel, but mostly a Daniel I’d created, one that didn’t really exist except inside of me.

  In June, when I’d returned from Bimini and found him here, I’d been willing to plunge over the falls, not knowing where we’d land. I’d been hesitant to think much about our future, preferring to luxuriate in single moments: opening the door to him after his workday, coaxed by him into the Gulf late at night, the moments that had made the blood pulse at my wrists. I’d been afraid to ponder a future with Daniel because it would’ve excavated a truth I wasn’t ready for. I couldn’t stay with him just to be with Hazel.

  “Is this what you want?” I asked.

  Daniel stopped moving. He looked at me, and I felt like he knew what I was about to say.

  “What if we forget about what we wanted when I was twenty-two and you were twenty-three, and we thought about what we want now.” I swallowed. “Maybe it’s not the same thing. Daniel, what if it’s not the same thing?”

  He took a step back. He said, “What are you saying, Maeve?”

  “It feels like we’re trying to finish something we started years ago. To make it come out right this time.”

  He frowned, letting the words settle. I watched the skin around his mouth and eyes tighten. We were the only two people not moving on the dance floor. My hands felt like hot rocks in his. He let go of them.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said through clamped teeth, spitting out the words like hard, bitter pits. “You’re really doing this . . . again?”

  “I’m sorry. Please, Daniel, let’s just go someplace and talk—”

  “Save it,” he said, cutting me off.

  The song ended abruptly. Applause broke out. His eyes contracted into small, dark beads. They were shining with pain and anger and disbelief. He shifted them from me to Hazel, who was standing off to the side with Van. At that moment, she bit into a strawberry.

  He walked away. I watched him scoop up Hazel, her chin bouncing above his shoulder, the white bottoms of her feet dangling at his waist. Turning, I saw my diving fins beneath the table beside her pink ballet slippers.

  I gathered them and sat at the table with her shoes in my lap. Robin and Mindy danced. The newlywed couple danced. A waiter came around and offered me champagne that I drank too rapidly. Around me, the torches and music and partygoers swirled in a way that reminded me the world would not slow down for my pain. After an hour or so, the party dwindled, and finally Marco and Perri said good-bye to the last of the guests.

  I slipped out of the chair, and holding onto Hazel’s shoes, I hugged them both.

  “It was wonderful,” I told them. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, honey. You okay?” Perri asked.

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’m danced out, I think. Just tired.” I wouldn’t burden her. Not now.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I could sleep for days,” Perri said.

  Marco kissed her head and gave me the biggest smile. We said good night, and I walked through the quiet dining room to the kitchen.

  Daniel’s staff worked to clean up like lethargic bees, the usual electric energy having given way to fatigue and doing what must be done. I paused inside the doorway, scanning the room for Daniel, when the young woman who had burned the prosciutto all those weeks ago caught my eye. She stared at me and the little shoes I carried and pointed to Daniel’s office.

  I found him sitting on the edge of his desk looking stiff and stoic in Rodin’s Thinker pose. Noticing me, he poured a beer into a glass, breaking the stillness. I started to speak, but Daniel held up a hand, downed half the glass, then offered it to me. I shook my head.

  “There was no way I wasn’t going down this road with you,” he said quietly. The anger seemed to have left him.

  His eyes turned watery, the way they’d looked the day he’d pulled me from the Gulf when I was twelve. “But you’re probably right,” he said. “Maybe it needs to be finished.”

  I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I didn’t. “I have no regrets,” I told him. It felt overwhelmingly true right then. I would never have finished with Daniel if I hadn’t gone down this road. There would always have been the what-if, the what-might-have-been.

  “I’ll explain it to Hazel,” he said.

  “I can talk to her, you know. If you want me to.”

  He shook his head. “No, it should be me.”

  “What will you tell her?” I asked.

  “That we’re friends,” he said, and shrugged a bit.

  I was afraid of pushing too far where she was concerned, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. “I would like to keep seeing Hazel . . . if it doesn’t confuse her. I don’t want her to think I abandoned her.”

  Daniel exhaled, taking a moment. “I guess you and I can find a way to stay in the Shark Club with her, right? That doesn’t have to change.”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to hide the relief I felt.

  “That is, if Hazel wants it,” he added.

  The idea that she might blame me, that she might not want me in her life anymore had not seemed possible until now. The pressure that had built behind my eyes broke into a tiny stream of tears. I swallowed and wiped them away.

  “What about your birthday?” I said, remembering that there were plans for the three of us to celebrate it together.

  “I need to think, Maeve. I’ll do what’s best for her.”

  I had no doubt he would. I set Hazel’s ballet slippers next to him on the desk and left.

  Thirty-three

  Except for a stack of bathing suits, my suitcase was empty. The rest of my clothes and a wet suit were spread across the bed, waiting to be folded, rolled, and squeezed into the bag. Only a few days ago Perri had gotten married and I’d ended things with Daniel, and though I didn’t leave for Mozambique for another week, the urge to pack had been irrepressible.

  I paused before the sliding glass doors, catching the blaze of afternoon light on the panes, and for a moment it felt as though my life existed inside a small golden box. I tugged open the doors and stepped onto the balcony. I gave my arm a rub. I’d gotten the required shots for travel to Mozambique: typhoid and hepatitis A. The two purple bruises had started to yellow, but the tenderness remained.

  Standing there with the sound of the Gulf rushing up, I almost missed the knock on my door. Opening it, I found Daniel and Hazel in the hallway. It was unexpected. Since the breakup I hadn’t seen either of them. />
  “I made this,” Hazel said sheepishly, handing me a hand-drawn invitation to Daniel’s birthday party, a sheet of light blue construction paper with crayoned pictures of sharks in party hats. The celebration would take place Saturday night, August 12. Dinner and cake on Botticelli’s terrace. Shark Club members only.

  “Can you come?” she asked in a different voice that didn’t seem to belong to her.

  I hesitated, studying her. Was she taking the breakup well or was Daniel having to scramble eggs for her in the middle of the night? Was she okay or was she putting on a brave face? I looked at Daniel. He nodded. It’s fine. Come to the party.

  I crouched in front of Hazel. “Of course I’ll be there.”

  She threw her arms around my neck and I held her, feeling her small shoulders pressed against mine and her tight, knotted grip. When she turned loose, her mouth twisted a little.

  I smoothed the hair from her face. “You don’t have to worry about not seeing me, all right?”

  “All right,” she said.

  “There’s chocolate ice cream in the kitchen,” Daniel told her.

  I stood in the corridor and watched them get onto the elevator, waiting to see if she would poke her head out before the doors closed and grin at me as she’d always done in the past, an utterly small thing, but somehow, at that moment it felt like everything. The doors began to close, but then her head popped out, automatically jarring the doors open again. She waved. Her mouth was not quite smiling, but she looked thoroughly pleased. Thoroughly Hazel.

  On August 12, when I arrived on the dining terrace, the sun and moon were out at the same time, bookending the sky. The entire terrace was roped off, reserved for just us. Among all the tables, one was adorned with a white tablecloth and set for three.

  Hazel was at the far end, leaning over the rail, taking in the beach, while Daniel stood behind her.

  “I’m ready for cake,” I called, but they didn’t hear me over the waves. I was on the verge of saying it again, but the words suddenly seemed awkward and unnatural. I walked up unannounced.