“Grady. You want a beer?” I don’t care that it’s not even noon, and she doesn’t care, either.
“Sure.”
I twist off the cap and hand it to her, watching as she takes a long pull from the bottle. Her neck is long and creamy, and my eyes trail down it, smoothing over the top of her chest and the curve of the flesh below.
Damn.
I try to wipe the hunger from my stare, but fail. I try again, forcing a serious expression on my face as I cross my arms over my chest. “What brings you to the neighborhood?”
“My dad’s here to visit his mother.”
Her dad? My mind goes through the list of neighbors before realization hits. “Ward Stevens is your father?”
She nods.
Oh, fuck. A sexy-ass girl drops out of the sky, all curves and green eyes staring into mine from fifty paces, driving me crazy before I even know her name, ripe for the picking and from the looks of things just waiting to be picked, and she’s goddamn, you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me, Ward Steven’s daughter.
I take a drink of my beer. “I didn’t think he had kids.”
She blows out air. “Yeah. He didn’t think so, either.”
“Ah.”
“Ah.”
Figures Ward’s daughter would be hotter than hell. He’d sooner die than let me get close to her, I’m sure. I finger the stubble along my chin. “He know you’re here?”
“Not exactly.”
“What, exactly, does he know?”
“MaryJo said what he doesn’t know what hurt him.”
I smile. The old woman has a special place in my heart.
“She wanted me to bring you…” She looks around her body, patting her pockets, then the kitchen. “Shit. She wanted me to bring you some homemade cookies, but I forgot them.”
“Guess you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Her eyes lock with mine. Oh hell yes, she’s ripe for the picking. Any more ripe and she’d fall off the tree. Her cheeks began to blush and I imagine she would look like that when she’s making love.
Making love to me.
Oh, you stupid-ass motherfucker. Don’t let your jock lead you down this road, Grady boy. It’s got a big-ass sign that says, “This way to certain doom,” and you’re just going to follow the pretty girl right over the cliff. I need to calm down, stop looking at her cute little body and think of something else.
“Let me ask you something,” she says.
Yes. Ask me about the effect of opiate pharmaceuticals on the brain. Ask me about differential diagnoses. Ask me about anatomy and physiology. Fuck. Don’t ask me about anatomy. “Shoot.”
She licks her bottom lip and I follow it with my eyes, my cock jumping to life. I wonder how old she is, and put her close to twenty. Eighteen, for sure.
“Why doesn’t my dad like you?”
“Because I was a shitty kid. A troublemaker. He caught me spray-painting graffiti on his mother’s garage.”
Her jaw drops. “Sweet little MaryJo?”
I shrug. “She was an authority figure. She told me to pull up my pants.”
She laughs and I liked the sound. I want her to do it again. I want to tickle her until she…
“How old were you?” she asks.
“Ten.”
“What did it say?”
I raise my beer in an arc. “It said, ‘Fuck you’.”
She smiles. “Very original.”
“Bard-like.”
“Excuse me?”
I cross to her. I can smell her, a scent like clean laundry and naked woman. A naked woman in a clean bed, just waiting to get dirty. “Bard-like. Like a bard. A poet.”
Her eyes slip slowly down my face.
“A lyricist.” I whisper.
“Oh.”
Her big green eyes are on mine, her flushed cheeks stirring something deep in my belly. “How long you in town for?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. A while, I think.”
God, she’s beautiful. Fine features with the perfect little plucky mouth, her body all long lines and full, round edges. “Where did you live before?”
“New York City. Brooklyn.”
“So, how’d you end up here? Or is it none of my business?”
“None of your business.”
I narrow my eyes. “Can I see you again?”
“Uh huh.”
She answered so fast, I chuckle. I think again about kissing her, wonder if her lips would be so eager beneath mine. I swallow hard, my whole body is hard. “There’s a creek that runs up the west side of MaryJo’s property, behind the garage. Follow it for about a quarter mile and there’s a swimming hole. Will you meet me there tomorrow afternoon? Say, three o’clock?”
She’s quiet for a second too long, so that I think she might say no. Then she raises her beer and drains the last few sips like she’s looking for courage at the bottom of that bottle. “Yeah.” She nods. “I can do that.”
~~~
Damn, it’s hot.
I line up a nail and sink it into the siding with one whack. I’ve been out here for a couple hours, burning off some steam before my date with Helene at the swimming hole. The siding along the back of the house is nearly complete.
Date. I laugh to myself. Who the hell goes for a date at the swimming hole? But it was the first thing that came to my mind, and the image of her in a bikini tormented me all night. I my mind it was green, and very, very tiny.
I smash my thumb with the hammer. “Shit!”
Three o’clock can’t get here fast enough, but I still have more than an hour to go. I pick up another board and tack one end into place, then another after that. The work is monotonous and strenuous, the rhythm of it lulls me into a peaceful trance. Place, tack, tack again, think of Helene while I reached for another.
This is the best damn day since Drew died.
The thought brings back some of the pain, my gut wrenching with each flash of memory. I can see the way I found him, on his back, legs falling off the bed. His eyes open and even in death, I saw no peace behind them.
You could have helped him. Said something.
I shake my head. Place. Tack. Tack. Helene can’t help me now. My own guilt has ripped the wheel, turned it sharply down the rutted road I’ve been trapped on for months.
It wasn’t my battle to fight.
The buzzards had always haunted him, since the days when Dad used to smack him around for admiring Mom’s dresses. Those birds continued to fly long after the real monster had been exorcised from our lives.
I know that. I know it better than anyone else alive, yet still I wake in a cold sweat, dreaming I had done something to help him. He was my brother. He was a part of me, and I failed him.
God, I need a drink.
The sound of an approaching car and I turn.
“Jesus H. Christ. Leave me the fuck alone.”
It’s Tom, out of uniform and in his own car. I don’t know if that’s a good omen or a bad one. Adrenaline begins pumping and my breathing grows deeper. I pack up my tools as he pulls into my driveway.
~~~
The last corner before the swimming hole, the creek runs through a shallow gorge, and that’s where I see her standing in the sunlight. She has her back to me again, her middle exposed beneath a tight plaid shirt, hips flaring out in a provocative line before disappearing into her little shorts. Her legs are strong and shapely, and I imagine them wrapped around my waist.
My mouth goes dry as my body comes alive with a rush of blood and the sprinkle of anticipation. What was it out this girl that grabs me by the back of the neck?
Every time I get close to her, I get just a little bit more bat-shit crazy.
I call out, “Hey,” and she jumps.
“You scared the shit out of me, Grady!”
“Expecting someone else?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not, you big lug. You’re early.”
I get close to her.
Her plaid shirt is buttoned
up the front and tied in a knot under her full breasts. I smiled appreciatively. “So are you.”
I see her cheeks begin to color, and I liked it. I take her hand and she curls her fingers firmly around mine. I gesture further up the creek. “The swimming hole’s up there.”
I moved to pull her along with me, but she wouldn’t budge.
“I don’t…actually…swim.”
I narrow my eyes, taking in the tense way she holds her shoulders. She looked terrified. “You don’t know how to swim?”
“I used to think I could swim.”
“So what happened?”
She inhales a shaking breath and shrugs. “I drowned.”
~~~
Helene
For all the countless fucking hours I’ve spent reliving that day at the amusement park, I’ve never told anyone what happened. Why the hell I decided to share the most awful moment of my life with this virtual stranger, I have no goddamn idea.
Or, maybe that’s bullshit.
I’m telling the story now because it’s been on my mind so freaking constantly since I first saw the lake from Ward’s car. Because the sensation of drowning is ubiquitous in this moment, from the water all around me to the relationships that are inching up my neck, working to strangle the essence of who I am as a person, my history, my life.
Grady is staring at me expectantly.
“They almost didn’t get me back. One lifeguard kept giving me CPR when the other one gave up. Fucker got fired, too. You’re not supposed to quit until the ambulance arrives.”
“Oh, my God. How old were you?”
“Nine.”
It was supposed to be a treat. A mini-vacation, Marilyn called it. A single afternoon at Holyoke Amusement Park was like a week in fucking Disney World to me, since I’d never been on any kind of vacation at all. Mom had been great, really great, in that way I’d only seen in tiny moments of time, little snippets of a person who could have been so much better than she was in reality.
We went on rides. She said yes to pizza and popcorn and cotton candy, and Marilyn never said yes to anything. It was late in the day when we finally made our way to the water section of the park, which boasted one of the largest wave pools on the East Coast.
“The deep end is the best,” said Marilyn. “Just like the real ocean.”
“Have you ever been in the ocean?” We lived so close to the shore, but the sandy beaches I saw in movies were not part of my life in New York City.
“Well, sure. Back in high school, we used to go all the time.” She said it like I should know that about her, as we talked about that shit every day.
“I wish I could go to the ocean.”
She grabbed my hand, swinging our arms together as we walked, and I smiled so hard my face hurt.
“This is even better than the beach, Helene-baby. You’ll see.”
At first, the waves were entrancing, the way they moved up and down and crashed into my legs, making me laugh. Marilyn laughed too, playing with me in the surf, and for a while I was the happiest I could ever remember being. I remember thinking we looked like every other mother and child in the park today, and I ate it up like syrup.
“Let’s go deeper,” she yelled. “The waves move your whole body. It’s awesome!”
But the waves were so strong, they kept knocking me over. My legs were so tired, and my arms, too. I was weary from the sun, tired from the food, unused to this kind of exercise.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked. “Come on, let’s go deeper.”
I whined. “I’m tired.”
My mother’s face settled into a familiar scowl. “I spent a lot of money to take you here today, and you don’t even appreciate what I do for you.” She lowered her voice. “It’s just the usual bullshit, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do that.”
“No, Mom. I’m having a really good time…”
“Then swim!”
I nodded and waded into the deeper water.
Grady pulls on my arm, snapping my unfocused eyes back to his. I realize I’m crying.
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to tell you.” I pull my hand back from his grasp and wipe my cheeks. “We were in the wave pool. My mother kept insisting we go deeper, stay in longer. I was so tired, I just wanted to get out and sit down. There was supposed to be a break, when they give everyone a chance to rest, but the wave machine just kept going, and I just kept swimming. I didn’t even know I was in trouble until I took that first mouthful of water into my lungs.”
“And your mom helped you out.”
I shake my head. I can see the excitement in Marilyn’s eyes, the slight smile that touched her pretty painted lips. “No.” I wonder who Grady is to me, that I will give him this. “My mom watched me go under.”
He smacked his palm to his head. “No way.”
“She was dating the lifeguard. The one who said I was dead and gave up, not the good one.”
~~~
Table of Contents
Prelude
Mitzi Benson
What’s Left Behind
The Things We Do for Love
Scandalized: The Beginning Page 3
