The Holdout

by Laurel Osterkamp

  “Another rough day?” I ask through chews.

  He sighs. “Maybe you can give me the female perspective.”

  “Sure,” I reply. “But I’m surprised you need it. Don’t you have Lucy for that?”

  “Who’s Lucy?” Isobel asks.

  I explain. “She’s Jack’s sister-in-law. But he actually dated her in high school, and they became best friends after they broke up.”

  Isobel addresses Jack. “So your brother married your ex? That’s kind of rude.”

  Jack examines his fingernails rather than looking at Isobel. “It’s fine. I was never in love with her, so it’s fine.”

  When Isobel and I both give him blank, questioning stares, Jack feels the silence and looks up. “What?” he demands. “Everyone always thinks that, but I was happy for them. Really.”

  I take a swig of beer to wash down my most recent bite of food. “Okay. I don’t know who ‘everyone’ is, but I never assumed that you were in love with Lucy.”

  “Good. Because I’m not.” He runs his fingers through his balding hair like it’s a recycled gesture from his youth. “But now, I don’t know, Lucy and Monty both just annoy me. They think because they’ve been married for what – three years or so – and because they’re happy, that they can judge me? Neither of them has any idea what it’s like for me. They’re in their own little self-satisfied couple bubble.”

  Isobel and I meet eyes, and she cocks her head, asking her soundless, subtle question, What’s up with him? Jack doesn’t notice, but I guess he doesn’t have to.

  “I know I sound bitter.” He releases a woeful, self-loathing kind of exhale. “But my wife stopped loving me. I still don’t know why.” He shrugs his shoulders. “One day she just lost interest. She stopped talking to me, stopped letting me touch her, and she’d barely even look at me. I tried to talk to her about it, many times, but she always refused. I kept hoping, especially for our son’s sake, that she’d come back. This went on for years. Then I met Jessie and her I just clicked. And all the love I’d been missing was offered to me again. So I took it.”

  Isobel adjusts herself in her chair. “But technically, you and your wife…”

  “Petra,” Jack interjects. He looks at Isobel with widened eyes, like he had been talking only to me and had forgotten she was there. “Yeah, technically we were still together.” He scratches his forehead and speaks to Isobel. “You don’t know me at all, and you’re probably thinking I’m the asshole who should have left a lot sooner than I did. I just couldn’t. I kept thinking about my son, and joint-custody, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  Isobel presses her lips into a slim, crooked arc. “My soon-to-be ex-husband was having an affair for months before he left me, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask.”

  Jack hangs his head for a moment. “Sorry,” he says.

  We let the silence hang in the air before I break it. “How did Petra find out?” I ask.

  “I finally told her. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t live like that anymore. And now she’s suing me for everything I have, including full custody and the restaurant. So I had to borrow money from Lucy and Monty, which was a mistake.” He closes his eyes and rubs at them. His voice softens. “I feel guilty every time I talk to either of them. That’s not their fault, but I do.” He reopens his eyes and talks a little louder. “And the last time I talked to Lucy, I told her that Jessie and I were getting married and she literally yelled at me, told me I was forbidden to get remarried so soon. That it was a mistake, that I was rushing things.”

  That sounds like the kind of honest advice a best friend is required to give. But looking at Jack right now is like looking at a guy who’s just had the crap beaten out of him because he didn’t notice the ‘kick me’ sign taped to his back.

  I stay silent and let him vent.

  “I tried not to listen to her. But I let her voice stay inside my head. I wasn’t returning her phone calls but I still couldn’t turn her voice off.

  “Then yesterday, Jessie shows me this bridal magazine, with a $2,500 gown that she’d look perfect in, and she wants it, and she’s going on about how she has to have it, and my throat suddenly felt like it was lined with cotton. So I walk away to get a drink of water and Jessie follows me, and I must have been pale and sweaty, because she asked me if I was having a heart attack.”

  As Jack continues his story, his voice fades as if he has a sore throat and it hurts to speak. But the urgency behind what he says builds. “And when I opened my mouth to respond, what I said was, ‘I think we need to wait a little while before we get married.’ And instead of smiling and agreeing with me, her face hardened into this weird, plaster-like thing that I didn’t recognize. And I tried to explain, but I couldn’t think straight and my words just came out like vomit. I don’t even remember mentioning Lucy’s name, or that she was the one who first planted this idea of putting off the marriage in my mind, but I know I did, because then Jessie accused me of being in love with Lucy. And she threw me out.” Jack holds out his arms to either side, a gesture of guilt and loss. “Here I am, forty-one years old, no wife, no friends, no life. So you can see now, how totally screwed up everything is.”

  Jack punctuates the end of his tale with a loud sniff, and his face and posture settle more deeply into gloom. Isobel and I sit there, like we’ve just watched a M. Night Shyamalan movie with an ending we don’t completely understand.

  Isobel tucks her short hair behind her ears as she speaks. “Wow. I thought my life was messed up. You’ve made me feel a lot better about myself.”

  Jack emits a long, low sigh. “I guess that’s one good thing I’ve accomplished.”

  I look over at Jack. He’s pressing his fingers against his eyelids.

  “Do you love Jessie?” I ask. “Or were you only with her because she loves you?”

  His hands fall into his lap and we make eye contact as he meets my scrutiny.

  “I don’t know,” he says without apology.

  “Well,” I tell him gently, “my ‘female’ advice is to figure that out first.”

  He nods, agreeing without saying so, hanging his head like he’s about to cry.

  I make my voice tender, a consolation prize. “And you get to stay here, in my luxury apartment while you do.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.” Jack’s forehead wrinkles as his eyes narrow. “But at the same time, if five years ago someone had told me I would screw my life up so badly that I’m forced to sleep on my unemployed, reality TV star, younger cousin’s couch…”

  He winces as he realizes how bad what he’s saying sounds. But I just laugh.

  “The world works in mysterious ways.” And I pop the last jalapeno-bacon-crab cake into my mouth. Then I get up for another beer.

  §

  Later that night I’m lying in the dark, alone in my bed, as awake as if I’d indulged in a late afternoon latte. This is when I am most likely to replay my own set of unmet expectations, my own series of disappointments and mistakes, a guilty pleasure movie replayed in an endless loop inside my head. I’m curled up underneath my comforter and I tug on a wad of the acrylic stuffing that escaped from a small rip in the lining. I rub it between my fingers and it reminds me of sand. I close my eyes and I can see myself back on the beach; I feel myself back in his arms.

  “You smell like limes,” he whispered into my neck.

  I pressed my lips against his forehead. “We should probably get back before anyone notices we’re gone.” I gave him a baby kiss against his hairline. “They’ll vote us out the minute they realize we’re a couple.”

  He laughed, and I wanted to swallow that laughter up and keep it in a safe, hidden spot. He planted kisses up and down along the curve of my neck and my bare shoulder. His arms tightened around me, one was grasping my waist and the other was around my thigh. He gently pushed me back so I was lying in the sand. Then he was on top of me.

  His t-shirt and the scant fabric of our bathing suits were all tha
t separated us from being skin against skin. Even still, I could feel the heat dispensing from his body, a blanket that could shield us both. His sigh caused his ribcage to raise and lower against my chest and I wanted to reach under his shirt with both hands. I wanted to press every bit of me into every bit of him, and I wanted to make it all last indefinitely.

  But I rolled my head to the side and through squinted eyes I saw a camera lens peaking out of the bushes that we had thought were hiding us.

  “Grant,” I mumbled, not yet able to find my voice.

  He took that as an expression of desire and went in for a deep kiss. His mouth on mine, his lips sucking and caressing, his teeth gently nibbling my bottom lip, his tongue flicking and plunging, in and out and against my tongue, like neither of them has ever been intended for any other purpose. Everything inside of me turned to warm syrup on Sunday morning waffles, and it took some Iron Woman type of strength to push him away and opt for the protein shake instead.

  “There are cameras,” I told him. I gestured towards the bushes.

  He was adorable, his lips rosy from kissing me and his hair sticking up as a result of my fingers delving through his curls. He looked around and spotted the camera, and then gave the operator a smile and a wave. He turned back to me, his expression joyful. “I don’t care,” he whispered. “Let the world know how I feel about you. That only makes it better.”

  He started kissing me again and for a moment I relented. But when I closed my eyes I could see my father watching this scene on television. His feet would be propped up on the coffee table and he’d be nursing his most recent injury and a beer. His face would be full of pride and expectation until Grant climbed on top of me, then quickly Dad’s eyes would lower into slits, his hands would clench into fists, and the skin beneath his beard would turn red. No. It couldn’t happen like this, not with my dad watching.

  “Grant,” I said again, and this time I pushed him away with a bit more force. “I can’t. Not in front of a camera. Not on national television. Sorry.”

  By then we were both sitting up. He rolled his shoulders and shook his head rapidly, like he was fighting against himself. His mouth was a straight line and he was biting his bottom lip.

  But he took a deep breath, and on the exhale everything in him relaxed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. And to show me he meant it, he brushed the back of his hand tenderly against my cheek. “You’re right. We should wait.” He scooted closer to me so he could whisper something that the camera’s microphone couldn’t pick up. His breath was hot against my ear as he made his promises. “When the show is over, we’ll go away. We’ll be alone and we’ll finally start living.”

  And then he leaned back so he could meet my eyes. “Okay?” He raised his eyebrows in question and my heart dived and danced simultaneously.

  “Okay,” I said, and he went in for another kiss.

  “Wait,” I said, as I half-heartedly pushed him away. “How can I go away with you? I don’t even know your last name, or where you’re from, or what you want to do with your life.”

  He held up a hand and counted off on his fingers. “One, my last name is Hamilton-Leonard.”

  “That’s a mouthful.”

  He shrugged. “My mom wanted to hyphenate. Two, I’m from Laketown, Connecticut. Three, I plan to save the world, and afterwards I’ll spend all my free time with you.”

  I giggled. Yes, giggled like a fifteen-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. But I was sure that this moment, and all the ones with him that would follow, were what I was meant for.

  We got up and straightened ourselves out, laughing as we brushed sand and twigs from our hair. He took my hand and led me through the jungle path, telling me to watch out for that branch and don’t trip over that rock. And after weeks of trying to survive on my own, the feeling of being protected was more welcome than the feminist side of me would care to admit.

  My eyes were gazing up at him and I was laughing over his impersonation of Joe Pine, Castaways, take your place at the starting line, or, Beth, the tribe has decreed. You’re out, when Grant leaned down for one more kiss. As we pulled away and resumed walking I ran, smack, into Henry carrying a pile of kindling.

  Grant and I released our entwined hands, but Henry’s gaze stayed on the space where our clasp had been as if it still remained.

  “Hey, Henry,” I squeaked, and I could feel my cheeks growing flush. I bent to retrieve the sticks I had caused him to drop. He took them from me, wordlessly, and his silence shouted his disapproval.

  “Thanks.” He took the last stick. Henry’s wavy light brown hair was sticking up, and his pink, peeling nose was the same color as his dirty, faded red, button-down dress shirt. Since he originally came from the other tribe he was the only one of us not dressed in green. But Henry didn’t need a clothing difference to establish his outsider status; he was probably born with his outsider-membership card tucked inside the pocket of his oversized brain.

  “Gathering firewood?” Grant clapped his wide palm against Henry’s sunburned shoulder and Henry winced at the contact. “Good man!” Then Grant took my hand again and pulled me away. “Talk to you later!” Grant cried over his shoulder, and we left Henry standing there, like we were walking together towards the dance floor and he was awkward, alone and abandoned - the guy who travels stag on an island full of couples.

  How silly was I in that moment? I was the smug cheerleader at the high school party, proud to be dating the quarterback. I could sense Henry’s discomfort but I figured he was just jealous of our happiness. If only I could return, knowing what I now know. This time I would listen to the smartest kid in the class.

  Chapter 7

  “Cold molding epoxy is a process of shaping wood. Typically the structure of the boat is turned upside down. The cold-molded wood boats, comparable to the Gougeon brothers’ boats, are actually cold-molded wood laminate boats, rather than fiberglass boats, because most of their strength and assembly comes from a wood seal.” The expert witness pauses for a moment and he scans the jury box. He must have been trained to make eye contact with us. He smiles and shrugs, as if to concede that he’s going to speak in more simple terms now. “The epoxy used in their creation is principally to guard the wood and act as glue. However, regular fiberglass boats rely upon the strength that comes from the fiberglass and not the wood, depending upon whether it is dense fiberglass or bared fiberglass laminate.”

  Next to me, Four is recording every detail of the expert’s testimony. I bet she got all A’s in college. I bet guys flirted with her just so they could borrow her notes and pass whatever class it was that they slept through most mornings. And I bet she let them; she seems like an attention whore to me.

  But who am I to talk? I am after all, a reality television star. That’s about as attention whorish as you can get.

  I flip back and forth through the notes I’ve taken and attempt to refocus. Each witness’ name is scrawled on top of a page, and I tried to transcribe all the salient points of what each person said underneath. There are around thirty pages total, which averages out to six pages per day, roughly one page per hour.

  Four has written more than me. I bet if we were on the island she would have gathered more firewood, caught more fish, and solved more puzzles during the challenges than me too. And I’d have voted her out first chance I got.

  I look up at the clock. It’s 11:30. Half an hour until lunch.

  It’s now day six of the trial and my excitement has ebbed. I catch myself thinking bitchy thoughts about my fellow jury members. I have learned more about boats, specifically cold-molded wooden yachts, than I ever thought I would learn in my lifetime. Do you know that the Gougeon brothers wrote the definitive book on boat construction? Well they did, and they’ve been referenced several times during the trial.

  I flip to a new sheet of paper. I write, Cold molded epoxy boats aren’t fiber glass boats.

  Then I draw a picture of me on the edge of a yacht, about to ju
mp into the depths of the dark, dangerous ocean. Grant is in the picture too, but I draw him into the shape of a hungry shark, teeth barred, ready to devour me the moment I’m in the water.

  The plaintiff’s side finishes the examination of their witness. I’m sure the judge will let us all go to lunch early rather than having the defense start in on their cross-examination. But no.

  “Let’s take a stretching break,” she says.

  Stretching breaks are when we stand up at our seats, stretch, and sit back down again. We can talk softly for around thirty seconds but we can’t go anywhere. Still, I love stretching breaks. A woman in a robe, holding a gavel and sitting high on a pedestal tells a dozen adults to get up and stretch, and they obey every time. How awesome is that?

  I turn at my waist and roll my shoulders. Ten, who sits behind and diagonally from me, catches my eye. He is chuckling.

  “What?” I ask.

  His eyes move down to my seat where I placed my notebook, open to the page with my drawing. “You’re pretty good,” he says. “But did you have a bad boating experience? You should have spoken up. You might have gotten out of jury duty.”

  “But then I would never have learned about cold-molded epoxy boat construction.” I smile. Ten is harmless enough.

  We sit back down and the defense cross examines the expert witness. The lawyer for the defense is that guy you sort of remember from your freshman year college dorm, and eight years later, when you’re walking down the aisle of Home Depot, you’re sure it’s him but you’re not confident enough to say hello. Besides, he used to argue with his teachers just to get a rise out of them, and if you spoke to him now he’d probably do the same thing to you.

  Now he cross-examines with his default sardonic smile. “What do you know about Greek cold molding boat construction? Are you aware that there are boat-building authorities other than the Gougeon brothers? Do you realize that the Greeks have their own method of cold-molding epoxy, and it involves having the boats right side UP?