Higher Ground

by Nan Lowe

  Shawn was going on about some Category 5 that was headed for Jamaica and then Florida. “My dad’s a meteorologist for the FAA,” he said. “He says Ivan’s a bad motherfucker.”

  “Really?” I asked with a smile. “He used those exact words?”

  “No.” The curve of his lip was swagger and flirtation. He leaned forward to cup water in his hand to splash me. “He used a bunch of nerdy technical terms to say the same thing.”

  “Are you lost?” Oliver showed up out of nowhere, feet planted between my elbows and Shawn’s hip, looking down at my new acquaintance.

  Shawn angled his body away from us. “Damn, man. I was just talking to her.”

  Oliver pulled his t-shirt over his head, tightened the drawstring of his board shorts, and kicked his flops under a nearby chair. He stepped around me and made his way over to the diving board. He ran straight to the end and flipped into the air before landing with a splash that soaked Shawn’s clothes.

  When he surfaced, he wrapped his arms around me and tugged me away from the side of the pool. “I’m interrupting,” he said.

  Shawn stood and rejoined his buddy at the cooler. “Dick,” he muttered over his shoulder.

  After he sat down, I shrugged and mouthed the words “I’m sorry.” He rolled his eyes and turned his attention toward the beer in his hand and some girl from my history class.

  Oliver stayed close to me in the pool for the rest of the night, keeping some part of our bodies touching at all times. Van came closer after a while and waved me over to the stairs. “It’s 11:30,” he said. “If we’re going to make curfew, we’ve got to go.”

  “All right.” I stepped out and took the towel he was holding for me.

  Oliver followed, dripping water as he walked to his clothes.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?” Celeste called out to him from her spot in the pool.

  “I’ll be back after I make sure she gets home,” he said.

  “Van will make sure I get home.” His tone irritated me almost as much as it made me feel like an inconvenience. “Stay and have a good time.”

  “You sure?” he asked, glancing back at the pool. The shirt dropped from his hand onto the chair before he leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on my lips. “Cool. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Van waited for me to dress, and we left after saying goodbye to our friends. Oliver talked to us from the pool until we turned to leave.

  “See you Monday, guys,” Penn said when we passed him in the yard.

  “See ya,” Van answered.

  We walked the four blocks from Penn’s house to ours. Van didn’t say much, but he did offer me a piece of gum on our porch before he unlocked the front door.

  When we walked in, Miss Verity was knitting a tiny blue-and-pink cap on the couch in the family room. “How was your night?” she asked without looking up.

  “Good.” Van kept going, leaving me there so he could hunt down some food in the kitchen.

  “It was okay.” I tried not to think about the dark, stolen moments in Penn’s bedroom or the pathetic realization that getting some boy off behind closed doors without any reciprocation had been the highlight of my night. It was the story of my life.

  “Ronnie’s here. She’s packing up her room.”

  “Wow.” I dropped onto the wingback chair across from my grandmother. “She’s really going through with it.” My head moved back and forth in denial. “I can’t believe it. She’s actually going to marry him.”

  “She is.” Miss Verity nodded, looked up at me, and frowned. “It won’t last. There’s a bigger love out there for her.”

  “Maybe you should tell her that.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “She’s too stubborn. Ronnie has to figure things out for herself.”

  “But—”

  “They’ll be happy. They’ll have a few good years, and while you might not understand this, Violet, she has to go. This is something she has to do.” I stood and turned toward the stairs. “Let’s keep this between the two of us. Just enjoy the next couple of days with her.”

  “She’s staying here?” I asked.

  “Yes. Bryan’s already left for Fort Worth, so your parents will be taking Ronnie on Monday.”

  “Dad’s okay with this?”

  “Virgil and I had a little talk. He understands a few things now, and he’s… resigned.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry, sugar. Everything’s going to be fine.” She gave me a small wink and turned back to her knitting.

  Thanks to Miss Verity, Ronnie’s kid was going to have plenty of blankets, booties, and hats. That was when it hit me that my sister was really going to have a baby. I was going to be an aunt, possibly before I even graduated from high school.

  “Goodnight, Miss Verity.”

  “Goodnight.”

  The door to Ronnie’s room was closed. As I passed it, I heard her voice and assumed she was talking to Bryan on the phone. Van caught up with me before I made it to my room. There was a pack of Oreos tucked under his arm.

  “You want?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s smoke first.”

  He followed me into my room and out onto the balcony. We sat cross-legged on the wicker loveseat, and he pulled half a joint from his pocket. “Sonny let me pocket this earlier,” he said.

  “Cool.”

  “So… You saw what went down with Celeste, Penn, and Oliver, right?” He stared at me as I lit the doobie and sucked in a lungful of denial.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about that shit, Vi.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, passing it to him. “It’s none of our business.”

  “What’s none of your business, dweebs?” Ronnie stood behind us, having opened the door with ninja stealth. “Damn, kids.” She waved her hand in front of her face and pretended to cough as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  “Shit,” Van said, moving to stub the joint.

  Ronnie laughed. “Don’t stop on my account. If I didn’t have a tiny human in me, I’d smoke that shit with you.”

  Van’s shoulders relaxed as he leaned back, and Ronnie sat in the chair on Van’s end of the balcony. “Is it weird?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s weird. One minute, I’m puking everywhere, and the next, I’m constipated. So far, it sucks.”

  “TMI.” He covered his ears with his hands.

  She laughed. “At least you’ll never have to do this,” she said to him. Then she looked at me. “Make sure you carry condoms in your purse.”

  “I’m on the pill.”

  “Jesus,” Van said. “I’m done with this.” He took another hit from the joint, handed it to me, and carried his Oreos to his side of the balcony. “I don’t want to hear about that stuff from either of you.”

  He stepped into his room and left us outside. Ronnie twisted her long blonde hair into a bun and used a hair tie to secure it. “The pill, huh?”

  “Yeah. Elijah drove me to the clinic on Magazine Street.”

  “Smart kid. God forbid a baby fuck up his NFL pipe dream. Ugh. I hate that you wasted your virginity on that little douchebag.”

  “I’m not exactly happy about it, either.”

  She laughed and closed her eyes when a breeze hit us. “You’re still taking the pills, though, right?”

  “They’re good for my period.”

  “Uh-huh. Look, I have no room to talk.” She waved to her midsection. “Just… be careful, okay?”

  “It’s not an issue right now.”

  “Cool.” She glanced over her shoulder. “We’re not really going to let him eat all of those Oreos, are we?”

  I stubbed the roach and tucked it underneath a clay coaster on the patio table. “No way.”

  We followed through Van’s door, climbed onto his bed with him, and wiped out all the cookies while we watched some cheesy horror flick.

  The re
st of the weekend went by too fast. The family made a trip to the cemetery on Saturday, and then Dad treated us to dinner at Oceana Grill. Mine and Van’s cell phones were buzzing all afternoon with texts from Oliver and Troya. After a while, I replied that we were busy spending time with Ronnie before she left.

  We slept in Sunday, and after breakfast, we helped Ronnie with the last of her packing. Van and Dad loaded the U-Haul trailer hooked up to Mom’s Explorer. The plan was for them to leave around dawn Monday morning. The chatter about Hurricane Ivan had picked up as the weekend progressed. The models were all over the place, and Dad was worried about leaving us behind.

  “Go,” Miss Verity finally told him late Sunday afternoon. “I’m telling you, Virgil. We’ll be fine.”

  When I woke up Monday morning, they were gone. My sister was gone, off to be a grownup somewhere else in the world and have a kid with a guy who wasn’t “the one.” She hadn’t woken us up to say goodbye, and part of me was glad. The other part of me walked into her bedroom, sat on her bed, and looked around at the bare walls and surfaces of the dresser and vanity until Miss Verity called us down for breakfast.

  Van stopped in Ronnie’s doorway with his backpack hefted over his shoulder. “You ready?”

  “I guess.”

  He bumped his shoulder against mine when I joined him at the door. “She hardly spent any time here over the last year, anyway.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you think I feel?” he asked at the top of the stairs. “Don’t think I haven’t seen that stack of applications on your desk. Next year, I’ll be alone.”

  “I haven’t made up my mind, yet.”

  “Sure.” He mussed my hair with his hand.

  At that moment, I was second-guessing myself. Losing Ronnie to motherhood and Bryan had opened up a world of feelings. How could I leave my entire family? I’d be the one all alone.

  As I sat across from Miss Verity and Van at the kitchen table, I tried to imagine what it would be like to not see them every day. My parents stayed buried in books, papers, and my siblings. I’d gotten over missing them years before, but how could I leave my brother and grandmother?

  “Eat, Violet.” Miss Verity tapped the table to get my attention. “I’m going to the market today, so I’ll take you to school on the way.”

  The grits had gone cold, but I ate every bite to appease her.

  Miss Verity locked up on our way out and led the way to the ancient black Cadillac my grandfather had given her as an anniversary present in 1980 that she rarely drove. The car had less than one hundred thousand miles logged, but it was the last thing he gifted her, so she refused to part with it. The leather seats were cool against my legs, and the interior smelled like his ghost, like cherry pipe tobacco.

  She waited until we’d reached the drop-off line at Newman to speak. “Come home right after school today.”

  Van and I glanced at each other. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. I echoed my agreement.

  “What the hell was that about?” Van asked as we walked across the lawn.

  “Who knows?”

  Oliver looked up from his spot at the picnic table and nodded as we approached. “You two fell off the map this weekend.”

  “Ronnie left this morning,” I said.

  He stepped down from his throne, grabbed his stuff, and threw an arm over my shoulder. “That sucks.”

  My eyes watered against my will. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”

  He leaned forward to kiss my cheek while guiding me up the stairs to the atrium. “Maybe she didn’t know how.”

  I didn’t have time to focus on it. Hurricane Ivan was the talk of the school that day. It was still rolling toward the Gulf as a Category 5. Kids whispered nervously between classes, and teachers were distracted and gave out plans for the entire week in case classes ended up cancelled. There were rumors of evacuations, but that was nothing new.

  By the end of the day, everyone was on edge. Van and I told the others we had to go home after school, and Oliver, Penn, and Troya decided to come with us. We stopped long enough to get iced coffee and then caught the streetcar to get us home as early as possible.

  Without any warning from me or Van, Miss Verity was already expecting the crowd. She’d spent the afternoon in the kitchen, chopping carrots and baking cookies. We watched the news and a couple of game shows, and then we went up to Van’s room, where he played “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” on repeat while we smoked out on the balcony.

  Miss Verity sent them packing before dark and told them we’d see them in a few days.

  The next morning brought evacuation orders from local officials and frantic phone calls from my parents. They insisted on leaving Texas to rush home, but Miss Verity told them to stay put, saying there was nothing for the three of us to worry about.

  I’d never doubted my grandmother, but watching the news coverage of locals boarding up windows and thousands of people jamming up the roadways out of town was spooky. A curfew was put in place for those of us who’d decided to stay. Oliver and I spent the afternoon instant messaging on our laptops. His mom’s hotel was booked solid for a convention, so she couldn’t leave the city. I tried to talk him into staying with us, but he assured me his father had shown up the evening before and that Mitchell was there, too. They were perfectly safe.

  I tried to stay off of the internet other than that. There were constant weather alerts, a steady stream of breaking news, and dozens of articles predicting the demise of New Orleans. The only good thing was that Ivan’s strength had lessened to a Category 4. We kept the cell phones and laptops on chargers at all times.

  That ended up being a blessing when the power went out less than forty-eight hours later. Miss Verity had an abundance of candles, so she gave us enough to light up our rooms and the bathroom we shared upstairs. The last reports we’d seen had shown Ivan as a Category 3 and headed straight for Gulf Shores.

  We stayed downstairs until Miss Verity retired for the night. An hour later, my phone buzzed with a text from Oliver that asked me to come to my back door. I could hear the wind and rain beating against my balcony door and the windows, so for a moment, I thought I’d misread it. Then another one asking me to hurry came through.

  I tiptoed down the stairs and past the hall leading to Miss Verity’s room. The beauty of the house was shadowed, and everything but the small candlelit space around me was a dark abyss. When I made it to the back door, I moved the curtain and let out a small yelp at Oliver staring back at me.

  It took too long to get my fingers working. Once the door was unlocked, he pulled it open quietly and stepped into the house, dripping water all over the doormat. He was pale and shaking, wearing nothing but a Stones t-shirt, soaked jeans, and waterlogged Vans.

  “Jesus Christ, Oliver. You scared the shit out of me,” I whisper-yelled.

  He shook his head slowly. “I can’t stay there with them anymore.”

  I locked the door, placed my finger over my lips, and tugged him through the kitchen and to the stairs. “Go.” I mouthed the word while pointing for him to take the stairs to my room.

  His shoes squished, the stairs creaked, and every drop that fell from his body seemed to echo in the darkness when it hit the hardwood. I held the candle high in my hand until he reached the top and disappeared out of sight.

  Miss Verity caught me in the kitchen with a dishtowel in my hand, but I’d already taken care of the water on the floor by the time she walked in.

  “Oh, good Lord, Violet!” She covered her heart with her hand and looked me over from head to toe.

  “Sorry! I spilled a glass of water in my room.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she let me pass, and I hoped the darkness would hide the trail of water leading up the stairs behind me.

  Oliver was standing in my room, staring out across the balcony at the rain still coming down outside. His whole body was shaking, and I could hear his teeth chattering the moment I walked in. I had no idea what to say, so I
walked over to him and set the candle down on my desk.

  “You’re soaking wet.” I touched his back and yanked my hand away quickly. “Take this off.” I tugged at his shirt, and he let me pull it over his head. He stepped out of his shoes when I reached for the button of his jeans.

  It wasn’t how I’d planned to get Oliver naked for the first time, but I took him to my bed and warmed him the only way I knew how. In turn, he showed me that sex was more than some sweaty boy rutting on a girl for a handful of minutes. It was soft touches, hands, teeth, and slow torture, with a payoff bigger than I’d ever imagined.

  Chapter Eleven

  Wade and I tie our shoelaces in silence. The crashing of occasional waves against the sand is no way to judge time, but my heart knows he’s been quiet for too long. There’s no doubt he suspected I’d been sexually active with Oliver.

  Recalling it now makes me feel like the dirty, used-up girl who fled to Alabama all those years ago, and that’s not how I want Wade to see me. Not ever.

  When he finishes, he rests his elbow on his knee and rubs his forehead with his palm. “Miss Verity?”

  Instead of meeting his gaze, I stare at the sea, almost wishing I could disappear into it. “Of course she knew,” I say. “Ronnie isn’t the only person in our family who has to learn every lesson the hard way.”

  “Did she ever try to warn you?”

  “Yes, but by then, it was too late. I was convinced I could change…” Him. Fate. “…things.”

  Wade stands first and then reaches down to take both of my hands to help me up. “Have I ever told you why I broke up with Hillary?” he asks, moving his arms around my waist.

  “No.”

  He hugs me close, resting his cheek on my head. “She spent a lot of time trying to change me. I knew she had no intention of applying to Emory, and that’s one of the major reasons I decided to go there. Well, that and the basketball scholarship.”