“That’s good.”
“But of course, who says that other than someone who drinks a lot and does drugs? I’m — ”
“You really don’t need to keep saying you’re sorry,” Ebon interrupted.
“Don’t you want to sit down, Ebon? I feel like I’m on trial here.” She looked down at her crate.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s weird. I don’t care if you’re fine. I feels strange sitting here while you stand up.”
“You could stand.”
She waved her hand briskly in front of herself. Despite the chill air, she was still flushed from the club. Ebon knew; he’d been watching her dance the entire time.
“I’m tired. Sit next to me.”
Ebon looked at the crate. “There’s no room.”
“Well … ”
“You could sit on my lap.”
Holly seemed to consider, then stood.
“I was kidding,” he said.
“It’s cool. You didn’t roofie me. You haven’t raped me yet. I can sit on your lap.”
Ebon wasn’t sure that was a logical chain of deduction. Was that the way things were done these days? If you didn’t roofie or rape a girl, did most of them want to sit on your lap?
“That’s kind of strange,” he said.
“Hurry and sit. I wasn’t kidding. I’m really tired.”
“I don’t think I can … ”
“If you get a boner, it’ll be more funny than awkward.”
Ebon looked at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “No filter.”
They stared awkwardly at each other for a few long and frozen seconds. Music still thrummed through the club’s walls, the only audible beat beyond traffic’s distant purr.
In the same explosive moment, they both laughed.
As the laughing died to sniffles, Ebon found himself looking into Holly’s eyes, realizing just how green they were. Like gemstones, or the green of a mythical fairy tale sea. And they were on him, meeting his eyes (an unremarkable brown, he thought), giving him all their precious attention. He suddenly felt like the luckiest man at the concert or in the alleyway outside of it, or possibly the luckiest guy in the city. She could have been having this encounter with anyone, but she’d chosen to have it with him.
This is one of those moments you’ll remember forever.
“Ebon … ” she began.
Holly said just the one word before they were interrupted, but its tone was different than everything she’d said so far. Its timbre was lower; its pronunciation was clearer and less giggly, her face was more composed when she said it, her eyes deep rather than filled with laughter, her mouth pleasant but not grinning. It was as if she’d become suddenly sober, and was about to respond to his thoughts.
But before she could go on, a group came around the corner and into the alley’s mouth. Ebon saw several of the guys from Charlie’s group (not precisely his own, since Charlie had cooler friends than just the nerds in the dorm) with their girlfriends as they turned, seeing the two of them between the stairwell and the dumpster, their hands inexplicably lightly clasped. Ebon looked down. He didn’t remember taking Holly’s hands and never would have dared, so she must have taken his.
“Hey, look who’s making out in the alley!” hooted a tall kid named Ben. He had a mostly shaved head and an astonishingly hot girlfriend who was supposedly bisexual. She was also a semifree agent, and Charlie kept trying to hook up with her. Ebon supposed the offer would have been open to him as well, if he’d had the guts and if he’d lived in a world where people actually did things like that.
The chortling made it apparent that the group was fairly drunk.
Quieter, another boy in the group asked one of the girls, “Is that him?”
He hadn’t been talking to Ben, but Ben answered.
“Fuck yes, that’s him! And look what he picked up!”
Ebon looked at Holly, trying to apologize with his eyes. There was no way to apologize for it all. He wanted to apologize for Ben’s implying she was just some hook-up; he wanted to apologize for any idea that Ebon thought this would end in a hook-up; he wanted to apologize for knowing (or being known by) a group of loud, drunken assholes. Ebon’s real friends were quieter and more thoughtful. It wasn’t fair that it was Charlie’s group who’d found them.
The group came forward. Ebon felt the moment breaking and wanted to shoo them away, but they came anyway. A new fear burned fire into Ebon’s heart, then threw him into a freezing cold lake: now that party people had joined them — many of whom were attractive alpha-male types — Holly’s options would be expanded. He’d no longer have her as a captive audience. He’d had his five seconds of kismet, but now that feeling of meant-to-be was draining away. Reality was about to come crashing back. Move along, folks. It’s just some drunk girl with beer goggles getting waylaid by a nerd. Nothing to see here.
“Charlie asked us to find you,” said Ben, his loud manner returning to a normal (if somewhat hops-infused) level. He clapped Ebon on the back and tossed an acknowledging glance at Holly, then back to Ebon as if to say, Nice of her to pity you, but you know you never really had a chance, right? “Set’s over, but it’ll take them a while to clean up. We’re heading to Waffle House. Want to come with?”
Ebon looked around. Holly was still catching his eye, but she was now talking to Ben’s girlfriend — a girl with almond-shaped, darkly lined eyes and straight, shiny brown hair. They looked at home in a conversational pair: two women equally out of his league.
“No thanks,” Ebon said.
Ben looked back at him with something like well-meaning pity. If we leave, the look said, do you really think she’ll stay here with you instead of coming with us?
“Charlie is going to join us as soon as we’re done. We thought we might stop off at … ”
Another group arrived, this one apparently Holly’s. The alley was small, and the influx of so many bodies seemed suddenly odd. Ebon felt robbed. This place had been his. Theirs. Now it was a common back alley, ripe for drunk college kids to throw up and have sex in. Three girls surrounded Holly, chattering about something Ebon couldn’t hear. He caught flashes of Holly’s smile, and every once in a while one of the other girls would turn around to glance at him with something like assessing disbelief.
A minute later, Holly was being dragged from the alley, past him and Ben and the others. Two of her friends had her by the wrist, and the alcohol fumes wafting from the group could have floored a sailor. Holly watched him as she neared, then began to pass.
“I guess I’m going,” she said.
“Oh.”
“It was nice to meet you.”
Someone behind Ben laughed.
“You too,” he said.
“Thanks for not giving me any roofies.”
If they’d been alone, he would have said something about how she’d almost sat on his lap and maybe even made the boner joke again, but there were entirely too many people for such foolery. So he chuckled, unsure how to respond with an audience.
She was two feet away. Four feet. Six feet.
He should ask for her number. He should ask where she lived, where she worked, how he could find her again. He should … but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. That wasn’t the kind of thing that Ebon Shale did, and certainly not with two groups of unknowns watching.
She was eight feet away. Ten.
“We’ll always have the alleyway,” she said, a laugh reclaiming her voice. She was back with her friends, untouchable. He’d been a port in a storm for her, nothing more.
“Sure,” he managed to say back.
Before the other girls dragged Holly around the corner, he got another seconds-long look at her eyes. So big, so green, so deep. So suddenly sober, as if wanting something he couldn’t deliver.
Then they were gone, and Ebon was surrounded by well-meaning assholes.
This is one of those moments you’ll remember forever. The moment you had a chance … and let it slip
away.
“Come on.” Ben slapped a hand on Ebon’s back. The slap, like his earlier look, seemed to be saying something — a well-meaning back slap to make a guy feel better after a miss. “Like I said, Waffle House.”
Again Ben looked at Ebon. Then maddeningly, voice dripping sympathy, he added, “Tell you what, buddy — I’m buying.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Keep Moving. Keep Going.
EBON RAN DOWN THE DUNES, TAKING the more direct but longer way to Pinky Slip and skipping the rickety wooden stairway. He patted his pants pocket compulsively every few seconds, checking to be sure the key was still there. Though it was absurd, a part of him felt sure it would vanish.
As he ran, Ebon kept tossing glances behind himself, equally sure (equally absurdly) that the house on the sand would be forever on his heels as if he were running on a treadmill. But it shrank dutifully away, just as homes people ran from were supposed to do. He could see Aimee standing in the doorway, legs bare below her small skirt and sexy little apron, waving mechanically while wearing a large smile. He saw the cottage’s many additions as the obscene out-juts they’d seemed on paper — appropriate to Aimee’s artistic temperament but an abomination to the island’s otherwise nostalgic shoreline. It looked like an ultra-modern abortion, or something from a progressive architecture magazine.
Ebon ran, feeling foolish. Eventually he slowed, reason catching up with him. He’d get into his boat. He’d head out. He’d get his distance, and break through whatever strange barrier was holding him here. He’d been able to leave the cottage, hadn’t he? It had just been a tricky lock. If something was conspiring to keep him here, why would it have let him go? Or had it merely fired a warning shot across his bow: allowing him to leave Aaron forever, leave Aimee, and leave his past to confront the future?
His feet slowed. He patted the key in his pocket, forced his breathing to quiet, then turned to look again at the cottage. He’d moved downward; only the top story was still visible. He could no longer see Aimee. He also couldn’t see the studio addition. For a moment, the place seemed to be as it had when he’d arrived: faded blue-gray paint, a crumbling peak under a sagging, aging roof. A simple cottage succumbing to entropy as nature slowly erased it from the shoreline.
Then his feet carried him lower on the dunes, and his line of sight shifted, and Richard Frey’s cottage was gone.
A few minutes later he arrived at Pinky Slip, finding the waves behind the breakwaters once again calm. Even out in the bay, he could no longer see any whitecaps. The few trees Ebon could see (mostly dogwoods and cottonwoods; they’d made a huge mess in September and October) had only held only a few leaves each. All looked as dried and rotting as corpses. A light breeze stirred the mostly nude branches, making them rattle like bones.
The boat was exactly where he’d left it, tied firmly to the dock cleats with perhaps too many bumpers protecting its sides. Ebon had (of course; he remembered clearly now) snapped the covers in place and shuttered the ladderway leading below deck. It was perfectly dry under the covers, perfectly clear of debris, perfectly ready for running. Yes, it was cold out. But the time was right.
Ebon stowed the gear and bumpers, inserted the key, and started the engine. Only it wouldn’t start. After a few cranks, the thing began to sound flooded, but that didn’t make sense. He’d barely opened the choke, and engines didn’t cold-start flooded.
He gave it a moment, deciding he really should inspect the craft. He hadn’t explored it yet. He’d purchased it sight-unseen, not even bothering to start the engine and work the throttle in neutral. His need to flee had been too great, and this was the only boat he’d been able to find. It would be good enough so long as it ran. And he knew it ran; Bonnie had piloted it over. It was large enough to take the waves and meet Ebon’s needs.
It proved to be a nice little vessel. There was a tiny kitchenette in the cabin, to the left down the ladder, and a moon-shaped eating area farther toward the bow on the same side. On the right was a couch-like sitting area, and he could see a wedge of a bunk at the bow behind a set of maroon curtains. Walking down, Ebon could see that there was a second bunk to the stern, past a door that probably housed the engine. Above the door were a radio and some other controls.
Once in the confined space, Ebon noticed how much the cabin smelled like gasoline. He opened the engine door and realized that the bilge was halfway full of water, and that there was a rainbow sheen of fuel floating on its top. Something had leaked. That wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t unheard of. Ebon could pump it out. Yes, he’d be polluting. It hurt his liberal sensibilities to consider dropping that gas slick into the bay, but what the hell; circumstances were dire, and it wasn’t like he was Exxon or BP.
There was a pop-up window midway down the cabin’s length. Ebon opened it, realizing the scent’s oppression in the cabin’s confinement. He pulled the rest of the covers off the boat, dropped them below, and waved his hands to usher the reek out, as if waved hands would do anything. If he ever wanted to overnight on the boat, he supposed he’d need to get the leak fixed. And right now, he kind of wanted to. Because overnighting on a boat, while a pain in the ass, was also romantic. He could take his girlfriend out, and they could make love to the tune of gentle waves lapping the sides.
Aimee would like that.
Except that his girlfriend’s name was Vicky, not Aimee. Vicky lived at the top of a rock bluff farther south, maybe halfway to the lighthouse. He could see the bluffs’ edges from here, but not Aimee’s house. Possibly because Vicky didn’t really exist. He had no idea.
Ebon climbed out of the cabin, turned the key to ON, and ran the bilge pump until it gurgled dry. That done, he tried turning the key to START, but somehow fumbled it right out of the dash. A moment later the key was hopping around on his palm, and a moment after that it was in the water.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Ebon tried to recover the key, which was floating between the dock and the boat’s side, but it was too far down. There was an old blue ball cap in the cabin, so he used it as a scoop, trying to fish his key from the water. But again, he couldn’t get low enough. He leaned out, gripping the side, legs anchored under the wheel for balance. He snagged the key after some straining, but then the wheel slipped. He lost his hold and found himself floating in the frigid water.
He climbed out with some difficulty (Pinky Slip didn’t have ladders on the docks and he had to make his way to the rock shore and circle around), then sat shivering in a fresh breeze. He should definitely go up to the cottage and change, because if he didn’t he would get hypothermia. The taste of salt was strong in his mouth, and his shirt and pants felt very heavy.
Ebon looked back the way he’d come. He didn’t want to go to the cottage. He was suddenly very sure that if he went back now, he’d never return to the boat. Aimee would trap him in conversation. The doors would jam shut. A satellite would fall from the sky and block his way to Pinky Slip. Right now, he was at least away. Maybe it was the ocean fighting him, and maybe it was the island, but at least here, on the water, half of the obstacles were out of his way.
Walking back down into to the cabin and the still-oppressive scent of petroleum, Ebon found a few blankets, then swaddled himself. Better.
Teeth chattering, Ebon again attempted to start the boat, but it wouldn’t turn over.
Maybe the spark plugs were bad.
And maybe if he replaced them and got a spark, he’d ignite the fumes below deck, and would turn the whole works into a giant fireball.
Ebon again looked toward the cottage. That last glimpse was still in his mind’s eye — the faded paint, the old roof, the second story free of its post-modern addition. Of course, he’d simply been seeing it wrong, his vision fogged by a still-hammering heart. But maybe not.
He was suddenly sure — in a sky-is-parting, how-did-I-never-notice sort of way — that he’d seen similar things before. Around every corner in the cottage, the home’s original state seemed to lurk like a
n underlay beneath a thin glossy sheen. It was like a double-exposure photograph, where a trick of the eye could cause you to focus on either image. Most of the time, the cottage looked under construction and fresh. But he’d gone into the bathroom at night and felt sure he’d stepped on a broken floorboard. He’d peeked in on Aimee while she was sleeping and seemed to see her on a rickety old bed with a moth-eaten canopy, its posts faded and cracked like the wooden horses on the old carousel. He’d gone for walks and returned to seemingly see the cottage as he’d once known it (cute and blue gray with shake shingles, shore appropriate and quaint) or as he’d seen it on arrival (falling down, decaying, barely more than dust).
He didn’t want to go back there now. To do so was inviting madness. No, he had to get the boat started. He had to get out into the water. He had to push back, because he’d been pushed too many times.
“If I can’t get this boat started,” he said, staring down at the key with its yellow floatation fob as if it could hear him, “I’m going to sit here in the cold until I freeze.”
He turned the key. The engine fired to life without a hitch. Only once it was running did Ebon think about the fumes and their ignition. Could they still ignite? He didn’t think so. Engines ran on sparks and flame, so whatever might catch below deck would have already caught. He was safe — for now, at least.
Surprised by the engine’s sudden life, Ebon pulled back to steer the boat from the slip. But he hadn’t untied the dock lines in his haste, and now felt the engine tugging at the dock, making the boards creak and moan.
He moved the transmission back to neutral, then hopped to the dock. Thanks to Aimee’s cinch job on the dock lines, they’d only tightened as the boat had pulled them taut. Ebon couldn’t unwrap them; he couldn’t free the boat. And somehow, on the boat’s end of the lines, the loops were too small to get back off of the cleats. How was that possible? How had Bonnie got them on, if the loops were too small?
Axis of Aaron Page 22
