by Jordan Bell
“That’s true. I never go out. It’s one of the few family things I don’t do, much to my mother’s broken heart. They’ll take that boat out for skiing, that one for sunbathing, that one for overnight trips, and that one for entertaining. You’re welcome to go with them without me, though.”
“It’s ok. I’ve gone this long without getting on a boat; I’ll probably live two more weeks.”
On our way to the pool we passed along windows looking into a study. Mr. Silver, who I had yet to meet but had seen pictures of, stood over Jonah, speaking loud enough that we could hear his voice. Jonah sat forward on his knees, the neat cuffs unbuttoned and shoved halfway up his arms. His glasses were gone and while Shannon pointedly ignored what was happening as we walked past, Jonah caught me watching. His expression remained impassive but his eyes followed us until we were out of sight.
The pool turned out to be a little closed in area off the beach with an outdoor grill and bar. This was Shannon’s favorite place on the whole property, she said, and as soon as the gate behind us shut, she was stripping out of her clothes down to her bikini.
Mrs. Silver and Melissa, Shannon’s older sister, were already in their bathing suits in lounge chairs beneath umbrellas. I’d met them before when they’d come to visit Shannon. I found Mrs. Silver as sweet as Shannon, and Melissa twice as guarded. The tight line of her mouth reminded me of Jonah’s.
“Girls! I was wondering when you’d show up.” Mrs. Silver kissed Shannon’s cheek and then tried to kiss mine but I pulled away at the last minute. It was weird, all this kissing and touching and hugging that the Silvers seemed so good at. Even Melissa exchanged Shannon’s hug with one of her own. This was so far from anything my family ever did. I couldn’t even remember my father hugging me as a child and since he’d married his new wife, there weren’t even so much as phone calls, let alone hugs and kisses. The way the Silvers cared about each other was wonderful, and horrible, to witness.
“I was giving Jess the tour.” Shannon sat at the edge of the pool and dropped her feet in.
“You must be pretty overwhelmed, Jessica,” Melissa said with a small, but kind, smile. “I hope you’re finding everything to your liking.”
“Yes, it’s overwhelming, but also really beautiful. I appreciate you all having me.”
“You’re all Shannon ever talks about, we wouldn’t dream of not having you.” Mrs. Silver gave my hand a squeeze and I retreated to the side of the pool with Shannon.
I pulled my shorts and shirt off, and still felt very overdressed in my blue one-piece bathing suit. The others wore similar bikinis and had very beautiful bodies. It was impossible to tell Mrs. Silver had four grown children and Melissa clearly spent a lot of time at the gym. Shannon did not have the same toned, strong body as her sister, but she still looked good.
I knew my body was nice enough, but only Shannon knew why I’d never come out here with a bikini on, and it was an accident Shannon had ever seen the scars. I was always so careful to take showers late at night when no one would walk in on me, but I hadn’t anticipated Shannon actually coming to look for me that night. She told me they weren’t so bad, that enough time had passed since the car accident that had taken my mom’s life. She said the scars were hardly visible, and maybe that was true, but I could see them and I couldn’t bare anyone else seeing them. Not ever.
***
The Silvers turned out to be exactly what I’d hoped them to be – open and kind. Mr. Silver thankfully did not attempt to hug me when we arrived for dinner. Shannon said it was a casual dinner, but I was starting to understand her version of the word and my version of the word were very different things. I wore jeans and a tank top. Everyone else wore summer dresses and slacks. I was embarrassed, but decided this was something I was going to have to get used to over the next two weeks. As accepting as the Silvers seemed of me, we were just from two different worlds. Two different planets.
Jonah was right, I couldn’t pronounce dinner, but it was delicious anyway. There was rabbit in some sort of mushroom sauce over wide flat pasta. Shannon had seconds, much to her mother’s chagrin, and Eric and Shannon kept most of the conversation up between them. They asked me questions, sometimes, but did not treat me like something in a bowl to be watched and studied. Conversation was easy and I quickly felt like I belonged amongst the Silver clan. My own family and school felt a million years away.
“What do you study, Jessica? Architecture, like my sister?”
It was the first time he’d spoken, and his voice commanded the attention of everyone at the table. He sat across from me, his shirt neat and cuffed once again. Without his sunglasses on I could see he had very dark green eyes, piercing in their intensity. He looked very much like his father when he spoke and his question didn’t feel like a question at all, but a command.
“I…no. I am working on my BA in Fine Arts.”
There it was, the look I got from most people when I told them I studied art. I might as well have told people I studied ancient philosophies for as much good as they thought it would do me in the real world. Before I was able to explain, he pounced on me.
“That’s not something a person studies if they want to make a living for themselves and their family. What, exactly, do you plan to do to pay off your student loans?”
Attacked. Cornered. Most people were polite enough to mumble some fake encouragement, but his unblinking accusation made me feel like the rabbit on our plates.
“Jonah…” Shannon started, but I interrupted her before she could make her brother stand down. The way he stared at me, I wanted to put him in his place.
“Graphic arts, that’s what I do. And I minor in communication. Right now I build webpages for extra money, but I want to work for an animation studio when I graduate.”
“Isn’t that a very competitive field?” This from Mr. Silver, who had the same commanding voice as Jonah, but lacked the edge that made Jonah sound like he was threatening to attack instead of asking a question.
I set my fork down on my plate carefully. I’d had this same conversation with my own father two years ago, and repeated every once in a while for his benefit.
“Yes, it is very competitive, but I’m very good at it.”
“Lots of people are ‘very good’ at it, but there are only so many paying jobs in the arts. Surely you have a fall back in mind?” Jonah again, the pressure of his voice made my heart quicken and my cheeks flush.
“No, I am not pursuing a fall back career. I’m well aware that in my field, success is forty percent talent and sixty percent luck. You’re lucky if you know someone in the business, lucky if you get noticed, lucky if you draw the right thing at the right time for the right person. I get that, and I don’t have any control over the luck part. But I am very talented, and I’m willing to roll the dice and hope luck will do the rest.”
I had everyone’s attention now and I wondered if they could see how hard I was breathing or how my hands shook beneath the table. Jonah’s eyes never left mine.
“And if you’re not lucky?” he asked, quieter this time.
“Then I keep working on the talent part until I am.”
***
After dinner, while Shannon taught me to play Mah-Jongg – the real kind, not that fake computer crap, she said – that I began to understand the real dynamic of the Silver family and why Jonah was so different from his siblings.
Mrs. Silver was discussing wedding dress styles with Melissa, whose winter wedding had dominated most of the after-dinner conversation already, and Eric was lounging on the window seat texting his on again, off again girlfriend. (Off again, if Sarah McCollister was willing to pick up where they’d left off last year, apparently.) Jonah and his father were on the opposite side of the room, in a similar position to what I’d seen earlier through the study window. Jonah leaned forward on his knees, stared at nothing on the ground, while his father towered and lectured. I caught words like international trading and investments, and international business
opportunities, but was otherwise engrossed in Shannon’s recounting of the history of the tiled game. Shannon knew the history of everything.
It was Jonah who raised his voice first. “I am not going to spend two weeks talking about this. If this is your plan, I’m leaving in the morning.”
I looked up and over at them, but Shannon nudged my foot and shook her head. I turned back to our game, but it was impossible not to overhear them.
“You are being irresponsible and unreasonable. Playing the investment game overseas, the Japanese don’t need you, Jonah. Silver Investments does. You could do very well for yourself if you just listened to me and someday the company could be yours. What’s not reasonable about that?”
“I don’t want your company. We’ve gone over this before. I’m going to start my own firm. You’re wasting your time and I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Anyone in this family would be proud to be chosen to succeed me!”
“Then give it to them. You have three other kids, groom them to be just like you, but I’ve got my own plans and they do not involve you or your money. They never have.” Jonah stood up, picked up his glass, downed the dark brown liquor, and stalked to the French doors that led out onto the deck.
“Jonah, don’t go,” his mother called but his father cut her off.
“You never take any interest or responsibility in this family. You might as well not even be a part of it.”
The words weren’t directed at me, but I felt them anyway. Jonah stopped with his hand on the door, and I didn’t realize I was breathing hard until Shannon put her hand on mine and gave it a squeeze. She understood, even if we were supposed to pretend this exchange wasn’t really happening, even though that was totally crazy, she understood what I was hearing was my own father’s voice. Only he hadn’t said I might as well not be a part of the family, he’d pointed out I really wasn’t anymore. Not since he remarried and started a new one.
Jonah opened the door and left us then, and no one tried to stop him. He was harder than his siblings, distant and antagonistic in a way I hated in people. But for a moment I understood, a little, how someone could get that way.
Three
The exchange between Jonah and his father haunted me. Shannon snored softly in the bed across from mine, but I was wide awake. There’d be no sleep for me, not for a while. Their argument morphed into the last conversation I’d had with my father over the phone when I was calling to make arrangements for someone to pick me up at the airport after classes were over. It had gone differently – my father wasn’t trying to get me to take over his company, but they were still too similar to shake the pain Mr. Silver’s words had surfaced in my heart. No, there’d be no sleep tonight.
I grabbed a hoodie with my school’s mascot on the back and slid into my sandals. Maybe a walk would do me good. I knew the water wasn’t far and with a flashlight and a quick look at the map on the wall, I slipped out into the moonlit trees.
Without the flashlight, finding the path would have been impossible. As it was, it was only nearly impossible. The trees became a solid shadow that extended until forever with only pinpricks of moonlight making it down through the foliage. The paths were kept clear and clean by invisible hired help, so I made it to the beach in only a few minutes. I was inside the dark trees, getting a little creeped out, and then they opened up and gave me a view of the inky black waves and a fat golden moon on its horizon.
I was also, very suddenly, no longer alone.
He sat close to the water, but not close enough to get wet. The waves stopped inches short of his bare feet as if he commanded them to keep their distance.
I knew I should go back, leave him alone. I doubted he’d want to talk to me, but I also didn’t want to go back to listen to Shannon snore and stare at the dark ceiling for the next three hours. If he didn’t want company, I’d find a different spot on the beach to sit.
When I got close to him, I noticed he hadn’t changed, the cuffs of his slacks were rolled up, so were his sleeves, and his shirt was untucked and wrinkled. He had a bottle of whiskey, something expensive looking, dug into the sand, and a glass in one hand, his elbow balanced on his bent knee. He lifted his head just enough to acknowledge my presence.
“Are you lost, little girl?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” His voice and the chilly breeze off the water made gooseflesh break out across my arms. Before he could stop me, I sat a few feet away and took off my sandals so I could feel the cold water on my skin.
“Who raised you, animals? It’s rude to invite yourself into someone’s company when they clearly want to be drinking alone.”
From anyone else, I’d take it as a joke, but there was no humor in his voice. As soon as I sat down, I moved to stand again with a sigh.
“You’re already here, might as well enjoy the very expensive view.” He leveled his dark eyes on me and held out his half empty glass. I shook my head.
“Figures you’re not old enough.” He swallowed the shot he’d offered me, and refilled his glass.
“I’m old enough,” I corrected with more hostility than I expected. “I just don’t want your pity-party alcohol. You seem to need it more than I do.”
“You,” he pointed at me over the rim of his glass, “have a very smart mouth. Everything Shannon told me about you was a lie.”
“She told you about me?” I don’t know why this surprised me and I wasn’t sure whether I liked that he had secret knowledge of me or if I was angry at Shannon for telling him anything.
“My sister isn’t very good at making close friends. None of us are, if you can’t tell. The Silvers don’t want to be equal with anyone; they just want to be seen by everyone. There’s an important difference.”
“You’re the only one who has treated me that way.” I sounded braver than I felt. My stomach twisted itself up. “You do not have a very good opinion of your family’s money.”
“You are very nosy, little girl. What would you know about money?”
“Stop calling me that.”
My breathing was reacting again, light and quick, like I couldn’t get enough oxygen.
His voice lowered, dark and husky, and my body responded. It was the sound of the ocean, being alone out here with this man who clearly wanted to forget a lot of things, who I understood in a way he couldn’t know about, but I liked the way his voice made me feel. I liked his attention, even as antagonistic as it was. It was better than sitting in my bed alone thinking about the past.
“What would you like me to call you then, little girl?”
“Most people call me Jessica. You could start there.”
“I don’t think so.” He took another drink and when I glanced at him, surprised at his answer, I saw something new in the intensity of his eyes. Be bold, Jessica, I thought, and reached for his glass. He let me take it and our fingers brushed, the first intentional contact I’d made with anyone today. He didn’t startle like I would have, but his eyes opened a fraction and I thought I could detect a change in his breathing, too.
I finished his drink for him. It was warm and a little sweet, but burned as it went down my throat. I’d never tasted whiskey straight like this before, and it wasn’t something I’d choose to drink on my own, but at that moment it was exactly what I wanted.
He reached for my face, settled his fingertips against my hairline and stroked his thumb along the contour of my cheek. I pulled away automatically, but his fingertips tugged at my jawline, held me in his thrall.
“I’ve had a very bad night,” he mumbled. His thumb trailed to my lips and traced them, first the top then the bottom. “Open,” he commanded. Be brave, Jessica, and I parted my lips just enough. “Perhaps you could help improve it.”
Perhaps. It wasn’t a question, but a taunt. A challenge. What was it about this dark, brooding man whose voice brought out the fight in me? Maybe he knew from my behavior at dinner I couldn’t resist a challenge from such an arrogant person.
I tu
rned over onto my knees so I was closer, close enough for the palm of his hand to flatten across my cheek. He pushed his thumb between my lips, an invitation and another challenge. Nervously I touched the warm, salt-water skin with the tip of my tongue. His eyes opened a little wider then narrowed again. He pushed his thumb further into my mouth and I closed my lips around it. I drug the tip of my tongue up the flat of his thumb slowly. Briefly he closed his eyes, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it quickly. Jonah pulled his hand away, steeled himself.
“Come closer,” he said and made room for me between his knees. “On your hands and knees. Crawl to me.”
I did, oh god, I had no idea what was happening and why I wanted to behave this way for him. I did want to help him make his night better, maybe as much as I wanted my own painful thoughts pushed away. I crawled between his knees the few steps, just like he asked. As soon as I was within his space, both of his hands were on me, pushing my hair back, stroking my neck, my shoulders, pushing my jacket back until it was sliding off into the sand. While I was still wearing my oversized pink night shirt and shorts, I felt completely naked the way his eyes roamed down my body where his hands traveled. They stopped to cup my breasts, to consider them beneath his judging stare. They were larger than his palms, bigger than most of the skinny, beautiful girls I went to school with, but he lingered touching them, stroking across the cotton fabric over my nipples. They were hard, he had to have noticed.
I wondered, for the first time with any boy, what it would feel like for him to touch them without the fabric between us. I’d been with a few boys, but none of them were very impressed when I wouldn’t take my shirt off for them. If anyone saw the scars, they’d stop anyway. I couldn’t take that kind of rejection then, I certainly couldn’t take it from him now. He’d say something terrible and I’d have to hate him for it. I didn’t want that to happen, not now on this private beach under this moon with the waves at our back and a sleepless night stretching out in front of us.
