Things to Do When It's Raining

by Marissa Stapley

  His father never said anything more about Mae, or about Virginia.

  It was a late-summer afternoon when Mae and her friend Kate rounded the corner of the inn and walked toward the water, barefoot in their swimsuits, towels around their necks. Gabe was working in the boathouse, cleaning the walls because George had mentioned seeing mold. He had worked at the inn’s tiny marina for a few years because, Gabe had explained to George, he wanted to pay off his debt to the Summers family. “You’re family,” George had answered. “There’s no debt.” But Gabe had insisted.

  Mae was wearing her red two-piece: the fabric was stretching across her chest, revealing a band of firm, golden flesh at her waist, a glimpse of her navel. Gabe had been staring as they approached and Kate said something he didn’t hear. He took out his headphones and was embarrassed by the torrent of loud, angry music that rushed forth. He pressed stop on the CD. “Hell-ooo, McFly, anyone home?” Gabe had never really liked Kate and wondered sometimes if he was just weirdly jealous of anyone close to Mae.

  “Hey, hi,” he said. “Going for a swim?”

  “Hi, Gabe,” Mae called. She ducked her head; he melted. They continued past the dock and toward the bank. But then Mae stopped walking and glanced at Kate and said, “Hang on a sec, I’ll meet you down there.” Kate shrugged and kept walking toward the water alone.

  Mae stepped onto the dock on her tiptoes because she was afraid to get slivers in her feet, Gabe knew. She walked toward him like a dancer. “Got any plans after work?” she asked. It used to be a given that after work they would go for a bike ride or a swim, maybe watch a movie. But this year, that had changed. And not just because he didn’t live at the inn anymore. This year, he had started feeling like a guest in her life, like he had to ask permission to spend time with her, and it was adding to the awkwardness growing between them, was encroaching like a weed around everything he’d been feeling that he wished he didn’t feel but also knew he couldn’t live without.

  “Gabe? Are you planning to answer me?”

  He tried to sound casual. “Sorry. No plans.”

  “Want to hang out? Watch movies? I’ll rent The Usual Suspects. . . . But only if we can watch Jerry Maguire again. Or Legends of the Fall.”

  He’d watch Titanic a hundred times in a row just to be beside her, but he didn’t say so. Instead he said, “Sure, sounds good.”

  She looked down at the dock, scuffed a toe back and forth against the wood.

  “You’ll get a sliver,” he warned. She used to cry when she was little and he’d try to pick them out. When she got older she just bit her lip and looked up and blinked, over and over. He wanted to kiss her feet. Right now. Kneel before her and kiss them.

  “Okay, so just . . . come over later? I’ll order pizza. You’ll probably be hungry.”

  “I have to go home. I’ll be over by eight.” He was living in a rented room in town now, above Garry’s Autobody, where he worked part-time. He needed to shower and change; there was no way he was going to sit beside her on the couch all night smelling of motor oil and sweat.

  That night, he found her in the den at the back of the inn, the room that was reserved just for family, the room he and Mae had been watching movies and playing board games in forever. A pizza box, two cans of Coke and a bag of Sour Cherry Blasters, his favorite, sat on the coffee table. He felt touched and stupid. Why hadn’t he thought to bring something for her? “Should I make popcorn?” she asked.

  “Nah, it’s okay.” He opened the box and took a slice—sausage, green olives, pineapple, anchovies; they called it The Weirdo over at the pizza place; it was what he and Mae always ordered—and sat down on the couch beside her.

  “You know, I never really see movies with anyone but you.” He could feel the heat rise in his face, but it was too late to take his words back.

  “Yeah, right. You must take girls to the movies all the time. I never see you anymore.”

  “That’s me. Girls all over the place, raging social life.”

  She gave him a look he couldn’t decode. He grabbed a Coke can, opened it.

  “What should we watch first?” she asked.

  “Your choice.”

  “Nah, don’t make me pick. Okay, fine, Usual Suspects,” she said.

  “That’s not what you want to pick. You’re just being nice.”

  She got up and crossed the room to put the tape in, and he could tell from the bounce of her ponytail that she was a little annoyed with him. The movie started and he stared at the screen, eventually lost himself in it a bit; he really did love that film. When he glanced at her later, she was watching him, not the screen.

  “Is everything okay with you, Gabe?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You just seem . . . different lately.”

  He couldn’t look at her now. She would see everything. His eyes returned to the screen. “Everything’s great. Fine.”

  “Okay. If you say so.”

  The movie ended. She held up the remote and clicked off the television. “Do you want to go outside, maybe? Lie on the tramp and look at the stars . . . or something?”

  When they were kids, they used to lie on the trampoline—the tramp, they called it—and look at the stars. When did they stop doing that? And why?

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  “I’ll get blankets and meet you outside.”

  He was already lying down when she returned, trying to get his heart rate to slow to a normal pace. “Hey,” she said.

  He looked up at the sky. It was full of stars, a riot of them. “Look, I’m sorry—you’re right, I’ve been a jerk lately. It’s not about you.” It’s all about you. Everything is about you.

  “It’s okay—I just want to make sure you’re fine. I care about you, Gabe. You’re like . . .” But she didn’t finish. It didn’t matter. He knew what she was going to say. You’re like a brother to me. He hated this. It used to be enough, but it wasn’t anymore.

  He fumbled in the long, low pocket of his jeans for his Discman. “Want to listen? It’s Wilco.”

  She put in an earbud and listened for a moment. “Kinda slow and depressing,” she said. “It’s very you.”

  This cut him, but he wasn’t about to show it. She gave him back his earbud. When she did, she left her arm touching his. He could hear the river, always moving, flowing away from them.

  “Look, did you see?” Mae said. “A shooting star.”

  “Do you know what shooting stars are? Meteors burning up as they hit the earth’s atmosphere.”

  “Of course I know that, Gabe. Everyone knows that.”

  He was embarrassed. “Sorry. Right. I just—”

  But she was laughing. “Think you’re smarter than me, I get it. Because you used to help me with my math homework in, what, fifth grade?”

  That laugh of hers, that smile of hers. It thawed him. He found himself confessing. “I always feel”—he hesitated—“kind of lucky when I see one. Like, look, hey, another one missed us, the whole world didn’t blow up.”

  “You have the most bizarre sense of humor. ‘The whole world didn’t blow up.’ Ha.”

  He was smiling now, too. “Admit it, though. It is kind of lucky.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said in a softer voice. “I always feel it, but in a different way. Because the light from the stars is so old—millions of years, right?—so the fact that we can even see that light, the fact that we’re still here . . . You’re right. It’s lucky.” He watched her lips forming words and imagined the things he always imagined when he looked at those lips. “The time it takes the light from a star to reach us is the distance to the star divided by the speed of light,” he said, because he needed to say something, anything, to rescue himself from this drowning feeling. Mae angled her body toward him. “You’re the smartest person I know,” she whispered. “You really should be going to college. Except—”

  He watched as shadows fell across the planes on her beautiful, familiar face. She looked at his eye
s, then at his mouth. And then—

  She kissed him. She pressed her lips against his and when he finally got over his shock enough to respond, he was a new person, a different one altogether. Maybe all of the terrible stories he had told himself over the course of a lifetime weren’t true. If Mae was kissing him, maybe he was somehow worthy of it. She paused for a minute. “Mae,” he whispered, and she put both hands on his face and pulled him back toward her and their teeth clicked together and they laughed. He held her as if she might break, but eventually he lowered his hands, touched the bare skin of her waist, inched up and cautiously touched the fabric of her bra. Lace on his fingertips. He really couldn’t breathe now. If he died in this moment, he would die happy, and he had never imagined that he would die happy.

  After a while, she pulled a blanket over them. The curve of her waist, the small of her back, the smooth, soft skin under her bra, the excruciating delight of passing his fingers over one of her nipples and feeling it harden, hearing a tiny moan escape her lips, the sound traveling into his mouth, his only, his alone.

  She pulled away. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  “You want to, though, right? Or should I—”

  “Of course I want to. You do, too—don’t you?”

  Everything hinged on what he said next. He could mumble something unintelligible and meaningless, he could say, The way I feel about you, Mae, is the distance to the stars divided by the speed of light, or he could say the right thing. The truth. “I’ve wanted to kiss you more than anything. I’ve wanted to, Mae, all my life.” He looked into her eyes and saw stars reflected back at him. “I love you,” he said. It was the biggest risk he’d ever taken.

  “I love you, too.”

  He lost track of time. When their mouths parted, she leaned her head against his chest and he kissed the top of her head. “I love you,” he whispered again. And then she fell asleep like that, her head against his heart. He tried not to move too much while she slept. Eventually he slept, too. Even with the light from the stars above them, a dead light, the product of stars that no longer existed, with meteors and asteroids flying around in chaos and nothing anyone could do but breathe a sigh of relief every time life went on, he slept the most peaceful sleep of his life.

  A twig snapped and he opened his eyes. George was coming around the corner. “Oh.” George stopped.

  Mae stirred. Gabe needed to move, and fast. He slid out from under the blanket and swung his legs over the side of the trampoline. There was a look in George’s eyes that he had never seen before. It scared him. A meteor, an asteroid slamming into the world: it changes everything. Gabe had let himself forget that.

  “I’m really sorry,” Gabe said. Why did he say that? It wasn’t true. He wasn’t sorry, not at all.

  But George’s expression cleared and he smiled and said, “It’s all right. It’s only you, Gabe. I was concerned when I didn’t see her in her room. She’s with you, so I know she’s safe. Just make sure she gets into her bed before dawn.” He turned then, started to walk away. But he stopped after a few steps and turned back to him. “And, Gabe,” he said. “We won’t mention this to Lilly.”

  “Okay,” he said. Gabe watched as George disappeared into the darkness. It unsettled him, George suggesting he say nothing to Lilly. Lilly had never minded before when Gabe was close to Mae, even when he slept in her room. He had been imagining lately that George and Lilly would actually be happy to discover he was in love with their granddaughter.

  Gabe climbed back up on the tramp and got underneath the blanket with Mae. Her body was so warm, it felt like coming home to lamp-lit windows and a fire in the hearth. “Everything okay?” she murmured.

  “Yes, I was just . . . stretching my legs.”

  That’s the last moment of happiness he can remember right now.

  “Hey, man, you want another one?” The bartender is standing in front of his table, holding the bottle.

  “No. Thanks.” He pulls money out of his wallet, leaves the half-full glass where it is. He’s not drinking bourbon, ever again. He’s also not going back to the hospital to face Lilly, to sit beside his father while he wastes away and eventually dies. He doesn’t owe that man anything, and being there for him now isn’t going to erase his past mistakes, or bring Virginia back, or make him good enough for Mae, or a part of the Summers family. He just isn’t, never was.

  He should go back to New York City. He should go right now. But he can’t. Not yet. He needs to see the cabin one last time, just like he always did. And he needs to be near her—even if the river divides them—just once more.

  Go for a walk. In the rain? Absolutely. Walking in the rain is the most fun when you stop worrying about getting wet.

  The phone is ringing. Mae opens her eyes, but hesitates. The night before, Lilly said that Peter had called. Could that possibly be true? It keeps ringing. What if it’s one of the detectives? What if they’ve decided she actually is responsible, what if they’re going to come for her? She contemplates not answering. It rings again.

  They wouldn’t call first. They’d bang on the door.

  “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Lilly Summers, please?”

  Mae stands and walks to her bedroom door. “Grandma?” she calls out. Bud woofs in response and comes running. “Grandma?” she calls again. Silence. She must still be at the hospital.

  “No, I’m sorry, she’s not in at the moment. Can I take a message?”

  “Please have her call Dr. Turnbull’s office. She’s missed her appointment and will need to reschedule.” The voice sounds tense and irritable. Mae finds a pen in the drawer of her bedside table and writes down the number.

  When she hangs up, Bud is whining, so she goes downstairs and opens the door for him, then stands looking out at the snow-topped cabins and the river in the distance, letting the cold wind blow in and through the house, though she knows her grandparents wouldn’t approve.

  A man is walking down the riverbank. She thinks she imagines him at first, another one of these spectral men, these Gabe-but-not-Gabes she’s conjured up.

  But this one exists. She blinks and blinks again, and he’s still there. And Bud’s ears have perked up and he’s growling in that direction. He’s tall, with dark hair. He’s not wearing a coat, and it’s twenty below. Is it the same man she saw earlier, now coming back from wherever he went?

  “Bud!” she calls, and he comes running back toward the door. She steps inside and gets her coat, shoves a toque over her hair, finds Bud’s leash and snaps it on. Then she starts down the road.

  The Gabe she knew always returned to that island when his father called him back. And now Jonah is sick—so could it be . . . ?

  She starts walking toward the river.

  But when she gets to the edge, she can’t. She stares down at the footprints and breathes in frightened gasps as she tries not to envision her parents slipping under, slipping away.

  But another memory is waiting when that one is defeated. And it won’t leave her alone. As she watches the man climb the bank of Island 51, she remembers the night she found out Gabe was not who she thought he was.

  * * *

  Mae stood at the window in the lobby, waiting. For him. She was wearing a blue dress. Her hair was freshly washed and conditioned; her heart was pounding. Gabe had said he had a surprise but she already knew: his motorcycle, the one he’d been working on since before their first kiss, all summer and fall at Garry’s.

  As soon as she saw Gabe riding up the driveway, her own personal James Dean, she knew she was going to get on the back of that bike—even though her grandmother had heard about the bike in town and demanded she never ride on it. Lilly and George were away, visiting friends across the border in Kingston. They wouldn’t be home until morning.

  She slid on her sandals and ran out the front door. She threw her arms around Gabe’s neck and kissed him. She loved the surprised look he always had after they kissed: like someone had just given him an unexpect
ed gift. Kissing Gabe was a revelation for her, too, every single time.

  “It’s kind of sexy, you know—the idea of you as a mechanic, covered in oil.”

  “I don’t know about sexy. I think I even have motor oil in my teeth. Tell me if you taste any.”

  She laughed.

  “Here, I have a helmet for you.” He opened the seat and took out a black helmet, smaller than his, and new. She liked the idea that he went out and got it for her, that he was thinking of her when they weren’t together. Because she was always thinking about him. Writing poems she never showed him, doodling hearts everywhere with their initials, trying out different combinations of their names. Mae Summers-Broadbent. Mae Broadbent. Mae and Gabriel Broadbent.

  She put on the helmet and climbed behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She imagined taking his shirt off, feeling his skin against hers. He backed slowly down the driveway. They rode alongside the river and away from town. She made a dozen wishes on the wind, two dozen, three, too many to count. She squeezed her arms around him, shouted through her helmet, “Can you pull over for a minute?”

  He slowed down then pulled onto the shoulder, removed his helmet and looked at her. “Are you all right?”

  She took off her helmet. “I’m great,” she said. “My grandparents aren’t coming home tonight.” He didn’t say anything. Had she miscalculated, made a mistake? But then he put his helmet back on and she did the same. Within moments, they were back in the driveway of the inn. He turned off the bike. She took off her helmet again. She could hear crickets, the flow of river water, the tick of the cooling engine. “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too, Mae. I always have.” She made a vow to herself in that moment: This is not my first love: it will be my only love. A curse, in the end.

  Once they got to her bedroom, she felt self-conscious. There should be candles, music, she should have planned this, right? She did have a condom, hidden in her end table drawer; she got it from Kate, who had been having sex with her longtime boyfriend, Mark. Kate had frowned when Mae had asked for it. “You should also go on the pill, you know. And, Mae, are you sure? You two have been together for only a few weeks. And Gabe is just so . . .”