Pulling Me Under

by Rebecca Berto

  With trembling fingers, I connect the call. “Nance, please tell me nothing happened. Wait, Mom found out?”

  “Kates. It’s me.”

  This surprises me. The voice is low. Male. Why is he calling back? “Yeah . . . ?” I say, my voice rising at the end, making it sound more like a question. A nervous question.

  “You’re right.”

  “About?”

  “I just spoke to Dina.”

  “Wait, you told her I know about the pregnancy?”

  He exhales through what sounds like clenched teeth. “Will you give me a chance to finish?”

  I reply with silence.

  “Did you know Dina’s sister used to date Coop?” I take this as a rhetorical question. I’m not meant to answer. I didn’t remember until now. But it comes back to me. Dina’s sister, my friend in high school, went through the same amount of guys as Ella’s gone through shoes. I remember someone like Coop being one of them.

  “Well,” Tim continues, “I got real nervous about that pregnancy secret up in the air so I blurted out the first thing on my mind. I told her about what you said Coop may have done to Ella. Suddenly, we’re talking all things Coop. I expected Dina to tell me I was acting ridiculous about your story.”

  I wait a few seconds. Quiet. I begin to count my breaths and then give up. “But she didn’t?”

  “No. She told me why her sister broke up with Coop.”

  I gasp. “Oh.”

  “Kates.” Tim’s breathing gets heavy all of a sudden, and he blurts, “Dina found out his dad was locked up for abusing Coop’s sister. Verbal, physical, you name it. He’d been in jail for two years by that stage. Sandy freaked and broke up with him.”

  Hearing these wild theories from a mind other than mine make my wild thoughts even more ridiculous. “Tim, I’ve been thinking and—”

  “Coop was fifteen at the time. He started drugs at that age. Stopped after he finished school. That’s when we met him. We found out after a year or so he’d started dealing instead. By that stage, we knew him and knew he was a good guy. Tried to get him to quit. He fooled us for a while. I don’t speak to him much anymore but . . . I’m gonna tell you something. You deserve to know. Brent’s as good as dead. He’s 100 G’s in debt. To Coop. I caught up with Cooper for the first time in months a few weeks ago and saw some papers in his study.”

  My mouth has dropped open. I pull over on the side of the road because I’ve almost crashed. Twice. “He expects Brent to pay that back?”

  “In two months.”

  I blink three times, but nothing makes sense still. The math doesn’t add up. “But . . . ”

  “That time schedule was drawn up well, well, over a month ago.”

  I hang my head in my hands and have the urge to cry forever. Brent doesn’t deserve this. I feel my face heating up and my chest tighten. This so isn’t happening.

  My thoughts start skipping in panic. Is Ella still okay?

  “Thanks, I gotta go,” I say, as Tim slips in a But, wai— although I can’t talk, am choking on my saliva, and my head is thumping.

  Minutes later, a text comes through from Nancy. It reads:

  Your time is up, missy. I don’t feel bad about making you feel guilty. Brent said he had to go. See what effect you’re having? And Ella is fine. :)

  In a few seconds I reply with Why? Where to?

  I twirl my hair. It knots. A message comes through while my fingers are tangled there. The display says Nancy but I can’t see. The screen goes black and I want to jump to it and know what she sent me? Is he okay? Can she call him back? Where did he go?

  But I’m still un-twisting my darn hair. I pull and pull until I give up and rip out a chunk.

  Diving for my phone, I read He went to do business with that guy, Coop? Musta been serious, huh?

  The engine yells at me when I rev too hard, spinning around and burning up the tires.

  The neighborhood darkens with each minute. The rush in my body feels like I’ve just been cliff diving. The leaves have turned from green to a dying black too quickly. I’m alienated as the beginnings of night possess the graying sky. Random and uneven tufts of grass cover the side of the three-lane road.

  I’m counting on luck. That’s the only way to describe it. They had better be meeting at Coop’s or else Brent is toast.

  Further out of suburbia, expanses of nothing, limited housing, and warehouse buildings replace large shopping complexes and noisy surrounds. Beyond, perspective of the narrowing road lessens as it leads further along to the size of a pinhead.

  I breathe the cool air in carefully, shuddering for the first time from the breeze. There are two lone shops as I pass. Next to the rickety gas station is an originally named convenience shop, Colbourn General Store. I’ve heard of the suburb Colbourn before, and this comforts me slightly, but once I hit the next suburb, I’m in a new territory.

  A couple of minutes later, the asphalt transforms into a gravel road.

  The houses in here are on large plots. The neighbors have plenty of acreage surrounding their homes. Wire fencing surrounds pressed and lined tennis court surfaces, and others have barred gates constructed around depths of dark water.

  At last, a street sign labeled Daintree Close points toward a T-intersection. Liam’s car purrs softly as I wheel around the corner with the weight of my foot brushing the accelerator.

  A lifetime seems to pass with my thoughts. I’ve thought of how I’ll settle down with someone in a few years’ time. I don’t know why I was so terrified before with Liam. Must have been panic. Because, God so help him if he even kisses anyone else. In a few years? Yup, I can see myself settled down. Have another child, or two. Later, Ella might study chemistry at college, if she’s still as fascinated as she is now by how things are made up. Or she’ll be working, or travelling. Free with choices. Brent will have started up another successful café business with enough profit to live on a house overlooking the beach how he’s always wanted.

  See? It’ll be fine.

  Suddenly, open, cast iron gates roll into view. I squint and see two silver “ones” screwed on a support beam. 11 Daintree Close.

  I’m here.

  As the house grows larger, so does the rational voice in my head. It screams, What have you gotten yourself into, Katie?

  Yeah, and what the hell is a woman of my size going to do when I get there?

  There’s a white Corolla on the gravel driveway at Cooper’s house. I don’t know any males who drive a Corolla hatchback. And surely any girl, even a bleached-hair, double-D cup skank would have enough intuition to stay away from a guy like Cooper in his house. Then again, it could be a sister, cousin or another one of his twisted friends. Or just his little drug run car.

  I park outside a close by house, kill the engine, and slip out.

  My muscles stiffen as I step onto the property. From what I can still see, the property spans around three acres. The house dips under the surface of the road, the first two meters of land held back by sections of a staggered retaining wall. Loose, pale stones sprinkle above the drop.

  It takes me a minute of staring at the house before my feet decide they can step one in front of the other. The only thing that takes me forward is revenge on behalf of my daughter, and courage that I won’t be the reason Brent gets hurt. Paul wasn’t my fault—I know that now—but there’s no doubt I’ll blame myself for anything happening to Ella and Brent. I couldn’t live with my cowardly choices otherwise.

  I consider calling the police and hiding in the safety of my home, but everything seems like too much hearsay to report to police. I wriggle my shoulders, and jump on the spot until I feel warm and pumped.

  I march to the porch and discover the lights are motion activated. Voices echo inside, one male, one female. I press the button and
the bell makes goose pimples appear on my arms. The voices cease and footsteps plod toward the front door.

  This is it. This is the moment . . .

  No it isn’t.

  A pretty female, younger than myself, opens the door. She looks me up and down. A hair tie slings her blonde hair over one shoulder.

  “Can I help you?” she asks bluntly.

  “I’m looking for Coop.”

  She twists around. Her bony hip shows even more when her top rides up. “Coop! It’s for you.”

  She turns around, pulling down her tank top. She smiles, although it doesn’t change the tightness all over me.

  A moment later, heavy footsteps stomp down the hallway.

  “Brenny, I—” he begins, before choking on his words.

  I swear I see a ghost pass over his face. It takes away the cheeky grin, the confident swagger and every drop of color. I’m not the guest he expected.

  • • •

  “Do you two know each other?” his lady friend says. I concentrate on keeping my face slick, like ice. Cooper’s face is reflecting confusion, horror, shock.

  His jaw opens to reveal a hint of sound, yet for what feels like forever, only the crickets chirp. It’s an awful reminder: we’re on the cusp of entering the cold, dreary months where all people want to do is curl up in bed with a partner, or a pillow, yet the crickets who chirp in summer are still here. Like what’s going on in my head, this is wrong. Because crickets come out in the middle of summer, and Coop should be angry and scary, and not like this.

  I harden my look. Ice. He doesn’t deserve to hold power over me, even if all I can manage is a measly stare.

  His lady friend checks back to him again, hand on her waist as she leans against the door. Her mini shorts hitch up.

  Cooper stands over the tiles like he’s the grout holding them together. Not a single blink.

  I hang my palm between our bodies. Suddenly, I don’t know how delicate he is. If guilt has made him weak. But I need my answers. “It’s been a while, huh?”

  “Can you give us a moment, sweet cheeks,” he says to her, still staring at me.

  She must know her place in the relationship because she nods, sticks her butt out when she kisses his cheek, and struts to the door. She tosses a jacket over her forearm coolly on approach.

  She winks at me as she passes the doorframe. She slides into her platform wedges and prances off to her white Corolla. I think my mouth is on the floor, and it’s swimming in saliva.

  Cooper hasn’t moved his eyes from mine, oblivious to the beautiful woman who has strutted away.

  “What was that?”

  “Uh, her time.” Flat, tasteless words. Then he shakes his head, passing the cold shiver out of him.

  “Does your girlfriend always head off in the company of other females?”

  “Girlfriend,” he mumbles to no one in particular, scratching at his temple. “Yeah . . . call her that.”

  In only a few sentences, I dislike him more than the nonchalant, cocky show he put on at Liam’s.

  “I knew I hadn’t seen the end of you,” he says in a serious tone.

  The words come out square, his mouth a triangle. This Cooper has changed again. The one at Tim’s party, flirtatious; at Liam’s house, Satan in an angel’s body; here, he’s something different. And it licks a coat of fear over me.

  I’m rational this time. I’ll blind him with the girly deodorant in my bag if I have to. How dare he drug my daughter, my baby? I’m over me. He can’t hurt my mind.

  But Brent, too? How low can one guy get? Shivers run along my skin. Why am I here? What will I do? This guy threatens his best mate. However, the image Cooper projects, unsure of his words, overly defensive with his body language, is meeker. I’m on a power trip ready to squash him.

  Small talk over with, I have two options. First of all, I can welcome myself in (God only knows if he’ll ever do the honors) or otherwise, I can pull my Salesgirl hat on and sell the I-am-a-dumb-girl image. “Well, am I going to stand here all night?”

  “Why now?”

  Perfect question, Coop. I guess now I’ve figured out your dirty secret, your sick ways. “Wanted to chat.”

  “How did you know where I lived?”

  “You were at my party, remember.”

  “That doesn’t . . . ”

  I’m glad he reconsiders. Because he’ll have to fight me for the truth.

  Questions are burning my tongue to ashes. They’re suffocating everything else. I step in, smile a lot, noticing he’s not even attempting to be threatening or conniving so I should take advantage of this situation.

  Coop doesn’t freeze up like he did before. He actually smiles back. But just a small one. The shaky smile of a teenager defiantly trying to defend staying up ‘til four in the morning to his mom.

  “Why did you come?” I say.

  “Come on in, Kates.”

  My teeth grind, controlled by someone else. I don’t remember ordering this action.

  He steps back to reveal a short passage. Behind, the walls open up and a counter curls at the corner then disappears off to the right behind a stainless steel fridge. On the other side, a sofa stretches for several meters.

  Cooper leads me through the walkway between the kitchen and the living room, both of which at least double the size of mine. Put together. All the lives that must have been lost in his drug dealing to afford this. Other women left widows.

  He walks; I follow. “Drink?”

  “Not if you’re going to spike it again.”

  “What? I never . . . ”

  “Never mind.”

  Cool air brushes my underarms, sweeping inside from the French doors pinned against the far wall. The air soaks up my nervousness.

  Cooper’s lifestyle strays little from what I pictured on the drive. Sure, he sits on a couple more acres in a neighborhood where he could have been one of the first to settle in, but the principles are the same. More privacy to live with the drugs. From the seemingly endless rooms to the Mediterranean-style pool in his backyard, there isn’t one piece in his home I can afford.

  To my left is another living room, like the one that my mother used to insist I stay out of when I was little.

  Finally, he stops by a couple of deckchairs under his porch and sits by one that is adjacent to a freestanding gas heater. I straddle the other, which is angled toward Cooper. He lies on his chair with each arm dug under the other. The glass table in between the chairs already holds two half-consumed cocktails, both an electric blue. The blonde sure didn’t seem finished here.

  “Why?”

  He looks out to the pool. Doesn’t pretend to be interested. “That Liam. He’s a good bloke. Just like big brother Brent.”

  “I heard you’ve known Brent since college?”

  “Yeah,” he says, and downs half of the blue liquid. “’Bout that.”

  “I wanna know more. Tell me some dirty secrets that his family wouldn’t know.”

  Cooper grins. “He started that café to impress a crush.”

  Brent’s never been attached to girls. He sees them at the shops, clubs, restaurants, beds. Never at home, or in the mornings. And he’s never thought up a surprise to “get” a girl if it was too hard. “For whom?”

  “Ah. See, that’s my secret. I’d be a bad bud if I told you that, girl.”

  I mentally gag. “You sound like a good friend. I wish we’d met sooner.”

  Cooper grabs the glass nearest to him and gulps down the rest of the drink, his cheeks bulging while he points at me as if saying, Wait a sec.

  Swallowing, he recovers and says, “I am a good friend.”

  I remember two shaggy-looking guys from Tim’s party as he talks about friends. Because, I’m no
t talking about “friends” at all. And those guys I recall weren’t the type of people you hung around with for pleasure.

  “Like those two random guys at Tim’s party, huh? Are you good friends with them?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “No idea what you mean.”

  They must have been his drug runners. Must have. Yeah? “What if I blackmailed you?” I say. “Would you tell me what I want to know then?”

  He sits up and shuffles his bum to the edge of his recliner, close to me. “Sure. I’d love it if you blackmailed me.”

  I can’t take it anymore. My stomach tells me this, churning. My mind I can deal with, but I’m feeling physically ill and I cannot throw up on Cooper. It’d weaken my strength. I get an idea.

  “You have some painkillers? My head’s been killin’ me all day,” I say.

  “Tiff always has some on her, but I never have any ‘round here.”

  “Not much of a drug guy, then?”

  His eyebrows twitch. “Erm, no?” We have a moment, when he realizes I haven’t been flirting with him at all and his face gets all red. I trip over the ledge between inside and the deck, noticing only now I’d been backing away.

  “Why are you here?”

  “None of your business.” Wow, mature.

  He laughs. Not a fake, small thing. He tips his head back, carefree, and clutches his washboard stomach. “Funny. Really.” He cocks his head to the side. “What do you know?” Eyes budge. “What did you read?”

  “Read, see, hear. I got it all going on.”

  Why did I say that? I back away again, my feet taking steps that can’t be disguised by any action but fear.

  I’m all but gone, and I haven’t been able to find out what he did to Ella, or help Brent. He hasn’t even been dangerous enough to call the police. Wow. If this isn’t anticlimactic, I don’t know what is.