Still Waters

by Rebecca Addison

  “Already, man? You’ve been in town for what, five minutes?”

  “You’ve got it all wrong dude,” Crew laughs back. He looks me over from the top of my out of control hair; down over my bare face and past my sloppy clothes to the Ugg boots I’m wearing on my feet.

  “See you around kid,” he says lightly, and leaves.

  Chapter Two

  Crew

  I walk up the dunes carrying my board, my feet sinking into the cold soft sand as I make my way up the incline and through the sea grass. The wind is blowing down the beach so that sand whips up around me as I walk, stinging my face like needles. The surf was probably too dangerous to be out, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to walk in and look Jake in the eye without clearing my head first. I make it to my beat up Jeep Wrangler just as the wind picks up a notch and starts to howl. When I threw some clothes into a bag yesterday, I didn’t think about the weather on the coast in the middle of winter, and now I’m stuck here with a pile of jeans and old t-shirts. For a moment, I let my mind drift back to the hot, thick air of the rainforest. It’s crazy to think that I was dripping with sweat and looking forward to cooler temperatures just 24 hours ago. I secure my board to the roof racks, and as I tie down the last strap, I look over the roof to The Sea Shack on the opposite side of the road. Shit. I’m not ready to go in there. My head throbs from jet lag and too much whiskey on the plane, and I’m in a bad mood. I know that as soon as I walk in those doors I’m going to have to pretend to be the guy they think they know, but the truth is, that guy hasn’t been around in a long, long time. I walk across the car park, reassuring myself that in 72 hours, I’ll be back on another plane heading out across the sky as far away from this town as I can get.

  When I open the door of The Sea Shack and shut it behind me, it’s as if someone has suddenly turned the music off at a party. Everything is quiet. My footsteps sound too loud as I walk across the worn wooden floorboards towards the front counter. I see a girl I vaguely recognize from high school sitting with a boy covered in ice cream and raise my hand to say hello. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she wants to flirt with me a little, but I keep on walking. I can’t see Jake or the old man anywhere, so I stand next to a girl eating ice cream out of a milkshake glass and wait. She’s little, and she’s sitting on the stool with her legs crossed like she’s five years old. I try not to look at her ass. I stand next to her, a little too close, just to see if it makes her uncomfortable. Her breath hitches when I place my arm down on the counter next to hers, and she moves a little in her seat, trying to create some distance between us. I steal a look at her and can’t help but smile when I see her hair. It’s red and brown and a complete mess. The curls are all knotted up and sticking out, and there’s part of a leaf stuck near her ear. I want to reach over and pull it out. I watch out of the corner of my eye as she holds her hair back from her face, bringing the spoon to her mouth. But when she looks at me, I make sure my eyes are straight ahead. She doesn’t know it, but I’m reading the ice cream flavors on the menu board backwards just to stop myself from looking at her. I wait until she dips her spoon back into her ice cream before I steal another look. She has pale skin and a few freckles on her nose. Her hands are small, and she has chipped blue polish on her nails. I’m about to ask her why she’s eating ice cream out of a milkshake glass on a day like this when Jake’s dad walks into the shop. I rearrange my face into a smile and try to be the guy that they’re expecting, the one with the great life who flies in and out of town whenever he feels like it, the guy who really made something of himself. Jake runs out a minute later. He looks the same as he did when he was seventeen, and he’ll probably stay that way until he’s fifty. He has that clean-cut, baby-faced thing going on that made all of the girls and their mothers fall in love with him in high school. Jake and his dad head out back, and I know they’re going to shut the shop early today so that we can do what we always do when I arrive in town. I wish I could just tell them that it’s the last place on earth I want to be.

  With Jake gone, the life has been sucked out of the room and it’s too quiet again. The girl sitting next to me is humming softly to herself, and I try to guess the tune. While she’s looking the other way, I quickly look down at her again. She’s so close to me that I can feel the heat coming off her arm and I can smell her hair. God, her hair is beautiful. I drum my fingers on the countertop to stop myself from reaching my hands into it. When she looks back, I don’t move my eyes away quick enough and she catches me. She’s got eyes that are more gold than brown, like caramel or amber, and they’re looking right at me. My eyes quickly flick over her face and I’m trying to think of something witty and sexy to say, but I’ve got nothing. She’s got a smear of chocolate sauce on the edge of her bottom lip, and before I know it, I’m reaching out and touching it. Her lips are pink and soft and I know that if I kissed her right now, they’d taste of sugar and all things good. She makes a noise and says something like “Oh,” and her voice is surprisingly husky for someone who looks so delicate. My finger is running along the edge of her lip, and then she reaches her tongue out and licks the chocolate away. For the briefest of moments, her tongue connects with my finger and we both jump. It’s like the time I stuck a knife into a light socket when I was a kid. A surge of heat darts over my finger and up my arm, and it doesn’t stop until I’m tingling all over. I want to laugh but then I see that she’s bright red, so I quickly introduce myself to cover her embarrassment. She puts her hand in mine and damn; I feel that electric bolt again. After a moment, she raises her head and looks up at me. I can feel her eyes traveling over every inch of my face. I want to do the same to hers, but something stops me from meeting her eyes. The whole time she’s looking at me her hand is sitting lightly in mine, and it’s taking all I have not to pull her closer towards me.

  Somewhere in the distance, I hear Jake coming out of the back room and just the thought of him snaps me back to reality in an instant. I look down at the girl, and I can see the emotion in her eyes. She looks sad and sexy and a little bit scared. What the fuck do I think I’m doing? Instead of asking for her number I do what comes easily to me. I act like an asshole and make her feel like the electricity between us is just something she imagined. And then I do the other thing I do best. I walk away.

  Chapter Three

  Hartley

  Crew looks me over like I’m some kind of pathetic groupie, and then he laughs. It’s not the same warm, deep sound I heard earlier. This laugh could only be described as a snigger.

  “See you around kid,” he says, smirking a little.

  I don’t know who this guy thinks I am, but despite my rather unfortunate choice of clothing this morning I am not some love-struck college kid. In fact, I graduated from one of the top universities in the country when I was only 16, and I haven’t looked back since. I’m about to say something I’ll probably regret later when I look into his eyes briefly. I’m expecting to see smugness or arrogance, but he actually looks a little ashamed. And sad. Really sad. I lower my eyes back to the ground. Just like that, all of the fire in me is gone. His friend slaps him on the back and winks at me before they turn to leave. I watch Crew walk across the shop and slam the door behind him just as the woman with the little boy starts laughing from behind her magazine. I throw my bag over my shoulder and go.

  The weather has gotten worse in the time I was at The Sea Shack, and now it’s raining too. I spare a thought for the heated seats in my brand new Porsche Macan before reaching into my bag for my jacket with a sigh. I reluctantly left my car in the garage when I skipped town because I knew that David would have every patrol car between Canada and Mexico looking out for it within 24 hours of me being gone. That little decision has left me with no transport in a place that rains for four months of the year and is volatile and moody for the rest of it. On the other side of the car park, I can see Crew and the guy from the ice cream shop talking inside an old black Jeep with a surfboard on the roof. The blonde guy is nodding and th
en he reaches out and puts a hand on Crew’s shoulder. He leans his head back on the headrest for a second and then suddenly slams his fist down on the steering wheel. Even though I’m watching from far away, it still makes me jump. I don’t want him to see me looking at him, so I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and turn towards home.

  Home. My house in Jefferson is a 1920s bungalow built right on the lake. I’ve spent the last two years remodeling it, and it’s just about perfect. I did most of the work myself, much to the annoyance of my mother. And David. Everything I do lately seems to annoy David.

  I walk up the narrow path to the small weatherboard cottage that I’ve rented for the next few months. It’s about as far away as you can get from the type of house you’d expect a Preston to live in, and that’s just fine by me. The pale green paint is peeling in places and the garden is overgrown. It’s like no house I’ve ever lived in but strangely, it already feels like home. I knew the second I saw it that it was where I wanted to start my new life. I open the front door and step inside, immediately stripping off my wet jacket, sweatshirt and pants. I pull a long cardigan off the coat hook and wrap it around me, lifting my hair quickly into a messy bun. I look down at my feet and sigh. Not only are my feet completely numb, but now my Ugg boots are ruined. I kick them off and pad over the wooden floor and down the hall. The house is warm and there are noises coming from the kitchen, and that can only mean one thing.

  “Oh my God! You’re saturated!” screams Eleanor from behind the kitchen island. She’s cooking something that smells like warmth and comfort.

  “Yeah I know,” I say, sitting down on one of the stools. “It’s raining outside.”

  “Ha ha ha,” she says as she chops a carrot into miniature cubes. “You could get sick.”

  I roll my eyes at her, and she laughs. We both know that a cold is a virus contracted through contact, not bad weather.

  “So where were you anyway?” she says. “I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in.”

  I shake my head and gratefully accept the cup of hot tea that she passes me.

  “I was at The Sea Shack. I wanted an ice cream. A bit of a ‘cheer up’ kind of thing.”

  “Oh,” she says, suddenly serious. “You’ll be ok here Hart. You’ll love this town once you settle in.”

  I look at the top of her blonde head as she looks down and continues to chop the vegetables. She’s such a sweet, beautiful person. But she really has no idea what I’m going through. Eleanor and I have been inseparable since we met at a gifted children’s summer camp when we were six. We shared a house all through university, chaperoned by an ever-present woman named Barbara who was paid very well by my parents for the inconvenience. And although we still talk every day, we’ve led very different lives since we graduated at 16. For Eleanor, university was all about acquiring knowledge and challenging her brain. For me, it was just a stepping stone to a bigger life. After college, I went straight into the lab at my dad’s company while Eleanor backpacked around Europe for a year with her sister. Now she’s a second-grade teacher, and she says she couldn’t be happier.

  “This needs an hour on low,” she says as she scoops the last of the vegetables into the pot. “I’ll see you later.”

  “You’re going?” I say, standing up. “You don’t have to; we could watch a movie or something.”

  She looks at me and smiles. “You’ll be fine Hart. You’re just not used to having any time to yourself. That big brain of yours deserves a holiday. This will be really good for you.”

  She gathers her things and waves goodbye. I spend the next few hours pacing through my house, going from room to room and back again as I try to figure out what I’m going to do about the water samples from Bridal Falls. I walk into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. A small plastic container sits on the bottom shelf, carefully hidden behind two enormous jars of pickles. I pull it out with a sigh and open the lid. Two small sample tubes with Preston Ind. stickers stuck to the side are sitting there innocently. To anyone else they wouldn’t look like anything much, but I know that those few ounces of water have the power to tear my family apart. I spend the rest of the night lying on my back, staring at the ceiling as my mind searches for a way for me to fix this mess without hurting anyone. Sometime around 5 am I fall into a fitful sleep, having finally come to the realization that it can’t be done.

  Chapter Four

  Crew

  Jake opens the passenger door of my Jeep and climbs into the seat next to me.

  “Ready to go?” he asks as he pulls the seatbelt across his body and clicks it into the lock. I don’t answer him for a second and I guess he notices that something is wrong because he stops fiddling with the radio and looks at me. He’s expecting me to say something, but I’m so damn tired and the last thing I feel like doing is talking about it. I just want to get this over and done with.

  “Hey man, are you ok?” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “If this is too hard for you, we can go another time. It’s cool.”

  I rest my head back and close my eyes. The words I want to say are right on the tip of my tongue. I can feel them dancing there, daring me to say them. But instead I sigh and say, “I want to go. I’m just tired. Long flight.” I open an eye and see him nod in understanding.

  “Seriously dude, we don’t have to do this every time you come into town, if you’re not up to it then we can just..”

  I can’t take it anymore. Why does he have to be so understanding all the time? Isn’t he angry? Because I can’t seem to help being pissed off. I slam my fist against the steering wheel and turn to him.

  “I said I wanted to go. So can we just stop talking about it and drive over there already?”

  I feel bad even before the last word leaves my mouth.

  “Whatever man,” he says and looks out the window. He’s acting pissed, which is what he does to cover up when he’s feeling hurt.

  “Jake,” I say, “I’m sorry, man. Shit. I’m really tired, and a bit hung-over. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He looks at me and nods once, and I know that me acting like an asshole has already been forgotten. That’s the thing about Jake O’Reilly; once he calls you his friend he’ll forgive you anything. I turn the key and the Jeep roars to life.

  “Man, isn’t it time you upgraded or something? You’ve had this thing since high school, and it was a piece of crap even then.”

  I look over at him and grin. There’s no way I’m getting rid of my Jeep, and he knows it. The rain is really coming down now, so I flick on my wipers and slowly make my way out of the car park.

  “Your dad meeting us there?” I ask as we pull out onto the road. There’s a girl up ahead running through the puddles in a huge blue raincoat. I wonder if it’s the girl from The Sea Shack, but she has the hood up so I can’t see her face.

  “He’s not coming this time bro,” Jake says. I look over at him and raise my eyebrows. Jake’s dad always comes with us.

  “He’s visiting Mom in the hospital. She’s starting a new treatment tonight.”

  “I’m sorry man,” I say, feeling like shit, because I’ve been sitting in the car for ten minutes now, and I haven’t asked about his mom once. He shrugs and starts fiddling with the radio again. We drive the rest of the way in silence and when we get there, it’s still raining too hard to get out. I park the car in the same space I always use and kill the engine.

  “It’s too wet,” Jake says, scratching his knee through his jeans. “At least we came. That’s what counts, I guess.”

  I look out through the windscreen and the driving rain to the trees on the other side of the clearing.

  “Fuck it.”

  I swing open my door and climb out, not even bothering to run through it. I’m going to end up wet anyway. It’s only a short walk. Jake chose this spot because it has a view of the ocean, and when she was alive there was no other place she’d rather be.

  “Hey,” Jake says as he comes up next to me. He bends down and wip
es an old leaf off the gravestone with his hand. “Crazy to think she would have been 26 next month.”

  “She loved her birthday,” I whisper, but I’m not sure he hears me because the rain is coming down like bullets.

  “She hated sharing it, though,” he laughs. “When we were kids she always made Mom bake two birthday cakes. She said that just because she had a stinky twin brother it didn’t mean she shouldn’t have her own cake with pink frosting.”

  I smile sadly and shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans.

  “Eight years is a long time man,” he says, looking at me. I know what he’s trying to say, but I don’t want to hear it. I turn around and start walking back to the Jeep.

  “Crew!” Jake shouts through the rain. “Crew! Aren’t you going to visit him too?”

  I pretend I don’t hear him and pick up my pace until I’m back at the Jeep, fumbling in my pocket for the keys. When I get inside my whole body starts to shake. My teeth are rattling in my head, and my fingers are trembling too hard for me to get the key in the ignition. I sit on my hands and tell myself it’s just the cold. Jake opens the car door a second later and jumps into his seat. We sit in silence for a few moments, me because I don’t want to talk about her and him because he’s giving me a chance to calm down before we drive. When my heart slows to normal and the feeling returns to my fingers, I slide the key into the ignition and start up the engine. Jake waits until we’re out of the car park before saying, “She would want you to move on you know.”

  There’s really nothing I can say to that because as much as I hate it, deep down I know he’s right.