Last Kiss

by Luanne Rice

  When he got to the beach, he paid the driver, climbed the seawall, and looked up at Sheridan’s house. He stared for a long time; even though he’d see her for dinner in just a few hours, he wanted to go up there right now, hold her for a long time. He wasn’t sure he had words for what he’d just experienced. He’d seen and touched the spot where Charlie had died.

  Instead, he shoved his dinghy down the beach to the water, got his bandaged foot sandy and wet, and didn’t even care. He rowed out to the Squire Toby, feeling good as he pulled on the oars, discharging pent-up energy. He tied the line to the boarding ladder, climbed aboard, ready to unlock the cabin, when he heard a shuffling sound up forward on the bow.

  He held the stainless steel rail, inching along the wooden walkway up to the front deck; he winced, hearing the sand in his bandage scraping the finish. There, sunning herself, plugged into her iPod, was his client. Nell lay there on her back, eyes closed, face up to the sun. Gavin bent down, tapped her shoulder. She pulled the earbuds out and sat up.

  “You’re back,” she said.

  “You really shouldn’t come on someone’s boat if they’re not here.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

  “What’d you do, swim out again?” he asked.

  “Peggy and Brandon dropped me off. They took his boat over to Shelter Island, so I asked them for a ride out here. And you weren’t home, so I was stuck. I couldn’t swim back to the beach with my iPod.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I forgive you. So, what’s up?”

  “Well, I just wondered…I mean, I know you didn’t take my money or anything, so you probably don’t owe me any answers, but I just wanted to know what progress you’ve made.”

  Gavin stared at her. He was being asked for a progress report by a teenager. Without replying, he turned and walked back to the cockpit. He undid the combination lock and let himself into the cabin, climbing down the ladder and tracking sand everywhere.

  “Jesus,” he said as a big pile of it showered from the gauze onto the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, following him.

  “I don’t want to scratch the teak,” he said, sitting down and shoving an old newspaper under his foot.

  “You’re a bit of a neat freak, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Try living on a boat.”

  “I guess.”

  He glared at her, unwrapping the gauze. The ER had sent him home with supplies, which he had stored in a plastic Tupperware container in the head.

  “Let me help you,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” he said. But he told her where the bandages were, and she ran to get them. He managed to hop back up on deck, dunk a bucket over the side, and wash his foot in the salt water.

  He remembered how Aphrodite used to tell them that salt water cured all ills—from cuts and scrapes to broken hearts. Her prescription for everything was a swim. Staring across the bay and up the steep rock cliff, he looked at Sheridan’s house and wondered whether a swim could do anything, even the smallest bit, to heal her grieving heart.

  Nell had brought the plastic container, but Gavin ignored it. He looked at his foot, at the black stitches. The swelling was down, and the cut was healing. He decided to leave the bandages off.

  “Didn’t the doctor say you should keep that bandaged up?” Nell asked.

  “Yes,” Gavin said.

  “Then you should do it.”

  Gavin didn’t want to tell this impressionable young teenager that he’d gotten as far as he had—for good and ill—by not listening to anyone but himself. He stared down at her feet, at the ragged scrap of towel tied around her ankle.

  “What’s that?”

  “Charlie tied it there.”

  “And you still wear it?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  Something about that made him like her even more than before. His mind flashed on the dark-haired Cumberland bass player. He frowned and hopped back down below, and she followed.

  “So,” she said, with no trace of young-girl tentativeness in her voice, “what progress have you made?”

  “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at the settee. He gave her a towel to sit on. She slid in, waiting for him to boot up his laptop. “Tell me again. Why didn’t you go to New York that night?”

  She stared at him, seeming startled.

  “You were his girlfriend, it was the last weekend of August,” Gavin said. “So why didn’t you go?”

  “Because it was so hot,” she said, trailing off. “I think about that, how I missed my chance to…be with him, maybe save him. I was selfish, and I didn’t want to leave the beach to go into the hot city.”

  He stared at her, knowing he had to find out whether Charlie had steered her away, whether he had made plans without her and dissuaded her from coming. “Did he say anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About your going or not going to New York. Did he seem to push you one way or the other?”

  Pain crossed her face. “I told you—we argued. Are you trying to make me feel even worse about it? We usually spent weekends together, especially summer weekends. He wanted me with him. Why didn’t I go?”

  “Calm down,” Gavin said. “Just tell me, how bad was the argument?”

  “Not bad. He was upset at first, but then he called back and said not to worry—to stay at the beach, stay cool. He told me to take a swim for him.” Her voice caught as she stared out over the water where she and Charlie had taken so many swims together.

  “That makes sense to me,” Gavin said, trying to ease her anxiety. “He was thinking of you, wanting you to be comfortable. Did he tell you what he was thinking of doing?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Just normal city stuff.”

  “Did you get the idea he planned to meet anyone?”

  “No. He’d made some friends at school, but there wasn’t anything definite. People were doing their own things, nothing organized. But that didn’t matter…Charlie was good on his own. He liked to walk around, checking everything out and watching people. That’s why he would have been such a good filmmaker…”

  “He was an observer,” Gavin said, watching her get herself together.

  Nell nodded. “He was. He saw things no one else saw. He always picked up on the subtle things people were feeling, the ways they connected with each other. We’d go to Foley’s for coffee and sit there watching everyone, and he’d make up stories of what people were doing. He’d see a couple of strangers and say they were spies, sent here to take the ferry from New London and take pictures of the submarines. Just stuff like that…He could tell a lot from looking at people.”

  “What about music?”

  “Uh, he liked it,” Nell said slowly.

  “Did he have a lot of friends in the music world?”

  “Some, from Nashville. But…” She bit her lip.

  “What?”

  “He mostly left that to his mother. He wanted to find his own way; he could sing, and he could have managed a band—he was really good with people and had lots of connections, because of his mother. But he didn’t want to lean on her for that. He really wanted to do his own thing, something she had nothing to do with.”

  “But did he stay in touch with his friends from Nashville?” Gavin pressed. “Or mention going to hear any of their bands play in New York? Cumberland, for example?”

  “Of course I know he went but I found out later, after he died,” she said. “I used to tease him about that band. They had this really hot chick playing bass. I told him she was the reason he liked them. But he just laughed.” A sad smile tugged at her mouth.

  Gavin smiled back. “He didn’t go to school with her or anything? Know her from Nashville?” He paused. “Did he ever talk about her?”

  “No,” Nell said, then frowned and tilted her head. “Why are you pushing about that?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said honestly. “You sent me his Talk2Me page, and he mentioned them as one of
his favorites. And he saw them right before…”

  “You’re making me feel weird,” she said. “As if you think something was going on with him and that girl.”

  “I don’t,” he said slowly. “I’m just looking at everything.”

  He stared at Nell, suddenly remembering how it had felt to see Sheridan with Randy, to know they had married, the wild jealousy, the utter anguish. He saw the hurt in her eyes, felt it resonating in himself, and changed direction.

  “You told me he wasn’t the kind of person someone would mug. But did he ever take risks? Go places you thought were dangerous?”

  “No.”

  “Was he more careful when you were around? Did you keep him from taking chances?”

  She glared at him, and Gavin knew his last questions had rubbed her raw. “Are you saying that if I’d been with him he’d still be alive? Do you think I don’t already say that to myself?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all, Nell,” Gavin said, realizing he was once again thinking of himself. Sheridan had always kept him steady and safe; he’d only acted like a wild jerk when she wasn’t around…And that’s why he’d pushed her away.

  “I would have gone anywhere with Charlie,” Nell said. “I would have done anything to protect him…”

  Gavin nodded. “I know,” he said, waiting for her to calm down.

  “Look,” she said, her voice shaking. “He was way more into music than I was. That’s all it was. He probably stopped pressing me about coming to New York because he’d decided to go hear that band, and knew that I wouldn’t be into it so much.”

  Gavin nodded. It was the first time she’d admitted, maybe even to herself, that Charlie had had plans to see the band—that it hadn’t been random.

  “What makes you think that?”

  She shrugged. “I respected his taste, but it was different from mine. We had some bands in common, but not all.”

  “Cumberland?”

  “They’re okay. But I wasn’t into them.”

  Gavin’s computer had booted, so he Googled Cumberland. He saw the picture of the black-haired bass player standing on the bridge, staring into the river. Then he came up with the same list of band members that Joe had given him. He stared at the names, clicked through the site looking for band bios. Nothing that rang any bells.

  “What are you doing?” Nell asked.

  “You feel like looking at some names, see if any of them look familiar?”

  Nell shrugged, slid onto the seat beside him.

  Gavin watched her watch the screen; she scrolled down, reading the names. Then she clicked onto a page showing photos of band members. Some were head shots, others had been taken at shows; most were of the bass player, Lisa Marie Langton.

  Nell paused at a crowd shot—a picture from a show two years ago, December. A Christmas fundraiser for a food bank in Memphis, the picture was of the crowd: people staring at the stage, faces upturned, watching Cumberland perform.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “What?” he asked.

  She brought her face close to the screen, staring hard. She looked at the screen for another moment, then shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “It looked as if you saw something…”

  “Charlie was with me that night,” she said oddly. “I remember the date so clearly—December twenty-first. The winter solstice. It was the shortest day of the year, and we went for a walk on the beach.”

  “Okay,” he said, wondering why she would bring that up.

  “We were all bundled up,” she said, a haunted look in her eyes. “He wrapped his scarf around my neck because once we got to Little Beach, stepped out of the woods onto the open beach, the wind came howling off the water. We made a ring of stones, built a fire out of driftwood. I told him…we needed warmth and light, because the night was so dark.”

  “Nell…” he began, wanting to draw her back to the website, get her to talk to him about what she saw. “Tell me what’s making you think of that night.”

  “Nothing,” she said, her brown hair swinging as she shook her head, giving him an accusing look. “It’s just a memory. Don’t you have any of those?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then why are you pushing me? Just let me think about Charlie!”

  “Look,” Gavin said, as gently as he could. “You’re the one who hired me. I have to ask you things, okay? I want to figure out what happened.”

  “Not as badly as I do,” Nell said.

  Gavin stared at her. He thought of Sheridan, of how he was doing this for her, too. Nell had asked him about his memories. She’d made him think of something—like Nell’s, it had taken place in December. Only many years earlier, before she was born….

  It had been the last time he’d seen Sheridan before this summer. Sitting on that rock in her yard, shivering in the December cold as the snow fell on them, she’d been eight months pregnant with Charlie.

  Gavin remembered holding Sheridan’s cold hand in his. It was before Gavin had started working with Vincent, before Sheridan had even decided for sure to leave Randy. Gavin was a relatively new civilian, his hair still cut military-style; her long hair, tossed in the salt wind, dusted with snow.

  He’d been kicked out of the Navy, but his old sub was in port up the Thames River in Groton. He knew they’d be shipping out in the morning for the North Sea, and he felt as if he’d destroyed every opportunity in his whole life. His head was spinning; he wanted to tell Sheridan everything, that he’d seen her with Randy, and had that fight, and gotten into so much trouble. He was reeling, just unable to tell her the truth of how he felt.

  “Why did you come up here?” he asked.

  “I had to see my grandmother,” she said. “Nashville’s been tough for me lately. I miss Hubbard’s Point.”

  “What makes it tough?” he asked.

  “My husband…it’s hard to tell you this.”

  The word “husband” seared like hot metal, but he just kept his expression steady. “You can tell me.”

  “He’s…I don’t think Randy’s very good for me.”

  “What’s he doing, Sheridan?”

  “Seeing someone else. And…I think he only got together with me for…”

  “Tell me, what?”

  “I’m supporting him. He takes the money from me, then looks at me as if he hates me. As if he resents me because he needs what I give him.”

  “Where is he now?” Gavin asked.

  Sheridan raised her eyes to his; she’d heard the ice-cold tone in his voice and known that he wanted to hurt him. “That’s not why I’m telling you. I just needed a friend…my old friend Gavin. Be that for me, please, Gav?”

  “Okay,” he said, trying to hold it together.

  “I feel so bad about all this,” she said, cradling her belly. “I’m the one who broke up with you, and here I am, leaning on your shoulder. But I needed so badly to talk to someone…you…about it all…”

  “I want you to.”

  “It’s just, I don’t know what to think. Things with Randy were good at first, but it seems that once he ‘had’ me, once I got pregnant, everything changed. He’s not the same person at all. He seems so resentful all the time, as if he’d rather be anywhere but with me.”

  “Then get out,” Gavin said.

  “I’ve thought about it…and I have left. But every time I move out for a few days, he comes to find me, gets me to come back. He seems so sweet again—like the man I fell in love with.”

  Gavin took the words like a body blow, just sat there. “Why are you supporting him? He looked like a capable guy.”

  “What do you mean? When did you see him?”

  The snow was coming harder, blowing in from the east, starting to accumulate. Gavin slowly reached for her hand. “I saw you,” he said. “One time when you didn’t know I was there.”

  “When?”

  “A few months after we broke up. I hitchhiked to Nashville to try to get you back.”

  “And
you saw me with Randy?”

  Gavin nodded. “I couldn’t believe you could love anyone but me. So soon after we’d broken up.” He stopped, then couldn’t help himself. “After nine years together…didn’t you think we mattered at all?”

  “I thought,” she’d said, and he remembered the way she’d fixed him with her gaze, her warm blue eyes so sad, “that we mattered too much.”

  “How’s that even possible?”

  “Stop, Gav. You know how I felt…” She corrected herself: “How I feel. You’re the one who enlisted, and reenlisted, and you’re the one who was gone for eight months at a time.”

  “I quit,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Her head snapped to look at him.

  “Okay, I didn’t quit. They kicked me out.”

  “The Navy?”

  His heart was pounding; he couldn’t stand to tell her this, but he had to. “I got arrested for assault—it was a bar fight after…” He took a deep breath. “Never mind. I was dishonorably discharged.”

  “Gavin…”

  Her eyes were filled with confusion and a strange sort of sympathy. He felt like the biggest disappointment in the world; she’d called him for help and comfort, and he was laying this on her.

  “I’m sorry, Sheridan,” he said.

  “What are you fighting?” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “What are you always fighting?”

  Putting her hand on his side, she’d traced the length of his scar—the physical evidence of yet another altercation. The scar tissue pulled, and the pressure of her fingers hurt. He stayed tough, not letting her see. He knew the scar felt like rope, and as her fingers ran down it, he imagined her letting out line between them.

  He stared into her eyes, saw all the sadness there, knew he was responsible for so much of it. Even now, she was his best friend, the person he felt closest to in the world. They knew each other so well, yet he’d never been able to keep from driving her away. He didn’t understand himself, the canyon he felt inside.