by Amy McNamara
I wrap my arms around his neck, open my mouth, and almost say I love you. Catches me off guard. I close it again. Stand on tiptoe and kiss him back. “You’re the best.” I breathe him in. I mean it. He is. And I might love him.
I pull it together and we head in for dinner—he’s happy to talk. Tells me stories about windsurfing with Michael off Carro in the south of France. I laugh in the right places.
Then it all goes to hell. Just as the cannolis come, a square of a woman passes by our table on her way out of the restaurant. She has a weathered face, like she works on a boat or something.
“Wren Wells.” Her voice is huge. The sound of my name fills the room. Startles me. “Did your dad get that part into his heater this afternoon?”
I still have a New Yorker’s sense of anonymity. Can’t quite get used to having all the townies know who the hell I am.
“Pardon me?” I face her, confused a second. “Oh, the heater. I’m not sure . . .” I look at Cal and raise my brows. No privacy in this place. “I wasn’t home this afternoon.”
I pick up a chocolate cannoli, hope she’ll walk on.
She doesn’t. She eyes me a minute, the cannoli, then Cal.
“Well, you and that new art kid sure were going at a good pace earlier today,” she says. Hefty chuckle.
I set the cannoli down.
“I passed you in my car up on the old Dover trail. You were givin’ that young buck a good chase.” She laughs again. Heh, heh, heh.
I push my plate away. I can’t even look at Cal. My face is on fire. I can feel his eyes on me. I fold and unfold my napkin in my lap.
“Yeah,” I say, lamely.
There’s nothing else to say. Anything that comes out of my mouth at this point is just going to make it worse. I want the old crone to get the heck away from me and stop talking.
“He looked just like a jackrabbit,” she says, laughing again. “Oh, you young people and your springy knees.”
She nods to Cal and turns away from us to follow her partner out of the suddenly tiny and overcrowded restaurant.
Where did all the air go?
My lungs are pancakes in my chest. I try not to gasp for breath when I finally look up at Cal’s face. It’s like watching a time-lapse video on fast playback—passes from surprised, to incredulous, to hurt, to grim.
Breathe. My hands tug on my napkin, like I might pull it apart. Or, preferably, tear a hole in the fabric of time and step through it, out of here, away.
“Nick?” he says quietly, his question so much bigger than that.
Waves of something come off him. Disbelief maybe, but something else. Worse.
I can’t even open my mouth. My heart is in it. I keep my eyes on my napkin.
“The new Mary? That’s the art kid Miriam’s talking about?”
Miriam. Fucking Miriam. I nod. Look at him, then my lap. Back at him.
He picks up his water, takes a drink, and looks right through me. Like I’m not there. Invisible or something. I wish I were.
“I knew there was something. I don’t—” He shakes his head like he can’t quite figure it out. “You two went running? You and Nick? This morning, together?”
He keeps his voice flat. Even. Like he’s trying to be casual, maybe, though it’s obvious this is killing him. I try to find his eyes, but he won’t look at me. It’s like he’s focusing on a spot just behind me.
Blood rushes in my ears.
“Nick Bishop.” He nods slightly, his voice sounding distant. Hard. Filled with something I haven’t heard in it before. Anger, jealousy, maybe both. Probably both. I’m queasy. Try to breathe through my nose.
“Yes. But Cal—”
He cuts me off. Looks at me like he’s the one who just woke up.
“Nick Bishop,” he repeats with the slightest sneer. “You didn’t tell me.”
“It was nothing,” I manage. It has to be the lamest sentence in the history of all defenses.
He looks at me for a second. Then back through me again.
“This is why you’re so tired today?”
“No—”
“Because you and Nick were out having fun on the trails?”
“Cal—”
“Did you take him south along the coast a bit, show him the view? The spot where it’s really steep? It’s amazing down there.”
I did. But not how he thinks. I shudder a little.
He’s cold. Angry. Gone off somewhere far away from me. It scares me. He waves to the server for the check. Avoids my eyes.
I reach for my bag. He ignores me and hands cash to the nervous-looking kid who brings the check. Apparently it’s not lost on the other people in the room that we’re having a fight. The kid makes a speedy U-turn back to the servers’ stand.
Cal rubs the bridge of his nose and looks around the room. Still won’t look at me. Some of the townies are listening in. Trying to seem like they aren’t. Miriam’s remarks were not quiet. We’ll be the talk of the town as soon as we leave.
It’s too much to be trusted with someone else’s heart. I don’t think it ever ends well. I try again, my voice nearly a whisper, “It wasn’t like I asked him to join me.”
I want to explain to him how it went down. But that little fantasy I had sits there in my mind, mocking me.
He dismisses me with a shake of his head. He’s pale. Whatever he’s thinking has him pulled so far away from me right now he might as well be gone. Nothing I say is going to make a difference at this point. If I could disappear, I would.
“Save it,” he says, looking around, away from me. His voice is more calm than his face. “I don’t want to hear about it. Not tonight. You would have told me earlier if you’d wanted. I don’t need to know.”
I knew it would be like this.
Feel awful like this.
He pushes back from the table and heads out. I grab my bag and trip after him. He holds the door for me with a dark look on his face. He clicks the car unlocked and gets in his side with a slam. Starts the engine.
I can’t make myself get in his car.
He leans across the front, pushes open my door.
“Wren, get in.” His voice is tight, cold.
I can’t. Try not to cry.
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m—I’m just having a hard time getting in the car”—I can’t quite catch my breath—“while you’re so angry.”
His face shifts from fury to something that looks like regret and hangs there a second, fallen, then recomposes itself. A more masked fury. Resigned.
“Wren, please get in,” he says in a more controlled voice. “I’m not angry. It’s fine.”
He’s lying, though, and as soon as I’m buckled in, we peel out of the lot and drive back to my place fast. I keep my face turned away from his and silently recite all eight lines of Larkin’s “To put one brick upon another,” the rhythm and repetition forming something sturdy around me.
“I’ll bring the Jeep to you another time,” he says when we pull in.
Dismissed.
Hot splotches bloom on my cheeks. Shame. Or something. It’s dark. He won’t see them. I could throw up the dinner I just ate.
“Cal—” I try again, reach for his hand. He moves it away from me, grips the wheel.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, voice clipped. “You want to run with someone from time to time. I get that.”
So cold.
“Cal, you’re making this into—”
“I’m not making anything into anything.” Strain on his face in the moonlight. “I had a good day, thanks for coming out with me.”
He speaks like I’m an acquaintance. Doesn’t look at me. His eyes are fixed firmly on something out the windshield. He doesn’t lean over to kiss me.
I sit there a second longer, in the space where our kiss would have been. Stunned. Then I throw open the car door, get out. I close it with what I hope is a bit of a slam.
Fucking shitty day.
bad
to<
br />
worse
to
worst
SO IT’S NO SURPRISE, then, when I turn and notice my mother’s car parked behind my dad’s truck. Of course she’d pop up for a visit now. Today. Tonight. Unannounced.
My parents’ two cars tell the whole story. Divergent paths. Their philosophies of well and good. The behemoth, his 1970s rattletrap Wagoneer with broken seat belts hemmed in by her compact luxury coupe, known for its superior safety features. The kind of car that saved me.
I sit a minute by the front door on the freezing step with my face in my hands. Why is she here unannounced? Is she going to tell me I have to move back to the city with her?
I need a minute to absorb what happened in the car with Cal. He thinks something’s going on with Nick and me. This stupid, stupid town, stupid me. Why didn’t I just tell him? I didn’t tell him because I thought it would make him feel bad—that Nick could run with me when he can’t. I felt guilty and I was trying to protect his feelings.
Exactly what he asked me not to do.
Michael called it. I wreck everything. God.
I run through the day in my head, beginning with Nick. Our run. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick. I should have called it quits right then, turned off my phone, climbed back in bed. But no. Instead I was Wren Wells, world’s worst date, starting with a lie, checking out in the car, deathly dull at dinner, and now this.
Behind me, the front door opens.
“Wren?”
Dad. Using his soft voice. He’s on to me, has some kind of freaky mind power or something. There’s no hiding allowed. Roll a car and lose your privacy forever. I keep my hands over my face.
He puts his hand on my back, crouches near me. “We heard the car pull up. What are you doing sitting out here? Come in.” Pulls my hands away from my face. “Are you okay?”
I look at him. He feels sorry for me, I can tell. But he’s not going to make me explain. It’s a good thing about him.
“Your mother’s paying us a surprise visit.”
I take his hand and stand up, brush snow and birdseed off the back of my jeans. Remember Meredith dropping me off drunk one night, after we snuck into an art opening in Chelsea and over-helped ourselves to plastic glasses of cheap white wine when I was supposed to be home with my mother, having dinner with a few of her colleagues. Meredith hung out of the cab, shouting after me as I stumbled up our stoop, “Put a smile on it, Wells! This is gonna be fun!”
Fun. What else could go wrong?
“Okay,” I say, following him in.
“Wren. Were you just sitting out there in the cold?” Worry voice. My mother hugs me. Presses my face into her perfectly bobbed hair. I feel painfully young all of a sudden, and her hug is good. I could stay in it forever. She smells the same no matter where we are. Mom-ish. Soft. Comforting.
“Mom,” I say, choked up, “you’re here.” It’s the best I’ve got.
I kick off my boots and go into the living room. Away from her eyes, which are X-raying me, trying to figure out what’s going on. I flop on the couch. Dad slips a mug of tea into my hand and settles down in the armchair. Awkward silence. Our little family reunion. Now all we need is a parental quarrel—a perfect end to a perfect day.
“It’s just a casual visit,” my mother says somewhat formally. “I decided I was going to get old waiting for another invitation after that nor’easter, and I had a few clear days on my schedule, so I took it upon myself to drive up and see how you’re doing.” She scrutinizes me. “You’re thin,” she says.
“She’s healthy,” Dad interjects, trying to help me out. “She runs a lot.”
“Yes,” my mother says, making a face that’s the polite version of an eye roll, “I know, John. I know all about the running.”
Here we go.
“But you can’t run away from things forever.” She talks like this. Random comments wind around to demonstrate her point. Her important point.
I eye her. She’s trying to see into me, stare me down. She’ll win.
I stand up. “Mom, I’ve had a bad night. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I hate how hurt she looks, but I can’t take another word out of her. Anyone. Not tonight. I have no idea where she’ll sleep and I don’t care. Just as long as it’s not in my room. I walk out of there as fast as I can. No looking back. Sorry, Dad.
The sleeping pill can’t work soon enough, and then it does.
it
almost
made
me
laugh
A HAND ON MY SHOULDER. Shaking me.
“Wren,” Dad says, “wake up.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, worried for a second.
“Nothing.” He pushes my hair out of my eyes. “I just thought you might like a little time to resurface before your mother comes back to spend the day with you.”
My lids are heavy. Swollen. It’s weird he’s in here. Sunlight fills the room. Mary and I were going to make curtains. Dark ones.
I swim back up. My mother’s here. To spend the day. And she didn’t stay the night. Oh blessed be my brilliant and kind father. He reaches down and hands me a sweatshirt.
“Where’d she go? She’s not here?” I ask, pulling it over my head.
“She had a room already, at the B&B. Said she’d be more comfortable there, privacy, clean bathroom . . .” He smiles at me, winks. “You know your mother. She spared me the awkwardness of inviting her to stay here before I even had a chance to feel it.”
I flop back against my pillow. “Why’s she here?” I ask. “Did you . . . ?”
“Call her?” He shakes his head. “Nope. We’ve only been checking in by e-mail since things with you seemed to—seemed like they were looking up.”
He rubs a scratchy hand on the leg of his work pants.
“I’m going to be in the studio today, Zara and Jeb are coming to help with fold-forming, but I can leave Nick with them and stick around if you need me to.”
I’ve been mad at my dad off and on over the years for choosing art over us, but moments like this make me forgive him everything. He’s not the most constant of parents, but he gets it. Gets me.
I shake my head. “It’s okay, Dad,” I say. “We’ll be okay. Thanks for getting me up, though, I’ll run before she gets here.”
“Better hurry. Knowing her, she’s on her way.”
I throw my arms around him, hug him tight.
“Wren—last night—everything okay?” he asks.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, kicking back the covers and slipping out of bed.
My mother pulls in just as I’m heading out. I wave and take off before she can say anything.
Despite the early sun, the day’s frigid. It’s like that up here. Permafrost. Brightness definitely does not equal warmth. I have a hard time finding my stride. Focusing. Cal. It comes back. His face at the table, like he could read me, see what I’d imagined. My stomach drops. I have to stop a minute. Catch my breath. And my mother, waiting for me back at the house. I try to run again, but trip a few times, throwing my arms and back wildly to catch myself, and finally, wrenched and sore, I give up and turn around. Winter running requires focus. My head’s not there.
Mom’s in my room when I come in, folding my clothes and stacking them on the shelf.
“Honestly, Wren,” she says, looking around the room wearily, “doesn’t your father ever have someone in to clean?”
So her. It almost makes me laugh. Almost.
“I could find someone up here for you,” she says, “if you’d like?”
She’s trying to be gentle, not to overwhelm me.
“Is that something you’d want? A person. To clean? I’ll line it up before I go back to the city.”
I don’t really care either way. That’s part of the problem, I guess.
“If it makes you happy, Mom,” I say. “But I can also just get my shit together and clean up once in awhile.”
“Language.” She winces. I’m not supposed to swear. I’ll have to watch it or she’s going to think she needs to stay longer.
She pulls the sheets off my bed and tosses them into the laundry basket that’s been neglected in the corner.
“No clean ones,” I say. I never got around to buying a second set of sheets.
A big sigh from her. “Well, then. It’s a good thing I came. We’ll go out and get a few things today. I don’t suppose there’s anywhere in this town to buy that sort of thing? And do you need towels, too?”
She looks in my bathroom and shakes her head.
“How have you been living like this?”
“I make do.” I keep my towels clean. Clean-ish.
“Shower,” she says. “Then we’ll set out to find a few things.”
And that’s how it goes. I leave my cell phone behind so I can’t check it every few minutes to see if Cal’s called, and then I spend a full day shopping with my mother. She makes me get some new clothes, sheets, towels, and even offers to buy books. She’s trying. Manages to keep most of her opinions to herself, aside from one remark about young women who live only in jeans and sneakers and forget how to ever make themselves look presentable. She even holds back on the when-are-you-going-to-wake-up-and-start-college conversation. At least for most of the day.
“So, what have you been doing with yourself up here?” she asks. We’re eating out. At Stone’s Harbor, in town. Where Cal took me the first night. Great memories.
I don’t answer.
She repeats it. The million-dollar question. Her face is a picture of concern. I wish we were troubled about the same things. It’d be so much easier.
I look around the dining room. People seem to be ignoring us. Of course, she had to take me out. Said it that way. Had to.
I can’t say anything she’ll want to hear. I used to be good at it. I toed the line. But I can’t pull it off anymore. There’s no good answer. Nothing that will make her stop worrying. I’ve been living. That’s the best I’ve got. Feels like a lot.
Tap, tap, tap. Her finger on the table. I look at it. She stops. It’s her tell. When she’s scared.
