The Ocean Inside

by Janna McMahan

  She couldn’t help admiring herself. Her figure looked great bursting from the tank top. Her tan legs looked longer and more lean.

  “You’re hot,” Kristin said.

  “Take it from me,” Heather said, walking up to the mirror and adjusting her own bra. “It’s all about the cleavage.”

  And Heather was right, because Cal touched her continually on their way to the club. He’d kissed her and had his arm around her neck in the elevator. He’d been the Southern gentleman, opening doors and shielding her from weaving pedestrians as they walked the bars and hotels that littered the strip. The girls were drawn into a jewelry shop. Inside, Mexican silver of all shapes and styles spoke of commerce, a small fraction was true art that appealed to Sloan’s eye. The other girls were slipping bracelets onto their hands and trying on necklaces. On a wall of earrings and bracelets, Sloan spied a modern metal cuff.

  “Try it on.” The way Cal said it made Sloan’s heart catch.

  She slid the bracelet onto her wrist. He ran a hand down her arm and threaded his fingers through hers. He held her arm out so they could look at the jewelry.

  His other hand was at her waist. He pulled her to him and whispered softly in her ear. “Beautiful. Let me buy it for you.”

  They commandeered a tall cocktail table at La Fiesta, an open-air bar where a large banner advertised one-dollar beers. While the guys seemed content to suck beer bottles and watch the wide screen, the girls buzzed with excitement to move down the strip. The thump of Crazy Town’s song “Butterfly” called to them from a disco across the street. Sloan, still in jewelry glow, could have been anywhere with Cal and she would have been happy, but the other girls were more demanding.

  “Come on. We didn’t come to Cancún to watch sports and drink cheap beer. Let’s go dance.” They complained and postured, trying to draw the boys away from the bar.

  “We’ll meet you over there in a minute, baby,” Ethan told Heather. “You girls go ahead and scare up a little attention from the local boys.”

  All the guys laughed, and Heather said, “Fine. I think I will.”

  The three girls headed toward the disco without a second glance at Sloan. Cal shrugged and nodded his head that she should go with them. Reluctantly, Sloan darted across the road to catch up with her new friends.

  “He just didn’t want to pay my way in,” Heather told Kristin.

  Inside, a disco ball cast frantic light around the room. It crawled across them as they made their way to the bar.

  “Margaritas all around?”

  Sloan nodded and handed her friend a ten. The girls maneuvered through the writhing sea of pheromones, tanned dancers crushed together, a throng of movement. On the other side of the dance floor they found an empty ledge where they could lean and watch. They barely had time to set their drinks down before Heather was squeezed against a guy at the edge of the dancing crowd, immediate intimacy.

  Sloan had been to raves before inside warehouses in Myrtle Beach, but this was something different. Where the raves had been about music and costumes and craziness and, Sloan had to admit, sometimes drugs, this was altogether different. Here, the air was heavy with lust, ripe and oily with sex. Breasts surged from spaghetti straps, belly buttons flashed, silver glinted from tongues. Sloan was enthralled by the near-orgy on the dance floor, a mass of writhing arms and hair. Her gaze traveled to the bar and there she saw, only a dozen feet away, the Mexican guy from the airplane. His sleek printed shirt was open at the collar, but unlike the vacationing white boys in their jams, he wore a pair of slacks, and a thin belt encircled his trim waist. He was good-looking and, you could tell, buff under his rolled-up sleeves. He raised his glass to her.

  She turned back to watch Kristin and found all her friends grinding to the beat, eyes closed, arms and hands pushing upward, raising the roof to a Nelly song. Everybody seemed to know the lyrics and the crowd sang of how hot it was and how they were going to take off all their clothes.

  A crescendo swept the crowd with the lyric: “I got secrets can’t leave Cancún.”

  Sloan shifted her eyes to steal another glance at the guy from the plane. She was startled to see him making his way toward her, drink in hand.

  “Margarita? Right?”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said. Was she so obvious? Had her one glance been an open invitation? She suddenly wanted Cal. And no sooner had she that thought than she felt his familiar touch on her shoulder. Cal’s face was sunburned and his eyes were ringed white from sunglasses. He smiled and reached forward to shake the guy’s hand.

  “Hey, man,” Cal said. “You’re the dude from the plane. Right?”

  “Verulo,” the guy said and shook Cal’s hand.

  “You from here?” Cal asked.

  “Yes. But I live in Miami.”

  “UM?”

  He nodded.

  Cal motioned to the bartender, then said, “You need a beer, man?”

  Verulo held his bottle of beer sideways to check the contents and drained it.

  “Sure. Hook me up.”

  “Excellent,” Cal said. “How about you, darlin’? You need me to freshen your drink?”

  Sloan held up her new glass. “I’m all set.”

  The blackout curtains were certainly misnamed because the Mexican sun easily cut through into their room, a slice falling across Sloan’s eyes. She moaned and rolled over to see her roommates, arms and legs tangled in tousled bed sheets, faces buried, hair mussed. The memory of their lovemaking came to her in a rush. As soon as they’d hit the hotel room, Cal had been on her, his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her body under her skirt, then between her legs. Over Cal’s shoulder she could see Heather’s bare breasts jiggling as she moved on top of Ethan. Desire flooded Sloan and she reached for Cal. Her hands found his muscled ass and she drew him against her. When they came together, a sensation of abandon shot through her. Her mind went blank as her body took over and she traveled to sweet tremulous territory.

  Sloan felt pressure behind her eyes and then the explosion of a headache. Her first hangover. In the bathroom, Sloan downed a fizzy headache drink, brushed her teeth, and cleaned the previous night’s makeup from her face. She slowly made her way downstairs in a dirty pair of shorts and one of Cal’s T-shirts.

  The cabana bartender smiled a knowing smile at her and she knew she must look as bad as she felt. “Vodka and orange juice?” he offered.

  Sloan had tried not to drink too much the night before, had drunk a glass of water for every glass of alcohol, but bottled water was expensive in Cancún, and soon she’d forgotten her caution, and after a couple of tequila shots she hadn’t remembered much of anything. She did recall the trouble they had getting their card to scan in their room door, how everyone laughed and how it took three people to figure out how the thing worked. She remembered thinking they were loud and that surely someone would come to warn them to be quiet.

  She pondered the glassy blue water, recalling Cal’s touch. It had been beyond her expectations. He knew what he was doing. She finished off her drink, and headed back to the room. There, everybody was up and hustling to get their clothes on. Heather was cramming things into a backpack.

  “Come on. That Mexican guy we met at the bar last night called and we’re going zip-lining in the jungle,” Cal said. “Put on some shoes that won’t fly off your feet. No flip flops.”

  Sloan took a moment to absorb what was going on. She had started the day with a screwdriver on a beach in Mexico by herself. Why not go into the jungle with a stranger and dangle by a cable in the canopy of a rainforest?

  They traveled inland on the Yucatán Peninsula, toward Chichen Itza, on a rough secondary road threading past squat dwellings snugged up to the jungle’s edge. The thought occurred to Sloan that they didn’t know these people, but everybody else seemed relaxed so she said nothing. There were, after all, eight of them. They bumped along and Sloan felt nauseous. They traveled only an hour to their destination, an elaborate tree-house tourist business like
the Swiss Family Robinson’s at Disneyland. Behind the wooden structure, cables ran into the distance and disappeared into the jungle, zip-lines to who knew where.

  “Cram together!” Ethan demanded. He held his cell phone in front of him ready to snap a shot.

  “No, wait,” Verulo said. “Stand with your friends. I’ll take it.”

  Verulo took the shot, release papers were signed, money was exchanged, and each person was fitted with a harness. The first guy brave enough climbed onto a platform and zoomed away into the trees, the cable singing like a giant zipper. He hooted a Rebel yell on his way out of sight. The two other couples went.

  Kristin’s scream was muffled by the crush of plant life and birdcalls.

  Sloan crawled to the platform, her enthusiasm suddenly drained. She looked down and Verulo was smiling at her. Cal, Heather, and Ethan all looked up at her expectantly.

  “Jump!” Verulo said. “You will be fine.”

  “Jump,” Cal said. “I’m up next.”

  Sloan closed her eyes, and when the bottom fell out she had the most wonderful sense of weightlessness. She was frightened, dangling up there by herself, but she slid smoothly through the canopy, wind in her ears. She turned, frantic to find Cal behind her, but the forest had closed like a wall and he was an indiscernible spot in the mass of vegetation like a Where’s Waldo? storybook she had as a child.

  CHAPTER 15

  Death Knocks

  “Everything’s under control,” Emmett assured her.

  “Keep an eye on her. She’s been acting funny,” Lauren said. “Like she doesn’t feel good. She has a headache.”

  “Go have lunch with your friends. Have a good time. You need a break.”

  Emmett could see the hesitation in Lauren’s eyes. She walked over to Ainslie, who was sitting at the dining room table with her tutor. Lauren kissed her child’s hair.

  “Is there anything you need while I’m out?”

  Ainslie shook her head and turned her attention back on her books. Third grade wasn’t supposed to be that hard, but Ainslie was struggling to keep up with the other kids. Still, she wanted to go back to school. All she said she wanted was for life to be normal again.

  After Lauren left, Emmett sneaked a peek as the home school teacher leaned into studies with his daughter, and then he slipped away. He’d agreed to work from home today so Lauren could meet some of her old college friends who were in town vacationing with their families. These were some of the same girls who had been with her that first weekend they met after Hugo. That’s how everybody in South Carolina generally divided time now. Before Hugo and After Hugo. Now his family would always think of the world in terms of Before Cancer and After Cancer, although the After Cancer chapters had yet to be written.

  Before Cancer, he and Lauren had been going through the usual ups and downs of married life. He had to admit that things had cooled from the early days of marriage when they couldn’t wait to get Sloan down so they could get into their own bed. But their sex life had long ago evolved from the drawn-out, sweaty lovemaking of youth. Now, for Emmett at least, when they came together, it was more an affirmation that his wife still loved him, that he was doing a good job as husband and father. He knew Lauren questioned why the heat had gone out of their marriage bed, but for Emmett, he liked their comfortable ways now. He was more absorbed with running his business and doing what was required of him to keep their house from falling apart. In some ways, he liked that they had become more friends than lovers; it took away some of the pressure to perform.

  But the woman he’d been living with for the past few months was not his wife, nor his lover and certainly not his friend. This woman didn’t even see him. He was invisible unless he was doing something to further the cause of their daughter’s health. Had he picked up the medications? Would he drive her to the doctor? Where did they stand with the insurance?

  When Emmett approached Lauren for confirmation that he was meeting her expectations, that she still thought he was a good father and husband, she turned away from him. He wanted to touch her and to feel her soft skin against him again. In passion, Emmett could forget the tragedy their lives had become. But that part of his wife had shut down, and now when he tried to seduce her she shrank from him as if he had leprosy.

  Lauren had lost a lot of weight, and one day it dawned on Emmett that she looked like a younger version of herself. This rekindled a desire he hadn’t felt in years. It wasn’t that he hadn’t found her attractive before the weight loss, but suddenly she seemed like the college girl who responded to his touch, who couldn’t wait for him to come home from the office, whose face lit up at the sight of him. This younger version of Lauren had always approved of him, affirmed him in so many ways.

  But Lauren seemed insulted by his renewed interest, and rather than welcoming his advances she pushed him away. He wasn’t surprised the day she asked him to move into the guest bedroom. He’d read lots of couples slept apart, but surely this wasn’t a permanent situation. He definitely intended to get back into his own bed.

  Emmett sat at his drafting table, the master plan for a monumental development spread out before him—Wannamaker and Pinckney’s plan for a tract of land along the Waccamaw River. W&P had purchased the property for a song with the intention of developing it into a multi-use property. Upscale living! A shell’s throw from the coast! W&P was staging the first sortie on objections to their plans, but it was only a matter of time.

  The parcel in question had originally been a rice plantation, so elevation was low and soggy. W&P was fighting wetlands restrictions. They argued economic hardship, job creation and tourism dollars as if all the locals wanted strangers moving in on them.

  Emmett had wondered if he should solicit for the job. His company certainly needed the money. And while Emmett despised working on these types of projects with massive developers, he was a realist. He knew some landscape architect would get the job and while his sustainable designs were often altered for quick turnaround on a property, he found more and more people were considering impact. Emmett found ways to contain sites, save trees, encourage recycling, and devise outdoor activity.

  Emmett shoved the W&P proposal aside and began to design a landscape plan for a 1950s home on the mainland. That’s what he preferred, renovating existing properties, bringing infill to dying towns, rejuvenating run-down parks. Emmett was a romantic.

  In the other room, Emmett could hear his Ainslie’s frustration as she tried to decipher a worksheet of clock faces. Telling time was frustrating her. The teacher’s voice was patient and soft, but Ainslie’s whine wasn’t. Emmett wondered how she would be doing if she hadn’t gotten sick. Would she be breezing through this or would it have always presented a challenge for her?

  Emmett was getting ready to go give Ainslie a little encouragement when her complaining stopped. He waited, poised on the edge of his seat, ready for her grumbling to commence. Suddenly, Ainslie cried out, a strange guttural sound, followed by a dull thud. Had she knocked something to the floor?

  “Oh, Mr. Sullivan! Mr. Sullivan! Come quick!”

  Emmett sprinted from his office. The glare of the dining room light filled an empty room. He was confused. That was when he saw the overturned chair. On the floor, nearly under the table, his daughter convulsed. The teacher fluttered near her, afraid to touch her, paralyzed by fear.

  “What do we do? What do we do?” the teacher cried.

  Emmett jumped to action.

  “Call 911!” he yelled.

  She ran to the kitchen. Emmett knelt beside his rigid daughter and grabbed her hand.

  “Ainslie, Ainslie, it’s Daddy.”

  Ainslie jerked repeatedly, her hand unable to grasp. Her teeth snapped.

  “Oh, God, do I put something in her mouth?” he cried.

  Ainslie’s eyes faded and she gasped without air.

  The teacher came to the doorway. “What’s the address here?” she barked.

  Emmett told her, all the while never lettin
g go of his daughter’s hand. There was a blue tint to Ainslie’s skin. Was she even breathing?

  “Ask them if I can put something in her mouth!”

  Ainslie stopped vibrating and fell slack, her head to the side, her eyes wide and dilated.

  “She’s stopped! She’s stopped!” he cried.

  “They’re on their way. Cover her with a blanket and get her feet elevated to keep her from going into shock. They said don’t put anything in her mouth.”

  Emmett ran into the den and grabbed an afghan and pillows from the sofa. He arranged one pillow under her feet and the other under her head and covered her with the spread.

  “Ainslie? Can you hear me? Ainslie? It’s Daddy. I’m here, baby.” He turned to the teacher for help. “How long before they can come? Should we take her to the hospital ourselves?”

  “They said stay calm.”

  “Is it okay to move her?”

  “Can we move her off the floor?” the teacher asked into the phone. “They said don’t move her.”

  “Ains, look at me. Ains, can you hear me? Baby, wake up.” He touched her lightly on the cheek. “Baby, please wake up.”

  The wait was too long. Too long.

  “The gate,” Emmett said with sudden realization. “The ambulance can’t get through the security gate. Screw this, I’m taking her to the hospital.” He swept Ainslie into his arms. She was limp, but she whimpered, which he took as a good sign.

  “Get the door,” he said to the teacher. And on the way out, “Grab my cell phone.” The teacher did as she was told, scurrying behind him. Emmett carried Ainslie down the front steps to the truck. The teacher opened the back of the cab and they gently laid her in the second seat. The teacher got in, and positioned Ainslie’s head in her lap.