The Ocean Inside

by Janna McMahan

  And now Emmett had to tell Lauren, and what would she think of this? This intended kindness would become a source of pain for them, as everything that happened to them now seemed to.

  “Who’s responsible for this?” Emmett asked.

  “Some church, I don’t know,” Bert replied.

  “I’ve got to find out.”

  “Take that number there. I’d call that.”

  Back in the car, Emmett called the number from the jar and it rang so many times he was ready to hang up, when a woman answered with a soothing voice.

  “Oh, Mr. Sullivan,” she said. “I was going to call you today. If you could come by the church, I’d like to give you a check for all the donations that have come in.”

  “A check.”

  “Yes. About eight thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “Donations for Ainslie are about eight thousand dollars, so far. We expect a little more to come in, of course.”

  “What is it, Daddy?” Ainslie said. She touched him on the arm. “Daddy, what?”

  Emmett was in a daze. How had his life become so unreal?

  “Oh, okay, well, thank you. Uh, can you tell me how to get to your church?”

  Emmett waited patiently as Ainslie pulled herself up the stairs to their porch. Doctors said it would be good exercise, but it was difficult to watch, and Emmett hovered behind her every step. Before they reached the top, Lauren was outside.

  Ainslie pushed past her mother’s proffered hand and walked into the house.

  “Emmett,” Lauren said when their daughter had gone. “We have to talk.”

  “I agree.”

  “Some reporter called. He asked about the insurance issue. I guess word got out. I mean, I don’t know how long we can really keep this to ourselves.”

  “Everybody knows.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Emmett held up the check.

  “What’s that for?”

  “From a church. To help us out.”

  “Do we know these people?”

  “No. It’s the whole community. There are pickle jars with Ainslie’s photo on them all over town.”

  Her eyes grew frantic and wide. “No. What are we going to do?”

  Emmett had expected this. “How about we take the money and we say thank you and we use it to pay off some of our bills?”

  “Think we should?”

  “If we don’t take it, the money will just end up donated to a charity of some sort and let’s face it, we’re a damn good charity right now.”

  “No. We’re not a charity. We’re not. We can take care of things. I don’t want any charity money. You have to make it stop.”

  “There’s no way I can do that. And even if I could stop it, what’s wrong with letting the community help us? Lord knows, you’ve spent enough time volunteering and raising money for the less fortunate. Well, guess what, babe? Those less fortunate people are us.”

  “Stop it! That’s not true! Don’t you have any pride?”

  “I’ve got plenty of pride, but this isn’t just about us anymore. This has turned into something larger than us. People care about Ainslie and we shouldn’t deprive her of knowing how much other people care.”

  “I don’t want people feeling sorry for us. Just make the insurance pay and make her get better. I don’t want charity money. I don’t want to talk to reporters. I don’t want to act like everything’s okay when it’s not! Everything is definitely not okay!”

  She was shaking and he touched her hand, but she pulled away. She wasn’t ready to accept even this, his small gesture of comfort. Had he really expected that she would warm to this money quickly?

  She said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just not doing so well today.”

  Emmett folded her into his arms and pulled her tightly against his chest.

  “Everybody has their bad days. You’re allowed a few. This can be one of yours.”

  Lauren pushed away and swiped her eyes with a shirt sleeve.

  “I don’t want Ainslie to see me like this. It might scare her.”

  “Shit, Lauren, don’t you think she knows we cry? Surely she expects everybody who loves her to cry about this.”

  Right now he wanted to cry, too. He wanted to weep out of gratitude for the check that would help them last another month. Hopefully by then Larry would have forced the hand of almighty commercial greed to reason. If not, then Larry said their next step was to go public, but now that door had been opened for them. Emmett was going to call that reporter back and start generating interest in Ainslie’s case. Lauren would fight him on this, but Emmett had decided. He would do it, even though it was going to be a fresh hell.

  CHAPTER 23

  Road Trip

  How many beaches would Sloan sit on in her life? She hadn’t realized until this year just how different beaches could be. At home, the beach was flat, no trees, a highly reflective surface with lots of smooth edges where heavy sand blended into an earthy sea. In Mexico, the sand was white and the water was transparent and alive. And although the atmosphere here in Miami Beach was as beautiful as in Cancún, most of the wildlife was stretched out on the sand and slathered in SPF 8.

  Sloan loved it here. The strip sparkled with Art Deco architecture. Palms pressed against pastel hotels. Chrome-trimmed towers with round lettered neon signs had a glamour that made her happy. Sloan had read there were more than four hundred renovated buildings in the Art Deco District of Old Miami Beach, and Cal had acquiesced when she asked to drive around sightseeing last night. He’d let her select a hotel she liked and they’d lucked into a room. She noticed that Cal paid cash for gas, food, and now their room. He’d given a false name to guest services and produced a fake ID to the same effect. All these things Sloan did not comment upon. Questions from her would do nothing but disrupt Cal’s apparently well-oiled plan.

  And Sloan had to admit that so far everything had been wonderful, the way things always were with Cal. He lived a lifestyle filled with possibilities Sloan never considered. He roamed freely from one excitement to the next.

  Sloan was stomach down on one of the hotel’s lounge chairs. Clad in a black bikini Cal had bought her in Mexico, Sloan was one of the more modest women on the beach. Cal sat beside her, cross-legged in the sand. He sipped beer under his forward tipped hat. Sloan noticed an almost imperceptible turn of Cal’s head with the passing of each slender, tanned woman.

  “I need another beer,” he announced. “You want anything?”

  “No, thanks.”

  When he had gone, Sloan lowered her head onto her forearms. A heat sensation crawled along her back and she wondered if her mother would ask how she’d gotten sunburned in the mountains. Sunburn was just one of those things she’d stop worrying about so much since she’d met Cal. She kept expecting her phone to ring, for it to be her mother and she would be busted. But Cal made her turn her phone off. He’d gotten them both disposable phones and instructed her to call him and only him. “No phone records,” he had said. And she had felt her stomach tighten.

  The sun was intense. A bead of sweat trickled down her side.

  “Hello, chica.” Sloan shielded her eyes as she twisted to look up at a dark figure against the dazzling sun. What she could see were Hawaiian print boards and a UM shirt.

  “Verulo.”

  “What a surprise to see you.”

  “I could say the same.”

  “Where’s Calhoun?”

  “Cal went to get a beer. Are we meeting you?”

  Verulo sat in the sand beside her. His skin glistened with sweat. His reflective sunglasses made Sloan uncomfortable.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Verulo said.

  Sloan wanted to sit up, but she didn’t want to fumble with her bathing suit top in front of him. She’d never felt so completely undressed by a man, and she couldn’t even see his eyes.

  “Are you enjoying your vacation in Miami?” Verulo asked.

  “It’s
wonderful here. Just beautiful.”

  “As beautiful as Mexico?”

  “Yes. But in a different way.”

  “Okay. Now I’m asking you. How are you involved in our business?”

  Sloan held her breath.

  “Um, I don’t know anything about your business,” she said. “I’m just helping Cal drive a car somewhere.”

  “Don’t play stupid, chica. You weren’t supposed to come.”

  “Why?”

  “There was no need for you to become involved.”

  “I’m not involved in anything.”

  “Yes. You are now.”

  Sloan felt relief when she saw Cal approaching with a beer in hand.

  “Hey man, you need a drink?” Cal said to Verulo.

  “No, thank you. I bring you this.” He handed Cal a black leather pouch. “There are keys and instructions and your due.”

  Cal took it. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t read it here. Read it in your room. We have two rules. You touch anything, you die.”

  “Damn. That’s harsh. What’s the second rule?”

  “No drugs. Think clearly. Understand?”

  “Got it.”

  “Leave now.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  Sloan struggled to her feet as the men stood. She tied her top and then drew Cal’s shirt around her.

  “It was wrong to involve her.”

  “I can take care of my own business,” Cal said.

  Verulo turned to her, his body language blocking out Cal. She could feel his eyes behind his shades. “If you ever get tired of him…”

  Cal made a tight laugh. Sloan simply stared at Verulo, her face, she hoped, expressionless. She knew her own sunglasses masked her strange twinge of pleasure at Verulo’s aggressive act. Still, she didn’t answer, and he walked away down the beach parallel with the ocean until he blended in with the shiny beach throng and dissolved into the distance.

  “Well, that was just a creepy buzz kill,” she said, as if she hadn’t felt the slightest thrill.

  “Get your shit and let’s get out of here.”

  “Are we leaving now? Aren’t we going to stay for dinner?”

  “No. What the fuck, Sloan? Don’t you see? They expect us to get out of town.”

  Sloan gathered her things and they wove their way between sunbathers until they reached the sidewalk and crossed the street to their lustrous hotel. The smell of oily beach bodies lingered in the lobby and wrapped around them in the elevator. Sloan tingled at the thought of Verulo’s attention, and Cal was still fuming with his own reaction to it, although he tried not to let it show.

  In their room, Sloan walked out onto the balcony to take a last look down on the pale strip of beach. She leaned over the railing, taking in all the activity, the shoppers and skaters and ripped guys with glistening bodies. She could smell the spice of ethnic food and hear the laughter from a party four stories below. She could live here. Florida was artistic and exciting and free. Like Cancún, only closer to home.

  Cal stepped onto the balcony behind her. She thought it was to fuss at her for procrastinating, but instead, his hands found her hips and he moved up behind her. She felt him hard against her through her thin bikini bottom. He wrapped his arms around her and slid a hand down her front into her bathing suit bottom and into her. Their smells mingled, musky and strong—sun and oil and sex. She held the railing and pushed back into him. He ripped her suit to the side and entered her and they made love as she watched the world pass below them.

  “We’ve got to leave soon,” he said when they were sated. “You can jump in the shower first.” He stretched out on the bed and clicked on the television. Sloan showered quickly, using the hotel’s sweet-smelling body wash. She twisted her hair up and pinned it under a floppy hat. Once she dressed and put her sunglasses on, she was again that twenty-five-year-old she had been in Cancún.

  Sloan was packing the guest bottles of shampoo and soaps into her bag when Cal said, “Don’t take those. Don’t take anything from here.”

  Cal paid cash at checkout. They retrieved his SUV from a garage a block away from their hotel. He was cautious about everything and Sloan felt ill with anticipation at what they were about to do. Cal directed her to the parking lot of a gay bar where buff, tanned guys in baggy madras shorts and tight T-shirts smoked and flirted.

  “There it is,” he said, pointing to a nondescript midsize car. “Just be cool and follow me.” He swiftly started the car and pulled away.

  She followed close behind in the Jimmy, fearful she would lose sight of him. She wasn’t used to driving in large cities, so she switched off the radio and concentrated on the road. They merged onto the interstate and soon began to pass plant nurseries and citrus groves. Her phone rang and she fumbled to answer it.

  “How you doing?” Cal asked.

  “I’m fine. I think.”

  “We’re on the interstate now. Don’t tail too close. Stay back a few cars and keep your eyes on me. We’re not going to leave this road until we reach Florence, so just relax. The hard part’s over.”

  “Okay.”

  “If I should get pulled over, you know to drive straight on home, right?”

  “Right.”

  “No hesitation. You go straight home. Say you understand.”

  “I understand.”

  “Okay, call me if you need me.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Holding Hands

  Ainslie should have been ashamed. But she wasn’t. It hadn’t taken long to extract the promise of a puppy if she would only submit to the MRI. When her parents said yes, Sloan had taken her to Litchfield Books and bought her an awesome dog book. They’d been discussing things and they couldn’t decide between a cute lap dog to sleep with them or a big lab to play with.

  The day of the MRI, Miss Vivian came to see her. Ainslie had shown her pictures of the dogs she liked. Once Ainslie was loaded into the giant rumbling machine, she started going over dog photos in her mind. She could see their well-formed noses and alert ears. She imagined what their fur felt like and how they would smell. She went over the pros and cons of each type of dog until she drifted into a dog-induced trance, and before she knew it, the MRI was over and she was on her way home.

  Good results meant she got to avoid another round of chemo and the time to get her puppy was all that much closer. A bad test meant more chemo and a longer wait while her white blood cell counts recovered. She wasn’t even allowed to have Mr. Crabs back yet. The doctor said nothing that poops.

  Sloan stayed with her while their mother went to the hospital’s financial office. She told Ainslie that every time the hospital or a doctor did anything their parents had to sign papers promising to pay.

  “So what about the insurance?” Ainslie asked.

  “Dad says Larry’s all over it. He says to trust Larry.”

  “I don’t think Mommy trusts Larry.”

  “Larry’s a lush.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means he drinks.”

  “Is he an alcoholic?”

  “Geez, Ains. I don’t know.”

  “Do you think we’ll get the dog?”

  “We’ll get the dog.”

  That night, their family grilled steaks and celebrated the possibility of a clean scan. After dinner, they all went for a walk on the beach. Ainslie struggled with the shifting sand, her balance still a challenge, until they reached the hard-packed foundation closer to the water. Ainslie thought to herself that if she had a dog, she could let it run. There were no leash laws observed on the beach and familiar pets often greeted you long before their owners appeared in the distance.

  Their parents walked in front of them along the shoreline’s curve. A new moon shimmered full on the water, round and bright, which meant high tides. Their parents used to hold hands when they walked, but they hadn’t done that in a while. Did worry make you forget things? Things like how much you love somebody? Like tha
t somebody wanted to hold your hand?

  Ainslie walked between her parents and took each of their hands. Sloan was off to the water’s edge and they all three stopped to watch her move something in the wet sand with her toe.

  “What is it?” Ainslie called, but her sister didn’t hear her.

  They walked to where she stood.

  “It’s gone. I felt something move under my foot.”

  “Mole crab,” Ainslie said. She dug her toes into the sand and wiggled her feet around. In only a few seconds, she reached below her foot and found a grumpy little mole crab, a tiny armadillo curled in on itself.

  “Here, you can hold it, but watch out for its spike,” Ainslie said.

  “No, thank you,” Sloan said. “Are those creepy little things all under the beach?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Gross.”

  “Ainslie, put that thing down,” her mother said as she walked on. “I’m sure it’s just crawling with germs.”

  They went on down the beach, the tide washing in so quickly that if they walked too far they would have to cut through houses and take the road back home. But it didn’t matter, they simply walked. Ainslie held her crab, stopping occasionally when she thought she felt another one underfoot.

  “Hey,” Sloan said. “Check it out.”

  Ainslie tore her attention away from her crab search.

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  Their parents were growing dimmer in the distance of the night. As they strolled, their mother’s hair blew around her head in a fantastic swirl. Their father’s shirt billowed against his lean body. They walked slowly, talking. They held hands.

  CHAPTER 25