The Ocean Inside

by Janna McMahan

  “I am, but it won’t be decided today.”

  “You and I both know it’s just a waiting game.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. They walked away from Sandy Island.”

  “For now.”

  “Right. For now.”

  “But this is a much bigger deal.”

  “True. What do you care? You should hope they get it, then you could get the job.”

  “I won’t work for W&P.”

  “Why not? Too pure? You could make them better corporate citizens.”

  He snorted. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “It’s going to happen, Emmett. You may as well get on the gravy train.”

  He frowned.

  “Stop it with the look. I just work here. I don’t make the rules.” She stood and smoothed her skirt, running her hands down her sides. She stopped at the door before she made her exit and turned to him.

  “Wannamaker’s going to run for county council,” she said.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  She grinned. “I shit you not.”

  They paused another second.

  She said, “The offer stands.”

  He just nodded.

  The door swished shut behind her. Emmett considered her invitation. It was attractive. He’d thought about it many times. He’d thought about it many, many times. He’d imagined throwing her down on her desk in the corner of this building and turning those spiked heels to the sky. He’d pull her silky hair until she arched up to him and he’d taste her neck and that deep valley between her breasts and he’d make her say his name. She’d say, “Emmett” in her throaty smoker’s voice. He wanted her. His entire body ached for her. He could do it. Just once he’d hold her in his arms; she’d cradle him in the curve of her hips and he’d fuck her and then he’d be done with her. He could do it and get past this fantasy and move on. It was doable.

  His brain abandoned him then. He focused on her office, hoping he could catch just another second with her before she moved into chambers. He wanted to tell her he accepted her proposal. The carpeting hushed his steps and made his stride easy as he rounded the corner and saw her, just a sliver of her in her office. At the last second before the door shut, Trip Wannamaker stepped into sight and rested his hand on the curve of Caroline’s ass.

  Profound clarity rushed him. Anger crawled his body like a heat wave. Shame seared his heart. He checked behind him, but there was no one else in the corridor. Stupid. Stupid. Had he really thought her interest sincere? There was no way he could sit through a boring municipal meeting now. He was opening his cell phone ready to pretend he was in deep conversation as he made for the exit, but he was recognized by a huddle of citizen property tax watchers. In the South, it was bad form not to acknowledge your neighbors. He had no choice but to stop.

  “How’s that little girl of yours?”

  “Ainslie’s doing fine, thank you.”

  “I see her picture in the stores and all around.”

  “Yes. Everybody’s been just wonderful. Thank you for asking.”

  Blah, blah, blah. Emmett couldn’t deal with this. He nodded and made polite replies until he saw his chance and ducked out. Finally at his truck, he was ready to drive off when the passenger door opened and Caroline jumped in.

  “What’s this?” Emmett said.

  “Look. I don’t know exactly what you saw back there,” she started.

  “Caroline, get out of my truck.”

  “But it’s not what you think.”

  “He had his hand on your ass. It is definitely what I think.”

  This was a new tension that buzzed between them. He stared ahead while she searched for the right thing to say.

  “Can you keep your mouth shut for me?” she finally asked, her eyes darting back across the road where people were beginning to leave the building.

  “Why? Scared your little tryst will go public? Well, fear not. I won’t be the one to blow your deal with Wannamaker. Just tell me, what’s he paying you to help out with his little project?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s either that or you’re going to tell me you’re in love and then I’m going to call you a liar to your face. So go ahead. Tell me you’re in love right after you propositioned me in the courtyard.”

  “It’s just sex.”

  “You’re a whore. Get out of my truck.”

  “Emmett, don’t do this. We’re friends.”

  “We’re nothing of the sort. Fuck you and fuck Wannamaker. Now get out of my truck before I cause a scene.”

  “Please don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  “What does that mean? Are you threatening me?”

  “No. Don’t misunderstand.”

  “So you don’t misunderstand, I’ll speak real slow. Get. Out. Right. Now.”

  She stepped out and when she closed the passenger door she placed her palm flat against the window in a pleading gesture. Emmett wanted to slam his truck into DRIVE and peel out of the parking lot. Instead he drove away calmly to avoid drawing attention. Shame and anger muddled his thoughts. What was he thinking? Whatever made him consider knocking around with Caroline Crawford a good idea?

  He was such an idiot. She was just a politician playing all the angles, and apparently everybody. But who was he? He wasn’t powerful. He wouldn’t be able to help her in any way, so perhaps her interest in him was a sincere attraction. No. Women like Caroline weren’t sincere. They were predatory. Maybe she got a kick taking another woman’s man. Who knew what her game was?

  Thank God he hadn’t done it. Thank God he’d escaped before he made the worst mistake of his life. So this was the architecture of immorality—one part desire, one part neediness, one part stupidity.

  Emmett found himself back at his office but he couldn’t remember the drive there. He hoped none of his employees could see him sitting in his truck, staring at his concrete building jutting from the middle of this hardwood forest. Birds called. Squirrels jumped from one tree to another, sending a limb rattling down to land soundlessly in the thick blanket of long-leaf pine needles.

  He reached in his shirt pocket and removed a five-thousand-dollar check, his second installment of community goodwill. He’d forgotten to take it to the bank. Who forgets to deposit money like that? This was a literal reality check and he needed it right now. He needed to be reminded there were still good people in the world. This money was a sign that not everyone was greedy and unprincipled.

  The guys at The Pub, all hard-working, hourly paid men, had handed him five one-hundred dollar bills and then they all went back to drinking beer as if nothing had transpired. They didn’t ask questions. All they knew was his family needed help. But instead of helping his own family, Emmett had been ready to bring them shame, to add to their already horrible life by doing something selfish and destructive. And for what? For an orgasm? For a stolen moment of personal pleasure?

  Emmett pulled the bills from his pocket. Cash money. He should take the family out tonight. They needed a little reprieve. Larry was getting ready to file the lawsuit against Common Good and things were only going to get more complicated for everyone from this point forward. He’d take his girls out to eat and maybe to a movie. He’d help them forget, if only for a while, that they were an unhappy crew. He’d recommit himself to fighting the insurance company. He’d be home more. He’d make amends. Things would turn out okay.

  Still sitting in his truck, Emmett called home. Lauren answered.

  “Hey,” he said, more lively than he felt.

  “How’d your meeting or whatever go?” she asked. He could hear exhaustion in her voice. It made him feel even more guilty.

  “Fine. Everything’s fine. Let’s go out to eat tonight. I think we need to have a little fun.”

  “Do we have the money for that?”

  “Let me take care of it, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Fancy or low key?”

  “Chicken and Waffles?” she said. It
was Ainslie’s favorite place. And cheap.

  “Low key it is. I’ll be home around six to get y’all.”

  Emmett clicked off the phone and considered what he would tell his daughter when she asked about beach renourishment efforts. He thought of the cumbersome sea turtle mothers and their struggles up the beach to familiar nesting territory. If something were amiss, they would return to the sea without laying their eggs. He understood the creatures’ plight. All he wanted to do was lay his burdens down, but his home had become so strange that he found it hard to recognize.

  CHAPTER 27

  Invisible

  Sloan had purchased a gift certificate to Al’s and movie tickets for Mother’s Day. It was strange to have a thousand dollars hidden in her closet. She’d never had so much money, and while it should have made her giddy, it only made her feel selfish and dirty. So she had purchased the gifts and Ainslie had drawn a card and much to Sloan’s relief, her parents hadn’t asked questions.

  “Look,” she told them. “I’ll stay with Ainslie. I never get to stay with her anymore. We’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, Mommy,” Ainslie said. “Please go do something with Daddy. We need a break from each other.”

  Sloan urged her mother to dress sexier.

  “You look so pretty now,” she said, and the expression that came to her mother’s face was strange and distant.

  “I do look more like I did when I was younger.” She peered into the mirror over the dresser and leaned in to examine herself more closely. She pulled the skin on her face up and away. “Now, I’m thirty.” She let go. “Forty.” Up again. “Thirty.” Down. “Forty.”

  “Mommy, you’re weird,” Ainslie said.

  She sighed then and said, “I guess losing weight does have benefits. Your dad said I looked nice the other day.”

  “You always look nice, Mom.” Ainslie hung on her mother’s shoulder like a toddler.

  Sloan knew that somewhere beneath that perfect-mother façade lurked a woman wild at heart. She suspected her mother of different ways in youth. After all, Sloan could count and she knew she’d been conceived before her parents were married. But this woman didn’t seem like her mother anymore, more a dull shell of a mother, a robot who said the right things and did the right things, but whose every movement was passionless.

  As soon as her parents left, Ainslie settled into the sofa for her dolphin show. Sloan made a huge bowl of popcorn. They had all the get-well cards spread out on the floor where they made a collage during commercial breaks. For weeks Ainslie had anticipated this bottlenose dolphin show about strand feeding. Apparently, in Carolina tidal creeks, dolphins herd fish ashore onto exposed mud banks with a bow wave.

  Ainslie sat mesmerized as dolphins rushed fish onto shore. Gulls and egrets dropped from the sky to compete for the catch. The announcer said, “Dolphins avoid oyster beds, since the sharp edges lacerate their smooth hide.”

  “They strand on their right side, and their teeth on that side wear down,” Ainslie said, touching her own mouth absentmindedly.

  The predators thrashed their tails and wiggled onto the bank, snapping up writhing fish, then they slid back into water. They rapidly clicked, one squeaked, and then they regrouped for a second attack.

  “Hey, what’s up with your dolphins?” Sloan asked.

  “They come to see me sometimes.”

  “Really?”

  “They know something’s wrong.”

  Lightning flashed white outside and they grew quiet as rain thrummed against the porch and windows. The hammock on the screened-in back porch began to shudder.

  “Come on. Let’s watch TV upstairs so we can listen to it rain,” Sloan suggested.

  In Ainslie’s room, Sloan checked out her sister’s treasure shelves. “Do you have anything new?” she asked. She picked up a contorted shard of glass. “I love this,” Sloan said. “It’s so dark and twisted.”

  “That’s fulgurite. It’s what happens when lightning hits sand. They’re hard to find.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Can I have a grilled cheese?”

  “Sure. I’ll make you one.” This was what they both wanted when they were sick, the comfort of a warm, soft cheesy sandwich. Downstairs, Sloan waited for butter to melt in the skillet and her mind wandered to Cal and then to Cal’s new proposal. She had been sucked in so easily. Cal had asked her if she knew anyone who could read the Waccamaw up to the school-boat landing. She told him Mr. Washington and Ronald could both navigate that area. Cal had said, “Not the old man. Don’t tell him anything. But Ronald, can you introduce me to him?”

  And so she had and before she knew what was happening, the two men were hatching a scheme out of touch with reality. She still didn’t know the finer details, but she did know she wasn’t going to have any part of their arrangement. Prison was not in her plans for the future.

  Sloan cut the cheesy sandwich at an angle and made the food tray look as fancy as she could. As she climbed the stairs, water hit hard and cold against her face. Stunned, it took her a moment to realize the steps were slick. She looked up the stairwell. The hatch of the widow’s walk was open to black sky. Sloan quickly climbed the ladder, her hands slipping around the rungs. Rain stung her cheeks as she crawled atop the opening and frantically scanned the tight space. There was her sister, clothing plastered to her thin frame, hair whipping in the wind, arms extended to the sky.

  “Ainslie!” Sloan screamed. “What are you doing?”

  Her sister didn’t move or turn to acknowledge her.

  “Hey! Ains, hey!” Lightning flayed the sky. “Come down here right now!” she yelled at her sister. “Cut this shit out!” She grabbed her arm and pulled her off the bench. Sloan dragged Ainslie to the top of the ladder and pointed down. “Now!”

  Ainslie crawled slowly backward down the ladder. Sloan followed and pulled the hatch closed behind them.

  When they hit the landing Ainslie stopped and waited for her sister. She shivered. Water streamed off her onto the floor. Sloan grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, flinging droplets from Ainslie’s hair onto the walls.

  “What, are you nuts? What are you doing? Do you think if you get hit by lightning you’ll be cured?”

  Ainslie stared at her own feet. Sloan pulled Ainslie’s face up to her own.

  “Hey.” Sloan got down on her knees and grasped her sister’s arms hard. “Look at me. Listen to me when I tell you none of this is your fault. Do you want to die?”

  “No.”

  “Lightning can kill you. You know that. This is not the way to cure cancer. Even if that old guy was cured it was just a freak accident. You’re more likely to die from getting hit by lightning or get blown off the top of the house and plunge to your death in the yard than to be cured of cancer. Ains, promise me you won’t try something like this again.”

  Ainslie drew in a hitching breath and let out an extended, mournful wail. She collapsed into Sloan’s arms and they sank to the landing, where they held each other. Ainslie cried great wracking sobs until she was limp as a rag doll.

  When she thought it was safe, Sloan said, “Come on. Let’s take a hot bubble bath. That’ll make you feel better. You can use my fancy expensive stuff.”

  In the tub, warm and thick with bubbles, Ainslie slumped forward, her arms around her knees while Sloan poured water down her back.

  “I’m sick of being sick,” Ainslie whispered. “I’m sick of hospitals and doctors and people feeling sorry for me. I hate presents from strangers and I hate missing school and hate it Mommy and Daddy are always mad at each other.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Everybody talks about me around me but not to me. Nobody ever asks me what I think.”

  “I hear you.”

  “I hate being poor. We’re poor now because of me.”

  “Please, don’t feel guilty about being sick. It could have been any one of us.”

  Her sister stared at the bubbles massed like glaciers against the sid
e of the tub. Sloan couldn’t tell if Ainslie was crying or if rainwater still trickled from her thin, drooping hair. And then she saw something in her sister she had never seen before. Ainslie’s eyes shifted as if someone suddenly told her a horrible secret. There was hardness to those eyes, a resignation of hope. Her sister was tired of fighting, and this scared Sloan more than anything that had happened so far. But it wasn’t just Ainslie who was like the desperate clinging rider astride the crazy granite stallion statue at Brookgreen. Everyone in their family was just holding on for dear life.

  CHAPTER 28

  Wrack Line

  Lauren ran into the Litchfield Food Lion to grab a bag of rice for supper. She’d been vigilant about shopping at the less expensive inland markets and only stopped occasionally to get a few groceries along the coast.

  Outside again, she checked her watch and realized she had forty-five minutes before she could retrieve Ainslie from physical therapy. She wandered down the strip mall toward Litchfield Books. Although she’d been frequenting the library now that things were tight, Lauren enjoyed wandering around this bookstore. It took her mind off her problems, if only for a short while. They had a wonderful section on travel, and Lauren loved to look through the photography books on Italy and France with their cottage flower gardens and artfully crumbling architecture. Someday, she’d always tell herself when she flipped through these books, someday she and Emmett would take that honeymoon they’d never had.

  The aroma of coffee wafted over her as she entered. Lauren stopped to check out the new releases. A couple of dust jackets appealed to her and she made a mental note to request a couple of these new books from the library. She remembered that she still had a few thank-you notes to write, and she made her way over to the stationery section. The coffee smelled so good, and while it was against her current frugal ways to spend three dollars on a cup of coffee, she was considering doing just that, when familiar voices floated over the stationery display. It was Marguerite and a couple of other women from church.