SWNOVELS : Chapter 14
UNFORTUNATELY, JULIA WAS serious about Story Hour.
They’re late, of course, but just barely. I smell sun-warmed grass and the spicy kick of woodsmoke, and when I look up, they’re there.
Julia picks her way through the concentric rings of parents, babysitters, and kids, with Miles whispering apologies in her wake.
He’s shaved his beard. No doubt thanks to Julia’s badgering, which had peppered our conversation until late into the night when she accepted my fifty-eighth attempt to go to bed.
Some people grow beards to hide or accentuate certain features, the way I switched my hair-part at nineteen and, when I saw how it balanced my slightly crooked nose, never looked back.
The thing, it would seem, Miles has been hiding all along is that he’s diabolically handsome, with angular cheekbones and a jaw that sort of looks like it might cut you if you were to run a hand over it. Or your tongue. You know, whatever.
Fairly cruel timing, for us to have just agreed not to cross the platonic-friends boundary.
His eyes catch mine, and his mouth quirks—that part of him is still soft, playful, even with this new look. It makes me feel like I swallowed a sword inside of a helium balloon.
Under the best circumstances, surprises are not my thing. But if I were going to unexpectedly see the man I hooked up with the night prior, I would at least prefer it not happen (a) while I’m reading aloud and (b) on a day he looks better than ever and I decided to walk to work, during which a surprise drizzle frizzed my hair and raccooned my mascara.
I did my best to clean myself up after I clocked in, and of course it immediately stopped raining, but we’d stuck to an inside Story Hour, just in case, and I’m sure the buzzing overhead lighting isn’t exactly giving me a heavenly glow.
When I finally reach The End, Julia jumps onto her feet, clapping with extreme enthusiasm. Everyone else breaks into the polite applause I’m used to. After a chorus of squeaky voices saying thank you at their parents’ urging, the crowd disperses, and Julia bounds up to me.
“Miles wasn’t kidding,” she says. “You’re really good at the voices.”
I peek over her shoulder to where her brother has paused to “give directions” to a mom who I’m pretty sure was born here. A young mom—it seems he was right about the beard’s effect on the older ladies, because they’re not the ones eyeing him this time.
Julia follows my gaze and guffaws. “Oh, look, he made a new friend. How novel.”
“Has he always been like this?” I ask.
“As long as I’ve been around, yes,” she replies. “God knows where he got it from. Definitely not our asshole parents.”
I’m jarred by the casual mention of their parents. It’s like turning over a locked box, only to realize there was a crack in the bottom all along.
“Miles once bumped into the high school band teacher at the grocery store and left with an invitation to her wedding,” she tells me. “He wasn’t even in band.”
An image of crisp stationery, elegant typeface slanting across it, blossoms in my mind.
Julia’s face softens. “Shit, sorry. He told me about the invitation thing.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
Julia cocks her head, curious. “Really? Fine?”
“No,” I say. “But I’m trying to complain less.”
She catches me glancing toward Miles and snorts. “If you’re trying to emulate my brother, I wish you the best of luck. No one can repress negative emotions like him. He’s had too much practice.”
He looks, as ever, like human sunshine, totally engaged, completely interested in this stranger, and it makes my chest pinch. “I’d assumed the sunny disposition came naturally.”
“I mean,” she says, “we had the same upbringing and I didn’t turn out Chronically Fine, so I guess in a way, it’s natural. When I was a kid, and he’d moved to the city, he used to come back and pick me up every Saturday for breakfast at McDonald’s. I’d spend the whole time trying to get under his skin, because I was the worst. But I could never get a rise out of him. He’s excellent at ignoring the bad stuff.”
“What about you?” I ask.
Julia chokes over a laugh. “Oh, I invite the bad stuff to try to fuck with me.”
Having finally extricated himself from Hot Mom, Miles joins us. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” Julia says innocently, right as I say, “Your sister wants to get into a knife fight.”
“I’ll call Gill,” Miles says. “We can get her a kitten at the same time.”
“Am I missing something?” Julia asks.
Ashleigh sidles up then too. “Just one of their adorable best friend jokes,” she tells Julia. “You must be the sister.”
“You must be the friend I’m either going to love or hate,” Julia says.
Ashleigh’s shoulders wiggle, half shiver. “Intriguing.”
“Should be fun either way,” Julia says. “So should we all head to Cherry Hill, throw tiny pretzels at Miles while he’s working?”
“We don’t serve pretzels,” Miles says, audibly offended.
“As amazing as that sounds,” I say, “I need to get some promotional stuff finished for the Read-a-thon.”
“And I was thinking I’d do meal prep tonight, so I can be worry-free tomorrow—” Ashleigh interrupts herself with a gasp, looking to Miles. “I just figured out where we should go. We should take them to Barn.”
“Barn?” I say. “As in . . . a building on a farm?”
“As in a bar, in a barn,” Miles says. “On a farm.”
“There is no place on this earth,” I say, “like Waning Bay.”
“Barn has goats,” Ashleigh offers, peeling away from us to help a couple of patrons check out before we close for the day. “You’ll love it.”
Julia’s phone pings and she checks it. “Weren’t you supposed to be at work by four forty-five?” she asks Miles.
“Shit!” He moves toward the doors, Julia still texting as she shuffles after him. He turns over his shoulder and calls, “Sunrise is before six. Be ready at five thirty.”
“Five,” I counter. “Are you coming, Julia?”
“At five in the morning?” she says sunnily. “I’d rather eat aluminum foil. But you two have a blast.”
Five o’clock comes and goes.
Then five oh five.
Five eleven.
I’m trying not to be unreasonably grumpy, but this is fuck-everything early, even for me, and if there’s one thing I truly hate, it’s waiting on people.
Several dozen unhappy memories cycle through me, a worst-of film reel, and I’m too tired to adequately bat them away.
So while I’m yawning so hard my jaw pops, I’m also back in Mom’s and my first apartment without Dad, waiting by the front window, looking up every time a junker sputters past.
Waiting on the snowy curb outside my elementary school, dragging my boot toes through blackened slush, telling myself that if I count to one hundred, Dad will be here. And if not, then by the time I reach two hundred and fifty. Counting and waiting until my mom pulled up, stressed out and still in her work heels, apologizing through the open car window, on his behalf: Sorry, sorry, something came up, I guess.
Waiting at the mailbox for birthday cards to show up.
Waiting for a phone call on Christmas.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting, for someone who rarely came, feeling worse every time, until finally, I realized that the feelings wouldn’t stop until the waiting did.
You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t.
Trust people’s actions, not their words.
Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back.
Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you.
Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.
I consider crawling back into bed and finishing a polish on the upcoming Read-a-thon publicity blast. Then the front door clanks open, a slice of light pouring from the hall.
“Hey,” Miles whispers, lifting the thermoses in his hands. “You ready?”
“Been ready since five,” I tell him.
He leans forward and peers around the cupboard to see the oven clock. “Shit.” He passes me one of the thermoses. “I gave myself an extra fifteen minutes, and there was no line, but then I got caught up talking to the barista and . . . anyway, I’m sorry, Daphne.”
I shake my head, the grumpiness clearing. Miles is doing me the favor here. “It’s fine.” I slip my feet into my sandals. “Let’s go.”
It’s cooler outside than in our apartment, the nip in the air making my arms and legs tingle. I can feel my leg hair growing and wonder why I bothered shaving last night.
Because you have a crush on your roommate, my inner dialogue provides helpfully, and you want him to look at and touch and probably even lick your legs.
No, I argue with myself. It’s because I want to wear a skirt to work tomorrow.
I’m not buying it, though: the last time I wore a skirt at work, Handsy Stanley told me I was going to give him a heart attack.
The hem reached midcalf.
Luckily, Ashleigh walked past the desk at that exact moment, and a three-month ban was issued.
I’m so tired I’d be willing to drink jet fuel mixed with espresso, but to my surprise, when I sip from the thermos Miles gave me, it’s spicy, sweet, creamy perfection. “This is chai,” I say.
He unlocks the door and climbs in. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
I get in too. “No, it is, I just—thank you.”
“No problem.” He jams the key in the ignition, and the engine grumbles, but the car doesn’t start. He tries twice more before it catches, and then we’re cruising away from our silent street, the sleeping city black and blue as a bruise.
At the kayak rental place, there’s one other couple there already—both blond but comically disproportionate in height—and judging by the bright, chipper, full-volume conversation she’s maintaining with the sleepy-eyed man, they’re on a first date. Which also might somehow be an actual vacation?
She keeps up a steady line of questions that he parries swiftly about each other’s jobs (finance and theme park management, respectively) and each other’s pets (three cats, two German shepherds) from the register to the transport van to the boat launch.
Without discussing it, Miles and I both hang back and let them launch their kayaks, pretending to busy ourselves with packing the provided dry bags and getting our life vests on until they’re a ways out.
“Remember when you said that I like everyone?” he asks me as we drag the first of our kayaks into the water.
“Yes,” I say.
“I don’t like them.” He tips his chin toward our vanmates’ backs, shrinking as they rapidly pump their paddles back and forth.
I suppress a smile. “Do you know them?”
“After that seven-hour van ride, I know enough,” he says.
I chortle. “It took us six minutes to get here.”
“They’re my enemies.” He steadies the kayak and gestures for me to get in.
“So all I need to do to stay in your good graces is not snort twenty-five Adderall before six a.m. Good to know.”
“Or get three cats and name all of them The Goddess,” he adds.
“Really? That was actually my favorite thing about Keith.”
“My favorite thing was when Gladys had that coughing fit and couldn’t talk for like eleven seconds.”
“It’s fun when you’re sassy,” I tell him, climbing into the kayak and dropping into the wet, slippery seat.
“Enjoy it,” he says. “I don’t plan on getting up this early ever again. I hate to admit it, but Petra was right.”
I lean over the side of the kayak and splash him, his eyes snapping wide.
“What the fuck!”
“That’s your Petra tax,” I say. “Talk about her again, and I’ll call Gladys and Keith back here and make this a kayak caravan situation.”
“Fine, fine,” he agrees, walking back up the shore to pull his own kayak into the water. “But if you mention Peter, I’m tipping you over.”
“Who?” I say innocently.
The truth is, within five minutes of pushing away from the shore, Peter has made his way to the forefront of my mind, because my arms and shoulders are already burning from exertion, and Miles can only paddle about twice before he has to pause and wait for me to catch up.
The dark horizon has only just started to soften as light bleeds along the top of the water, and I already know this was a huge mistake.
We’d been planning to do a six-mile loop around a small island in the bay, where the more adventurous locals—people like Miles and Petra probably—like to camp.
Tucked back in the bay like this, there’s no real current or waves to contend with, not like there would be in the lake proper, but I’m still woefully underprepared.
“You can go ahead,” I call across the water.
Miles laughs. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m pretty sure I’m actually moving backwards,” I say.
“It’s water,” he points out. “In every direction. There’s nowhere to be. Unless you’re serious about catching up with Keith and Gladys.”
“I have neither the intention, nor the emotional capacity, to do that,” I say.
“Then let’s chill,” he says. “There’s no rush.”
“Well, if that changes, feel free to ditch me.”
“Yes, Daphne, if something changes, and I need to escape a freshwater shark, I’ll paddle my little heart out and leave you for dead.”
“Are there really sharks in the lake?” I ask.
“I’m offended you’d even ask that,” he says.
“Someone’s got to defend Lake Michigan’s honor, I guess,” I say.
“Why not me?” he agrees.
We paddle slowly, parallel to one another, the gradually lifting sun painting everything in pinks and golds.
“I know it’s a cliché,” he says after a minute, “but being on the water always does feel like what I imagine church is for some people.”
“I get that,” I say. “Out here, you’re small and there’s no one else around, but you’re not lonely. It’s like you’re connected to everyone and everything.”
“Exactly,” he says. “And you remember to marvel. It’s so easy to forget how incredible this planet is.”
I throw a glance his way. “I think you’re pretty good at the daily marvel.”
“Sometimes,” he says, then, “You are too.”
I snort. “I’m more of a cranky pessimist and we both know it.”
“You moan every time you eat,” he says. “I don’t think you’re as pessimistic as you think.”
I flush, reroute the conversation neatly: “I think as a kid, the library was the thing that made me marvel. I never felt lonely there. I felt so connected to everyone. Honestly, I think it also made me feel connected to my dad.”
There it is, a hideously embarrassing truth dropped right into the middle of a conversation. A fact I’ve never admitted aloud.
It might be an oversimplification, but it’s the truth: “He’s why I love libraries.”
“Big reader?” Miles guesses.
I laugh. “No. He just never planned his visits ahead or had any money, so he’d blow into town and take me there to check out some books, or do an activity or whatever. So when I was little, I really associated them with him. It felt like ‘our thing.’ ”
“Are you close?” he asks.
“Not at all,” I tell him. “He’s lived in California for a long time now, and his visits are unpredictable. Doesn’t come when he says he will, shows up when you’re not expecting him. But he was a really fun dad when I was a kid. And the library trips felt like this amazing gift, specifically from him to me, you know?”
Like he alone had the key to anything I wanted to read.
“My mom never had time to get over there, and I was kind of terrified of the school librarian, so once I got old enough, I’d just walk over to the local branch after class and Mom would pick me up when she got off work.”
He grins. “A good librarian makes all the difference.”
I angle myself toward him. “You joke, but it’s true.”
“I’m not joking,” he says. “If you’d been my librarian, I would’ve read a lot more.”
“Because I would’ve told you audiobooks count?” I say.
“For starters,” he says. “Also I would’ve wanted to impress you.”
My face tingles. “Julia’s great,” I say.
“She is,” he agrees. “She’s the best.”
“Have you always been close?” I ask.
“Pretty much,” he says. “I mean, I was, like, thirteen when she was born, so I was out of the house a lot, but when I was home, she followed me like a puppy. Like literally just crawled around after me.”
I grin, picturing it. A brown-eyed, dark-haired baby Julia scooting along after a scrawny brown-eyed teenage Miles.
“She was only five when I moved to the city,” he says. “But I tried to make it back to see her as much as I could.”
“She said you visited every Saturday, took her out.”
I catch a subtle grimace. “Just needed to get her out of the house every once in a while.”
There it is again, that crack in the box. Just as quickly, though, it’s flipped over, its contents hidden.
We fall back into silent paddling. Sweat rises along my hairline, drips down the seam of my rib cage and the ridge between my shoulder blades. “You can talk about it, you know,” I finally tell him.
“Talk about what?” he says.
“Anything,” I say. “Whatever’s bothering you. I’m actually a better listener than talker.”
“You’re a great talker,” he says. “But nothing’s bothering me. I’m fine. I just need to figure out what she’s running away from.”
“Did she say she’s running from something?” I’ve only just met her, but it’s hard to imagine Julia running from anything. “Even if she stumbled upon that black bear who was addicted to cocaine, I picture her fighting back and faring pretty well.”
“She keeps insisting she’s here to ‘be there’ for me,” he says.
“Well,” I say, “maybe she is.”
He gives me a look. “She never tells me when things are bad, but she’s not good at hiding it either.” He looks away, out toward the island, and shakes it off. “I’ll figure it out. It’s fine.”
When he looks back, he’s grinning, seemingly unbothered, though this time I’m not totally convinced. “You still good, or you want to turn back?” he asks, clearly done with the topic of Julia.
So I let it go. “I’m good.”
When the sun is high enough for the water to settle into its usual brilliant crystal green, Miles stops paddling and takes off his sweatshirt and shirt in one move, dropping them into his lap. I hold out for another twenty minutes until I can no longer stand the way my tank top sticks to me, then relent and peel it away from my bathing suit.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Miles says.
I pull my shirt off and glance over at him as I slip my life vest back on. He’s gazing toward the forested island, the last morning remnants of mist clinging to it, his kayak bumping into mine.
“It is,” I say, feeling the need to whisper it, for some reason.
He looks. “Thanks for coming with me.”
“Thanks for inviting me,” I say.
He tucks his chin, a teasing curve to his lips. “Even though you hate it?”
“I don’t hate it,” I say.
He seems unconvinced.
“I actually think I like it,” I say. “I’m just not good at it, and it stresses me out feeling like I’m making someone wait on me.”
“Why?” he says.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“But I don’t mind,” he says.
“You say that,” I reply.
“I’m not training for the Olympics, Daphne,” he says. “Why would I give a shit?”
“When we used to try to hike together, I’d get out of breath and Peter would—” I realize my mistake too late.
Miles probably would’ve missed the slipup, if not for the way my sentence screeches to a halt.
The corner of his mouth quirks as he reaches toward my kayak.
I shake my head, but he doesn’t slow his progress.
“No!” I shriek as he knocks me to one side. “I didn’t say it!”
“You one-hundred-percent said it,” he argues.
“Different Peter!” I cry, laughing as we struggle against each other for a minute. “Different Peter!”
“Should’ve called him Pete, then,” Miles says.
He gives the kayak one more hard shove, tipping me over into the cold water. It sloshes over my face for just a second before my life vest pops me above the surface. “Are you kidding me?” I shriek, swimming toward him, grabbing the side of his boat now.
“I didn’t break the rule,” he argues.
“You dumped me in the lake,” I say, trying and failing to tip him in. “That’s so much worse.”
“Fine, fine,” he says. “I’m getting in.” But as he says it, he’s grabbing his paddle, slicing it into the water, trying to get away.
I grab hold of one side and yank as hard as I can.
It takes a few seconds of struggle, but in the end, I manage it.
Miles crashes into the lake. He resurfaces, soaked and sputtering, and slicks his hair out of his face, eyes crinkled against the sun. “Didn’t even check if I could swim or not,” he tuts, pretending to be aghast.
“I would’ve saved you,” I say.
“You?” he says. “I’m, like, forty pounds heavier than you.”
“First of all,” I say, “you’re absolutely not. And second of all, I have a life vest. We would’ve been fine.”
He swims toward me, loops an arm around my back, my stomach lifting into my chest at the feeling of his skin on mine, his weight pulling us downward as my heart buoys into the back of my throat. “Your physics are off, Daphne,” he says against my ear as we start to sink.
I wriggle around to face him, pushing away before anything can keep me there. “I knew you could swim, Miles.”
“How?” he asks.
“One, everything about you,” I say. “Two, I’ve seen pictures.”
“When you and Ashleigh were snooping?” he teases.
“Yes, when we were snooping,” I admit.
He nods, treading water in front of me. “Thought so.”
“Have you ever snooped?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
I study him until he laughs, glances toward the island again, then meets my eyes. “Fine, a couple of times when you’ve left your door open, I’ve peeked in. But it’s not like I’m digging through your drawers.”
“Excuse me,” I say. “I did not dig through your drawers. Not that I would have needed to, since they were all open.”
“You looked in them.” He swims closer.
“I didn’t,” I say.
“In case you were wondering,” he says, “your drawers have never been open while your door was.”
“I wasn’t wondering,” I say.
“It’s been spotless,” he says. “Not a single hint as to who you are.”
“Pretty boring of me,” I say.
“Mysterious,” he counters. “Like a puzzle.”
“Or a highly organized silverware tray,” I say.
Under the water, our calves brush against one another. A thrum travels straight up my thigh into my abdomen. “The same way you dress.”
“Like a silverware tray?” I say.
He shakes his head. Another graze of our legs, a little higher this time. “Like a secret.”
A heady rush of tension. To defuse it, I say, “Like I’m hiding an extra set of arms.”
“Think I would’ve noticed that,” he says.
Our hands brush under the water. The second time, our fingers slip together, knuckles briefly sliding against each other before we pull away.
I backstroke away from him, turning my face up toward the sun. When my pulse has settled, I ask, “Should we paddle a little longer?”
“If you want to,” he says.
I stare across the glistening turquoise water toward the shore of the island. It’s not as far as I thought. It feels possible now, that we could make it.
“I want to,” I tell him.