Still Waters (7 page)

I
press down hard, and she tries to wiggle her foot out from under my boot. Not a
chance, Nor. “I mean, the only reason I can think of is that she really, really
likes this guy.”

“Eleanor!”
I hiss, “stop it!”

She’s
smiling at Jake over the milkshake syrup, and her cheeks are pink. For goodness
sake.

“How
much do you reckon she likes him?” Jake asks lightly, ignoring me completely.

“Well,”
Eleanor says, looking me up and down, “I’d say a lot.”

I
narrow my eyes at her and give her a look. I’m not in the mood to be part of
their little contest to see who can be the best flirt.

“Ok,
that’s enough,” laughs someone from the doorway to the backroom. “You’re
embarrassing her. And you’re giving me a huge ego.”

I
give Eleanor one last dirty look then glance over at where Crew is leaning on
the doorframe with his arms crossed. My face burns.

“I
think your ego is safe,” I say, trying to sound like I don’t care that he just
heard that whole ridiculous conversation. “I didn’t say any of it. That was
just Miss Sticky-Beak trying to think of something witty and cute to say to
impress your friend there.”

Eleanor
gasps and then quickly plasters a smile on her face to cover her embarrassment.
I don’t know what she’s worried about. Jake doesn’t look like he minds the
flirting.

“You
two want some ice cream?” Crew says, picking up a metal scoop from a bucket and
spinning it around in his hand. “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I am the
best ice cream scoop roller in the world.”

“In
the whole world huh?” I say seriously. “That’s quite a claim to fame.”

He
walks to the front of the counter so that we’re facing each other.

“What
flavor?”

I
steal a look at Eleanor and see that she looks uncomfortable. Maybe my little
jibe at her and Jake went too far.

“Hey,”
I say nudging her with my shoulder. “If you want to go, we can. I was just
teasing before.”

She
looks at me and doesn’t say anything for a second. I think she’s trying to tell
me something with her eyes, but I’m not getting it.

“No,
it’s ok,” she says quietly. “I’m not brave enough to stand between you and your
ice cream.”

“Smart
girl,” Crew smiles, but Eleanor doesn’t say anything back. I’m not sure what’s
going on here, but I don’t like the awkwardness between them, and I just want
to leave so I can ask her what her problem is. I open my mouth to suggest we go
but before I can say anything there’s a loud fizzing sound that bounces around
the room, and then suddenly everything around us goes black.

Crew

“Hang
on,” I say, reaching under the counter for the box that I know contains The Sea
Shack’s emergency supplies. Having the lights go out is nothing new around
here. When I worked here as a kid, we had five blackouts in one winter. Every
time it happened, Jake and I shoveled as much ice cream as we could into our
mouths while his dad was looking for the candles. He figured it out pretty
quick; I guess the guilty looks on our faces and the fact that our mouths were
stuffed full of ice cream was a bit of a giveaway. But being the great guy that
he is, he played along all through that winter. And then when spring came he
put together a blackout kit and placed it under the counter without a word.

As
the clouds shift across the sky, a shaft of silver light streams in the windows
and I catch a glimpse of Hartley and Eleanor over the other side of the
counter. Eleanor is leaning in, whispering something urgently into Hartley’s
ear. Hartley is frowning and shaking her head. And then the sky clouds over
again and their faces are lost in the shadows.

“Ta-da!”
says Jake as he strikes a match and lights the first candle. Eleanor looks at
him through the glow and smiles slowly, flicking her hair behind her shoulder.
I light a few more candles, stick them into empty soda bottles and then Hartley
and I place them around the shop. The candlelight has changed the atmosphere in
here, and I can’t decide whether it’s romantic or spooky. Eleanor definitely
votes for romantic.

“So
this is kind of weird,” Hartley says as we put the last of the candles over by
the windows.

I
pull on the door to check the lock, and it won’t budge. Just as I thought, the
security system has put the place into lockdown, and we won’t be able to
deactivate it now until the power comes back on.

“It
happens a lot at this time of year,” I say lightly and turn back around. She’s
standing right in front of me, looking up into my face.

“Are
we locked in?”

I’m
about to make a joke, but then I see that her eyes are wide, and she’s
breathing really fast.

“Hey,”
I say, reaching out to brush a curl off her forehead with my finger. I know
that’s probably against the rules, but I can’t help it. “You’re ok. The power
will be on soon.”

“Sorry,”
she stammers, wrapping her arms around her body like she’s hugging herself. “It’s
really stupid and totally irrational. I have this thing about being locked in.”

Her
teeth are chattering a bit, and I’m not sure if it’s from fear or because the
heating went out with the power.

“I
think everyone has irrational fears,” I say quietly. “Just because it’s stupid
it doesn’t make it any less scary, right?”

She
nods and her eyes flick over to the door.

“You
still want an ice cream?”

She
shakes her head. “I’m too cold for ice cream now. What I really want is to go
home.”

I
turn and look out through the side windows. From here you can see all of the
houses that line the dunes up the coast and into town, including mine. They’re
all dark.

“Crew?”
she says quietly and I think I can hear tears in her voice. “Can you give me a
hug?”

The
flames of the candles next to her are flickering softly, lighting up one side
of her face. She’s so soft and beautiful, like her skin is glowing. She’s
looking up at me, waiting for me to say something, but I can’t think of
anything other than that I want to touch her. So I reach over and take her
hand, pulling her to me hard so that her cheek hits my chest, then I wrap my
arms around her quickly before she has a chance to pull away. Her hands reach up
around my waist and come to rest in the middle of my back. We both let out a
deep breath.

“That’s
better,” she murmurs into my chest. “Mmmmm you’re so warm.” She rubs her cheek
against my t-shirt and squirms to get closer. I’m wondering how long this
friendship thing between us has to last because it’s only been a couple of days,
and I think I’m done.

Over
her head, I can see Jake and Eleanor talking by the cash register. He looks at
me and gives me a look. I think he’s trying to tell me that he’s happy I’m
moving on, but I don’t want to see that from him. I don’t want Jake to have any
part in whatever this thing is with Hartley because that means she will be part
of it too. I can’t look at Jake without thinking of her, and that night, and
everything that happened because of it.

“I
think we’re stuck here for a bit, kid,” I whisper into her hair.
 
I feel her sigh into my chest. Her breath seeps
through my t-shirt, sending shivers over my skin. “Want to make a fort?”

She
pulls away from me and looks up, laughing.

“Did
you just say you wanted to make a fort? As in a cubby house?”

“Why
not?” I shrug as I unfold my arms from around her back and take her hand. She
doesn’t pull it away. “I used to do it when I was a kid when the power went
out. Come on, it will take your mind off it. There’s some old blankets in the
store room.”

I
pull her behind me across the shop, behind the counter and into the storeroom.
It’s even darker in here, and I forgot to bring a candle with me.

“Here
you go,” Hartley says as the room suddenly goes bright. She’s holding her phone
up in the air and even in the dim light I can see that she’s got about a
million unheard voicemails on that thing.

“Thanks.”

I
quickly grab a couple of blankets, a few chocolate bars and a bottle of water
then we head back out into the shop. Jake and Eleanor have moved to the booth
seats on the other side of The Sea Shack. They’ve set up some candles so they
can do a crossword in an old newspaper they’ve found somewhere. Even from here
I can see that Jake’s as into her as she’s into him.

“We
should build it here,” Hartley says as she leads me around the corner to the
part of The Sea Shack that’s only open in summer for take away ice creams. In
the winter they keep extra chairs and tables stacked up here, and it’s
completely hidden from view. I try not to get my hopes up that Hartley picked
this spot on purpose because we could be doing just about anything around here,
and no one would see.

“So
how do we do this?”

She’s
looking at the piles of chairs, then down at the blankets in my arms.

“Haven’t
you ever built a fort before?”

“Nope,”
she smiles. “I kind of missed fort building and went straight to you know,
building robots.”

I
look into her eyes to see if she’s serious. She is.

“Well
smarty pants, tonight you are about to have your first lesson in fort
construction. And no,” I add when I see the look on her face, “you can’t take
notes.”

She
pouts a bit, playing along, then meets my eyes.

“So
you’d be my teacher? And I’d be your student?”

God,
she’s killing me. “That’s right,” I manage.

She
smiles mischievously then looks over her shoulder at the dark little corner
where we’ll build our fort.

“Well
let’s get started then.”

Twenty
minutes, two chocolate bars and one small argument later and we are sitting
side by side on an inflatable beach mattress in a little house made of blankets
and chairs. I play with my phone for a bit then place it down in front of us.
Hartley looks at the image of a fireplace flickering on the screen and laughs.

“Nice
touch.”

I’m
too big for the fort and my knees are up somewhere around my chin, but I don’t
care. I made it small on purpose. Hartley is squashed in next to me and I lift
my arm so that she can move closer. She hesitates for the briefest of moments and
then leans in.

“Do
you want to tell me why you don’t like being locked in?” I say, as I pull her
closer. “Because I was planning on locking you in the trunk of my car later,
and now I’m not so sure that you’ll like it.”

She
laughs softly into my chest then goes quiet.

“It’s
dumb. When I was six I was at this gifted kids summer camp. It was where I met
Eleanor actually. It was really pretentious and ridiculous and more for the
parents than the kids. We just wanted to swim in the lake and climb trees but
they had all of these ‘educational’ activities for us to do, mostly so they
could show the parents how brilliant we all were at the end of the summer.
Anyway, I didn’t want to join in one day, so I ran away to the boatsheds by the
lake. I was planning on using a kayak as a kind of bed to read in, but I fell
asleep. When I woke up, it was dark and the shed was locked. I stayed in there
all night, and there were rats, and well, I’ve never liked the idea of not
being able to get out of somewhere ever since.”

She
tells the story like she’s said it a thousand times, but I can hear the wobble
in her voice when she gets to the end.

“There
are camps for smart kids?”

“Like
you wouldn’t believe.”

We
lean back against the wall and I pull a blanket up over our knees.

“What
about you?” she says, “what’s your irrational fear?”

I
immediately think of all of the cute things I could say to make her laugh –
pink marshmallows, kittens, the way my teeth feel when I bite into a pear. But
then I realize that I just want to tell her the truth.

“That
I’m going to turn into my father.”

She’s
silent for a few seconds and then she sighs deeply and takes my hand.

“You
know what Crew? Lately, I’ve been afraid of the same thing.”

Hartley

My hand is lost inside his. The top of it is
brown from the sun, and his knuckles are covered in long-faded scars. The skin
on his palm feels rough and calloused where it moves against mine. My hands are
pale from too many hours in the lab and soft to the touch from spending the
last few years inside a pair of latex gloves. He draws little circles near my
wrist with his thumb. With my eyes still closed I’m aware of every sound inside
our little house made for two. I can hear the air rush in and out of his lungs
under my cheek, and I listen to see if I can hear his heart. Despite what Eleanor
said, I know who Crew is. I can feel the goodness in him. Like me, he makes
sure any vulnerability in him is carefully stowed away. But he can’t hide it
from me. It shines out of him, like light spilling through a crack in a door.

“Do
you want to tell me why you’re not answering any of those voice messages on
your phone? They came up when you used the light in the storeroom. It looks to
me like someone is pretty desperate to get hold of you.”

I
love the way he leans down and lowers his voice when he speaks to me, like he’s
telling me a secret. I open my eyes and pull my phone out of my pocket. There
are 16 voice messages and 24 texts.

“You
don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says, pulling the blanket
up so that it’s under my chin. I think about that for a second. Do I want to
talk about it? Part of me wants to open my mouth and share everything with him.
But I’m worried that if I start, I won’t be able to stop. I still haven’t
worked out how I feel about what’s going on at Preston Industries. If I tell
the authorities about the water samples, I could save an important ecosystem
and ensure that it survives for future generations. But I’ll lose my family.
And as much as I hate to admit that my father is right, Jefferson wouldn’t
survive without Preston Industries. It would eventually become an abandoned
town with empty houses, deserted streets and schools with rows of desks and
chairs but no children. Have I already made my decision by running away? If I
know what’s going on, and do nothing, doesn’t that make me just as guilty as
David and my dad? I take a deep breath and let it out slowly through my mouth.

“I
can tell you some of it if you promise to take it for what it is and accept
that there are some parts I’m not ready to share yet.” I feel him nod above me.

“How
about this,” he murmurs. “Since I think we violated the five question rule a
long time ago how about we trade information. You tell me something, and I’ll
give you something back.”

“That
sounds fair,” I smile. But I’m wondering if he’s going to give me useless
information like his favorite color or what he eats for breakfast in exchange
for my deepest, darkest secrets. “Maybe you should start then,” I say, just to
be sure.

“Ok,”
he says, and moves back on the mattress. He lifts his arm from around my
shoulders, forcing me to sit up straight next to him and wraps his arms around
his knees. He’s far too tall to sit in the cubby house. The blanket we’ve used
as a roof is draped over his head like he’s playing a shepherd in a school nativity
play. When we built it, I tried to add another layer of chairs to give him more
room but he didn’t want to hear it. He was actually very bossy.

“I
told you about my mom already,” he says quietly. He’s shifting restlessly next
to me, so I place my hand gently on his arm. He goes still and swallows loudly.
“What I didn’t say was that she lives in a hospital in Seattle. She’s had
problems with mental illness her whole life, but a few years ago she had a
breakdown, and she’s been living there ever since.”

“Do
you go and see her much?”

The
words come out croaky and thick, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

“Yes.
But she doesn’t know who I am anymore. I try to visit every month, just in case
the next time I go is the one time she remembers me.”

“You
must miss her.”

“I
miss how she used to be. She was funny and clever. Everyone loved her. The
house was always full of people back then. So,” he says, looking down and raising
an eyebrow when he meets my eyes. “Who’s looking for you? Are you in trouble?
Or some kind of danger?”

He
goes tense when he says the word ‘danger’ and I want to be quick to reassure
him, because I don’t want him to go back to that guy I first met – the one wound
as tight as a spring.

“I’m
not in any danger, Crew,” I whisper. “I ran away.”

He
picks up the hand I’ve left on his arm and threads his fingers through mine.

“From
what?”

“Remember
the problems with my employer that I told you about earlier? My employer was my
dad, and I used to work for the research and development part of the company.
It’s an old family business. A big one, Crew, one that employs thousands of
people.”

“So
is your dad trying to get you to come back to work for him?” he says, and I
think I hear a hint of disappointment in his voice.

“No.
I found out something that makes it impossible for me to keep working there,
and I think my dad just wants to make sure I’m going to keep my mouth shut.”

“Do
your people know where you are? Maybe the messages are because they’re worried,
or because they’re sorry, and they want you to come home.”

I
shake my head sadly, wishing that were true. I pick up my phone and press the
button for the first message then put it on loudspeaker so that Crew can hear.
My dad’s voice suddenly fills the cubby house. His words are clipped and angry;
he speaks like he’s shooting bullets.

“Hartley,
this is your father. I’m getting tired of this little game you’re playing. I
know what you have with you, and I expect you to return it to the lab
immediately. Courier it if you can’t be bothered delivering it yourself. I
don’t care.”

The
line goes dead. Next to me Crew sucks in his breath sharply. I press the next
message and hold the phone up.

“Hartley,
it’s David. I can’t believe you did this. You’re selfish, you realize that
don’t you? Your mother is worried about you, and so is Marta. I’ve put up with
these spontaneous adventures you always want to go on and the impulsive
decisions you make for years now, but you know what? I’m losing patience. You
know how I feel about bad language, Hartley, but frankly, you’re being a bitch.
We have tickets to the hospital benefit on Saturday, and I expect to see you at
the company table at 6 pm sharp, wearing something decent. Oh, and do something
with your hair for once.”

I
turn the phone off, putting it down on the mattress. Next to me, Crew is
silent. He’s breathing heavily, his arms pressing into mine as his chest
expands and deflates.

“Hartley,”
he says finally as he lets go of my hand and reaches over to turn my face to
him. “Please don’t tell me that you’re with that guy.”

I don’t say anything, and he sighs. His eyes
are desperately searching mine for answers.

“You
let him speak to you like that?” he says, his voice suddenly hard and cold.

“He’s
just angry,” I mutter and next to me Crew groans in exasperation.

“You’re
defending him? He called you a bitch, Hartley.”

“David
was hand picked by my parents to be my first real boyfriend. They brought him
over to the house to be my ‘tennis partner’. I don’t play tennis, Crew. He was
good looking and said all of the right things, and I guess I just went along
with it. Our relationship made everyone happy, and it felt like too much of a
fight to change it.”

I
close my mouth and press my lips together to keep myself from saying any more.
I didn’t realize until this moment that I felt that way about David. Was I
really involved in a relationship for four years just to keep my parents happy?

“What
about you?” he says, the warmth returning to his voice. “Did it make
you
happy?”

I
shrug my shoulders and look up into his eyes. “Sometimes. But there was a lot
of unhappiness too.”

He
nods like he understands.

“Can
I ask you something now?” I look across at him, and he raises his eyebrows and
nods. He’s wary.

“At
the beach you said you had to be down in South America for work soon.”

He
sighs and nods his head.

“Look,
I don’t want to seem presumptuous or anything, but I really like you Crew, and
if you’re not going to be back in Twin Heads for months then I think we should
be careful. If we can only be friends, then we need to stick to that. For my
sake, if not yours.” He looks over at me and frowns a little, and I think he’s
deciding whether to tell me the truth or not.

“My
job does mean I have to travel a lot. I can’t really change that. But I do have
some flexibility and unless there’s an emergency I can run things from pretty
much anywhere.”

“Is
your plan still to fly back in a couple of days?”

“Honestly?
I’m not sure what my plans are. I try not to think too far in advance about
anything. But I can tell you that things are going really well with the project,
so it’s not impossible for me to stick around for a while. What about you? Do
you ever think about going home?”

That’s
the one question that I have no trouble answering.

“No.
I moved here for a fresh start. I’m not looking back.”

What
I don’t say is that since I moved to Twin Heads it’s like I can see everything
clearly for the first time in years. It’s as if I was living my life wearing
someone else’s glasses. Things that should have been clear to me were out of
focus, and I missed important warning signs that were right under my nose.

Crew
leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

“That’s
good,” he says quietly, and his shoulders relax. “That means I can do this.” He
opens his eyes and turns his body to face me. The beat of my heart doubles its
pace in a split second. He places his big hands on either side of my face and
brushes a curl away from my eye with his finger.

“I’ve
been wanting to kiss you again all night,” he murmurs and looks down at my
mouth. “You and I can never be just friends.”

I
shake my head inside his hands. I know it as well as he does. There’s something
between us that I’ve never felt before, something that for once I can’t explain
away or look up in a book. It feels like magic. He leans in and sighs a little
when his lips finally press against mine. He tastes of salt and wind and sea.
He kisses me slowly, as if there’s no rush because we both know that there will
be many more kisses to come. I reach my hands around his shoulders and thread
my fingers through the dark hair at the nape of his neck, and he takes his
hands from my face and wraps them around my back. Out there somewhere I’m
vaguely aware of the sound of Eleanor talking urgently to Jake about something,
but I can’t focus on anything other than the feeling of Crew’s mouth against
mine. All I want to do is lean back on the mattress under us and pull him with
me. But then something Jake says makes Crew jump a little, and he starts to pull
away. Eleanor’s voice is loud and clear now; she’s calling for me to get out. She
sounds worried and a little pissed off. I look around our little house made for
two and realize that it’s lit up inside like a lantern. Sometime in the middle
of our kiss the power came back on. And we didn’t even notice.