Still Waters (4 page)

“Grab a seat.” Colin nudged her toward the rickety vintage tables against one wall. “I’ll get the stuff.”

“Caramel doughnut and mint tea!” Hannah called as she perched on a leather-topped metal chair. Pushing aside someone else’s
New York Times
, she propped her head on her fist and watched Colin navigate his way to the front of the crowd. She thought of how awkward they were when they’d first started coming here, sitting in the big armchairs in the corner, trying to think of things to say as they turned the white mugs around and around in their hands. Eating éclairs and trying to keep the chocolate off her teeth. How she couldn’t believe that she,
Hannah
, was actually sitting with a guy—and not a nerdy guy either, but blond-god Colin.

She smiled at Colin as he returned, balancing two plates and a tea mug. “Can you believe we’ve been together almost a year?” she asked as he sat down opposite her. She blew on her tea, the grassy mint fragrance bathing her face.

Colin bit off half a glazed doughnut. “No.” His cheeks were distended as he chewed. “It’s weird to think about it like that.”

“There’ll be tons of cute, arty chicks at Pratt. They’re probably all photographers too.” Hannah eyed him and nibbled the sticky top of her caramel doughnut. Joni Mitchell started up on the music system overhead.

“So?” He shoved the rest of the doughnut in his mouth and spoke with difficulty. “I don’t want a cute, arty chick. I want you.”

“Nerd-queen and boy-god. Least likely couple.” She sipped her tea.

“We weren’t ‘least likely.’ That was Tabitha and Jon.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, missing a sprinkling of doughnut sugar.

Hannah leaned over and brushed her fingers over his cheek. “You know what I mean. You’re the first guy who treated me like I was visible at all.”

“Han, I could see you right away. The minute I met you.” He squeezed her hand back and stood up, pointing at her barely-touched doughnut. “You want me to get you a bag? We should go. You’ll be late and then Laurie will have a heart attack and you won’t have a summer job anymore.”

Hannah slid her arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder as they walked back to the car. Colin started the engine and pulled back onto the boulevard.

“Okay, so it’s up Vine Street, right?” He peered through the windshield at the street signs.

“Yeah, Bethesda North. Past Montgomery, then left on Poage Farm Road,” she told him.

They drove for a moment in silence. Then Colin took a deep breath. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night,” he said abruptly.

“What?”

He threw her a glance. “You know, about the whole, um, discussion in the den. It was just that after graduation, you said
you just needed more time. So I thought maybe it had been long enough.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. She clung tightly to his. “I’m sorry I was so intense.”

“Thanks.” She bit her lip as guilt started to weigh her down again. He was being so sweet, so open and honest, and she was the one hiding something. She stared down at their intertwined hands. His long fingers, the nails neatly filed against her gnawed ones. “Colin?”

“What?” He was trying to negotiate a busy left turn.

She fidgeted in the seat, pressing the window button up and down. “Do you think … there’s ever a good reason to do something, um, wrong?” She choked a little on the last word.

He threw her a quizzical look. “I don’t know. You mean like questioning authority?”

“Sort of.” A little knot of tension started at the back of her neck as she thought of this morning. She’d actually forgotten it for a few minutes while they were at Frida’s. “Like if you knew that doing something wrong would actually turn out right in the end.”

Colin shrugged and turned into the hospital parking lot. “Sure, I guess that would be okay.” He faced her. “Hannah, is there something you want to tell me?” he asked seriously.

She stared at him, frozen, before she saw the playful smile twisting his mouth. He poked her in the thigh and laughed. “Got you! You looked so guilty just then. What have you been doing, stealing cars again?”

Hannah giggled in spite of herself, his easy voice steadying
her like always. “You’re hilarious. David was just asking me about … civil rights this morning. That’s all.” She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and leaned across the seat to peck him on the cheek. “Thanks for the ride.”

She watched as the black truck roared out of the parking lot, and then turned toward the gleaming glass and metal hospital entrance. The automatic doors opened and closed constantly as a steady stream of doctors in scrubs, visitors bearing gifts, and patients in wheelchairs flowed in and out. Hannah turned right, skirting an elderly man manipulating a walker up the curb. Instead of going into the spacious, gleaming lobby, she followed the perimeter of the building to the back as her friend Laurie had instructed her. Hannah consulted a piece of paper in her hand and then squinted across the parking lot at several squat concrete buildings crouched next to a fence.

Laurie’s rickety Corolla was parked in front of a partly chocked open door. As Hannah crossed over to it, her friend emerged from the doorway, hair in a business-like ponytail, holding a big box. “It’s ten sixteen,” she called before setting the box on the ground. “I wanted to start right at ten.”

“Hi to you too.” Hannah gave her friend a hug. “Relax, would you? Aren’t we working by ourselves?” Laurie was the only person Hannah knew who was more uptight than herself. She followed her friend into the building. It was a little dark room, with one small window covered in wire mesh. The place was filled with boxes stacked almost to the ceiling. Hannah gazed at the scene, her hands on her hips. “This is what we’re doing?” she said.

Laurie’s father owned a business-relocation service, and Laurie worked for him in the summer. Companies would hire them when they were moving offices, and they’d make sure all their stuff got out of the old place and into the new place safely. Hannah had agreed immediately when Laurie’s dad had offered her a summer job. Mom was counting on her to make some extra cash. But now she wondered if she should have thought it through a bit more.

“Yeah,” Laurie answered, surveying the mess with a practiced eye. She’d been working for her dad since she was old enough to walk. “The hospital hasn’t used these buildings for years. They’re going to raze them, but we have to get all of this stuff from here to there.” She pointed to an identical room next door.

“What?” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “Why are we moving this stuff twenty feet to exactly the same room?”

Laurie shrugged. “That’s just what the guy said.” She seemed unfazed.

Hannah felt her shoulders sag as she stared at the dirty little room. The days of summer seemed to stretch out in front of her like miles on a flat asphalt road. She bent down and grasped a box at her feet.

For a long time, she and Laurie lifted, carried, and stacked in silence. Hannah’s forearms and chest quickly became powdered with moldy black dust. Her leg muscles burned from the unaccustomed exertion. The thought of the photo sitting under her mattress itched like a maddening tickle. She hoisted another box and imagined the sound of the lake lapping at the shore. Laurie
worked like an automaton beside her, and Hannah could sense she didn’t want talking to slow them down.

Finally the last box was transferred, and the little room was empty except for a coating of the black dust everywhere. Now the other room looked just like the first. Hannah pulled her Nalgene from her bag and stepped outside. The dry brown grass next to the parking lot looked like an oasis. She sank down cross-legged, took a long swig of water, and then offered it to Laurie, who sat down beside her.

Laurie emptied half the bottle in one gulp. “It’s hot in there,” she said, wiping her forehead with the hem of her T-shirt.

Hannah snorted. “That’s a slight understatement.” She leaned back, resting her hands on the prickly grass and squinting against the glare of the sunshine. “So, what’s the next job?”

Laurie wrinkled her forehead, thinking. “Oh, it’s a big one. Saturday. Moving the chemistry library at the university to their new building. We’ll have some guys to help us with that one.”

Hannah nodded. She pictured an endless linoleum hallway, lined front to back with taped-up boxes. “Laurie, do you ever want to escape somewhere?” The words popped out of her mouth as if someone else were speaking.

Laurie blinked. “Well, yeah, I guess,” she said slowly. She indicated the little building behind them. “But obviously, I can’t. I have to work. My dad’s counting on me.”

Hannah slowly screwed the top on the water bottle and balanced it between her feet. “But can’t you just tell him you don’t want to for awhile?”

“Sure.” Laurie barked a laugh. “And then he’d disown me, but that’s no problem. Look, Han, there’s no use living in fantasyland. You can’t just leave.” She leveled her friend with a keen stare. “Is this about Colin?”

Hannah tried to ignore the flush that rose automatically up her neck. “Why?” She raked the grass with her fingers nonchalantly.

“Oh, no reason.” Laurie lay down flat and crooked her arm over her eyes. “It’s just that this girl I know has this boyfriend who’s leaving for New York in, oh I don’t know, a few days, and they’ve been having this issue with these three little, teeny words, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, she starts talking about escaping, so no—no reason at all.”

“Laurie, listen.” Hannah’s hands tightened convulsively on the grass next to her. A sense of urgency swept over her. “I just want to get away with him, escape, before he goes off to Pratt next week. It’ll be like the big finale of our year together. And maybe I can say it then.”

Laurie sighed and sat up. “You know, you’d have a much easier time if you just
lied
about it, Han,” she said dryly. “You could just say it even if it’s not one hundred percent true. What if it’s eighty percent true? Would that be okay?”

Hannah shook her head emphatically. “No. This is huge! I have to be completely sure the first time I say it.”

Laurie smiled at her friend, the habitually tight lines in her face relaxing. “You’re so earnest. But you’re right—it’s important. You should mean it completely.” She climbed to her feet, dusting
off her rear with both hands. “Come on. There’s a second room to move.”

Hannah followed slowly. A fly dive-bombed her ear, and she swatted at it impatiently. “You
can
just leave, you know,” she said, but too quietly for Laurie to hear.

When Hannah came downstairs the next morning, Mom was hunched over the kitchen table. A mug of coffee sat in front of her, along with the remains of a piece of toast. She glanced at the kitchen clock. “Isn’t six a little early for you, Han?” she asked. She was already wearing her bright purple bookstore shirt. Her thin brown hair, streaked with gray, was drawn into a ponytail and faint webs of wrinkles fanned out around her faded blue eyes.

Hannah perched at the edge of a chair. Today was the day. She had the escape plan firmly in her mind. Mom was the most important hurdle. If she could just get her to agree to the trip, she could leave with Colin when he picked her up for work this morning. Except they wouldn’t be going to work. They’d be going away. Hannah’s her stomach gave a little jump at the thought.

“You want a piece of toast, honey?” Mom asked.

Hannah shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

“Okay.” Mom was focusing on a note in front of her. “Listen,
I need you to go to the store today, okay? I’m making you a list. Just get some lunch things …” She scribbled with a chewed Bic.

Hannah clasped her hands on the table in front of her. “Mom, something’s come up.”

“Hmm?” Now her mother was rummaging through her worn leather handbag. “I think I have a coupon here for yogurt.”

“Mom.” Hannah raised her voice a little. “Listen. Stop with the list. Laurie wants me to do an out-of-town job with her. Starting this afternoon. It’s a last minute thing.” She choked a little on the lie but managed to get it out.

“What?” Mom looked up, her face creased. “An out-of-town job? Hannah, you can’t. I need you here. There’s David, and the house. They scheduled me for double shifts through the weekend.” She shook her head and continued her search for the coupon. “Tell Laurie’s dad you can’t, okay? I don’t know what he’s thinking, that you could just leave like that…. Ah!” She held up a wrinkled scrap of paper. “Found it.”

The beep of a car horn sounded outside. Mom jumped up. “That’s the carpool. Listen, make sure David has something green with his dinner, okay?” She pushed back her chair and picked up her bag.

“Mom,” Hannah said desperately. “He’s going to pay me triple time.” She resisted the urge to clutch at her mother’s sleeve. “Mrs. Robinson can watch David while you’re at work. She owes us for dog sitting anyway. And it’s just for a couple of days.” She gripped the edge of the table, feeling the scratchy sawdust underside on her fingertips.

Mom paused. “Triple time? That’s very generous of him.”

“Yeah.” Hannah nodded her head like a marionette. “And travel expenses, too. Think of how the extra money would come in handy. And I’ll have my cell the whole time.” She could feel the lies piling up, like a big bundle she had to carry, but she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out.

Another beep outside, this one longer. Mom looked at the clock. “Oh God, I’m really late.” She slung her purse over her shoulder. “Look, Han, let’s talk about it tonight when I get home, okay?”

“Mom! He wants to leave this afternoon.” Hannah clasped her hands in front of her chest. “I’ll get David to Mrs. Robinson’s as soon as he wakes up. She’s right next door. He can get the camp bus from there.” A frantic feeling welled up in her chest. Mom had to agree. She had to. Hannah would run away if she didn’t. She’d just leave—take off. She followed her mother into the front hall. “Please!”

Mom had her hand on the doorknob. “All right. All right!” she said. “But I don’t like the idea of you careening around God knows where. Write down where you’ll be and Laurie’s dad’s cell, too.” Hannah flew forward and pecked Mom on her thin cheek.