Undercurrent (3 page)

I offered Maureen a small smile as she released me. “We should go. But thanks. It was good to see you.”

By the time we reached the tall iron arch marking Hawthorne Prep’s entrance, we’d collected a dozen similar greetings like they were sympathy cards. Apparently, my classmates were very concerned about whether I was okay and if I needed anything. A few even gasped when they saw me, as if I was the one who’d died and was returning to haunt some of Boston’s most privileged teens.

“You’re so popular,” Paige said as we stopped just outside the gate. “I mean, I’m not surprised—
I
know how great you are. But you just never talked about your other friends.”

“These girls aren’t my friends. They’re rumor-mill cogs. I’m the grease.”

“Actually,” she said, “I wasn’t talking about the girls.”

I looked at her. Her eyes shifted to a group of kids standing a few feet down the sidewalk, to another across the street, and to another in the school’s front courtyard. In each group the girls watched me until they realized I saw them, and then they gave me quick, apologetic smiles and turned away.

But the guys, many of whom were the girls’ boyfriends, watched me, their eyes wide and lips parted, like their girl-friends weren’t standing right next to them. Like they didn’t even have girlfriends.

Like I was the only girl who existed.

My feet started moving backward. I’d thought that going to school would be the best distraction I was going to get, and that it was one I was ready for… but maybe it was too soon. I suddenly wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and pull the blankets over my head until it was easier. Until people could look at me not like I was the side effect of some terrible disease, but like I was just a normal girl living a normal life.

“Vanessa?”

I stopped. Paige stood several feet away, where I’d left her. The bell must have rung during my retreat, because kids were filtering slowly through the iron arch—and Paige looked up at the imposing brick building like it was a prison filled with murderers instead of a school filled with teachers.

“I can’t do this,” she said when I stood next to her again. “I thought I could. I thought that if I came here, if I started over in a completely new place… that it would be easier to… that maybe I could forget…”

“Paige.” I took her hand and turned her toward me. “You won’t forget. It doesn’t matter where you are or how much time passes.” I took a deep breath, emboldened by my own words. “But you’ll go into that building. You’ll go to class, meet new people, and get from one day to the next. So will I.”

She gave me a small smile. “And here I thought you were afraid of your own shadow.”

I
was
afraid of my own shadow—probably now more than ever. I was also afraid of the dark, of flying, and of scary movies. But right then, I was most afraid of not doing everything I could to help my friend, who felt more like a sister every day we spent together.

I hooked one arm through Paige’s and led her under the iron arch. I walked her to the main office, stayed with her as she filled out the paperwork, showed her where her locker was, and took her to homeroom. And as I ran to my own locker on the other side of the building, I felt calmer and more confident than I ever had on a first day of school.

Which was why the next time I was asked if I was okay, I answered honestly.

“No,” I said, not bothering to see who’d posed the question on the other side of my open locker door. “Last year, people couldn’t put a face to my name without consulting the Hawthorne yearbook first. This year, they’re staring and whispering and feigning concern like their Ivy League admissions depend on it. Yes, my sister died. But no, that doesn’t make you and me friends.”

I swung my locker door; it closed with a clang.

“Your sister died?”

My mouth fell open. Nothing came out.

“I’m so sorry. Really. I had no idea.”

Parker King stood before me, looking like a preppy Ralph Lauren ad and smelling like one, too.

Parker King had never stood before me. He’d never talked to me. He’d probably never even seen me; when he wasn’t warding off water polo players in the school pool, he was surrounded by herds of pretty girls clamoring for his attention. Yet here he was, asking if I was okay and sounding sincere.

I believed Parker when he said he didn’t know about Justine. This should have been comforting, since it meant he wasn’t making conversation in false sympathy.

But it also meant he was making conversation for another reason. And that one was much, much worse.

F
IVE LONG DAYS
later, Paige and I sat in Ladd Library at Bates, waiting for Simon.

“How many books did your tour guide say this so-called Mecca of learning had?” she whispered, dropping into the arm-chair next to mine.

“Six hundred thousand,” I whispered back.

“All those books, and only two itty-bitty volumes about sirens.”

A sharp, sudden pain pierced my chest. I hadn’t told Paige about the change I’d undergone last summer—which was the same one she would have experienced had her mother and sister had their way—and the unexpected reference hit too close to home.

“I thought you were looking for the secret trashy novel collection,” I said.

“Voilà.” She held up one of the books.

“The Siren’s Call: When She Rings, Should You Answer?”
I frowned at the voluptuous mermaid hugging a man’s headless torso on the cover.

“It might be more entertaining than this.” She held up the second book, which had a plain brown cover and no jacket.

“The Odyssey?”

“Total yawn, I know, but I’ve never read it. My last school wasn’t so keen on the classics. Or maybe it used to be, before certain books were banned by a certain overbearing community member.”

I studied her expression as she flipped through the pages. There was only one overbearing community member she could be referring to: Raina Marchand. But Paige hadn’t talked about her mother—or Zara, her sister, or Jonathan, her boyfriend—in months. Not when she was in the hospital, recovering from losing the baby her body hadn’t been equipped to carry. Or when she was released and resting at home. Or even when I’d invited her to spend the school year in Boston. That didn’t mean she never thought about them; her face went blank and her eyes grew teary often enough to know that she probably thought about them more than she didn’t. But this was the closest she’d come to mentioning any of them out loud, and since she did so casually, I was more concerned than I’d be if she broke down into tears right there in the library.

“Paige… are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m going to have to find out more eventually. Why not now?”

Before I could answer, Simon came around from behind the chair and sat on the coffee table in front of us.

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry I’m late. Once my orgo professor gets going, it’s hard for him to stop.”

“Orgo?” Paige asked.

“Organic chemistry.” He smiled. “It’s good to see you, Paige. I’m glad you came.”

“I tried not to, I swear.” She raised one hand, as if under oath. “But Vanessa said that if I didn’t come, she wouldn’t either, and that simply wasn’t an option.”

Simon turned his smile to me, and the pain in my chest was instantly replaced with warmth. If we weren’t in such a public place, I would’ve launched into his lap and thrown my arms around him.

“Seventy-one.”

I looked up, surprised to see another guy standing behind Simon. He was tall with curly blond hair that was brushed out into a soft frizz. He wore baggy jeans and a Bates crew team T-shirt and held a laptop open in front of him.

“It’s seventy-one degrees and only two o’clock. If we leave now, we’ll have plenty of time.”

“For what?” Paige asked.

The guy peered over the top of his computer screen. I held my breath and braced for the look I’d been trying to avoid at school all week, but he didn’t even seem to notice me. As soon as his eyes found Paige’s face, they stayed there, trans-fixed.

“The beach,” Simon said. “Riley, my Southern California-born-and-bred roommate, was just saying that we should take advantage of the nice weather and head off campus for a while.”

“I’m Riley,” Riley said to Paige, apparently missing Simon’s introduction. “And you’re… ?”

“Paige,” she said as her cheeks shone pink. “Vanessa’s friend.”

Riley shifted his laptop so it rested on his left arm and reached out with his right hand. “The famous Vanessa. It’s great to finally meet you. You’ll be happy to know that whenever Simon’s feeling lovesick—which is pretty much every second of every day that he doesn’t see you—I do my best to help those seconds pass as fast as possible.”

“We watch a lot of movies,” Simon said.

I smiled and shook Riley’s hand. “Thanks. It’s great to finally meet you, too.”

“So how about it? A little fun in the sun? A quick dip in the ocean? Before the brutal assault that you Right Coasters call winter takes over?”

“Aren’t we pretty far from the beach?” I asked.

“Forty minutes,” Simon said.

“Thirty,” Riley said. “I’ll drive.”

Simon looked at me. Behind his glasses, his brown eyes were concerned. I knew he was thinking of the last time I’d gone swimming in Winter Harbor. I almost didn’t make it out of the water then; the fact that I did was still an inexplicable miracle to him, because he didn’t know the whole truth.

But he would during this visit. As soon as the moment was right, I’d tell him everything. That was one of the reasons I’d insisted that Paige come to Bates this weekend. I didn’t want to leave her alone in Boston, but I also wanted her with me after I did what I had to do. I wasn’t sure how Simon would react, but I was certain there was no way we could still be a couple once he knew the real reason we were together in the first place. And after we broke up, I’d need Paige’s distracting chatter more than ever.

But maybe going to the ocean first was a good idea. I hadn’t been swimming since that night three months ago. I’d taken countless showers and baths, but water from a faucet, no matter how much table salt I added, never made me feel the way natural salt water did. Swimming now might relax me enough to get through what was bound to be the hardest conversation I’d ever had.

“A quick dip sounds good to me,” I said.

Twenty minutes later, we were in Riley’s Jeep Cherokee, heading for the coast. Paige had claimed shotgun—presumably so Simon and I could sit together in the backseat—and was quizzing Riley about California.

“Get out,” she said. “You have palm trees in your front yard?”

“And orange trees. You haven’t had OJ until you’ve had it freshly squeezed from Haverford’s homegrown orchard.”

“You’ve obviously never been to Betty’s Chowder House.”

“Nope. Please enlighten me.”

Paige paused. I tried to catch her eye in the side-view mirror, but before I could decide whether she needed me to interject, she ignored his question and asked if San Diego was really sunny 350 days of the year. Riley, clearly already smitten, was happy to play along.

“She seems okay,” Simon said near my ear. He had one arm around my shoulders, and his face was so close to mine I could feel the warmth of his breath. “Much better than I thought she’d be.”

“Paige isn’t one to crawl up in a ball and cry. I think she’s determined to move forward.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” he said, pressing his lips to my temple.

I knew I shouldn’t, but I leaned against him. He slid down the seat until his back was against the window, and I followed until my back was against his chest and my legs were out-stretched. He put his arms around me and lowered his chin to my shoulder, and we stayed that way, not speaking.

As we drove, I couldn’t help but think about how this outing resembled another one Simon and I had taken not long ago. Although then we were in Simon’s old Subaru with us in the front seat and Justine and Caleb, Simon’s younger brother and Justine’s secret boyfriend, in the back. That was how our tight-knit foursome had always traveled—to Eddie’s Ice Cream, mini-golf, Chione Cliffs—once Simon got his driver’s license. Until the day we didn’t anymore.

“Oh, man. Check out those waves.”

Beneath me, Simon tensed. I moved so he could sit up, and we both scooted forward and peered between the front seats and through the windshield. Simon watched the dark blue Atlantic roll onto a deserted stretch of sand several times before releasing his breath.

“They’re big… but not unusually so.”

“Still wish I’d brought my board.” If Riley heard the relief in Simon’s voice, he didn’t let on. He hopped out of the Jeep and ran around the front of the car.

“Don’t worry about me,” Paige said over her shoulder as Riley grabbed the passenger’s-side door handle. “You just worry about each other.”

We did as we were told. While Paige and Riley headed toward the water, Simon and I walked down the beach. Reaching a long jetty about a half mile down, he helped me up and across the rocks.

He’d just jumped to the sand on the other side and held out both hands to assist me down when I froze.

Raina and Zara Marchand. They were about twenty feet away, wearing long skirts and sweaters, walking with their backs to us. As I watched, heart hammering and palms sweating, Zara started to turn around.

My eyes widened. I tried to say Simon’s name but couldn’t.

“Vanessa?”

I leaped back when fingers wrapped around my ankle.

“You okay?” Simon asked.

I looked from my ankle, to his hand resting on the rock’s edge, to the women down the beach. They’d stopped at a wicker basket and were talking and laughing as they packed up remnants of their lunch. I had a clear view of their faces now and saw that they actually looked nothing like Raina and Zara.

“Sorry. I’m fine.” I quickly closed the distance between us and jumped. By the time my feet hit sand, the women had disappeared down a trail leading away from the shore.

“Your very own private beach only a short drive away from campus,” Simon said as we walked. “That’s a pretty good selling point.”

He reached for my hand. I let him pull me close. We stood there, my arms around his waist and head against his chest, his arms around my shoulders and chin on top of my head. It was the safest—and happiest—I’d felt since the last time we were together two weeks ago.

“I talked to Caleb this morning,” he said a few minutes later.

I pulled back enough to look up into his eyes. “How is he?”

“Hanging in there. He’s working a lot at the marina, helping to close up for the season.”

“I’m still surprised he went back. I know he loves Captain Monty… but you’d think he’d be happy to stay on land for a while.”

“I think he feels closer to her when he’s out on the water. Or ice, as the case may be.”

I didn’t say anything. This made some sense—Caleb had been with Justine when she jumped off the cliffs and into the thrashing pool below for the last time—but it still struck me as sad. I’d gotten to know Caleb in a different way when Simon and I had talked to his friends as we searched for him after the accident, and then after we’d found him, when the three of us tried to figure out what was causing a series of drownings in Winter Harbor. He was a good guy—nothing like the lazy slacker my mom had always assumed he was. And it turned out that he’d loved Justine,
really
loved her, and that she’d loved him back. She wouldn’t have wanted him to keep missing her, to become stuck in a past he couldn’t change. She would have wanted him to move on.

It was what I wanted for Simon, too. At least that’s what I told myself.

“He said it’s finally starting to warm up. Yesterday it reached sixty—only a few degrees below normal for this time of year.”

“What about thunderstorms?”

“There hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for weeks.”

I relaxed in his arms and pressed my cheek to his chest. “That’s a relief.”

“There’s something else, though.”

I stared at the rippling horizon, hoped he couldn’t feel my heart accelerate.

“Vanessa?”

“It’s thawing.” It wasn’t a question.

He pulled away and lifted my chin. “It was frozen for three months.”

I nodded.

“Frozen solid, from top to bottom. Whatever was alive is dead now—and has been for a long time.”

I wanted so desperately to believe him, but too many previously unthinkable, scientifically implausible things had happened. The frequent, fleeting storms that had pummeled Winter Harbor—and only Winter Harbor. The tides that had risen and retreated four times an hour. The men who’d washed ashore, looking happier in death than they’d probably ever been in life.

And the women. The women who breathed salt water like oxygen. Who controlled the heavens. Who enchanted men and then dragged them deep below the water’s surface until their lungs exploded, their lives extinguished.

Women like me.

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

I started to protest, but he continued before I could.

“I kept going back and forth. My first instinct was to protect you from knowing and worrying for no reason… but then I couldn’t not tell you. You deserved to know.” He paused to gently brush my hair away from my face. “Not to mention, you… this… I want to do it right. I know it’s not always going to be easy, but no matter how hard it gets, I want us to always be able to talk to each other. About everything. Just like we always have.”

And there it was. The right moment. The perfect moment to tell him what
he
deserved to know.

The waves crashed on shore. My heartbeat drummed in my ears. Simon looked at me, his eyes concerned yet happy, so

happy, as I opened my mouth and started to speak.