Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (9 page)

“But I don't have to go.”

“Try,” Thea said.

Irina dragged herself in the direction of the small unisex bathroom. Thea's heart ached for her daughter. What kind of family didn't see each other? And what kind of parents could communicate the duties of parenthood only through a messenger like Garret? If Jonathan didn't get in touch with her, personally, soon, she would get in touch with him.

She glanced at Garret, the blue of his eyes so sharp and disarming. She crossed her arms. “So, are you really going mini golfing?”

“We are now.” He flipped open his phone, stared at the screen. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Oh. I just remembered. I have something for Sue—” Thea hurried over to the locker and retrieved a silver pen from her bag. When she returned to the front of the counter, Garret wasn't on the phone. He was watching, waiting for her.

“What's this?” he asked, taking the pen and turning it in his hand.

“Sue left it when we had lunch the other day. If you could give it to her when you see her, that would be great.”

He scoffed. “You had lunch with my mother.”

“We always do.”

He shook his head. “Not anymore, you don't.”

“Jonathan knows about it,” she said. “He's fine with it.”

“Jonathan doesn't know what's good for him right now.”

“And you do?”

“Thea—you're not a part of this family. Jonathan left you. You're not attached to us anymore.”

Thea felt her eyes burn. “It's not that easy.”

“What's not easy about it?” he asked. “Jonathan needs his mother right now. His family. You owe it to him to steer clear.”

She stared at him, and for the first time, it occurred to her that she had no idea who he was anymore. Though she hadn't seen him in ages, she'd assumed that the deep fundamentals of his being would still be recognizable. She thought she might still know him and understand him if only because of how close she'd been to him years ago. But now she saw that maybe she'd been wrong—that he'd changed so much that he was no longer the same person in any way. When she looked at him now—the strong bones of his face, the familiar shape of his hands and fingernails, the unaltered blue of his eyes—she was no longer looking at the boy she'd once loved.

“Are you really such a monster?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment. She thought his voice would be mean, cruel, when he spoke again. But it was not. “Are you?”

Irina came back from the bathroom, dragging her feet, and Thea put on a cheerful smile. “Did you go?”

She nodded.

Thea bent down and tucked a strand of her daughter's pale brown hair behind her ear where it had fallen out of her ponytail. “You're going to have a great time.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked the coffee grounds in my cup this morning.”

“Really!” Her eyes brightened. “What did they say?”

“They said you're going to get a hole in one.”

“Told you so,” she said, glancing at Garret.

He laughed—a real, unpracticed, and not at all sarcastic laugh. His face seemed ten years younger. It tugged at Thea's heart.

Irina kissed her on the cheek. “Love you!”

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

When she stood, she saw that Garret was watching her. Staring. The anger had melted from his expression, replaced by something quieter, more forlorn than mad. She wondered what he saw, what he was thinking. She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and hold him—to clasp all that anger and sorrow that she saw in him and heal it, somehow.

But all she could think to say was, “You'll bring her back this evening?”

“At eight,” he said. He looked down at Irina, who was now holding his hand. “Ready, kid?”

Irina smiled, enchanted by her uncle. Like mother, like daughter. There was no hope for either of them. “Have fun,” Thea said. She watched them walk out the door—her daughter and the man who might have been her husband, if life had taken a slightly different turn all those years ago.

 

 

Thea was on the Harvest Dance decorating team during the fall of their junior year, but much as she loved school dances, she didn't think she would attend. She'd had to play her cards close to her chest:
Of course I'm going,
she told her friends.
I don't need to have a date to go.

But the truth was, she'd been hoping that Garret would ask her. And when she'd heard he'd asked Carin Woodhouse instead, she knew she wouldn't be able to stand watching the two of them slow dancing under the basketball hoops, which had been decorated with a garland of paper pumpkins that she had made.

The night of the dance, Thea bailed without telling her girlfriends. She and Jonathan rented a handful of prom slasher movies, and they curled up under blankets on opposite ends of Sue's couch. Thea had spent the afternoon making chocolate-covered espresso beans with her mother—the caffeine and chocolate combo was her mother's prescription for Thea's bad mood—and she and Jonathan sat crunching beans between their teeth and laughing at campy murder scenes until at last Garret came home.

He was wearing nice clothes—grown-up clothes—and unlike other boys his age, he wore them well. To Thea, he looked like a prince—or some dignitary from a different time, come to visit their century. He took off his jacket and hung it behind the door.

“Hey!” Garret leaned on the arm of the couch, glancing at the Farrah Fawcett haircuts and polyester gym shorts on the TV screen. “Is this
Carrie
?”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said coolly.

“Why didn't you guys tell me you were watching movies tonight?”

Jonathan glanced at Thea. Her heart went fluttery in her chest, and she found herself going quiet—as she so often did when Garret was around these days.

“It was a last-minute thing,” Jonathan said. “Sit down if you want to sit down.”

Garret did. He plopped on an overstuffed armchair and began to take off his shoes. Thea was rapt by the muscles moving under his shirt, the way his gold hair flopped forward as he leaned down. When he looked up, his eyes found hers immediately, as if he knew she'd been watching.

“I thought you were going,” Garret said to her. “Everyone was asking me where you went. Are you sick or something?”

She shrugged. “I'm okay.”

Jonathan threw a handful of popcorn at him and told him to shut up and watch TV. Now that Garret was with them, the atmosphere had changed. Jonathan clammed up around his brother these days—he was a totally different person. It wasn't long before he excused himself and went to bed.

Later, when the movie had ended, and Thea was getting her jacket on to go home, she knew the subject of the dance was about to come up again. Garret had never been one to give up easily; she would have been disappointed if he was.

“You did such an amazing job on the gym,” he said. The light from a black-and-white movie flickered in the otherwise dark room, and the house was so quiet Thea worried he might hear the beat of her heart—too fast for explanation. “All those little white lights. And the hay bales and cornstalks. It must have taken you forever.”

“It did,” she said. “Thanks.”

“That's why I don't understand why you didn't go,” he said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I get why Jonathan didn't. He just doesn't ‘do' dances. But you . . . You didn't really want to sit around and watch TV all night, did you?”

She focused on the buttons of her windbreaker as she snapped them closed.
Oh please let him not know,
she thought.
Oh please let me not do something stupid.

“Is it because you didn't have a date?” he asked.

Kill me,
she thought. “No. It's because I wanted to stay here. Keep Jonathan company. I didn't want him to be alone.”

Garret nodded, but she could tell he didn't quite believe her. “Well. It would have been more fun if you were there.”

She felt her face flushing and she could barely speak. “Did you have a good time?”

“It was okay,” he said.

She wondered what that meant—if he wasn't in love with Carin Woodhouse after all. She picked up her backpack and pulled it onto her shoulders. “Are you going out with her?”

“No.” He looked down at her face as if he was looking for something. She hoped that whatever it was, he found it. “Maybe next time I'll skip the dance to stay in with you and Jonathan.”

She smiled, warmth blooming within. “You'll always be welcome,” she said.

Every year on the Fourth of July, the Sorensens took Ken and Sue's sailboat out into the Narragansett to watch the fireworks. And every year, Thea had looked forward to it—to packing a picnic basket with grapes, crackers, hard white cheese, juice boxes, and wine. She loved the moment just before the fireworks went off, when the water that cradled the boat's hull turned black as coffee under the night sky.

But this year, Thea had not been invited along.

Now, the fireworks having ended an hour ago, she stood waiting at the marina, her forearms resting on a cool metal railing as she watched the boats and dinghies coming in one by one. They were late to get back, but Thea wasn't angry. Though she hadn't been with her family tonight, she had nothing but good wishes for them.

When at last she heard the familiar sound of her daughter's laughter, faintly echoing across the water, her skin began to prickle. The sailboat came to the dock with excruciating slowness—inch by leisurely inch. Irina was bouncing on her tiptoes and waving toward the shore, a green glow stick making wild arcs in the darkness, and Thea waved back. Garret and Jonathan were busy getting ready to secure the boat, and Sue was packing things into a big canvas tote while Ken stood at the wheel.

“Mom! Mom!” Irina leapt onto the dock, barely waiting for the boat to stop. Her flip-flops pounded the wooden boards as she ran and hugged Thea tight round the waist. “Did you watch them? Did you see that one that looked like an American flag?”

Thea pushed her daughter's wind-ruffled hair back from her face. “I saw it! It was awesome!”

“Dad says the blue ones are the most expensive.” She glanced over her shoulder, to where her father and Garret were securing the boat. “You know, Dad's right there. You can go say hi. . .”