Chapter 5
5
Nora
“ Y ou owe me a hundred dollars,” Nick said.
I spat out the last of the vomit in my mouth over the side of the boat and held my hand out for a water bottle. Immediately, one was pushed into my hand. I drank, spit, drank, spit, gargled a little until I couldn’t taste acid anymore, and then took a few cautious sips.
I turned and slid down into the wet cold bottom of the cockpit and waited to see if I would live.
“I’m turning the boat around,” Dad announced from the wheel.
“No! I’m fine. It’s gone now. I can do it.”
“Nor, you didn’t make it twenty minutes without hurling up your guts,” Nick pointed out from where he sat on the bench on the other side of the cockpit. The sun was up over the water, a hazy yellow egg yolk behind streaky pink clouds.
“I can do it!” I shouted. “What’s the big deal? It’s just some puke.”
I pulled myself up and steadied my feet on the deck. The nausea was there, but it wasn’t crushing. Once I started to put my back into the labor of pulling up the traps, I’d be fine.
We hit a wave and my stomach lurched. I burped, but it was vomit free. Probably a good thing I only had coffee that morning.
“Roy, I need you to turn the boat around anyway,” Nick called out. “I gotta get back to the garage. I just wanted to make sure the engine was running smoothly before I left.”
“Got it.”
I wrapped my fingers around the side of the boat in a death grip. Breathing through my nose, I struggled for composure.
“Time costs him money, you know,” I said between clenched teeth. Which is why I would have flung myself over the side of the boat before admitting defeat.
“We’re not that far out yet,” Nick said. “And don’t pretend you’re not grateful. You need me to get you a ginger ale?”
Even though I barely went out anymore, Dad always kept ginger ale stocked in the cooler on board. I’d practically been raised on this boat. How was it possible that I was the only person in my family stricken with seasickness?
My stomach lurched and bubbled and I nodded tightly.
Nick ducked inside the cabin and I did what my dad always told me to do when I first started to get sick – I focused my eyes out to the indigo blue line where the horizon met the sea.
The truth could not be more obvious. I would not be working on my dad’s boat.
So, what the heck was I going to do?
The snap and fizzle of a soda being opened announced Nick’s return. He pushed the ice cold can into my hands and the first thing I did was rub it against my forehead. So cold. Then my neck, each side.
“Yes,” I whispered, shivering in the immediate relief of the shock of cold against my skin. Grateful, I took a sip.
It was crisp and tart and my stomach almost immediately settled down. I moaned and licked my lips.
“Thanks,” I said and glanced up at Nick who had this weird look on his face. “What? Please tell me I don’t have puke on my face.”
He blinked and shook his head like he was startled by something. “No, no puke.”
“I’m not going to be able to work the boat,” I said.
“Nope.”
I took another grateful gulp of the soda. The boat made a wide turn, back to the dock. The bow crashed into our own wake and I moaned in misery. I’d failed again. If I said that, Nick would no doubt tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself. And maybe he’d be right.
“I need a job,” I said.
“You had a job. A whole career. Why don’t you just start doing videos again?”
“So all the trolls can find me and attack?” I shook my head. “No thanks.”
“It’s gotta die down at some point.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not that person anymore,” I said, which was the painful truth. I didn’t know who I was at the moment, but I wasn’t her. Smiling into a camera, so sure of my opinion and taste and charm.
“Okay, why can’t you take all your social media skills and work for a company?” Nick sat down beside me. Our thighs touched and I shifted away so fast Dad glanced over at us and then back out at the water. “Digital marketing is something everyone needs,” Nick said, like he didn’t notice the heat of my body next to him, the way I noticed his.
Just friends. Only friends.
Pretend. Pretend. Pretend.
“There are probably twenty businesses in Calico Cove who’d hire you right now.”
I shook my head, just the thought of it made me feel nervous. Watched. Doomed to fail.
“I need something physical,” I said, stretching my body and drinking more ginger ale. Even feeling sick to my stomach was better than feeling numb – which I’d been feeling for too long. “Something completely different than what I was doing. I really wanted to be a lobster woman.”
Nick threw back his head and laughed.
“What? It’s an honest living!”
“Of course it is. For anybody but you. Nor, you got squeamish the second we stepped on the boat. You apologize to the bait before you attach it to the trap. This is not the job for you.”
“Well, as soon as we dock you need to take me into town, I’m going to find myself a job.”
Nick’s eyes were so sympathetic they bordered on pitying. In fact, the longer I looked at him the worse it got. He touched my shoulder and I shook it off.
“I don’t need your pity, Nick.”
“It’s not pity. You’re too tough for that. Look, you had shit go down in Paris. It doesn’t mean you have to suddenly change your whole life.”
“Actually, it kind of does. I need to re-invent myself. Leave Old Nora behind and embrace New Nora. New Nora gets her hands dirty. New Nora doesn’t take short cuts. New Nora doesn’t rely on things like charm and a nice smile to get ahead. New Nora doesn’t need everyone in the world to like her. New Nora doesn’t give a shit.”
“New Nora sounds badass,” Nick chuckled.
“You laugh now, but you’ll see.”
Dad pulled the boat into his slip and cut the engine. Nick hopped off and reached his hand out for me. It was muscle memory more than anything else that had me wrapping my fingers around his. His grip was strong, steady and what I used to think was the most reliable thing on earth.
Rene always wanted to hold my hand. Like he was almost weird about it. The second we got up from a table, or got out of a car, he was reaching for me. I told myself it was nice. A kind of old-world charm. But now I realized it was performative. And controlling.
It never felt safe. Or secure.
It never felt like Nick.
His hand was warm and big and thick with callouses and old scars. It was the kind of hand that could reach into a fire. Catch a ball without a glove. The kind of hand like my father’s.
A hand that would keep a woman safe.
Stop it, I told myself. This was the danger of being friends with him again, it was like my girlish infatuation was just waiting for me to let down my guard.
I pulled my hand away and he resisted.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. Aware of my dad watching us, he dropped my hand like it was burning.
“Nothing,” he said, rubbing his hand against his jeans like he was trying to wipe something off. “I can take you into town. If that’s what you’re set on,” he said.
I nodded. “I’m getting a job if I have to knock on the door of every business in town.”
“I knocked on the door of every business in town,” I told Mom and Dad later that night. Will and Bethany were already in bed. I was sprawled out on the couch between my parents, who had been watching some Netflix documentary, but were now focused on my drama.
Again.
I sucked.
Also, I was exhausted from both job hunting and having to catch the entire town up with my life.
Every conversation today started the same way. A small wince. A hand squeeze. Are you okay, honey? Did he really take everything? How did you not know?
I loved my hometown. My hometown loved me. I knew their concern was born of genuine interest in my happiness and wellbeing. But having to smile, nod and dodge all those questions had been like walking over coals.
“Every business?” Dad asked. He was not a man for hyperbole.
“Mostly every business,” I admitted. “Petite III was closed. The summer crowd is gone. No one is ready to pick up extra workers until it’s closer to the holidays. Everyone wished me the best of luck. What am I going to do? I’m so broke.”
“You know there is always the Dumont-” Mom said.
“No,” I cut her off. “I’m not taking a charity job from Uncle Jackson. If I have any chance of reclaiming some pride, I have to figure out a way to do this on my own.”
“Nick needs help at the garage,” Dad said.
He didn’t say anything about that, which would indicate he didn’t think he needed help.
Or he didn’t want me there.
“He’s the only decent mechanic around for miles. He services all of Calico Cove, but most of the surrounding towns as well. He’s always backed up with billing and he’s shit at scheduling appointments. He needs help.”
“Yeah, well…maybe,” I said, hedging my answer when in my head the words no way kept flashing over and over again. “I’ll see about Petite tomorrow. I think I’d be better suited to waitressing. Besides it’s French cuisine. I could really bring some authenticity to the place. It’s a great fit, don’t you think?”
Dad grunted.
Mom sighed.
“What?” I asked, picking up their hesitancy.
They looked at each other and had a silent conversation – about me – right in front of me. Finally, Mom sighed and said, “We just want you to be happy. If waitressing is something that calls to you, then great.”
“But…” With parents there was always a but.
“But,” Mom supplied. “We just don’t want to see you reach for something just because it’s different. As if every previous life decision you’ve made was wrong. Nora, at some point, you’re going to have to forgive yourself for being the victim of a criminal and stop punishing yourself.”
The word victim rankled. It did when I was being interviewed by the officers of the Police Nationale. How could I be a victim when I’d willingly said yes to everything?
When I’d fallen for the flowers, the private jet, the weekend in Ibiza. When he’d told me he was the bastard son of a Saudi Arabian prince who owned zillions in oil, it sounded reasonable. When he told me he lived in Paris because that’s where his Parisian mother raised him, that was also credible. Rene was mixed race, clearly native French speaking and ridiculously wealthy.
Or he gave the appearance of someone ridiculously wealthy.
I had never been interested in his money. I had my own money from being an influencer, but I’d been raised by the most frugal people on the planet and extravagance went against everything they taught me.
So Rene’s extravagance had been…different. Exciting. I had gotten sucked into his lifestyle and it blinded me to what had been right in front of my face.
When Rene told me about the unrest in his family, the tug-of-war over the land and oil, it had sounded plausible. That his cousins wanted him out of the way, I thought that meant they didn’t want him returning to the family home. Not that they were trying to have him killed. But when he showed up at my apartment with a bandage on his neck and blood on his shirt, I believed him when he said he needed as much cash as I could put together so he could go into hiding…
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Then I gave him access to my credit card, which somehow got him access to my checking account.
“Oh, I forgot,” Mom said. “You got some mail delivered here.”
“Oh great,” I muttered. It was either more bills, or worse, one of his other girlfriends/victims looking for answers.
Three months ago my DMs were full of messages from women who were exactly like me.
My boyfriend said he needed money to get away from his family. That they were trying to kill him. But now I think he was lying.
My boyfriend took me to Morrocco and bought me a diamond necklace. It turned out to be fake. He took all my money and I had to ask my parents for money to get home. I’ve never been so embarrassed.
This is a picture of my boyfriend who took ten thousand euros from me. Is this your boyfriend, too? I can’t believe I was such a fool. I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me.
I couldn’t handle all the secondhand humiliation and heartbreak. It was like a cheese grater across what was left of my dignity. I’d met two of them who also lived in Paris. I thought commiserating with them might help, but it only made me sick to my stomach knowing he’d sent the same texts to them that he’d sent to me.
I need more money. My cousins have frozen my accounts.
You are all I think about. You are the moon and the stars.
When will you be able to send the money? I’m sorry to ask but things are desperate.
Canned text messages. What kind of animal did that?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“They’re over there in the mail bowl,” Mom said, pointing back to the kitchen.
I pulled myself off the couch and made my way to the kitchen, where my mom still kept all of our mail in a large bowl I’d made in a Girl Scouts pottery thing. It was lopsided and painted a terrible green, but Mom loved it.
I pulled out three large square envelopes in varying shades of cream. My name was on them in fancy script.
No. Oh no.
I opened up the first one. A wedding invitation from a high school friend. Same with the second one. The third one was my camp counselor friend from my summers spent in Vermont.
“Three weddings!” I screeched.
Like, stab me in the gut, thrust hot pokers in my eyes, and dangle me over a pit of snakes. I was going to have to go to three weddings in the next few weeks? I had no money, I had no clothes and my life was in the absolute shitter right now. The last thing I wanted was to be front row to other people’s happily ever after.
“Kill. Me. Now.”
“Hey,” Dad said, watching me over the back of the couch. “They’re your friends. They want you to share their day. It isn’t about you. It’s about them.”
The thing about Dad – he was a world class grump, but never an asshole.
“Ugh. Stop reminding me the world doesn’t revolve around me.”
Mom kissed my dad on the top of his head and walked over to put her arms around me. “Oh, Nora. I know you feel like you’re in the depths of hell being back home and your life is completely off track, but I can’t help it, I’m just so happy you’re here. I missed my baby girl.”
“I missed you too. I really did. Even Dad.”
“Hey,” he barked. “I’m right here.”
He winked at me and I smiled because giving each other grief was our love language.
“Okay. I’m happy my friends are getting married. I’m going to show up at Petite III first thing tomorrow to see if I can get work which will help me pay for the wedding presents I’ll need to buy and the dress I’ll need to find that I will have to wear to three weddings.”
My mom hugged me tight. “You know I can he-”
“Don’t say it,” I stopped her. “No helping. I can do this myself.”