Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
T he first thing I saw when I stepped onto the deck was Gary, propped in the corner at the far end of the pool. His arms stretched out along the edge. His bottom half was submerged under the water, but his top half was on full display. Rounded shoulders. Curved biceps. His skin glistened with moisture. Wow!
“Mary, watch!” Out of nowhere, a blur of motion charged toward me. Kyle bolted past, leaped in the air, and cannon balled into the pool. The resulting splash sent a spray of water in every direction. Including Purrfect’s direction. Now drenched and dripping, she scrambled inside the house, probably to go rub wet fur all over my pillow.
When Kyle resurfaced, his smile stretched ear to ear. “Did you see that, Mary?” His orange inflatables bobbed in the waves.
“Yeah. Wow. Nice splash.”
“You made it.” Gary stretched his arms out in front of him and used his legs to push off the wall. He slid through the water like a shark. A shark with extremely well developed latissimus dorsi muscles, not to mention the calf muscles and glutes.
As Gary dipped under the water, his body now skimming the pool floor, I wrapped the towel even tighter around my body. Even though it was stifling hot and suffocatingly humid, my body had a chill.
Popping up near the steps, Gary emerged from the pool, water flowing over his body like a raging river pounding against the rocks. Whole body dripping, he took one hand to slick the hair back out of his face. The world moved in slow motion, like the opening of Baywatch . Some poor person is drowning, but sure, take your time. You got to give people a good look at the abs, right?
“You okay?”
“Huh?”
Gary stood right in front of me. “I was beginning to worry you ran away.”
“I considered it. Believe me.”
“Can you hand me a towel?” Gary pointed to the pair of towels on the table. As I handed one to him, I hoped he couldn’t hear how loud my heart was pounding. “Just need to grab the margaritas.”
Gary wrapped the towel around his waist, then disappeared into the house. When he returned, he was holding two freshly poured margaritas, salt lining the paper cup rims. “I figured you could probably use another drink.” Gary’s chest was still dripping. Beads of moisture nestled in the crease of his pecs.
“You figured right,” I said, taking a cup from Gary’s hand.
Gary took his margarita back over to the pool and marched down the steps into the water. Holding his cup above his head, he waded into the deep end, cozied into the corner, and waited for me to join him.
“Just jump right in,” Gary urged. “It feels fantastic.”
“I’m not really the just jump right in type,” I called across the water. “I need to get used to it first, before I can commit.”
“Sounds about right.” Gary held his cup in the air. “Cheers!” He took a long sip. Taunting me. I watched as his tongue flicked over his lips, scraping at the salt remnants.
I took a sip of my own. The tartness of the lime juice and the sting of the tequila washed down the back of my throat. The puddle of warmth that I was becoming all too familiar with started oozing through my body again.
What am I doing? Now that Gary knew that Janet and Jack were together, what was he still doing here? There was no way my plan could possibly work after that. I should have turned around and gone back inside. Unless … Maybe Gary was sticking around for some ulterior motive. Maybe he was still in love with Janet and didn’t really care if she was seeing Jack or not. I had to find out what he was up to. Perhaps, just maybe, the plan wasn’t completely dead after all. Besides, I had gotten this far. Can’t turn around now.
The hour of judgement was at hand. Time to sink or swim.
Still clutching the towel around my body, I poked my toe in the water, then claimed an exploratory foothold on the pool step. I took my time acclimating to the water, swishing my foot back and forth. It wasn’t because the water was cold. In fact, the pool felt like a warm bath. Baking in the Florida sun all day, the swimming pool had become a giant hot tub.
It wasn’t the water I needed time getting used to. What I needed was time to think. I needed time to figure out what I was going to say to Gary. I needed time to figure out what Gary was up to. I also needed time to figure out how to make an invisibility machine so Gary wouldn’t see me in Aunt Catherine’s rated R bathing suit.
“Hey Mary, watch this one.” Kyle lined up for another run. Once he saw he had my attention, he dashed toward the pool and jumped in for another big splash.
That’s when I knew what I had to do. Like Kyle, I just needed to go for it. Throw caution to the wind and dive right in. I would find out what Gary knew, or at least, what Gary thought he knew, and deny anything and everything unless he had some kind of proof. And then if that didn’t work, I would simply join a convent and live out my remaining days as a leopard print bikini wearing nun.
Downing the rest of my margarita in one gulp, I ripped off the towel and dove into the water. Except it was more of a belly flop, with the grace of a breaching narwhal that was drunk and had vertigo. For one horrible moment, I feared I had given myself a concussion when my cheek hit the water, and Gary would have to scoop me up off the bottom of the pool and resuscitate me with mouth to mouth. I could picture Purrfect sitting on the deck, pointing and laughing.
But somehow, miraculously, my flailing arms propelled me to the far side of the pool next to Gary. I took a moment to gather my breath and my thoughts. And my sanity.
“I can see now why you don’t go in the pool,” Gary teased.
“I told you I wasn’t much of a swimmer.”
“Swimming? Is that what you call that?”
I swooshed my arm and sent a spray of water toward Gary’s face. Ducking under the surface of the water, the splash sailed over Gary’s head right into Purrfect, who had only recently returned from the house. Howling in disgust, Purrfect raced back inside.
When Gary emerged again, he was on the other side of the deep end, well out of harm’s way. “Nice suit, by the way.”
“Gee thanks,” I replied, with all the fake sincerity I could muster.
“You look good in cheetah print,” Gary said. “Yellow and brown spots seem to suit you.”
I frowned as I looked down at my bikini top. “I thought this was leopard print?” It was at that moment that I realized not only was the bathing suit hideous looking, it was also generously see-through when wet. Hopefully Gary would mistake my nipples for leopard spots. Or cheetah spots. Or Justin Bieber horns.
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s cheetah,” Gary said. “I think leopard spots are bigger and less rounded.” Okay, he definitely saw my nipples.
Leopard. Cheetah. I didn’t care if they were the spots of a purple polka dotted alien species from outer space. The less time Gary spent looking at my bathing suit, the better. So I continued my new strategy and just went for it.
“So,” I said.
“So,” Gary echoed. He swam to my side of the pool, arms sweeping through the water in long graceful arcs. The muscles in his arms looked like steel cables, taut and quivering.
“So, what do you know about Jack and Janet?” I asked. “Or what do you think you know?”
Gary waded in place, the current from the pool jets nudging him toward me. “I saw them together.”
“Of course you did. They’re friends.”
“It looked like they were more than friends.” A lock of Gary’s wet hair stuck to his forehead. I felt an urge to reach out and brush it off to the side, but I restrained myself.
“What do you mean, more than friends?”
Gary drifted closer, then propped his elbow on the deck next to me. “I saw him at the closing ceremony. Janet put a medal around his neck.”
“Yes,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice from cracking. “Of course she did. She was a volunteer. That was her job.” I looked down into the depths of the pool. Perhaps if I slipped underneath the water and held my breath long enough, Gary would get bored and go away.
“I saw the way she looked at him.”
“Putting a medal around someone’s neck requires advanced hand eye coordination. If she wasn’t looking at him, she could have poked his eye out or something.”
“She hugged him.”
“Janet is a friendly person.”
Gary wasn’t just looking at me, he looked through me. Watching every breath. Analyzing every blink. Across the pool, a green and blue dragonfly lazily hovered over the water. Across the yard, a bright red cardinal hopped along a tree branch. In the sky, a large white cloud shifted into the shape of a hippopotamus wearing a tutu. Or maybe it was a giant mushroom wearing a top hat. Or maybe it was just a shapeless blob of white, fluffy nothingness. Like my soul.
“Mary.” Gary’s voice brought me back to reality. “How long have you known?”
As much as I wished I could transform myself into a dragonfly or a cardinal or a fluffy white cloud and just fly far away, I knew I had to own up to what I did. I had to tell Gary the truth.
“Since the beginning,” I confessed. “They connected at the high school reunion, and it was my fault.”
If Gary was surprised, he didn’t show it. He only nodded, as if what I was saying made any kind of sense. Really, he looked numb. Mentally numb. Emotionally numb. At the time, I thought that was our lowest point. The level of trust between two people sinking to somewhere between zero and negative infinity. Little did I know there was still a long drop ahead.
“I made her go to the reunion because I was trying to give her a distraction, take her mind off her ex. Things sort of fell into place. Or out of place, I guess.”
It was like I had pulled loose the first stone in the dam. Once the first lie had seen the light of day, they all came rushing out at once. “They’re not right for each other,” I blurted. “Janet should be with someone kind. Someone caring. Someone like …” I looked back up into Gary’s eyes. “Someone like you.”
For a moment, his eyes softened. His jaw was no longer clenched. The color in his cheeks, his lips, his nose all came back. Maybe there was still a scrap of our tentative friendship left.
“So you were using me to get her away from Jack.” It wasn’t a question. He stated it as fact.
“Yes.” A wave of shame washed over me. The guilt of everything all hitting at once. The staging at the grocery store and book signing farce. Using a children’s charity event for my own selfish needs. If my conscience had been a little green bug sitting on my shoulder, it would have bitten me on the earlobe, and then kicked me in the nose. “I’m sorry.”
“Mary.”
I kept staring into the water. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. Maybe if I was lucky, a giant octopus would reach up and pull me down into the depths.
“Mary, look at me.”
I did.
“Why are you sorry?”
Why was I sorry? I wasn’t sure I heard him right. I had tried to use Gary to wedge my best friend apart from the guy she was seeing. A guy I wanted for myself. Of course I was sorry. What kind of person wouldn’t be sorry? What kind of person did Gary think I was?
“Why should you be sorry?” Gary said, his voice rising. “Jack Thompson was an asshole. No. Jack Thompson is an asshole. Guys like that never change.”
The intensity in Gary’s voice gave me pause. Jack Thompson was an asshole, sure. No one would argue that. But Jack had changed. When I talked to Jack at the driving range, he apologized for what he had done to me back in high school. He bared his heart and his soul. He’d been sincere; I was sure of it. People change. Jack had changed. Hadn’t he?
“You were just trying to protect your friend,” Gary said. “Honestly, I don’t blame you. I would have done the same thing.” Elbows still propped on the pool deck, Gary’s hands curled into fists. The anger was plain on his face.
“Gary?” There was a darkness in his eyes.
Gary took a deep breath, clenched and unclenched his hands. When he turned back to me, the darkness was gone, replaced by pain.
“Gary, are you okay?”
“You weren’t the only one he humiliated, you know,” Gary said. “Back in high school, Jack and his football buddies liked to have their fun. None of us were as big as he was. None of us were as strong. I guess the kids like me were easy targets. The chess kid who played dungeons and dragons. The kid who made the mistake of wearing his Eagle scout uniform to school.”
“You wore your uniform?”
Gary nodded.
“To school?”
Gary nodded again. “Right after I earned my final badge. It was something I was proud of. Until Jack saw me wearing it.” Gary trailed off. Now it was his turn to stare into the pool.
“What did he do?” I asked.
It took a while for Gary to answer. When I looked into his eyes, they were like portals into another world, bursting with feelings and thoughts and emotions bottled up so long they were now ready to explode.
“It was after gym class,” Gary began. “They broke into my locker while I was in the shower. When I came out in a towel, Jack was wearing my Eagle scout uniform. Making fun of me. When I told him to give it back, he asked me what I was going to do about it. His friends grabbed me before I even got close. They pulled off my towel. Threw me outside. Locked the door so I couldn’t get back in.”
“My God.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“After a while, one of the coaches heard me crying.”
“What did they do to him?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What do you mean, nothing? He should have been suspended. He should have been expelled.”
Gary shrugged. “When coach asked me who did it, I told him I didn’t know.”
Gary’s shared memories brought back memories of my own. I knew what it was like to be humiliated. I knew what it was like to just want to pretend it never happened and move on.
“It was a long time ago.” Gary’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Whatever doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, right?”
“Right,” I lied. After hearing Gary’s story, I can’t say I was surprised. Jack Thompson was a bully. That was never in doubt. The question now was whether Jack had changed. I had changed. Gary had changed. Why couldn’t Jack?
After that, we got out of the pool and toweled off. As I was changing into dry clothes, I felt a little dizzy. That last batch of margaritas was wreaking havoc on my wits. When I came back downstairs from changing in Aunt Catherine’s bedroom, I could tell right away that Gary was feeling it too.
He said, “I’m going to book an Uber. There’s no way I should drive right now. I thought maybe I could just leave my van here and then pick it up tomorrow morning. If you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, no problem, good idea.” But then I had another idea. A better idea. “Or,” I said. “You and Kyle can just stay here tonight. I mean, I have two extra rooms. Might as well get some practical use out of them.” I was pleasantly surprised when Gary didn’t immediately say no. To sweeten the pot, I added, “The furniture rental place I used even decorated one in a space theme, with a rocket bed and everything. Kyle would love it.”
“Forget Kyle. I’m taking the rocket bed for myself.”
* * *
Gary didn’t end up in the rocket bed. And no, he didn’t end up in my bed either, in case you were wondering. Instead, Gary and I both ended up on the couch, flipping through dozens of stations of nothing worth watching on T.V.
I paused at station 1001-2. “A western?”
Gary made a face. He looked at the station guide app on his phone. “What about a murder documentary?”
I made a face, stopping the remote on 342-3. “Ooh, here’s a winner. Mexican soap opera.” We both made a face.
After flipping through another two dozen stations, with absolutely nothing catching our mutual interest, I said, “I have an idea.”
Gary looked doubtful. “What?”
“Game shows.”
“Game shows?”
“Game shows. Specifically, Family Feud. Everyone loves Family Feud. Or at least, no one hates it.”
“The Steve Harvey version?”
“Of course, the Steve Harvey version. Although the Richard Dawson cringe factor is pretty good, too.”
Gary smiled. “True.”
I don’t know how late we stayed up watching old Family Feud reruns. We took turns answering the final round questions, with one of us getting the top answer almost every single time. Finally, there was something that we were both good at. And even better together. By two in the morning, we had agreed to drive out to Los Angeles or wherever they filmed the show and sign up as contestants the very next day.
“I have to pee,” I announced.
“I’ll save your seat.” Gary yawned as he patted the couch cushion beside him.
I wasn’t gone long, but when I came back, Gary was asleep. I decided to let him be, tucking one of the couch pillows under his head and draping my favorite fuzzy blanket over the top of him. It was also Purrfect’s favorite blanket, so it wasn’t long before the two of them were both curled up underneath it.
Just as I turned out the light and was about to go get in my bed, I heard Gary’s voice. “Mary?”
“Yeah.”
“Are they serious? I mean, really serious, Janet and Jack?”
“No,” I answered, with enough conviction to convince us both. “Not yet, at least. Janet keeps telling me she wants to make sure they’re friends first.”
Gary nodded. “I just don’t understand what she sees in a guy like Jack.”
Um … he’s gorgeous, he’s rich, he’s athletic, he’s a doctor, he drives a BMW, he’s an expert chef and masseuse.
But I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, I just shrugged.
“He’s not good enough for her,” said Gary.
“He’s not,” I agreed.
“He’ll end up hurting her.”
“I know.”
We both stayed quiet for a long time, lost in our own private torments. Even though we couldn’t see each other with the lights out, it felt like we were finally, truly, seeing each other for the very first time.
Gary’s voice came from the darkness. “We have to stop them.”