Chapter 6 #3
“I’m not staying over,” Cece says, trying to hide her smile. What is she protesting? What is she trying to stop?
“Fine by me.”
The heat of the day has burned off, and Morgan opens the living room windows to the cool night air.
“I grew up in Wellfleet. My family’s in the boat-building business.
Really just the repair business these days.
We’ve been up there pretty much since the beginning, or at least when they first started fishing for mackerel.
I don’t necessarily love the work, but it’s what I know, and that counts for something, knowing a trade. ”
The wind picks up and rattles the screens in their old window frames, bringing with it hints of summer: barbecues and bug spray, the shrill shouts of the neighborhood kids playing manhunt.
It’s hard to imagine the humidity that had clung to Cece like a waterlogged coat just last week, and Cece finds herself relaxing, the bourbon unknotting her from the inside out, while she listens to Morgan tell her about what it was like growing up on the Cape, catering to the rich in the summer and doing his best not to become a full-blown townie in the winter, when the weather was wet and cold and the idea of fun was a couple of thirty racks in a half-built house.
The new-construction homes were plentiful.
New York and Boston money always wanting more square footage, more three-car garages, more wraparound driveways.
Cece thinks back to college, when half the campus would return from summer break, bronzed and sand-scrubbed, throwing around names like Wequassett, Great Island, and Chatham, as if they meant something.
Cece wonders if she has more in common with Morgan than either of them knows, but she doesn’t say anything.
Instead, she leans forward and learns that Morgan grew up with two half brothers.
His father remarried soon after his mom died.
Cancer. She learns that Morgan signed up for the National Guard on his eighteenth birthday, partly because of the GI Bill, and partly because he couldn’t stand the idea of sticking around Wellfleet his whole life.
He made it close to two years before being discharged.
“Drugs,” he clarifies, “but not the scary kind.”
“That must have been hard,” she says instead, “growing up with half brothers.”
Morgan swirls his bourbon. “Maybe,” he says, “but I don’t think I had it worse than anybody else. It’s all relative.”
Cece doesn’t know where she’s going with her line of questioning, maybe she’s just bored, but she wants to unearth something in Morgan, some vulnerability, some weakness. A secret just for her. “Still, blended families can be difficult to navigate, especially for a young kid.”
Morgan chuckles. “Is that what they’re calling them these days?”
“I think it’s supposed to sound better than whatever we used to say.”
“I never really understood the difference between a euphemism and a lie, but yeah, family’s tough. Even when they aren’t all mixed up.”
Morgan’s voice is like molasses, syrupy and sweet, mixing with her half dreams as Cece’s head grows heavy, her eyelids fluttering.
Be careful, Cece thinks, sinking into the crook of Morgan’s arm, his worn T-shirt feathery and smooth.
But she is tired. Tired of being careful.
Tired of thinking rather than doing. “I’m just going to close my eyes for a second,” she murmurs. “Keep talking.”
When she wakes, the room is painted in shadow.
Cece doesn’t know where she is, heart thudding in her ears, and she is possessed with the urge to get up, to run.
But then she makes out the familiar bookshelves, the coffee table.
She spots her toes sticking out from under a thin blanket Morgan must have covered her with, and wiggles them, just to make sure she isn’t dreaming.
The house is quiet. She rises, her mouth thick from the bourbon.
Moving slowly down the hall, she reaches out and touches the walls, a single night-light guiding her way.
She tells herself she’s sleepwalking, moved by some force other than her own volition.
Morgan stirs when she gets to his bed, shedding her socks and shorts before sliding in. She reaches for him in the darkness, pulling him close. He mumbles something about Bernard. “I took him out earlier,” Cece says.
“What happened to not staying over?” he says, lips on her jaw and then her neck.
There’s no time to answer, breath catching in her throat, hands on Morgan’s chest, warm to the touch.
Leg sliding over his bare stomach, Cece moves on top of him, pinning his arms against the lumpy mattress.
She likes this best—in the darkness, invisible to each other, blank canvases of possibility.
She lowers her face to his, his breath quickening. “I like this,” he whispers.
“Me too,” Cece says.
They laugh between kisses, front teeth knocking.
The bed is empty when Cece wakes, a still darkness beyond the shades.
The house is quiet. Cece rolls over and dangles off the bed, searching her shorts for her phone.
Empty. Peering through the window, she puts the time around five.
Plenty of time to get to work. When was the last time she woke up of her own accord?
No alarm blaring. Where’s Morgan? she wonders, head foggy, inner thighs tender from last night.
On the kitchen counter, a hand-scribbled note in thick carpenter pencil lead: Went into town to grab breakfast sandwiches.
Cece runs her fingers over the lettering, impressed by Morgan’s superb handwriting.
Alone, she moves through the house, pulling books off the shelves and thumbing through them, opening the kitchen cabinets, surprised by the neatness and organization.
She tells herself this isn’t snooping; she tells herself she deserves to know a bit more about the man she’s just slept with again, against her better judgment.
Catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror, she considers taking a shower but decides against it, opting for a finger smear of toothpaste.
Bad breath currently seems like the greater threat.
It happens without Cece thinking. The faucet still running, she picks through the medicine cabinet.
She doesn’t know what she’s looking for until she finds it among the bottles of extra-strength Tylenol and Icy Hot: foundation, a few bottles of nail polish, and mascara.
Her heart tumbles, ever so slightly. Why is she surprised?
What was she expecting? Cece finds her disappointment annoying and immature, and she fights against the urge to wallow in self-pity.
Water off, she listens for his truck—nothing.
You’ve already gone this far, Cece thinks to herself, kneeling and opening the doors to the bathroom vanity.
You can’t sink any further. The items in the cabinet can be explained away, left by an ex-girlfriend, one-night stands, but Cece is in search of something else, something more definitive, and then she finds it, stashed behind rolls of toilet paper: boxes of tampons and a toothbrush in a plastic travel case, its bristles worn and frayed.
The moment Cece sees the items, she hates herself for even looking.
Outside, a truck door slamming, heavy work boots on wooden steps.
“You awake?” Morgan calls, his voice bright and hopeful. “I’ve got breakfast.”
Cece gently closes the vanity and collects herself in front of the mirror. Smile, Cece thinks to herself. You’ve got no right to do anything else. Smile!