Chapter 8 Wedding Season #4
He reaches out and puts his hand over mine where I’m clinging to my life jacket. His hand warms mine, then he rubs my shoulder to warm me more. We are coughing up seawater in Long Island Sound, and I realize I don’t even feel that upset. He’s here. He came after me.
“I love you.” The words rush out of me.
There is a flash of something like panic in Ollie eyes.
“Sorry, I just meant…” I begin.
“It’s okay,” he says, but he won’t look at me. “It’s probably the stress talking.”
“Right. Yeah.”
We don’t say anything else. We just watch as the boat slowly finishes its U-turn. I am really starting to shake, now. Ollie tries to rub my arms again.
“Stop,” I mutter. “They’ll see us.”
He nods solemnly and goes back to check on the boy.
In another few minutes, we are being offered a ladder from the side of the deck. Without speaking, we mutually agree to let the world’s worst teenager climb up first. His cousins applaud his return like he has just performed a cool trick.
Then it is my turn and my arms won’t work. Ollie watches me, wide-eyed. “You okay?”
“My arms won’t work,” I say, my voice a little panicked.
“They will warm as soon as you get them out of the water,” he says. “Just put one on the ladder and give yourself a minute.”
I place a hand on the ladder, but the waves are bobbing, and I can’t keep my grip.
“I can carry you,” he offers, and that’s it. He is not carrying me in front of everyone, not after I’ve said I love him, and he didn’t say it back.
I swing one arm up and then slowly, awkwardly haul myself up a rung of the ladder, water sluicing away from my sodden work clothes, and then another, and then another, hauling myself up. I can do this. My clothes stick to my body like cling-wrap.
I finally get pulled up by strong arms, and then I am standing on the deck, water rushing down me in a torrent, the shivering making it hard to stand up.
Ollie is beside me after a moment, equally soaking but not shaking as much.
I glance over and see that the boy’s parents are eying Ollie and me suspiciously, like we followed him into the water in a foiled attempt to kidnap him.
“What happened?” his father is asking his soaking son as the teen sits wrapped in a coarse wool blanket. “What the hell happened?”
The boy shrugs. “There was a huge wave, and I slipped.”
Ollie and I accept blankets from the crew.
“Did those two go in the water to try to help you?” I hear a woman ask the boy.
“No, they slipped, too,” he replies, the little traitor.
Destiny, Brant, Lana and Niamh are all surrounding us now and I blink salt out of my eyes and shiver hard, trying not to look at Ollie.
“Are you guys alright?”
“Is everything okay?”
“What happened?”
Brant sounds outraged, like either I decided to go for a swim or someone pushed me overboard. His eyes shoot to Ollie.
Ollie speaks first. “Laura jumped in to save that kid from drowning, and I went in after her because she didn’t put on a life jacket first.”
“And then Ollie saved him from drowning,” I add. “And I did nothing.”
“But you guys are okay, right? Do you need a hospital? Medical attention?” Destiny asks. I can tell from her expression that she thinks we are idiots, which is a perfectly reasonable surmise.
“I don’t think so,” I say, teeth chattering. “Sorry about that. Should be okay once I get dry.”
“They were ready to call the Coast Guard,” Niamh adds. “But you guys looked like you had a handle on things.”
I nod, pretending it’s true. Lana appears with two coffees for us from somewhere on the boat.
“So I know this may be totally inappropriate, but since you guys are fine,” Lana says, “how was the water? Was it swimmable?”
When we get back to the hotel, Ollie and I both pass on a hot shower and medical attention in favor of dry clothes and cheap flip-flops from the hotel gift shop so that we can get back to the city faster.
We are both wearing SoNo Inn sweatshirts by the time we climb back onto the bus, wrapped in two gifted hotel towels and still wearing our damp pants.
I sit shaking by the window, trying to tap out the name of my kid’s aftercare program on Lana’s cell phone, as Ollie lobbies on my behalf to take the passenger van straight back to my kids’ school in Brooklyn, even though we are supposed to be going directly to Manhattan.
My heart feels almost entirely grateful, except for the part of it that is appalled.
Did I just tell a man who I’ve barely started dating that I loved him? Surely not. Did he just decline to say it back?
“You jumped in to save someone,” Lana says, sitting next to Ollie and putting a hand on his shoulder. The salt water has turned his hair into an irritatingly attractive, messy tangle. “That’s so heroic.”
“Well,” Ollie says with a shrug, “I was told that was the expectation when I joined the committee.” Lana and Niamh laugh.
Everyone loves him, I think with irritation. Of course I do, too.
In the end, I am only twenty minutes late to pick up my daughter. I climb out of the van and race to the building to find a grumpy young afterschool teacher sitting on the steps outside her school’s aftercare office, watching Hannah eat a slice of pizza.
“She was hungry,” the young woman says in the same tone that you would give a death threat. Then she takes in my appearance.
“I jumped into the Long Island Sound to rescue someone who went overboard,” I say.
“Oh.” Her expression is flat.
I take out a twenty-dollar bill, which is damp like the rest of my things from being in my presence for the last ninety minutes. “This is all I have. For the pizza. I can get you more tomorrow, I…”
“It’s fine. You’ll be charged a late fee. Just don’t let it happen again.”
She gives a warm, sweet good-bye to Hannah and an assassin’s glare to me before she walks away.
Hannah is staring at me, a little pizza grease still on her chin. “You went swimming?” she asks, accusing.
“I fell in the water,” I say, and leave it at that.
Back at home, I get an email from Ollie, and my heart is in my throat. This is it. He will break up with me because I told him I loved him.
Hi Laura, I am still so impressed with your bravery today.
You really are amazing. I’m sending you an email since your phone has probably not recovered.
I hope you are drying off and that everything went okay with picking up Hannah.
If you need anything from me, like help getting a new phone, please let me know what I can do.
I will understand if you are not up for dancing on Saturday, but I would still like to take you. Ollie.
I stare at the sign-off for a long time. He didn’t write, ‘Love, Ollie.’ He didn’t write anything at all. So I guess we are going to pretend my I love you never happened.
Dancing sounds great, I reply.
His response comes a few moments later. Perfect. Looking forward. Take care and stay dry. —Ol
The New York City Parks Department organizes an outdoor West Coast Swing event once a month on a pier looking out over the Hudson River, with a DJ to play songs that fit within the slow-but-not-too-slow range that makes them easy for West Coast Swing.
I’ve learned that every dance style tends to have its own music requirements, even within the more popular music styles.
There are songs by Wham that are perfect for the jitterbug, and Ed Sheeran songs that you can waltz to.
West Coast Swing requires a bluesy quality that’s hard to put into words.
Certain songs just click with it, and sometimes it’s a surprise when you discover a new one that works.
It’s a little after seven in the evening when I arrive, and I can hear a Sam Smith song crooning out across the sunset-orange water of the Hudson as I walk along the river path toward the pier.
It is early June, the season of long days and warm breezes before the city slinks into the sweaty heat of summer.
I glance at my new cell phone and see a message from Ollie identifying his exact location.
To the left of entrance, dressed like a spy.
I spot Ollie waiting in a black button-down shirt and charcoal linen pants, glancing around with the body language of someone who isn’t sure where to look.
West Coast Swing tends to be informal, so after much deliberation, I went with a form-fitting red shirt with a sweetheart neckline and black jeans.
“First time swing dancing?” I say as I walk up to him.
He lights up as he sees me, and the smile makes him look especially handsome. “I watched some videos online and thought I would give it a try,” he replies with a grin.
I nod and lean forward, saying in a conspiratorial voice, “I’ve been doing it for years, but I convinced this guy I was learning it for him. Boy is he in for a surprise when he sees how good I am.”
He puts out a hand. “Can I dance with you until he shows up?”
“You’re going to be dazzled.”
“I already am.”
It really is annoying that he is so good at this: looking good, dressing well, saying exactly the right thing.
I don’t trust women. He said that, and now he’s being charming and sexy.
I need to be careful, and I keep failing at my goal.
I could get in trouble at work just for being seen with him, yet here I am.
Ollie leads me straight onto the dance floor, and I think: this is it.
This is the moment I’ve been thinking about since I first saw him dance.
What will it be like to dance with him, out on a dance floor with other people, having him lead me through steps and spins?
Will I be so terrible that I won’t enjoy it?
Will it be sexy? Will it be like dancing on clouds?
What it is, initially, is hilarious. I miss easily one out of every three moves that he’s trying to guide me through. Every time I miss something and start to panic, I see his green-gold eyes light up with amusement.
“I’m glad you’re having fun laughing at me,” I say as we pull away from each other and then back again.