Chapter 4
Luke texted me the next day.
Luke Sure it’s ok for me to catch a ride with you on Saturday?
Me Of course! No problem! [it had taken me about ten minutes to come up with that sparkling comeback]
Luke What time are you leaving?
Me About 5:30.
Me AM [in case he was confused]
Luke Great, I’ll meet you at your house. Thanks
Me See you then.
My witty repartee was sadly lacking.
The sleepless night I spent after Cassie’s doctor visit, tossing and turning, was not conducive to conversational genius.
Charlie didn’t have swim on Wednesday after school and we took a walk together on the cold beach, skipping rocks, looking for Petoskey stones and sea glass.
It was very calming to look at Lake Michigan, the grey blue waves rhythmically rolling onto the sand, whitecaps foaming just offshore.
Things would be ok. And no matter what, everything marched on, just like the waves.
Loretta had told me that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
In the car on the way to swim on Thursday, Charlie asked me if we were going to the team dinner. “We’re supposed to dress up,” he told me. “Like fancy, you know?”
“Hmmm.” I had missed this fascinating tidbit of info.
“I was thinking I should wear a tie.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“A purple tie,” he expanded. I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. His face was totally serious. “I look really good in purple.”
I choked back a laugh. “Pal, you’re my favorite.”
“Your favorite what?”
“My favorite anything. My best sweet pea.”
“You’re my best sweet pea,” he told me. “Do you have any nice clothes?”
No. “I may have something. But do you really want to go to this dinner? I mean, it could be really boring.”
He considered. “No, I really want to go.”
I gulped. “Because, pal, the tickets are expensive.”
“Oh.” It was very quiet in the back seat.
“Why don’t we talk about it later? Now, explain to me again what you’re swimming on Saturday.”
Charlie perked up. “My first event is the 50 fly.”
“And what’s the most important thing about that race?”
We went through all his events as he wiggled into his speedo. I decided that I would get him to that dinner if I had to rob a bank.
∞
Annie and I ran together again during practice.
“What’s Macdara swimming at the meet?” I asked her. This time I was determined to hold up my end of the conversation, if I could do it without passing out.
“50 breast, 50 fly, 100 free on Saturday, 200 breast, 50 free, 100 back on Sunday. Her first 200 breast.”
Swimming breaststroke for two hundred yards seemed like death to me, but I made an appreciative sound.
“Mackie said you guys are driving down on Saturday.”
“Yep, Charlie will only swim one day.”
“And you’re bringing Luke?” she asked.
I could feel her looking over at me as we rounded a turn of the track. “Uh, yeah, I’m giving him a ride.”
I glanced over at her. Now she had turned straight ahead, face expressionless. Was my driving him a problem? “He asked me as a favor,” I explained. We made another loop around the track in silence until she spoke again.
“Luke is a good brother. He’s a good guy.”
“I don’t know him very well,” I explained, “except as my sister’s old boyfriend.”
“And she’s married now,” she pointed out.
“Yes…” Where was this headed? “Cassie isn’t going to the meet. She’s not interested in him, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“It’s none of my business,” Annie said quickly. “But my dad was asking me about her so I thought I’d talk to you. We were just concerned that maybe they were starting things up again.”
“There’s nothing going on between them.” Was she crazy? In Cassie’s state? What the hell? “That was a long time ago, right? I mean, just high school stuff.”
Annie nodded, and we did another lap.
“At least if you’re driving down in the morning you won’t have to stay at the hotel with the team.” Annie shuddered.
I was glad she had changed the topic. “What’s wrong with it?” I puffed. Nope, I was not going to be able to keep up my end of the conversation.
“Well, it’s a motel, really. Pretty run down. But I checked the bedbug website, and it says this place is clear.”
“There’s a bedbug website?”
“Of course! You have to check it before you stay anywhere. It tells you if the place is clean or not. Some really nice resorts are full of bedbugs! Can you imagine bringing them home with you? Ugh!”
I made a mental note that, if my circumstances changed dramatically and I was somehow able to take vacations, I would check the bedbug website for sure.
We continued our run, chatting mostly about swimming and the kids, until practice was over. I casually looked around as we left the track. Not that I was looking for anyone specific, but you never knew who might be working out.
Charlie fought me again when I got ready to go to Roy’s that evening.
“You shouldn’t go,” he insisted. “Stay here.”
After a few more rounds of that, I pulled him to sit with me on the coach. “What’s the big deal with me going to work?” I asked him.
He was quiet. “Nothing.”
“Pal, please. Are you scared to be alone? Your mom is here.”
He made a face. “She doesn’t care about me.”
It was like a punch in the gut. “She does, she just doesn’t feel well. It makes her cranky.”
“She was always cranky,” he complained, but I knew what he meant.
It hadn’t just started with her diagnosis.
Cassie hadn’t really wanted to be a mom, but it had happened.
She had shown up at my door in Ann Arbor after she and Mike had argued about keeping the baby and then he had taken off for parts unknown, leaving her with three months left on their apartment lease and a stack of unpaid bills.
For her, a baby was another way to glue Mike to her.
A very permanent tie. To my utter shock, he had come back, and once they had reconciled, neither of them had wanted to bother much with raising a kid.
Thank goodness they had moved in with Nana, who did want to bother.
“So you don’t like to be here alone with your mom? Is that the reason you don’t want me to leave?”
“Kind of.” I waited for him to continue. “Because Rivers said his dad sees you there. And his mom doesn’t like it. He says…mean things.”
Oh, mother Mary. “Charlie, it’s just a job.
It’s not a big deal that I work there. And whatever Rivers or his mom says about me, we both know it isn’t true, right?
” I hated to think of what he had heard.
I tried to remember how Loretta had handled it when I finally broke down and told her about the kids teasing me at school.
I remembered a lot of back rubbing and cookies.
He looked at me, eyes big, and nodded.
“Charlie, it’s going to be ok, but I have to go to work. I don’t have a choice, pal. Will you be all right?” I rubbed his back gently.
He nodded again.
“Promise to go to bed on time?”
He put his arms around me and hid his face on my stomach. God damn everything.
It certainly didn’t help that once again, I had to waitress in the terrible yellow shirt, and once again, I was harassed and molested by a bunch of sots, some old enough to be my grandfather.
Probably Rivers’ stupid father was one of them.
After one particularly nasty comment about my boobs and how they jiggled, and how they would look jiggling naked in the back seat of a car, I told Roy I needed to take a break.
“Five minutes,” he told me.
I went out the back door and stood partially obscured by the dumpster.
What was I doing? I took a few steadying breaths, trying not to cry.
I thought about Lake Michigan, and the steady, rolling waves.
Roy’s paid better than any other place nearby, and I was raking in tips. I could do this. I had this.
Everything would work out. I would let it roll over me, just like the waves.
I took a new order from some guys at the pool table, then went to the bar to get their drinks. Nick Barnes, Luke’s and Cassie’s friend from high school, was now parked on one of the bar stools. While I filled the mugs, I glanced up at him and he flashed me a huge smile.
“I’ll have a Tanqueray, straight up,” he told me.
“We don’t have that here.” As he well knew, since he had probably been coming to this bar for years. “Why don’t you think about your order while I serve these? Be right back.”
When I returned, I saw that he had placed his thick billfold on the bar, a $100 on top. Sweet Jesus. Really? What an ass.
“Just a beer…Emma, right?”
“Emily.” I started filling his beer from the tap.
“Right, Cassie’s little sister. You don’t look much like her.”
How sweet. Yes, I didn’t look anything like my beautiful sister. I didn’t respond.
“No, I mean, you’re super-hot, in a different way. Your boobs are great.” Gee, thanks. He appraised my chest for a moment. It did practically glow in the neon under the bar lights. I thought that he was probably already drunk.
“Starting a tab or is this it?” I asked, plunking the beer down and sloshing some out.
“Cassie was just everybody’s wet dream. Such a fucking hot little bitch.” The light glinted off his gold wedding ring. “You’re not like that. You’re like the hot librarian everyone wants to screw because she looks so uptight, but you know she’d be a fucking tiger in bed.”
Barf. Barf. BARF.
I started to walk away, and he called, “You and Cassie aren’t really related, right?”
I froze. “Cassie’s my sister.”
He was shaking his head. “No, no. I remember the story because Loretta cleaned our house. She was our cleaning lady,” he clarified, to make sure I understood he was demeaning her. And me. “I remember when you came to live with them. Cassie’s dad had screwed around on her and made you, right?”
I felt my whole body get hot, then cold. “I’ll start a tab.” I walked over to Roy. “Can you handle the bar? I’m busy with the tables.”
I watched Nick out of the corner of my eye, as he chugged his beer and then another, and then another, and then left.
∞