Chance Harbor (39 page)

Catherine closed her eyes for a moment, letting the rhythm of the surf dictate how she breathed. In. Out. In. Out.

“Thank you for this,” she said. “I guess I needed to vent.”

He laughed. “Clearly. How do you feel now?”

“Much better.” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly three o’clock. “Do you think Zoe’s back yet?”

“Only one way to find out,” he said, but didn’t move.

She didn’t move, either, aware of a slight shift in Grey’s posture. They were still sitting side by side, leaning against the rocks, but he was no longer simply supporting her weight against his shoulder. He was embracing her, curving his arm around her in a way that held her close to his body.

Her own body was responding, a warmth starting in her feet, oddly, that moved up, as if someone had put her feet close to a fire. Soon she was burning up, almost feverish, despite the fact that she hadn’t moved.

But Catherine wanted to move. She wanted that more than anything: to move from where she was next to Grey and straddle him, to look into his black eyes and hold on to his silky hair, to tip his head back so that she could put her lips and tongue on his throat, to feel him grow hard under her and slide her jeans down from her hips. To take him inside her.

All of that went so much more smoothly in the movies than it would go in real life, though, and she was being ridiculous. She didn’t even know this man. This boatbuilder and trailer park dweller. This friend of her wayward sister’s. This motorcyclist. This
gypsy
. She wouldn’t even know how to have sex with somebody who wasn’t Russell, whose every move in bed she could predict with 99 percent accuracy.

Catherine stood up and brushed off the seat of her jeans, looking down at Grey from a safe distance.

Except it wasn’t safe, not at all. Because he was looking back at her, and then he reached up and drew her back down, as if he were reading her mind, placing her gently on top of him and kissing her mouth, her neck, her collarbone. “Is this all right?” he murmured.

She glanced around the deserted beach and then rested her lips against his warm, sleek black head. “More than all right,” she whispered back, and began slowly unzipping her jacket, inviting him in.

F
ramingham was a confusing jumble of stores and car dealerships and traffic and strip malls. Mike’s street was one-way. When Nola dropped her off at the corner a little after four o’clock, the first streetlamps were flickering on.

As Willow watched the taillights of Nola’s car blur into the distance, she wished she’d asked her to stay. But Willow knew it would be better if Nola just went home.

Nola had promised to lie to Russell about what Willow was doing. She’d say that she’d driven Willow to the Northshore Mall, just twenty minutes away, to meet friends from her new school, and that Willow was getting a ride back with them. “Brittany and Crystal,” they decided, giggling.

“They sound like stripper names,” Nola said.

“Yeah. Mall strippers,” Willow agreed. “Like there’s a kiosk for lap dances right next to the one with iPhone cases.”

That got them both laughing so hard that Nola had to pee. They stopped at a gas station and Nola bought them each bags of chips and sodas. “I’m going to be as big as a house,” Nola said, happily tearing her bag open with her teeth.

As they reached Mike’s street, Willow told Nola to pull over to the curb and let her out.

“Why?” Nola demanded. “I should come with you.”

“No, you should not,” Willow had said. She’d realized, when dealing with Nola, that the trick was to be definite about things. Nola usually listened then. “This is my deal. Besides, if you hang around, Russell will come back from the grocery store and start worrying. I don’t need him calling Catherine. You have to cover for me, remember?”

For the first time, Nola had looked uncertain. She pursed her lips like a pop singer and tossed her hair. Now that her face was puffy from pregnancy, she looked like a three-year-old having a tantrum. “I really don’t like the idea of you going to see a guy you never met.”

“I’ve met him,” Willow said. “My mom and I lived with him, remember? He’s a nice guy.”

“You don’t know guys like I do, girlfriend,” Nola said. “Believe me, the ones who seem nice can be something else when they get you alone. Even dads.”

Willow had stared at her in horror. “
Your
dad?” she said, almost whispering, because she felt like the words were toxic, burning her lips and tongue.

Nola nodded. “Not for a long time,” she said. “But that’s why I don’t live with him. Otherwise? He seems like a totally stand-up guy. That’s why he’s not in jail.”

“That sucks,” Willow said.

“Yeah, well. It started after Mom died. Said he couldn’t help it; he was sad and lonely—cry me a river. Then I threatened to tell everybody and he moved out, gave me the apartment. Carmen looked after me. Now I only see Daddy when I want money. Guys can really screw you over, even the ones you’re supposed to be able to trust, right? Russell’s one of the few guys I’ve ever met who wasn’t, you know . . . all freaky.”

Willow nodded. Russell had always been good to her, too. Nothing weird. Not ever. She remembered Tom, her mother’s Real Deal, and how he used to stand next to her bed at night. How he’d touched her. She shuddered a little and pulled her jacket closed, zipping it to the neck.

How could you have the upper hand over a guy if you were just a kid? She had no idea. Willow was glad she wasn’t little and helpless anymore. Fifteen was a lot different from eight. Or even ten. She could take care of herself now.

Before getting out of the car, Willow had reached over and rested her palm on Nola’s belly. “You won’t let your baby be alone with your dad, right?”

“No way,” Nola said, shaking her head hard enough that her long hair made a broom-sweeping noise on her nylon jacket.

“It happened to me, too, you know,” Willow said.

Nola’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“One of my mom’s boyfriends.”

They had looked at each other for a minute, and Willow felt something in her chest loosen. She had always known she wasn’t the only girl that kind of thing had ever happened to, but still, it felt good to tell somebody who really got it. Plus, if it could happen to Nola, it could happen to anybody. It wasn’t her fault.

Nola fished a can of pepper spray out of her pocketbook. “Take this,” she said. “Just in case.”

Now Willow made her way down a nearly empty sidewalk on Mike’s street in Framingham, checking the numbers to make sure she was headed in the right direction.

She walked fast. She couldn’t wait to see the look on her dad’s face when he saw how she’d figured out it was him, Mike, all along. A magician: who could ask for a better dad than that?

Willow recognized the house instantly. It looked exactly like the picture on Zillow, right down to the bright red door. A car was parked in the driveway, an old black Toyota. Maybe Mike had spent all his money on the house. Or maybe that car belonged to his roommate.

Or to his wife.

Willow walked up to the door, trying to own the moment instead of letting that shrinking feeling in her gut make her feel sick. She needed to shut out the little voice in her head screaming,
You’re stupid. If your real dad wanted to find you, he would have done it by now, moron.

Nobody heard her knock. Either that, or nobody was home. Willow searched for a bell and found it beside the black mailbox. She pushed it, hard, and held it for several seconds, until the ringing seemed to be inside her head.

The door finally opened. A scowling man she didn’t recognize said, “Who are you and what are you selling?”

“I’m looking for Mike.”

This man in the doorway was bald and built like a professional wrestler, his forearms bulging and tattooed beneath the sleeves of his blue T-shirt. “Mike!” he bellowed. “One of your kids is here!”

“Hang on,” Mike called back. Then he appeared in the hallway. “Why are you yelling? Don’t be so rude!” He was scolding like he was the other guy’s mom.

To Willow’s astonishment, the guy at the door grinned, and his face changed from mean and ugly to sweet and kind of hot, like a dumb jock might look in a bro comedy. She could picture him getting to Las Vegas with his pals and coming home with his underwear on his head.

Mike didn’t look much different. He had less hair, but Willow knew him at once, recognizing his goofy grin. He wore a red sweatshirt and black workout pants, and he was drying his hands on a yellow dish towel.

“Who do we have here?” he asked.

The other guy still had his dumb face on. “This one isn’t yours?”

“No, no. Too old to be one of my students. Go back to the kitchen, Sammy. You’re scaring her.”

Sammy
, Willow thought, considering the way Mike said the name, like it was some delicious drink he was sipping through a straw. Wait. Was Mike
gay
? Was that why he and her mom split up?

“Now,” Mike said when they were alone. “How can I help you?”

She had rehearsed this part a thousand times in her mind. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Willow. Zoe’s daughter. You used to live with us. Or we lived with you—I’m not sure. I was pretty young.” She had barely stopped herself from saying
I’m your daughter
, even though in her head that’s how it had worked out. Just like in a movie.

“You’re
Zoe’s
daughter? Oh. My. God.” Mike walked out onto the steps with Willow and scanned the street. “Where is she, honey? Tell her to come on in!”

Mike wasn’t much taller than she was; he’d been much taller in her mind, maybe because she remembered him wearing a tall hat and practicing magic tricks in the house. His brown hair was prickly; Willow had a memory of that in her fingertips. When she was little, she used to love patting Mike’s head and saying, “Ow! Ow! You’re a porcupine!” and pretending his hair hurt her hand.

How old was she then? Five or six? Mike used to pick her up from kindergarten when her mom was asleep and couldn’t wake up, or when her mom forgot to come home.

“Mom’s not here,” Willow said. “Just me.”

“Oh.” Mike raised his eyebrows at her. “Is everything okay with you guys?”

“Sure,” Willow said. “Mom’s working today, but I wanted to see you.” Mike’s eyebrows were thick and leggy, like caterpillars. They were okay eyebrows for a magician, but Willow was glad she hadn’t inherited them.

“You did, huh.” This seemed to amuse him. “Set another place, Sammy,” Mike called into the house. “We’ve got company for dinner.”

“It’ll be another twenty minutes,” Sammy yelled back. “You can’t rush genius.”

Mike rolled his eyes at Willow. “I can’t even go in the kitchen when that man is cooking, or he’ll bite my head off,” he said, and finally invited her inside. “We’re having cocktails. Would a Shirley Temple float your boat? I suspect you’re still too young to have developed a gin habit or an affinity for wine.”

“A Shirley Temple would be good.” Willow remembered that, too: Mike mixing Shirley Temples for her with as many cherries as she wanted.

“I hope you like fish. We’re on an omega-3 kick around here. We are very invested in living forever.”

“Fish is fine,” Willow said, making a face behind his back at the smell.

“You like mashed potatoes, I bet,” Sammy said when they came into the kitchen, where he was shaking a silver cocktail shaker.

“I like everything,” Willow declared. She would prove to Mike that he would be glad to have a daughter. “Want me to set the table?”

Mike showed her the silverware drawer. Willow laid out knives and forks on the kitchen table while he poured ginger ale over ice and mixed something pink into it. He added cherries, saying, “I remember you used to eat these like candy,” making her laugh as Willow rolled up gold napkins Sammy gave her out of a drawer and pushed them into napkin rings shaped like peacocks.

They lit blue candles in brass candlesticks of all different heights, so that it felt like they were eating in church. Willow didn’t usually like fish, but this was fine, all covered in butter and lemon and little green things that looked like balls of snot but Mike said were capers.

“So. Why did you want to see me?” Mike asked, his brown eyes dog friendly beneath the thick eyebrows.

“Just, you know, to see how you were doing. It’s been a long time,” Willow said.

“That it has.” Mike’s eyes were wary now, but he didn’t ask her anything else.

As they ate dinner, they talked about Sammy’s job—he was some kind of tax guy—and Mike’s school, where his kids were doing a project on beavers and trying to build their own dam. They finished dinner before Mike began asking her questions again. He started out with the usual stuff, like where did she go to school and what grade was she in.

Willow didn’t bother telling him about Nola and Russell and why she’d had to leave her old school. Mike wouldn’t want to hear about some other guy raising her. Instead, she said she’d tried private school, then decided public school would be better for her. “You know. More like real life.”

Sammy and Mike looked at each other across the table. “Well, I can tell you that real life is overrated, in my humble opinion,” Mike said, and pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket as Sammy started clearing the table. “Here,” he said, “pick a card.”

Willow tucked her hands under her thighs. “I should help do dishes.”

“Come on. Humor me. Pick a card and prepare to be amazed.”

Willow pulled a card out of the deck. “Do I show it to you?”

“Absolutely!” Sammy yelled from the kitchen, where she could hear the teakettle starting to whistle.

Willow turned the card over. “A six of hearts.”

“Perfectly done,” Mike said. He held the deck out to her. “Now put it back in the deck.”

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere at all.”

She kept her eyes fixed on Mike’s hands as she inserted the card in the middle of the pack.

“Good job,” Mike said, and started shuffling the cards so fast that they blurred. “Now. Do we agree that your card is lost in the deck?”

“Yes,” Willow said, grinning. She was buzzing with happiness. This was her dad, and he could do magic! It was coming back to her now, the tricks Mike used to do for her at breakfast or at night, when she was having trouble sleeping. Sometimes she’d wake up and find a card on her pillow. Always hearts.

“Do you bet I can’t find it?” Mike asked, almost yelling. “Do you doubt my amazing abilities?”

“I bet you can’t find it!” Willow said, giggling.

“How dare you doubt me, the great Magical Mike?” he said, and turned the top card over to reveal her six of hearts.

“Every time,” Sammy said, and brought cups of mint tea to the table.

Mike tucked the cards back into his pocket and watched Willow sip her tea. Then he said, “Honey, why are you really here? Does your mom need help?”

She shook her head. “Mom’s doing really well,” she said. “She stopped using drugs.”

“Really?” When Willow looked up, Mike apologized. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound quite so astonished.”

“But you are,” Sammy said. “I remember Zoe. I only met her twice, but both times were very, very memorable.”

“Shush,” Mike said. “Tell me about your mom, honey. I want to know. We used to be good friends.”

“I know,” Willow said. “You guys started dating in college, right?”

“High school, actually.” Mike looked at Sammy as he said this. “Before I knew anything.”