Season of Salt and Honey (25 page)

Her voice trails off and I know she's thinking of Alex, under the water. Floating. Lifeless. A shape, a silhouette, in black. Arms and legs spread out. Like an X.

She starts crying again, but clears her throat and pushes on, her voice crushed. “I fell in love with him. I knew he had a girlfriend. I knew he'd had a girlfriend since high school. I had met you, briefly, that one time, but I tried to forget it. Whenever anyone said your name I tried not to hear it. I tried to pretend you didn't exist.”

She reaches over to the desk, to a box of tissues. She pulls one out and presses it to her eyes. Mascara comes away like an ink stain. There's a mess of black on her face.

“But I did exist. I
do
exist.” I'm trying not to cry now.

Summer nods sadly. “I know. It was stupid. Trying to wish you away. It was easier when you weren't . . .” She gestures, feebly, towards me. “Real,” she finishes, sounding tired.

I blink at her and sit down slowly. “When did you kiss?”

She meets my eyes, questioning.

“You owe me.”

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “I told him . . . Alex . . . that I liked him. I couldn't say that I loved him, though I did—it was too much. It happened after a surf one Saturday. One of the guys had us over to his place when the weather turned bad. We started drinking beers. More people turned up. Someone put on music. Someone had a guitar. Then we were all spread out in different rooms, big enough to call it a party after a while.”

“He didn't call me,” I murmur. Though the truth is, he usually didn't. Surfing and the people who came with it were his world. I'd imagined him in places like that, sitting around having a beer, maybe two, after a surf, telling jokes, listening to music, talking about the waves. I'd never imagined another woman at the table, cold bottle in her hand, watching Alex's face. Watching him speak, watching him laugh.

“Then?” I press.

“We got a bit drunk. Drunk enough for me to finally tell him how I felt. Almost how I felt.”

“Did he tell you about me?”

She nods. “Yes. He said he had a girlfriend. He said you'd been together for a long time.”

I take another deep breath. “How did you end up kissing?”

She hesitates. “We were drunk . . .”

I shake my head.

“I asked him if he loved you.”

My heart races. “And?”

“He said, of course.”

Part of me soars when I hear this, but another part remains weighted. I know there is more. I pause, not inhaling. Summer looks conflicted, then she stares at the floor, clears her throat again.

“I asked him if he was
in love
with you.”

“And?” My voice is a whisper.

“And . . . we ended up kissing. I kissed him. It was my fault.”

“He never answered you?”

Suddenly my chest is burning. Like indigestion, but worse, from deeper inside.

Summer shakes her head.

Damn you, Alex.
I want to scream. And run.

Summer continues, the truth like a bad tooth, loosened now, ready to come out. “After the party he avoided me for a couple of months. Then he told me he'd gotten engaged. All the guys were in the water already and he held me back on the beach for a minute and told me. He was . . . weird about it.”

My hand goes to my mouth. I know the weird she's talking about. The Gardner stiff upper lip. The doing-the-right-thing voice. The convincing tone that has a crack in it.
Vaffanculo
. Alex had liked her. He might have proposed to me but he'd liked her. Or more. He just didn't know what to do about it.

I stand up again.

“I'm so sorry, Frankie.” Her voice sounds far away.

Alex made the problem go away by promising himself to me. Ticking the box, casting a vote. But what was that?
What was that?
How long would it have lasted? My hand, across my mouth, is shaking.

Summer is crying. “I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have kissed him. He loved you, I'm sure he did. I don't know what we had, but it wasn't like you and . . . him.”

I'm staring at her.

“He did love you,” she says again.

I feel myself nodding. Willing it to be true. Yes, he did. He did love me.

Truth and past tense.

“Frankie?”

“I have to go,” I say in a limp voice that isn't quite mine. Like a voice out of a dream. Or underwater.

“Please . . .?”

“I have to go.”

*  *  *

Sunlight bears in on me as I drive. But in my mind it's raining. Like that day, which feels long ago.

Rain lashed at the windows, the sky a warning gray. West Coast weather, a storm on its way.

Alex came in wet. His hair stuck to his head, his pants dripping on the floor, making puddles. He lifted his gaze to find me, fingers curled around a mug, legs folded underneath me on the couch.

“Hey.” His eyes shone. He kicked off his shoes, shrugged out of his jacket, and took a step towards me.

“Pants,” I said, pointing. They were soaked from the bottoms up.

He raised one eyebrow, lasciviously.

“They're wet,” I explained.

“Uh-huh.” He peeled them off and left them in a heap on the floor by the front door, moving to me. He wore green boxer shorts, the ones I bought him for his last birthday. His hands were freezing, his hair still dripping, even his lips were blue-rimmed. He leaned into me, slipped his fingers into my pants.

“Hey!” But I was laughing, trying to keep a grip on my mug.

“Good waves,” he whispered into my ear, his lips leaving a chill against my warm skin.

“Yeah?”

He pressed a kiss into my shoulder. “Hmmm-mmmm.” He pushed my hair away from my neck, left a trail of cold kisses along my collarbone.

“You're freezing.”

He nodded and took the mug from my hands, placed it on the floor. Then he came so close I could see that even his eyelashes were wet, and his breath smelled like fruit and yeast, like he'd had a beer with the guys before coming home. And then closer. Hot fries, wet suit, board wax. His lips reached mine. His mouth was on mine. Warm mouth, cold lips. A kiss like in high school. Long and slow.

He pulled away for a moment to lift my shirt over my head.

I smiled. “I missed you.”

“Come here,” he murmured into my ear, the tip of his nose icy, sliding me down onto the rug.

I turn the steering wheel, take the corner too fast, but right myself on the straight. Blink hard.

Who was he thinking about? Me or her?

• • • •

W
hen I skid into Jack's driveway, he's stepping out of his front door. He's got work boots on and he's holding his keys and wallet.

“Hey.” His expression goes from happy surprise to concern. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head.

“Is Huia here?”

“No. Are you . . . What's . . .?”

I shake my head again. My mind is wandering dark hallways. I hear music from another room. People laughing. See Alex and Summer against a wall.

“Do you want to come inside?” Jack asks.

“No.”

“A cup of tea?”

“I don't want a cup of tea.”

My breath is fast and shallow. Jack is blinking, waiting.

I want my fiancé back.

I want my life back.

I want things to be the way they were.

I want to not know what I know.

Jack reaches out. “Come inside, Frankie, you look . . . tired.”

“No.” I lean away from him, then stare at his hand. Travel the length of his arm, up to his face. “Do you like me, Jack?”

He doesn't reply.

I stare at his face and the pieces it's made up of. Dark eyes, full lips, skin the color of caramel. So different from Alex.

“I want to know if you like me,” I demand.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

He shifts his weight. “Yes.”

“Yes, you like me?”

“Frankie, this is . . . I don't know if you . . .”

He's awkward. More awkward than I've ever seen him. It makes him look younger, more his real age.

“Why do you like me?”

He's frowning now. “Shit, Frankie, I dunno.”

“If you like me, then tell me why,” I insist.

He glances up to the sky, then back at me. Then down at his feet.

“You can't tell me why.” I turn back to the car. My heart is hammering in my chest.

“Frankie!” Jack calls, but I don't turn around.

“Fuck you!” I yell, but it's not really for Jack. It's for Alex. Alex and Summer. I'm mad that I waited so long for Alex to ask me to marry him. I'm mad that I didn't realize. I'm mad that I pretended it was perfect. I'm mad at secrets as big as houses. Rage burns in my chest, in my throat. I'm even mad at this
place, at the trees and the air and the everything.
Fuck you. Fuck all of you.

I feel a broad, warm hand against my arm, the fingers curling around. “Frankie, hang on.”

“Let go of me!” I growl. I turn just a little, to see Jack's face, pleading.

“What's going on? You've got to give me a minute.” His voice is deep and gentle.

“No! I'm not waiting! I waited long enough!” I almost scream.

He
wasn't sure. He made me wait. He loved
her
. I was an obligation.

My heart is pounding so fast it feels as though it's going to leap right out of me.

“Frankie . . .”

“If you like me, you like me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And if you can't say why, then you don't!”

“Frankie, I like you.”

I tear my arm out of his grip. “Sure you do. But not as much as someone else. As the
next
someone!”

As the girl with the sand-colored eyelashes who wants to be in the ocean with you, who hasn't put up with all your faults for years and years, hasn't had to pretend there are no faults. That it's all just right. I feel myself starting to cry.

“Frankie . . .”

The words are lost now. My throat makes a tight fist around them. I lean against the car door. It's reassuringly cold.

Jack speaks softly. “I like you just because I like you, Frankie. I
guess I think that I shouldn't like you right now, because of what you've been through. Because it's not fair on you. Because you have enough going on.”

Tears are spilling down my face. Jack steps closer warily. I lean right onto the car, my forehead against the top of the roof.
Please
, I want to beg, but can't decide if I want him closer or farther away.

“Hey,” he murmurs, “I like you because you're tough. Strong. But kind too. Broken, a bit, I guess, but not all the way.”

Now I want to tell him to stop, but I'm crying so hard it's difficult to draw breath.

“You're beautiful. Of course,” he adds, his voice a kind of honey, “you have to know that already.” I feel his hand come to rest gently against the top of my arm. I want to slap it away and also roll into it, roll into him.

“And good. You seem like a good, decent, honest person. You're good to your dad. And mad with your sister but you put up with her anyway. 'Cause you love her and you reckon blood is thicker than water. You try to do the right thing. Maybe that sounds stupid, but it's something. It's something to me anyway.”

I want to turn to look at him, but my face remains against the car, and the tears keep pouring out of me. I can barely draw breath quick enough to keep up.

“Frankie?” Jack says. “Is that what you wanted? I haven't done this for a long time . . . I'm not good at explaining.”

His thumb is moving against my skin but he hasn't stepped any closer.

I shake my head. “It's . . . not . . . that,” I manage to say between sobs.

But I can't explain what it is. What I've learned, and how it has nothing to do with him. Though I tipped all my anger onto him, though I've made demands of him. I've been unfair. So unfair. Tangled in grief and rage and guilt.

Jack's tone shifts. It's somehow firmer but still gentle. “Please come inside, Frankie.”

I shake my head, rolling it side to side against the metal. I feel his palm slide down my arm to take my hand in his.

“You need to sit down.”

“I should go.”

“I'll make you some tea.”

“I need to go.”

“Enough going,” he says decisively. “You're staying.”

He pulls me just enough to lift my head from the car, then wraps his arm around me and guides me towards the house. My face is a mess of tears and snot, no doubt creased and pink, crumpled.

I drop my head. “He loved her.”

“Who?”

“Alex. My . . . He loved Summer.”

“Oh.” Jack pauses. “I'm sorry, Frankie.” His voice is warm against my hair.

I feel stupid. And tired.

“Me too,” I mumble.

“Come on,” he says carefully. “I've got to pick up Huia. I'll make you some tea and then leave you to rest. You'll have the place to yourself. Okay?”

He helps me up the steps. I feel my resistance slipping away—a
shadow dissolving in soft twilight. My body is weak and shaky. I place one foot in front of the other, but Jack is practically lifting me into the house.

“Okay,” I say, my voice wispy.

*  *  *

When I wake, I'm lying on Jack's couch and there's a full cup of cold tea on the table in front of me. A blanket falls away as I sit up. It's made of different-colored crocheted squares—lemon, apricot, fuchsia—bordered with black wool and it smells of lavender and cedar. I push my fingers through the holes.

Huia's laughter erupts somewhere in the distance; I turn my head to find the sound. Jack's voice is there too, deep and muffled. They must be outside.