I purse my lips at him, and he smiles. He tries to hide it, but it’s definitely a smug little smile. It’s there and gone, leaving me longing to see it again. Which is ridiculous.
“So anyway, I just want to let you know I’m not just going to…do things like that. Not again, anyway. I’m staying in Gertrude’s house, in her room with the door dead-bolted.”
“You know what I think?” Smirky bastard.
“I don’t care what you think.”
“I’m going to tell you anyway.” He steps a little closer, and I notice his clothes are sticking to him just like mine are. I can see every line of his beautiful chest through that soaked dress shirt. I bite my cheek and he leans in even closer, so all I can see is his face, and the rumble of his voice fills my ears.
“I think you need a door that locks from the outside if you want to be sure you don’t fall legs-spread on my cock.”
That deep voice permeates my mind. It gets inside me. I wrap my arms around myself, but I still feel an ache low in my belly and warmth between my legs.
I stand up straighter. Twist my lips into a frown. “You’re a jerk, Race. It’s painfully obvious to me. First you tried to manipulate me into giving you this island. Then you seduced me. I don’t know what I can expect from you next, which is why I think we should part ways. Right here, right now.”
His eyebrows arch, and even that simple movement sends a bolt of lust straight to my girly parts.
“Give me my bags.” I hold my arms out, and he leans close enough so I can smell his breath and feel his heat. As he slides them on my shoulder, his fingers whisper across my arm and my body goes molten.
I step back. “Can I have the key?”
A self-pleased little twitch of his lips makes me want to punch him in the nose. “If you insist, Red. There's a key under the flower pot with yellow polka dots. Let yourself in. Look around if you want. I don’t think she’d mind you poking around, as long as you don’t take anything.”
I close my hand around the strap of my bag. “I would never do that. I’m her granddaughter, remember?”
Another subtle lift of his brows. His cheek tugs up a little, but it’s not a smile. It’s a kind of tired, kind of doubting look—one that seems to say he’s over messing with me. “You sure you don’t want company on the walk?” He shifts his weight, drawing my gaze to his long, muscular legs.
“Yes.” I lick my slightly chapped lips. “Very sure.”
He nods. “You’ll find a folder on the desk in her office. Top of the pile. Everything in there is yours. To get there, you’ll want to take this path,” he says, pointing at something behind my shoulder. I turn to see a ribbon of pale pebbles that curls between the pines, rolling in the opposite direction of where Race was carrying me before we stopped. “It will lead you all the way to Trudie’s cottage. Just keep on through the woods until you see it. It’s about five hundred yards from here, near some rocks.”
I glance briefly at the treetops, where, in between the leaves, the sky is gray. It’s not going to be sunny again this afternoon, but I have at least two hours until dark, if I’m correct about the time. “I think I can handle that,” I tell Race.
My eyes cling to his face. I just can’t help myself. With his ripped physique and worn-out clothes, he looks like just the kind of trouble that would await a woman in the woods at dusk.
I huff my breath out, hold up a hand in a casual wave. A wave that’s meant to tell him I’m totally over the crazy monkey sex we just had.
“Bye, Race. I mean Wolf.” I smirk over my shoulder. “Thank you for the orgasms.”
Chapter Three
RED
As soon as I’m more than a stone’s throw from Race, I drop the smirking-girl-in-charge-of-her-own-sexuality façade and let a wave of anxiety wash over me. I’m way out of my element here: on the island, and with him.
Not that there is any ‘with him.’
Not that I’d ever, in a million years, want there to be.
My nickname for him—Wolf—is totally appropriate.
I definitely feel like Little Red Riding Hood right now, clutching my bags as I walk slowly through the woods, to grandmother's house. I keep my gaze up in the trees, where rain drips from thin, squiggly moss; where pine needles tremble in the wind; where I can see swatches of sky through the treetops. Rain drips only occasionally on my forehead, in my hair, where it tickles as it makes its way down toward my neck. Birds call over the dim noise of the waves. I can see the ocean if I glance out to my left. It’s grey-blue and looks choppy, as if it’s underlining the fact that I’m stuck here tonight. Stuck on an island with a man I know almost nothing about, one who, inexplicably, I can’t stop thinking about.
I remember the way I cried when I came on the beach. The way I felt right before I got off for the last time. How super intense it was. I wonder if it was that good for him. I hope it was.
I still can’t believe I did that. Sure, Race is obviously an all-star player, but I have a will of my own. Why did I do it?
It’s probably my pent-up sexual frustration. After Carl, there’s been no one. Jobless, going-broke me didn’t have the confidence to put herself out there. I told myself there was no need. I had Mr. Happy, who I suddenly wish I’d tucked into my bag.
I remember how Race looked in between my legs, smirking as he licked me. I wish I’d had the chance to touch his dick. I would love to—would have loved to give him some of the same pleasure he gave me.
As soon as I get to Gertrude’s place, I’m taking a cold shower. Or maybe a warm shower where I put my hand to good use.
Thinking about following up my experience with Race by pleasuring myself in my grandmother's bathroom makes me depressed. I feel lonely again. Lonely, unemployed, and probably just played by a master manipulator.
I pick up the pace, eager to put as much distance as possible between Race and me. I’m grateful when, a minute or two later, the pebble path leads me out of the woods, into a grassy clearing where two weeping willows, swaying on either side of the path, herald a spacious cottage: stone with lots of glass and a roof made of adorable wooden shingles. The cottage is situated on what looks like the tip of the island. It’s surrounded by a rocky beach where waves crash in sprays of white. Two gulls circle above it. A garden sprawls behind it, overrun with delicate purple flowers, spindly yellow ones, pink snap roses, monkey grass, ferns, a young maple tree, and a sea of ivy that climbs the glass walls of the sunroom on the back of the house.
So Gertrude had a green thumb. A green thumb and a black heart… I scowl at my own bitterness. I guess I’ve still got some hard feelings. I shove them aside and walk across a stone patio surrounding the garden. I’m looking for the pot that—
There it is. Beside the baby maple tree.
I lift it up and find an ordinary-looking, silver key. The sunroom door is teal green, with glass panes in the middle. I can see the cozy-looking furniture inside before I push the door open: two small, lipstick-colored couches and a wicker-backed rocking chair resting atop a cream rug that almost looks crocheted. A Tiffany’s style stained glass floor lamp beside the rocking chair. A big, leather trunk serving as a coffee table, stacked with magazines and a tablet. I step slowly inside, feeling like an interloper, half expecting Gertrude to step through the doorway that leads back to the rest of the house and tell me she was only testing me.
I’m sure I failed the moment I let Race shove his fingers inside me.
I stand there for a second, waiting for I’m not sure what, but the only thing I hear is…shit. Is that a cat purring?
He’s fat and orange, sitting in a green wing-backed chair I hadn’t noticed before. His gaze flicks to me before he lifts one of his front paws and begins to lick it.
My eyes are already watering.
I put a hand over my mouth, but it’s no use. I’m madly allergic to cats, and one is sitting within sneezing distance of me. The bastard continues purring as I sneeze twice into my palms.
Along th
e wall to my left, I notice a quote done in black brush-script: “The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline toward the religion of solitude. –Aldous Huxley”
That makes Gertrude seem like an asshole. Was she implying she was reclusive because of her great mind? That’s bullshit.
There are other telling trinkets: a framed photo here and there—all featuring people I’ve never seen; that entire tablet full of ebooks. But I sneeze three more times and realize I should probably leave the room. If not because of the cat, because I’d like to take a look around, see what I see, and find a bed. I’m all thrown off by what just happened on the beach, and frankly, I’d just like to leave. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.
I pass through a cavernous kitchen, where pots and pans hang over a spacious, emerald-tiled counter cluttered with bills, sticky notes, and a returned envelope bearing Gertrude’s handwriting: a distinctive, angular script I recognize from photos of some of her early poetry notebooks. It’s stamped in royal blue ink with her name and address, and the stamp features an acorn. I rub my finger over it, wondering what it meant about her. She wasn’t Mrs. Gertrude O’Malley, but Ms.
She and my mother’s father never married. She got pregnant but decided not to commit to a man she didn't love. At least that’s what my mom told me. She only met her father a handful of times.
I put the letter back down and sneeze into my hand. Damn cat. I wander into the next room, a dining room with a radio sitting on the table, and a—
“Aaahh choo!”
I wipe my mouth and swipe at my eyes and glance around the room. Damnit if there’s not a white cat perched on the arm of one of the chairs.
Shit. There’s another one under the coffee table, cleaning its hind leg with its tongue.
So Gertrude was a cat lover. My mom liked cats, too—until we realized how allergic I am.
A quick peek into the room next to this one reveals a cozy little den with a flat-screen, a small couch, a recliner, and a coffee table that looks like it was made of driftwood. Over the couch hangs a framed poem by Carl Sandburg: Fog.
I don’t even notice the cat on the floor until I almost trip over him—or her. He/she is beige, like the rug, and so fluffy I sneeze twice just looking at her/him.
“Damnit.”
I stumble into the next room, my eyes burning and watering. This was clearly Gertrude’s office. On the desk is perched a brown and black cat; on the floor beside a rocking chair, a black and white one.
I sneeze three times.
“Jesus.” I grab a tissue from a box and turn a slow circle, built-in cedar bookshelves packed with hardbacks and several rickety-looking filing cabinets.
I drop down in the desk chair and hold my hand over my nose, hoping no dander will get in. Which is futile. I know that. I wipe my nose with my hand, then turn my attention to the desk, floored for a moment to be at the famous Gertrude O’Malley’s work space. The first thing I see is a folder marked ‘family.’
I open it slowly, feeling slightly as if I’m spying, and pull out a thin stack of papers. I can tell from the way the words are arranged on the pages that they’re poems. I shuffle them, and photos fall onto the desk. I’d know the face in those pictures anywhere: my mother's. I shove them behind the poems.
My heart is beating hard. The few times I’ve gotten a never-before-seen picture of Mom since her death, I feel almost like I’m seeing her again. It’s new data about her, and it’s so thrilling I want to relish the buildup for a minute.
I glance around the room again, noting details now: a one-handed Ghost Busters clock on one of the bookshelves; an encased baseball with a squiggly signature on the windowsill, in between burgundy curtains; a tube of lipstick on the edge of the desk, right out in front of me. I pull the top off and scrutinize the color: it’s pale, and almost purple. Why would she wear lipstick? What’s the point, if you’re never going to see anyone—except Race? I wonder how often she saw Race. I wonder if she thought he was attractive.
I groan.
Then I lean back a little in her office chair and read through the first of the poems. I’m not positive, since poetry is kind of veiled most of the time, but I’m pretty sure the piece compares my mother to a mirage, which makes me angry. My mom was real. Maybe Gertrude chose to relegate her to an almost imaginary figure, but she wasn’t. I set that poem face-down atop a stack of envelopes and try the next one, Farmer’s Wife. In it, Gertrude writes about beans in a pod, shucked open by a farmer’s wife. Thrown into a bowl, incapable of recognizing one another. There’s a sense of melancholy that makes me assume the beans are my mother and Gertrude. Maybe even me.
Whatever.
I’m relieved to find the third poem is about sea turtles. I’m sure there’s some more profound point, but I let my imagination stick to just the words, please, and imagine big, dopey turtles laying eggs in sand.
When I’m finished, I turn the photos over. The first one is of my mother, wearing her undergrad cap and gown at the University of Alabama. My father smiles beside her. I can still smell him: yeast and tomato sauce; fresh cheese. He died in a car wreck, delivering pizza. I was four. My mom got pregnant with me when she was in her sophomore year at Bama, and they got married shortly thereafter.
I hug the picture to my heart, then start to sit it on my lap. My jeans are still wet, though—actually, all of me is—so I grab one of Gertrude’s dumb poems, put it on my wet jeans, and set the picture on top of it.
The second picture is my mother as a young child—maybe five. She’s wearing pig-tails and holding a ballerina doll whose plastic toes are pointed. I spend a long time staring at her smile. I never knew her as a five-year-old, have never seen a picture of her this age, but it’s still her smile. I love her smile.
It doesn’t take long for tears to make my throat sting. I’m not in the mood to cry, so I stand up, sit the photos back on the desk, and wander around the office.
A closer examination of knickknacks on the bookshelves reveals a clay paperweight with my mother’s initials, a framed photo of me as a baby, a copy of the Journal. In a corner, underneath the leaves of a giant fern, I find a size-eight pair of house shoes. I wonder absently if I could sell them for money.
I return to the desk and sit down. I read the poem about the turtle again.
I’m frustrated. Because the thought of leaving here tomorrow makes me depressed. Because I find myself longing for more of Race. Not him; what we did together.
For the first time, I think of one of the things Carl told me when he left me. I was mad at him, screeching about how it should have been impossible for him not to know he was gay. He looked right into my eyes and he said, “It’s not because you’re female, Red. It’s because you’re boring. You don’t want anything that you can’t have. You’re always…satisfied.”
And I thought that was funny, because I’m not. At all. My mother used to tell a story about how, as a baby, I skipped baby food and went right to chicken and potatoes. In school if I didn’t make a 95 or better on a test/quiz/report, my day was ruined. I’m never well-exercised enough, smart enough, funny enough. At least in my own mind I’m not. And it’s funny—it struck me as hilariously ridiculously funny that day, with Carl in the apartment—because he didn’t know that about me. I’d never been open enough with him.
So in the end, maybe it was almost as much my fault as his.
I walk slowly back through the kitchen, off which I find a tiny, blue-tiled half bath. I use a mini hair-dryer I find there to dry my clothes a bit, then walk back out into the garden. It’s humid. Hot, even at night. I walk to the edge of the yard, where the vibrant grass meets large boulders, piled between the yard and sea.
I stare down at the swirling sea and think of mermaids. I wish I could just swim away. Tears sting my eyes, because I’ve been ignoring the depth of my desperation for months now. I have no one. Nothing. I wrap my arms around myself, protection from a brisk breeze. A gull caws obnoxiously. I sneeze a few times. I wonder wha
t they think of me—a large intruder.
I pull off my shoes and venture down some of the rocks, using hands and feet to balance on the steep descent. I start to feel a little less frenzied. A little less allergic. I make it to the lowest rock, on the farthest end of the boulder pile, and stand there, letting the ocean spray my legs. I stick my foot in, up to my calf, and relish the shock of cold on my bare skin. The tide is high and getting higher. As I watch the gray sky and the waves that crest gently, further out, the sea settles over my feet and calves.
I crouch down, submerging myself from the waist down. The waves break at my belly. I think: I could be pulled in. I really could.
Moving slowly, almost robotically, I tug off my jeans. I want to feel the water. It reminds me of college. I was a swimmer.
I pull my shirt off and toss it on the rocks behind me. I’m going in. Why not? I wait for a break between the waves and lower my whole self into the water. It’s cold, leaving me breathless. I kick a few times, searching for sand, but the water around the rocks is deep. A wave smacks me in the face. I kick out a few strokes, making it past the spot where the waves break. I check for current, finding none. Around my shoulders, waves lap at my neck and chin—but they’re not violent. I go under, emerging wet and cleansed. I turn over on my back and look up at the sky.
Mom, where are you?
I drift there on a wave, surprised at how quickly I’ve adjusted to the cold. I’m watching gulls circle, thinking how nice it must be to fly in a group like that, when I feel like I’m drifting. I get in free-style position and swim, but the current holds me in place. No, not in place. I’m being dragged out, slowly but surely. I swim at an angle, don’t panic. I’m a strong swimmer. I’m okay.
I swim harder, am tugged harder. I fix my eyes on my shirt, crumpled on the lowest rock. The water’s almost reached it.