Deep Water (6 page)

Joseph
turned his back while I dressed that morning. It was a bit ridiculous since I
had spent the night naked in his arms, but he had been a complete gentleman. It
took me back to the day when he had swum out with me to the platform and let me
climb the ladder first. I had thought that boy with the chivalry was gone.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked from his
spot on the sand once I had tugged my top over my head and turned back to face
him.

I shrugged, unable to wipe the smile
from my lips. “I don’t know. I’m just happy.” I sat down beside him, and his
arm immediately went around me, pulling me in close, so my head rested on his
shoulder.

I felt his hand stroke my hair. “We’ll
have to go skinny dipping more often,” he murmured.

“Pervert.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, I am.”

I tilted my head up to kiss him. I
wanted more of him. I wanted to stay like this forever. But he broke from the
kiss, and I made a small noise in disappointment.

“I’m sorry. I have to go to work,” he
said, softly.

“But you worked on the weekend.” I
kissed his neck instead; his skin was fresh and clean from the lake water.

“I know, but I need as much cash as I
can get. I’m walking on eggshells at home. I need to be prepared for the day my
stepdad decides to kick me out.”

I stopped kissing him and sat up
straight so I could look at him. I had forgotten that he came from a very
different lifestyle than me.

“Is he that horrible?”

He shook his head as he laced his
fingers through mine. “I don’t want to talk about him. He’s not worth it.” Then
his face brightened. “You want to know what I really want to do with the money
I save? I want to start buying property like my boss does. I know it’ll take a
long time to get enough to do what I want, but I figured if I start small I’ll
get there eventually.” Then he looked at me and frowned. “Why are you smiling?”

I snuggled into him once more. “You just
sound so different talking about houses, so excited and light. It’s different.
I like it.”

He placed a finger under my jaw, tilting
up my head to look at him. “Is that the only thing about me that you like?” he
teased.

I pushed him away. “I’m not going to
stroke your ego. Anyway, get to work. You’ve got a property empire to build.”

We held hands as we walked back to our
cars before we parted with another lingering kiss and made plans to meet up
that night.

I arrived home, disheveled from my night
on the beach, but no one was home to care and the mess of dinner from the night
before still sat where I had left it. It totally killed the high that I had
from being with Joseph. Begrudgingly, I cleaned it up. The fancy dishes that
were coated with baked on cheese, I just threw away. I wasn’t going to spend
hours trying to get the stuff off.

The rest of the day I spent with Eve,
lying beside her pool and flicking through magazines. I filled her in on the
situation with Joseph.

She raised an eyebrow. “I thought he was
screwing Katrin Porter?”

I pressed my lips firmly together before
saying, “Can’t you just be happy for me?”

“I am, but what’s happening with him and
Katrin?”

“Well, obviously he’s not having sex
with her
now
,” I huffed.

She blinked. “Don’t get mad. I was just
asking.” I could practically see her thinking. “You know Ewan was asking after
you last night–”

“I like Joseph,” I cut in.

She gave a sigh. “Fine. Enjoy your
romantic summer fling.” Then she winked at me. “I’m just jealous. Joseph Fray
has a killer bod.”

“Yeah." I smiled smugly. “He does.”

Joseph and I met up for something to eat
before going to the lake. He ordered some greasy, fat concoction while I
ordered the only low-fat thing on the menu.

He eyed my salad, unimpressed. “I don’t
know how you can eat only that. Don’t you get hungry?”

I swallowed my mouthful. “Eternally. But
I have to watch what I eat. We have fat genes in my family. You should see my
Mom’s Mother. Last time we saw her, she was practically crippled from all the
stress the extra weight put on her joints. Her arthritis was so bad she
couldn’t even clean her house.”

Joseph made a face. “I think I’d rather
die happy than stress out about what I ate all the time.”

“That’s because you’re a boy. It’s
different for men and women. Men need to be wealthy; women need to be
attractive.” I took another mouthful of my salad.

“Really?” He looked surprised. “Who
wrote those rules?”

“Society.”

“Well, I’d still like you if you were
fat.”

I nearly spat out my food in a fit of
laughter. “Liar.”

He watched me for a moment, before
relaxing into a grin. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

We spent much of the night touching in
some way‒either by holding hands as we stood around talking to our friends,
or later when we sat in front of the fire. I was nestled in between his legs,
leaning against his hard chest as I drank my beer. He had an arm resting on my
stomach. It had worked its way up under my t-shirt to rest on my bare skin. He
absentmindedly rubbed his hand over my stomach as he chatted to his friend
sitting next to us.

That’s when I really noticed Katrin for
the first time that night. She was sitting by herself, drinking a beer. It was
unmistakable that her gaze was on us. I caught her eye and stared back at her
for a few seconds. She was jealous, or at the very least unhappy, but I didn’t
care about that. All I could think of was that I was staring at the girl who
had been with Joseph in a way that I hadn’t and had an intimacy with him that
was foreign to me.

So I twisted around to kiss him, knowing
full well that she was watching. I didn’t do it to be bitchy, but I felt like at
that moment I needed to put my mark on him. He smiled into my mouth and kissed
me back with passion, not caring that his friend was watching.

When we finally drew apart, I looked
over at Katrin. She was walking away, fast. I guess that meant that I had
achieved whatever it was I thought I wanted.

The
summer was passing in a haze of moonlit kissing, early morning swims, and the
cooling of my parents’ marriage. Before there had been passion and eventual
making up amongst the craziness and cruelty. Now it was like everything was
encased in ice, they were on their best behavior, but there was no friendliness.
They were like two strangers in their icy politeness.

My mother had started on a new
medication, and she was calmer. Her tantrums of before had stopped over a
period of weeks, enough so that we could all go as a family to Dad’s boss’s
house on the lake for the annual summer party.

It was a fancy occasion involving formal
attire, valet parking, and a fountain of champagne. Terrence Teller owned the
accountancy firm that Dad worked for, not to mention the fact that he seemed to
have a finger in every business of note in our town. He also had considerable
overseas interests, according to my father.

His wealth was demonstrated by the cars
he drove, and the gorgeous lakeside estate where we were invited for the
evening. He, himself, was not so majestic. He was short and balding. His
personality was jovial, but Dad had warned me not to be fooled. He was a shrewd
businessman.

My mother towered above him as she bent
down to let him kiss her cheek. She made a tall, graceful figure in her long
red dress and glittering jewelry. Her blonde hair was piled elegantly on top of
her head which made the size difference between them all the more apparent.

“I can’t believe you’re old enough to
have a teenage daughter,” he told her as he kissed her hand. I rolled my eyes
at his corniness, but my mother blushed and beamed.

“You are so sweet.” She turned to me.
“Isn’t he sweet, Jessie?” she cooed

“Sure. Hi, Mr. Teller.”

“Jessie. Look at you growing up. How old
are you now?”

“Seventeen.”

He let out a low whistle. “Seventeen.
Lucky for you that you’re taking after your mother, huh? I’m sure you’ll be as
beautiful as her one day.” But he wasn’t saying this to me; his eyes were still
on my mother.

“Sure. Excuse me.” Neither of them gave
me a second glance, and I spied Ewan standing by the doors that led out to the
lake. He looked uncomfortable in his suit as he sipped a glass of champagne.

I swiftly took the glass from his hand,
taking him by surprise. But he relaxed into a smile when he saw it was me.

“Hey, Jessie. You got forced into coming
to this thing as well?”

I shrugged and took a sip of the
champagne. “It’s a chance to dress up, and apparently drink free booze. Are they
serving us under-agers now?”

He grinned. “Give it half an hour and most
the adults in this place will be completely wasted going by the amount of
drinks the waiters are bringing out.”

“Excellent.” I took another sip.

“You look nice, by the way.”

I curtseyed. “Thank you, sir. Like my
dress? I had to spend the
entire
day shopping in the city with my Mom
until we found one she thought was suitable.” I rolled my eyes at the memory.
I’d been pissed because it was Joseph’s day off, and we had made plans to spend
it together. Instead, I’d traipsed from store to store with her. Every dress
that I had liked she’d pronounced as too grown up, and we finally compromised
on a little black dress that was figure hugging without being too sexy. By the
time we got back, it was late, and she told me that she thought I should go to
bed instead of heading out to the lake to meet up with my friends.

It was surreal that she was taking an
interest in my wellbeing again. In fact, it was so shocking that I texted
Joseph that I couldn’t make it, and went to bed as she had asked instead.

“I like the dress,” Ewan said. “Very
sexy.”

I grinned, happy at his response. Sexy
was what my mother had specifically
not
wanted.

“Hey,” he said. “Want to steal a bottle
and go sit down by the water? If I have to be polite to one more old person
tonight, I’m going to scream.”

I looked at my parents. Mom was still
talking with Mr. Teller, and Dad was surrounded by a bunch of boring men. I
wondered if Anna was here…

“Sounds good,” I told Ewan. He put
himself in charge of swiping a bottle of champagne from the kitchen while I
waited outside for him. I stepped off the balcony and walked down the manicured
lawn to the water’s edge, sitting on the bench seat that was embedded there.

My phone signaled a text from Joseph.

‘I’m at the lake. Can you sneak off
early?’

‘Maybe later,’
I replied
‘You
drunk yet?’

My phoned beeped a second later.

‘Getting there. Miss you.”

‘Miss you, too.’

I was still smiling at my phone when
Ewan joined me, a stolen bottle of something that looked expensive in hand. We
didn’t bother with glasses and just drank straight from the bottle. I felt
quite decadent sitting outside a mansion on the shore of the lake, in my
evening clothes and drinking champagne from a bottle. I felt grown-up.

The giggling that I couldn’t help was
distinctively
un
grown-up. But Ewan kept making me laugh, and I spat out
more than one mouthful as he joked and teased with me. Soon I was feeling dizzy
and lightheaded from the drink, so I lay down on my back on the grass, not
caring about messing my dress.

Ewan lay back down beside me, his head
touching mine as we looked up at the night sky together. It was natural when
his lips touched mine. I wasn’t that surprised, after all he’d been inching
closer to me all evening. I didn’t return the kiss, and he got the message.

“Ewan…” I said, sadly.

He sat up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done
that.”

I sat up as well. “I’m with Joseph now.”

He looked away. “I know.”

I waited for a beat. “Are you mad?”

He looked back at me, surprise on his
face. “Of course not.”

I reached out and took his hand, giving
it a slight squeeze. “Good. Because I like being around you, and you’re the
only one who knows what my Mom is like. So I’d be really pissed off if I lost
you as my friend.”

He squeezed my hand back. “You won’t.
Promise.”

I leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss
on the cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.

It wasn’t long after that that I heard
my Dad call my name. Ewan helped me to my feet and to hike down my dress that
had risen up. We stumbled up the lawn together toward the balcony on which my Dad
stood.

“Jessie, it’s time to go.”  He frowned
as he saw me. “Are you
drunk?
”

Ewan cleared his throat, and I could
tell he was suppressing a laugh, but his voice came out straight. “Sir, she
just had a glass of champagne.
She’s so tiny that it hit her pretty
hard.”

“She shouldn’t have been drinking in the
first place,” my father said in a voice that sounded strained like he was
trying to hold back his irritation.

I waved goodbye to an amused looking
Ewan as my Dad led me back inside to where my mother was waiting. She looked
happy.

“She’s been drinking. Let’s get out of
here,” my father said tightly to her.

My mother just gave me a small smile,
and I was relieved that she wasn’t mad like Dad was. But of course, that
changed when we got in the car. Only the anger wasn’t directed at me.

“Why weren’t you keeping an eye on her?”
Dad said as he put the key in the ignition.

Mom snorted. “Why weren’t
you
?
Oh. Wait. I know. You were too busy with that whore,
Anna.”

Dad froze with his hand on the key. Then
he slowly turned his head to face my mother.

“And what were you doing?” he asked,
coldly. “Did you really think that I didn’t know about you and Terrence?”

I heard the breath my mother sucked in,
and there was a moment of silence, and then she released it.

“Well, you know now,” she said in a
shaky voice. “But you drove me to him. You–”

“Shut up!” Dad yelled. “I
drove
you to him? How exactly did I do that? By being the good, supportive husband
all these years? By standing by you with your drinking and your mental problems?
By continually making excuses for you? Even when you turned up pregnant with
some other guy’s bastard, I looked after you.” He hit the steering wheel with
his fist, and the horn went off. I flinched when he called me a bastard and my
eyes started to well with tears, but they didn’t notice me. My father hadn’t
finished. “And how do you repay me? By screwing around on me constantly the
whole
time we’ve been married. And the one time, the
one time,
I go to someone
else for a little bit of happiness, you continually throw her in my face and
make me out to be the bad guy. Well, I’m not putting up with it anymore–”

He caught sight of my face in the rearview
mirror, and he stopped.

My mother twisted around to look at me
before turning back to Dad. “Happy now?” she spat.

“Jessie–” Dad began.

“Can you drop me off on the other side
of the lake,” I managed to breathe out as I controlled the urge to sob. “My
friends are there. Eve will give me a ride home.”

“Honey–”

“Drop her off,” my mother commanded. “I
can’t blame her for not wanting to be around us right now. After all, you did
call her a bastard.”

Dad started the car without another
word. We drove around the lake in silence. He pulled the car up to a stop where
all my classmates’ cars were parked.

“I might stay the night at Eve’s house
if that’s okay with you,” I said tightly.

“Of course. Honey, I’m so–” I got out
and slammed the door, so I didn’t have to listen to anything else.

The first person I saw was Eve. She ran
to me and pulled me into a suffocating hug. “I didn’t think you were coming!
Here, drink this.” A beer was pushed into my hand before she let out a squeal,
and some guy came chasing after her. She took off, and he followed suit. Her
giggling disappeared into the night further up the beach.

I drank the beer as my eyes searched for
Joseph. I couldn’t see him, and I didn’t really want to talk to anyone else, so
I sat back a bit from the fire, drinking my beer. Someone sat down beside me,
and I looked to see who it was.

The smoke from Katrin’s cigarette was
somehow more offensive that the smoke from the fire.

“Hi, Katrin,” I said, before looking
back at the fire.

“Hey.”

 I shifted uncomfortably, conscious of
her eyes on me. Finally, I turned to her. “What?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” I saw her hand
that held the cigarette shake slightly.

“What?”

She lifted her hand to her mouth and
sucked on her cigarette. She exhaled a puff of smoke that seemed to float right
over me. “That he was sleeping with me while he was going after you? The whole
time you were playing little-miss-hard-to-get, I was taking care of his
hard
on…”

I was glad it was dark because anger
must have made my face red. I took a breath, and amazingly my voice came out
calm. “Everyone knows that you were his go-to-girl for whenever he was horny,
Katrin. That’s news to no one.”

There seemed to be no emotion on her
face as she raised her cigarette to her mouth again to take another drag. Then
she said it, the words that I knew were waiting somewhere to be spoken out
loud. “Don’t you want to know if I’m still his go-to-girl?”