Caribbean Crossroads (20 page)

He felt a sweat bead rivulet down the side of his face. Something wasn’t right—her tone, her manner. “Yeah, it was a good show. It’s been a pretty mellow run.”

“But you’ve had some special excitement. And isn’t that part of a good show?”

He didn’t know what she meant.

She paused, looking down at him like Juliet in a turret. “I just want you to know, I’m happy for you, Bry. I am. But I think you should know …” Her pink lips pouted as she took the third tub from him.

Just as she moved to place it in the cubby it shifted and dropped. Bryant reached for it and she stumbled from the ladder right into Bryant’s outstretched arms.

With her against him, he fell back into a stack of cardboard boxes that gave with their weight. “Whoa,” he said but she didn’t let go of her arms around his neck as he flailed to get upright.

“Bry, I’ve never stopped caring about you, not once. I know this is crazy—so crazy—but,” she was crying now, really crying. Bryant tried to take it in but it felt like slow motion video.

“I love you, Bry, I can’t—how can I help you see it?” Sobbing and clinging she was millimeters from his face. “If you only knew … understood … I always have, and I’m ready now. One more chance, that’s all I’m asking …”

Still leaning back with her against him, he looked into her wet, fringed blue eyes—pleading and childlike—looked past them to see Megan standing in the doorway with an ashen expression. She uttered one sound, a wounded, soulful cry, then she turned and ran.\

CHAPTER TWELVE

Bryant almost threw Brittany off of him. “What kind of a stunt was that? Are you insane?”

She leaned against a stack of boxes, wiping mascara that unwittingly smeared on her face. It struck him that she looked lined and tired, like an old woman who had been in show business too long. “I’m sorry, I had to . . . so you could choose, before … before anything—”

“Get that out of your head right now, for good.” His voice boomed in the closeness of the room. “There will never be anything between us again. And you can keep those kinds of shenanigans to yourself.” She only nodded—broken, understanding—but still pleaded with her eyes. He turned and ran as fast as he could after Megan. Racing through the hallways and up the deck stairs, he breathed hard and angry. He knew where she would go.

Reaching the walk-through, he came to a sudden stop. This is where they usually met, it was their place. At one in the morning the chess boards were bare and the deck empty, as always.

He stood, chest rising and falling, listening. “Megan, I know you’re here.”

Nothing.

Surveying the silent deck, he said. “I look like an idiot talking to myself.” Then, realizing he needed a better tack than his own humiliation, he said, “I told Britt to knock it off. Just know, if she puts one toe out of line, I’ll tell Clint and she’ll be on another ship.”

The chug, chug sound of the ship engines churning the water filled the silence.

“It wasn’t anything you’re thinking. You know what she’s like. You
know
that.” Bryant looked around, wondering for the first time if she was actually not there. “I told her, clear as day, there’s nothing between us, never can be.”

Bryant shook his head. “Listen, I can’t do this. I care about you, Meg. I like you and I’m here, still here, even with all the grief you’ve given me from day one. There’s a problem, so let’s talk about it. But I’m not going to chase you down every time you get scared.”

The waves churned against the side of the massive ship. Not a sound or a movement on the deck. Shaking his head, he turned and went back in the walk-through, down the steps.

Megan watched it all, crouched from behind the farthest chess table. As soon as he was gone, she grabbed her knees and sobbed silently.

It wasn’t the shock of seeing Brittany and Bryant like that, not really. She could see it for what it was. It was that sickening, familiar feeling of betrayal. Brittany’s blonde hair, her smacked up against him, the clandestine feeling, and Megan being the one that didn’t know. Images of Jackson and his antics uncontrollably sped through her mind like a fast forward movie. That feeling of going along happily, thinking you could trust, but then a shock to that trust.    

Rosa.

Suddenly the image of Rosa crying over her cart, her being betrayed by Miguel, trusting him with her money and him skipping town, came barreling back to her. And Megan had said she would help her!

She jumped to her feet, running back down through the hallways and finally finding her on the last rooms of her shift. Rosa exclaimed something in Spanish and began to cry again.

“Rosa, I’m so sorry, lo siento. I couldn’t find the help, I mean, I tried but tomorrow—”

 “¿Puedo ayudarle?” Megan froze at the sound of Bryant’s voice.

She turned to see him approaching them, looking flushed as if he had been running too. He took in Megan’s tear-stained face and squeezed her hand.

 “We can talk about us in a minute. What’s going on?” Bryant turned to Rosa. “¿Cuál es el problema?”

With utter relief, Rosa let out a flood of Spanish. Megan stared in amazement as Bryant conversed simply but fairly fluently in Spanish with Rosa, the latter gesturing to and fro.

Yes, the home building in South America.

Apparently, he and Rosa had come to some resolution as they both nodded heads and he gave her a side hug.

 “Don' preocupación,” said Bryant. Rosa smiled, wan but somewhat comforted, with another hug from Megan and pushed her cart to the next hallway. Once Rosa was out of sight, he turned to Megan. “To be on the safe side, and if it’s okay with you, I’ll talk with Mrs. V. in the morning and get more details. We don’t know this Miguel guy, it could be true, it could be false.” Megan started to say something.

“Megs, I know what you’re gonna say, but trust me. It’s better to get the truth right out of the gate. Don’t you worry about this. I’ll take care of it from here.”

She had been ready to say something about trust but held it back, and she knew why.

“Megan, I need you to know—”

She stopped him, putting her fingers on his lips, and turned back toward her hallway.

***

Megan lay awake through the night, unable to sleep, trying to find clarity in the settling sediment of what had just happened. The anxiety wasn’t with Bryant and Brittany. The scene had answered the question of Brittany’s interest—and Megan’s earlier unsettled feelings—clearly enough. But she wasn’t worried about Bryant. Her soul confirmed to her that this was a setup, and all the tumblers had fallen into place. Bryant had done the right thing and she knew it.

No, that wasn’t what bothered her. It was her reaction—childish, frightened, avoidant. What was the matter with her? Will she never stand up to this feeling, to this fear? If only she clearly knew what it was. Each moment of being with Bryant seemed to clean the fallout from last year—to release more confusion, more feelings, more refuse, revealing the way back to herself. How much of the wall was still to be dealt with?

The first brick had been her hesitancy in trusting again. Then it was about Bryant himself—was he good, was he playing, or did he truly care for her? Then it was something she couldn’t pinpoint but turned out to be Brittany. So what was it now? Would it always be something? Was it simply an excuse to stay distant, to stay unhurt?

Softly, thoughts of Bryant helping Rosa stole into her mind. Once again, his take-charge manner, his ability to assess and handle the situation impressed her. So why couldn’t he seem to apply it to his own life? Was his personal instability the thing that kept her at bay now?

Whatever it was, it was time to move forward, without a ready answer. This Berlin Wall she had so carefully constructed continued to come down brick by Bryant brick. She had to choose now, right now, to let it completely collapse, or it might be stuck and cemented forever, keeping her unable to tear it down with anyone.

Closing her eyes, Megan allowed the myriad of deeply buried sensations to rise. Fear. Pain. Betrayal. Anger. A swirling mass of pushing, pulsing feelings bubbled to the surface and washed over her. Tears fell thick and strong and she allowed herself to cry silently. She didn’t know how long she lay that way, reliving the past pains that had remained lidded and sealed, but at last there wasn’t anything left. It was as if a dam had burst and all the stagnant water had been pushed out by fresh mountain water shed. In the depth of it, Megan sensed something more embedded in the emotional bedrock, something that could not be named. Something not to be touched just yet.

But the anger was gone. The bitterness, the hurt. She wiped and wiped at the tears that had fallen down her face and into her ears. She felt strangely clean, and had no energy, or desire, to reconstruct the safe brick wall. Not today.

At 5:00 a.m., Megan finally rose, dressed in a long skirt and warm sweater wrap, and went back up on the Atrium deck. She eased into her familiar lawn chair and closed her eyes, sifting through memories of the past year, trying on ways to share it with him. As the sunrise barely peeked over the horizon, she felt a dawning awareness too. It was time to do things differently, and in the clean wake of things to make room for something new.

Megan felt him before she heard him. Solid sounds of footsteps echoed on the stairs, not running this time, sure and steady. A breeze slightly lifted her tousled hair. She felt alert and clear, more clear than she had in months. Megan knew why he was here and what he had come for. And she was ready to face it.

Bryant sat down on the lawn chair beside her, gazing out at the sparkling ocean and the early morning sky. The ocean churned steadily below them for a few quiet moments.

 “Why do you run?” He said it sincerely and without accusation, staring at the sea, as if they had been in deep conversation and nothing more natural could have been asked. Megan focused on her skirt.

“Because I’m scared of you.”

“Of me? You could take me down cold. I’ve seen you muscle Tag.”

He had tried to be light but he didn’t need to be. “You know me. And that scares me.”

“I don’t know that much. And there isn’t anything scary.”

Megan gazed at his profile, thinking one last time. Could she do this, could she open that door? “Do you want to know something more?”

Leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, he turned his head slightly to her, “Yes.”

 “Okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

He thought. “Why did you come? I don’t mean about helping Jillian. What is it that keeps you here but holding back, and not really with me?”

Megan sat very still, her long legs crossed, her skirt billowing at the base with the breeze. She stared at the endless nothingness of the sky. Cerulean blue, so clear you could float away in it.

 “Because I didn’t want to go home.”

 “Why not?”

 “Because I got cheated on, lied to, and dumped. Hard.” She paused—measuring, choosing. Deciding.

He remained still, his face in the math-solving repose.

“I was his house cleaner, if you can believe that. Actually, for the four of them, all good
Christian
roommates at NCU.” She didn’t try to withhold the sarcasm. “They paid me well for one, sometimes two days a week. And then I started adding some light cooking, nothing fancy.”

“I came early from class one day, they usually weren’t there. As I came in, Jackson—that’s his name—was with another girl, introduced her as Tessie. They had come from the back rooms, which wasn’t allowed in the honor code. I couldn’t be sure what they were doing together, or if anything had happened, but they were laughing and talking low. He said she was his study partner. I wanted to believe him more than I really did, but he smoothed it over. He was good like that.

“Anyway, we started dating, I don’t know how, really—studying, group dates going bowling, to the movies. Then he asked me to go hiking. One thing led to another, and another. It was easy at first, really easy.”

The sounds of ocean slapping the side of the massive ship filled the pause.

“Then one week I was cleaning and an answering message came on from a Chazzy someone—it sounded important. So when he and a roommate walked in, I mentioned it though I wasn’t sure of the name. It was the look that they shared. His roommate said, ‘Chazzy—yeah, we know her,’—then he laughed, kind of short and throaty.”

She looked down and swallowed, fixing her skirt.

“Another time I was cleaning the computer desk and accidentally hit the mouse. I saw something … something that made me sick, and I talked to Jackson about it. He said it was his roommate’s stuff and not to worry. That’s what he always used to say—don’t worry about it, it’s all good. He had always said things, lots of things. How he cared for me, liked me … loved me. And plans for our future. We’d be at the mall and he’d stop and look at rings and say, ‘Seeing your taste, that kind of thing.’ His trademark smile—he had a dimple, very slight, but right here, and he’d emphasize it when he wanted to.” She stopped, seeing it clearly. “He always made comments about … questions about kids and working and how I felt about it, that sort of thing. It had been three whirlwind months and I thought we were getting very close. He actively took me there.”

Megan looked out at a gull briefly landing on then rising from the ocean.

 “A few times he acted funny—like we were out on a date and suddenly took my arm and turned into a store. Things like that. Or,” she paused, narrowing her eyes, “sometimes he’d make me uncomfortable. The way he kissed me or, or looked at me. Allude to some things, though never outright. I just thought I was being sensitive. I haven’t had a lot of—of experience with guys, that way.”

“Then one day I came up to the apartment and I saw him on his motorcycle, his back was to me. A girl with bright blonde hair sat close behind him with her arms tightly around his waist. They were both looking over at something and didn’t see me. She pointed and laughed and I noticed two things at once: the winter sun reflected off a ring, it was on her left hand. And she was wearing my favorite blue coat that I’d given up the year before. That’s when I knew.”