Chapter 11
J
. D. knew!
Grasping the counter to steady myself, I stifled a moan and tried to keep the nausea down. I don't know how long I stood there. But when I looked up, I saw the light casting a strange shadow over my own grotesque reflection staring back at me from the window over the sink.
The heavy makeup I had applied earlier in the evening was smeared grossly over my cheeks and my hair stood up in a tangled mess. I was like an image from a horror movie: The alter ego of myself.
If J. D. had noticed how I looked in the dark, he had said nothing. Or maybe he just didn't care. Drug addicts were easy lays. We weren't supposed to be pretty.
I picked up a bar of soap next to the sink and methodically began to wash. I needed to remove every last trace of makeup. I cupped my hands under the running water and repeatedly brought them up, rinsing, soaping, scrubbing. I checked my reflection in the window. Whether it was mascara or tears that ran down my cheeks, I couldn't tell. I just knew that I had to get clean. I couldn't be better until then. I scoured my face again and splashed more water. But it wasn't working. From deep inside me, the tears that I had suppressed for months were climbing over themselves to get out. My throat grew so thick I felt like I was choking. I clutched the soap and lathered again.
Out of nowhere, I felt fingers smooth the knotted muscles in my neck. For a moment I was back in Grandma's kitchen as she held me. The hands ran down my shoulders and turned me around like a fragile piece of crystal until I was enveloped in strong arms, my head resting against a very safe place. I gradually became aware of the bright light above me. And the owner of the chest I was drenching.
I pushed away. “No!”
“Shhh.” He pulled me back. I wouldn't allow it.
I pointed to the picture on the counter and stomped my bare feet. “You knew!”
“Elizabethâ”
“What was I? An easy fuâ”
“Stop it!” He grabbed my fists before they could hit his chest. “That's not you. I know it, all right? That's not you.”
I stopped, not sure what he meant. “Yes, it is, J. D. That was me. They took that picture of me as I was being read my rights. Everyone thinks I'm a spoiled drug addict.”
“I don't believe it.”
A sob escaped me.
J. D. grabbed a towel off the oven handle and put his arms around my shoulders, gently blotting my face. “It's going to be all right. Shhh.” His crooning voice slowed my tears until the only thing left inside me was an exhausted hiccup.
“Wait. Is that the only thing you are upset about? Because I knew about your arrest?” he asked.
I nodded my head.
“Thank God. For a minute I thought it was the sex.”
Maybe he was just afraid of having a hysterical woman fall apart in his kitchen.
I pushed away his hand. “Why are you being nice all of a sudden?”
He watched me closely. Did he want me to explain myself? He deserved it.
I drew a breath to speak, but was stopped by the touch of his lips, followed by a finger on my mouth.
“Let me show you something,” he said.
He disappeared around the corner. He returned wearing boxers and holding two beach towels. He turned out the kitchen light. It took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Then he took my hand and led me toward the double doors, making sure that I didn't trip on the furniture. I followed numbly, trusting him. Outside, the crickets and tree frogs pulsed in a sleepy rhythm that lulled my frayed senses. The air was warm and I could smell the organic stew of the marsh that had so thoroughly bathed me not long ago. I gingerly tiptoed along the path of soft pine needles coating the forest floor. He halted in front of a canoe that rested on the grassy shore.
J. D. pushed the boat partway into the water and helped me climb in, handing me the towels for a cushion. Then he pushed the boat away from shore, nimbly hopping in and making his way to me. Putting one arm around me, he sat down on the middle seat, shifting me between his spread legs on the floor of the canoe. Once again, I was teased by the blended musky scent of his nearness and the night air. For all I knew, he was taking me out to throw me to the sharks of Loon Lake. But I was too worn-out to ask questions.
The moon cast a fractured light on the surface of the lake, making it look like stars in the sky. J. D. paddled toward the middle of the lake, using deep and silent strokes that barely broke the surface as he cut into the water. I sat lulled by the motion, absorbing the repetition of the sound and comforted like a baby in a rocker. After a few minutes, we approached a swim dock that was anchored. The boat hit with a soft thud and J. D. leaned past me and tied off the canoe. He helped me climb up onto the dock and followed, letting the canoe drift by the line that was attached to the dock.
I wrapped my arms around myself, mesmerized by the way the moon bounced off his shoulders as he spread the towels onto the planks. He guided me to sit down. I drew my knees up in front of me and rested my chin on top. He sat down next to me, barely touching me.
We watched the moonlight play on the water. The lapping of the waves against the dock and the gentle flutter of the wind were the only things interrupting the calm rhythm of the night. It felt like we were the only two people in an endless wilderness. The moon slipped behind the veil of a thin cloud, making the night glow in dim shades of blue and gray. The call of the loon trilled across the lake. It was one of the loneliest sounds I knew. A moment later, a loon from the other lake echoed back.
“It's beautiful, isn't it?” he said.
“Hmm.”
“Whenever it's all too much for me, I come here. I don't feel so . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Defeated?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I raised the hair on the back of my neck and fanned my face.
“Hot?” J. D. asked.
I nodded. It was one of the warmest nights of the summer, even here on the dock.
“Maybe you should take this off,” he said, reaching for his shirt that I wore.
“J. D. Stop. People might see.”
He ignored me and dragged the shirt down my arms. “Have you ever gone skinny dipping?” He said it as if he were issuing a dare.
“What? Of course not.” I tugged halfheartedly on the shirt, but in the end. I let him remove it all the way.
In one swift move, he stood up on the dock and removed his boxers. I enjoyed the view. “Last one in has to tell a secret!” he said. Before I could do anything, he turned and dived off the dock.
“J. D.!” I combed the ripples he left in his wake. It was dark and kind of scary being alone. What if he had a stitch in his side and couldn't make it up for air. How would I find him?
But then, before I could worry any longer, his head broke the surface and he laughed. “Come on in.”
“I don't think so.” Aside from my accidental dip the other day, I didn't want to tell him it had been many years since I swam in the lake. Since before my OCD developed.
“Are you scared?” He sent a playful splash my way.
“There could be snakes and things in there . . .”
“Nah.”
I crossed my arms in front of my breasts and watched J. D. swim to the side of the dock. He held out his hand. “Come on in, Elizabeth. I've got you.”
Something about the way he said it shook something loose inside me. I crawled closer to the edge and felt the dock tilt.
“You can do it,” he said again. The tone of his voice wasn't joking this time. It sounded like a promise.
Suddenly, I felt brave. I stood up and let the warm wind caress my skin. I stopped overthinking.
I jumped.
Before my head reached the surface, I was sputtering. “Oh m-mm-my God . . . This lake is
freezing
! I don't remember it being this cold when I was youngerâand it certainly wasn't this cold when I fell in the last time.”
J. D. swam around me in long strokes. “Sweetheart, you were in the shallow end when you met Mr. Frog. That heats up in the middle of the day and feels like bathwater. This here is a spring-fed lake. It goes down over a hundred feet. Springwater is cold. Didn't they teach you that in college?”
I paddled in a circle, shocked that
cold
was the only thing I felt. While J. D. hovered nearby, I made several victory laps around the dock. Celebrating. The fear of swimming in Loon Lake was gone.
Finally, I made my way to the aluminum swim ladder. J. D. took pity on my trembling body and reached up to remove a towel from the canoe that floated nearby. “Here, take this. Even in the dark I can see your lips turning blue.”
I climbed the ladder, acutely aware of the way his eyes gleamed at my behind and felt my nipples pucker in the night air. He followed and wrapped me up in the towel.
“I guess it'll be all over town that I've returned to my old ways and corrupted some poor young thing. . . .”
I turned to him. He'd said it half-jokingly. But I had to ask. “
You?
You're as straitlaced as a Boy Scout. Why would they say that?”
He ignored me and we sat down.
“Although, now that I think about it, J. D., you have a bit of a wicked streak hidden under that milk-and-cookies exterior.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well . . .” I followed the architecture of muscles on his shoulders with my eyes, remembering the way they felt under my fingertips. “You kind of showed your true nature tonight, Sheriff. I mean . . . against your truck . . . on the road. You were a maniac.”
“No, darlin,' that was all you.” He put an arm around my shoulder and kissed me. When we came up for air, he said, “So . . . you were the last one in the water. What's your secret?”
“I never agreed to that when you jumped in. I feel like I've been tricked.” He kissed my temple and shifted me until I was cocooned in both his arms.
It was time to tell someone. J. D. was putting a lot of faith in me and he deserved the whole story. I leaned back and put my head on his shoulder.
“I am innocent, but no one knows it.”
Â
I was a high school English teacher who had never entered a classroom. Somewhere between graduation and my first job, my father had introduced me to a friend of his who had started a foundation. They trained and recruited college students to work with underprivileged youth and help them overcome reading difficulties. I was passionate about literacy and it seemed so exciting to make a difference. But as a young executive director, I found myself exhausted by all the meetings and the fund-raising.
Except for weekly dinners with my family, and my weekend “dates” with Colin, I had no social life. I was dedicated to work and it wasn't unusual to put in fifteen-hour days. Even with that, my OCD was under control. My family was happy that I had settled into something respectable.
One rainy night in March I left a meeting in Seattle. It had been a long weekend and I hadn't slept well. Mom and Dad were gone and Elliot called to say that Alexa was in charge. He said she was nagging him endlessly. It had been a constant complaint with Elliot, who was going through a rough spell. I was worried about him.
I jumped at the chance to return a day early and buffer the situation back home. My red-eye flight was delayed and I did something unusual: I took half a sleeping pill and a glass of wine just to catch up on my sleep during the five-hour flight. I was fuzzy when I woke up, but I had taken a taxi to the airport, so at least I didn't have to drive myself to my parents' house.
When I arrived I let myself in and found Elliot in the basement with friends. After making sure he was all right, I made my way to my bedroom that I was temporarily sharing with Alexa while hers was being painted. I opened the door and there they were: My sister and Colin in the middle of my bed. I was so shocked that I just stood there, wondering if the sleeping pills had caused me to hallucinate. They were naked and from the look of things Alexa had no problem arousing Colin. When she saw me, Alexa screamed.
I wasn't supposed to be home yet. Why didn't I call?
As if it was my fault for catching them together.
I grabbed the keys to my father's Lincoln and ran out of the house. In my shock, I didn't see the cop car when I drove through a changing yellow light near my apartment. When I was stopped, they asked me to step out of the car. I watched numbly as an officer directed a flashlight beam through the windows of the Lincoln. When he paused and asked if he could search the car, it never occurred to me to say no. They found several ounces of marijuana and the butt of a joint on the floor of the backseat. Later, when they asked if they could Breathalyze and drug-test me, I refused. I had no idea if the wine and the sleeping pill would incriminate me further.
The rest was what J. D. already knew from the newspaper article. It was a first offense, so it was a misdemeanor with a short probation. Of course, I was asked to resign.
Â
“You were afraid it was your little brother's pot, weren't you?”
I glanced toward him, startled that he had figured it out. “Is it that obvious?”
“It doesn't take much imagination. That, plus the fact that you seem to have a soft spot for wayward teenagers.”
I tilted my head to see him. “Cherry.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Elliot is so young. He's just trying to break away from all the rules and superficial things my parents put him through. He is a good kid. He used to get straight As and college is right around the corner for him,” I explained.
“Is it worth his future to scrap yours?”