The Mermaid Collector (18 page)

“You’ll never get laid in med school,” Dean had warned when the letter had arrived. “You
do
know that, right?”

“Guys have girlfriends in medical school.”

“I’m not talking about having girlfriends, Tommy. I’m talking about
getting laid
.”

Then Liz Aranson contracted mono and Tom found
himself sitting across from her in her parents’ living room, looking at her mother’s collection of Hummel figurines on the shelf above the couch while Liz, her beautiful blond head bent, had agonized over the Krebs cycle.

Tom knew he never should have told Dean what happened, how Liz had leaned over the third night he’d gone to her house, this time her parents out at a board meeting and her little brother upstairs playing video games. How her hair had smelled of cherries and her breath had smelled of orange soda and how he was fairly certain he could still taste her kiss and that soda for days afterward. Tom never should have confessed that Liz Aranson told him she’d always wondered things about him, always secretly hoped they’d be assigned as lab partners, how disappointed she’d been to get Avery Judd instead. But most of all, Tom wished he’d never told Dean about what had come next—the rushing, the fumbling, heavy breathing, hearts racing, promises, plans.

“You do know it was all bullshit, right, Tommy? You do know that?”

Tom flexed his hands on the Datsun’s steering wheel, refusing to answer. He just stared out at the road, wondering if they were close.

“The dude gave her mono, and now she’s back with him,” said Dean. “What does that tell you?”

“Left or right?” Tom asked when they reached the Stop sign.

THE DRIVEWAY AT NATHAN FIELDING’S
house wasn’t nearly as crowded as Tom had expected, and neither was the inside of the brick house when they’d climbed the wide front steps and walked in. There were so few people that Tom found Liz and Nathan right away. They got beers from the kitchen where Dean was at once the center of attention, garnering backslaps and high fives from a group of classmates. Tom pretended to take interest in a painting above the table, swigging his beer and draining it more quickly than he’d planned.

Liz and Nathan had moved outside. Tom could see them on the deck. He could also see the faint haze of smoke around them, hanging in the air longer than the steam of their breath. They were smoking pot, he thought. He could do that, couldn’t he? What could they say if he walked out there? They’d have to offer him a puff—a hit? What did they call it?

“Hey, where’s Dean?” That was as close to a greeting as Tom got when he stepped out. Prickly and still, the air was crisp with cold. Tom shoved his hands into his pockets, glad he’d kept his coat on, even if it was more of a Windbreaker. He looked at Liz, but she kept her eyes down, her soft blond hair falling conveniently over one eye. Nathan swung his arm over her shoulder. She had to be freezing, Tom thought. And there Nathan stood in his sweater, nice and toasty while his girlfriend shivered in a
short-sleeved top, trying to look relaxed, comfortable. Tom drained his beer, hoping the rush of alcohol would make him reckless, bold.

It did.

He set down the empty can and shrugged out of his jacket.

“Here.” He took a step toward Liz, holding it out. “You should put this on. You’re turning blue.”

For a moment, no one said anything. Liz just stared at him, her eyes pooling pleadingly. She made no move to take the jacket, and after a moment of bewildered frowning, Nathan finally said to him, “What the fuck are you doing, Grace?”

Tom looked at him. “She’s cold. I’m giving her my jacket.”

“She doesn’t need your jacket.” Nathan stepped up to Tom, steering Liz behind him. The whites of his eyes were tinted pink, his breath hot with the smell of beer. “If she needs a jacket, I’ll give her my jacket, okay? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Hey, hey…” Pip Corson stepped in and placed a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Easy, man. It’s cool.”

The French doors swung open. Dean burst out with the kitchen crew, his attention moving at once to the standoff. Nathan reared up and shouted, “Hey, Grace, your brother’s a dick—you know that?”

Dean came over, drunk now too, his accusing eyes already on Tom who was still determined to glean some
kind of acknowledgment from Liz.
Just one word,
Tom thought.
Just a smile to prove it wasn’t a lie
. He heard muffled voices. He was aware of Dean and Nathan exchanging words, aware of people shifting around him, aware of his fingers growing numb with cold, the tip of his nose and his forehead icing over.

In the next instant he was in front of Liz Aranson, kissing her on the mouth, and he swore for the first few seconds, she kissed him back.

“Hey!”

Someone shoved him backward, hard enough that he hit the railing. Suddenly Nathan Fielding was in his face, screaming at him, demanding an apology, and then there was Dean, inserting himself between them.

“Get him out of here, Dean!” Nathan ordered, rushing at Tom even as two seniors forced him back. “Get your brother out of here before I kick his ass!”

They left the deck, the crowd parting eagerly for them.

“You
are
a dick—you know that?” Dean said when they reached the car, the snow falling hard enough to stick to the windshield. “Give me the keys.”

“I’m fine,” Tom managed, coming around Dean for the driver’s door.

“You are so far from fine, it’s scary,” Dean said. “Now give me the fucking keys.”

But still Tom refused. He snapped open the door and fell into the driver’s seat, his head spinning. He just wanted
to get away. He turned on the car, hard enough to make the Datsun squeal.

Dean gave up, sliding into the passenger seat and slamming the door. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Tom didn’t answer. He knew there was a culvert on either side of the driveway, but he didn’t want to ask Dean to help him see, so he just sent the car backward into the dark.

“Slow the fuck down,” Dean ordered, swerving in his seat. “You can’t even see where you’re going.”

Sure enough, the back end of the Datsun slipped over the side of the culvert with enough speed that Dean and Tom were snapped forward in their seats.

“Shit!” said Dean.

Tom pushed the pedal to the floor, but the wheels stuck.

Dean stormed out of the car to survey the damage, even as Tom continued in vain to free them.

“Forget it,” Dean said, returning to the car. “It’s in too deep.”

He marched off toward the house; Tom climbed out. “Where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” Dean said. “I have to call Dad to come pick us up. I’m not waiting out in the freezing cold for a tow when I have a meet in six hours.”

Tom didn’t argue, knowing Dean was right. Frozen hands shoved in his armpits, he climbed back into the
front seat, watching his breath swirl over the view of the house. He was not so drunk that he couldn’t decide that if this was what wanting someone did, made a person lose control this way, then he wanted no part of it. He’d leave all that business to Dean, who was so much better at it anyway.

THOUGH THE STREETS OF THE
village were quiet, there was still plenty of activity on the wharf and on the water: lobstermen bringing in their catch, or repairing their traps; delivery trucks thumping through the town’s narrow streets; decoration crews continuing their work, stringing lights and hanging flags. Beverly surveyed it all with a pervasive sense of detachment. She hated how out of place she felt here. She never expected to feel so out of place. Of course, her accommodations, a disaster from the start, didn’t help matters, not
to mention her host, who seemed entirely ill-equipped to manage a handful of cottages, and his daughter, who had the manners of a feral cat. It was a wonder he’d managed to stay in business. She still couldn’t fathom how Frank had associated with them, let alone been related by marriage. No wonder he’d kept them such a secret.

But she hadn’t come here to make friends, Beverly reminded herself as she scanned the village green until she saw the squat, shingled building to the right of the square bearing its carved wooden sign:
THE CRADLE HARBOR HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM
. Beverly climbed out of the car, clutching her purse against her side, needing something to hold on to as she walked across the street to the museum. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so nervous.

No, she could. It had been the first time Frank had come to the house. It had been a hot, windless May day, and she’d assembled the boys in the living room, having lured them inside from their incessant pounding of the basketball hoop in the driveway. She had explained to them as they stared at her, rubbing off sweat with the hems of their T-shirts, that this visit was important to her and that she wanted them to be polite. It was hardly a well-rooted romance, but she was determined to hold on to it. At fourteen and twelve, surely her sons were old enough to see that. Surely they wanted her to be happy.

But it hadn’t been as easy as she’d hoped. Michael, her younger son, pouted outright from the start, while her elder boy, Daniel, chose the route of chilly indifference, no
matter the tactics Frank had tried to employ. He arrived with gifts—sports equipment, video games, expensive items that, had they come from anyone else, the boys would have snatched up with joy. He took them to dinner, then to a movie of the boys’ choosing—an insufferable action picture, the only saving grace of which was its length and excessive volume, which masked Beverly’s and Frank’s frequent whispers, and darkness that allowed their hands to drift together. When it came time to end their evening, Frank made his way to the door, having reserved a hotel room nearby, but Beverly insisted he stay at the house.

“The boys,” he said, nodding toward the stairs. “What will they think when they wake up and find me here?”

Let them find you here,
Beverly thought in a fit of childish petulance, leading Frank up to her room. It had been hard not to be angry with her sons, to not be certain they meant to sabotage her budding love, but Frank was quick to defend them.

“I have to earn their trust,” he whispered as they lay in the quiet after making love, the boys asleep down the hall. “I understand that.”

Beverly ran her fingers through his hair, thinking how good it felt to be with him, to be wanted this way, savored this way.

“So long as
you
trust me,” he said, taking her cheek in his palm.

Beverly curled up against him. As foolish as it may have sounded, how could she not trust him? After all,
most women with a married lover didn’t learn the truth for years, if ever. She’d known it all along. Looking back now, Beverly saw that it was a mistake she’d made, presuming one confidence would secure all the others.

But it would be many more visits before the boys’ chill would thaw, even if their doubts never truly melted away.

“Why don’t we ever see
his
house?” Michael asked a few years into the affair.

“Because he lives in Maine,” Beverly said evenly. “I’ve explained that to you both.”

“So why doesn’t he move here if he likes us so much?”

“He can’t. His business is there.”

“Then why don’t we move there?”

“Because your school is here.”

“They have schools in Maine too,” Daniel chimed in from the other side of the table. The statement, a clear challenge to her, Beverly diverted with an offer of more chicken, more peas.

How could she explain to them that Frank needed her as much as she needed him? How could teenage boys understand what it was like to exist in a strained marriage, to live day in and day out with someone who never made you feel whole, as Joan had done to Frank, as Clark had done to her?

Of course, it grew easier once the boys were in college—easier for Frank, certainly; easier for her, not always. Without the boys to tend to daily, without the distraction of their constant needs, it was harder in the
moments of increasing quiet to explain to herself why Frank had to stay with Joan if his wife was so difficult. Whenever Beverly suggested her nagging doubts, Frank would find a way to come to Chicago, or whisk her to a rendezvous in Boston or New York, decadent weekends that would always calm her cravings, reaffirm her commitment to him, enough so that when Daniel and Michael returned for holidays, Beverly never hesitated to appear upbeat when the subject turned to Frank.

Pull it together,
she chastised herself as she mounted the steps to the museum. What did she have to be so anxious about anyway? After all, here she would surely find allies in her quest for answers. In all the interviews she’d read online, no residents were more outraged, more demanding of truths than the women who ran the historical society.

The door to the museum opened with the faint sound of a bell. Inside, two women stood around a reception desk, the warm, dry smell of old paper thick in the still room.

“Welcome.” Edith was first to arrive, Mary on her heels. “Feel free to look around. The museum is free; however, there is a recommended donation of five dollars. It’s up to you.” Edith pointed to the desk where a slotted wooden box sat, clearly labeled
DONATIONS.