Page 60 of The Cadence
I was unconvinced. “It seems like a better idea for you to elevate and ice it,” I said.
“We can do that at the beach.” He took my hand and tried to pull me along with him as he went into the house. “Let’s go.”
It took a little bit more for me to agree. And it took a little bit of time for me to find a bathing suit, which I did have. In eleventh grade, my class had gone on an end-of-the-year trip to a waterpark so I’d had to purchase one. I hadn’t worn it much since, except for some sunbathing in my grandma’s back yard.
I did find it and put it on, and the image I saw in the bathroom mirror was not wonderful. “You’re a beautiful girl,” my grandma had told me, and I was definitely improved from when I’d been dropped on her porch. I wasn’t anything like Nicia—that didn’t matter, since we weren’t in competition, except in my own mind. I threw on a sweatshirt and shorts over my suit and when I came downstairs, Will had put out a cooler, towels, and other gear.
“Stay off your leg!” I ordered, and set myself to filling that cooler with what I imagined would be good beach food. I carried it and everything else and I drove, too, informing him that he was lucky I was permitting him to walk on the sand at all.
“My injured leg won’t go on the sand,” he told me, and I nodded.
“That’s right, it won’t! I’m going to carry everything again and you’re going to be very, very careful. Otherwise, we’re not going.”
“Is this your version of ‘I’ll turn the car around?’”
“I will also turn the car around if I get any disagreement,” I answered, and he laughed. Once again, I felt so much better after hearing it.
But I was very tired after the long night of skulking around the house. When I had managed to sleep, I’d had strange dreams mostly about my grandma, but they had included my mother, too. It had been a long time since I’d seen her so clearly and that had shaken me up a little. Maybe I was quiet on the way to the beach, and Will noticed.
“You’re not this worried about my ankle, are you?” he asked. “It’s very normal for me to get hurt.”
“I don’t have to like it,” I answered. “I know you’ll be ok.” He kept watching me as we drove, though.
It wasn’t that far to the lake. The map on my phone showed how big it was but still, when I saw it for the first time, I didn’t know what to say. I stood staring instead.
“It’s pretty,” he remarked.
“I thought it would be like the Tennessee River, where you can see the other side. It’s huge!” And it was pretty—beautiful, actually, but it was also very forbidding. A sharp wind blew and the waves were choppy and white-crested. As he’d predicted,there weren’t many people out on the sand, which meant fewer eyes on Will and me.
I carried our stuff and then watched suspiciously, but we didn’t go too far and he was very careful. “So this is beach life,” I commented as we sat on the towels. It was a little chillier than I expected.
“We should have come last month. Everything was so busy,” he said. “Next year, we’ll be here before the season starts and it’s warmer.”
Next year. I thought ahead, wondering about that. I’d never been a person who looked into the future very far. When I’d lived with my mom, mostly on my own, I hadn’t thought beyond getting food, staying warm or cool, and figuring out how to fill the hours of the day. Then, after my grandma had been diagnosed when I’d been in tenth grade, we had focused on the present because we hadn’t been sure how long we would have together.
“I need to think more about my next move,” I said.
“Do you want to go swimming?”
“I mean, beyond today. I went to beauty school before but honestly, I only signed up because Grandma really wanted me to. She wanted the assurance that I’d have a steady career when she was gone. Now I’m working at the store and painting tables? That’s not very steady.”
“You’re also working for me,” he pointed out.
“Will, you made up that job,” I stated. “I know it and you do, too. You were trying to help me because you think you owe me, and I let you because I was so lost and confused. When I think back on myself and how I acted in the weeks after she died, I don’t even know…”
“We didn’t bring any tissues. Here.” He pulled off his t-shirt and gave it to me. “Use this.” And when I didn’t take it, he dabbed my eyes himself. “I did want to help you but I also know that as the company gets bigger, you’ll get busier.”
“And you’ll need someone who’s competent.”
“You can learn,” he told me. “You learned everything else that got thrown at you. It amazes me how you managed it.”
“That’s a nice thing to say.”
“It’s a true thing to say. When I saw that you graduated, I was—it sounds like I’m being condescending, but I was really proud.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It doesn’t sound condescending, it sounds…wait, where did you see that I had graduated?”
“Our high school has a directory, and you went into it as an alumna.”
