Secrets so deep, p.11
Secrets So Deep, page 11
The sky is a beautiful, clear blue, and the air feels so perfect. But none of that does much to ease my mind. Not when there’s still sand clinging to my body from last night. All I can think about is washing away that proof. Because if I can rinse off the sand, maybe I can rinse off the memory of waking up knee-deep in ice-cold water.
It doesn’t work, though. I watch the sand swirl down the drain. But the terror still sticks to me.
I hurry back to the cabin after my shower. I’m running late now. Everyone else must already be at breakfast. But I still pause to stare at that sea glass on my pillow for a few seconds. Then I reach for the two shiny charms and slip them into my pocket.
I’m still not sure they’re magic. But I like the way they feel between my fingers. The cool smoothness of them calms me a little.
I start across the field toward the farmhouse. Cole is waiting for me on the front porch. He’s leaning against one of the support posts, and his posture is so casual. But there’s a fire burning in his eyes.
“Hey,” he says. “Sleep okay?” Like we’re an old married couple meeting at the breakfast table over French toast and the morning paper.
“Not really,” I tell him.
“We need to talk,” he says. My head hurts. The sun is so bright. And I don’t think I’m ready to have another conversation with Cole Culver. Not yet. “I need to show you something. I promise it won’t take long.” He looks at me for a few seconds. “It’s important.”
I think about how he found me last night. How he saved my life, probably. I remember the strength of his grip on my hand. The comfort in that. And the heat.
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.” I leave my backpack on the porch, and Cole leads me across the grass and down a little hill toward a long, low building. It’s painted bright white, and the words SCENE SHOP have been burned into a board nailed over the door.
George is sitting on an overturned five-gallon bucket out front, smoking a cigarette. “Ya need somethin’?” he asks, and I can feel him looking at me, but I avoid his eyes. I’m relieved when Cole just shakes his head, and we keep moving. I’ve had enough weird moments with George to last me the rest of summer.
We don’t go inside the scene shop. Instead, Coles takes me around toward the back. A few pieces of scenery sit drying in the sun, and a couple of dusty sawhorses rest in the shade of a tree. The plywood silhouette of a skyscraper leans against a light pole. We pick our way between stacks of old lumber and discarded paint cans. “Back here,” he says. “Watch out for nails.”
And that’s when I see the name on the back of the building.
NICOLE KENDRICK
It’s painted in red. Capital letters. Big and bold. There’s a familiar date there, too. The day my mother died.
And beneath that, in cursive brush-stroke script—
What the sea wants, the sea will have.
The words look so jarring against the white boards—like the bloody title credits of a horror movie—that at first I don’t believe I’m really seeing them. I’m frozen for a second. Staring.
I reach out to touch the N in my mother’s name, and the damp grass slips under my feet. My whole world tilts sideways. Suddenly, I’m drowning. Eyes open. Water rushing in over my head. The burn of it in my throat. The weight of it in my stomach. Pulling me down like a stone.
Cole stays close—watching me—but he doesn’t say anything. “What is this?” I manage to ask.
Cole leans against the building. He runs his fingers through his hair. Touches the tattoo on his wrist like a talisman. “It’s a sort of graffiti memorial,” he explains. “It gets painted over every few years. But theatre people are superstitious. So somebody always puts it back. It’s supposed to be protection. To keep us all safe.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I tell him. “We were night swimming. And we got caught in a riptide. Somehow, I survived. My mother didn’t. That’s all there is to the story.”
Dad told me that years ago. It happens all the time, he said. People forget how dangerous the ocean is. Mais la mer est mortelle.
But the sea is deadly.
“Avril—”
I tear my eyes away from my mother’s name so I can focus on Cole’s face. “You don’t really believe that old story, do you?” It’s one thing for him to say it at night. Around a campfire. Or in the barn, huddled under the ghost light. But here, in the daylight, he can’t really mean it. There has to be some other explanation for what happened to me last night. For the sleepwalking.
For the mud and the grass in my bed. The woman in the fog.
And in the bathroom mirror.
For all of it.
“Just listen.” Cole reaches for my hands. “Please.” His hair falls across his eyes, and I have this wild impulse to reach up and brush it back. “People here remember what happened to your mom. And they remember that little graveyard in the woods, too. The one where the women and children are buried. It scares the shit out of them. What the sea is capable of. It scares me.” I feel the shiver that travels up his spine. It passes through his fingers into my flesh. “It should scare you, too.”
There’s no denying how afraid he is.
How afraid he is for me.
But something tells me it’s more than that. He’s afraid for himself, too. And I don’t understand why. That fear is contagious, though. Like some kind of virus. The terror of finding myself standing in the waves hits me all over again. Hard. Suddenly I can’t seem to get enough air.
I look at those words painted in red. My mother’s name.
I almost tell Cole that there’s more that he doesn’t know. That it’s not just the sleepwalking. But I can’t find the words to explain about those moments when the lines have blurred.
Cole pulls his eyes away from mine, and they settle on that last line of cursive.
What the sea wants, the sea will have.
“Did you know,” he says, “that on some whaling ships, if a sailor went overboard, nobody was allowed to throw him a rope? They believed, if the sea wanted to take you, there was nothing they could do to stop it.”
“And you think the sea wants me.” My voice sounds funny to my own ears. Like it belongs to somebody else. Somebody who believes in ghosts.
Or at least somebody who isn’t so sure anymore.
Cole nods. “It wants me, too. It’s wanted me my entire life. I’ve always felt those cold fingers, pulling at me.” I shiver in my T-shirt. “But there’s no way in hell I’m going to let it take you, Avril. I promise.”
“What about you?” I ask him. Because I’m starting to suspect that Cole Culver’s compass rose tattoo won’t do him any good against whatever dark tide is pulling him out to sea. But he doesn’t answer. And the look in his eyes scares me even more than what happened last night. There’s so much sadness. A hopelessness that makes me afraid for him. For both of us. “Why did you show me this?” I need to know why he was waiting on my porch first thing this morning. Why he dragged me here when I should have been at breakfast with Lex and Val and Jude.
Cole takes a step closer. The darkness in his eyes lifts a little. But they’re still deep gray, like the ocean in a storm.
“Because I need you to believe me. I need you to know you aren’t safe here.” He’s searching my eyes, and I remember the two of us in the amphitheater. Watching that paper burn. I feel the heat of that in my cheeks. The flame of it low in my stomach. Being with Cole always leaves me reeling.
Uncertain.
I’m starting to feel dizzy. Overwhelmed by those red letters. The pressure of Cole’s fingers. His eyes. And the brightness of the sun.
“I need to get to class,” I tell him, and I take a step backward. I’m suddenly cold again. “I’ll see you at rehearsal tonight.”
I pick my way through the junk and head back toward the farmhouse. I slip into the library just as the morning workshop is starting, and I’m grateful to Lex for saving me a seat.
“Where were you at breakfast?” he whispers, but just then, Cole crosses the lawn. I stare at him through the tall library window, and it leaves me with almost the same feeling as seeing my mother dressed in moonlight, dancing in that empty field.
Lex follows my gaze. “I knew it!” he hisses, and he gives me a scolding look. “You’ve been keeping secrets.” His eyes are a hopeful shade of blue, and I can tell he wants this for me. Wants me to have something. Someone. Like he has now. With Jude. The two of them suddenly have inside jokes. And their bodies seem drawn together by some kind of invisible magnet. Knee touching knee in the cafeteria. Shoulder brushing shoulder on the sea porch steps. It hadn’t surprised me a bit when I caught them holding hands for the first time last night, outside the barn during a rehearsal break.
“Potential,” Lex tells me. “Remember, Av? You just have to be open to the possibilities.”
I reach into my pocket and feel the smooth bits of sea glass. But I have no idea how I feel about Cole Culver right now, except I’m starting to have this feeling that we wouldn’t be good for each other.
At lunchtime, Willa appears in the cafeteria doorway. She motions for me to come with her, so I grab a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup and follow her to the sea porch.
“How’d you feel about the first rehearsal?” she asks me as I ease my tray onto the picnic table directly across from her. She’s looking at me with those intense eyes of hers, so I pretend to be focused on not spilling my soup. I’m afraid if she sees my face, she’ll know somehow. About what happened last night. After the theatre.
On the beach.
In the sound.
“It was great,” I say. “It felt really good.” And that part’s not a lie.
It was later when everything went wrong.
Willa looks relieved. “You were a dream to work with,” she tells me. “Just like your mother. It’s almost like having Nicole onstage again.” She looks at me for a few seconds. “You don’t know what a gift that is for me, Avril.”
“Is that why you gave me the lead?” It’s something that’s been nagging at me since she called my name and Jude handed me my script. I’ve seen the way some of the other girls stare. The way they whisper, and how their heads swivel in my direction when I walk into the room. Almost like I pulled off some kind of trick. That’s why I’d planned to keep my secret until after auditions were over. Until after the cast was announced. I didn’t want there to be any doubts about whether or not I earned my part, fair and square.
Willa laughs. She dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand. “Avril, I gave you the lead role because you blew all those other girls out of the water. There was never any question about who would play Eden.” She narrows her eyes at me, and I guess she knows what I’ve been thinking, because she adds, “And if any of the other girls are giving you a hard time, it’s just because they’re jealous.” She shrugs. “It comes with the territory when you’re the leading lady.”
“Everyone was really good at auditions,” I say. “There are lots of girls you could’ve picked to play Eden.”
“There are lots of girls who could’ve played Eden. That’s true. But there was only one who proved she could truly become Eden. And that’s the difference between good acting and great acting. Between pretending and art.” Willa grins at me. Her eyes sparkle. “Ignore the haters. You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.” She gives me a sly little smile. “Besides, you and Cole certainly have great chemistry together.”
I blush. Take a nibble of grilled cheese. Try to figure out what to say to that.
Willa is studying me now. She hasn’t taken a bite of her lunch. “You know,” she says, “Cole could use a friend. He gets lonely sometimes.” She pauses. Picks up her fork and holds it over her salad. “You could be good for him, I think.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, because I genuinely don’t understand how I could be good for anybody, but especially Cole Culver. If anything, being around me seems to bring out some kind of darkness in him. The circles around his eyes are blacker these past few days. His cheeks a little more hollow.
Willa smiles. “Cole needs someone to keep him grounded. Someone to get him out of his own head.” She finally spears a forkful of salad, and she gives me a little wink. “Someone extraordinary.”
I’ve never thought of myself as anything special before, but when Willa tells me I am, I almost believe her.
We spend the rest of lunch just talking. It’s so much fun chatting with Willa about her life and about my mother that I almost forget about what happened last night. And about what Cole showed me this morning. My mother’s name painted on the back wall of the scene shop. Red capital letters dripping like blood. I file those things away in some kind of separate drawer, just like Glory showed me with the invoices yesterday. I tuck them away in a folder. Label them TO DEAL WITH LATER. Then I slam the metal drawer in my head closed and try to forget it exists.
Willa makes that easy. She laughs. Tells funny stories. I feel like I could talk to her forever. I even like answering her questions about me, because Willa has this way of looking at you that makes you feel like, in that moment, there’s nobody else in the world as important to her as you are. It isn’t anything she does, it’s just the way she listens. I’ve seen her do it in rehearsal, too. Not just to me. To Lex. To Val. To Jude. Even to the kids who only have one or two lines in the whole show.
When Willa is listening to you, you feel like somebody. It’s like a little bit of her spark leaks out and bleeds onto you. And it’s the best. Like some kind of drug.
As soon as lunch ends, though, the euphoria of having Willa’s undivided attention starts to fade, and the fear of what happened to me last night starts creeping back in. It’s like I keep opening that file drawer to peek inside. Even though I’m telling myself not to.
When I show up to work with Glory, she’s watering the plants on the bookcase behind her desk. I say hello and pick up a stack of papers from the TO FILE tray. Glory is turned away from me, so I can’t see her face when she says, “I knew your mother. She was a friend of mine.”
I drop the papers I’m holding, and they flutter to the ground. They’re all out of order now. “Shit,” I say. “I’m sorry.” And I bend down to scoop them up. My hands are shaking, so it isn’t easy. I wasn’t prepared for that.
Glory turns around to look at me. Her face is completely white and she blinks a few times, like she’s just as stunned as I am. “I had no idea I was going to tell you that until I heard it come out of my mouth,” she confesses. “I almost told you so many times yesterday, but I stopped myself. I wasn’t planning to say it yet. Not until we got to know each other a little better.”
“Willa told you,” I say, but Glory shakes her head.
“It was George who got to me first, actually. As soon as I showed up for work yesterday morning.” She laughs a little. “And that’s not surprising. God. He was so obsessed with Nicole back then. He made a fool out of himself that summer. Pestering her. Following her all over the place. But Nicki never gave him a second look.” I think about the way George stares at me, and my skin crawls. Because I know now, that he’s been comparing me to her. “But then Willa told me, too, of course. It’s all anybody around here has been talking about the last few days.” Glory sets the little watering can on the floor behind her desk. She sinks into her office chair and reaches for a staple remover. “But I think deep down, I already knew it.”
She looks at me and smiles.
“You seemed familiar to me, too,” I tell her. “Like maybe I remembered you.”
“I was nineteen that summer,” Glory says. She’s playing with the staple remover while she talks. Squeezing it open and closed, like a set of jaws. “I’d just broken up with my high school boyfriend. Dropped out of college. My life was a mess. God.” She shakes her head. “I was just a disaster. And it was my first week working at Whisper Cove. Nicki was an old friend of Willa’s, of course, and I met her the very first day she arrived here.”
Nicki.
I’ve never heard anyone else call my mother that. Dad always calls her Nicole. Even Willa does.
“Were you close?” I ask.
Glory puts down the staple remover and takes half of my stack of papers. More invoices for the upcoming professional shows, she tells me. We sort them into her filing cabinet as she talks. But I have trouble remembering how to alphabetize.
“Nicki was thirty years old that summer. So eleven years older than I was. And it was less than eight weeks from that first day we met until . . .” She stops and picks a bit of fluff off her dress. “But you know how there are certain people you just click with right off? Like you know instantly this is someone you connect with? On a deeper level? It was like that with Nicki. For me.” Glory’s finished filing her half of the stack, and she reaches for mine.
There are so many things I want to ask, but I don’t know where to start. It’s a little paralyzing, having all this knowledge about my mother after years of begging Dad for scraps. It feels like waking up starving in the jungle, and then being led to an all-you-can eat buffet on the other side of the island.
“And I remember you, too, of course,” Glory adds, smiling at me. “Your mother used to leave you with me while she was in rehearsal. You’d just sit on the floor and color for hours. You were never a bit of trouble. Everybody adored you. That snow-white hair and that curious expression on your face.” She stops filing and looks at me for a few long seconds. “I knew even back then that you’d grow up to look like her.” She pauses. Blinks. “Nicki was so beautiful, you know. Just luminous. But there was this sadness about her that summer, too.” She goes back to the filing. “I guess that was partly because of the trouble with your dad.”
I stop with a paper halfway in the file drawer. “Trouble with my dad?” I’m thinking about that almost-imperceptible frown of Willa’s. The one I saw yesterday. Her fleeting disapproval.
