The Winters(16)

I ran down the dock, past the gauntlet of sickly sweet lunch smells. I didn’t want to go away, not now, but what choice did I have? I still owed her several thousand dollars. I had no other job prospects on the island and only enough saved to tide me over for a month.

A terrific nausea set in by the time I reached the road. Morning traffic whizzed by me on the highway. I had to tell Max. I had to see him once more before I left. Maybe it was best this way, a quick rip of the Band-Aid and it would be over. Crying in an apartment without roommates might also accelerate the grieving. No muffling or stifling; no shoving it down. I could plow through my days in St. Barts, managing the schedule, giving out orders, not caring what the staff there thought of me, not worrying about being nice or liked by anyone. I could channel all this anger into a stoic competency I’d seen in other women who worked hard and lived alone. They didn’t seem unhappy, sipping their white wine on their condo patios, peering into another beautiful sunset, a challenging paperback splayed across their crepey thighs. That wouldn’t be such a bad life.

I made a run at a gap in the traffic. Instead of heading left to staff quarters, I went right to the private bungalows, heedless of strict club rules or how distressed hotel workers glared at my marina uniform.

Hours earlier, before we parted in the predawn hours with plans to head out after dusk again that day, I’d overheard Max telling Dani he’d be returning to Asherley soon, that the legislature reconvened in February and he’d have to be in Albany a lot more since it was an election year. We hadn’t discussed what “soon” meant, or whether we’d see each other again after he left. I acted nonchalant that morning, pretending I wasn’t torn up inside about his looming departure, counting the hours until I could spot him coming down the dock, a basket of food in his hand. I had to kiss him one more time, to thank him, to say goodbye.

His car was parked in the drive, thank God. I banged the brass mermaid knocker and pressed my ear to the thick door. Nothing. I banged again. Maybe he was golfing. Someone would have already alerted club security, so I couldn’t linger. I ducked behind his bungalow, took a shortcut through the eighteenth hole to the brush that backed onto the road across from my townhouse, dialing his number as I jogged. It headed straight to voicemail. I sent a brief text, which dangled unread.

Several cars clotted the driveway of the townhouse, stragglers from last night’s party. In the filthy kitchen, two roommates sat groggily spooning cereal into their mouths for lunch.

“Hey, stranger,” one said. “Didn’t think you lived here any—okaaay.”

I stormed past them and the shirtless guy passed out on the couch, slamming my bedroom door behind me. Pulling the dusty rucksack from beneath the bed, I thought how I might never have to sleep in this miserable room again, and yet why did I feel like I was being ripped from the only home I had ever known and sent into a punishing exile? For what? For behaving like a wanton local who deceived herself into thinking a rich tourist, passing time while moving his fortune from one account into another, might have loved her. Stupidly, yes, I was in love with Max Winter, in the way only young women fall in love, swiftly, uncritically, mind, heart, and body in complete and total collusion.

The sudden realization that I had no one to say goodbye to, and that everything I owned could fit inside one shabby bag, was what finally brought me to my knees. I started to cry, a silent, mucusy cry, my breath coming at shuddering intervals. I cried for what was and what would never be now. I cried for my short, pathetic past and my uncertain future. She would laugh at me, wouldn’t she, Rebekah? You idiot, she’d say. What were you thinking, that you’d get away with this? That a love like this was possible for someone like you? Run along, she’d say. Work hard and earn your own way. Then find a nice boy and let this go. Max isn’t for you. My sobbing nearly drowned out the honking of the taxi.

I wiped my face with my sleeve and stomped past the roommates, now frozen in mock fear of me, slapping open the screen door so fast I almost took it off its hinges. But there was no taxi waiting for me. It was Max Winter, stepping out of his dark sedan, feet bare, hair wet, wearing a thick blue bathrobe, remnants of shaving cream dotting his cheek and chin.

“Max!” I wanted to run into his arms but I was afraid I would never leave them.

“What’s going on? A maid told me you came by. I only just got your text. I was in the shower.”

“I was trying to— Max, I have to go. I’m leaving for St. Barts. Right now.”

Just then the taxi pulled up behind him. Max looked at my bag and the taxi. “Why?”

“Laureen’s transferring me. She wants me to run the charters there.”

“Today? Right now?”

“Right now. I came to say goodbye. And to thank you. I have to take this job or I—or I won’t have a job.”

He drove his fingers through his wet hair, his eyes darting from the taxi to me, back to the taxi. “I mean, do you want to go to St. Barts?”

“Of course I don’t. Not yet anyway. I won’t know a soul. I have no idea what the job entails. But it isn’t exactly an employment hotbed here and there is the matter of the money I owe Laureen.”

“You actually don’t . . . owe her anything.” He winced. “Wait there. Don’t move.”

“What are you talking about?”

He walked over to the taxi and ducked to speak to the driver. The car backed up and drove off.