In Every Way by Nic Brown

Author:Nic Brown [Brown, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619025059
Publisher: Counterpoint

CHAPTER 13

IT IS FOUR days into January. Christmas lights still hang from the magnolia in Karen’s yard. On the lawn across the street, an inflatable snowman nods softly along with the breeze. A holly wreath hangs on Karen’s front door, but all celebrations here have ended. The holidays are over, and Beaufort seems colder than Chapel Hill this time of year. The salt water in the air creeps through even Maria’s favorite wool sweater, a Fair Isle number Jack found in a Dumpster the previous March. The wind is brisk across the inlet. But despite the chill, Maria likes to sit on the porch after dinner bundled in a green plaid blanket. The fact that Bonacieux has been asleep already for an hour makes it feel like Maria has passed deep into the night. But it is only eight o’clock. She understands at last the conservative sleep schedule of parents.

Someone moves in the yard beside her. It is Christopherson. He wears a red plaid hunting jacket and is kicking a magnolia seedpod through the leaves in the early darkness, his skateboard dangling from one hand clasped tightly onto an orange wheel. Since Halloween, he has, for the most part, existed apart from Maria. Leaf removal has kept him busy. Their schedules rarely overlap, and for Maria it is a surprise to even see him.

“Jesus,” Maria says, placing a hand to her chest. She startles him.

“Sorry,” he says.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to the pier party.”

“What’s the pier party?” Maria says.

“It’s at the pier. It’s a party. They’re gonna burn a boat. Want to go?”

Maria has a sudden desire to speak with people who are not parents, whose preoccupations are not the basics of life.

“Yeah,” she says, and stands. “One second.”

In the front hallway Maria catches herself in an antique oval mirror freckled with oxidized spots. Her bangs have curled in the humidity, her hair shortened and thickened. Her eyes, as always, are only barely visible. She likes what she sees and understands that she is playing with Christopherson’s affections. Why not, she thinks. She has often thought of their Halloween episode and longed for another. What have her days been filled with but self-denial, she asks herself. Her needs are meager. The gravity of this situation is light. Objects in her orbit might float. She requires neither sex nor love—she only wants someone to take her to the pier.

In the living room, her mother paints her fingernails while watching Antiques Roadshow. Maria remembers her disavowal of this very show only a few months ago. Hers is not the only life that has changed so quickly over the weeks.

Maria says, “I’m going for a walk.”

“I think they’re having the pier party,” her mother says, not looking up from her nails.

“OK,” Maria says, unable for some reason to admit that this is indeed where she is going. How her mother knows what this is she is not sure, and she wonders for a moment if she has been trapped in some setup. Her mother has always thought of Christopherson as second-rate.

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