The Wide Night Sky by Matt Dean

Author:Matt Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age, gay, alcoholism, marriage, coming out, family relationships, charleston sc, charleston south carolina, afghanistan military action, venus transit

Chapter 16

The drive from Charleston to Carolina Beach took four hours. In that time, Anna Grace spoke six words. For many miles, she sat in the passenger’s seat with her arms folded tightly across her chest. She reached into her pocket now and again for her phone, each time putting it back without looking at it, as if she’d momentarily forgotten and suddenly remembered to make the trip unbearable even for herself.

While they waited at a traffic light in Georgetown, Leland glanced over and saw that she’d dozed off with her head lolling sideways. He reached into the back seat for his jacket and rolled it into a cylinder. Lifting Anna Grace’s head, he wedged the makeshift pillow between her cheek and shoulder. Half an hour later, near Murrells Inlet, she woke and blinked away her sleep.

“Good nap?” he asked.

Anna Grace studied the bundled jacket. She touched her cheek. “My face is all creased now,” she said. Those were the six words.

As they passed over the Cape Fear River, she craned her neck to get a better look at the lift bridge, only so she could grimace at it. She thought it was ugly—he could see it on her face. Wilmington itself was ugly. Carolina Beach was seedy. The hotel wasn’t much to look at. The elevator was grubby. The decor in the room was garish. He could see it all on her face.

They had a third-floor room. An ocean view. Standing at the sliding glass doors, Leland looked out across the narrow balcony, the empty swimming pool, the wind-scalloped dunes, and the calm green Atlantic. Two paddle surfers in gleaming wetsuits, standing assuredly on a pair of longboards, paddled away from the shore. A large ship of some kind, a tanker or freighter, crossed the horizon. Seabirds dove through the bright air.

Anna Grace banged around behind him. He heard the chair knocking against the desk, her shoes dropping to the floor with a pair of thuds, the door of their room closing with a whoosh and a hollow ker-thunk.

Out on the low waves, the surfers tacked toward each other. Their boards flashed in the sun, uncannily, cleanly white. They passed, then turned again, each reversing course. They were slaloming, cutting a pair of overlapping sine curves across the water. He watched until the light dazzled his eyes and the surfers’ swooping motion made him feel slightly dizzy. It looked like fun. Even to go out alone would be fun, in spite of the November chill—not that Leland knew how to paddle surf.

The door slammed again. Anna Grace had come back. He turned from the window. She was empty-handed, and that puzzled him. He thought she’d gone for ice.

“What kind of a hotel has a bar,” she said, “but doesn’t keep it open?”

Leland stammered in reply. “It’s North Carolina,” he said eventually. “Maybe they can’t serve on a holiday. Why do you want a drink at one fifteen in the afternoon?”

“I don’t,” she said. “Obviously. I just happened to notice.” She rolled her tongue around in her mouth.

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