Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Laurel
The two couples huddled together on the beach, their shoulders hunched against the wind as colorless waves chased each other onto the sand. They had just arrived; inside the small motel a block away, their weekend bags lay unopened on their beds.
Ten minutes ago, Laurel had rapped at her friend's door.
"Alice, you guys in there? Want to walk down to the beach with us?"
In fact, Alice hardly counted as a friend. Laurel knew her only from the biology lab on campus, where both worked as assistants, cleaning test tubes and preparing slides. But Laurel had needed her for this weekend. She had told her husband, Len, that this weekend getaway was Alice's idea, had convinced him to come along only by arguing how rude it would be of them to refuse.
Len had thought only of the practicalities: the expense, the babysitter, the weekend he would miss with his beloved daughter. He didn't understand how much Laurel needed this: two precious days to feel like herself again, without her two-year-old daughter clinging to her legs or nattering on at her from the moment she awoke.
And now they were here, at last, the sky above them another sea of gray, the afternoon sun a hazy brightness behind the clouds. Laurel peeked at Alice's husband; she had never met Michael before today. He was tall and smallwaisted, with sand-colored hair and gray eyes the color of the sea. He caught her looking and gave her a good-natured smile.
"Brrr," he said, putting his arm around Alice and pulling her against his side. "Whose idea was this, anyway?"
Laurel's eyes shot to Alice's face, worried she would give her away. But it didn't matter now. They were here, the off-season rate for their room paid for in advance on the one credit card they kept for emergencies. That morning, while Len had read books with Jessie on the couch, Laurel had thrown her graying, milk-stained bra into the hamper and excavated a black and lacy thing from the bottom of her underwear drawer. Now she could feel the underwire pushing uncomfortably against her breasts, and she resisted the urge to reach back and unfasten the clasp. Instead, she gave Michael a small, open-mouthed smile.
"Oh, come on. It's not that cold." Sucking in her breath, she broke away from Len's side and bent down to pull off her shoes.
"Laurel, please," Len said, rolling his eyes. "Don't be silly. It's freezing."
Laurel caught Michael's eye. "You want to come?"
"Are you nuts?"
"Laurel," Len said. "Don't. It's way too cold."
He held out his arm then, for her to come back to him, and for a moment she was tempted. It would be so easy to slip back into the warmth of his side, to let herself be quieted. But it was not quiet that she wanted. She raised her eyes to the gray slate of the ocean and undid the button on her jeans. Beneath her clothes, the monotony of her life clung to her like a film on her skin.
"That baby's going to strip your youth right off you," her mother, Pearl, had said dryly, two and a half years ago, when Laurel had first told her she was pregnant. "You mark my words."
But her mother had been wrong. Having a baby hadn't stripped youth from her. It had simply buried it in a viscous layer that Laurel could not scrape away, no matter what she did. No, she hadn't come here to stand mutely in the wind, safely tucked away beneath her husband's arm. She had come to scour herself clean, to peel away the gauzy membrane that the last two years of motherhood had swathed her in. That was why she had cajoled and pleaded for this weekend at the beach without her daughter. She didn't plan to waste a minute.
She pulled her arms from her jacket and dropped it in the sand.
"Laurel," Len said sharply. "We're in public."
She wouldn't look at her husband; he couldn't stop her. She looked at Michael instead and saw that he was watching her, his mouth pulled up on one side in amusement, showing a row of even teeth.
Laurel gestured widely at the empty beach. "Len, there's no one here."
Len nodded curtly at Alice and Michael. "They're here."
"That's right," Michael said, running his fingers through his dirty blonde hair. "What about us? Are we nobody?"
Laurel grinned; a flush of warmth went through her. She wriggled out of her jeans, the wind raising goosebumps on her bare skin. Miraculously, she had managed to shave her legs just this morning, hunched over in the shower while Jessie stood at the edge of the tub, pulling back the curtain and reaching for the pink plastic razor in Laurel's hand.
"Dessie do!"
"No," Laurel had said sharply. "You'll cut yourself."
But in the end, it had been Laurel who had cut herself, moving the razor too quickly over her knee, leaning awkwardly to keep away from Jessie's grasping hands.
"Damn it, Jessie," she had muttered. "See what you made me do."
Her daughter had watched as the blood rose on her mother's skin.
"Uh-oh, Momma. Boo boo. Boo boo wight dare." She pointed in alarm at Laurel's knee.
Laurel had rolled her eyes. "Yeah, boo boo right there. Well, what do you expect? I can't even shave my freaking legs in peace."
Now, the newly shaved skin almost hurt, the way the follicles raised up, trying futilely to warm her. But Laurel could still feel Michael's eyes on her — felt, too, the little flare that had gone on inside of her. For a moment, she forgot the cold. Her skin tingled, alive. She glanced at her husband. Len stood with his broad shoulders turned away from her, long arms loose at his sides. The wind whipped a curl of black hair into his eyes, and he pushed it away impatiently. Why won't you look at me? she wanted to shout at him. But her husband's mouth was set in a grim little line and he would not meet her eye.
Laurel let out a wild little laugh. "Here I go!"
She pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it in the sand beside her discarded jeans, then ran quickly toward the water. With each step, she felt her bottom jiggle. She had not lost all the extra pounds of her pregnancy, and it was with an effort that she fought the impulse to reach back and prod the flesh there, testing its firmness.
When at last Laurel reached the water, she was relieved. The water would cover her. But Laurel had not reckoned on how low the tide was. The water barely reached her knees, the skin on her legs stinging with the salt and cold. She ran a few more steps, but it was awkward running in the shallow water, the way she had to splay her legs out to the side with every step. She didn't look back, but still she felt them watching her.
A few steps more and finally the water reached above her knees. This morning's razor cut stung sharply and she looked down. Her legs were hidden now beneath the churning water, but she imagined that the cut was bleeding again, imagined the blood seeping out of her into the vast ocean. She tried to summon the thrill she had felt while she'd stripped on the beach, the heat of Michael's eyes, but both were gone. She hugged her upper body and scanned the ocean for another swimmer. Surely there must be at least a surfer in a wetsuit, some other human form to make her feel less alone. But there was no one.
Laurel took a deep breath and threw herself forward into the water. A wave crested over her, the water so cold it made her temples ache. She thrashed wildly for a second, forgetting how shallow it was. But then her hands grazed the bottom, and she pushed herself back to standing, gasping with the cold.
She ran back to the beach immediately, the useless bra struggling to contain her bouncing breasts, heavy strands of hair flopping against her face. She was not thinking, now, of how she looked to the others, whom she could see standing together on the beach. Michael and Alice stood pressed together; Laurel noticed how perfectly Michael's slender hip fit into the curve of Alice's waist.
By the time she reached them, she had begun to shiver uncontrollably.
Michael grinned at her. "You call that a swim?"
She did not answer. Her teeth began to chatter. Len scooped her shirt from the sand and held it out for her.
She shook her head. "I'm soaked."
"Put it on," he said, reaching for her jeans.
The jeans wouldn't go on easily; her numb fingers fumbled with the waistband. Michael and Alice looked away, then took a few steps down the beach.
"Where are they going?" Laurel said, her teeth clattering over every word.
"Just get dressed," Len said.
* * *
That evening, the four of them had dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the motel. Condensation streamed down the windows, blurring its neon sign.
"Cozy little place," Michael said, looking around. Each table had a classic red and white checkered tablecloth, a burgundy candle wedged into an empty wine bottle. He smiled at Laurel pleasantly.
Michael ordered a bottle of red wine, and Laurel's mood lifted as she drank. She was warm at last; she felt her skin glow. She finished her glass during the appetizer and smiled gratefully when the waiter refilled it, glad that Len would not see her reach for the bottle.
Her food arrived, the pasta still steaming beneath its dollop of dark red sauce. Laurel could not help closing her eyes and leaning over it, just to feel the moist warmth against her face. Once she would have taken this for granted — this simple, overpriced meal. Now she knew better. Now she knew what it was worth, this meal that she had not prepared with a toddler hanging on her leg, this meal that she would eat without once having to get up for more this or more that, to mop up a spill, or retrieve a sippy cup thrown purposefully to the floor.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that Michael was watching her. She smiled at him and drew in her breath deeply so that her chest pushed out against her shirt.
"Bon appétit," she said. "Or rather ... Buon appetito!" She raised her wine glass to her lips. Inside her, something fluttered and awoke.
* * *
When the meal was over and Alice rose to excuse herself to the ladies' room, Laurel pushed back her chair.
"I'll go, too."
Neither of the women spoke while they were in their stalls, but afterwards Laurel sought out Alice's eyes in the mirror above the sink.
"You having fun?"
"Sure."
"I like Michael. He seems ... nice."
Alice nodded but said nothing; she was touching up her face. She pressed her lips to a paper towel, leaving a perfect red kiss on the fold. Then she balled up the towel deliberately and held it in her fist. She nodded at the wastebasket on Laurel's other side.
"Excuse me," she said.
Instinctively Laurel stepped aside, but something in Alice's tone had jarred her.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
Alice threw away the crumpled paper towel and turned to meet her eye.
"You told him this weekend was our idea, didn't you?"
"Who?"
"Your husband."
Laurel shrugged noncommittally, and Alice stared at her with wide, mascaraed eyes.
"Laurel, that's not true," she said fiercely, the color rising in her pale face.
"Oh, come on, Alice. What difference does it make? He would never have come otherwise. And we're having fun, right?"
Alice shook her head. "I don't get it."
"Look, Len's like that. He would never have agreed to this weekend if it had been just the two of us. And I can't tell you how much I needed —"
"So you used us?"
"Of course not. I wanted you to come."
Alice frowned.
"Look, I'm sorry if —"
Alice shook her head.
"It's fine. It doesn't matter." She bared her teeth in the mirror, checking for lipstick.
"Come on," Laurel said, reaching for the door. "You look great. And the boys will think we've fallen in."
She forced a smile, but Alice brushed past her without meeting her eye. Laurel made a little face at Alice's back as she followed her down the tiny hallway to the dining room. She knew from work that Alice could be meticulous about details, but she had never seen her like this, so stone-faced and grim. Alice was younger than Laurel by a few years; she had taken the job at the lab while anundergraduate at Humboldt State and had stayed on after both her graduation and her wedding, grateful to have a job at the same university where her husband had begun his master's.
Laurel, in comparison, was a newcomer. She had been seven months pregnant with Jessie when she had followed Len to Arcata, a small college town on the coast of northern California. Len had just earned his PhD in theoretical mathematics at Berkeley, and Humboldt State had offered him a teaching position. With only seven weeks until her due date, it was a ludicrous time for Laurel to look for work of her own. But by her daughter's four-month birthday, Laurel had been desperate for a job — any job — just so she would get to leave the damn house alone for a few hours.
The timing had not been good. It was January of 1973, the economy on the brink of recession. No one had been interested in hiring a new mother with an English degree. In the end, it had been Len who had used his connections at the university to get her the job at the lab, and although Laurel despised nothing more than being patronized, she had swallowed her pride and leapt at it.
On the first day, Laurel's stomach had churned with nerves. She had not set foot in a science lab since the ninth grade, when her lab partner had used their Bunsen burner to scribble curse words on their table, then set them alight when the teacher wasn't looking. But Alice had taken Laurel under her wing. You didn't need to know a thing about biology, Alice had assured her, as long as you cleaned the test tubes properly and left no fingerprints on the cover slips.
At the lab, Alice had always been pleasant and attentive, listening with sympathetic noises as Laurel vented to her about the drudgeries of motherhood. Now she wondered if Alice had only liked listening to her because it made her feel so good about her own life. Newly wed and childless, Alice didn't need an off-season weekend at the beach to spend time with her gorgeous husband. And she wasn't paying out the nose for a babysitter, either.
At the thought of the sitter at home with their daughter, Laurel felt a rush of irritation at her mother. Pearl lived alone in Los Angeles in a rented apartment; Laurel had seen no reason her mother couldn't have moved to Arcata, too, to help her after Jessie was born. But Pearl had declined without apology. Her apartment was rent-controlled, she'd said. She couldn't afford to give it up.
"Nobody helped me when your father left," she'd said. "And I managed."
"Mom, I was five by then."
Pearl snorted. "You think it gets easier?"
* * *
When she and Alice got back to their table, Laurel plopped down in the seat beside Michael before Alice could sit down. She reached across the table for her glass and tossed the wine back. Almost instantly she could feel the alcohol buoying her, a flush of recklessness just beneath her skin.
"Sit there, Alice," she said, gesturing to the empty seat beside Len with a smile. "I see Len all the time. I want to get to know your husband."
Alice stared at her, and for a moment Laurel wondered if she would make a scene. But just then their waiter came to check on them, and rather than stand there looking a fool, Alice slipped into Laurel's empty seat.
"Can I get you anything else?" the waiter said. "Dessert?" Laurel held up the empty wine bottle like a beacon.
"Another of these, please."
"Laurel —" Len began, then looked to Michael and Alice. "Do you two want more?"
"Not for me, thanks," Michael said, leaning back in his chair.
"Alice?"
"No."
"Laurel, I don't think we need —"
"Oh, none of you are any fun. Just another glass then, I suppose."
CHAPTER 2
Len
When her wine came, Laurel sat leaning forward over the table. She was angled in her chair toward Michael, one elbow propped on the checkered tablecloth, the other arm hidden in her lap. She held her wine glass loosely by the stem, her upper arm pressed against one breast, hoisting it upward. Her shirt was scooped low in front, revealing the deep chasm of her cleavage. Len's face flushed and he looked away.
"So," he said, scooting his chair back a few inches and catching Michael's eye. "What, um, what do you do exactly, Michael? What's your field, I mean? Your profession?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Laurel make a face and he grimaced; even he could hear how awkward he sounded. He had never been good at this. Even when he was young, the easy chatter of the other children had intimidated him; they seemed to speak a lingo he had never mastered. But how dare Laurel mock him now? If it had not been for her insistence on this ridiculous trip, he would be at home putting Jessie to bed, instead of stumbling through this awful small talk.
He looked back at Michael, suddenly annoyed by the other man's happy-go-lucky ease, his insouciant good humor. What did Len care what he did for a living? Still, he leaned in a little, readying himself to smile and nod. But Michael was not looking at him; he seemed not to have registered Len's bumbling question after all. Instead, his eyes darted around the room, his eyebrows raised slightly, as if in surprise or appraisal.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Give"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Erica C. Witsell.
Excerpted by permission of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
