That night she logged onto her computer and went straight to Google. Now that she had accepted the date with Kyle she wanted to learn whatever she could about his story. Why did people seem hesitant around him? And what was with the tragedy Marta had found when she Googled him? Claire treated him with outright disdain, and he seemed to accept it. And why had he abandoned Hollywood for this beach hamlet? They had oceans in LA. If memory served, he’d even had a pretty hot and heavy romance with his costar. Emily remembered because she’d felt jealous at the time. She had to laugh. If she’d been able to tell her former self what her future self would be doing one day, her former self would’ve never believed it.
There was surprisingly little on Kyle—or Brady, as he was known then. A search of his real name turned up some old records from his high school years and a small article in the local paper about his being discovered at a casting call in Atlanta he had attended on a lark. At the time of the article he was filming the movie. He called the whole experience “a whirlwind” and said he missed his girlfriend back home. Emily knit her brows together over that. Girlfriend back home? She wondered who that could be. Soon she would pin Claire down, insist she tell her the whole story. Of course, to do that she’d have to admit that she was going out with him and she wasn’t exactly ready to discuss that with anyone.
Dissatisfied with her findings, she erased the search bar of Google and sat staring at the empty space, knowing there was one more thing she had to do, something that had nothing to do with Kyle and everything to do with what she felt about the bridge debate. It had been nagging at her ever since she’d found the bridge closed as a frightened teenage girl whimpered beside her in the dark of night. She couldn’t pretend that hadn’t happened and—while it had all turned out okay—there was no guarantee that someday it wouldn’t. The threat of harm coming to someone was too real to avoid. At the meeting the state representatives had urged citizens to leave comments, expressing why they were for or against the bridge. “We will read every comment and take it under advisement,” the guy who seemed to be in charge had said.
“And then do just what you were going to do anyway,” Claire had muttered beside her.
But whether it made a difference or not, Emily wanted to register her thoughts, to try to relay the danger she had felt in being closed off on the island with no way to cross. Sometimes it was really important for someone to be able to get to the other side and for nothing to hinder that from happening. She stared at the picture of the proposed new bridge that came up on the state site, the sturdy structure rising into the sky. That bridge, she could see, would not keep people from crossing. She scrolled down to the comment section, took a deep breath, and began to type, silently apologizing to Kyle—and Claire—as she did.
She finished her comment, revising and amending it so many times she finally gave up and just hit Send, feeling a little sick as it went flying into the Internet Neverland, irretrievable and, even worse, bearing her actual name that the state had required for submission. Emily supposed this was to deter hacks and prohibit people from using the site to incite arguments on the topic. People hid behind anonymous commenting opportunities, grew bolder and more outrageous if they didn’t have to own up to what they’d said. She guessed the state was trying to avoid that, especially on this hot-button issue.
Emily had felt the undercurrent of people’s emotions running through the meeting room that night and recognized the bridge debate was potentially charged. There were those who were powerfully attached to that bridge, and she suspected they all had reasons of their own, memories and feelings conjured by the past. She knew what that was like better than most. And yet in this case, she couldn’t go along with the desire to hold on to what was, not after she felt the danger that night in the car.
She looked up and saw Amber sitting on the couch, staring at her. She had no idea when the girl had entered the room. “Hi,” she said. “You okay?” She seemed to be asking Amber that a lot.
Amber nodded. “I just got up. I fell asleep for a while. Then when I came out here you seemed pretty absorbed in whatever you were doing.” She gestured at Emily’s laptop. Emily was glad it was turned at an angle that prohibited Amber from seeing what she’d been doing. She didn’t want to explain or leave Amber to draw her own conclusions why she was on the state’s site devoted to the bridge debate. She closed the laptop.
“What would you like to do tonight?” she asked. “You hungry?”
Amber thought about it for a minute. “Not especially. I mean maybe, like, a snack?”
“What if I made popcorn?” Emily stood up, stowed the computer on the shelf where she typically kept it. “And not that microwave kind either. The old-fashioned kind, on the stove. My—” She stopped short of saying, “My husband taught me how.” She didn’t want to bring Ryan up to Amber, not when she’d just seen Kyle there. It was all too much to get into for now.
Amber shrugged. “Sure, I guess.” She got up and followed Emily into the kitchen, watching attentively, as if she would be quizzed later on the process, as she took out butter and oil and popcorn and got out the big pot Ada had left behind that was just tall and heavy enough for the task. Emily found herself talking about each step as she did, trying hard not to think about the night Ryan had taught her when it was clear he wasn’t going to beat the cancer. Though he hadn’t spelled it out for her, she knew he knew he had to pass it along to her, seeing as how she loved his popcorn so much. She had to learn to make it on her own. She’d cried her way through the first batches she made after he died, but the sight of popcorn kernels no longer brought automatic tears to her eyes.
Moments later she was finished with a huge batch. She dumped the popcorn into a large stainless steel bowl and carried it into the den, plopping it between the two of them. “We’ll never eat all that,” Amber remarked as she saw the bowl. She had already turned on the television and was flipping through the channels at lightning speed. “There’s nothing on,” she informed Emily in a monotone.
She landed on a sitcom and left it there after turning to see if Emily objected. “Nothing else better,” Emily said as shoulder to shoulder they took in the activity and the canned laughter on the screen, robotically popping pieces of popcorn into their mouths. Not paying attention to the storyline at all, Emily wondered what to say to this unexpected roommate of hers. She wanted to dole out some wise advice but could think of nothing at all.
During a commercial Amber spoke up. “He was a guest at the hotel,” she said as if in answer to a question Emily hadn’t asked. But in truth, she’d asked it internally many times, never brave enough to come out and say it. Amber must’ve sensed her curiosity. Amber swallowed hard. “He was cute. Older, but not so much older that it was gross, ya know?”
Emily barely nodded. She was afraid any sudden movements might scare Amber off, put her back into closed-off, secretive mode.
“He would flirt with me whenever he checked in or out. Tease me about how our motel wasn’t exactly five star or whatever, but that he couldn’t afford more.” A look of pride crossed her face and she sat up a little straighter. “He’s starting his own business: T-shirts that say really funny things on them that he sells at the different beach stores.” She quieted for a moment, thinking. “He just graduated from college and had made T-shirts for his fraternity. He got the seed money for this business from doing that.” She smiled. “He’s really smart.
“He calls me ‘Cheerleader’ because he said that he knew I was a cheerleader, even though no way was I a cheerleader. For one I’m uncoordinated and for another I work too much to do that.” She made a face. “Anyway, when he says it, he always makes me feel pretty, you know?” She searched Emily’s face, willing her, Emily knew, to understand. And she did understand. Emily imagined there wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t understand that part.
“So one day he called down from his room and said there weren’t any towels and could I bring some up?” She looked down at her lap, studying her hands, folded there, her fingers shiny from the buttered popcorn. “I knew there were towels up there because I had put them there myself. And I knew if I went up there everything would change. Between us. For me.” She sat motionless for a moment, then turned to look at Emily. “I just didn’t know how much.”
She looked away quickly, staring at the television. Another sitcom had started but she didn’t bother to turn up the sound. “It’s been going on for a while. We never talk about the future except when he tells me I should go to college, that I’ll have the time of my life. We never say ‘I love you’ or even talk about when he’s coming back. Every time he leaves I never know if that’s the last time I’ll see him. It took him months just to give me his cell number. And now . . . I just don’t know.”
Amber’s voice trailed off and they both sat silently. Emily cast about for the right words, the perfect piece of wisdom to share. “Are you going to keep the baby?” she finally asked.
“I’m not sure if I can keep it or if it would be best to give it up for adoption. I want to talk to him about it, I guess.” She shrugged. “Not that he’s ready to be a father. I mean, he’s trying to get that business launched and it’s not like he’s got extra money.” She gave a little ironic laugh. “Or any money.” She brought her fingers to her mouth and licked the butter and salt from the tips, one by one. “I was all set to just, like, give it up for adoption or whatever but then when I saw the little heartbeat, I was just like, ‘That’s our kid.’ And it made me think, what if we could make a go of it? I know I’m young and everything but I just want it to work out so much.” Her beautiful green eyes widened. “I love him so much.”
“Then you should tell him. Be honest. The next time he comes in town, just go for it.”
Amber nodded. “I know. I need to. I will.” She lowered her eyes, embarrassed. “Thanks for letting me talk. I don’t really, um, have someone to, you know, talk to.”
Emily patted her and stood up. “That’s what I’m here for.” She walked toward the kitchen, giving them some emotional and physical distance after such raw honesty. “Want some sweet tea?” she called out over her shoulder, doing her level best to seem unruffled. She hoped she could act as well as Marta, could pretend that all was well when it completely was not.