Elin Hilderbrand - Nantucket Nights

After a second, Val turned to Antoinette. “Well, what do you think of that?” Antoinette said, “He’s a teenager, Kayla. He’ll get over it.”

They drank more champagne. They finished the lobsters and the cheese and the berries. Kayla leaned back in the sand and closed her eyes. The Ativan was working its magic. Val and Antoinette spoke words that made no sense, a code. Or maybe the words made sense but just not to her because she was asleep; maybe the words got jumbled up with a dream she was having. Kayla dreamt that the string of Luke’s purple balloon was wound around the legs of a baby seagull, and tangled, so that the bird couldn’t fly. The gull tried to fly and Kayla chased after it, wanting to cut the string. But she couldn’t get close enough.

Kayla heard herself snore, and she jolted awake. She reached instinctively for her glass of champagne, drank what was left, and filled it again, lifting the Methuselah with ease now. The huge bottle was half empty.

“What were you guys talking about while I was asleep?” Kayla asked. “Were you discussing what a bad mother I am?”

“You’re not a bad mother at all, Kayla,” Val said. “I’m sure whatever Theo’s problem is, it has nothing to do with you. You’re being too sensitive again.”

“What is it, then?”

Val patted her knee. “It’s school or something. Friends. A girlfriend.”

Kayla shook her head. “No, if it were that kind of thing he would have told Raoul. He tells Raoul everything.”

Antoinette interrupted them. “I have something to say. I have my secret to tell.”

“You already told your secret,” Kayla said. “About your daughter, remember? Only one secret per customer.”

“Maybe you should stop drinking, Kayla,” Val said. “It’s really bringing your emotions to the surface.”

“So what? I thought that’s what tonight was about. Letting it all hang loose.”

“I have a confession to make,” Antoinette said.

Kayla turned to her friend. Antoinette was looking at her in a meaningful way, and Kayla got an awful vibe. “Oh, God,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own. “Don’t tell me. Are you having an affair with Raoul? Are you screwing my husband?”

Antoinette sat perfectly still for a moment, staring at Kayla. Kayla stared back at first with accusatory fire, then with defensiveness, and finally with shame. She was ruining everything. But before Kayla could find the words to apologize, Antoinette rose and her towel fell away, exposing her beautiful dark body. Kayla thought she was going to drive off in the Trooper, leaving them there. Kayla wouldn’t have blamed her. But Antoinette didn’t get into the car. Instead, she put her arms out like she was holding an imaginary beach ball, and she pirouetted into the water. Kayla watched in a stupor; she was drunk. Antoinette swam straight out.

Kayla turned to Val. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Val blinked. “Kayla, what is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Kayla said.

Kayla waited for Antoinette’s dark head to surface so that she could call out an apology. She had no idea why those words escaped her lips- Are you screwing my husband? It was the Ativan talking, and the champagne, combined with the awful memory of Missy Tsoulakis. Even after nineteen years of marriage, Kayla was insecure-and especially when she saw forty-four-year-old women with incredible bodies like Antoinette’s and Val’s. But still, how dumb of her. Insensitive. And inappropriate for Night Swimmers. It was their twentieth anniversary, and she’d ruined it.

Kayla missed Antoinette surfacing; she was looking in the wrong place. Her mental clock ticked: How long was too long? The water was dappled by moonlight; it was all bright surfaces and dark troughs. After a minute, she stood up.

“Do you see her?”

Now Val was the one lying down with her eyes closed, probably off in dreamland with Jacob Anderson. “Do I see who?”

“Antoinette.” Kayla’s insides felt like they were filling up with something dark and syrupy. Foreboding. Fear. “I don’t see Antoinette,” she said. Her voice sounded calm; the Ativan reined her in.

“She’s swimming,” Val said.

“I don’t see her,” Kayla said. She walked closer to the water, which reflected the moonlight like a mirror. Was Antoinette out there floating on her back? “Antoinette, I’m sorry! Hey, I’m sorry! I’m stupid drunk. Please come out! Antoinette!”

Kayla looked around Great Point to the harbor side. The rip current was raised in the water like a scar.

“I don’t see her,” Kayla said.

Val sat up on the blanket. “What do you mean you don’t see her?”

“Do you see her?” Kayla asked. Panic grabbed Kayla-a child running out in the road, a piece of hard candy lodged in a throat-imminent danger.

Val joined her at the water’s edge. “Holy shit,” she said. “Antoinette!”

“Antoinette!” Kayla called. “Antoinette, please!”

No answer.

Kayla tore off her clothes and dived in. Val followed. Kayla wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she went underwater and opened her eyes. The water was greenish black, too dark to see a thing, and immediately she was terrified of this dark, silent world. Her eyes stung. She flailed her arms through the water hoping to hit something warm and familiar, a body, Antoinette’s body.

She surfaced but saw no sign of Val. “Val!” she screamed.

Val raised her head. “I’m over here!”

“Antoinette!” Kayla called. She went under again and batted her arms and legs in all directions. She could see nothing but water-so much dark water. Her children were home safe in their beds, dry, warm, her husband, too, and she was submerged in the Atlantic Ocean searching for Antoinette. Kayla broke the surface and tried to put her feet down, but the water was too deep. A wave crested over her; she came up coughing. The current pushed her out; water had gotten up her nose, and her whole face stung. A voice whispered in Kayla’s ears-a shushing that washed over her with each wave. The Ativan and the champagne wanted to slow her down, rock her to sleep. She could just close her eyes and let the waves carry her away. But she lifted her arms and started swimming back to shore, and as she did, she saw a figure crouched on the beach, and she allowed herself a moment of sweet relief until she saw that the figure was Val, hugging her knees, crying.

Kayla let the waves wash her up next to Val.

“Oh, Jesus God. Oh, sweet Jesus,” Val said. She looked at Kayla. “We have to get some help.”

This sounded right- get help -but Kayla couldn’t make her mind work properly. How would they get help?

“I’ll stay here,” Val said. “You go. Call the police from the Wauwinet gatehouse. Go right now.”

“I’m too drunk to drive,” Kayla said. Another Night Swimmers rule was that no one left the beach until sunrise, when they’d had enough time to sleep off the champagne. “And I took a sedative. I can’t go.”

“You have to go!” Val said. “I’m just as messed up as you, and it’s your car. You have to go, Kayla, right this second!”

Kayla moved heavily, like she was still underwater. She pulled on her clothes and floated over to her car. It smelled like lobster. She eased the car over the ruts in the sand and headed back toward the Wauwinet. She started convulsing with the cold; water ran down her back. Oh, God, she thought, please, please, please God. Why had Kayla said what she said? Her head swelled until it felt like it was the size of a watermelon. The dunes to her right grew larger. How would she make it to the phone? Kayla yanked on the steering wheel to get the Trooper to stay in the tracks. What if she got stuck? Everything blurred; the car bounced as Kayla tackled the dunes. Antoinette is going to be fine, Kayla thought. This is just a joke. She’s angry at me for saying something so stupid.