Page 18 of Dead of Summer

ORLA

The air has that beginning-of-summer feel to it, clean and new, as Orla puts her feet cautiously into the surf.

The water is crisp and so clear. She goes out another step, her chest buzzing nervously as the gentle waves swirl around her legs.

Even if it was warm enough to dive in, Orla’s fear would keep her from going out.

Orla had once loved to swim, but now when she looks down into the water, all she sees is Alice.

The tangle of her hair in every piece of seaweed.

Her pale hands stretching up through the dark.

A swell of icy water comes up around her feet and she feels Alice’s fingers on her ankles. Why didn’t you save me?

Orla shudders and turns back toward the shore.

And that is when she sees him, in their spot no less, lounging on the beach as though he doesn’t have a care in the world.

David Clarke looks exactly like he did in high school.

If anything, he unfairly has become more handsome with age, his physique still slender but filled out, his jawline more defined.

He leans back, letting the sun hit the flat ripple of his abdomen.

Next to him a woman pulls off her white cover-up, exposing a barely-there red bikini that shows off pieces of her toned core and long legs.

She turns, shading her eyes as she decides which direction to place her towel.

She is beautiful. Frustratingly so. But she is also familiar.

Orla’s heart pounds as she takes in the slim build and tan skin.

She watches, riveted, as the woman pulls a tube out of her straw bag and begins to apply sunscreen, rubbing it thoroughly into each part of her body as though showing off how perfectly formed it is.

Orla glances down at her old one-piece and pale legs. Her feet look wide and bluish under the water. Nothing like the beach to make a person feel inadequate both in body and in life.

The woman sits down, finally finished with her performative lotion application as the man finishes putting up the umbrella.

When he is done, he pulls himself fully upright and runs his fingers though his hair.

He says something to the woman, who tilts her head up to look at him through her oversize sunglasses and smiles broadly. He turns and sits in one of the chairs.

In some ways the woman is exactly who Orla would have expected David to be with.

Outwardly perfect. Inwardly, she is fairly certain, more shallow than a wading pool.

Orla imagines that she is the kind of woman who won’t ask too many questions or press him on where his money comes from or try to control what he does in his free time.

Orla had always hoped for better from David but maybe that was naive of her.

As much as he went on to her about breaking free from his father’s clutches and doing his own thing one day, everyone must have known that David was always going to turn into Geoffrey.

With his boarding schools and private planes, how could he have ever become anything else?

Now the woman beside him notices David staring.

Orla watches the woman’s glossed lips purse as she tries to suss out what is happening between them.

Or perhaps to determine whether Orla is a threat.

Her body buzzes self-consciously. Does she know about her and David’s past?

But there is no way she would know anything unless he told her, and Orla suspects very strongly that David never would.

Her first impulse is to flee. But then she’d be spending the whole summer hiding from him. She can’t let him see her act afraid. There is only one thing for her to do. She starts toward them with a smile plastered to her face as she makes her way across the sand.

“Orla.” David waves when she gets close enough, his face transforming into something less like shock and more like friendliness. “Is that you?” His voice is far deeper than she remembers, with a hint of Geoffrey’s rumbling resonance to it.

“Hi!” she manages. She stands awkwardly as he rises from the towel and comes to join her, leaving the woman on her beach chair watching. He lowers his voice when he reaches her. “Didn’t think you’d come back here,” he says in a voice quiet enough for his companion not to hear him.

“I could say the same of you,” Orla responds, her stomach churning anxiously. He’s standing so close that she can see each of the freckles scattered across his taut, tan chest.

“I come every summer. Why wouldn’t I?” He raises his shoulders in total innocence, but his voice is snippy.

Orla stares back at him, trying to find the young boy she knew so well.

He glances back to where the woman watches from her towel.

She lowers her sunglasses and stares straight at her with Alice’s eyes. Orla sucks in a breath.

“I see you brought a friend.”

“Oh, yes, that’s Faith.” At the sound of her name, the woman pops up from her towel eagerly. Too eagerly , Orla thinks as she bounces effortlessly across the sand toward them.

“Hi,” she says, pulling a piece of shiny hair from her face. Faith sticks her hand out and Orla is forced to go through the motions of shaking it. It is so delicate she feels like she might crush the bones inside.

“Orla is an artist back in New York,” David says, a sarcastic edge to his voice that disorients her. His girlfriend doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, amazing, what kind of art? Would I have seen it anywhere?” Faith asks in that annoying way nonartistic people ask about art. It sounds benign enough, but Orla can tell she is threatened.

“No, I’m sure not,” Orla says, brushing it off.

“She’s selling herself short. Orla’s quite successful, actually,” David says, dropping his arm around Faith’s shoulders and pulling her toward him. Why does it seem like he’s pretending? Orla swallows.

“What about you, what do you do?” Orla asks, dodging the attention.

There’s an uncomfortable pause as Faith digs her perfect toe into the sand.

“I’m actually between things at the moment,” she says, glancing up at David.

Already getting money from Daddy Warbucks , Orla thinks ungenerously.

She is starting to get dizzy in the open sun like this.

Her knees wobble dangerously. What would it be like to collapse onto the sand in front of them? Would she ever recover?

“I have to go, actually,” she says quickly, feeling like she might pass out. “Meeting someone. Just so busy, you know. Lots of, um, island things to do. People to catch up with.”

“Yeah, I bet,” David says. She turns away from them and flees, stumbling across the sand toward the parking lot. As she regains her footing, Orla is horrified to find herself still attracted to him.