Page 7 of Second Tide's the Charm
I slide my hands under Zuri’s youngest son’s armpits and hoist the little three-year-old into my arms. I tip my forehead against his. “He did not, little man. You slipped, is all.” Reaching down, I tug at the toe of Seth’s fleece pajamas. “These don’t mix well with clean tile. Your mom needs to lay off with the overzealous mopping. A little gunk gives traction.”
Zuri groans. “That’s disgusting, Hope.”
I ignore my friend, settling Seth onto my hip. “Wanna help me pack?”
He sniffs, rubbing his sleeve under his nose. “What about breakfast?”
“You can eat in my room. As long as that’s okay with your mom?” I look to Zuri for confirmation.
But before she can answer, her phone dings. She digs around in her robe pockets and tugs out her cell, peering at it. “Oh gosh. Trevor’s here already.”
A Shoreline Dunes local who graduated in our class, Trevor has become good friends with Zuri over the past year. He’s here to fix a leaky faucet, and while it’s thoughtful of him to text instead of ringing the bell and risk waking the kids, I don’t voice this vote of confidence. Zuri’s wedding ring is testament to where her heart lies. Far be it from me to encourage her to move on when my own feelings for Adrian are embarrassingly complicated, even after all the time and distance.
Zuri frowns, but a quiet knock cuts short whatever she planned to say, and Seth lets go of my neck and scrambles out of my arms to beat his mom to the door. Faced with the alternative of subjecting my choices to Trevor’s well-meaning questions, packing doesn’t sound so bad, and I escape to my room.
I take my suitcase out of the closet and unzip it on my bed. Thebuzzof the zipper hits me with a rush of endorphins—adventure awaits. I toss in sports bras and underwear, a few shirts. Shorts and pants. In goes the black cotton dress I wear for every special occasion from interviews to date nights.
Not that there will be any of those. I’ve only been on a handful of dates since Adrian, each one a disappointment, the lack of connection a reminder of why I thought true love was a myth.
On impulse, I grab the only item hanging in the closet—a chambray sundress flecked with thumbnail-sized white seagulls that caught my eye the last time Zuri and I played tourist in Shoreline Dunes. She encouraged me to buy it, calling it a step up from my usual wardrobe of “afterthought casual.” The tags are still on, and I use my teeth to rip them off before laying it atop the rest of the clothes. A new dress for a new start.
“Aunt Hope?”
Startled, I look over to see Chloe at the open door, clutching a bag of hair products. Even though Zuri and I aren’t related, her kids grew up calling me aunt, and as an only child, I adore doting on them.
I take the hair supplies from her and wedge them in among my clothes. “Thanks, kiddo. Wanna help me zip the suitcase?”
She nods and clambers up on the bed. I reach to close the bag, but she grabs my wrist. “Wait. Don’t you want to pack your favorite hoodie?”
I look down at the hoodie I’d forgotten I’m wearing. Adrian’s hoodie.
“This isn’t...” I stop myself. Why lie? I wear it almost every day, even on cool summer evenings. Maybe I should’ve chucked the hoodie years ago with tear-stricken drama, but our relationship didn’t end with a big fight. It would’ve been more fitting to mail it back to him, laundered and neatly packaged, like an unwanted garment bought online. Impersonal. Detached.
“What about this?” I hold up the utility jacket I plan to wear on windy days like I’m pleading my case to a jury, not explaining my fashion choices to a six-year-old.
“That doesn’t look cozy.” Chloe’s dubious tone makes me chuckle, despite the lurch of pain in my chest. But I don’t need cozy. Don’t need to get comfortable.
The rumble of Trevor’s voice from the kitchen pulls her attention and she’s off in a flash. Maybe without my presence as a third wheel, Zuri will open up to the man carrying a literal torch for her—the other day he showed up with a battery-powered lantern when a felled branch knocked the power out—and give love another chance.
Not me, though. I’m out to conquer love. Life since I moved back has been deceptively stagnant; all the ups and downs of a wave pool, but at the end of the day, I’ve been treading water. Today all that changes. I’m headed for the ocean. Adrian is my past, but sharks are my future. I’m not passing up this opportunity, even if it means confronting what—who—I’ve spent the past three years avoiding.
Tomorrow, the No-Adrian Rule will have a whole new meaning. Shutting him out won’t be an option, but neither will getting to know him again. I’ve got to find a way to work with my ex without letting him in. To spend a summer with the man I once loved with my whole heart, and then let him go.
four
adrian
“Think you’ve might’ve gone overboard with all that data?” Gabe is lounging next to me, his feet kicked up on an overturned bucket, chin tucked to his chest as he taps on his phone. Without looking up, he says, “I thought you wanted your sister’s opinion, not a full-on consult.”
Though we’re sitting on the boat—myboat, though it still feels weird to call it that, even though the monthly slip rental fee just left my bank account—the spreadsheet doesn’t contain tag records or shark profiles. It’s an amalgamation of digital data. Views, subscribe rates, watch time. A tally of how effective our channel is at reaching our audience.
I never expected to be dealing with this sort of data. When it became clear to my parents—both professors—that my interest in sharks was more than just a phase, my career path became just as clear: study, research, publish, teach. And the clarity of those parameters fit the stability I craved.
We moved around more often than I was comfortable with during my childhood. Just when I’d settle into a new place, our life would get uprooted by my dad’s department losing funding or my mom accepting an offer at a college out of state. Vital for their careers, good for supporting our family, but tough for a kid who thrived on routine. When my sister left for college just as I started junior high in a new city, I felt adrift. By the time we moved again halfway through high school, I’d put all my focus into a planned-out, predictable future. Bachelor’s degree, master’s, doctorate, postdoc, tenure.
But my tidy career path took an unconventional turn, one I would’ve been too scared to embrace before Hope, a purpose for all the pieces of my personality that never quite found a home in the work I was doing before. My ability to connect with people, a skill I learned from many first days at new schools in new towns, makes social media surprisingly intuitive.
But peer review is important in life as well as science, and my big sister has always been a person I could count on to give me, if not impartial, then honest feedback. Bringing someone else onto the team for an entire summer is a big step, so today I’m hoping for my sister’s long-overdue feedback on the channel and how we’re using our platform. She’s been surprisingly quiet on the subject, and honestly, I crave her opinion, even if she tells me I’m making a mistake.
