Page 46 of Holding On

Chapter Eleven

Travis Russo

“So you just took the rest of the day off?”

I’m crossing the space between the clinic and The Inn, when Nic pulls up with Maya. Jackson had arrived half an hour earlier, and I had spoken to him briefly when I was graining Salty.

“Yes,” she says with a tight little smile. “It’s Friday and I’m done with Barr.”

My stomach squeezes, and I can’t believe how upset I am that she even had to be near him.

“Everything okay, then?”

“Everything is fine,” she says.

But it isn’t until we’re all scattered on the kitchen porch, looking out at the sea, that I feel her relax. The water is quiet in the bay this evening, smooth like glass, and it looks like a mirror of blue. Chloe is busy with dinner, and Bryce is helping the waitstaff by expediting. We’ll all eat when the guests are finished.

I love leftover Friday. It’s something our parents instituted, and I’m grateful Chloe revived it.

Cory is sitting on a chair with a sippy cup of juice. At six, he’s a little old for a sippy cup, but it’s one of Laurel’s few crutches. Within seconds of my sitting down, he’s in my lap, apple juice splashing on my pants despite the precautionary cup.

“Salty, Salty,” he starts chanting.

I laugh. Laurel, leaning over to right the cup, says evenly, “Use your words. Say what you want.”

“I want, I want, I want—”

“You want to walk Salty?”

As he arches up and backward, I have to catch him so he doesn’t fall.

“Yes!”

“But I just sat down.”

“I’ll go with you,” says Maya. She’s standing, beer in hand, looking so lively with the sunset behind her as it streams orange, pink, and purple. It takes my breath away.

Thank God none of my sisters say a word. It must be killing them.

***

“I don’t know,” says Maya, twisting her hair in her finger. She’s barefoot and the three of us, horse in tow, have just made the half mile walk to the caves. The tide is starting to come in, though, so we can’t make it in and turn around. I call Cory back. Other than hanging on to the tail end of the lead rope, a task that lasted about three minutes, he’s had little interest in Salty.

Maya and I had been talking exes. My list is short with no drama, because nothing gets very far. Hers is more complicated.

“I just get this thing that I’m not Black enough,” she continues. “I don’t talk right. I’m pretending to be white. It’s exhausting.”

“Even now?”

She shakes her head. “No. At least not so much. Now, it’s just a look I get at the cafeteria or from the janitorial staff at school, which are predominately Black or Latin. And that sucks. But in undergrad school, shit, even my Black female profs suffered.” She pauses, then interlocks her fingers with mine when she takes my hand.

I’d been waiting for a moment to take hers, but between having to pluck Cory from the surf twice and wave him down countless times, the opportunity didn’t present itself easily.

When I feel her skin, her fingertips, the palm of her hand pressed to mine, my heart beats hard. She makes this easy.

“What about you?” she asks, gently leaning her head on my shoulder for a moment before straightening again and looking at the sky.

I sigh. Geo and I have talked about stuff before. “I don’t see things the way you do. Or at least I don’t feel them the way you do. I bet a lot of female professors get challenged by their students. And college, at that level, when you’re first starting out, it’s hard.”