The Ocean Inside. Janna McMahan

me.”

      Lauren was gesticulating in a way that let Emmett know exactly where she was in her story. She wouldn’t miss him for a few minutes. Caroline led the way under the back deck’s flying staircase into the dark. They passed showers and a dressing area, a deep, wide sink, and numerous bicycles in a jumble in the garage. Voices pulsed softly from inside a storage shed. Caroline knocked and someone opened the door a crack. A sliver of cheek appeared, then a suspicious eye.

      “Hey,” Caroline said. “Let us in.”

      Inside, sea kayaks and expensive bicycles hung the walls. Long paddles with wide, flat ends leaned in corners. Deflated rubber floats were flung in a depressing pile under a workbench. A small set of partygoers stood casually around a boogie board balanced atop two sawhorses. Six lines of coke streaked the makeshift table.

      Emmett knew a few people in the room. Leaned against the workbench was Alejandro Aldrete, owner of Al’s by the Creek, the steakhouse where the local moneyed crowd gathered to drink spicy South American wines and eat crab cakes and Angus steaks. Beside him was Al’s wife, a criminal defense lawyer Emmett knew from the restaurant. Then there was Thomas Wannamaker, their host, whom everybody called Trip. Trip Wannamaker was one of the more influential coastal real estate developers.

      “Come on in, man,” Trip said.

      “Shit,” Emmett muttered. “All right.”

      “Help yourself.” Trip motioned to the powder.

      Emmett hesitated. “I haven’t done that in a long time.”

      Trip shrugged. “Your call.”

      “I will.” Caroline leaned down to sniff one of the lines up a cut straw. Her breasts fell forward heavily, and every man in the room was riveted for a moment. She jerked her head back, raised her eyebrows, and said, “Wow.”

      “That’s some good shit,” Al said. “Fresh off the boat.”

      Emmett stepped forward and took the other line. It hit the back of his throat like ice and trickled down into him, filling his chest with a rapid pleasurable anxiety. He had a soaring sensation in his stomach and he thought of riding a Ski-Doo over a bigass wave and dropping off the other side in midair.

      Trip laid out more lines.

      There was nervous laughter and lots of cigarette smoke. Emmett couldn’t remember exactly when he left the shed. It couldn’t have been long because the next thing he knew he was walking the beach with Lauren, party sounds fading into the low rumble of the surf. It was a full moon and they were alone on a long stretch of beach. When they were younger, they would have seen this as an opportunity to grope each other on a dune until sand scraped their skin inside their clothes. Emmett picked up errant shells and tossed them far into the surf.

      “You’re so hyper,” Lauren said. Her high heels dangled from her fingertips. She poked her toe in the wrack line where the ocean had pushed debris as far inland as it could. Seaweed and salt foam snaked an eerie trail down the beach marking high tide.

      “They were doing coke downstairs.” He chucked a piece of driftwood into the water. Ghost crabs skittered away from his feet.

      “You did coke?”

      “Just a couple of lines.”

      “Feel any better?”

      Moonlight lit her hair and he thought he should kiss her, but he hesitated.

      “It made me forget. For a while,” he offered.

      She didn’t say anything else, just stared at him with the desperate eyes of a starved animal. He felt pressured to fill the void. “So, you’re not mad at me are you?”

      She shrugged as if all the fight had gone out of her. “Considering everything we’ve been through, what’s a line of coke? Just don’t drink anything else. I don’t want you to OD on me. I can’t do this alone.”

      “Wouldn’t think of it.” Emmett picked up a bulky piece of driftwood and grunted as he hefted it at the full moon. He thought it would never hit the water, that the black ocean had swallowed the wood without a sound. Finally, the breeze brought him a splash and then a hollow plunking sound as the wood was sucked under.