“No, they slipped, too,” he replies, the little traitor.
Destiny, Brant, Lana and Niamh are all surrounding us now and I blink salt out of my eyes and shiver hard, trying not to look at Ollie.
“Are you guys alright?”
“Is everything okay?”
“What happened?”
Brant sounds outraged, like either I decided to go for a swim or someone pushed me overboard. His eyes shoot to Ollie.
Ollie speaks first. “Laura jumped in to save that kid from drowning, and I went in after her because she didn’t put on a life jacket first.”
“And then Ollie saved him from drowning,” I add. “And I did nothing.”
“But you guys are okay, right? Do you need a hospital? Medical attention?” Destiny asks. I can tell from her expression that she thinks we are idiots, which is a perfectly reasonable surmise.
“I don’t think so,” I say, teeth chattering. “Sorry about that. Should be okay once I get dry.”
“They were ready to call the Coast Guard,” Niamh adds. “But you guys looked like you had a handle on things.”
I nod, pretending it’s true. Lana appears with two coffees for us from somewhere on the boat.
“So I know this may be totally inappropriate, but since you guys are fine,” Lana says, “how was the water? Was it swimmable?”
When we get backto the hotel, Ollie and I both pass on a hot shower and medical attention in favor of dry clothes and cheap flip-flops from the hotel gift shop so that we can get back to the city faster. We are both wearing SoNo Inn sweatshirts by the time we climb back onto the bus, wrapped in two gifted hotel towels and still wearing our damp pants. I sit shaking by the window, trying to tap out the name of my kid’s aftercare program on Lana’s cell phone, as Ollie lobbies on my behalf to take the passenger van straight back to my kids’ school in Brooklyn, even though we are supposed to be going directly to Manhattan. My heart feels almost entirely grateful, except for the part of it that is appalled.
Did I just tell a man who I’ve barely started dating that Ilovedhim? Surely not. Did he justdecline to say it back?
“You jumped in to save someone,” Lana says, sitting next to Ollie and putting a hand on his shoulder. The salt water has turned his hair into an irritatingly attractive, messy tangle. “That’s so heroic.”
“Well,” Ollie says with a shrug, “I was told that was the expectation when I joined the committee.” Lana and Niamh laugh.
Everyone loves him, I think with irritation. Of course I do, too.
In the end,I am only twenty minutes late to pick up my daughter. I climb out of the van and race to the building to find a grumpy young afterschool teacher sitting on the steps outside her school’s aftercare office, watching Hannah eat a slice of pizza.
“She was hungry,” the young woman says in the same tone that you would give a death threat. Then she takes in my appearance.
“I jumped into the Long Island Sound to rescue someone who went overboard,” I say.
“Oh.” Her expression is flat.
I take out a twenty-dollar bill, which is damp like the rest of my things from being in my presence for the last ninety minutes. “This is all I have. For the pizza. I can get you more tomorrow, I…”
“It’s fine. You’ll be charged a late fee. Just don’t let it happen again.”
She gives a warm, sweet good-bye to Hannah and an assassin’s glare to me before she walks away.
Hannah is staring at me, a little pizza grease still on her chin. “You went swimming?” she asks, accusing.
“I fell in the water,” I say, and leave it at that.
Back at home, I get an email from Ollie, and my heart is in my throat. This is it. He will break up with me because I told him I loved him.
Hi Laura, I am still so impressed with your bravery today. You really are amazing. I’m sending you an email since your phone has probably not recovered. I hope you are drying off and that everything went okay with picking up Hannah. If youneed anything from me, like help getting a new phone, please let me know what I can do. I will understand if you are not up for dancing on Saturday, but I would still like to take you. Ollie.
I stare at the sign-off for a long time. He didn’t write, ‘Love, Ollie.’ He didn’t write anything at all. So I guess we are going to pretend myI love younever happened.
