The Foreseeable Future Read online

  Seth smiled. “You’re right. I remember being seven.”

  “And?”

  “And my mom’s boyfriend tried to sell me on the divorce by promising I’d get two of everything. Two toothbrushes—one at home and one to keep in the bathroom of their trailer. Two Spider-Man night-lights. Two stuffed SpongeBobs. Two bikes.”

  “Couldn’t you just have unplugged your night-light and taken it with you on the plane?”

  “In the car,” Seth corrected me. “I’ve never been on a plane. And anyway, it didn’t end up mattering. Guess how many times I’ve seen my mom since I was seven.”

  “I don’t know. Fifty.”

  Shadows leaped across his face. “Five. My brothers and I drive down every other Christmas.”

  I could not imagine a single scenario in which my mother would tolerate seeing me every other year. She had attempted to leave me for a mere six months and had failed. Probably I could join a cult, or the army, or the Peace Corps, or the circus—and still Iris Cox Nelson would find me, if only to ensure that my teeth were brushed and my shoelaces tied.

  Seth read my mind. “If your parents end up getting divorced, it will be completely different.”

  “I won’t get two SpongeBobs,” I said.

  “But you’ll get to keep both parents.”

  “How do you know?” I challenged him, even though he was so obviously correct. “The one time you met my family, we were a train wreck.”

  “Only because you randomly decided to cancel your college plans and threatened to expose your mom’s anonymous blog.”

  “Exactly! It was a disaster.”

  “It wasn’t.” Seth shook his head. “Somehow, it wasn’t.”

  I didn’t know how to explain to him that I required something more than tolerance from my family. That I needed both of my parents, not just individually, but as a unit. Because I had never belonged in Crescent Bay—trapped between the Pacific and the redwoods, nowhere to go but a long way north or a long way south—but I was convinced I’d belonged with the Nelsons, safe within our inside jokes and worn-out routines.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. Instead of a new message, the screen flashed a number with a 206 area code. I answered, half expecting another reporter, already knowing there was no way I could discuss Cameron’s heart attack in front of Seth.

  “Audrey Nelson?” The voice belonged to an overly cheerful stranger.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. Seth looked at me, and I made a show of rolling my eyes.

  “Sorry to call you on a Friday night. It’s been a crazy week over here.”

  “Um, over where, exactly?”

  He chuckled. “This is Greg, calling from the Capitol Hill Assisted Living Center. We’re wondering if you’d be available to swing by for an interview next week.”

  Seth’s shoulder remained pressed against mine as I said, dumbly, “I live in California.”

  “Yes,” Greg agreed. “I remember reading that on your application.” He didn’t bother to verify that I was the teen hero who had saved my friend’s life, but it was obvious he had called for no other reason.

  “Next week is really soon,” I pointed out.

  “The position doesn’t start for a month, but we’re eager to get someone lined up. We received a lot of résumés.” When I didn’t say anything—too conscious of Seth, so close he could probably hear both sides of the call—Greg added, “Of course, we were most impressed by yours.”

  My résumé was not impressive. My résumé said I had graduated from high school in June and worked as a CNA for less than a summer. Only my name, printed in all caps at the top of the document, could have inspired this guy to dial the number listed underneath.

  Finally, Seth shifted his weight away from me, and I could focus on what was happening. A stranger in Seattle was offering me a chance to get out of town. Just because he recognized my name from the news, my face from YouTube. In this moment, I couldn’t have cared less why Greg had called. I wanted the job. I wanted September to bring changes—a new address, a new view, a new city’s smells and sounds and weather patterns.

  I was eighteen. What else was I supposed to want?

  Beside me, Seth had gone rigid. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, staring blankly at the fire.

  “How’s Wednesday?” I said into the phone. I had a night off in the middle of the week. If I needed more time, I could call in sick—something I’d never done before.

  “Wednesday’s great!” Greg chirped. “I can’t wait to meet you in person!” He laughed, suddenly embarrassed by what he’d said, which implied we’d met previously—not in person, but in the glow of a screen.

  By the time we hung up, my mind was racing. In a matter of days I would need to transport myself to Washington. I would need to find something to wear—something other than hospital scrubs or my frayed, sun-faded jeans. I would need to find a hotel where I could spend the night. I would need to rehearse my answers to Greg’s probable questions, and to explain the trip to my parents.

  Sparks flew up from the flames and died in the sand. Right now, I needed to explain myself to Seth.

  “I applied for a job in Seattle,” I confessed.

  His gaze still fixed on the fire, Seth said, “And now you have an interview.”

  “I’m sure I won’t get it. They probably want to meet me as, like, a joke. I’m the girl from the viral video, right?”

  I was talking way too fast, and Seth knew I was bullshitting. “It’s not a joke, Audrey. They wouldn’t ask you to travel so far if they weren’t serious about hiring you.”

  I couldn’t keep the elation out of my voice as my thoughts unfurled, out loud. “I guess you’re right. I mean, of course you’re right. Oh my God, Seth, I wonder if I’ll have to fly up there? Do you think there’s a bus? I need to talk to Sara, like, tonight. She knows how to plan this kind of stuff.”

  “Are you actually . . . ?”

  Seth trailed off, looking at me like the rest of his question should have been evident. I stared back at him, no idea what he was trying to ask. Seth swallowed. “Would you really move to Seattle if they made you an offer?”

  My excitement—which had been close to boiling over—cooled immediately. I remembered, again, how I had promised we would be together through September and beyond. Already I had renewed the promise more than once. “I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “Maybe I just want to see if being Internet famous can actually get me a job in a big city. Maybe it’s like an experiment.”

  Seth frowned. “Maybe?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  His response came out uncharacteristically fast. “Are you ever sure of anything?”

  Despite having snapped at me, he forced a smile now. Like he was giving me permission to pretend he wasn’t mad, that my actions hadn’t hurt him. Denial remained an option.

  Or maybe smiling at me was just a reflex, a habit Seth couldn’t break.

  “How can anyone ever be sure of anything? I mean, how do you know you’re making the right choice until you’ve found out what happens next? Maybe no one should be permitted to say they’re one hundred percent certain of something unless they have, like, a Master’s or a PhD in decision-making.”

  I was rambling. For the first time ever, Seth’s expression contained a trace of disdain. Frustrated, I threw the question back in his face.

  “Are you sure of anything?” I sounded petulant, like a little kid. And I knew he would say yes; he was sure he wanted to stay in Crescent Bay, with his dad and his brothers, nestled high in the hills. He was sure that our hometown was enough; he had nothing to prove.

  “Yeah,” Seth said, as predictable as ever. And then, catching me off guard, “I’m sure that I love you.”

  The first thing I felt, after Seth O’Malley declared his love, was a hot wave of shame. It didn’t seem like a fair move
on his part, telling me he loved me when I had just finished spewing a lot of defensive nonsense, when I had just finished fantasizing about a new life far from Seth and everything that mattered to him. Why couldn’t he have said it earlier, when we were in the car singing along to a song about perpetual bliss? Why couldn’t he have said it weeks ago, as I’d laughed into his pillow and he’d rested his hand on my stomach?

  Seth had stopped searching my eyes for a reaction. Now he was watching the waves, which were barely discernible in the dark.

  His shoulders shook with silent laughter.

  “What’s funny?” I asked, a confused giggle rising up my own throat.

  He spoke into the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “I’ve never said that to anyone before. I had no idea it would be so awkward.”

  That I was Seth’s first—at least in this particular, consequential way—was the best news I’d ever heard. “It’s only awkward because I haven’t said anything back,” I informed him.

  The tension left his limbs, and he leaned into me. “Oh, is that the problem?”

  “Yup. I’m making this way harder than it needs to be.”

  “Maybe you could show a guy some mercy?”

  “You don’t want to be kept in suspense? I could text you later—or I could send you an e-mail! You love doing your e-mail.”

  Seth slid his hand against the back of my neck. “Audrey,” he warned.

  Someone loved me. Someone who wasn’t even legally obligated to love me. Someone like Seth O’Malley.

  “Fine.” I shrugged. “I love you, too.”

  With his mouth mere inches from mine, Seth grinned. “Thank God.”

  The firelight perfected the rougher details of his face—his minimal acne, his patchy beard. I had been wrong about certainty requiring a PhD.

  “Did you really think I might not say it back?” I asked.

  “Honestly? I never have any idea what you’re going to say.”

  With the same line, Seth could have been pointing out a flaw, or even making an accusation—but his tone, right now, was all reverence. It was like he loved me for all the same reasons I sometimes drove him crazy.

  * * *

  * * *

  I texted my dad and told him I’d been asked, last minute, to cover someone else’s shift. Seth delivered the same story to his own dad, and then—as I listened, baffled—called his brother and told Ben the truth, reciting the exact address of the Paradise Cove Motel. When he hung up and saw my stare, he said, “O’Malley brother code. We keep each other informed.”

  And then I envied the straightforwardness of their policy. My siblings and I could have used a code.

  I was worried about leaving Tamora’s stuff inside the car. Seth promised we’d bring the boxes up to our room once we got the key. I said, “What if she can tell that her prized possessions spent a night in a seedy, highway-side motel?” and Seth said, “Is that worse than a garage in Arcata?”

  I figured that, for Tamora, the answer would be yes; the motel hadn’t been her idea. But I also figured that she would, in some subtle way, approve of what Seth and I were doing.

  Getting a room had been my idea.

  On the ground floor, a dimly lit office smelled like pipe tobacco and water-damaged carpet. A cocker spaniel was lounging on a recycled couch cushion beneath a display of dated pamphlets advertising various coastal attractions. The moment the spaniel locked eyes with Seth, it came padding over to him. Seth knelt to converse with the elderly dog, while I approached the elderly man behind the counter and announced—in my calmest, most grown-up tone—“We’d like a room for the night.”

  The man peered through thick glasses at Seth. At me. Back to Seth. Embarrassed, Seth remained hunched over the dog, asking, “Who’s a good girl?” and answering, “That’s right! It’s you!”

  “You would like a room,” the old man repeated. His T-shirt commemorated a 2003 county-wide clambake. “You and your . . . companion.”

  “That’s right.”

  “ID, please.”

  I didn’t know if it was normal for a motel manager to check a guest’s ID, but I took out my wallet and produced my driver’s license, proving I was eighteen. Old enough to do most anything.

  Dryly, the man asked, “King, queen, or two singles?”

  I could see, on a chart beneath the glass countertop, that the price difference between each option was a mere eight dollars. “King,” I said, staring the guy down.

  After I paid for the room in cash—my bank account activity was still, for now, accessible to my parents—the man reluctantly gave me a room key and directions to the ice machine down the hall.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him, accepting the key. “We won’t do anything bad.”

  Seth chose this moment to bid farewell to the spaniel, standing and revealing his full height, his strong arms and overgrown hair.

  “It’s already bad,” the man said.

  Thinking I detected a trace of humor, I argued, “But we’re in love!”

  Behind me, Seth blushed. The old man’s look of disgust surrendered to a slight smile. “Congratulations,” he deadpanned.

  We got Tamora’s stuff out of the car and carried the boxes up an exterior staircase to a long balcony lined with numbered doors. The Paradise Cove Motel did not look especially distinct from the storage facility where we’d met Jackson Moon. The room itself featured heavy curtains blocking an ocean view; a two-cup coffeemaker; a bible; a boxy television set; and, on the nightstand, an old phone, instructions to run for the hills in the event of an earthquake, and a tide table.

  Seth and I stood at the foot of the mattress. For a second, I was paralyzed by indecision. The possibilities seemed endless. We could watch TV, or jump on the bed, or read about the moon’s effects on the waves, or sleep. All ordinary activities—none of which we’d ever done together. But in another second I made up my mind and pulled my tank top over my head, undid my topknot, and shook a lot of sand out of my camp-firey hair. I was unzipping my jeans and Seth was laughing, shedding his own grimy clothes, following me into the bathroom. With his hands reaching for my waist I forgot how showers worked; I led us into the tub before turning on the spray. The water was pressurized and ice cold. My scream bounced off the tiled walls and Seth, cracking up, reached around me for the knob. And then we were warm and wet and kissing. Like the world would end if we stopped.

  Shower sex proved to be beyond our range of skills, and we moved to the bed. It was comforting to realize that sex was not like certain sports—tennis, for instance—where one person’s years of practice prevented him from playing with an amateur. We each had a body, and we each knew things about our own bodies that were embarrassing to try to communicate. There was a lot of needless apologizing. A lot of giggling.

  A lot of trial and error.

  Afterward, we took another shower, involving soap and shampoo this time, and spent the rest of the night asking each other weirdly specific questions. “Have you ever owned a pair of Crocs?” and “When did you realize Santa was a fake?” and “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you at a rest stop?”

  We lay sprawled across the plasticky bedspread, clean and calm and wide-awake. That night, time moved faster than I’d realized it could. Seth kept telling me he loved me. He kept saying it at random intervals—when I shifted positions on the mattress, or got up to peek through the heavy curtains, or lifted the ancient phone from the nightstand, pressed the receiver to Seth’s ear, and said, urgently, “Listen to this. It’s like a sound effect from an old movie.”

  He was like someone who had been suppressing a crucial element of himself—a Southern accent, or a weakness for puns—and was finally allowed to relax, to let his weakness show.

  He said it like he’d been wanting to say it all summer.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  On my lunch break, I carried Tamora’s
boxes from my car to the hallway just outside her room. Rehearsing my lines in my head, I knocked and went inside. She was still wearing the pajamas she’d had on since Thursday night. She was sitting on the bed with her legs sticking straight out, like one of those old-fashioned dolls with soft bodies and porcelain limbs.

  “When did you last shower?” I asked her.

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Are you sick? Should I get you a nurse?”

  “You’re a nurse.”

  I didn’t correct her, because I liked the way it sounded. “Do you want my help getting cleaned up?” I was bluffing. Helping her in the shower would ruin my plan; I needed the room to myself.

  Tamora blinked, pausing with her eyes squeezed shut. “Did you just offer me a sponge bath?”

  “It’s in my job description,” I said, keeping my face as straight as possible.

  Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Tamora gave me a strident “No, thank you,” and disappeared inside the bathroom.

  I was alone.

  Unpacking the boxes, my hands shook a little, from nerves or maybe just fatigue. I had slept that afternoon but even my dreams had been tiring, set in the Paradise Cove Motel, where Seth and I were still wrapped in threadbare, bleach-scented towels, still laughing and kissing ourselves delirious. Since waking up I’d felt a heavy, waterlogged sadness for a simple reason: We had not been able to stay in that motel room forever.

  Seth and I had agreed to spend the next twenty-four hours apart. “It will be good for us,” he’d told me, my car idling in his driveway, the morning sun low in the sky. “We’ll get some rest. Some space.”

  He was right, even if I wanted him to be wrong. With our eyes bloodshot and our voices hoarse, it had become hard to believe we weren’t doing something destructive to our bodies—something more destructive than falling in love.