SUMMER ROMANCE
By Kevin Woodside
Author's Note:
I wrote this story last spring. Some random Sunday morning, I was at work and the words just kinda dripped into my brain. On my lunch, I got on laptop and just started writing. Those that read this bare in mind that this story isn't meant to disection. Don't look at it and think "what was Kevin thinking when he wrote this?" Furthermore, the story is my own. Do not post it elsewhere without my permission.
PART ONE: JUNE
One
Samantha stood alone on the beach, the cool ocean water reaching past her feet and up to her ankles. She stared at the hypnotic rolling and breaking of the water as it crashed upon the beach. It ran over her toes and their pink chipped toe-nail polish. The sand beneath her feet became soaking wet.
The sky was a hazy non-color shade of gray. The sun itself was a vague glowing shape somewhere behind the haze. Her tan shorts were open at the fly, allowing her pregnant belly to hang out nakedly into the open air. Her blouse was opened at below her chest, further exposing it. Her left hand held her flip-flops and in the right was a hair tie.
Her sandy blonde hair suddenly blew around her face as a strong sea breeze swept over the beach. It broke her stare and took her from her brewing thoughts. Samantha looked around. To her right and down a bit, three kids were playing kites. It was a good day for it; the wind was strong.
An elderly couple were coming her direction wearing wind-breakers. A little dog yapped and looked to be hauling them forward on a taunt leash. From the direction of the kids playing with their kites came four young teenagers that managed to look Emo even in just swimming trunks.
‘We only swim when it’s cloudy out,’ she mocked them in her mind. She felt a sudden automatic hatred towards them. Who did they think they were? This was an island full of rich people. And while her situation wasn’t exactly full of financial hardship, it was certainly a lot worse than what these kids were trying to project. Samantha sighed and tried to calm her moment of hate – she didn’t know them, maybe they were abused, etc.
She wasn’t sure why she was out here on her own. Samantha had been to the ocean since she and Alex came down here two weeks ago, but this was the first time she came alone. Since they moved (or fled, as she liked to think of it) from Maxwell University to here, Samantha felt as if she was in a daze. Emotional. Physical. Maybe even spiritual, if she really did believe in that (it depended on the day, really).
She hoped that just getting out of the house and going somewhere other than just the mall and the grocery store would help break her out of the funk. She wasn’t sure if this was doing it or not, but she felt better just going . . . someplace natural.
Samantha also wasn’t sure why she let her belly be exposed. She supposed that if she was going to be at the beach, she might as well show off the body she had no problem with a year ago (hell, six-seven months ago). It was still her body, just with a baby inside of it.
Samantha looked around again. There was a flock of seagulls overhead, crying out, wishing that more visitors would come to the beach and drop some food for them. Her eyes followed them. The kids were still playing with their kites; and the elderly couple were walking on and on, their dog yapping at everything that moved even the slightest centimeter. The Emo kids were vanishing on the horizon.
Then there’s just me, Samantha sighed internally
Not anywhere near where she thought she would be a year ago.
Samantha shoved that thought away, but really only managed to move it to the outer orbit of her mind. It would linger there for a good while.
She turned away from the ocean and tossed her flip-flops onto the cold but dry sand. She slid them on and headed back to the boardwalk. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and walked up the stairs to the boardwalk. There was a cute little beach shop right in front her. She and Alex had been in it at least three times since they got down here.
Like those other times, there was a woman in her mid-to-late 50s with a face that was starting to really wrinkle and dark gray hair pulled into a thick, awkward looking bun behind the counter. The woman smiled as the bell above the doors chimed and Samantha entered.
“Hi!” the woman greeted.
“Hello,” Samantha responded meekly.
She wasn’t quite sure what she was doing there, but she had found the store charming during the previous visits. The tables and shelves were filled with knickknacks and memorabilia. T-shirts hung from racks, advertising in so many different ways, Parma Beach, South Carolina. There were a few squirt guns, kites, towels . . . you name it.
Samantha saw a necklace made out of seashells and smiled. It was cute. She wondered what Alex would think of it – ‘Hey, my little beach babe.’
“I’ll just take this,” she said, walking up to the register.
“That all?”
“Yeah.”
The woman nodded and smiled sweetly. “How much further you got, honey?”
“About three months.”
“Trying to get in one last vacation before the baby comes, huh?”
“Guess so, yeah.”
“Well, you enjoy yourself.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Samantha took her receipt and left.
Two
The child was that was curled up in Samantha’s uterus was not planned at all. She refused to call the event that brought sperm and egg together an accident and it was certainly not a mistake. It was, simply, not planned.
The events that brought about the pregnancy were complicated. Her Mom had lost her job and thus, lost insurance, meaning Samantha couldn’t afford her birth control pills. During the time that her Mom lost her job and before she could get her new one, Samantha and Alex had sex. Samantha knew better, but the power of desire and the intoxication of a bottle of wine prevented them from reaching under Alex’s bed for the condoms.
The act was beautiful.
Unplanned.
But beautiful.
She found out she was pregnant right before Christmas. Samantha told Alex before they left for Winter Break. He didn’t know what to do. But he didn’t say abortion. He only said adoption once and that was barely in context. Samantha, scared that he would leave her, abandon her, shove her away, fell in love with Alex all over again.
They parted for the break. He went to North Carolina to tell his parents. She went to Brookings, Oregon to tell her Mom. He never gave the details, but she knew that telling his parents was hard for Alex. He was the oldest. It helped that he and Samantha had been going out for a year and a half, but it didn’t exactly ease their troubles.
Her own mother was hurt by it and blew up at her. The night her Mom found out about the pregnancy, Samantha took refuge at her sister’s place. Rachel was supportive and understanding, instilled with that sisterly wisdom of experience. Rachel herself was married and had two children of her own; she was married to a quiet guy named Donald. When Donald found out that Samantha was pregnant, it was really one of the few times that he had something worthwhile to say.
“Having children is hard work, but it’s worth it. Every second of it. It’s worth it. I think you’re brave for wanting to take this on, Sam. Braver than a lot of girls in your situation.”
Rachel then made a joke at her husband’s expense, but Samantha ignored it. She simply focused on what Donald had said and would continue to keep that in her head for months to come.
The next morning, after sleeping on the couch and spending some time hovering over the toilet puking (with Rachel being sweet enough to hold back her hair), their Mom showed up crying. She swept Samantha into her arms, kissing her cheeks. She apologized for yelling, but reiterated her disappointment. But she told Samantha “what’s done is done and I’ll support you in every way that I can.”
Samantha returned to her mother’s house. That night, the youngest of the three children, Jack, found out. He was only fourteen. He and Samantha talked long into the night about sex. He knew the basics and had heard all sorts of lessons about absetince. But Samantha told him how important it was that, if he were to become sexually active, to use a condom. And to not just ‘bang every girl you can find; make sure it’s someone special and important.’
That next day, Samantha heard from Alex. His parents were really quite angry, but two nights worth of sleep had calmed them and had them thinking rationally. Alex’s father was a high-up with a huge grocery company and was pulling strings almost immediately.
On New Year’s Eve, Alex flew to Brookings. He had never met Samantha’s family, but they embraced him with open arms. The whole family – her Mom, Rachel, her kids, Donald, Jason, Samantha, and Alex – had a New Year’s party that evening. At midnight, when Samantha turned to kiss her boyfriend, she found him down on one knee, holding out a box with a diamond ring inside.
“I love you.”
“I . . .”
“Will you marry me?”
“I’m . . .”
“It’s not just -- ”
“Yes!”
She cried and hugged him and kissed him hard.
Three
Samantha walked down the road from the boardwalk. They weren’t staying very far; down the street and around the corner. She hadn’t really noticed, but her walk was progressive becoming a waddle. By the time she got to the beach house, she was exhausted, her ankles swelling a little, and back aching a bit. Her new seashell necklace jangled around her neck.
The beach house was almost embarrassingly large. Three bedrooms – the master bedroom on the first floor, two more on opposites of the second story loft.
She got in the shower. Samantha put the same shorts on, but changed shirts to something that covered her growing middle. Hair up in a towel, she made her way around the beach house, trying to find something to do, something to keep her busy. She was too young to just sit around and eat bon-bons.
Samantha started gathering up the massive piles of laundry that was growing in the bedroom. She hefted the basket against her hip and made her way to the laundry room. As she proceeded to load up the washer, she realized exactly what she was.
Sammy, sweetie, you’re a housewife. It struck her fast and she fought a bizarre need to start crying. She told herself that it was just the hormones, that after they had the baby and it was old enough for daycare, she would go back to school. Get that dream job. She could still do that.
Oh, she begged herself not to cry. Not to be like this.
Samantha leaned against the washer and started weeping uncontrollably.
“Fuck it,” she said and tossed the basket to the ground. “Fuck it!”
She spent ten minutes in the laundry room crying alone.
Four
Alex came home around 5:20. The drive from work took that long; that’s the way things were outside of Charleston – spread out and far off. He arrived home, his tie a thing that hung loosely from his neck. In his hands were two plastic bags that with some groceries. Since they came down here, their trips to the grocery store had been almost endless. It didn’t help that Alex worked there now.
“Sam?”
Alex came into the living room, finding his wife on the couch, facing at the TV. There were a few crumbled tissues lying next to her. Her eyes were closed and her body was sprawled out.
“Sammy?”
Her eyes opened slowly. “Huh? Oh . . .” She eased herself up. “I must have fallen asleep.”
He smirked a little. “I guess so. That’s okay.”
Samantha got up and followed Alex into the kitchen, stretching and yawning, her shirt riding up her belly a bit as she did. “I can start dinner in a few minutes. What do you want?” She opened the refrigerator.
“Oh I got it, Sam. It’s okay.”
She turned to him, surprised. “What? Really?”
“Yeah. Spaghetti and meatballs!” He said this with a toss of a box of spaghetti into the air. He meant to catch it, but missed horribly. “Whoops.”
Samantha giggled. “Do you want some help?” she asked after he recovered the box.
“Nope, I got it covered. You just go back out there and relax, okay?”
“You know not to use the whole box, right?”
“Uh . . . yes.”
“You do now, huh?”
“Heheh, yeah.”
She sat down at the dinner table and picked through some mail. There were a few ads that she glanced through.
“It’s unbearably humid out there,” Alex said, bringing the water to a rolling boil. “I was so glad I was inside. I thought Greensboro could get bad . . .”
“I went out to the ocean today.”
“Oh yeah? Did you go swimming?” The water was spilling over the top of the pot, but he got it under control quickly.
“No. Just went and looked at the water. Wanted to get out.”
He nodded and added the noodles. “Ah.”
“Oh! I got this too.”
Alex looked over and saw her holding up the necklace. “That’s cute!”
“Isn’t it?”
The dinner was done after a few more minutes. Alex and Samantha were soon sitting across from each at the dinner, eating. It was a little watery, but it was still good.
“So, I was thinking about having some of the guys down here for the fourth.”
“Who?”
“Todd, Dusty, Jimmy, maybe David, maybe Lorrel. Definitely Roger.”
“That’s fine, but only if I can have some of my friends come down too.”
“Like?”
“Melissa, Staci, Andrea . . . and Kelly.”
“Kelly’s going out with Todd.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot.”
Alex nodded with an amused smile. “That’s okay. I thought I read somewhere that pregnant women tend to get a little forgetful.”
“Watch it now, mister,” she warned. “We also get angry faster.”
“And horny too, right?”
“Well, aren’t you Mr. Educated?”
“Haha, I just call ‘em as I see ‘em.”
Samantha smiled.
Five
Outside, it was starting to rain. Underneath a thin sheet, Samantha’s naked body was laying next to Alex’s. The love-making had been passionate and fulfilling, if not a little fast. Alex was exhausted, but Samantha seemed to be woken up by the act; she was feeling restless and uncomfortable just lying there.
“Alex? Honey?”
“Hm, yeah?”
“I was wondering - ”
“Hrm?”
“I was wondering, do you think . . . do you think that maybe I should get a job?”
“A job?”
“Yeah, like . . . I don’t know, I mean, I know your Dad gave us that $20,000 and you’re working and everything, but . . . babies are expensive and we’re going to need all that we can get.”
“Honey, we’re fine. Just fine.”
“It’s not just that. I get so bored around here. None of my friends are here and, my family is literally on the other side of the country. Maybe I should just get a little job. Just something to occupy myself with.”
“Hrmm. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
That was the last he had to say about it. Alex went quiet after that and Samantha dropped the subject. She laid back, awake and mind racing, running, screaming. Alex really started to doze off, but Samantha couldn’t sleep. She stood up, the sheet slipping off her body. She pulled on a pair of boxers that she had stolen months ago from Alex and a tank top.
Downstairs, she made herself some herbal tea and then stood at loft window, watching as the rain came down in sheets and a thunderstorm rolled on in.
