Once they were out of the harbor—through the precarious maze of buoys and docks—Graham relaxed. The open water stretched out ahead of them, blue-green waves tipped in white, like some great confection coated with powdered sugar, and the thin line where the paler sky met the darker ocean with perfect symmetry. Everything shimmered under the gaze of the sun, and Graham closed his eyes against the wind and the spray of the wake on either side of the boat as they sliced through the water.
Beside him, Ellie stood with one hand on the wheel, moving it back and forth every so often, the tiniest of adjustments that went unfelt as the boat barreled ahead, leaving behind a trail of white foam. At first, they didn’t speak; the rush of the wind was too loud in their ears. But even without words, there was a complicity to the moment that felt louder than all the rest of it. Together, they had made their escape.
“See?” Graham shouted over the wind, and Ellie cocked her head in his direction. “You’re a pro.”
She shrugged. “Turns out it’s not all that different from a ski boat.”
The last time he’d been out here, Olivia had been the one at his side, and in between takes she’d brushed the flecks of water from her face and scowled. They had only two more days of filming left, and he knew she was excited to get back to L.A. For her, this was nothing but a time-out, an unwelcome break from her regular life, which consisted of photo-ops and fancy parties, manicures and meetings.
But now that Ellie had returned to him, Graham felt the last day approaching with a deep sense of dread. He would miss watching the fishing boats go out in the morning, the way the sun broke across the village green, the sound of the waves that seemed to follow you throughout the town. And, of course, he’d miss Ellie. He didn’t feel ready to say good-bye just yet, and the thought of it was something he’d been chasing from his mind with alarming frequency.
“Can I try?” he asked, and Ellie stepped aside, leaving two fingers lightly on the wheel until she was sure he had it. He peered out through the glass, watching the bow of the boat moving up and down like a rocking chair.
“You’re a natural,” she said, and to his surprise, she leaned against him, coming to rest beneath his free arm, which he looped around her shoulders. He was embarrassed by how tall this made him feel, how adult, with one hand on the wheel and his girl at his side, and he straightened his back and lifted his chin and let out a happy sigh.
“I think I’ve found my new calling,” he told her, and she laughed and slipped away from him again, quick as a minnow. She reached for her backpack and pulled out a water bottle, taking a sip, and then offered it to Graham, who shook his head. “I feel like Ahab,” he said. “Off on another quest.”
“Hopefully a more successful one this time.”
“It will be,” he promised.
“And if not, at least we’ll have found you a backup career for this whole acting thing,” she teased. “Sailing the seven seas.”
“That’s not the worst idea,” he said. “It sure beats L.A.”
She sat down on the bench that ran the length of each side of the boat, a place to stow tackle and nets and buoys. “I don’t know,” she said. “The circus probably never thinks the towns where they stop are boring either.”
“Are you saying I’m the circus?”
She grinned. “I’m saying you’re a clown, anyway.”
“Thanks,” he said, laughing as he looked out toward the shore, where enormous houses were perched along the rocky coast. They passed a sailboat, and the couple aboard waved. Graham lifted a hand in return.
“This is going to make things worse, isn’t it?” Ellie asked, and he glanced over at her. “Taking the boat.”
“It might,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s not like we’re smuggling drugs or anything.”
She looked at him sideways. “Does chocolate count?”
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s okay.”
“Good,” she said, pulling a bag of candy from the backpack and tossing it over to him. He caught it with one hand, then held the wheel with his forearm while he opened it. The chocolate was soft from the sun, and it melted on his tongue. He felt a spreading warmth expand in his chest, and he wished they could stay out here all day. But he knew they were on a mission of sorts, and it was there in Ellie’s every move: a grim sense of resolve.
“So are you nervous?” he asked, passing the bag back over to her. “To see your dad?”
She nodded, her lips pressed into a straight line.
“Do you have a plan?”
This time, she didn’t answer, and Graham wondered if his words had been whipped away by the wind; it almost seemed like she hadn’t heard him. But then she pushed her sunglasses up on her head, and he was able to see her green eyes again, focused on him with an intensity that made his heart skip like the bow over the waves.
“Remember that poetry course?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for him to respond. “It’s a big deal to get in. And I really want to go.”
He wrinkled his brow. “I thought you were.”
“I am,” she said, a bit too fiercely. “But I’m still short. And there are no scholarships.”
Graham sucked in a breath as he waited for her to continue, biting back the question he wanted to ask, though he knew it would be the wrong thing to say right now; the moment felt delicate, easily breakable, and so he kept quiet.
“I’m gonna ask him for the rest,” she said, and her words came out in a rush. “I can’t ask my mom for that much, and it’s not like he doesn’t have it.”
“How much—” he began, unable to help himself, but she cut him off, as if she hadn’t heard him.
“And it feels like he owes me at least that,” she said, digging at a groove in the wood with her fingernail. “All these years, and nothing. And it’s not like I’m using the money for something crazy or frivolous, like a car or a tattoo.”
Graham raised his eyebrows. “That’s true.”
“It’s for school,” she said. “It’s for Harvard.”
Against his better judgment, he cleared his throat. “How much do you still need?”
She raised her eyes to meet his. “A thousand dollars,” she said quietly, the words almost lost to the breeze, and then she bent her head over the wood again.
A thousand dollars, Graham thought, ashamed at how small the number seemed to him. He was reminded of the money his parents had used to send him to private school, how enormous that had seemed at the time, how much it had cost them to use it. Now things were different. A thousand dollars. Just last month, he’d paid a contractor almost twice that to build an indoor pen for Wilbur in the back of the laundry room. He’d seen his costars drop that much on a celebratory meal, and he was sure the many purses strewn around Olivia’s trailer added up to at least that, and probably even more.
He looked over at the curve of Ellie’s shoulders as she sat there on the bench. For her, a thousand dollars was clearly an insurmountable obstacle, enough to send her off on a stolen boat to seek out her estranged father. How easy it would be to write her a check, to hand her a thick stack of bills, to surprise her by sending the payment to Harvard without saying a word. But this wasn’t a movie, and he knew her well enough to guess that she wouldn’t consider him a hero, and she wouldn’t throw her arms around his neck in gratitude. There was a fragile pride to her that would never allow her to accept that kind of charity. This was something she had to do herself.
“What if…” Graham began to ask, keeping his shoulders square to the windshield. “What if he says no?”