Here is the first cut of A Place Just West of Here starring Imogen Poots as Cam, Andrew Garfield as Ivan, and Gregory Smith as Paris. The trio will be reuniting for "The Open." This is a contest story.
Somewhere in the world St. Petersburg bubbled to lights, candied stars sweeping through sweet bistros and dapper arcades, along the avenues and boulevards. Ivan imagined his brother switching on lamps, slipping tennis tickets into a book to hold his place, leashing Mowgli for a walk. He allowed the cigarette to somersault gracelessly from his lips to the bay. The sun had achieved noon apex, a white, aggravated eye over the Island. He observed the depthless, black surf from the edge of the dock, suburban trenches carved into hills on the far shore, alive with traffic and church bells.
Ivan thought of the passport pinned over his bed, airfare safe in an envelope beside a calendar tagging off the days until November, when he would fly.
Since moving to Warren in August, Cam and Paris had taken to calling the sea cottage their “little hideout,” like assuring its state of impermanence. ---It’s no Big Apple, Paris admitted. Ivan had played along at first, but typical nesting prevailed: they’d memorized the cable channels, maintained a library of takeout menus thicker than the Complete Works of William Shakespeare (which they’d been piled next to for precise comparison), and Cam had dedicated some half dozen Sundays to redecorating.
Ivan refused to rearrange anything, especially his bedroom (despite the sun spilling onto his pillows at an hour previously unknown---Six). The idea of working another habitat into a home incensed him. A year had been squandered already on the “city” of Providence, talking about New York, waiting for degrees in the mail, keeping a casual eye out for Emma Watson.
---What’s so stunning about Russia is what I want to know, Paris asked from the bedroom. He and Cam were lying on Ivan’s bed, blowing smoke into a fan. ---That’s all.
---It’s Europe, for one, Ivan began, before his defense of the plan deflated at once into an offended sigh.
---Oh, oh, don’t get like that Rohr.
---I’m not. I don’t care anymore.
Cam propped herself up with a pillow, sun showers of gold dust swirling around. ---Ivan?
---Really I don’t. We’ve gone over it, a hundred times.
---He thinks there’s no winter in Russia, Paris said mostly to himself. ---There’s winter in Russia you know? And it’s damn cold Rohr, damn cold.
Ivan shrugged them off and walked out of the living through the kitchen screen door onto the porch where he lit the last of his pack. A trip to the store had threatened since last weekend. He could hear his roommates, Paris talking. ---….his brother, that’s all.
---And so what? It’s his family Anthony. His only family.
An inaudible beat, where Paris no doubt advised Cam not to call him that.
---You know what he wants. Since before…we were planning New York that morning, remember?
Paris replied absently ---He’d be stuck with us if he didn’t have this…. The voice strained, reaching.
---Don’t, Ivan announced coldly from the porch. ---Don’t touch it.
---Not even for cigarettes?
---Not even for liquor.
---What if I bought a skirt, huh Ivan? I’d wear it only for you. I’ll let you see my scars. Cam’s flirtations devolved into stoned laughter, rolling about the bed, blowing kisses so close it made them dizzy.
Ivan Rohr and Anthony Peck made crew September, freshmen year. Both had fallen out of favor with the coaches by Columbus Day for “lax conditioning schedules.” Sophomore year, they were anonymous to the athletics department entirely. They threw parties, experimented with rolling cigarette and flavors of whiskey, talking about how unbelievably warm it was and about what professions they’d invade with degrees in Marketing and Engineering (respectively).
It was spring semester when they first tried Samantha Sweeting, champion equestrian, daughter of the dean, starlit eyes and a penchant for Jacob’s Creek. Excessively charitable, fell in love with everyone. Her skills in psychology, how jarring her eyes were---stuttering through brief, chemical naps---in short, changed everything.
Generally breakfast was served out of a box at whatever time Paris got anxious for company, ranging from predawn to four in the afternoon. Today they had toast off the stone kiln in the backyard, fishing for butter in various wasted tubs. Cam huddled in a baggy Emerson hoodie, ducking the chill sea breeze, some gulls calling. The hoodie was one of Paris’s storied collection.
---Who’d you date from Boston, she asked, using her finger to cull for butter.
---No one. Please. I never dated anyone. He affected offense.
Cam looked at herself. ---She was huge.
Ivan busied himself with a grocery list, the contents of which would ---Have little consequence, Paris informed him. ---The car hasn’t been gassed since Wednesday. The car’s at the bottom of the hill actually, not in the garage.
---You left it?
---I rolled home.
---And you expect us to last the winter, as is?
---What do you suggest I do Rohr, hunt the neighbor’s sheds for gasoline?
---You could, per usual, pick through my savings to cover it.
---Boys, now, Cam hushed them. ---See? On the redbrick chimney of the kiln two seabirds had settled, necking and talking nice while a third looked on. They watched silently, wondering what to name them.
May of junior year the school paper---in an act of sphinx defiance---published pictures of Dean Sweeting “fraternizing” with an undergrad on the swim team. Some paparazzi whiz-kid magnified two of the dean’s fingers (one bound by a wedding band) hooked under the strap of her swimsuit. More photos leaked, staff members called harassment. By July the dean’s resignation had been sealed and accepted. Wife could not be reached for comment. Daughter could not be reached at all, tucked away in the wilds of the Vineyard where Ivan’s brother had rented a house for Fourth of July and was considering names for the Bengal he’d just bought. The house crouched under sand dunes and sea grass. Their first little hideout. An accident to bind them together.
---I don’t understand men, Anthony put out one evening. Ivan and his brother were still fishing, Samantha catatonic on the hardwood floor. ---They foster ambition all their life, achieve peak position, but still more desire, more want, even forbidden, even if it puts the position of power in serious jeopardy.
Jaws played in the other room. ---What’s the point of wanting? What’s the deal with men?
---Fuck it, was all Samantha could manage, depthless eyes trembling in their hallowed slots.
The next morning Ivan’s brother cooked eggs seven different ways, served with salt and pepper and spices abroad. Ivan produced a map of the city, several blocks highlighted, identified by terms of price and desirability. ---Let’s get out of here, he kept saying, even though they were already gone. ---Let’s move to New York. It was a novel idea, brilliant. They’d settle on a street later that day, at the beach.
The calendar over Ivan’s bed had been drawn in Visual Arts last fall. A gift from Cam. She’d still been in a fair bit of shock. Every page inked black, a grave sense of the globe festooned with pencil: teenagers ascending a rainy London evening (July), trio of foxes swimming through the Dublin countryside (February), the willowy twist of a dress high on a hill overlooking Mallorca at morning (May). October bristled with feathery, graphite cornstalks parading away from the distant profile of Kansas City, a scarecrow in the foreground, it’s head hacked into a violent smile. The stalks wilted downward to rows of clean panels Ivan blacked out daily. Two until November, he thought.
A moonless night, the starlight found her where she hung in the doorway, blue rings around her eyes.
---Cam?
---It’s freezing.
---The heat’s on.
---I can’t sleep.
---Oh. Ivan could hear the waves, the chorale of insects. ---Come here.
She stayed standing, her length of hair and recognized collarbone taking form. A white tee held to her chest, long legs shining pink and raw. ---Better not. She hesitated, then added ---You’d leave?
---I have to get off this Island Cam.
Cool wind swept through, ringing the chimes and knocking up shutters.
---Okay. I know. I never thought I’d live so close to the water after it. Her hand slipped from the frame, closed to her breast, gone with a whisper. ---Shouldn’t have done it.
The next morning Paris sat at the foot of Ivan’s bed. He had the envelope in hand.
---What are you doing?
---Just watching you sleep sonny.
---Give it.
Paris handed the envelope. ---Just five dollars. Just for gas. Count it.
---I will. Ivan sat up and pinned the envelope back to the calendar. He looked at Paris. ---What?
---What.
---Nothing happened.
---Like I didn’t know.
Anthony had ordered Deja on vinyl, and the seventh track on that record played as a juvenile leapt off the bridge screaming ---There’s a shark in the estuary!
Ivan and Anthony bathed in the sun, recounting high school crushes and tampering with the tempo. A few yards off shore Samantha floated on a gray rubber mat. Against the nautical gauzed horizon tiny white sails hunted for sharks, an annual competition. There was a lull in conversation as they watched her, a red bow tie bikini, her arms and legs splayed in starfish fashion. Gold hair casting behind her, riding waves.
Anthony broke the spell. ---Tell me, if you have any idea, how they run wires out here.
---Huh?
---For cable and telephones. They aren’t underwater, are they?
---I don’t know. No.
---I want nothing to do with it anymore. We’re island hoppers, if you hadn’t noticed, and I’m sick of it. If we never see another island again it’ll be too soon. Let’s go to Utah.
---Long Island. That’s an island. That’s where we are going.
Anthony glanced at the map. ---I’m not sure I like it. He turned the record up. ---Let’s show up with a thousand bucks and tell a taxicab to take us to the moon.
---Sounds HBO.
---I’m a dreamer, Ivo.
---Don’t.
Samantha had sailed further out. Ivan could still see the absent state of her face, sense the vacant gaze stuffed behind big, black glasses. ---Will it be bad with Sam?
Anthony fiddled with the needle some more. ---She’ll be fine by then.
---I mean living together. Won’t we….
---Fall in love?
Ivan shrugged.
---If it hasn’t happed yet I wouldn’t worry.
Ivan opened his mouth to speak---
The scream was lonely and remarkable: sharp, burning, and sincerely surprised. As if someone’s little brother, as a prank, had hacked all their fingers off. A succession of terror followed along the beach.
Ivan and Anthony were up, stalk still as the masses surged around them. Hysterical parents waded through the surf, calling names. Squeamish teenagers hopped the median and stood in the road, facing away from the carnage. Anthony hiked forward, slowly, like he was drunk. Ivan scanned the water. Nothing, but then he saw the mat, ribbons in the water. He saw the long, pale body dragged onto the beach.
---Call 911!
---Get help!
---We need an ambulance!
No one ever saw the shark.
He shoved his way through and when he saw her he fell to his knees and knew she was dead already. From the torso up, despite dark sprays of blood, she was unmarked. But her legs had been absolutely ruined. Reduced to nothing. Colorless tendons and raw, pink muscle splattered limply across the muddy beach. Ivan would not realize for hours he was sobbing, and not until the following winter would he understand, to his disgust, that it was not solely Sam’s dead white body that destroyed him, but how her hands, channeling whatever cells of life were left, had seized Anthony in a firm proposal. Then he would feel an intense shame, he’d long to be away from her, the redolent scars, but at the same time…. Her lips, purpled and sputtering inanimate speech, signifying: Don’t go, Don’t go, Don’t go.
He counted the stack once and counted it again. Slowly he lifted the envelope up to the calendar, brought it back down and counted again. He looked out the window at the water, he looked out the door of his room. Paris and Cam, stoned watching television. Two hundred dollars missing.
He restacked the bills, flattened them out and sealed them away, briefly scanning the room for a little hideout before letting it carelessly to the ground. Cam had her legs crossed, she was laughing at something on TV, or something Paris said. He stood up.
---Paris, he shouted. ---Come on man, we’ve got to go to the store.