November 18
Simplicity or complexity, which is preferred in art or life? I just chose simplicity, and now I desperately want complexity. What’s your take?
Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com
Fish braked at Washington Street, the image of Cal kissing Aly stuck in his head. Even pissed at Cal, part of him wanted to shout and clap Cal on the back. About time. Cal had loved Aly forever.
Cal bought his hitting on Aly. There had only been honesty between them before this. Remorse gurgled in his throat and he swallowed. Revenge didn’t taste as sweet as he’d expected.
If Cal and Aly were getting together, marriage and a family would be next.
The light turned green.
He shuddered, glad it wasn’t his turn to get in line for life. Between his family and Cal, he was zero and six—people he loved who betrayed or abandoned him. Re-upping wasn’t something he wanted to do anytime soon.
He’d apply to Barry Law. Law school was all the life he’d have time for anyway. Other than upping his commute time traveling to Orlando, his master’s schedule probably wouldn’t change much from undergrad—working seven to three, classes crammed into Tuesdays and Thursdays and evenings. Homework, eating, showering, doing his laundry pretty much took up the rest of his time. Whenever he hit an unexpected pocket of time, he grabbed his board and hit the waves. Not a bad life. Doable.
But he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have a woman in his life who really knew him. Casual had worn itself out a long time ago. Someone to do life with.
He glanced out the side window and realized he’d turned down Missy’s street. The downstairs windows and Missy’s bedroom window glowed with light. Something in his chest tugged him to turn into the Koomers’ drive.
He resisted.
He hadn’t seen Missy in three weeks, since the fish fry. Yeah, he wanted to change her mind about going out with him. But she’d needled him again to forgive his family. He acknowledged the necessity. But doing it was something else. Missy had always pushed him to do the right thing. But he didn’t need her barreling down on him like an oncoming semi, blinding him, laying bare things he wanted kept in the dark.
But every night since Missy had excavated his memories of her fifteenth birthday, he’d fallen asleep thinking about making out with her. He pulled into Daytona State College’s student lot, parked, and killed the engine. If it were only that easy to turn off her presence in his head.
He’d see Missy on Thursday at Thanksgiving. Maybe he should just collect the kiss that had been taunting him.
He glanced at the passenger seat where she’d sat.
Yeah, and maybe he should invest in some swamp land in Oak Hill while he was at it.
Aly climbed up the companionway steps toward a cockpit doused orange with sunset. Another day with no business. Her purse and laptop thumped against her thigh. Go home, put in a load of laundry, throw together a salad for dinner…. What could they do to make money?
Cal stood at the bottom waiting to follow her through the hatch.
She’d expected today to be awkward after calling a halt to kissing last night. But sharing space with Cal all day had been warm and comfortable—bumping into him, exchanging bits of conversation, hearing him breathe and move around the cabin. Maybe it was easy for them to revert to their old friendship because it had always been so comfortable.
She glanced back and caught Cal’s gaze lasered to the seat of her jeans. He met her eyes and shrugged as if to say, It was there. I looked. No big deal.
She hurried up the last step, her mind hurtling back into his kiss, into his wanting her. Her pulse sped. Her breaths shortened. No, nothing between them would ever be the way it used to be.
As Cal stepped through the hatch, Fish leapt off his boat. “The shrimp are running!” He sprang onto and off a dock box, zigzagged around the dock like the Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs bird. “The shrimp are running!”
Aly laughed.
Fish locked eyes with Cal, then he darted for the gate. “Shrimp, glorious shrimp!”
Cal gazed after him. “We’ve done a dozen shrimp runs together. Our fathers bought all of us kids lifetime fishing licenses before we even went to school.”
“How long are you two going to fight?”
Cal shrugged, and Fish careened back toward them.
“Where?” Cal shouted to Fish.
Fish’s face swung around toward him. His jaw clenched. He stared hard at Cal. “Between Rattlesnake Island and the mouth of the Intercoastal.” Fish turned his back, vaulted back onto his boat and disappeared inside.
“We’re going. We’ll be up all night. Run home and get warm clothes, buckets.”
“What’s the fishing limit?”
“Five gallons of shrimp.”
She plunked down on the cockpit bench and opened her laptop. “I’m going to find out where I can grab a fishing license.” While her laptop booted up, she called Missy. “The shrimp are running. Come fish with us…. Seven…. Great.” She minimized The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com, typed Florida fishing license into the Google search window, and looked up at Cal. “Who else has a license?”
“Dad, Leaf, Henna.”
“Call them.”
Cal wrinkled his forehead at her.
“Thirty gallons of shrimp. Income. Even after everybody has all they can eat tonight, we should have plenty left to sell at the Farmer’s Market in the morning.”
Cal grinned. “I love your brain.”
Her body went still, and warmth prickled across her chest.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and walked toward the bow. “Dad, the shrimp are running!”
Two hours later, Aly and Missy stood in the galley cleaning shrimp. A pot of water boiled on the stove, steaming up the cabin. Footsteps sounded on the deck as the others dipped their nets into the water where the spotlight illuminated hundreds of the mini sea creatures.
Missy pinched the head from a shrimp, peeled off its soft shell and legs, and pushed it across the cutting board to Aly. “So, why haven’t you dated anyone since Garner Fritz?”
“It’s better that way. I don’t have your self-control.” Aly sliced a knife down the back and frowned at the dark vein she dug out. “I’ve always admired that about you. Wished I made your choices.”
Missy’s expression darkened, then cleared so quickly she must have imagined it. “Don’t be too impressed.” Missy shot her a wry smile. “After my eighteenth birthday I came this close” —she held her thumb a fraction of an inch from the knife blade— “to going over to Fish’s apartment, standing at the foot of his bed, and stripping down naked to see if he’d notice I’d grown up.”
Aly laughed. “So, has he noticed?”
“Yeah, he’s noticed.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it.”
Missy’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t want his kisses. I want his heart.” She blew the hair out of her face and chopped off another shrimp head. “I’m moving to Peru when I graduate. Fish’s folks always need teachers at the orphanage. I’ve got to get away if I’m ever going to get over him.” She eyed Aly. “Anything going on with you and Cal? I want you for a sister.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Oh? Sounds like an improvement to me.”
Aly smiled. “Yeah, maybe it is.”
When they docked, Cal’s family trooped off the boat. Henna yawned. Leaf chattered about the cops stopping people just for being out at this time of night.
Cal hooked Missy with the crook of his arm around her neck. “Thanks, Sissy-Missy—and for taking such good care of my car, filling her up.” His voice sounded choked at the end.
Missy elbowed him in the ribs and he let go. “You’re just lucky tomorrow is Saturday.”
Missy still smiled when she looped an arm through her father’s and leaned her head on his shoulder.
A phantom pang of longing for Daddy shot through Aly.
Jackson looked at Cal. “Thanks for calling. I haven’t shrimped in years. It was… entertaining.” He shot a glance at Leaf and Henna squabbling down the dock, and they all laughed.
“Thanks everybody.” Cal dropped an arm over Aly’s shoulder.
Aly snuggled into his warmth and let the pain Missy and Jackson had spurred ebb. She should break away, but it felt too good.
The family got into their cars, and Cal faced her. One hand rested on her waist. His mouth moved toward hers. He stopped short of her lips. Tired eyes searched hers. He let go, disappointment etching his expression before he hid it. “Stay over. You can have the fore bunk.”
Aly nodded.
Below deck, Cal looked over his shoulder as he headed for his bunk. “If you’re too cold, you can sleep in here.” He pulled his sweatshirt over his head, exposing the top of his tattoo as his T-shirt rode up. “I’m too tired to do anything….” Cal stared at her for another second, his eyes hopeful, then turned and went into his cabin.
“Why won’t you show me your tattoo?”
Cal looked back at her and tugged his T-shirt over the tattoo.
“We’ve talked about everything at one time or another. Is it bad art? Elvis? What could possibly embarrass you after we shared my pregnancy scare?”
Indecision wavered in Cal’s face. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Sometime. Not tonight.” He dropped onto his bunk.
Aly eyed the open door warily. Her mind flooded with the sensation of falling asleep in Cal’s arms. A tide sucked her toward Cal. He’d give her a sleepy smile and open his arms.
No. She’d told him not to kiss her. If she climbed into his bunk, there would be more than kissing… no matter how tired they were. She dragged her gaze away from Cal’s bare foot hanging off the bunk and reached for a sketch pad lying on the table to change the direction of her thoughts.
She opened the pad to the sketch of her in glasses, gazing at her laptop. He’d drawn it on one of her first days as his partner. She studied her eyes and mouth, eerily like looking in the mirror—not just the physical, but who she was inside. Cal really knew her.
He’d shaded her T-shirt where it stretched across her breasts. The effect warmed her. Even if she didn’t have his kisses or the male appreciation she’d caught on his face earlier as proof, this drawing revealed Cal’s attraction to her. Intuitively, she knew his care for her went deeper than physical attraction. But every other guy she’d known had dropped her. How could Cal, with all his issues, be any different?
She flipped the page. A dolphin arced out of the water. The next page captured the South Causeway pummeled by rain. She thumbed through the rest of the pad—a pelican perched on a piling, the jetty jutting into the Atlantic, the beam of white across Ponce Inlet from the lighthouse, Ocean’s Seafood restaurant at sunrise.
An idea flashed through her, knocking out desire for Cal or sleep. She grabbed her purse and keys and tip-toed up the companionway.
Cal headed another shrimp, shoved the body into the Ziploc bag on the scale, and chucked the head into a bucket at his feet. He’d give the chum to Fish, payback for telling him where the shrimp were running. He pulled the drawstring tighter on his sweatshirt hood. At least the sun was finally coming up.
He’d drifted in and out of consciousness, aching to feel Aly in his arms all night. But she never appeared. Maybe the honeyed lava from their kisses only shot through his veins. Maybe Aly didn’t want heat if it came from him. Maybe friendship was all Aly wanted. He should have spared himself the anguish and not even suggested she sleep in his bunk.
A half-dozen more and he’d have twenty pounds of shrimp headed. The headed shrimp would bring five dollars a pound, and the other ninety pounds, four dollars a pound. The sooner they sold, the sooner he could sleep. He really should have told Aly the shrimp limit was five gallons per boat, but he hadn’t had the heart to shoot down her idea. At least they didn’t get caught. Yet.
Where was Aly? Had he pissed her off last night?
On the corner, Ken Scragg from Scragg Groves lined up bottles of juice next to a basket of oranges. The organic bakery truck pulled up and belched exhaust fumes on Cal.
He sealed the bag of shrimp and tossed it into the ice-filled garbage can.
The Oak Hill Seafood Co-op van rolled to a stop at the other end of the lot. Garner Fritz—Aly’s almost baby-daddy—hefted his football-player girth out of the truck. Chances were nil the moron would miss Cal bootlegging shrimp less than a hundred yards away. The three-hours-of-sleep gravel in the bottom of his stomach churned.
Aly rounded the bakery truck, grinning like they’d already sold their shrimp. Walmart bags hung from her arms. “You, John Calvin Koomer, are genius.” She kissed him full on the lips. She spun around, strode to the bakery truck window, and ducked her head inside.
Whoa. What happened to no kissing?
Aly pulled her head and a bakery bag out of the truck. “Thanks. I’ll pay you in a minute.” She waved at whoever she’d spoken to in the truck.
Aly pulled clothesline from a bag and strung it between the bakery truck and a tree. “You know the sketch pads you had lying around the boat? I matted the drawings on card stock, and we’re going to sell them for twenty-five dollars a pop.” She glanced over her shoulder at Cal as she clothes-pinned his drawings to the cord. “You okay with that?”
Cal shook the kiss out of his head and dredged up her question. “As if anybody would want to pay money for them.”
“They will.” Aly lobbed him a smile that fried the chill off his morning. Maybe she’d rethought the kissing ban.
She glanced at her phone. “It’s showtime—seven a.m. Quick, make a sign.” She handed Cal cardstock from one of the bags and a Sharpie still in its package.
He wiped his hands on his jeans and found a dry spot on the table.
“Get your large Oak Hill Reds here! Caught last night,” Aly announced to the flannel-clad mother and daughter who stumbled toward the scent of coffee coming from the bakery truck.
“Shh. The Seafood Co-op will turn us in.”
“Then hurry up with the sign, Rembrandt.”
Aly sold drawings at a steady clip, zinging him with I-told-you-so’s while he headed a million shrimp.
He should be glad his art was making money, but it rankled that the shrimp he’d headed weren’t selling, and Aly’s idea was. What were they going to do with a hundred and twenty pounds of shrimp on their hands?
Morning sun burned off night. Cal grabbed another muffin out of Aly’s bag.
A fit, blonde guy his folks’ age squinted at the Ocean’s Seafood restaurant drawing for a good five minutes. He raked his eyes over their stall, his gaze catching on a painting of Aly’s mother’s house Cal had done for Aly years ago.
Aly’d propped the charcoals he’d given her for her birthday against a cord. Would she sell those, too?
“How much for a full-sized painting?”
Cal opened his mouth to answer, but Aly spoke. “Five hundred.”
The man’s eyes widened. His gaze panned to the painting of Aly’s house, the Ocean’s Seafood drawing, back at Aly.
Aly held the man’s gaze and smiled. “Half up front. Half at completion.”
The guy slid his checkbook from the back pocket of his Levis. “I’d like Clancy’s Cantina, the view of the restaurant from Flagler Avenue. When is delivery?”
Aly looked at Cal.
“I’ll have it done by Christmas at the latest.” Cal wiped shrimp guts off his hand with a rag and held it out. “Cal Koomer, artist.”
“Matt Clancy, owner of Clancy’s Cantina.”
They shook. Aly introduced herself as Cal’s business partner, thanked him for his patronage, and bequeathed a thousand-watt smile on him.
Matt Clancy ambled past the baskets and visor stalls.
Cal eyed Aly. “Five hundred dollars?”
She shrugged. “If a person pays with no hesitation, you’ve asked too little. He paused just long enough. I nailed it.”
Cal glanced up and saw Garner Fritz, marching toward them. The bottom of his white-blonde buzz peeked from under an Oak Hill Seafood Co-op cap. Cal’s stomach knotted, choking the elation he’d felt over Aly’s commissioning a painting.
Aly had humiliated Gar when she caught him cheating on her. Maybe it was his imagination, but he read revenge in the stiff set of Gar’s shoulders.
Gar stopped in front of their stall, blocking out the sun. “Bootlegging will get you fined.”
Cal glared into Gar’s mirrored sunglasses and saw two of himself. “You’d have to sell something for it to be called bootlegging.”
“Maybe we should ask the authorities.”
Cal was about to mention that authorities was a big word for a guy with Gar’s limited intelligence.
Aly stepped into Gar’s personal space. “Hi, Gar. Kinda weird how we live in the same town and haven’t seen each other for two years.”
He shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah, well….”
“You still with Carina?”
His mouth tightened. “I didn’t walk over here to talk about who I’m seeing.”
“Did you come to find out if I was pregnant when we broke up?”
Color drained from Gar’s face and he fell back a step. His eyes darted around the stall as if he were looking for a child. “Were you?”
Aly stared Gar down.
Cal could almost smell Gar’s fear.
Aly took a deep breath and let it out. She glanced at Cal and back at Gar. “No. You left me herpes instead.”
Shock registered on Gar’s face, then his eyes shifted to the side, giving away his guilt. His cheeks splotched red under albino whiskers that sparked with morning sun. He spun and strode back to his booth.
Aly folded her arms across her chest. “Guess we can sell our shrimp in peace now.”
The quiver in her lip showed how much the performance had cost her. Herpes. At least it wasn’t something worse. “You didn’t have to do that. We could have given everyone we knew frozen shrimp for an early Christmas gift.”
“You already know everything else there is to know about me.” Aly stared at the produce in the stall across the aisle, her cheeks pale, jaw tight. “It felt good to embarrass Gar. He had it coming.”
He’d almost been disappointed Aly hadn’t conceived Gar’s child. “I would have married you if you’d been pregnant.”
“What about Evie?”
“There would have been no Evie.”
A rap sounded on the table and Cal’s head swiveled toward the sound.
“Oak Hill Red’s, huh? How much you got?”
Cal eyed the hard-living face, gray beard, stocking cap, and shorts. “Jimmy, good to see you. This is Aly. Jimmy co-owns the Dolphin View restaurant. I have a hundred and ten pounds—twenty of it headed—caught last night, kept on ice. Five dollars a pound for the headed, four dollars for the rest. What do you say?”
“You head all the shrimp, deliver, and I’ll buy the lot for four hundred.”
“That’s almost a buck short a pound.”
“I could buy from the co-op for full price….”
“You fry up a couple of baskets for me and Aly and it’s a deal.”
“Sold.”
Aly would have scored four-fifty a pound from Jimmy and gotten a rush out of haggling.
Of course, Aly wouldn’t have married him—even pregnant. He’d been freshly fired from camp, nursing a broken infatuation with weed and alcohol. Two and a half years had barely upped his real estate.