July 5
Flaws add depth, luminescence, beauty to a masterpiece. Call me self-absorbed, but my mistakes only trash me. I’m the Coors can, crumpled and kicked to the side of the road.
Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com
Fish halted half way across Henna’s living room, his gaze galvanized to Missy’s naked body. A lithograph engraved on his hard drive.
Missy’s eyes popped wide with surprise. “People in civilized cultures knock before they come in.”
“I-I did. The music—”
Her eyes narrowed, defiance coloring them, and she stood there another full second before she turned and walked the two steps through the open bedroom doorway as though she had all the time in the world.
If the front view had knocked the breath out of his lungs, the rear nearly asphyxiated him.
The door shut, and the Grateful Dead muted.
He sank into an armchair and dropped his head back against the upholstery. Oh God, he’d never get that vision out of his head. Never.
She might as well have been tattooed with a Miss America sash that said Marriage. If he ever wanted to see that again, he’d have to put a ring on her finger, stand in front of her daddy, and promise forever.
Marriage-kids-marriage-kids whirled around his head like the stars circling Wile E. Coyote after he got clocked. He felt like walking out the door, Craigs-listing his truck, surfboard, and laptop and hiking to Killman Jewelry Store for a diamond ring. At the moment, he’d pretty much sell his soul.
He’d seen other girls naked. He didn’t know why he was going into cosmic meltdown over Missy.
He’d put money on it that Missy had never been full-on naked in front of any guy. But she hadn’t streaked out of sight like his sisters would have. It was almost like she wanted him to see. That little upward thrust of her chin.
Maybe she was comfortable with nudity. But that seemed crazy—preacher’s kid, daughter of uptight Starr.
Regardless, the hook was baited.
He pulled at his hair trying to decide what to do.
He heard Missy moving around in what used to be Cal’s room.
The door opened, and she walked into the room in a loose T-shirt and shorts that reached almost to her knees. She stopped several feet away and folded her arms across her waist.
His eyes welded to her finer points. He forced his gaze down to her red Converses, but his eyes boomeranged to her breasts, then skated crazily over her body. In his mind, he only saw skin—every pore in photo focus.
He buried his head in his hands with a groan. Would he ever be able to look at her again without seeing her naked? Geez.
“I can’t be that pathetic. I run every day.” Her voice wavered.
His head bounced up. “Pathetic? No. Perfect? Yes.” The kind of perfection that was sealing his future behind iron-barred doors.
“Then why do you look so bummed? And why did you want to talk to me.”
Fish hefted himself out of the chair and edged around the room toward the door. “I can’t have this conversation right now. I need to go home. Think about mullet, socialized medicine, Corn Flakes. I’ll call you to reschedule. We’ll talk on the phone—that’s it.” His hand clamped on the door knob.
“Don’t bother.” Her voice was strained, her eyes trying to hide her hurt.
“Mis, it’s not like that. You make me wish I had a ring in my pocket. You’re beautiful. Perfect.”
Her face relaxed.
“Happy Birthday. Your gift is on the table.” He let himself out. The door clicked shut.
River water sloshed against the hull as Aly tossed in bed, replaying her conversation with Cal last week. She should have figured out Cal had gone to jail doing a favor for Henna and Leaf. She’d never seen him carry large amounts of weed. She should have visited him in jail.
Her mind drifted back to when Cal had been there for her.
Three years ago she’d stood at the convenience store counter paying for a pregnancy test. Cal, newly dumped by Raine and fired from teaching art at camp, waited behind her, feigning interest in the sunflower seeds and flavored corn nuts.
A blonde kid with a barbell through his eyebrow handed her the rest room key attached to a foot-long replica of the State of Florida—without her asking. No secrets here.
Afterward, she burst out the glass doors waving the plastic tester in one hand and the State of Florida in the other. “It’s blue! It’s blue!” She end-zone danced around Cal where he sat on the curb under the hum of white neon.
He stood up, laughing at her.
She threw her arms around him, planting a loud smack on his stubbly cheek and released him. She danced on the curb, the oil-polished cement, the sidewalk. “No mini-Gar! No borderline-I.Q.ed toddler who walks around in love with his belly button!”
Later, they sat in Cal’s car watching the waves roll in the moonlight.
Cal stuck the plastic spoon in the almost-empty pint of Chunky Monkey and passed it to her. “You know, Al, we’re both pretty screwed up, but we’re good for each other.” He looked at her across the tattered bench seat of his mother’s old station wagon. “Why is that?”
Aly shrugged. “But you’re right.” She shifted around to face him. “The combo of thinking I was preggers and…” she looked at the Ben and Jerry’s carton in her hands, “your turning me down for sex…” She lifted her eyes to Cal. “I’m done with sleeping with guys—until I get married, if I do.”
She set the empty carton on the dash. “Thanks—for everything.” She couldn’t put her gratitude fully into words.
Cal dropped his head. “The only reason I didn’t say yes was because I didn’t want to look stupid…. I’m a virgin.” He rubbed his temples. “I’m unemployed with no education. This evening while you were with me I got an idea to paint that will keep me sober for three days. That’s who I am. I can’t live up to everyone’s expectations. I’m done trying.” His tone was harsh.
Aly laid her hand on the three-day’s growth on his jaw. Her eyes bore into his. “I love you, John Calvin Koomer.”
Cal’s eyes had widened, then peace seemed to settle over him. “Thanks, Al.”
He probably thought she’d meant it as a friend, and that was fine. He wouldn’t be ready for the whole truth until he got over Raine.
The hatch slid open jarring her back to the present, and she sat up on her bunk. “Cal?”
Cal slid the hatch shut and climbed into the Escape’s cabin. He inhaled the residue of steam and forest scent from Aly’s shower that—even after two and a half months living on the boat together—filled his head with pictures of Aly’s water-slicked skin.
“Cal?”
His heart skipped a beat. This was the first time in weeks Aly had been awake when he came in. “Yeah, it’s me.” He headed toward her bunk.
She sat cross-legged on her mattress, the sheet pulled up to her waist. In the dim light from the galley, he could see the hideous football jersey that left everything to the imagination. “What’s up?”
“I was thinking about how you stood by me when I had the pregnancy scare with Gar. You were pretty much at rock bottom yourself, but you dredged up concern for me from somewhere. You got me through it. I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.”
His heart drummed in his chest. “It didn’t just go one way. Your needing me pulled me out of self-pity. And, I don’t think I ever told you this…. We fell asleep in Cody’s garage, and I watched you wake up. You looked so pretty all sleepy and mussed in that weird lighting. I had to get you on canvas. Painting you kept me sober for a week, pulled me out of my tailspin.”
“You painted me then, when you were still into Raine, right before… Evie.” Her voice sounded choked. He couldn’t see her eyes in the shadows.
He sat on her bunk. “You’ve always been a constant underneath whatever chaos went on in my life.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “I wanted to say I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you went to jail. You supported me when I needed you, but I flaked on you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. You came to tell me Henna died. That’s what really mattered.” He leaned over and scooped her into his arms. “Thanks for coming that day. I don’t think I ever told you how much I appreciated it.” He pulled away and halted a whisper away from her lips, his mind skimming to what lay beneath her jersey.
He gritted his teeth and stood, ripping himself in two. The half who wanted to make love to Aly tonight in her bunk and the half who wanted to earn her trust and yes when he proposed.
“I love you. Sleep well.”
He sure wouldn’t.
Seeing Missy naked crystallized the decision in Fish’s mind—he’d move to Orlando when law school started or he’d marry Missy and commute. He was no closer to making a choice about Missy than he had been on her birthday three weeks ago. Every time he thought about her, his body lit like a roman candle. He needed to make a rational choice.
He leaned against the hull behind his bunk and drew a line down the middle of a legal pad. In the pro column, he loved Missy. That pretty much cancelled out all the cons—that he hadn’t factored marriage into his five-year plan, they hardly had fifty bucks between them, they could have a baby by this time next year.
At the very least it was time for him to man-up and tell the girl he loved her. That was as good a place to start as any.
He punched in Missy’s speed dial number, held the phone in his sweaty palm, and stared at the bulkhead at the end of his bunk.
“Fish,” she said when she picked up. And he knew he was in trouble.
“What happened to calling me Sean?”
“What do you want?”
“You.” He coughed. “Go out with me, Mis. On a date—dinner, a walk on the beach. We need to talk.”
“No. Just, no, Sean.” Her voice sounded tight like she was barely holding it together.
“This is about my screwing up another birthday, isn’t it? I know birthdays are important to you.”
“That was an accident. I don’t blame you.” She sighed, and he could almost see her shoulders slump. “I’m moving to Peru next month.”
He felt kicked in the stomach. “You’re what?”
“I told you a long time ago I was thinking about it.”
“To visit.” He groaned. “You’re messing with my abandonment issues.”
“We’re friends. Not dating, married, nothing.”
“I just asked you out. We could be dating.”
“What we need is to chill. Hopefully, for the rest of our lives. Move on. I am.”
“Are you seeing someone else?” Please, God, not Chas.
“I’m not seeing you. You’ve been jerking me around for a year, and I can’t do it anymore.”
“I wouldn’t be asking you out if I weren’t serious.”
“No. I can’t.”
Her breathing came through the connection while he scrambled to absorb the finality he’d heard in her voice.
“We can keep in touch online,” she said.
“Great. Now I can read your e-mails on New Year’s Eve with my family’s.” His mind jumped back into kissing Missy on New Year’s Eve, the feel of her in his arms, his necklace around her neck, the scent of orange blossoms.
“You need to deal with your issues.”
“That everyone bails on me? My folks, God, Cal, you.”
“What if you’re the one who does the rejecting? Your parents begged you to visit in every e-mail. Cal wants your friendship back. God? Like He’s going anywhere. Get a grip, Sean.”
What was she saying? That he was the one pushing her away?
“But you’re the one who’s leaving.”
“I’m not unfriending you. I’ll always care about you. We’ve had a bond all our lives. I’m just going somewhere to make myself useful. The orphans need a teacher. I need a life.”
“What about your marriage plans?”
“Who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone there.”
“Chas.”
“Whatever. Something will work out. Or it won’t. Obviously, you don’t need sex to survive like you need food, water, and oxygen.”
She dropped the word sex into a sentence as if it weren’t the big issue lurking between them.
He grasped for words that would make her stay. “Don’t do this to me.”
“Hey, at least I’m doing something.”
“But—”
“Fish, I’m going.”
The second time in his life she’d called him Fish. He could feel her peeling away from him already.
“Good-bye.” She hung up.
He tossed the phone onto his bunk. He wanted to drive over to her house and make her change her mind. He kicked the bulkhead with his boot. He didn’t know what he was going to do yet, but he’d fight for her. That much he knew.
Aly poked her head through the window of Missy’s hot dog stand. “I’m looking for Charlie Brown’s Lucy. I need psychiatric help.”
Missy laughed and pressed a cold Pepsi into her hand. “It’ll cost you five cents. I’ll be out in a minute.” Missy closed up the trailer and padlocked the door, juggling an A&W Root Beer.
Missy led the way as they strolled up the beach toward Flagler Avenue. “I could use Lucy myself. What’s up?”
Evening sun baked through Aly’s T-shirt. She scooted onto the seawall and the shade of a tiki hut. “Cal’s been out of jail for over three months, and we’ve had like two meaningful conversations.”
“Really? He stops in at the stand once in a while for a dog, and he’s using Henna’s room as a studio while Sean’s family is staying in Mom’s apartment. Things are good with us.”
“He hasn’t been to the gallery. He doesn’t know I hung his work.” Aly stared at the gulls dive-bombing the waves.
“But he cares about you. I told him I wanted you for a sister-in-law, and he said something like he’d already been thinking about it. And that was months and months ago, the day he got his hair cut for a date with you.”
Wow. Cal had been thinking marriage before they even became business partners. “He said he wants to marry me, but he doesn’t act like it. The other night he told me he loved me, then lit out of my cabin without touching me—like I had strep throat or something.” A gull tumbled in a wave, righted itself, and flew away in another direction. Maybe he changed his mind about herpes.
Missy kicked her heels against the sea wall. “That’s more than Sean’s said. He’s been flirting with me for a year. A year! He gave the necklace for Christmas.” She fingered the pearl at her throat. Her touch went to the matching single pearl bracelet on her wrist. “And this for my birthday.” She sighed. “And I’m so done waiting. If seeing me naked didn’t make him want to marry me, nothing will.”
“What?” Aly swiveled her face toward Missy.
Missy shrugged a shoulder and relayed the story.
Aly laughed and shook her head. “You’re kidding me? It could only happen to you.”
Missy threw up her hands. “I give up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Move to Peru, teach at the orphanage until I get over him. Everything in New Smyrna Beach reminds me of Sean—and I run into him around town. I’ll never get past him if I don’t do something drastic.”
Aly had reservations about Cal, but she hadn’t really considered ending things. Her whole body tensed at the thought. “And I’ll never get over Cal while we’re living at either end of a forty-one foot boat.”
Missy’s brows shot up in alarm. “You want to end things?”
“I don’t know what I want. I’ve always been a needy mess trying to vacuum what I need from guys. It never works.” But Cal hadn’t used her for sex. And he’d supported her emotionally through the toughest times in her life. “And I want to keep selling his art. I guess we could work something out—communicate by e-mail….”
“Don’t even go there. I’m counting on you for a sister-in-law. You guys need to talk this out. If Sean and I hadn’t talked about how I want to get married and he wants to mess around too many times to count, I’d take my own advice.”
“You’re right. I need to talk to Cal.”
“Tomorrow?”
“What? No! I have to think. I have to figure out how I feel.”
Missy pushed her sunglasses up top of her head and leaned toward her. “Pick a date, and I’ll buy my Peru ticket that day.”
“Give me two weeks.”
Missy counted on her fingers. “August fifteenth—lets meet at Sugar Mill Ruins—after I buy my ticket and you talk to Cal. I’ll cry. You can cheer me up telling me you and Cal worked everything out. I’ll bring the chocolate.”
Aly drew in a shaky breath. “Okay—if Fish hasn’t come to his senses by then.” She hoped Sugar Mill Ruins wasn’t a morbidly appropriate location.
Missy clinked her can against Aly’s. “Survival.”
But it felt like death.