The Art of My Life Read online

  Evie stood. “I’m done puking out my issues.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cal moving around on the Escape. He followed Evie off the boat. “I’ll walk you down to your boat.” He threw an arm across her shoulders and darted a glance at Cal. But inside he felt like crap. He was tired of superficial relationships with girls. And Evie wasn’t a girl he could form a deep connection with.

  He was better than this, better than trying to make Cal pay.

  The doorbell rang, and Aly’s chin jerked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey she’d just opened. Mom had taken her out for her birthday yesterday, and she wasn’t expecting anyone. She jammed the spoon into the ice cream, stuck it into the freezer, and jogged to the door. Maybe it was elderly Mrs. Knox from the condo next door.

  She whisked open the door. The smile died on her lips.

  Cal stood on the step, damp hair pulled into a ponytail, his jaw freshly shaved.

  Shallow breaths moved in and out of her nose, registering the scent of soap. Pin pricks dotted her skin as though her whole body had fallen asleep.

  One corner of his mouth turned up. His eyes looked uncertain. “Happy birthday.” It almost sounded like a question.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t have the guts to say it the last two years.” He tapped the framed pictures propped against his thigh. “I brought you something.”

  She should invite him in. Handing her art on the doorstep was ridiculous. But if he came in, he’d see the ink drawings he’d cast off years ago—the ones she’d expensively framed as the focal point of her living room. He’d think she was still in love with him after two years of almost no contact.

  Cal shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “If you have company, I can come back another time.

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t have company.”

  The silence crept past awkward.

  “If you’d rather I didn’t come in—”

  “No, it’s okay.” She inched away from the door.

  Cal lined three framed charcoal drawings against the couch, his back to her private Cal Koomer gallery. His gaze riveted to hers. “Thanks for the loan. The Escape will be in dry dock for a month. I’m doing all the work I can myself. You gave me a shot at a future.”

  Did Cal remember her vow to own her own business by twenty-five? Did he realize she’d handed him her dream? Enjoy it for me, Cal. Succeed. “It was a sound business decision.” Not personal.

  Hurt slashed through his eyes and disappeared in a blink. “I’m still grateful, Al.”

  She folded her arms across her waist and sunk to the edge of the coffee table. She pulled her gaze away from his and found the gifts he’d brought.

  Cal’s genius lay in his ability to knead a viewer’s emotions into a visceral response. His art expressed things deeper than he was able to communicate in words. She had learned to read his work almost from the start of their friendship. Gratitude for the rusty skill wafted through her.

  Two faces looking away from each other filled the first drawing. Though no one else might, she recognized herself. Hurt etched the planes of her face and seared from her eyes. She glanced at the bottom right corner for the date Cal always included with his signature. The drawing had been done on her twenty-first birthday, less than a month after she’d offered herself to Cal and been turned down. After she’d confessed her love. After she’d witnessed his hand planted on the polka dots of Evie’s bikini from where she stood on the side of the beach road.

  Her eyes slid to the dark-jawed male face—the tilt of the thick brows, the kinks in the hair, and halted at the eyes swimming with bone-scraping regret.

  So, Cal got how her heart crumpled beyond repair in the sawgrass that day. The charcoal begged her absolution.

  She glanced over her shoulder.

  Cal stood with his back to her, staring at the wall she didn’t want him to see. Below the drawings and to the right, like a signature, she’d framed her favorite photo of Cal. Head thrown back, mouth open, he laughed. She could hear the sound in her head every time she looked at the photo.

  How did Cal feel seeing himself enshrined on her wall? Did he pity her? Feel responsible for her? Did he want to erase her love?

  Until this moment she’d believed she’d jettisoned her feelings for Cal a little at a time until none were left. She’d made progress. Surely she had.

  She turned to the second picture, dated on her twenty-second birthday. She and Cal stood angled away from each other with the sharp needles of a Christmas tree jabbing between them. Her eyes were downcast, and Cal peered over his shoulder at her longingly. He missed her friendship. But she couldn’t go back there again.

  The last charcoal, dated today—her twenty-third birthday—depicted figures facing each other across her desk at the bank. She recognized Jackson’s forearm and hand, the crown of Starr’s head. This time she and Cal looked each other in the eye. Uncertainty clouded her expression; embarrassment, Cal’s. But he still-framed the moment when their fingers brushed against each other.

  How had Cal captured the bond between them in charcoal? A bond she wouldn’t resurrect. Couldn’t. She stood and stepped behind the coffee table to absorb the picture as a whole.

  Her arm clunked into Cal’s chest, firing off an all-systems-alert to her body—like the touch Cal depicted on paper. Her gaze flew to his, then darted away from the raw plea in his eyes. “Sorry.”

  She stepped away from him and rubbed the bare skin of her arm as if she could erase the softness of Cal’s T-shirt, the warm, solid feel of his chest. She centered herself in front of the last drawing.

  The picture communicated permanence in their connection, the subjects’ surprise that the welding still held. Well, Cal had gotten that wrong.

  She stared at the other two drawings, willing her pulse to calm. How long had she been lost in the art? Two minutes? Half-an-hour?

  She filled her lungs with oxygen and faced Cal. “What do you want from me?”

  His eyes pleaded with her, but she needed words.

  “I brought the drawings… to say I’m sorry for… for what I did to you.”

  “I forgave you a long time ago.” How could she not? It wasn’t his fault she fell in love with him and ruined their friendship. She’d never make that mistake again.

  “Do we still have…?” His hands waved between them, his eyes desperate to say what he couldn’t articulate.

  How could she tell him they had nothing left? He’d just stared at what looked like a memorial to their relationship for who knew how long. She could tell him he was a brilliant artist, and she happened to be lucky enough to have some originals to hang on her wall. But he’d be hurt. He wasn’t looking for an art critique. He’d exposed his heart and begged to jump-start their friendship.

  While the sentiment was gratifying, she’d be a masochist to agree. No, the relationship needed to stay dead.

  If Daddy’s deleting her out of his life when she was seven wasn’t enough to teach her to protect herself, all she had to do was look at her mother. Thank God Mom had a nursing degree when Daddy walked. But Daddy had left Mom’s heart out in all weather, something that could only have been prevented by trusting her heart to a safer person.

  Bachelor of Science in business. Check. Owning her own company. Someday. She just wished she was one of those women who didn’t need a man. But sex, if only momentarily, filled her craving to be cherished, to be essential to another person’s existence. When she married, it would be to a stable guy who wouldn’t leave her for someone better. Or jail.

  But she couldn’t throw Cal’s good intentions back in his face. Not today with his art filling her living room.

  She motioned with her head toward the breakfast bar. “Come on. I was just celebrating. Sit down.”

  She plopped the Ben and Jerry’s between them.

  Cal reached for the spoon and stopped. He smiled into her eyes, and she knew he was remembering the last time they c
elebrated with Chunky Monkey—the day he’d taken her to get a pregnancy test that turned out negative. He took a bite and stuck the spoon back into the ice cream.

  Aly smiled. It was a happy memory even though she was ashamed of the almost-pregnancy. She slipped the spoon into her mouth, thinking how weird it was that they’d shared food and silverware for eight years when they’d never dated, much less kissed. Her eyes strayed to his lips, and she shook herself back to reality.

  She’d prepare a gentle this-isn’t-going-to-work speech, make it as painless as possible, and deliver it the next time she saw him. Her life depended on it.

  Chapter 3

  August 25

  Is it just me, or does the grandeur of life sometimes sneak up on you? I was going along in my same-old, same-old life when grandeur walked through my front door. Beauty, emotion, depth of connection. Art.

  Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  Fish flung his poly sci text at the bulkhead and rolled off his bunk. At ten p.m. the grimy blades of the box fan wheezed heavy, ninety-degree air at him. He’d stripped down to his gym shorts an hour ago. Tomorrow’s quiz knotted the muscles at the base of his skull. He needed a break.

  He scooped up the book and smoothed out the wrinkled page corners. Maybe he’d get fifty bucks for it at the end of the semester. He rolled his shoulders. One thing he’d fight to keep—if Cal hadn’t ruined his run at politics—was government funding for higher education. A good thing about being dirt poor was bagging Pell Grants that added up to free college. Maybe the country had problems, but some things America got right.

  Someday he’d be part of the US fighting for the people who needed a leg-up. He tossed the book onto his bunk and headed out to the dock. It had to be cooler outside.

  He stood on the darkened deck and eyed Cal’s empty slip for the five-hundreth time since Cal left for dry dock six weeks ago. No Escape. His gut felt hollowed out, too. The corner of his eye caught movement on the dock.

  A girl sat on the dock storage box facing the empty slip, arms wrapped around a pair of shapely legs. A riot of dark curls cascaded down her back. She wore a tank top and short shorts, the kind that made guys glad they had eyes. Dock light rained down on her, leaving her face in shadow.

  Realization dawned—the girl was Cal’s little sister, Missy.

  She stood and stretched, her face tilting toward the light.

  His breath stopped. His eyes galvanized to her mother’s cheek bones and nose, the lush brows and lashes. Her clothes carelessly hugged the curves of her compact form, oblivious to the slow burn of a light bulb warming inside him.

  She checked her watch and sat down.

  He shook his head, schooling his thoughts. He’d lived with the Koomers his senior year of high school, spent every holiday with her family for as long as he could remember—the one tradition he’d clung to when his folks ripped themselves and his siblings out of his life. But when had she turned into the hottie camped on Cal’s dock box? Seeing her in a new setting flipped some switch inside him. He did the math. Geez, she must be twenty now.

  He’d always liked her when she was a kid. Five years younger than he and Cal, she used to follow them around till Cal would chase her off. And he must have had a hundred conversations with her, sitting on the Koomers’ back steps, tossing shell pieces onto the sandy drive while he waited for Cal to finish his chores or homework or a fight with Starr.

  Now that he thought about it, Missy had always been a hottie, at least since she hit middle school and made no secret of the major-league crush she had on him. He’d given her a wide berth since then. For a minute he was seventeen, slumped in a chair in the Koomers’ kitchen feeling sorry for himself because his family was a continent away.

  Twelve-year-old Missy wandered in, arched her brows at him, and pressed a pointer finger into his side for a couple heartbeats—something she’d done since she was little to “poke a hole to let the sad out”—then walked out the back door.

  He smiled like he had that day, feeling lighter.

  Well, she wasn’t twelve anymore. He crossed the gangplank and walked toward her. “Hey, Missy, what up?”

  She startled. “Where’s Cal?”

  “Dry dock.”

  “Why does no one ever tell me anything?”

  Fish grinned, enjoying her familiar huff. “You’re the baby.”

  She rolled wide-set eyes. “I finally get myself worked up enough to tell Cal what I think about his going to jail, and I sit here for an hour for nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I have my speech all ready, and I’m not giving it to you, Sean Fisher.”

  “I’m not asking for your speech. Just tell me how you feel.”

  Her face swung from the empty slip to him. Dock light illuminated the hurt in brown eyes the color of a cowry shell he’d once found. She eyed him, weighing whether to say more. “How could Cal do this to me—the big brother I’ve always idolized? I can’t look up to him now. I don’t think he even cares about me. It’s like he cut me off. He never wants to hang out. I hadn’t seen him for weeks, maybe months before he went to jail. Did he look for me after he got out? I am so over him.” She smeared angry tears into her cheeks. “But you can’t get over your own brother. Not even if you want to.”

  Fish smacked a mosquito on his arm. He knew what she was talking about. As pissed as he was at Cal, he still felt connected to him. Ditto for his family in Peru.

  Missy dropped her legs over the side of the dock box and scooted to the edge. “Sorry. You were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Some part of his brain catalogued the absence of raccoon make-up smudges from the tears. “It’s okay.” His voice came out hoarse, and he cleared his throat. In five minutes she’d moved from being his best friend’s kid sister to a peer. He leaned against the dock box beside her, trying to gain his equilibrium. “So, Chas started college online from Peru.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  He jerked his chin back toward her.

  “We e-mail,” she said.

  “Oh, so you e-mail my baby brother, and I haven’t seen you since Easter. And I’m right here in New Smyrna Beach.”

  She shoved his bare shoulder. “Like you noticed.”

  “On second thought, what would you want with the Fisher family black sheep?”

  “Don’t give me that crap. I followed you around my whole life. I quit a couple of years ago—my eighteenth birthday gift to myself. I’ve grown up.”

  He stared at the emotion pulsing in her eyes. All that hair, loose for once, dispelling forever the impression of Missy as Starr’s mini-me. Had her lips always been that full? “Yeah, I noticed you grew up.”

  “When?”

  “So, what about them Bucs?”

  Missy narrowed her eyes at him.

  “You still rescuing bad boys—visiting them in the hospital when they turn up shark-bit?”

  “See, that’s what I mean. You treat me like some great aunt you see on holidays and are polite to…. I’m a junior—like you, Mr. Oblivious—at Daytona State College. Get a clue.”

  He stood and faced her. “What I was going to say was” –he lasered his eyes into hers— “you can rescue me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Missy speechless? That was unusual. He got in her face, planting a hand on either side of her thighs on the dock box. “What do you say?” He could almost see her squirm. The evening just got a whole lot more interesting.

  Missy’s chin lifted a fraction. “You don’t look shark-bit to me.”

  Her breath fanned his cheek in soft bursts and warmth flushed through him. “Some wounds are inside.”

  She pushed his arm out of the way as she slid off the dock box. “Maybe I could rescue you from yourself—if I had the inclination. But I don’t.”

  Little Missy must have passed Flirting 101 with a four-oh. The spearmint scent of her gum hung between them. She was still close enough to kiss.

  “But God knows you need saving.”<
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  When had her voice matured into a woman’s? He’d swear she spoke an octave lower than she used to.

  Her eyes bore into him. “End this stupid tug-of-war and go see your family. My folks Skype your parents once a month. It breaks my heart to hear how much your mom and dad miss you. You know they can’t get away from the orphanage. Go for Christmas.”

  “It’s my business.”

  “Yeah, but maybe it’s time somebody got in your business.”

  He stared her down, truth ringing in his ears. Irritation gnawed at the back of his neck. “You’ve grown up, I’ll give you that. But you’re just as annoying. You know what? I changed my mind. Don’t bother trying to fix me.”

  Even in the shadows, he saw the hurt from his barb flash through her eyes, but her voice held firm. “Be mean, Sean. You don’t scare me.” She pivoted. “Because I’m right,” she tossed over her shoulder and walked down the dock.

  His gaze fixed on her legs as she moved toward the gate. She said she missed looking up to Cal. But he was the one who felt bereft. Her hero-worship had been a constant for as long as he could remember. Funny how he didn’t miss it until he knew it was gone.

  Tomorrow he’d sign up to take the LSAT. It wasn’t reconciling with his family, but maybe getting into law school would buy back a few points with Missy.

  Cal sat atop a ladder at the bow of the dry-docked Escape. He balanced a pallet of black, white, and various shades of gray left-over marine paint—the most expensive paint in the world as far as he could tell. Sodden clouds bunched in the August sky like his boat repair bills, the meeting with his probation officer, and the hundred and fifteen pound question mark of Aly.

  He eyed the freshly-painted expanse of the Escape’s hull and envisioned the figurehead the boat begged for. Flowing locks of hair spilled from his brush. Aly’s hair. Her graceful neck, chin, mouth.

  He wanted Aly with a passion that eclipsed even his seventeen-year-old starvation for her. He didn’t have another eight years to waste. He wanted his body fused to hers, his name tacked onto hers. Kids someday.