The Art of My Life Read online

  “Maybe you can live disconnected from me, but I can’t live disconnected from you. I’ll starve. Maybe you think you can smoke recreationally. You can’t. Not with our genes. In fact, I think you’re in too deep now. Only God can get you out.”

  Cal’s expression hardened and her anger intensified.

  “How’s it working for you, Cal—without God?” She rose, pirouetted, and walked down the pier as calmly as if she exited the Nutcracker stage. Her chest and throat ached to cry all the tears she’d never learned to cry.

  The sound of Starr’s voice clanged off the weed altered fun-house walls of his skull. God, God, God, God.

  There was something his mother had said he wanted to remember. But the slapping of the waves against the dinghy seemed to separate into octaves, punctuated by a pelican squawk, the deafening bass of wire and rope pummeling masts in the wind.

  Blood careened through his body. He could feel it pulsing in his veins and capillaries, webbing through the back of his head and in his throat—intensifying like headlights recharged by a car’s generator.

  The boat bounced in the small swells of the river where it had drifted. He should thread the oars through the oarlocks, angle the bow toward the Escape, and row, but the process seemed too complex.

  The stench of exposed barnacles filled his nostrils—like Starr’s tirade. He didn’t want to remember it. He’d smoked to forget her expectations. Still, something niggled at him. Something important.

  His mind merry-go-rounded to Aly. He loved Aly’s order—everything in its place—the peace he felt when he stared at his work, matted and framed on the wall of her condo. Thoughts materialized, clouded, and wisped through his fingers. She’d learned to read his art and understand things he didn’t know how to voice. The guy inside meant something to her.

  Aly’s face, the touchdown of his lips on hers, the forest scent of her sleeping in his arms, the timbre of her voice when she said she loved him a long time ago…. He’d banked on Aly’s still caring. But it didn’t matter how she felt if he had nothing to offer her.

  The airplane engine drone of vehicles crossing the causeway crept to an automobile hum. The crackling of wind in his ears no longer sounded like maximum decibel radio static. A musty blanket of dissatisfaction settled on him.

  The boat jostled, and he felt disoriented. He eyed the marina, North Causeway Marine, the opposite shore. He’d drifted into the middle of the river. He shoved one oar through its metal circle. The second. He dug into the water. Heaved the oars. Glanced over his shoulder at the Escape. Levered the dinghy five feet closer.

  Starr had come down to the dock why? His brain slogged through river silt. She’d been pissed. Odd. She was critical, always. But clamped down. Under control. Because… he slept with Aly.

  Ha. If only.

  Something about Cal’s smoking… reminded her of Leaf.

  His head cleared as he neared the Escape. He tied the dinghy up and hoisted himself onto the deck. Leaf’s story. That was the thing he wanted to remember. He sat on the deck until he scraped all the chad of his grandfather’s cautionary tale from the fuzz of his memory.

  He didn’t want to repeat history any more than Starr wanted him to. He thought about the hundreds of times he’d stopped by Leaf’s metal trailer on the beach. He’d always chuckled at the queasy mix of hot dog and head-shop odors that spilled out the window. But it wasn’t funny if it smelled like your future.

  He stumbled below to shower and shave away the leftover lethargy. Lego pieces of a plan stacked one on top of the other in his head. Starr’s criticism finally did something other than make him want to quit trying.

  Chapter 8

  October 16, second post

  Why did Van Gogh bleed bold color and strokes on canvas? Did he go crazy because he chose wrong? Have you ever made a decision and been plagued with second thoughts?

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

  Ten minutes after teaching her last class, Starr climbed the steps of the two-bedroom cement block bungalow buried in foliage run amok where she grew up. Since she married Jackson, she’d probably stepped foot into her mother’s house less times than she’d birthed children.

  Stale marijuana smoke crawled around the door to where Starr stood, conjuring her childhood emptiness. She hated how smells shot her back decades to a life she’d never choose to revisit.

  She reached a hand toward the door and hesitated, unsure whether to knock or turn the knob.

  She’d been ridiculously naïve to think Henna wouldn’t supply Cal with pot. She wrenched the door open.

  Henna’s loose white bun flopped behind her when her head popped up. “Starr!” Her eyes lit up. The shiny, age-mottled skin of her face stretched into a smile. She set People magazine beside her on the sofa.

  Starr marshaled the anger dance and an afternoon of teaching had only tamped down. “Cal wouldn’t have gone to jail if you weren’t giving him pot.”

  Henna’s breath sucked in. Her face whitened.

  Tears formed in the back of Starr’s eyes, and made her angrier. She didn’t want to lose control. “How can you keep undermining his life?”

  “Freedom sings. Cal has the freedom to choose just like you did. You turned out like a charm. Cal’s my baby, too. I’d give him the world.”

  A painting Starr had never seen of Henna’s house drenched in sunset stared at her from the wall behind Henna. Henna mothered Cal when she’d never mothered Starr. The unfairness of Cal’s and Henna’s love for each other fed her anger. “I saw Cal smoke a joint for the first time today.” The words ripped from Starr’s throat.

  “You’re making a mountain out of a sand hill.”

  Starr glanced at the wing-backed chair she’d curled into as a child, covered in cat hair, and chose to stand. It was the same old argument. She would never convince Henna or Leaf that marijuana had robbed her of a childhood. And they would never convince her that happy smoke was happy.

  “Cal’s started down the same road Leaf took.”

  Henna shrugged a shoulder, dislodging the patchwork sweater draped over her red muumuu. “Leaf picked himself up by his own boot laces. He always brought home the hot dogs, and his home was where his heart was—with me.”

  A cynical laugh coughed from Starr’s chest. “Maybe his heart was home, but his body sure wasn’t.”

  “I like a man who isn’t under foot all the time like a bad penny. The THC girls are my family, too. Forever friends are sisters.”

  And I’m a mistake. A nuisance. Your burden to bear. Starr sighed. She wasn’t here to come to terms with her past. She was fighting for Cal’s future. “What might Leaf have accomplished if every ounce of his ambition hadn’t been anesthetized by marijuana? You can’t tell me you didn’t want more from him.”

  “You make your bed, then you sleep in it.”

  “Well, Cal’s sleeping in it, too. He’s going to turn into Leaf if you keep giving him weed. Is that what you want?”

  Henna leaned forward, placing her hands on her thick knees. “Different strokes for different folks. Jesse’s like-father-like-Jackson. Let Cal find himself.”

  Starr crossed the nubby rug to Henna, knelt, and grabbed her hand in a fierce clasp. “I’m begging you. Stop giving Cal pot.”

  Henna stared at her with milky blue eyes, the corners of her lips twitching. “Starry, Starry Bright, if it means that much to you….”

  Starr peered into her mother’s eyes, maybe the first time she’d really looked at her in years. She saw a woman, raised by a father, who never learned how to mother. A woman who had never been loved enough by Leaf.

  Or by her daughter.

  Starr rolled up to her feet. “Thanks, Mama.” The word felt like a stone in her mouth that lodged at the back of her throat. Last time her mother pledged to quit giving pot to someone, nothing changed. Starr had been a little girl begging Henna to cut Leaf off.

  May it be different this time.

  Chapter 9

  October 24r />
  I find myself staring at my dreams. Do I have the guts to face the pain it will take to achieve them? Did Van Gogh achieve his goals or just the pain?

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

  Fish’s tires rolled over the gravel of the Koomers’ drive as he passed Starr’s studio. He hadn’t seen Missy in over a week. He’d never see her if he waited for her to jog into his orbit, as she called it. She’d pretty much said she was over him. But he’d resurrect her childhood crush. He parked between the garage and the house and climbed out of his pick-up.

  Just being around Missy made him want to be the man she challenged him to be. She was the only one in years who had expected anything of him. She’d be good for him.

  A memory bubbled to the surface of eight-year-old Missy careening up to him on her pink bike, jumping all her weight on the brakes. Dirt and shell flew as she jerked the handlebars to the side, just missing plowing into him. The maneuver was an essential life skill he and Cal had taught her. She stuck her lip out and demanded he forgive Cal for shooting him in the butt with his BB gun. And he had.

  Her grown-up challenge to forgive Cal for getting him arrested and fired had gnawed at him all week. But Cal had gone too far this time.

  He peered through the screen door at Missy standing at the kitchen counter on the other side of the kitchen.

  He knocked on the door frame. “Hey, Mis.”

  Her face jerked toward him, and he thought he saw the old flash of delight on her face. She looked down at a piece of bread and spread mayonnaise on it. “Since when do you knock?”

  He stepped into the kitchen, and the door banged behind him. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

  “Fat chance.” She laid turkey on top of a tomato slice and dotted it with halved green olives. “Want a sandwich?”

  “I want—” He stopped. This was harder than he anticipated.

  She stared at him.

  He felt like he was fifteen again, asking Kirstin Potrofsky to go to the movies. He cleared his throat. “What do you say, let’s go out?”

  She set down the knife as though she were laying out instruments for heart surgery. Her eyes lifted to his. “You mean like let’s go outside and look at some amazing bug you found?” She laid the words down carefully like the knife.

  He smiled. So, she was going to make him work for it. He was game. “Like dinner at Ocean’s Seafood, watching the sun set on the beach, a kiss good night.”

  A tiny breath sucked in. Her eyes dilated. “Oh.”

  She was still so long, her hip and one hand resting against the counter, he wondered if she was going to say anything else.

  His heart thumped against his chest. Each millisecond she stood like a human statue at a street fair made him want her to say yes more desperately and fear she’d say no.

  She turned her back on the sandwich, crossed her arms, and leaned against the counter. “You’re just doing this because you lost your adoring puppy. Well, you lost me two years ago on my eighteenth birthday.” She said it like her birthday was supposed to remind him of something.

  “So, I’m a little late. A lot late. I’ve hardly seen you in the past couple of years.”

  “You’ve hardly seen me in the past five years….”

  He’d been around her a hundred times since he was twenty and she was fifteen. What was she getting at? “All I’m saying is I like you grown up. And we should hang out, see what happens.”

  “It’s just your pride talking. I’m not mooning after you, bringing you treasures—sea shells, pine cones, Popsicle stick houses—plying you with chocolate chip cookies.”

  All of which—except the cookies—were carefully boxed up with his other belongings in the Koomer’s garage.

  She turned back to her sandwich, sliced it, nailed him with her brown eyes. “You’re a good-looking guy. A little tall. A little bony. But I’m sure you can find another fan without too much effort. Have fun, Sean. I have complete confidence in you.” She picked up her plate from the counter and took a step toward the dining room.

  He grabbed her upper arm, his fingers closing around the soft flesh. “What’s going on here? This isn’t like you. There’s a whole subtext I’m not picking up on. Say what you mean.”

  Pain-lanced eyes lasered into his. “No, I won’t go out with you.”

  He stood in the kitchen, stunned by her anger.

  Car wheels crunched across the gravel.

  Missy looked out the window. Her face softened. Her eyes brightened. “Excuse me.” She pulled out of his grasp, set down her sandwich, and dashed out the door.

  His gaze followed her to Cal exiting his Jeep.

  Cal climbed out, hair freshly shorn as short as he’d worn it in middle school.

  Not for the first time, Fish wished Cal hadn’t pulled three months jail, six months’ probation. Even angry at Cal, the sentence seemed excessive for a first time offense. And something was fishy about Cal being caught with twenty-one grams. Cal never carried more than a few joint’s worth of weed. If Cal had been dealing, he would have known. If he’d defended Cal, he could have whittled the sentence down to probation only.

  Fish could see more than hear conversation zinging between them, their faces smiling.

  Whatever Cal said made Missy bounce on the balls of her feet. Excitement seemed to roll off her.

  His gut twisted with longing and bitterness. He wanted to be in that conversation.

  Cal shot Missy a final grin and ducked into Starr’s dance studio.

  Missy turned back toward the house, her face sobering with each step she took.

  Her feet padded up the back steps toward him.

  He wanted to tell her she’d intrigued him with the idea of legal aid. He wanted to ask her if she’d debate both sides of the prospect with him.

  She stepped quietly through the door. “Thanks for stopping by, Sean. I’ll see you around.” The words were gentle, but he heard the steel behind them. She walked through the room, and he heard the stairs creak as she went up.

  He stared at her forgotten sandwich on a blue Melmac saucer, the wheat bread still indented from her fingers.

  This was crazy. He’d figure it out. He didn’t want a fan. He wanted their old friendship with the hottie she’d become. He wanted Missy.

  Cal shut the door of his Jeep in his parents’ driveway.

  Missy ran toward him. The kitchen door smacked the doorframe behind her. “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I saw your hair that short. What’s the occasion?”

  He raked a hand through the strangely short hair that sprung back against his scalp. “Date with Aly.”

  Her face lit up. “Very cool. Marry that girl. She’s the sister I never had.”

  Cal smiled and basked in Missy’s approval. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”

  Missy’s grin stretched wider. “Hang onto that thought, big brother.”

  He smiled at her, feeling fortified to face Mom, and headed into the dance studio. He wished Mom hadn’t caught him smoking. He didn’t want to think too deeply about why he was here. It wasn’t like he could make her forget. He pushed open the studio door.

  Surprise washed Starr’s face. “You cut your hair.” Then, delight.

  “Important date tonight.” If he’d known how much a stinking hair cut would do for Mom, he might’ve done it years ago.

  He rattled the bag in his hand. “You know how Dad is a wannabe street person and you dress him—make him look decent?”

  Mom smiled, a real smile, not the pinched variety he expected today. “One of those details you think your kids couldn’t possibly have noticed.”

  The warmth surprised him. Mom should let that out a little more.

  He tugged the shirt and pants from the bag. “What do you think? Will they make me look like a New Smyrna Beach business owner?”

  “Abercrombie and Fitch?” She fingered the price tag on the shirt.

  “I sold some paintings yesterday. One to Kate Canfield, the acup
uncturist on the North Causeway, one to the director of Atlantic Center for the Arts, one to the mayor, and—”

  “You sold a painting to the mayor?”

  “Yeah, an ocean scene with a row of surfers out Bethune Beach way. I hit him up because Dad plays lunchtime basketball with him. But the mayor said he remembered you as a girl walking down Mary Street to the old Faulkner Elementary. He said you always looked so sad and alone. Yeah, it was weird. Maybe it was a pity sale. Anyway, I made enough to cover marina rent and then some.”

  Starr stared expressionless over his shoulder through the open door, the telltale scar on her face turning white.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see what she was looking at, but only his Jeep sat in the drive.

  She focused back on him. “Who’s the date with?”

  “I’m taking Aly to dinner. I don’t have what it takes for the business side of charter sailing. She does. I can’t let you and Dad down or Henna and Leaf.”

  And the business had to succeed. No way could he go to Aly with the loan in default, begging for forever.

  Starr’s forehead furrowed, making her scar crinkle.

  He knew that look. It always came before something that made him feel like a piece of shit. “What?”

  “Aly doesn’t have the best, uh romantic, reputation around New Smyrna Beach. I’m glad it’s not a real date.”

  “And I do?” Now, she’d really pissed him off. Wasn’t cutting him down enough? Did she have to start on Aly? “Maybe I never did anything that was good enough for you. Maybe I should give up trying. Even Henna and Leaf feel like they have to measure—”

  “Henna and Leaf could use some measuring up.”

  “Look, judge me. I’m used to it. But lay off Aly. She doesn’t deserve it.” He stared his mother down. “People do things for a reason. Aly’s been trying to fill the empty place her father left—when she was seven. Squeeze out a drop of compassion—if you’ve got any.”