by Elodie Colt
My love life? Poor, unless you count my regular flings with the vibrator stashed under my bed. Kendra says I’m too stiff, too inhibited, too mature. Easy for her to talk. Responsibility doesn’t exist in her vocabulary. She’s earning twice as much as me at that designer boutique for half the working hours and tends to be MIA whenever there’s work to do in the garden.
“Hey, Sam!” Christina yells.
I groan into my towel. No matter how nice and supportive she is, her perfect clothes, perfect house and perfect fucking life aggravate me to a fault. Whenever our cars are parked next to each other, her red Porsche makes my Chevy look like a tin can.
Sighing, I adjust my top and drag my sorry ass over to the fence. “Hey, Christina. What’s up?”
“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” she singsongs, flaunting a business dress so white, it blinds me. She narrows her eyes at me. “Hey, are you okay? You’ve got some nasty bags under your eyes.”
Thanks. A simple ‘you look tired’ would have sufficed.
I cross my arms over my chest in a feeble attempt to hide my finest second-hand top from five summers ago.
“Worked late last night.” While you enjoyed a spa treatment in your fancy home and counted the bills in your safe.
“Oh,” is her useless comment before she peeks around my frame. I follow her gaze. Leo doodles on her sketchpad while she flaps her shirt to cool her tits. I want to facepalm myself. Someone teach that girl some manners, please.
I turn my head back to Christina. “So, how’s Jillian doing?” Her precious, perfect daughter. Always a safe topic.
“She’s doing great, thanks.” She smooths a manicured hand over her red, stiff mane. Her wrinkles start to defy the Botox in her cheeks, throwing shadows around her tattooed eyebrows in the shape of thin fingernail clippings. “About to get her degree and then off for a full-time position at a renowned rehab center in Dania Beach.”
She wants to add something, but the gardener she fired disrupts her speech as he throws some tools into his bag with extra vigor, clearly furious.
“Not satisfied with his work?” I nod to the guy slouching off with drooped shoulders and a hanging head.
Christina blows a raspberry that looks comical on her balloon-like lips. “That moron almost ruined my rose bushes. Thank God, I’ve already found a replacement. Matthew will come over from Tampa a few days per week to whip my garden into shape. Can’t keep it like that, now, can I?” She emphasizes her dramatic remark with a shake of her head, drawing my gaze to her picture-book backyard.
It’s all I can do to save my face when my gaze swerves over her little wonderland. Every week a gardener trims her trees, mows the lawn, and waters her beautiful rosebushes. Except for a raised wooden bed I’ve constructed myself and the occasional plant in a pot, my backyard looks like a patched-up rug in comparison to her Garden of Eden.
All of a sudden, something blocks the sun. I glance up. Dark clumps of clouds are clotting the sky. A second later, a gust of wind whips at my hair. With a yelp, Christina places a hand over the choker on her neck, as if the storm could blow it away.
I use the chance to make my escape. “I’m going to go inside. Looks as if that thunderstorm is about to hit us.”
“Yeah, heard it on the news,” Christina muses at the same time the electronic shades of her windows pull upward automatically with a low buzz.
“See you around.” I say my goodbye in relief and skirt off.
“What was that about?” Ruby wants to know when I return to our spot in front of the porch. The air feels charged already and makes my skin clammy.
“Just boring chit-chat,” I mutter, as usual feeling like a tramped bug after a chat with Christina. Her existence alone puts a red marker on all the bumps and flaws in my life. I’m dying to get one of these pathways made of smooth, white flagstone leading down to the swimming pool, but whenever I finally scramble up some money to invest, something blows it all up—like an asshole ramming my car and making a run for it.
Ruby shrieks as another harsh gust swoops down. Half of her papers flutter through the air, and we all hurry to catch them.
“Leo, get the cushions inside and close the windows,” I instruct before I address the others. “Let’s quickly cover the pool.”
“Matthew, you said?” Kendra muses after I’ve filled them in about Christina’s new gardener.
I shove a piece of cheese into my mouth. “Yeah, why?”
“Yesterday, I saw Jillian make out with a guy in his truck.” She grins mischievously. “They were about to rip each other's clothes off when Christina walked in on the scene. The guy stepped out of the car. Hot as hell. I swear Christina called him Matthew.”
“Jillian’s boyfriend?” Ruby asks, but I shake my head.
“If Jillian had a boyfriend, Christina would have placed an ad in the local newspaper and thrown a party.”
“Well, if he’s hot, you’re in for a sexy show,” Skyla directs at me, refilling her plate with tomato salad. “Your room is the only one offering an unobscured view at Christina’s garden.”
Nice. I could use some inspiration for the next sex scene in my novel. A pretty gardener is exactly what the story needs.
Heavy rain rattles the windows, and I throw a fearful look outside. Lightning flashes stab downward, the howling wind a constant whistle in the background. I hope my brittle Red Rocket Crape Myrtle tree will survive the hellish weather.
“I’m off to work,” Leo announces, stuffing the last piece of her sandwich into her mouth.
“I’m on my way, too,” Ruby throws in as Leo waltzes out the door. “I’m meeting with Jesse.”
“You want to go out there now?” Skyla nods to the window where thunder has started to boom, pushing a dark wall of clouds over the stormy sky. From the looks of it, the end of the world is near.
“I’ll survive a bit of rain.” Ruby stands and puts her plate into the sink. “We won’t have any time next week. We both need to study for our exams.”
Kendra rolls her eyes behind her back. “I hope Jesse gets his rocks off with you.”
“You know what they say about geologists, right?” Ruby grins at her. “Kiss a geologist and feel the earth quake.”
“Touché.” Kendra smirks, pointing her fork at Ruby. “Just be careful with him. Geologists are very sedimental.”
A sharp crack of lightning brightening the sky makes us yelp, and I almost drop my knife. The deep thunder that follows jars the windows to the point I fear they’re about to burst. A second later, a horrible crash makes us all whip around. With open mouths, we watch as bark from my beautiful tree whizzes in every direction.
“Shit!” Skyla shrieks, and we all hurry to the window.
My heart slams down into the pit of my stomach. The tree bends to the side in slow motion, arching lower and lower until… Crack! The massive trunk splits in the middle.
“No, no, no…” I blanch, my fingers trembling over my mouth as the tree loses its fight with gravity and crashes onto the porch with full force.
“Oh my God!” Ruby cries out as the wood crumbles underneath the weight. Vases and pots shatter before something big sails through the air.
A surfboard.
We all gape like idiots as the heavy thing shoots by, high and wide as if it didn’t weigh more than a water ball. I’m too stunned to go apeshit on Skyla for leaving it outside, watching with a crumpled face as the board targets my car and—smack!—drills its fin into the windshield.
To finalize the horror movie, another lightning bolt cracks before all the lights go out, plunging everything into complete darkness.
I was right. This is the end of the world.
Because my world just crumbled, and now I’m staring at the broken pieces.
Four
Matthew
My wardrobe mirrors my existence, I realize when I throw another bunch of T-shirts and jeans into my bag. Used, washed-out, and mostly torn to a point they would better serve as cleaning rags. N
ot that I need to make an impression in front of Christina Robinson (my face, ass, and biceps have already done the job, it seems), but I’d rather not look homeless until I’m not actually, well, homeless.
I make a mental note to buy some clothes on my way to West Palm Beach. Christina already called to let me know that a ribeye steak will be waiting for me when I arrive, so no need to save my money today for a stale sandwich.
I zip up my bag, grab my stuff, and head out to my truck. After tossing in my bag and my gardening tools, I slam down the trunk lid and trudge back into the house where the familiar scent of orange-ginger soup wafts from the kitchen. Sofia hums some South-American childhood song when I approach. She steals a glance at me over the rim of her steamy glasses, angling her head away from the pot on the stove.
I prop my hip against the counter. “You’re sure you can manage on your own while I’m gone?”
She arcs an eyebrow. “I raised three kids after my husband died, Matthew, and most of the time, I didn’t have a roof over my head.”
I chew at the inside of my cheek. As opposed to Dad, I suppose her kids were less likely to set the house on fire, nor did they take a shit in the shower because they mistook it for the toilet.
She stems a hand on her hip, giving me a critical once-over. “I’ve got this, boy. You better worry about me kicking your ass when you don’t come back sober.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” I give her a peck on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a few days.”
After leaving Sofia to her soup, I follow the petulant murmurs coming from Dad’s bedroom. My chest caves as I pop my head through the crack in the door to watch his pitiful, crumpled body slouching at the edge of the bed as he insults the wall.
“You had no right to take Tegan from me, Samantha,” he spits, pulling at his hair until he’s close to tearing out the roots. His feet bounce restlessly on the floor, a silent warning that he’s a loose cannon to go off any second. “You had no… no right… couldn’t just leave me like that…”
Swallowing down the uncomfortable lump in my throat, I enter the room and circle the bed. He clasps the framed picture in his hands so tightly, his thin knuckles tremble, narrowed eyes honed in on the only evidence left that we were once a happy family. He doesn’t acknowledge me. He’s totally oblivious to my presence, even when I stop beside him and crouch down.
“Matthew needs you,” he rambles on, breathing audibly through his nose. “He’s just a kid, he… I can’t…”
And just like that, his behavior switches from slightly unhinged to full-blown explosive.
With a yelp, he smashes the picture against the wall. His hand misses my bandaged ear by an inch. Glass shatters, and before all shards have rained down onto the floor, he flings the next available object through the air.
My hands shoot out to grab his twitchy fingers. Sweaty, trembling palms press into mine as his contemptible gaze finally focuses on my face.
“I’m going to cut her out of my will, Matthew,” he seethes. “I’m going to bequeath the plantation to you, and you alone. Samantha doesn’t deserve… she doesn’t deserve it.”
The words lodge in his throat as he shakes his head so vigorously, the wispy hair on his head flies with the motion. I put both hands on his craggy cheeks. His face droops, all the anger leaving him like a balloon losing air. A contrite expression cascades over his features only for a second before his shoulders slump, turning him into the torpid man who’s as unreachable as a corpse. Whatever I’m about to say, it won’t trigger a synapse in his dysfunctional brain.
I expel a trembling breath as his eyes zone out, lips twitching with unintelligible words. Sometimes I want to save him, sometimes I want to kill him, but most times I want to rip out my cruel, sludgy-with-guilt heart for not loving him as much as I should. For not doing more than pitying his miserable existence and letting the gruesome words that tend to tumble over his cracked lips give me sleepless nights instead of putting it down to what it is—a horrid, god-awful sickness.
As I hear hurried footsteps seep from the hallway, I press a kiss onto Dad’s sweaty forehead. His fingers have already loosened around mine, sagging down onto the mattress as he stares at the wall, straight at a memory I can’t see.
Sofia comes rushing into the room with a broom in hand and wordlessly starts to sweep the floor. I pick up the ring box Dad has thrown in his rage. Absently, I shove it into my jeans pocket. If the shit hits the fan, I’d rather sell Mom’s engagement ring for a few hundred bucks than have Dad drowning it in the toilet along with his teeth.
“Go.” Sofia shares a pained glance with me.
With a curt nod, I make my exit, leaving my fading Dad and dying plantation behind me.
I take a generous sip from my flask as “Simple Man” by Shinedown blares through the radio. Propping my elbow on the open window, I let the hot sun burn my arm as I leave Tampa behind me.
And before I know it, my flask is empty.
With a grunt, I tuck it into my breast pocket. Perhaps I would have never started to drink if Dad hadn’t shoved a beer into my palm on my fourteenth birthday. Perhaps I would have never gotten addicted if Dad hadn’t had friends who owned breweries.
During the day, he worked himself into a frenzy. During the evening, he drank himself into a coma. Occasionally, he fell asleep on the plantation underneath his orange trees. Mom and I would search for him for hours. Tegan was still a baby, but I was old enough to know that my parents’ heavy arguments would sooner or later lead to a divorce.
And that divorce came—right after Dad was so shit-faced one night, he thrust his dick into the wrong wife. At the drop of a hat, the knife called Family Court cut our family in two. Mom moved away with Tegan, I stayed with Dad. He was rough, oppressive, and strict to a fault, but he taught me more than a college could have ever achieved, and I loved life on the plantation too much to leave with Mom. A decision I’m slowly starting to regret, but how the fuck should I have known at the age of ten?
Sofia fears I’m going to end up like him, but he had a blooming business when he was my age and a wife on top. My relationships so far have been as stable as high school flings. The few women that didn’t write me off because I was a simple farmer wooed me into their beds when they found out that a well-working orange plantation means a fat inheritance. But news travels fast, and the chicks in town that licked their lips whenever I passed have been throwing head shakes and dismissive looks at me ever since word came out that Florida’s orange industry has expired.
Three-thousand per week, I repeat in my head when I arrive at West Palm Beach and slide my pick-up into a parking spot in front of a thrift store. A few weeks of trimming Christina Robinson’s hedges (the ones in her garden), and I can invest in the first batch of new trees. If I’m lucky, I can dip my dick into her daughter’s hole once a week, too.
With my spirits slightly lifted, I waltz into the thrift store that is about the size of my plantation. The place is jam-packed with bargain hunters fumbling through the endless racks of clothing, reminding me that I’m not on the eastern outskirts of Tampa anymore but in the middle of a busy, hectic city.
I beeline for the flannel shirts hanging at the opposite wall, making my way through the narrow aisles. A girl blocks my way, fumbling lazily through the women’s tops right next to the stuff I’m looking for. Thankfully, the buzz of her phone makes her pull it out and turn around the corner.
I feather my fingers through the soft fabrics, trying to decide if blue-orange checkers suit me, when an agitated voice from a few feet behind me disrupts my thoughts.
“What do you mean the insurance won’t cover anything?”
I throw a look over my shoulder as the blonde from before slams a top back onto the rack, her face paling.
“Are you fucking serious?” she hisses into the speaker before she realizes she’s not alone in the store and lowers her voice. “So, it’s my fault the tree toppled over, or what?”
She rakes a hand through her hair, which only
messes up the bun at the top of her head.
“No, I’ll give them a run for their money. You will see to it that my insurance will have my back here. I’ll call you back later, and then you better have good news for me, or I’m going to kick your ass until you need to sit on an inflatable cushion for a week.” She hangs up with a huff.
I snort into my beard when I turn my focus back to my clothes selection. Poor girl deserves my pity, but I’ve been unable to express that emotion ever since Sofia showed me a print-out of last year’s annual balance.
Half an hour later, I queue up in the mile-long line that has formed in front of the counter, a heap of clothes draped over my shoulder. A heavy sigh escapes the girl in front of me, and the messy bun wobbling at my nose level makes me realize that she’s the girl that threatened to rip her insurance agent a new one.
With a bunch of clothes stuffed under her left arm, she taps her right thumb onto her phone while I marvel at the golden highlights in her hair shimmering in a sun ray leaking through the window. I wish she’d tear off that damn elastic and free her gorgeous hair so I can stop fantasizing about biting into her naked shoulder where her loose shirt has slid down.
God, you need to get laid, bro.
Bored, I peek at her phone. The display is a cobweb of broken glass, making it hard to see what she’s reading, but when she scrolls down, a black, fat headline comes into view.
Tip 14 - Other women’s masturbation habits to take inspiration from
A slow, evil grin tugs across my face, and I clamp my lips together so as not to snort into her hair. Her thumb hovers over the ‘Click here’ button as if debating whether or not to trust Vogue’s tips on how to flick her bean the right way. In the end, I can’t help but lean down and swing a comment with exaggerated casualness her way.
