Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “So, you started it mostly for your daughter?”

  He nodded. “I taught some classes at her school for a few years when she began attending.”

  “Sign language is fascinating.”

  He nodded thoughtfully and let Disco free. She ran straight toward me and jumped through my feet attacking my flip-flops.

  “I agree. I spent years studying the language and the culture. And with Ella’s disability, it seemed a natural progression,” he shrugged.

  “None of this is impressive at all,” I said sarcastically.

  “Tara was more in tune with the Marine, I think. Her pursuit for me career-wise actually backfired.”

  “Did you see yourself in this career?”

  “I didn’t see myself as anything. I joined the Marines to buy time to figure it out.”

  “And just so happened to finish some of the hardest military training in the world?”

  Ian shrugged. “It was either that or go to college for a useless degree.”

  “Touché.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I agree with you. I am a proud owner of one of those useless degrees.”

  He winced. “Sorry.”

  “I’m not. I’m glad I’m not wasting any more time.” I nodded toward his full erase board. “So, teach me something, professor.”

  “This doesn’t interest you.”

  “Everything interests me.” I scooped up Disco and took a seat on the corner of his couch. “Were you practicing in here?”

  He scrunched his nose as if he smelled something bad. “Practicing? I don’t need practice. This is a list of lectures.”

  “Where do you teach now?”

  “Nowhere at the moment. I’m hoping for a position at my daughter’s new school.”

  “So, teach me, here, in St. Thomas.”

  Ian bit his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I know what you’re doing. Did my mother put you up to this?”

  “Yes, your mother prodded Disco to whine all night and forced me over here to snoop at your dry erase board. My education awaits, Professor Kemp.”

  “And what was your major?”

  “I got a master’s in business, got my real estate license, joined a firm and blew a $2 billion deal because I had a panic attack. I should have joined the Marines, it might have made a better woman out of me. Now, teach me something.”

  Ian looked down at me skeptically. “It’s late.”

  “I’m wide awake,” I said, eyeing the collection of books stacked on the TV stand. “If you won’t teach me anything, how about we start a book club?”

  “What do you read?”

  “Everything. Lots of historical romance lately.”

  “Really?” His demeanor changed and his shoulders relaxed. He was no longer on the defensive.

  “Yes, historical romance. What’s wrong with that? You learn something and the boy gets the girl, but not before the wide-spread panic, famine, cannibalism, cholera, the Nazis, and of course, the hurdled forty or fifty life-threatening situations.”

  Ian tilted his head back again. The rumble of his laughter my new driving force.

  “So, will you teach me how to sign?”

  “Maybe,” he said as he playfully squared his shoulders, “it depends, Mrs. Vaughn…”

  “Miss.” I pressed my lips together wondering if he remembered his remark the day we met.

  Ian’s lips twitched. He did. But he had enough tact not to stare at my miss tits.

  We shared another smile, this one was far more intimate. Awareness of the unwanted distance between us began to creep into my thoughts.

  Was I crushing on Ian Kemp? If so, I was developing a crush on the mid-life professor. And that wasn’t healthy for either of us.

  “I should go. Thank you for the lesson.”

  “I taught you nothing.”

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Professor Kemp.”

  “Koti.” His voice was glum, to say the least. I paused my feet at the door and glanced his way. “If we are going to engage in any sort of conversation, for future reference, I want honesty over everything. That’s important to me, all right?”

  I stared at my toes. “All right.” A beat passed before I could brave another a look at him. I’d become acutely aware of my body’s response to his smile, his laugh, his voice. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” He took a step forward closing the space between us and my breathing picked up. I studied the sprinkle of hair on his navel that trailed down past the button on his shorts while I savored his smell—new leather and soap—and wished for a few moments we were back in that hammock so I would be surrounded in it, in him. I blinked the thought away and cleared my throat.

  Ian seemed eager as he studied my face. “What do you want to ask me?”

  “Are you okay?”

  I braved a look and what I saw wasn’t the scorn or the ever-present bitterness he carried, it was genuine curiosity. And for the first time since Ian landed on my island, I felt like I had his undivided attention.

  “Why are you concerned about me?”

  I could have told him I was paid to be worried about him. But that really wasn’t the truth. I was paid to keep an eye on him, but that was the extent of it. My concern stemmed from somewhere else. A place I recognized, a place I felt like Ian was drowning in.

  The lump I tried to speak around kept me quiet for a few moments. And then I gave him exactly what he asked for—honesty.

  “Before I came here, I had a really shitty thing happen, the kind of thing that breaks people. I think you’re familiar with that.” He slowly nodded. “Well, I was alone—alone in a way no human should ever be—and I needed just one person to ask me that question. I was surrounded by thousands of people, but I just needed one. And I decided I wanted to be that person for you. Because I do want to know. Because I am worried for you and about you. Because you deserve to have that question asked. So, Ian, are you okay?”

  He didn’t hesitate a second. “No.”

  Tense moments passed as we stared at each other. “And what will you do with that answer, Koti?”

  “I’ll keep it in confidence. I’ll respect your need for privacy and I’ll ask you until you say you are, or you could be, or you might be someday.”

  Lost in his eyes, in the hurt they held, in the clench of his jaw, and the answer to his pain on his un-telling lips, he whispered to me. “I can’t say those things.”

  “Then I won’t stop asking you.”

  He hung his head and let out an audible breath. “It’s not your job to care about me.”

  “See, this is where I disagree.” I reached over and gripped his hand and gently squeezed it. He tensed slightly. “What made you lay next to me in that hammock?”

  “I don’t know.” He bit his lip as he browsed through his thoughts. “You were in pain. You were crying. It was the most agonizing sound I’d ever heard.”

  “Okay, well what I saw in those eyes of yours the day you got here is the worst pain I’ve ever witnessed, Ian Kemp. And it’s everybody’s job, isn’t it?”

  I slid my thumb over the top of his hand. “I mean, we are all just extras sipping coffee in the background of someone else’s life. But that could change at any second. If I wanted to, I could put my coffee down and become responsible for you. We are all responsible. We could all choose to take responsibility, couldn’t we? Human compassion. What the hell happened to that?”

  Ian pressed his brows together while I got lost in my thoughts.

  I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I finally snapped out of it and slowly pulled my hand away. Ian’s twisted face was a thing of beauty. I felt the blush creep through my cheeks at my rant and then even more so by his close scrutiny.

  “Never mind, I’m talking nonsense to you. Goodnight.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, maybe to address one of the hundred questions I saw in his eyes but kept them to himself and instead responded with a curt, “Goodni
ght.”

  Great, Koti, way to go. You sounded like a philosophical moron.

  Taking my leave, I walked across the sand and back to solitude where I felt safer with my own ramblings. I felt his watchful eyes on me from where he stood on his porch. Maybe I should have been more embarrassed and a little more careful with the words I spoke. But in the last year of my life, I’d recognized my flaws and the depth of my narcissism while I licked my own wounds. After a hard look, I didn’t like a tenth of what I’d become. I saw my flaws, my differences and discovered a few of my strengths too. I was done with certain parts of myself that were a product of expectation. And what was left was a woman who embraced vulnerability, her idiosyncrasies, her ticking clock, and treacherous body.

  In a way, I was proud for speaking up, especially to a man who was afraid to show his own defeat and weakness. If I had to write the story of my life post-apocalyptic Koti Vaughn, it would be of a story of hope.

  It would be human. And that’s all I wanted to be. Striving for perfection had cost me enough sanity.

  Chapter Twelve

  Koti

  There’s a name for human awareness and it’s called Sonder.

  The definition: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground. It’s a pocket in time, where you may redefine life by the idea of the struggle of others.

  My time in my own purgatory, battling my anxiety and the crumble of my planned future had taught me to reflect not only on my own mess but on the life of my parents and their triumphs and failures. And after that in-depth analysis where I had to forgive them and myself, I paid close attention to everyone I came in contact with. It changed me in a way I couldn’t ignore. It was a deep, emotional cleansing and one that I could never take lightly.

  Everyone, at some point in their life, gets lost in their own head, whether it be a low or high point where they are looking down at the path they’d chosen. This type of reflection led me to the train of thought that brought me to revisit my first substantial memory.

  My first foggy recollection as a child was getting stung by a wasp. I remembered being too small to open the door of my parents’ Hamptons house and the relief I felt when my mother rescued me. I remembered her quieting my cries as she looked down at me with tender eyes and a soothing voice while she sprinkled powder on my bite to get the sting out. And I remembered very little after, just the lingering feeling that I was safe.

  In searching through those memories, I remembered a bike ride on top of the handlebars and somewhere between that, a string of nights spent with my mother in bed when I got the flu. She’d kicked my father out of their room and slept with me. I could still feel her cold hands on my hot back. A few childhood friends drifted through my memories as well, not exact memories but words and gestures, indistinct moments in places I couldn’t remember. One of my classmates had died of pneumonia. She had blonde curly hair and big dimples. When she passed, I was observed by the adults around me in such a way I knew I was expected to grieve. Because of that expectation, I pretended to cry, but the concept of death was lost on me. I recall feeling bad as the casket was lowered to the ground because I felt nothing and everyone around me wasn’t pretending. Their tears were real. It was the first time I felt guilty.

  Everyone had those moments, where those bits and pieces surfaced, and memories were triggered, some of them more significant than others. Some of them a mystery as to why they stood out from the rest. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, twenty-four hours in a day. What would I remember when I was forty?

  It seemed incomprehensible no matter how well you know another person, that you could never fully understand them, and what memories they kept and why they were significant. I had no idea what my friend’s name was that passed away, no idea whose handlebars I was riding on, but I do know the most vivid childhood memory I held was the day I met Ian Kemp.

  “Good morning.”

  Ian greeted me as I stood on my back porch sipping a cup of coffee in light cotton sleep shorts and the same cami I had on the night before. The waves rolled in and crashed against the rocky shore in front of me. I was far too deep in my reverie to do anything more than lift my cup and give him a low reply. “Morning.”

  “Listen,” Ian said, stepping off his porch and making his way toward me, forcing me back into the moment. Delighted that his shirt was inevitably off, his newly tanned feet made good time between our houses. He stood on the bottom step of my porch, his back to the rail as he followed my line of sight and studied the waves with me. “Last night. You took me by surprise, but I want you to know I understood what you were saying.”

  “Okay.” I rolled my eyes as I wrapped my arms around myself, still holding my cup as a buffer between us. No matter how determined I was to be unapologetic about my newly adopted philosophies, I still felt a bit self-conscious about sharing that new part of myself, about voicing my thoughts to those who might not be so receptive or understanding.

  “There’s no reason to get defensive.”

  I shrugged, looking down at my cup. “Sorry.” I didn’t want to reveal more than I already had, but I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t slightly embarrassed. “I haven’t ever really said those things out loud. But if you are thinking I’m the weirdo hippie with healing crystals, who is walking around concerned about higher consciousness, you are barking up the right tree.”

  “You have no idea what I’m thinking,” he said softly.

  Unable to believe his sincerity, I defended myself. “I’m not some quack, you know. I lived years out there, in that world.” I gestured toward the ocean. “And I decided to unplug. A lot of people are doing it and we all have our reasons.”

  “Again,” he said, taking another step up. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve labeled me the crazy lady next door.”

  “No,” he said, taking another step and taking my cup away from me. “I don’t think you’re crazy at all. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing a little soul-searching.”

  Soul-searching?

  Soul-searching.

  I’d spent the last year inside myself, and at times questioned if I was losing my mind.

  In mere seconds he had simplified it so… perfectly.

  Soul-searching!

  I chuckled at how naïve I’d been to expect that no one else would understand what I was going through and felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Ian had just put it all into perspective in seconds.

  In that moment, I wanted to throw my arms around him in gratitude. Instead, I watched him as he took a sip of my coffee. “Oh, man this brew could kill a horse.”

  “Like it?”

  “Hell yes.”

  I grinned, and he grinned back keeping my cup in his hand. He glanced at me over the lifted cup before he spoke. “In my creative writing class, I deal with a lot of saturated minds and half of their problem is they want to expand those minds past the walls they built around themselves to become better people, better writers, but how do they do that? What tools could I give them?”

  “You can’t, right? They have to experience things for themselves, figure out how to open their own minds.”

  He nodded. “And that’s exactly what I tell them. Unless they want their intellectual palate to be the size of the box of knowledge they already possess, they have to get out there and gain some real-life experience to add to that imagination. It’s what makes the writing authentic and original.”

  “Can’t write about a broken heart as well as a broken heart can?”

  “Precisely. How do you ever really know true living if you do it vicariously?” He looked at me attentively. “And what if… what if that person sipping coffee in the background of your life, what if they,” he said pausing to take another sip, “are the next chap
ter?”

  My heart galloped as I stuttered through my next sentence. “So, w-what you’re saying,” I managed to mutter keeping my door opened for his invitation, “is that you get what I was saying.”

  He chuckled as he followed me into the house, and I pulled another mug from my cabinet pouring us both a fresh cup. We sat there wordlessly sipping for a few minutes. I glanced over at him, but his eyes remained fixed on the sea.

  “This place,” he said low before shifting his gaze to mine, “I never really appreciated how beautiful it was until now.”

  Heart hammering, I made quick work of changing the subject. Some part of me knew that I was seconds away from offering Ian more than coffee and small talk. The way he undressed me with his eyes, not only to my bare skin but deeper, had me squirming where I stood.

  “You know, Ian, you said something to me when we were kids that stuck with me.”

  “Oh?” The twinkle in his eye was gratification enough, but I still paid him the compliment.

  “You were only, what, fourteen?”

  He nodded.

  “You told me even if I was mad, or humiliated, or scared to have fun anyway.”

  He grinned at the thought, surprised. “I did?”

  I nodded. “You did. Pretty insightful for a kid who told me I didn’t have tits big enough to be called a miss.” Ian chuckled and it made my stomach flutter.

  “You made a bit of an impression on me,” I confessed, my back to him while I dug through my cabinet and threw the ingredients on the counter. Turning back to him satisfied, I saw his face light up in recognition.

  “You’re an addict,” he commented as he saw the mass amounts of chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers I kept on hand.

  “I told you, you didn’t give yourself enough credit, Professor Kemp. You taught me well.”

  He gawked at the massive pile of chocolate on my multi-colored tile island. “So, are we dining on s’mores for breakfast, then?”

  Disco chose that moment to raise the Devil’s hell from her box in his living room. “Guess not,” he said with the shake of his head.