by Tom Hogan
Donna pushed her gently. “Well, if he isn’t, there’s always Paul.” She giggled slightly. “God, listen to us. We’re like a couple of high school girls.”
“Talking about those cute Clements boys. Which of them has the nicer smile. Or nicer buns.” She sighed slightly. “Life would be a helluva lot easier if all men were as uncomplicated as Paul.”
“What’s your take on him? With all his comings and goings and everything going on in my life, I’ve never had a chance to know him that well.”
“He’s the most charming SOB I’ve ever met. And, unlike his brother, he’s obvious.”
Donna was quiet for a moment. “If I’m intruding, tell me. But did Paul make a play for you?”
“A little one.”
“What did you do?”
“Told him I wasn’t interested.”
“How’d he take it?”
“I think he was surprised. I’m sure he thought he was throwing me a bone—I mean, hell, I’m not exactly in the same league as the women he runs with—so it surprised him when I threw it back.” She shrugged. “Hell, it surprised me, to tell you the truth.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because if I’d slept with him, it would either have been to get Josh jealous or because it would be as close as I was going to get to what it would be like to be with Josh. Neither one made me feel too good about myself.”
CHAPTER 39
It was two months later and Josh was sitting on the steps of the L. Rolling a bottle of beer between his palms, he stared out over the treeline at the beginnings of a late May sunset. Mollie lay at his feet, splayed in the last corner of sunlight.
For Happy Hour, Moetown was uncharacteristically deserted. Lucky was down in San Tomas playing lo-ball. Donna was in Kinsella with William, helping pick out furniture for his new office. Clark and Zeke were camping up in Oregon, and Carol was on location in Boston with Paul.
As the sun vanished over the trees, Mollie stirred, then sat up, her fur up, a low growl hanging around her throat, ready to leap. Then she recognized Alexis and her tail moved from straight-up to side-to-side.
Alexis stopped in front of Josh. She was dressed for her shift. “You eat yet?”
He shook his head. “A little early. What time is it, anyway?”
“A little after six.” She looked around at the cabins, then down at her feet. “Listen. I need to ask a favor. Would you ride with me tonight?”
He leaned forward. “Is someone giving you trouble?”
“Something like that.” She saw him hesitate. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
They spent the first hour talking about Donna, how she was slowly gaining weight, how she seemed to be making a conscious effort to rejoin the community, and how sad it still was to watch. She and Mollie had begun joining Clark and Zeke most mornings on their walks. Afternoons she spent with Carol, trying to restart work on the book. It was difficult, frustrating going, with little to show for all the hours of effort. But she was trying. And, in a move that caught everyone by surprise, she had recently volunteered to join the legal team of a Kinsella woman accused of murdering her husband, a man who had abused her for most of their twelve years of marriage.
“Remember when we were driving down to the hospital to pick her up?” Alexis said. “I asked you if you thought she was going to turn the corner?” He nodded. “What’s your take now?”
“Do I think she’ll try to kill herself again? No. But I don’t think she’ll make it all the way back, to be the Donna we knew before all this.”
“Why not? I feel like I made it back from my brother’s death. And I’m sure there have been tragedies in your life…”
“Your brother was part of your life, part of your heart, I’m sure. But Pete and Harry—they pulled her back from a darkness. And now that darkness is back, except it’s far darker than either you or I can imagine.”
“No chance she’ll ever get involved with someone else?”
“Like who?”
“Well,” she looked embarrassed. “What about Clark?”
He shook his head sadly. “Only in the movies.”
The evening began with a number of in-town short hops in Kinsella. Then one of her business clients needed one of their team taken over the mountain to San Tomas, a thirty-dollar fare. When she dropped him, she looked at her watch. “It’s eight o’clock. Ready for dinner?” He nodded. “Mexican? I’m buying.”
She clicked her radio. “Twenty-one.”
“Go ahead, two-one.”
“I’m going dark for an hour. Anyone up in San Tomas?”
“Only you and Tony, and he’s about to call it a day.”
“Okay, I’ll be at Manolo’s, but only call me if there’s an airport run.”
“Done.”
They settled into a corner booth. Josh ordered a beer, Alexis a club soda with orange juice. The drinks came immediately, before they even had a chance to look at the menus.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
Alexis frowned slightly and tapped the formica tabletop with her fingertips. Then she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope and placed it on the table between them. “This came four days ago. From my ex-husband.”
He looked at the envelope. “What’s he want?”
“Me. Back.”
Josh put down the beer. “My,” he said, his quiet voice matching hers.
“Yeah. Serious business.”
“What’s he want? Specifically.”
“To give it another shot. Says he’s a changed man, that it took him a while, but he finally knows what’s important.” She raised her glass. “And I’m a big part of it.”
Josh raised his chin, nodding at the envelope. “Do you believe him?”
“I do. You live with someone, you get a feel for where the truth ends and the lies begin. My folks say he’s changed, too. Say he’s not the go-go career boy any more, that they actually enjoy his company.” She looked up. “He visits them when he’s in town.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.” She looked up and a bark of a laugh escaped her lips. She covered her smile with her hand. “I’m sorry, Josh, but you should have seen your face just now.” She patted his hand. “Relax. I’m not hitting on you. I just need your help with this.”
They leaned back as the waiter arrived with their plates. After he left, Josh took a long sip of beer. “I don’t see what help I can be. I don’t know you that well. And I don’t know your husband at all.”
“Ex-husband.”
“Ex-husband.”
She nodded at the envelope. “That letter confused me. And I don’t like being confused.”
She nodded to the waiter as he refilled her drink. “I’m trying to avoid sounding like a cliché here, but I’m trying to figure out the difference between being alone and being lonely. The first one doesn’t bother me—I like being alone a lot of the time. But the second one does bother me—it’s not what I want to be, it’s not who I want to be.”
She motioned at his plate. “Go ahead. Eat.” She picked up her fork and picked at her chile verde, flaking the meat idly. Then she took a bite. “What I realized is that, if I say no to Scott and stay here, I’m pretty much saying that I’m willing to go through the rest of my life alone.”
“And would that be a bad thing?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I love being here with you guys. And maybe the camp goes on forever, until we’re all in walkers and gumming William’s tuna casserole. But I’m not sure I want to wake up alone each morning for the next thirty years, no matter how full the rest of the day might be.”
Josh took a forkful of beans and rice and washed it down. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”
“If it’s worth it. You’re the only one around here who seems to have made that conscious decision, to spend the rest of your life alone.”
“What about William?”
She shook her head. “William’s going to get married again. He misses it, you can tell. And with his clientele he’ll have lots of opportunity, once he’s ready.” Her eyes tightened on his face. “I’m asking you.”
Josh took his time. His eyes seemed to lose their focus and turn inward. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and idly thumbed his beard. He sat that way long enough that the waiter came over to see if everything was alright. Alexis gently waved him away.
Finally, through his fingers, he said, “This decision you’re making, it’s for yourself. That makes it a positive decision. My decision was a negative one—it wasn’t about myself but about other people. And that’s all I’ll say about it.”
She put down her fork. “I’m sorry, Josh. Normally I’d just nod at that and let you get away with that cryptic answer. But tonight I need more. Please.”
He took in a long breath and let it out. Grudgingly. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, let’s start with ‘are you happy?’”
“Yes. My life is filled with great people. That life had a hole in it while my brother was inside. But now I’ve got him back. So yes, I’m happy.”
“And that’s enough for you?”
“It has to be. Anything else would be too…” He looked off. “…dangerous.”
“Dangerous for who?”
He motioned for another beer and didn’t speak until the waiter brought it. “I’m going to say this once, and no questions, okay?” He gave her a hard, expectant stare. “Okay?” When she nodded, he continued. “A long time ago, I did something I’m ashamed of to this day. And don’t ask me what it was.”
He looked at her as if he was expecting an argument, but she stayed quiet. “What I did showed me a black side I didn’t know I had. There’s no other way to describe it—a black side. And it told me that any woman who got involved with me would be in danger.” She shifted in her seat and leaned forward, but he shook his head. “We agreed. No questions.”
“Then I’ll make a statement. I know enough to guess that we’re talking about something that happened back in Baltimore. I don’t need to know what it was, but damn, Josh, that was twenty years ago.”
He tried to smile, but it came out crooked. “You said earlier you didn’t want to sound like a cliché. Now it’s my turn. Some things…” He looked off. “There isn’t a statute of limitations on some of the things we do.”
At ten-thirty, Alexis pulled up in front of the card club. “Do me a favor,” she said, leaving the engine running. “Go in and see how Lucky’s doing. Sometimes, if he’s losing, he has a couple of drinks to break his rhythm. If I’m over on this side, I’ll come get him at the end of my shift. If he’s winning, it’s club soda, and he’s on his own.”
When Josh came back a few minutes later, Alexis was standing next to the Cadillac, her back to Josh. She was talking to a denim-clad man who kept leaning closer to her as he spoke. Their voices, but not their words, carried. Josh stepped up his pace and drew nearer. The man hesitated for a moment at Josh’s approach, then turned away.
“What was that all about?” he said as they got back into the car.
“A fare who wanted to go to a remote location. Until he saw you. How’s Lucky doing?”
“Club soda and a nice stack in front of him.” He nodded towards the departing man. “You get many like him?”
“A few.”
“How do you deal with them?”
“Mostly you learn to read them before they get in the car. Most times you can.”
“And when you can’t?”
“I’ve got something worked out with my dispatcher. If something doesn’t feel right, I call in the destination and, instead of saying ‘over’ at the end, I say ‘out.’ The dispatcher then tells me I’ve got an emergency at home and we have one of the other cabs meet us at a nearby corner and I transfer the fare. Most times I’m wrong and the fare continues to that address. But sometimes they change where they’re going once they’ve got a male driver.”
They rode for a while in silence, the darkness wrapped around the cab. “You’re trusting a lot in that first read, aren’t you?”
“I guess so, but what am I supposed to do? Look for another line of work? Besides, I’m pretty good at it, as my track record shows.”
“True, but it only takes one time being wrong.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m pretty good at sizing someone up.”
Josh looked at the stranger who had approached Alexis, now long down the street. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“What if I got into your car and asked you to take me to one of those remote locations?”
“I’d take you.”
“Even after tonight?”
“Especially after tonight.”
CHAPTER 40
Josh took three strong strokes and caught the wave at its crest. As the face of the wave sucked up the water beneath it, he stuck out his left arm and carved an angle down the eight-foot wall of unbroken water. As the water shallowed, the rocks and coral beckoned, large and sharp.
The exploding white water behind him grabbed at his fin. Now at a forty-five degree angle to the breaking wave, he knifed to the bottom of the wave. Then, as the wave lost its curve and thundered over into a crushing wall, he ducked his shoulder into the watery wall and slipped out the back.
Thirty yards closer to shore, where the rocks gave way to sand, Paul stood waist-deep, his fin dangling from his wrist. When Josh’s head popped up, a smile playing on his lips, Paul cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “I’m going in.” Josh nodded and held up a single finger, pointing out at the open water.
It was unseasonably warm for May. The temperature had been in the 90s for the past two weeks, causing early fire alerts for the mountain communities. Josh and Paul, who had been up in the camp for the entire heat wave, had spent the morning with Clark and the others, clearing back the drying bush that surrounded the camp and widening the firebreak that circle it an additional twenty yards
When Clark called a lunch break, Josh had proposed taking the rest of the afternoon off and doing a few hours around dinnertime. Given the heat, the camp had been eating at eight or nine each evening, so that still left three hours of work if they got going at five. Clark looked up at the sun, then over at William and Lucky, leaning heavily on their shovels. “Back at five.”
A series of storms originating in Mexico had raised the water temperature into the low 60s. It also brought steady surf that had been increasing in size for the three hours the brothers had been at the beach. As Paul watched from the shore, Josh stroked into the largest wave of the day, a solid 10-foot wall that massed in a single length, rather than the curling motion of the previous waves. Paul watched as Josh pulled his head up slightly, assessed his situation, and took a hard, diving line down the face of the wave.
Halfway down, the wave collapsed, leaving Josh no escape. The lip of the wave caught him and threw him to its bottom, driving him viciously beneath the surface. When Josh didn’t immediately surface, Paul started walking towards the water. When over twenty seconds passed and still no sign, he started running, the water now up to his knees. As he bent to put on his fin, Josh’s head broke the surface, a good thirty yards from where he had gone under. Paul’s shoulders relaxed and he waved, receiving a weak gesture in response. He turned and headed back to shore to wait for Josh. But as he took his seat on the sand, he saw Josh stroking back to the take-off area.
Two locals walked up and stood near him. The taller one nodded out to the surf. “That Josh?” When Paul nodded, the man shook his head. “He’s pushing his luck today.”
The
ocean was in the relative calm between sets. Josh lay back and floated, his face turned to the sun. The second bodysurfer spoke up. “We were out this morning. Good shape and building. But the rips kept pulling us towards the cliff. We thought we’d come back at low tide and see if it had cleaned up. But that…” he nodded towards the ocean, with a large set now building on the horizon. “No thanks.”
Outside, Josh eased over the first incoming wave, then the next five. As the last and largest wave began to peak, he pivoted, letting the wave pull him up its massive face, then he took four hard strokes. Instead of taking the forty-five degree angle towards the safety of the bottom of the wave, he struck a path that kept him near the top of the wave.
“He’s going high side,” the first one said.
“Not gonna make it,” his partner said.
Paul’s entire body tensed as he watched. Josh’s position on the wave was so critical that, if he didn’t hold the line or the wave changed form, he would freefall to the bottom of the wave, where the crush could either snap his back or force him underwater long enough to drown him.
But the wave held its form, as did Josh’s line. His body, like a virtual surfboard, glided just ahead of the breaking curl for almost fifty yards. His ride now having taken him to the bottom of the wave, he ducked his shoulder as the wave finally collapsed and popped out the back of the wave.
As he leaned down in the waist-deep water to slip the fin from his foot, the three spectators collectively put their hands above their heads and clapped. He grinned back and started towards shore, moving slowly against the strong rip.
The taller man patted Paul on the shoulder. “Tell your brother he’s got more balls than brains.” And the two headed towards the parking lot. Josh finally reached the shore and shrugged off the shoulders of his wetsuit. The departing men honked at him and he waved back. Then he walked up to join Paul, who had two cold beers waiting.
Josh nodded out at the waves. “I think we found its limit today.”
