Under the Boardwalk

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "Hold my hand," Kyle said. Hallie instinctively shoved her hands in her pockets. "I'm serious." His breath made white puffs in the headlights' glare. "I don't want you tripping going down the hill. You've been dizzy." Reluctantly, she gave him her hand.

  She knew her hand must feel weird to him, all rough and twisted, but he didn't comment on it.

  He led the way down. As they walked, Hallie could see she must have travelled through the broken railing and down a grassy hill that sloped gently for about fifty feet until it reached the wet field, where the shiny pink Bug now sat, splattered with mud.

  When they reached the bottom, he got her two cardboard boxes out of the back seat, and relocked the car.

  Kyle picked up both boxes, stacked one on top of the other. "I see you travel light."

  "Yup. Nothing more than I can carry."

  "You must have left a lot of stuff in storage. Windy came back from college with more dirty laundry than this."

  She didn't say anything, feeling for some reason ashamed to admit that these two cardboard boxes contained everything she owned in the world.

  He was standing there holding the boxes and looking at her. "Lead the way, my dear."

  Hallie reached to take a box. "Don't be ridiculous. I can carry my own stuff."

  He stepped back. "I don't want you to hurt your hands."

  "They're not crippled. They're just ugly." Her voice came out sounding angry. She wasn't angry, she told herself. It was just that her hands weren't a subject she wanted to discuss with anyone, especially not him. She reached again to take the box.

  She snatched the box away from him more roughly than she meant to, and lost her balance. He reached out to steady her with one hand before she could fall in the mud.

  "It's all right. You won't fall." The voice was soothing, and the hand on her shoulder was gentle. She felt an urge to relax into his arms and let him make everything all right, but she quickly shook it off and backed away. She didn't need his help, she didn't need his reassurance, and she didn't need him making her feel like he was going to take care of her. She knew far too well that knights in shining armor got tarnished real fast.

  "Come on," she said gruffly. She headed back to the road, leaving him to follow in her wake.

  At the top of the hill she set the box down and stopped to catch her breath. She leaned against the hood of the truck, and took deep breaths to calm herself while she listened to the incessant ticking of the truck's emergency flashers. Her hands ached from that little show of bravado. Stupid. She had nothing to prove to Kyle.

  It wasn't his fault he reminded her of things she'd rather forget. He wasn't offering to be her knight in shining armor. He was just a friendly guy who was trying to be a good host to his kid sister's roommate. "I'm sorry," she said when he caught up to her. "I didn't mean to snap at you."

  "No problem. You've had a rough day. I'm surprised you didn't slug me." He smiled. What was with these Madrigals? Didn't they ever get upset about anything?

  He picked up both boxes, and this time she didn't protest.

  He put the boxes in the back of the truck while she got in the cab. She watched while he walked across the road and slowly examined the dirt and weeds, then came back and did the same on the side with the broken railing.

  "Nothing," he said when he got in the truck. He started the engine. "I guess we're left where we started from. A lot of questions and no answers."

  Hallie looked at her own reflection in the side window. No answers.

  ~*~

  Oceanside Pizzeria seemed an apt name for the place, though it wasn't really at the ocean, but actually on the ocean itself, planted at the very end of the Pajaro Bay wharf. Its walls of plate glass windows captured views of the open water on the bay side, and of the town on the inland side. Their booth faced toward the shore, and Hallie found herself gazing out the window, fascinated. A thin fog covered the land and water, but she could see blurry lights through the mist. Brightly lit Victorian houses dotted the cliff's edge above the beach, and the wharf itself was a ribbon of light snaking back toward the shore. But the village, in fact the entire skyline it seemed, was dominated by the multicolored, constantly swirling glow of the massive roller coaster and towering Ferris wheel of Pajaro Beach right down on the sand itself.

  "You really own it?" she asked.

  "Yup. We own half the town," Chris said cheerfully. He was a slender echo of his big brother, tall and lanky, but without lines around his eyes. He sat drumming on the tabletop with a pair of breadsticks with the same restless energy that Hallie supposed time and responsibility had muted just a bit in Kyle.

  Kyle raised his eyebrows at Chris, and Chris immediately put his "drumsticks" back on his plate.

  "If you own half the town how come you work sweeping floors for minimum wage?"

  "We're flat broke," said Chris. "Well, not really," he amended after a glance at Kyle. "We're pretty comfortable. But we're land-poor, you see. We'd have money if we sold something, but what could we sell?"

  "The unicorns or the roller coaster. Yeah, I see what you mean."

  "Exactly."

  "The land this town was built on was originally part of the Madrigal Rancho, but our ancestors sold it off in chunks over the years," Kyle explained. "Now we're left with about 800 acres of the ranch itself up on the mountain, a few downtown businesses, and the amusement park." He smiled. "Don't take Chris's sob-story too seriously. We're turning profits on both the ranch and the park—he's just got Ferrari tastes and a '78 Datsun budget, and he's not getting anything he doesn't work for."

  "Spoken like a responsible guardian," Hallie said.

  "Hmph," Chris snorted. Then he added, "Kyle was gonna sell Pajaro Beach. When we were just kids. But he changed his mind."

  "After the fire," Kyle said. "Did Windy tell you?" She saw sadness in his eyes; for the first time his unstoppable good cheer gave way.

  "Our parents died, you know," Chris said. "When we were babies. The fire wiped out the whole south half of the park—the log ride, an antique Ferris wheel and carousel, some funky old bumper cars." He munched on his breadstick. "It's all been rebuilt now, of course. That big Ferris wheel's new." He pointed out the window.

  "Doesn't it bother you to work there?" she asked.

  "Of course not. Their ghosts are there."

  "Ghosts?"

  Kyle's smile was back. "My great-grandmother planted the cherry trees—remember, the ones the white deer was munching on?—just before she died. Our barn is filled with all kinds of odd stuff our grandfather collected—Windy'll corral you into a tour of her favorite bits of it before the summer's over—"

  "—And the park was our great-grandfather's grand scheme to get tourists to come here back at the turn of the century," Chris finished the thought. "The merry-go-round he ordered from back East arrived the day his first son was stillborn, in 1927. Then our parents died trying to save the park he built. See? We're surrounded by ghosts."

  "How sad."

  Kyle smiled. "Life goes on. You can't mourn forever. We're all surrounded by the ghosts of our pasts."

  "What's that a quote from?" Chris asked idly.

  "Heck if I know. Hey, Matt," Kyle said. A man with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail and somber brown eyes looked up from across the room. "What's a guy gotta do to get something to eat around here?"

  The man came over, an intimidating, almost ninja-looking guy. Hallie sat back in her chair and put her hands in her lap.

  "You might try introducing me to the lovely lady." He smiled, but his eyes, fathomlessly dark, just frightened her.

  "Ah. Matt DiPietro, this is Hallie Reed. She's mine," Kyle added in a stage whisper.

  Hallie tried to smile at the scary dude. "Nice to meet you."

  "The pleasure's all mine, Hallie. Listen," he added in his own loud whisper, "you wanna dump these bums and run off with a handsome restaurateur?"

  She looked down at the table.

  "I can offer wealth beyond meas
ure and extra cheese on every pizza, what do you say?"

  Kyle waved him off with a laugh. "She's had a rotten day, give her a break."

  "Okay, I give up. You're stuck with the worthless bums. Now, what'll it be, guys?"

  "No anchovies, right—what about onions?" Kyle asked Hallie.

  "I love onions—if that's okay?"

  "Whatever you want's okay—I told you, Chris has a cast-iron stomach."

  Chris chuckled.

  Kyle turned to Matt. "You heard the lady."

  "Yup. One extra-large with extra everything—and onions—coming up." He disappeared into the crowd.

  ~*~

  Kyle watched Hallie as she ate. He watched her delicate hands, covered in thin white scars like a cobweb etched across the translucent skin. He watched how she wrinkled her nose when she took a bite of peppery sausage, and how she listened with rapt attention while Chris told her one after another of the far-fetched stories of local heroes and rascals. He noticed the way her eyes widened in childlike wonder as she looked out the window at the lights of the amusement park. There was a gentle, innocent dreamer inside that tough shell, but the ghosts of her past were crowding close around her, stopping her from giving in to her true nature.

  He thought about her namesake, the fearless and arrogant tortoiseshell cat they'd found orphaned years earlier. Its mother had lost a horrible fight with a raccoon, and the kitten had survived by burying herself deep in a woodpile until the predator had gone. When he'd let the little fur ball loose in the house, she'd given him one last scratch to add to the rest she'd inflicted during her capture, and then scrambled for cover behind the washing machine, apparently never to be seen again. He'd tossed a fluffy towel behind the machine for her to sleep on, placed food and water and litter box close by, and bandaged his wounds.

  For weeks the only signs the little creature was alive were the empty food dishes and dirty litter box. Then, after a while, they began to hear noises in the house during the night. When anyone had gone to investigate, they'd seen a black-and-orange streak heading for the washing machine.

  Slowly the kitten grew more trusting, and eventually allowed herself to be held and petted, but she'd still struggle wildly and scratch if she was startled.

  Months later, Kyle had caught the cat with one of his socks in her mouth, cheerfully tearing holes in it with her teeth. He'd yelled at her, but Halloween just stared at him, as if to say, "you've gotta be kidding, mister. I know you're all bluff," and ripped another hole in the sock, purring all the while.

  Kyle watched Hallie finish the last of her pizza.

  "Do you want another slice?" Kyle asked.

  Hallie shook her head. "I couldn't eat one more piece if my life depended on it. Oh, my poor stomach. Give it to Chris."

  "He's busy," Kyle said with a smile.

  Chris was staring at another booth across the restaurant. Kyle and Hallie both turned to see half a dozen teenagers crowding the booth, including one slender blonde who smiled shyly back at them.

  "Don't look, guys!" Chris whispered. "You're embarrassing me!"

  Kyle chuckled. "So go talk to her."

  Chris took a swig of his soda like a gunslinger downing one before the big shootout. "Okay," he said. He didn't move.

  Kyle laughed. "You want me to go over and break the ice?"

  Chris stood up abruptly. "I'm going, I'm going."

  Kyle watched Hallie turn to her cup of coffee, taking a sugar packet from the dispenser. He said nothing as she struggled to open the packet. Her fingers didn't seem to cooperate, but she was persistent, and he didn't dare offer to open the sugar for her. Finally, after what seemed a long time, she succeeded, and tore the paper packet open, poured it into her coffee, then took a sip.

  She glanced up at him. He looked away so wouldn't see he'd been watching her. She could take care of herself, she'd said, and she was right. She'd survived whatever vicious predator had taken away her trust, but most importantly, he knew that the gentle, innocent part of her, the part that made her special, the part that seemed to draw him closer with every breath, had survived. It was buried deep inside, but it was still there. He vowed then and there that one day she'd show the world that part of her, without fear, and he'd be there to see it.

  "Chris is a good kid," Hallie said, and he noticed she was watching him.

  "They all are," Kyle agreed. "Wait'll you meet Zac...." His voice trailed off.

  "What?" she asked. "Tomato sauce on my chin?"

  He laughed. "No. I was just thinking. You remind me of Zac, somehow."

  Hallie raised an eyebrow. "If he's Chris's twin, I don't see the connection. I'm nothing like Chris." She tapped her fingertips on the table. "See? No sense of rhythm."

  Kyle laughed again. "Yeah. I can tell. No, Zac and Chris are fraternal twins, not identical. They're really different from each other." He took another drink of his soda. "It's the hardest part of parenting—letting each one find his own way without my interfering too much."

  "Oh. The 'mission in life' thing." She smiled as she said it. Somehow the good meal and warm restaurant had relaxed her.

  "Yeah," he said. "That silly old thing." He winked. "It's really true, you know. No two people are alike. Zac is almost as tall as Chris, but he'll never be a basketball player."

  "So what'll Zac be? An over-age college student like me?"

  "I don't know," Kyle said, watching her, entranced. Her brown eyes sparkled in the lamplight, beautiful yet wary. "He has the soul of a poet."

  She laughed. "Oh. Just like me." She picked up a stray slice of pepperoni from her plate and bit into it. "I've never written a poem in my life."

  "That's not what I meant," Kyle said seriously. "Zac's a dreamer—"

  "—well, if you're going to be insulting...."

  "That's insulting?" Kyle wondered again what had happened in her life to make her so cynical. "Sorry. Maybe I'm wrong. It's just an impression I got from the way Windy described you, and from watching you." He pushed his plate aside and rested his elbows on the table. "Anyway, Zac is a dreamer—in the best sense of the word. He has a vivid imagination and sees romance in everything. His main thing is history—family history, the history of this area, from the days of the Ochoa Indians to the conquistadores and cowboys and California dreamers right up to the present day. Even at fifteen, he already knows more than anyone around about all of this—even Windy." He nodded out the window at the sparkling shoreline. "He can probably tell you who lived in any one of those old houses at any time in the past hundred years."

  Hallie looked out the window, eyes wide and wondering, as if her mind was filled with images of dusty cattle trails and strange, proud people gazing out across this same land in distant centuries. She shook her head. He watched her pull her imagination back, tamping it down again. "But what's he going to do with it?" she asked.

  "Do?"

  "For a living."

  "He's only fifteen. He can explore and dream now. Eventually—"

  "—He'll find his calling in life," she finished.

  Kyle laughed and shook his head. "You say it like it's a curse. Okay, you win. Practicality makes much more sense. Let's go home and find you someplace practical to sleep—I think I've got some old boards in the barn that'll make a no-frills bed."

  ~*~

  The bed turned out to be of wrought iron, piled high with an overstuffed mattress and antique quilts. It had been a Spanish general's traveling bed, Kyle had told her when he showed her the tiny attic bedroom. The room's walls were like all the rancho's, thick adobe blocks painted cream. Unlike the clutter downstairs, these walls were bare except for a carved figure of a saint nestled in a niche above the door, and some shelves of gnarled wood in one corner. The only furnishings were a small trunk of dark-stained wood with Chinese-looking carvings, and the amazing bed.

  The bed had a canopy of curved metal pieces that arched up to brush against the room's ceiling. "How on earth did you get it in here?" she'd asked, looking skeptically at the
room's low door, and the single deep window under the eaves.

  "Zac'll tell you all about it when you meet him tomorrow," Kyle had said before leaving her to unpack.

  Every time Kyle mentioned "his kids," there was so much pride in his voice. He was so at home here, running the ranch and caring for the kids. She felt a knot in her stomach—what was that like? To have someone consider you important? To have someone proud of you?

  She opened up her two boxes filled with everything she owned in the world. Her few clothes fit easily into the small trunk. She lifted her last sweater out of the box, and there underneath it lay a dappled grey pony.

  She picked up the little wooden figure and felt the tears spill down her cheeks. Wow. She'd thought she was done crying over it. But the day had been long, and exhausting, and she didn't have the strength to hold back the tears now.

  The pony was the only one of her carvings to survive the last night of her marriage. She clutched it to her chest, stroking the smooth wood with her scarred hands.

  A dreamer, Kyle had called her, not realizing what an insult that actually was. Her foolish dreams had led her to think her life could be a fairy tale.

  She wondered what her life would have been like if someone had believed in her like Kyle believed in Zac, Chris, and Windy. She thought of her own life at fifteen. That last foster home.... She closed her eyes, as if that would shut out the echoing in her ears. You worthless brat! Get back to work! Aging out of the foster care system had seemed like the key to freedom. Once she turned eighteen, she was on her own, without a backward glance, without a soul in the world to root for her or even care if she lived or died. And yet she'd thought she'd live happily ever after anyway.

  She looked down at her hands. She'd run from one mess right into another. If only she'd had the good sense back then to be practical. If she'd just been logical, kept her head down, and concentrated on surviving, everything would have been different.

  She wouldn't have fallen for David Cooper.

  He had seemed like her prince charming when he'd come into the restaurant where she worked. He'd flattered her, complimented her, then offered her a way out, an escape to a better life. He had used her dreams to trap her, offering security and promises of love to a scared teenager. It had been years before she'd realized the promises he'd made were a trap, and that the only dreams he cared about were his own.