Lost In Paradise

by Allie Boniface

  Colin nodded. “I know.” He looked down at his hands. “I don't blame you if you tell me to go to hell,” he added. “I guess I probably deserve it."

  "You do.” But her voice faltered a little.

  Colin bent and brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I still love you,” he said again. “And I'll wait, however long it takes, for you to see that I'm serious. That I want us to work.” He stopped halfway down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched against the rain. “I've got a room at the Holiday Inn over by the interstate. I'll be there until tomorrow.” He paused. “And then I'm heading home. Be at the Vineyard with your folks next weekend, if you want. Or if not, then ... just call me, okay? Let me know."

  She blinked, surprised, at the kindness in his words. The sincerity. Maybe he really was sorry. She glanced back down at her left hand. Maybe it wasn't too late for a life like that, after all.

  "I'll call you,” she said.

  He nodded and jogged to his car, slipping inside and turning the wipers on high. The next moment the BMW turned the corner, just a silver streak in the distance.

  He's gone, just like Eddie. Only Colin was willing to wait for her. Eddie wouldn't even stop to let her explain. She shivered in the damp air.

  After a minute—or ten, she wasn't quite sure—Ash let herself into the house. Halfway upstairs she had to stop and catch her breath. Palms wet with perspiration, she tugged on the ring until it slipped from her finger. She held it up to the light.

  Gorgeous. And perfect, of course. She wouldn't expect less from Colin Parker. But what did it mean, really? That he still loved her? That he was sorry? That he wanted her back, along with her name, her future, and the benefits they offered him? If she sliced away his top layer, could she see through to the bottom? Was there anything in the middle? Anything past the good looks and the intelligence that made him a shoe-in for political office?

  Ash shoved the ring into her front pocket and made her way up the final few steps.

  But if I did the same thing to Eddie, what would I see there? A man too angry to trust anyone again? Someone who's happy spending his whole life bouncing in and out of beds in Paradise? Or someone who can see through the layers I wrap around myself?

  She reached for her cell phone and punched in the number for the restaurant. Sometime while Colin was on his knee and Eddie was staring across the lawn, she'd heard the church bell ring twelve times, which meant she was now officially late for work.

  "...I'll be there in ten,” she promised J.T. She walked to the front window and studied the sky, blue-black and scorched with lightning. I'll have to take the car. I can't walk in this.

  She'd bring an extra shirt, just in case she got soaked running across the parking lot. Maybe an extra pair of socks. Cataloging the things she needed to take care of in the next five minutes helped Ash keep her mind off the bigger things she had to figure out in the next twenty-four hours. Get from here to the bedroom. Then from the bedroom to the car. Then from the car to the restaurant and walk my way through each hour. I can deal with the rest later.

  Ash glanced outside. Near the curb, Eddie's motorcycle helmet lay in the rain. She started, as if the lightning outside had reached into the apartment and sizzled her. Eddie's helmet. Here. On the ground. Not on his head. Not protecting him. Without stopping to put on her shoes, she ran out into the rain and retrieved it, laying it in front of his door where the rainwater puddled beside it.

  Ash hated motorcycles, had lost a classmate back in high school to a violent accident. Something stole the heat from her face as she stumbled upstairs. Don't think about it. Don't think about Evan Traler back in school, or the fact that they had a closed casket because his face peeled off when he hit the pavement going eighty miles per hour without a helmet.

  Without a helmet...

  Ash shook her head, as she made her way to the car and negotiated the puddles filling Main Street. Eddie has seen enough damage from careless driving to know better. He'll be careful. Right? But again she saw the look on his face when he spun away from the sidewalk. Again she heard him rev the engine and squeal the tires as he pulled away.

  He'll be fine. His brother died in a car accident, for God's sake. He's not going to put his parents through that again. She pulled into the lot behind the restaurant and nodded to herself. That thought felt right. That thought, she could believe and find comfort in.

  And when she got home from her shift, she'd go see him. Maybe they could talk rationally. Maybe she could convince him that whatever he'd seen on the porch wasn't the whole truth. Maybe, with tiny steps, they could sift through their feelings and the lies that she'd told. Maybe, just looking up at him, feeling his hands on hers again, would help her make a decision.

  The thought lifted Ash as she locked her car. Baby steps. Just get yourself through the next few hours. You'll be fine.

  She skipped over a puddle, not knowing that this time, she was wrong.

  * * * *

  Near the end of the lunch shift, the crowd at Blues and Booze finally trickled to a stop. With a single family in a booth and a couple of guys at the bar, the two waitresses headed into the kitchen. Ash leaned against the stainless steel counter, exhausted and starved. She grabbed a packet of soup crackers and realized she hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast. Since before she'd gotten the phone call from Marty. Since before she'd walked her way through town only to return home and find Colin waiting for her, with an engagement ring and a promise of forever. Crackers fell from her hand and made a yellow crumb pile on the counter. Without the distraction of taking orders and running food, the memories returned, painfully sharp. First her boss, asking her to take over as manager. Then Colin, down on one knee. Then Eddie riding away in anger. Had all of that happened just today? It seemed as though a thousand hours had passed since she woke up.

  "Everything okay?” Lacey began refilling ketchup bottles.

  "Fine."

  "I heard Marty asked you to take over full-time."

  Ash didn't answer. News travels fast. Too fast, sometimes.

  "So are you thinking about it?"

  "I never really planned on staying in town.” She grabbed a pile of napkins, fresh from the dry cleaner. “I only sublet my apartment for the summer.” Edge to edge, fold once and then twice. Her fingers followed the rhythm that had become second nature that summer.

  Lacey chuckled. “Yeah. Funny how things change, huh?"

  Ash finished folding and carried an armful of napkins to the closet. On her way back, she took a detour to the ladies’ room. She didn't feel like making conversation, even with Lacey. How was she supposed to answer Marty's question, with Colin's hanging over her? Sinking onto the toilet seat, she sighed and rubbed her legs. The ring, still in her pocket, dug into her thigh. She pulled it out. Look at it fifty different ways, think about all the things it meant she had to choose, it still was the most beautiful piece of jewelry she'd ever seen.

  "Marry me ... make me the happiest guy in the world..."

  The door banged open, and a pair of feet appeared in the stall beside her. “Ash? J.T. said Marty called, wants us to close up early today."

  "Why?” She glanced at her watch. Four thirty. She wasn't ready to go home. She wasn't ready to see Eddie, to call Colin, to make any kind of decision. She wanted to wait until the wee hours, tomorrow's dawn maybe. Not mid-afternoon of a gray, lifeless day. She flushed and made her way to the sinks, avoiding her reflection in the mirror.

  "Guess the storm's pretty bad,” Lacey said. “Shoot. I could have used the dinner shift. Lunch tips weren't so good."

  Ash lathered up twice and watched the soap swirl into the drain. I wish I could do that. I wish I could just vanish in a whirlpool until I sort out my life. Hide in a dark hole until things on the outside make sense again. She frowned. Except she'd come to Paradise with the intention of doing just that, and look where it had gotten her. Her shoulders hunched up around her ears. Maybe you couldn't ever run away from your life. Maybe the big choices did, in fact, follo
w you no matter where you went.

  Back in the bar, J.T. nodded over his cigarette when she asked about the weather.

  "Yep. Marty said the bridge to Forestburg's under water. He's stuck down in Salem overnight. Plus the news said there are a couple of accidents on the other side of town. He said to forget it, go on home."

  Ash glanced outside. Lightning sliced the street into jagged white pieces, and the rain poured down, heavier than ever. He's right. If I were calling the shots, I'd say the same thing. No use staying open. The way this weather looked, she couldn't imagine anyone in Paradise leaving the comfort of their couches.

  The telephone rang.

  "Blues and Booze,” J.T. answered. “We're getting ready to close ... oh, yeah. Hang on a minute.” He held out the receiver. “For you."

  Ash frowned. No one called her at work. No one she knew had the number. “Who is it?"

  "Dunno. Some guy."

  "That's helpful."

  J.T. shrugged and started counting his drawer.

  "Ashton Kirk?” It was a voice she didn't recognize.

  "Yes?"

  The man paused, giving way to a cough. But when he spoke again, she knew who it was. She knew before he told her his name. She knew from the way he formed his vowels. She knew from the way he dropped the end of his sentences. She knew from the way he stopped every so often, when the words became too hard to say. She knew because he spoke exactly the same way his son did.

  "Eddie's been in an accident. He's asking for you."

  Chapter Twenty-five

  A face. Blurred and dark. Eddie tried to sit up.

  "Whoa.” Two hands on his shoulders pushed him back. “Take it easy."

  He tried to ask where he was, and why the hell the lights above him were so bright, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He tried again. A mumble this time.

  In fragmented pieces, the room took shape around him. White everywhere. Shadows he couldn't make out. Noises he didn't recognize: humming and beeping and mechanical burping. Something wrapped tight around his arm. And a God-awful smell.

  Seconds later, he placed it.

  Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm in the hospital.

  He could make out different voices, some female, some male. Pain radiated from his temples to down around his ankles, and he closed his eyes again. Next time he opened them, he saw Aaron. Eddie's mouth fell open. In the doorway, dressed in the same plaid shirt and jeans he'd been wearing the night of the accident, stood his kid brother.

  "Screwed up, dinja? Mom's gonna kill you."

  Eddie squinted. “What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I'm not here, idiot.” The seventeen year old crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “I'm inside your head. Inside your dreams. Where I've been for the last three years."

  A doctor walked by Aaron—or through Aaron, Eddie thought with a shudder—peeling off his gloves as he left the room. No one else even blinked.

  "You're dead.” Eddie turned his head away. “And I must be close, if I think I'm talking to you."

  "Severe lacerations ... head trauma ... hematoma ... CAT scan and MRI ... X-ray that leg..."

  Eddie fought to hold on to the words, to the sentences that swirled around him. But he couldn't even keep his eyes open. Something pricked his arm, and warmth dripped into his veins. He stopped struggling. Even the lights didn't seem so bright anymore.

  Better. Doesn't hurt so much anymore. He turned his face back to the doorway. “Still here?"

  Aaron grinned. “You gotta tell her,” he said. His expression grew serious. “You gotta tell her how you feel."

  "Who?"

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “Who do you think? I'm seventeen, not a moron."

  "Now you're giving me advice on women?” Eddie found that if he closed his eyes, he could still talk to Aaron. Funny. And yet not so funny, after all. Maybe the people closest to you, the ones that wound the threads of their lives right through yours, belonged to you forever. Maybe somehow, you could continue to have conversations with them. Even past death. Even past hopelessness.

  "It's not hopeless,” Aaron said.

  "Stop reading my thoughts."

  "Tell her."

  "She just got engaged. I saw it. Saw Colin put the ring on her finger."

  "So?"

  "So, she's gone. She's not anybody I ever knew, anyway. Not really. And she doesn't belong in Paradise."

  "That's bullshit."

  "Yeah? What do you know?” Go to hell, Eddie thought, exhausted.

  "Already there, Bro. Same place you'll be if you spend your life wondering what would have happened if you'd had the balls to talk to her instead of running away."

  "I didn't run away.” Eddie didn't want to think about it anymore. He didn't want to hear his dead brother's voice. Didn't want to remember the anguish of saying goodbye at the grave. He felt himself melt into the bed, as if his bones had turned to liquid. As if part of him was already gone. Doesn't hurt so much, he thought. Besides, if going to sleep, if giving in to the pain and the weakness clamping down on his body meant seeing his brother again for real, then maybe dying wasn't the worst thing in the world.

  Maybe everything really did happen for a reason.

  * * * *

  "I'll give you a ride to the hospital,” Lacey offered.

  Ash shook her head and waited for the room to stop spinning. She wasn't religious, had abandoned church the summer she left for college. But as she hung up the phone, she found herself staring at her fingers, clutching the edge of the bar so hard the tips had all turned white. Would prayer work at a time like this? Did the big guy upstairs listen to people who once vowed never to set foot inside a church again?

  "No, it's okay,” she said after a minute. “I'll drive myself. I'm okay.” And she wondered if God could hear the lies she told out loud too.

  Strange, Ash thought as she pulled onto Main Street a few minutes later. She didn't think it had poured this hard all summer. Sure, maybe a quick shower here and there, but nothing so violent. Nothing that made you think Paradise itself, its streets, and its homes along with the people inside them, might be swept off the map. Her fingers shook against the steering wheel. Her stomach churned. She'd had to ask J.T. for directions to the hospital, and even though she'd written them down, she made two wrong turns and had to double back.

  "Eddie's been in an accident..."

  Again and again she heard the words of his father, the tears bubbling in his voice, the control the man fought to keep.

  My God. They've already lost one son. How can they go through it all again?

  She braked hard and swerved to avoid a car abandoned in the middle of the road. Breath hissed through her teeth, and she fought for calm. Read the directions, she told herself. Focus on one thing at a time. Okay, a turn at the blinking yellow light by the highway. A treacherous drive along aptly named River Street. A right turn by the Dairy Dome. Ash started counting breaths, to remind herself to inhale.

  Another half-mile and the modest brick building that housed South County Medical Center rose up from the fog.

  Finally.

  She steered into the visitors’ lot. Only one other vehicle occupied a spot, a brown pick-up truck with a dent in one side.

  She ran for the ER doors, which slid open as she approached. In the foyer stood an orderly. He looked her way but didn't speak. She headed for the desk. No one there.

  "Hello?” She rapped on the glass divider. After a minute a receptionist appeared, with a sweater pulled tight across her chest. For the first time, Ash realized the room was freezing. AC must be turned up full blast. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  "Eddie West?” The words turned her tongue thick in her mouth. She tried to ask something else but couldn't.

  The woman glanced at a chart. “You family?"

  Ash shook her head.

  "Can't tell you anything. Privacy laws."

  Ash backed away. Had they taken him upstairs, to another room? To surgery? She looked ar
ound the waiting area for his father. Not a soul.

  "He's asking for you..."

  That means he's okay, right? He wouldn't be talking, or coherent, if he were really that hurt. Without seeing the walls around her, she moved through the waiting room on unsteady legs. In the far corner, she sank onto a blue plastic chair. Two magazines, their covers torn off, lay on a table beside her, and a coffee pot burped in the corner. Otherwise, the place was empty. No emergencies tonight, apparently, except for Eddie. How lucky for everyone else.

  Ash closed her eyes.

  Mistake.

  Eddie's mouth on hers, his hands roaming her body, sprang to life behind her lids like it was a motion picture with a viewing audience of one. She stared at the clock above the door instead. Five o'clock. Five-oh-five. Barely the other side of afternoon. On any other day, she thought, we'd be sitting on the porch roof talking baseball. We'd be making fun of the neighbors, watching the street, telling stories. We'd be living.

  She thought back to their Fourth of July party, counting the days. Two. Four. Five. Five days ago, Eddie and Ash had danced around the porch roof. Later that night, he'd kissed her. And by the next morning, she knew she loved him, somewhere in the back of her mind where the thought was so new it hadn't even opened its eyes.

  She tried to glance through a magazine, but the words and pictures blurred. She looked back at the clock and counted the erratic clicks of its old-fashioned hands. The telephone rang. A nurse walked into the waiting room on rubbery white feet, passing Ash without a glance, as she pushed her way through the swinging glass door into the area beyond. Into the area, Ash assumed, where they looked patients over, treated their wounds, decided the next and best course of action.

  Triage, she thought after a minute. That's the word. That's the way they decide who's examined first. The one who's bleeding the most gets the bandages. But what about injuries that went below the skin? What if you couldn't see how badly you'd broken your heart until it was too late?

  "Are you Ashton?” It was a woman's voice, quiet and shaky.

  She looked up and saw Eddie's blue eyes. Her heart lurched. “Mrs. West?"