by Jeff Shelby
“I doubt that.”
Jackson jumped up and fell backwards into the water.
“You’re probably right,” she said, smiling at her son. “He can be awful cute.”
“You get your stuff done?” I asked.
Her smile broke a bit and she ran a hand through her hair. “Um, yeah. All done.”
Her cheeks were pink, not from the heat, and her ponytail was in disarray. Something was off, but I couldn’t place it.
“He didn’t drive you nuts, did he?” she asked.
“Not at all. We had fun.”
“He can be a handful.”
“He did most of the work,” I said. “I was an assistant.”
A wave rolled in and knocked Jackson off his feet. He bounced up and flexed his tiny muscles, roaring at the water.
She shook her head. “If only he had more confidence.”
I smiled. “He’s a fun kid.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Thank you. For saying that. And for watching him. And I keep having to thank you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes. I do,” she said. “You’ve bailed me out twice in two days.”
I wanted to tell her that playing with her son was as much fun as I’d had in months, but I was fearful of the questions that might bring out. But it was the truth. Playing with Jackson was the first time I’d stopped worrying since I’d left San Diego.
“So I’m gonna need to pay you back again,” she said.
“No, you don’t.”
“I want to,” she said, touching my elbow. “For two days we've invaded your life and you’ve been nothing but kind to me and to Jackson.” She hesitated and her hand fell away. “It’s been awhile since we’ve…had that.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I watched Jackson do jumping jacks, water spraying all around him.
“Would you like to come over and have dinner with us?” she asked. “Not hamburgers from a window. But a real dinner.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t, but I’d like to and I’ll feel guilty if you don’t let me,” she said. “Plus, you live in a garage and I don’t think you’re doing a lot of cooking in there.”
I shook my head, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m off tonight,” she said. “And I’m a decent cook. I swear.”
I felt stuck. I wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t that I minded spending time with her or Jackson. I didn’t. I was enjoying their company. But I feared several hours in a confined place with anyone. Even I couldn’t do that much small talk.
“Please,” she said, touching my elbow again. “I’d really like to.”
Jackson got down on all fours and began barking at the waves, splashing around and bucking in the water. He was a very funny little boy.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come for dinner.”
THIRTEEN
Late afternoon clouds billowed in over the water and the tourists headed in early. I collected the chairs and umbrellas and locked up the shed a little after three, then headed back across the highway to the house.
The concrete guys had cut out for the day and I was anxious about going to Bella’s for dinner.
So I grabbed a shovel and a hoe and started trenching. I dug sprinkler trenches for three hours.
The sweat poured off me as I dug, the clouds providing no protection from the humidity and heat. I worked hard, pulling up the sand and clay, making sure it was deep enough to lay the PVC piping and hoses that Ike wanted in. It was physical, mindless work and when I stopped, my muscles ached and I was too tired to be anxious.
I went inside and showered away the dirt and grime from the yard. I found a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt, slid my feet into sandals, found the scrap of paper Bella had written her address down on, and headed out.
On my bike.
No phone, no car. There were definitely disadvantages to laying low.
Ike had somehow found me an old beach cruiser and left it for me. I rarely went anywhere I couldn’t walk, but based on Bella’s description of where their house was, it was too far to go it on foot. I pulled the bike around from the side of the house, pushed it out to the cul-de-sac and took off.
Sunset had dampened the humidity, but the air still felt thick and heavy as I pedaled. I went east on the highway, riding against traffic and then north over the bridge, past the massive souvenir stores and chain restaurants and into Fort Walton Beach proper. I pedaled down the boulevard, past the small boutiques and stores, and took a right into one of the old neighborhoods.
The houses were small, compact ranches on rectangle lots, the sidewalks crooked and cracked. Older cars sat in the driveways and it felt quieter and more sedate than the tourist area out on the strip.
I made a couple of turns and found their street and coasted into the driveway behind Bella’s car. I dropped the bike next to a faded Big Wheel and knocked on a beaten, metal screen door.
Feet scurried on the other side and Jackson crashed into the door.
“Noah’s here!” he yelled. “Noah’s here!”
He pushed the door open and grabbed me by the hand. “Come on! You have to see my room!”
The door banged shut behind me and Bella stepped into the living room, smoothing her hands over her yellow tank top and denim shorts. Her hair was wet and brushed straight down, a faint bit of makeup on her face.
She put her hands on her hips. “Jackson, you’re going to chase him away before we even eat.”
“I want to show him my Legos!” he yelled, still tugging on my arm.
Bella looked at me. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“You’re going to have to tolerate Legos for a few minutes, I think.”
“I’ll live.”
Jackson dragged me down a narrow hall and into a small, square room. His twin bed was made, a thin Batman comforter covering it. A small white dresser sat against one wall, a tiny matching desk against another. Bins of Legos spilled out from beneath the bed and he fell to his knees next to them.
I sat down next to him and he started talking a mile a minute, holding up and explaining a multitude of different pieces, then dropping them into a pile. He was literally shaking, he was so excited. He could barely get the words out of his mouth.
I felt Bella behind us but I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t paying attention.
“And this one, this one is like a space shuttle,” he gushed. “Like a rocket ship. The one that goes to the moon. I built it all by myself. And it has a station where it launches from. We could build it. Do you want to?”
“Jax, baby, we’re going to eat in just a few,” Bella said from the doorway.
“Awwwwww.”
“Maybe after, okay?” she said.
He looked at me. “After dinner?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
He thrust his fists in the air like he had at the beach. “Yes!”
“You clean up your pieces,” Bella said. “I’m gonna have Noah help me in the kitchen.”
“I’ll hurry!” he said, grabbing armfuls of pieces and tossing them into the bins.
Bella motioned for me to follow her and I did, back down the hallway into a small, galley kitchen.
“I figured I should rescue you,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll be in there all night.”
“He likes his Legos.”
“And then some. You want something to drink? Beer, soda, water?”
“Beer would be good.”
She opened the fridge and held up a Blue Moon. “Good?”
“Good.”
She pulled out a second, grabbed a magnetic opener off the fridge door and popped the tops on both.
She handed me one. “Hope you like lasagna.”
“I do.”
“Should be ready in about fifteen minutes,” she said. “That okay?”
“Sure.”
She led me into the living room, a tiny space sparsely f
urnished. Brown, slip-covered couch, glass-top coffee table, a scratched-up pine entertainment center with an ancient television. Most everything looked like cast-offs or items picked up at a local thrift store. But it was clean, meticulously so. We sat down on the couch and I could feel the springs through the cushion.
Bella took a long drink from her beer but kept her eyes on me. I gazed across the room, focusing on the hallway to Jackson’s room, on the door that led back into the kitchen. She kept her eyes locked on me.
“What?” I finally asked.
She pointed the neck of the beer bottle at me. “I can’t figure you out.”
“What does that mean?”
She clasped the bottle between both her hands. “You’re this big, hulking beach boy who rarely says more than five words at a time. You brood. You seem distracted. Yet, you seem totally content with being my kid’s best friend. You don’t just tolerate him. You actually…I don’t know what you call it. But you do it with him. And you live in a garage.”
I took a drink from the beer.
“So I can’t figure you out,” she said. “And I have this feeling you aren’t going to help me figure you out.”
“I’m not good at talking about myself,” I said.
“Not good is different than not wanting to,” she said. “But I get it. And it’s totally okay. I’m not prying. Well, I mean, I probably am and obviously I’m curious. But I’m not trying to push you. So I’m sorry if that’s what it seems like.”
“It’s OK,” I said, hoping she meant it.
“Plus, you’re the first guest we’ve had over since we moved in here and I sometimes manage to screw up meals, so I’m a little nervous.”
“I thought you said you were a good cook.”
She tucked her legs under her on the couch. “I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m perfect.”
“No one is.”
She pointed the bottle at me again. “True. So if it sucks, remember that.”
“I will,” I said. “But it won’t suck.”
“If you say so.”
It did not suck. It tasted fantastic, as did the garlic bread and the salad she put together. Jackson ate an entire plate full of lasagna, splashing sauce all down the front of him and around his plate. He scrambled away from the small kitchen table as soon as he was done, back to his room and his Legos.
Bella and I talked. Or rather, she talked and I listened. I learned that she was originally from Tampa and that she was an only child and that her parents divorced when she was sixteen and that her father moved to New York and married a model while her mom became a missionary and moved to the Philippines. She did a stint in community college, general education classes, then got pregnant with Jackson. Now, at 26, she had no clue what she wanted to do.
She noticeably skipped over one part of the story, though.
“Where is Jackson’s dad?” I asked after we’d done dishes and moved back to the couch.
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “He’s dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. He was awful.”
“How?”
She ran a hand through her hair, memories taking up uncomfortable space in her expression. “Just a bad guy. Everything he did, it was pretty much wrong. He hurt people. He lied. He stole.” She squinted, as if it was painful to even talk about him. “There wasn’t much good in Evan.”
I had some experience with people like that, so I believed her.
“How did he die?” I asked.
Her fingers tapped the back of the couch. “He was big-time into drugs. A bunch of other crap that I probably didn’t even know about, but he was a whatchamacallit? Like the head of a group? That was Evan. He had a pretty big thing going around Tampa. Most of the dope that came through the area apparently went through him somehow.”
Tampa was one of those places that looked glamorous on the outside because of its physical location on the bay. But I knew I’d read that its seedy underside could rival that of nearly any city in the country. If Evan was that big in Tampa, he’d been a significant player.
“Anyhow, some deal went bad, I guess,” she said, waving a hand in the air. “Bunch of guys showed up one night and shot him.”
“Were you there?”
She shook her head. “No, I was long gone. He’d already declared he wasn’t going to be a father and I’d finally gotten it through my thick head that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be hanging around a guy who always had a gun in his pants.” She laughed derisively. “Took me awhile.”
“How long were you together?”
“Off and on since high school,” she said. “I knew he was bad news then, but…but I really don’t have an excuse. My life was going to shit with my parents divorce, he was unbelievably good looking and he could be insanely charming when he wanted to be. And he liked me.” She shrugged. “I latched onto him and had a hard time letting go.”
“So Jackson never knew him?”
“Nope. And I think that’s a good thing.”
I’d gone nearly my entire lifetime without knowing my father and when I’d finally met him, I wished I never had. So I wasn’t going to argue.
“He ask about him?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I know he will someday, but he’s not at that age yet where he knows he should wonder.”
“Be honest with him,” I said. “Even if it’s not what he wants to hear.”
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and I was momentarily frozen, remembering how Liz used to make the exact same gesture.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
I blinked several times, forcing myself to focus. “I just…think it’s better not to lie.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“How’s that?”
“Seems like there’s more there,” she said, the corner of her mouth curving into a smile. “Like with damn nearly everything else about you. Just seems like there’s a lot more there.”
I didn't say anything to that, just focused on the beer in my hand. She took a sip of her own and we sat quietly for a while. It wasn't an awkward silence, but it wasn't necessarily comfortable, either.
I set my bottle on the table and stood. “I should probably go.”
She didn’t bother to hide her disappointment and for a moment, I felt guilty. She very obviously wanted the company of someone other than a little boy. But I could feel the questions forming in her head, about to find their way to her mouth and I didn’t want to have to sit there and lie to her.
She pushed herself off the sofa. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that…”
She held up a hand. “It’s okay. I need to get Jackson to bed, anyway.”
I went down the hallway and pushed open the door to his room. He was curled up in a bundle, surrounded by Legos, eyes shut tight, snoring softly.
Bella came up next to me and chuckled. “Every night. He plays himself to sleep. And, oh boy, is he going to be mad that he didn’t get to say goodbye to you.”
“Tell him to come find me on the beach,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
She raised a thin eyebrow. “Yeah?”
I nodded. I glanced back at the boy. “Can I put him in the bed for you?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
I bent down and scooped him up. His head rotated to the side and he let out a sigh, but his eyes didn’t open. Bella pulled back the sheets on his small twin bed and I set him down gently. She pushed a tattered stuffed dog into his arms and he clutched it, his lips smacking together as he sighed again. She covered him with the sheet and the Batman comforter and shut off the light as we walked out.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “For dinner. And the company.”
“You’re welcome to stay awhile longer if you’d like,” she said. “I’ve got more beer.”
“I should get going.”
She nodded, as if she'd expected that response.
We paused in the entryway.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But it bothers me that you’re going home to a garage.”
I smiled. “It’s fine. Just temporary.”
“You’re going to move soon?”
I nodded. “Probably.”
She smiled. “That’s good. You shouldn’t be living in a garage.”
She didn’t realize that I meant from Fort Walton, but I didn’t correct her.
“You’re welcome any time,” she said, stepping closer to me. “Here.”
“Thank you.”
“Is it alright if I give you a hug?” she asked. “You sorta look like you need a hug. No offense.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I stood there still, stupidly.
She reached up on her tiptoes and put her arms around my neck. I leaned down and started to hug her, then stopped, then placed my hands awkwardly on her hips. She squeezed me hard. It wasn’t one of those fake hugs that people just gave to give. She meant it.
Her hair smelled clean and citrusy, brushing against my cheek. She held on longer than I anticipated. She finally pulled away, but kept her arms around my neck until we were staring at one another. Her eyes were bright, happy, curious.
She waited.
I waited.
Finally, she leaned forward and kissed my cheek, then let her hands fall from my neck.
She stepped back. “Really. Any time.”
I nodded, unable to find my voice. Too many things were running through my head and I couldn’t process them the right way. How her hair smelled different than Liz’s and I was glad, because otherwise I might not have been able to let go. How I could remember exactly the last time I’d been touched with affection and it had been from Liz. How absolutely nothing and everything about the hug reminded me of Liz and how suddenly I could barely breathe.
I needed to leave and find some air. I reached for the door and pulled it open.
And was surprised to find someone standing there.
FOURTEEN
“Hey, Bella,” the visitor said. “Didn’t realize you had company.”
