Coast

by Jay McLean

  I grunt in frustration, and look up at him, hoping he can see the plea in my eyes. “I know that I’ve asked a lot from you lately, especially with the whole Chaz thing—”

  “Don’t do that, Josh. Don’t use her to guilt me—”

  “I’m not,” I say, my hands up between us. “It’s just that I need to make this happen. For Becca. And for me. Chris,”—I grasp his shirt so he knows how serious I am—“It’s time…”

  —Becca—

  I stare at the picture of my grandmother, her head tilted back, her hands and forearms covered in white silk gloves, one of them holding the hand of a mystery man as they pause their dancing so the photograph can be taken. The year on the album had her at twenty-two in this picture. Around the same age as me. The dress she wore was black, high collar, flowy skirt, white buttons down the middle. It was simple and elegant and beautiful, just like her. I found the dress in a box in the back of the closet—it’s condition as perfect as it was in the picture.

  Both the dress and the gloves look better on her than they do on me, but I don’t mind. The point isn’t to look good, it’s to remember that she’s with me, tonight and all the nights after.

  “The speech is perfect,” Dad says, walking into my room with his brand new tux, the sleeves and pant leg a tad short, but it’s hard to find something for his stature that doesn’t come with a tailor-made price tag.

  I take the piece of paper from him and fold it, placing it in my purse, along with the photograph of grams, before standing from my desk chair and going to him. “You look so handsome,” I sign. I pat down the collar of his jacket. “Thank you for leaving work early and coming tonight. It means so much.”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he says, his voice soft and sweet, a complete contrast to his usual tone. “Besides, I missed all your special nights. All those dances and proms… so I’m going to make you dance with me. I hope you know that.”

  “A: I didn’t go to any dances and proms and B: I don’t think there’ll be any dancing tonight.”

  He scoffs. “Just because there’s no dance floor or music, doesn’t mean we can’t dance, Becca.”

  My eyes snap to his, my heart skipping a beat. He’s definitely my grandmother’s son.

  “Did I say something?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “You just reminded me of Grams, that’s all.”

  Before he gets a chance to respond, there’s a knock on the door that causes my panic to spike.

  “That must be Prince Charming,” Dad says, cracking his knuckles. “Time for a beat down.”

  I narrow my eyes at him and sign, “Stop. He’s still so afraid of you.”

  “Me? Why?” he asks, looking down at me with his nose in the air. “I’m harmless.”

  I roll my eyes and pat down my dress. “How do I look?” I sign.

  He turns serious. “You look beautiful, Becca. He’s lucky to have you.”

  * * *

  Josh stares at me.

  I stare at him.

  He blows out a breath.

  I inhale one.

  “You…” he says, and stares some more.

  “What?” I mouth.

  “…do insane things to my heart, Becca Owens.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” I sign.

  He runs his hand through his hair, still in the middle of the awkward grow out stage from when he shaved it. “I tried. Not that it matters. No one will be looking at me when you’re on my arm.” He reaches into his pocket. “I got you something.”

  “Why? You didn’t have to!”

  “It’s nothing really. Actually, it’s stupid cheesy” he says, revealing a dark green velvet bag. He empties the content into his palm and then hands it to me. It’s a ring, similar to the one he gave me on my eighteenth birthday, only this one reads: I shoot like an award winner.

  I kiss him a little too passionately considering my dad’s now standing behind me, but I don’t care. I love my stupid cheesy ring and I love him. It’s been four whole months, and I miss him.

  With a chuckle, Josh breaks the kiss and nods over my shoulder at Dad. “You guys ready to go?” he asks, pointing to the limo waiting at the curb.

  Dad rubs his hands together. “I’ve never been in a limo,” he says, marching down the steps. “Is there champagne?”

  * * *

  The event is held at a fancy hotel in the fancy part of downtown and the room is filled with fancy people who speak fancy words while consuming a fancy dinner. I’d ask Josh if he could purchase Sandra a ticket to the event, along with dad’s, knowing they weren’t able to afford them, because like I said, the event is fancy. I needed Sandra here so she could relay my speech. Sure, I could’ve written it in a way that Dad or Josh could translate for me, but I knew how much it meant to them to see me up on that stage and to celebrate my achievement together.

  There’s a slideshow of the award winners’ work displayed on a huge projector screen up on the stage. There are only five awards, and that means only five images, and Josh and Dad make a show of applauding every single time Grams shows up on the screen.

  Every.

  Single.

  Time.

  It becomes a game to them, something the people sharing our table seem to find amusing. “That’s my girlfriend’s,” Josh says to anyone who will listen. “That’s my daughter’s,” Dad says, doing the same. And so the game continues and the night goes on and I watch in awe at the two men in my life who seem to have found a common ground. There’s no longer detest in my father’s eyes when he looks at Josh, and no longer fear in Josh’s when he looks at my dad. Now, there’s just an underlying respect and the knowledge that at the end of the day, they both want the same thing. They want to take care of me. They want to save me. And after everything that’s happened, I realize that it’s not so bad to let them do those things. As Dad once told me: It may be hard to ask for help, but that doesn’t mean I can’t accept it when it’s offered. Then he made a speech about bruised apples that made absolutely no sense.

  Soon enough, the meals are over and silence descends as the president of Fine House takes the stage. I’d been given a program of the night, so I know that my award will be given last. I don’t know what I’d prefer. I sit through the speeches, one after the other, my knee bouncing and my palms sweating.

  “You got this, babe,” Josh says, his hand on my knee under the table.

  “I’m nervous,” I sign. “How do you do this all the time? Comps and media and photo-shoots.”

  He chuckles. “You don’t want to know what I do.”

  “I do!” I sign, nodding frantically. “Tell me.”

  He leans in close, his lips skimming my ear. “I picture you naked.”

  I rear back. “That helps?”

  “No,” he says seriously. “I just like doing it. A lot.”

  “Becca Owens!” the speaker on stage announces.

  My eyes go huge.

  Josh stands, his applause as loud as my dad’s. “Get it, baby,” Josh says.

  Swear, I’ve never been so self-aware of the way I walk until this very moment. Every step is like walking in quick sand, and if Sandra wasn’t next to me, encouraging me to move forward, then I’d have run back into Josh’s arms. He wouldn’t let me, though. He’d probably throw me over his shoulder and make me stand on that stage while Dad cheered him on.

  Good Lord, it’s hot.

  Why is it so hot?

  Why are the lights so bright?

  How did I get on stage?

  “You ready?” Sandra asks.

  I nod. Then, “Oh my God,” I mouth. I sign to Sandra, “My speech is in my purse at the table.” Before I finish signing the last word, Josh is already jogging toward me, my purse held tightly in his grasp. He jumps on stage, ignoring the steps on either side of it. “Here you go, baby,” he says, handing me the purse and kissing my cheek. Then he faces the audience. “She’s my girlfriend,” he says, his shoulders square. The room fills with light ch
uckles. “Isn’t she cute when she’s nervous?”

  I wait until he’s off the stage before getting the speech from my purse and unfolding the paper. I look over at Josh and my dad, the only two people in the room who are on their feet. Josh taps his nose, and then his chest, his cheesy grin causing me to do the same. I nod at Sandra who translates into the microphone, “That was my boyfriend. Isn’t he cute when he’s saving me?”

  The laughter that comes eases some of the tension, and I refocus on my task, on the words scrawled in front of me. I look over at Josh and my dad one more time, both of them smiling, the pride in their eyes giving me the encouragement I need.

  “I fell in love with photography when I was fourteen, when a simple image I’d taken had captured my breath and captured my heart. I remember sitting there, looking at the screen, at this one image, and knowing for certain that life had so much more to offer than what we all chose to see through shielded eyes and shielded minds. It became my task—to capture moments that made me question the world, question my life, question everything.

  After seventeen years of living a life in fear, in darkness, I thought I’d accept my fate.

  By eighteen, I began to question it again.

  Because it was at that point that I met my grandmother, the woman in the center of this photograph. My grandmother believed in fate, believed in faith and in God, and even though she believed in His purpose, that didn’t mean she didn’t question it. And that, in turn, made me see things through her lens. Through her eyes. Eyes that have experienced sadness and loss and joy and elation.

  My grandmother was a nurse.

  A teacher.

  A green thumb.

  An artist.

  A hell raiser.

  And a poet.

  But above all those things, my grandmother loved.

  This was the last photograph I took of her before she passed away. Before she was laid to rest and there was nothing left to question. But she taught me better than that. So on the night she passed, I stared at this image, stared at her tiny hands, stared at her smile, stared at her dark, soul-filled eyes. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it—how it should be impossible that so much light, so much hope, could come from such darkness…

  …but here I stand, proof that anything is possible.”

  40

  —Becca—

  “Becca, I love you. A lot. And your speech was phenomenal. Truly. And this night is all about you,” Josh says, “All. About. You. But seriously, I can’t go on that roof again. I just can’t. And you may love me less, and you might see me as less of a man, but for real, I had nightmares for days after the last time. Those damn birds were everywhere. And in my dreams—Becca!”—he tugs on my hand as I lead him up the staircase and toward the rooftop of Say Something—“In my dreams, they were crows and they were eating my eyeballs while I was still alive!”

  My head throws back with laughter. “No birds this time,” I sign.

  “Promise me.”

  I laugh harder.

  “Becca, I’m serious! Promise me!”

  “I promise,” I mouth.

  * * *

  I grab the lantern as well as a blanket I’d prepared earlier and walk to the middle of the rooftop, Josh following closely behind me. After laying the blanket down, I sit on it, pulling Josh’s tuxedo jacket tighter around me. It’s colder now than it was the last time we were here, and though I haven’t been up here since, I thought it’d be the perfect place to talk to him about something that’s been on my mind since Grams passed and I realized that life’s too damn short not to be living it to the fullest.

  “That really was a great speech, Becs,” he says. “And in case I haven’t told you, I’m really proud of you.”

  “You’ve told me,” I sign. “But I love hearing it.”

  “Good. So what’s up?”

  “Nothing.” I shrug.

  “Liar,” he says, poking my knee. “I can tell you want to talk. I know you.”

  “You think you ‘see’ me, huh?” I sign.

  “Yeah.” He nods, looking directly in my eyes, wistfulness in his stare as if my eyes hold all his memories of us. Maybe for him, they do. His smile holds all of mine. “I see you, Becs.”

  I sit up straighter, yanking up my sleeves so he can see my hands clearer. “I do want to talk to you.”

  “Okay…”

  I sign, “I realized after the internship over the summer that I was going down—”

  “Okay, stop,” he cuts in, covering my hands. “I’m sorry, I can’t… maybe go a little slower or…”

  I reach for my phone.

  “No, we can try signing, it’s just…”

  “It’s okay,” I mouth.

  “I’m really sorry, babe. It’s just hard for me to try to find the time to practice and learn—”

  I wave my hand between us. “Stop it,” I mouth. Then kiss him quickly. “You’ve already learned so much in so little time,” I sign. Then have Cordy say, “I love and appreciate it, but some things are easier for me to type anyway.”

  He nods, but he’s still unsure.

  “Seriously, Josh. Even I would’ve struggled with signing.”

  He nods again. “Go ahead.”

  “So…”

  “So…?” he asks.

  “Okay. Here goes…”

  “Uh oh.”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Then why am I nervous?” he says. “You’re making me nervous. Just say it.”

  I blow out a breath.

  “You know what?” He moves behind me until I’m settled between his legs and his arms are around my waist. He rests his chin on my shoulder and says, “Just type it and I’ll watch. This way you can’t delete anything without me seeing.”

  I kiss his cheek and refocus on my phone. What I wanted to say was that after the internship over the summer, I realized that I was going down the wrong path…

  “Yeah? Too much journalism and not enough photography, right?”

  I nod.

  “I was wondering if you’d think that.”

  You did?

  “You just didn’t seem happy when I asked you about it, that’s all.”

  You do see me!

  He squeezes me once. “Of course I do. So where’s your head at now?

  I’m not really sure. I just know that I want to photograph anything and everything. I don’t want to have to write about it, though. I want the photograph to speak for itself, you know? And I don’t want to just do it here. I want to do it all over the world.

  “Okay…” he says slowly. “So… what does that mean? You quit college?”

  No, I type quickly. I can’t quit. And I don’t want to. For the same reason I couldn’t stay in North Carolina with you. I feel like I’ve been through too much to get here, and I deserve this. And I want to finish. Not just for me, but for Grams, too, because she would’ve wanted that.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  I glance at him quickly, trying to hide my smile, my enthusiasm evident.

  Well, I was thinking how good it would be to travel the world once I graduate. I have the rest of this year and next, but after that, I’d definitely want to do it. How stunning would it be to see all the different architecture and lifestyles and meet people from all different walks of life? I mean, even for a year, it would be amazing.

  “A whole year?” he asks, his voice soft.

  I nod and type, Then I realized something…

  “What’s that?”

  My amazing boyfriend travels for a living…

  Josh’s entire body tenses and he smiles against my shoulder. “He does, huh?”

  And he has money to support my artistic dream…

  He chuckles lightly, “He sounds like a great dude.”

  He’s the best! I spin around until I’m sitting opposite him, my excitement evident. “So, Josh Warden,” I sign, grinning widely at him. “Will you save me? Take care of me?”

  His weight slams
into me, then lifts as he eases me onto my back, his eyes holding mine, while his smile brings me back to the first hotel room we ever stayed in, the first time he made me his, all those years ago. He kisses me gently, his lips warm against the frigid air. “I would love nothing more than to be your hero, Becca Owens.”

  * * *

  I awaken the next morning to a cold and empty bed. Outside my bedroom door, I hear movement, shuffled steps and the television blasting. I reach for my phone on the nightstand, wondering where the hell my boyfriend is. There are no messages on my phone, so I send him one.

  Becca: Way to make a girl feel special, Warden.

  Josh: Had errands to run.

  Becca: What’s her name?

  Josh: Why? You gonna go all trailer-park on her?

  Becca: If the situation fits.

  He sends through a picture of him and Tommy holding a random stick.

  Josh: I promised I’d take him to the park to throw sticks at people rollerblading.

  Becca: Why?!

  Josh: Because rollerblading is for losers. Duh.

  Becca: I do not want to partake in those activities at all.

  Josh: You were a rollerblader, huh? Loser.

  Becca: When can I see him?

  Josh: Tommy?

  Becca: No, the stick.

  Josh: You’re such a cranky pants when you wake up. Go out and have a coffee with your old man. My mom organized a lunch date for all of us. He has the address and time to meet up.

  Becca K.

  Josh: Becs.

  Becca ?

  Josh: I may have accidentally stolen your underwear again.

  * * *

  Dad already had plans to go golfing with a couple of his friends he met at a bar. Their names are Paul and Howard. One is a finance investor and the other works at a gas station. One is married. One is divorced with two kids. His kid’s names are Sasha and Sarah. Why he told me all this random information, I have no idea. A simple “No thank you” to my lunch invitation would’ve sufficed.

  I get in my new car, the one Josh had bought me—a small economical Ford—tap in the address he’d given my dad into my phone and wait for it to calculate my route. Ten minutes later, I’m slowing to a stop on a dirt road with no cafes or restaurants in sight.