“You think that’s okay to do?”
“You’re her aunt. Of course it is.”
“I just don’t want to step on Kait’s toes. If she wants to teach Meadow about… other stuff.”
Corey shook his head. “Kait wouldn’t care. Trust me. The more Meadow knows and learns, the better.”
I stared forward and watched as Kait spun, making a large bubble. Her blonde hair spun around in her face and she looked beautiful. Meadow jumped and cheered at the size of it. It was innocence. Youth. It was finding the smallest things in life and enjoying them.
Part of me wanted to stay away from Meadow - and maybe even Kait - because of my track record. It was dumb to think that way, but there I was, taking any painting job I could get. Right down to actually painting houses. Through a friend of a friend who owned a painting business, I had received some steady work for anyone who wanted a fancy custom paint job in their house.
“Go, be with your family,” I said to Corey.
“I am. You’re bothering me.”
“Jerk.”
“Loser.”
“I’m going to have a cigarette,” I said.
Corey opened his mouth but stopped.
“I know,” I said. “I’m going to go sit in my car. Nobody will see or smell it. And when I’m done, I’ll scrub my hands and take three showers.”
“Josie…”
I backed away, showing my hands in defeat.
I loved living there, but it really wasn’t home.
Nothing felt like home.
And that had been the truth for a while now.
I didn’t even bother putting on music.
I was parked three houses down from Corey’s house as I sat there with the window halfway down and smoked. Truthfully, it was kind of sad. Is this what it had become for me? This was the one thing that I truly enjoyed, yet I had to do it like this. I used to be able to just smoke wherever, whenever. Now it was like I was back in high school, trying to hide it from my parents and any other adults who wanted to berate and judge me.
Even still, I didn’t stop.
Even with Meadow’s sweet and innocent words ringing in my head, I took drag after drag, enjoying the hell out of the cigarette. Sadly, it was the best part of my day. After waking up and painting for a little while, I met with the owners of the restaurant. Two brothers were opening the place to honor their late father, who owned a pizza place, but always dreamed of having a restaurant. They showed me pictures of where their father had been born in Italy and wanted me to paint the back wall as a mural. The work was okay, the pay was great, and we shook hands on the deal.
All in all, it was a great day.
I just didn’t feel like it.
Nothing felt like anything.
I still thought about the words spoken to me.
There’s been an accident.
Everything that led up to that moment. What I could have done to prevent it. What I just assumed would happen when he would come home. Even if I had planned to break it off with him, I wanted to do it on my terms. And I never got that. I never would.
I went from living in a sketchy type neighborhood where police lights and sirens were common, to this laid back, quiet, upper middle-class, suburban neighborhood where there was no drama.
Other than me smoking.
That was the biggest crisis.
I took another deep drag of the cigarette and looked into the side mirror.
That’s when I spotted someone running.
Right in the middle of the street.
The guy caught my attention because he was shirtless.
Hey, I was still a woman. And I figured if he was confident enough to run without a shirt, why not get a look?
I waited patiently as he grew larger the closer he got to my car. I figured I’d watch the front of him from the mirror and then watch the backside out of the windshield.
This was the closest thing to a date since Denny died…
I shut my eyes and shook my head.
Why the hell would I think that?
I kept smoking, appreciating the look of the guy as he closed in on my car.
I used to run a lot too. Everyone used to get pissed at me that I could exercise and be fit while not exactly taking good care of my body.
When I finally got a good look at the runner, my mouth opened and stayed open.
His rounded shoulders glistened with sweat. His chest looked chiseled by hand, ending where stomach muscles began. I didn’t get to see where those muscles ended because they cut into his shorts. He was built and toned, his arms with the same perfect cuts of muscle as he pumped them to keep his pace. Wearing a black bandana with messy hair that bounced wherever it wanted, my eyes settled on the unkempt scruff on his face. For some reason, he had this look of not giving a shit, and I liked that.
He was fine.
He was goddamn fine.
I tried to find his left hand, figuring there was no way someone this sexy in this neighborhood could not be married.
But I couldn’t see his left hand, at least not right away.
As he passed by my car, I finally found the nerve to put my cigarette back to my lips.
It was a nice distraction for a second.
He looked back at me.
I stiffened in the driver’s seat.
Then he stopped running.
I rolled my eyes, figuring now that this guy was wondering what some woman was doing sitting in a car, smoking. I probably looked as though I was canvasing the neighborhood to start robbing houses.
The sexy runner trotted toward my car and waved with his left hand.
There was no ring on his finger.
Not that it really meant much of anything.
He stopped at my half-open window.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I live here.”
“In your car?” he asked.
“No. In this neighborhood.”
“That’s nice,” he said. “I really don’t care about that.”
“Then why’d you stop running?”
He grinned. Sweat dripping down the bridge of his nose. Looking damn good enough that I started to feel a little uncomfortable just sitting there.
“Mind if I bum a smoke off you?” he asked.
“What?” I asked.
“I could go for a smoke,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Is that a no?”
“Uh…”
I was in complete shock.
But, sure, why not have a smoke while on a run?
I could smell the sweat on his skin.
It smelled fucking delicious.
I stared at him as he took the cigarette from me, along with my lighter.
I rolled down my window the rest of the way.
From the side, something struck me.
When he looked at me again, our eyes locked and that’s when I realized something.
I knew who he was.
3
ANOTHER TIME…
THEN
Crosby
The houses weren’t actually houses. I mean, when you looked at them, they looked like normal houses. But they weren’t. They were all split into apartments. It was like this neighborhood was built with all houses and then something happened, and someone bought them all and turned them into two or three apartments. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was pretty crammed inside them.
Especially ours.
It was me, Mom, and Cindi. The three of us stuffed into a one-bedroom apartment. Mom was scared because I guess Cindi and I weren’t supposed to be sharing a room. I really hated it because Cindi was a baby. Not really a baby, but a baby to me. She liked dolls and all that shit, and I was into other stuff.
I fucking hated my father for skipping out on us, leaving Mom scrambling to find a place to live.
This was our home.
Mom said it was only for now, but I knew better. She could barely afford this place, so how in the
hell would she get something better? Plus, if she had a dollar left over, she found a way to spend five dollars. I hated math, but I knew that wasn’t a good way to try and survive.
The only good part of living on the second floor of the house was that right off the kitchen there was a small balcony. The wood was creaky and the one railing was definitely shaky. Cindi was afraid of the balcony because she was afraid of heights. She was a baby about stuff like that.
That’s where I sat to play my guitar.
It was a cheap, piece of shit acoustic guitar that I got after raking about two thousand yards last fall, along with selling my skateboard. But it was my guitar. This old man named Hugh used to live in the apartment under us. He played guitar and showed me a handful of chords and shit. He died three months ago. I went down there for a lesson and he was in his bed… gone.
Now some new guy lived under us. He was quiet, but I saw him many times walking down to the corner to score a fix or two.
I never understood the appeal of drugs, which was probably a good thing, considering everything my mother was already up against in her life.
I was out on the balcony with a can of my mom’s beer, sipping it when my fingers began to hurt from playing guitar so much. The beer tasted terrible, but it made me feel cool to drink it. More so, there was another reason why I played guitar out on the balcony.
The house right next door - which was also an apartment - was so fucking close to my house, I swore I could reach out and touch the old, brick walls. There was a window there, with a sheer curtain that was mostly see through. I had hoped for a little luck in my life and that some hot woman would move in. Some hot woman who wouldn’t be afraid to get naked in her bedroom.
That was just the way my mind worked though.
Instead, it was a girl.
And she was never naked.
Not that I was looking or anything.
She was my age.
But she didn’t go to my school. I even started going to school more, trying to look for her.
I never saw her out of the apartment either.
When I did see her, she was painting. Sitting in a chair, facing some kind of makeshift easel, with a paintbrush, going to town. I never got to see what she painted.
Tonight, she surprised me a little by having the curtains open quite a bit. I could see into the room. It didn’t look like much of a bedroom though. A small bed. A small nightstand. A lamp. Nothing on the walls. It didn’t make sense to me.
I strummed the guitar for a few minutes before the bedroom door opened and she appeared. She looked right at me. Eye to eye. Which had happened before a handful of times. I gave a quick nod. She nodded back at me. I grabbed the neck of my guitar and showed it to her. She walked to her makeshift easel and lifted a paintbrush. She had really dark hair that was always pulled back. And these big glasses on her face. She looked like a geek… but sort of pretty, I guess. She always wore long-sleeved shirts and jeans. Never anything that would let me see anything.
I gave a thumbs up and then pointed to my left ear.
She smiled and walked to the window and opened it.
Here’s the thing… we’d seen each other like this before. But we never talked.
She would just sit and paint. I would sit and play guitar. We’d casually look at each other. Only recently did she open the window, but only when she felt like hearing me play.
Tonight was going to be a good night.
With the window open, she walked to her seat and sat down. I watched for a few seconds as she gathered her paint. She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.
Waiting for me to play guitar.
I strummed a chord.
It was sloppy.
I sucked.
I really did.
But in some strange way, this girl across from me was the only person besides Cindi who liked it when I played guitar. My mother thought it was too noisy. She wanted me to learn something real so I could go to college and get a job. I really didn’t give a shit about that though. I liked playing guitar. And that was good enough for now.
I played all the chords I knew over and over. I started to figure out which chords sounded good together and which ones didn’t. When Cindi was outside the bedroom or out with friends, I would listen to any music I could and learn how to play it.
My favorite three chords were the G chord, the C chord, and the E minor chord. You could definitely write a thousand songs off those three chords. Of course, they would sound sad, but so what?
I actually started writing some songs. I had a few pieces of paper under my pillow where I had been jotting down some lyrics. They were bad though. They were really bad. The rhymes were so forced, but it was a start. I’d get better with time.
I just needed to make sure I kept practicing. That’s all.
And with her painting next door, it was a good motivator. Although there were times when I looked at her and found myself strumming the same chord over and over.
An idea came to me to start singing. To test out some of those lyrics and see what the reaction would be. I had an audience of one and I wasn’t sure how honest she’d be with me. She never showed me her paintings. I had no idea if she was any good or not. But judging by the look on her face and what it meant to her, she had to be good at it.
I finally regained some kind of consciousness and strummed another chord.
The balcony door opened and Cindi came walking out, rubbing her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped at her.
“I had that dream again,” she said.
“So what?”
“Crosby…”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“It’s a scary dream. And it’s so real.”
I looked to my left and saw the girl painting.
I sighed and stood up.
“Let’s go,” I said to Cindi.
It was embarrassing that Cindi was her age and still needed me because of a nightmare. But to be fair… I felt bad for her. Mom wasn’t around like she used to be. Cindi was old enough to realize our father had left us for good. Kids were picking on her for being poor. And she had this terrible nightmare of some guy in a black car following her, trying to kill her. The car could drive on the sidewalks, over trees, and if she ran into a house, someone dressed all in black would get out of the car and chase her.
I tucked Cindi back into her bed. I had to kiss her smelly and dirty ass doll that she clutched tightly, rubbing her cheek to remove the frayed strands of hair from the doll.
I sat down on a small desk and balanced the guitar on my leg.
Cindi turned to her side and faced me.
I started to play the same three chords as I did outside. Then I started humming. Face it, my lyrics were no good and I didn’t even have them memorized.
So, I hummed.
I strummed chords.
And sure enough, Cindi fell asleep.
I stood up and laughed to myself.
Cindi was a pain in the ass. But she was my sister. I loved her.
I snuck out of the bedroom and hurried back to the balcony.
“Okay, I’m back,” I said as I stepped outside.
When I turned, I saw that the girl was gone. The curtains shut. The bedroom light turned off.
I put my guitar down on the chair I had been sitting on. I lifted the warm can of beer and took a sip. It was still gross as anything. But I drank it anyway.
I leaned against the railing and sighed.
The girl across from me was a total mystery.
Someday I’d figure out what her name was.
4
ANOTHER ONE…
NOW
Crosby
What the hell was I doing?
I had no idea.
One second, I was on my second run of the day, and the next, I looked back, saw a pretty face, and stopped for a smoke with her.
Something about her just hit me. And it hit me hard too.
Her face. Her eyes
. Her hair pulled back. The fact that she was sitting in her car, smoking. There were so many questions to ask and a really good story to tell.
So, I stopped and asked for a smoke.
“So, you live around here?” I asked her.
She looked at me as though she knew me. I stared down at her and something just felt…
“Yeah,” she said. “I live a few houses down.”
“And you’re smoking in your car?”
“Just getting home…?”
“Are you asking me?” I laughed.
“Nothing,” she said. “Sorry. I like to sit here and smoke. Is that a problem?”
“Not for me,” I said.
“I’ve never seen you before,” she said.
“I usually don’t run this way,” I said.
“Which way do you usually run?”
“Wherever I feel like.” I took a drag of the cigarette.
“And today you felt like coming this way I guess.”
“I guess,” I said. “I just run until I feel like quitting.”
“You’re like that guy in that movie then,” she said. “The one who ran and ran and then just stopped.”
“I look a little cleaner though,” I said. I pointed to my bare, sweaty body. “Right?”
“Right,” she said.
Her cheeks blushed a little.
She was fascinating to me and I couldn’t figure out why. There was a sadness to her, yet something that resembled a sense of innocence.
She looked up at me again and smiled. “Well, I’m done with mine. So, I’d better get going.”
“Where to?” I asked.
“Home,” she said. “Remember?”
“That’s right,” I said. I looked around. “Nice houses around here.”
“Is that a problem?” she asked.
“No. Just wondering why you’d choose to smoke in your car instead of in your house.”
“Maybe nobody knows I smoke,” she said. “It’s my deadly secret.”
“And you shared it with me.”
“You sort of barged your way in.”
“That I did,” I said. I took one more drag and dropped my cigarette and stepped on it. “Now there’s evidence next to your car.”
“This is a nice neighborhood,” she said. “And you’re going to run through it and litter?”
Getting Over You Page 3
