by Jo Watson
I quickly looked away.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, a strange tone in his voice.
“Mmm-hmm,” I mumbled nonchalantly, trying to act natural and normal once more.
“You really seem to be getting around,” he said.
I nodded. “That’s me. Get-around-town Becca,” I said, without thinking, and then I realized what that had sounded like when I saw him smile.
He looked down at his watch. “Twice in forty minutes,” he said.
“What is?”
“That I’m bumping into you. Twice in forty minutes.”
“Well, at least it’s not three times,” I said, looking at my car, wishing I was inside it and driving away.
“So, what are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes briefly drifting down to the jersey around my waist and then back up to mine.
“Just . . . you know.” I waved the flower in the air and he looked at it suspiciously. His eyes drifted once again. They started on the flower and moved down, down, down, and then they stopped. I followed his eyeline to the vase on the grave that was now short one red rose. He looked back at the flower in my hand and then up at me again. My mind raced for an explanation, but all I managed was . . .
“This is not private property. It’s open to the public,” I gushed, way too loudly.
He studied me carefully before responding. “That is correct,” he said. “I cannot stop you from being here. Or putting flowers down and paying your respects, if that is what you’re doing. Is it?”
“Mmmhuh?” I mumbled, ferreting around his question. “What else would I be doing here other than paying my respects?” I tried to smile at him, but the corners of my mouth were twitching anxiously.
“You know,” I declared, “I should probably go.”
“Should you?” he asked.
I nodded very enthusiastically. “Yup. Yup, I should . . .” I didn’t even bother finishing that sentence; I was already speed-walking towards my car.
“Becca,” he called after me.
I swung around. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to . . . ?” He pointed at the flower that was still in my hand.
I looked down at it. “Yes! Of course.” I looked around the graveyard. “Let me just find the person . . .” My voice trailed off as I pretended to look around at the graves. How had I gotten myself into this ridiculous situation? This was some fucking fork alright. A very squiggly one.
“Maybe I could help you. Who are you looking for?” He walked towards me.
“Uh . . . It’s a, um . . .” Fuck! “Uncle.”
“Oh, what’s his name?” His voice has a slight teasing quality to it.
“No worries!” I jumped. “There he is. There he is!” I rushed over to a grave and quickly dropped the flower on it and then, without thinking, did a quick sign of the cross and realized that I’d done it wrong. I really should have paid attention in Sunday school!
And then, suddenly, he was at my side, looking down at the grave.
“Oh, Fred Letty is your uncle. I didn’t realize that,” he said to me.
“What?”
“Frank Letty and the Lettys. They’ve been living here in Willow Bay for years. One of the oldest families around here.”
I nodded as my stomach plummeted. “Mmmm,” I mumbled.
“Such a tragedy, what happened to him,” Mike said, looking me square in the eyes now.
I nodded. “Such a tragedy that I don’t like to talk about it,” I offered quickly.
“I’m sure.” He continued to stare at me. “So, I take it you’re staying with them, then?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The Lettys. Ruth and Samantha and . . .” He looked at me expectantly and started opening his mouth, as if he was going to say another name. He raised his eyebrows at me, opening his mouth some more. “Ssshhhhh . . .” He made the sound, still looking at me. I opened my mouth as he held the shhhh sound.
“Ssshhhh,” I said, mirroring him.
“Shhhh,” he continued, raising his brow even more.
“Shhhh . . . aron?” I offered.
“Exactly!” he said. “That’s the one!”
“Sharon?” I asked, almost falling backwards over my feet. “Great! Sharon!” I laughed nervously. “Sharon. I’d better get going, then, now. Wouldn’t want to keep Ruth and Samantha and SHARON—” I almost screamed that—“waiting.” I turned and started marching through the cemetery towards my car.
“Goodbye, Becca,” I heard him say.
“Bye, Mike!” I threw over my shoulder, and didn’t look back.
“Maybe we’ll make it a hat-trick,” he called from behind me.
I stopped and turned. “A hat-trick?”
He smiled. “Three times in one day.”
I laughed. “That’s doubtful,” I said, and then continued walking back to the car.
CHAPTER 13
I was nursing a terrible feeling. A feeling that gnawed inside me like one of those bot flies. You’ve seen the YouTube videos, right? They burrow into your skin and, when you squeeze, some big larva comes out, all plump and juicy from its comfy hibernation in your warm flesh. I wanted to throw up just thinking about it, and cursed myself for all those YouTube rabbit holes I so often went down. I start watching videos of cute cats and somehow land up on a weird Russian woman pouring slime over a microphone while whispering the alphabet at you in a mysterious way.
After leaving the cemetery, I went back to the hotel and sat in my room trying to type up a response to that letter. But it wasn’t working. How the hell was I meant to respond to that, when I’d never experienced anything close to that kind of love and devotion before? I’d certainly never been loved like that—a love that seemed unselfish and kind. Who was this woman who was so utterly adored? Everything I tried to write seemed so lackluster and pale in comparison. Well, of course it was. I had no great love story to pull from. All my “love stories” had been utter disasters. I’d dated a much-older man in college, and I didn’t need a psychologist to tell me I’d been looking for a father figure. It had ended abruptly when we realized we had absolutely nothing in common and there was no passion. Then there was the son of the lady I’d worked for, but I’d liked her more than him. She had been so nice to me and taken me under her wing. Again, probably just an attempt to create the family I’d never had. I’d been looking more for a mother than a partner. And then, finally, the man I’d considered to be the great love of my life, only he’d had another love and it wasn’t me. My psychologist had pointed out how I’d probably unconsciously chosen him because he was unavailable, like my dad. My dad was dead, not unavailable. Sometimes psychologists just took it too far.
After going round and round for two hours unsuccessfully, I stopped trying to write. The beanbag I was sitting on was uncomfortable and I was starting to get a strange pain in my shoulder blade. I also found myself suffering from cabin fever in this room, which seemed smaller than it had when I’d first walked in. The walls were making me anxious, and I kept looking to the door, hoping it was unlocked. Getting trapped in the elevator had definitely made me feel unsettled in confined spaces. I left my room in the hope of finding something else to do, and I very quickly found myself sitting at the hotel bar, not drinking, simply staring down at my Coca-Cola, watching as the bubbles fizzed away, making the edges of the ice cubes smaller and smaller. I started to imagine that those ice cubes were the story I was trying to tell, and the bubbles were a carbonated combination of all my fears, anxieties, insecurities and growing guilt, making my ability to tell the story less and less. I downed the Coke so I couldn’t watch it anymore. I needed to get to that willow tree; maybe if I saw the engraving that she’d made, I would have more of a sense of her and would be able to write. But how? I needed to have at least 80,000 words written in less than twenty-one days, and that thought was driving me crazy.
I heard a huge cheer and looked to my left. A group of guys was watching the rugby on the TV in the corner of th
is fine establishment. The nineties rave-esque decor of the hotel had also spilled into this small bar. This was evident from the lime green, vinyl bar stool I was sitting on and the ultraviolet light that was making my pale pink nail polish look luminous white. The cheers from the corner were getting louder and it seemed that the big game was reaching its conclusion as manly high-fives mounted. Clearly, their team had won. I didn’t really pay much attention to things like rugby—or any sport, for that matter. It reminded me a little too much of an uncomfortable part of my childhood. I looked down at my phone; I needed a distraction. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about—the kind where you’re blowing up bits of candy, or decorating your virtual fish tank, or imaginary living room. So gratifyingly mind numbing. Meditation for the modern mind. Ten minutes later, while I was happily adding some bright pink sun loungers to my gorgeous patio in Belize, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped in my seat and swung around, and then looked straight at him.
“Uh, you! I . . . didn’t see you, sorry, I got a fright,” I said, as my heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t know why it was beating so fast—because I’d gotten a sudden fright, or because he was standing there, so close to me?
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Captain Magic Mike said, and then he smiled at me. He was wearing civilian clothes, as they might say in his profession, and looking . . . looking . . . so, so . . . wow!
Breathless.
Stupidly breathless.
And did I mention he was smiling at me?
CHAPTER 14
“Fancy seeing you today . . . again,” he said with a strange smile.
“I guess we did make it a hat-trick,” I heard myself say in a flirty voice that I seemed to have barely any control over.
“I guess we did,” he said. His cheeks were slightly flushed, his hair ruffled and the casual T-shirt he was wearing was clinging to his broad chest and shoulders like a second skin. I don’t think the shirt was meant to be tight—it was loose everywhere else—I just think this man was so genetically blessed in his upper region that he would make any shirt look slightly dirty, and I don’t mean the kind of dirty that warrants a go in the washing machine. Oh no, Mike was a completely new kind of dirty. One I’d never set eyes on before.
“So, what are you doing here?” I asked, looking around to see if there was a someone—a female someone—with him.
He gestured behind him, to the corner. “Watching the game,” he said, with a smile. “With my friends,” he quickly added.
“Aaaah, the game,” I replied flatly.
“I take it you’re not into watching the game?” he asked, looking a little amused now.
I shook my head. “Not really my thing; although, at one stage in my life, I had to pretend it was. That’s probably why I really don’t like it now.”
He started to pull one of the bar stools out, and then stopped and looked at me. “Can I sit? Do you mind?”
“Sure! Yes!” Shit—I think I said that a little too enthusiastically.
He sat down and suddenly I was acutely aware of his presence. It was overwhelming. As if I’d turned around and then looked back to find that a wall had magically appeared right next to me.
“Why did you have to pretend you liked the game?” he asked, resting an elbow on the bar.
“Long story. Boring story. You probably don’t want to hear about it,” I said, looking away from him.
“I like your stories,” he said. I could hear an amused tone in his voice and I turned and looked at him.
“What stories?” I asked.
He shrugged playfully. “You know, detective novels and cousins who don’t exist.”
I blushed. “Oh, so you know I’m not related to any Sharon Letty, then?”
“There is no Sharon Letty.” He gave a small chuckle at this and my eyes widened.
“So you let me say all that, let me think I had gotten that right, let me make all that stuff up . . . ?” I shook my head at him and smiled.
“So, what were you really doing there?” he asked.
“Again, a long and probably boring story,” I said, looking down at my empty glass.
There was a silence between us for a while. It felt strangely comfortable, as if we knew each other. “What say you tell me your boring stories over another drink? What are you drinking?”
“Coke,” I replied. “And you?” I asked.
“I’ll have one of those too,” he said, waving the bartender down. The bartender was none other than Techno Tannie herself.
“Hi, Mike,” she said, when she’d reached us.
“Hi, Crystal.” His voice had an air of reticence. An air of expectancy. “Soooo?” he asked, looking at her and raising one of his brows, as if this conversation had happened a million times before.
“Well, it’s just the usual, really,” she said, leaning over the counter. “Nothing too hectic to report, other than those cat fanatics parking me in at the grocery store the other day. But, other than that, just a normal week in Willow Bay.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You wouldn’t be the one responsible for the red lipstick ‘graffiti’—” he gestured air quotes at her—“that was drawn on the hood of one of the cat people’s cars, would you?”
“What? Me?” She put her hand over her heart. “I would never! You know me!” She said it with the faintest smile dancing at the corner of her lips.
“Mmmm, that’s the problem: I do know you, Crystal. I know you too well.”
“To know me is to love me.” She smiled at him.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Mike said, with a smile in his voice. “Still, if you know the person who was responsible for the lipstick vandalism, I would be very appreciative if you told them to stop. The last thing Willow Bay needs now, especially slap bang in the middle of tourist season, is a lipstick vandal on the loose. Especially considering what the lipstick vandal was drawing.”
She gave him a huge smile. “I’ll be sure to pass the message on. If I ever happen to find out who this lipstick vandal is.” She winked at him and he shook his head.
“That’s a nice lipstick color you’re wearing, by the way,” Mike teased.
“Thanks. It’s called Russian Red. Suits every skin tone. Would even suit a redhead like you,” she said to me, and then smacked her lips together.
Mike sighed and she smiled even more.
“Would you like some?” she asked me, taking it out from a small make-up bag she kept behind the counter.
“I’m okay,” I replied.
“Come on,” she urged. “You’ll look great. Every girl should wear red.”
“I really don’t think fire-engine red would suit me.” I glanced down at the lipstick now; she’d rolled the whole thing out.
She shook her head. “Every skin tone,” she reiterated. “Even a pale person, like you.”
“Pale!” I exclaimed, and then stopped. “Yeah, I’m pale.”
“Although,” Mike leaned in, “looks like you got a little bit of sun today. Were you outside much?” He flashed me another smile. Killer smile.
“Ha ha.” I felt a little giddy from his obvious flirtation.
“Come on, try it.” Techno Tannie started leaning over the counter and the lipstick was coming closer to me. I pursed my lips together tightly in defiance and gave my head a tiny shake.
“Come on,” Mike echoed.
“What is this? Peer pressure?” I asked.
“Come. Bring me those lips,” she said, not really giving me a choice because the lipstick was now centimeters away.
I sighed. “Fiiinnne,” I conceded. “But, I’m telling you, I’ll look like a clown.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, as she started painting my lips with great focus and care.
I looked over at Mike; he was watching intently, his eyes glued to my lips, and I wished I could see what was happening.
When she’d finished, she stood back and looked at me.
“Stunning!” she declared loudly.<
br />
I highly doubted that, and turned to face Mike. He was smiling at first, and then suddenly he wasn’t. His eyes zoned in on my lips and a look flashed across his face. What was that?
“Looks like someone is speechless,” Techno Tannie teased, rolling the lipstick back up and putting the lid on with a click. “My work here is done,” she said, and then she slipped the lipstick back into the bag and zipped it up with a dramatic flick of the wrist, as if she were performing.
“You look . . .” Mike finally spoke. “Good,” he said softly. “She’s right—it suits you.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, hoping my cheeks weren’t also now Russian Red. Mike continued to look at me and I held his penetrating gaze. And then he opened his mouth and said some words that rendered me rather speechless. “That black and white author photo was a mistake. So were the glasses. They should have just taken the photo like this,” he said, not taking his eyes off me.
I swallowed, despite the fact that my tongue felt big and swollen in my mouth now.
“Soooo, what are you two lovebirds drinking?” Crystal asked, breaking the strange moment between us. We both turned and looked at her.
“Love . . . huh?” I asked quickly and awkwardly. “We’re not . . . um . . .”
“No!” Mike added.
“We just met.” I pointed at him and then to myself. “Today. So, no.”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “It just looked like you were on a date.”
“What gave you that impression?” I asked.
“Just the vibe you’re giving off to each other,” she qualified.
“Vibe?” I asked.
“Yeah. Awkward looks, blushed cheeks, coy bar-stool sitting.” She pointed down at Mike, and I looked.
“Coy sitting?” Mike piped up, adjusting himself on his seat.
Techno Tannie rolled her eyes at us. “Hey! I run a bar. I see first dates all the time and this is what they look like.”
“Psssht. Oh, pleeeaase!” I tsked.
“We’ll have two Cokes, please,” Mike mumbled. “And it’s not a date.”
She smiled at us. “Fine. Whatever you say, mister.” She glanced back at me. “You look good in red lipstick.” She turned around and took a couple of Cokes out the fridge. I could see she didn’t believe us.
