My voice trails off and she stares down at the invitation.
“For me?” she asks.
“Yeah, sure, of course!” I kind of crowd her and point to the card. “It’s kind of a VIP pass; all you can eat, drink, access to the big fireworks show, free T-shirt, the works.”
She looks up at me, our faces close. “Are… are you sure you want me to have this?”
“I feel bad,” I confess, backing away to get one last glimpse of her sad, brown eyes. “The least I can do is make sure the trip down here to Buccaneer Bob’s wasn’t a total loss.”
She stammers a little, backing away. “Okay, well… I appreciate it…”
“Again, I’m really sorry about the way—” Just then a family stumbles in from the outside patio, red, white and blue beads around their necks, laughing and chuckling and asking me for directions to the fireworks display.
“Oh, gosh, find a seat and plant yourself,” I tell them, instantly reverting to “customer service” mode with a fixed smile on my face. “They shoot them off over the Bay, so any spot on the deck is going to be perfect.”
They smile and beam and pat each other on the backs and turn back around and out the door. I turn to find Elliot but she’s gone, nowhere to be seen.
“Milo,” says Eva, out of breath and looking frazzled, the glittery red stars of her headband bouncing and crooked. “What happened with the new girl?”
“Uh, yeah, that didn’t work out,” I confess, and she rolls her eyes.
“We have to hire somebody,” she says.
“Somebody with no experience?” I ask. “At all?”
She frowns. “Okay, maybe not, but… next time don’t take so long with the interviews, huh? At least, not on a big night like this!”
I nod and follow her and from that moment on, for the next five hours straight, we’re slammed. In the weeds doesn’t begin to cover it. Manager-schmanager, I’m back to my old tricks of delivering drinks and running food and handling complaints and refilling ice teas and bussing tables as an overflow crowd jams the waterfront deck as the sun sets and the evening fireworks fast approach.
And then, as if by magic, as the countdown begins… the orders stop. “They magically forget about eating and drinking,” Eva explains as we stand near the bar, staring out at an empty restaurant. “Let’s run out and see the fireworks before they remember?”
We stream onto the deck, fighting the standing room only crowd as the first of the fireworks light up the sky over Heron Cove. They sizzle and boom, lighting the sky with every color of the rainbow.
I’m standing near the beer cooler, kind of hiding out, hoping no customer ignores the fireworks to ask me for a “Red, White and Boom” shot or a special order of American cheese poppers.
When no one does I settle in, watching the fireworks and leaning back against the cooler, resting for the first time all shift.
“Look at that one,” says a familiar voice, softly, brightly, from a few feet away. “It’s a smiley face.”
A couple kids giggle and coo and when another firework bursts in the night sky, the voice cries, “Look… a giant cauliflower!”
More giggles and I lean forward, spotting a gray streak running through raven black hair. Elliot.
It’s Elliot!
She’s smiling, waving her arms, a red, white and blue Buccaneer Bob’s Third of July shirt tugged over her cheap blouse, a matching trucker cap crooked on her head, red, white and blue beads jingling around her neck, all compliments of her special VIP pass.
“Swirly-swirls,” she says, narrating the fireworks show for a gaggle of adoring fans, none of them older than twelve, every one wearing a bright, summertime smile. They stand around her, a dozen or more of them, faces sweaty, shirts stained with red, white and blue summer treats, watching her every move, hanging on her every word.
“Weeping willow!” she cries, pointing to a dazzling white cascade of sparkles drifting down through the night sky. “Cherry tomato!” she shouts as a bright red circle lights the sky. “Basketball! Snowman!!”
The children giggle and laugh and I find myself inching closer; I’m not alone. By the time I join her, Elliot’s “audience” has grown by at least twice as many as little kids cluster around me, eager to get close to her.
We cheer and clap and clamor as Elliot narrates the last few minutes of fireworks, reaching a feverish pitch as the sky fills with bursts of purple, red, yellow and green all at once. Boom, pow, smash, crash and she narrates each one, smiling, waving her hands, until, finally, face flushed and out of breath, the children begin drifting away, back to their parents’ tables, and our eyes meet.
“Oh,” she says, covering her mouth with a flat hand. “I didn’t see you there.”
“That was amazing,” I say, joining her against the railing as the deck starts to empty now that the main event is over. “I… I’ve never seen anything like that.”
She lowers her hand, allowing herself a crooked smile. “I told you I was good with kids,” she explains, wearing a crooked smile of satisfaction.
“I see that,” I say.
She nods, looking ten years younger in her crooked cap and little T-shirt, tied in a knot above the waist of her creased khaki pants. “Thanks,” she says, nodding. “I really needed to just let loose tonight. It was fun.”
“I’m glad,” I say, inching closer. “I felt bad, about earlier…”
She waves a hand, then leans back against the deck railing. “Don’t. I don’t know what I was thinking, applying here. I could never do what you guys do.”
“Sure you could,” I say, joining her at the railing. Beneath us, the Bay ripples against the dock pilings and, above us, the sky is thick with smoke from the fireworks. With the empty deck and the scattered chairs and the drifting smoke, it feels a little like the end of the world.
“Why… why weren’t you that enthusiastic about your interview?” I ask.
She chuckles, turning to me. Her face is shiny with the heat, or joy, or both. She shrugs, making her neck full of beads jingle. “Nervous, I guess.”
“I’m sorry if I made you feel that way, Elliot.”
“You didn’t,” she insists, picking up her half-empty margarita glass, then putting it back down without taking a sip. “Life does.”
“You gonna tell me why you ran away from Alabama now?” I ask.
“I didn’t run away,” she sighs. “I just… left.”
I nod, the sky quiet now, the deck empty, the busboys hustling to clean the last few tables, servers starting their side work, getting ready to go home. There are things I could be doing, should be doing, but none, it would seem, more important than what I’m doing right now.
“My brother,” she says, voice tight, growing distant as she turns to stare out over the dark, rippling Bay. “We were very close growing up, and I thought I knew him. Knew everything about him. I guess not. Last Thanksgiving, he didn’t show up for dinner. I knew, I knew right then something was wrong. He’d never do that. Then again, I never thought he’d do… what he did…”
She breaks off, looks away for awhile, staying silent so long I notice the canned reggae playing just a little too loud over the deck’s speakers. She turns back, eyes glinting in the moonlight.
“After he was gone, it all fell apart. For forty-two years, I’d lived in a bubble, you know? No one I knew, no one close to me, had ever died before. And then, suddenly, the one person I thought I knew best… gone, forever. I… cracked up, right? Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work…”
She turns toward me, not quite unemotional, just... numb. “So I left. My parents had each other, their bridge club, their church groups, all I’d ever had was my brother, and now he was gone. For the first time in my life, I wanted to run away from home.”
“And you came to Egret Cove?” I ask, throat as tight as hers.
She smirks, wiping a tear. “I liked the name. It sounded… safe. Quiet, a soft place to land.”
I nod and peer past h
er to the deep, black water of the Bay at her back. “Why?” she asks, soft as the water’s surface. “Why did you come here?”
I feel a tightness in my throat. Five years and hundreds of shifts at Buccaneer Bob’s, and I can’t remember anyone ever asking me that before. “My grandmother raised me, back in Tennessee. She died six years ago, and I felt like you. Suddenly, home didn’t feel like home anymore. After a year of wondering what was wrong with me, and why I was so sad, and what was wrong with me, I got in my car and just started driving south. Every mile, I felt better and better. I stopped in Egret Cove for gas, figuring I’d drive to Miami, or even down to the Keys. But it was sunset, and beautiful, and there was a cheap motel next to the gas station, and I stayed the night. Then… the next five years.”
She touches my forearm, gently, giving it a tight squeeze. I figure she’s going to take her hand right back, but she doesn’t. It stays, soft and warm, right where it is.
“I’m sorry, Milo.”
“Me too.”
We turn and face each other, and I know in instant I can’t let her go home, hopeless, after a night filled with hope, laughter and… fireworks.
“So,” I say, her hand still on mine. “There’s this thing we’re trying out, before the kids go back to school: Pirate Party Nights. Basically, kids eat free and get free eye patches and crayons and coloring books and we do games and activities. I… I haven’t found anybody who wants to host the night yet, but… I think you’d be perfect.”
She is crying again, but happily this time, squeezing my arm in a pure vice grip of joy. “Are you sure?” she asks, then, “Are you serious?”
“I’m both,” I say, nodding enthusiastically. “You know, it’s only for a month or two but I figure, once you get the swing of things around here, you might want to pick up a shift or two as a waitress and maybe, you know, stick around a little longer…”
She’s shaking her head, smiling, laughing, crying at the same time. “When would I start?”
“Tomorrow around five,” I say, and at last her hand leaves my forearm. I’m surprised by how much I miss it. “Come in,” I tell her, already looking forward to it, “we’ll do some paperwork, get you set up.”
“Oh gosh,” she says, straightening, reaching for her purse. “I better get a good night’s sleep then, right Milo?”
I chuckle. “And eat your Wheaties for breakfast,” I tell her.
She takes a step away, then turns to face me. “I can’t tell you how much…” Then she gulps and walks away, quickly, before I can tell her “goodbye” or “no problem” or “maybe we could grab some coffee after I’m done here”.
I hear keys jingling and turn to find Eva, standing there, glittery red stars quivering on her head. “Pirate’s Party Night?” she asks, arms across her buxom chest.
I blush but then jut out my chin, defiantly. “I’m a manager now, right?” I ask.
“Barely,” she points out with a curious grin.
“Well, I’m making a management decision. Pirate’s Party Night, Fridays and Saturdays for the rest of the summer. We’ll see how it works out and, if it doesn’t, she can always bus tables until she gets her sea legs.”
She smirks, and saunters past. “For her sake, I hope it works!”
I’m turning, swinging back into manager mode, when Eva pauses, turns, and squeezes my shoulder. “I’m sorry about your grandmother,” she says, making me wonder just how long she’d been lurking in the shadows by the beer cooler. “But I’m glad you chose Egret Cove as your adopted home.”
“Me too,” I say, watching her race to goad some busboy into wiping down his last table a smidge better.
I grab the clipboard hanging from a nail outside the beer cooler, turn on the light and step inside. I think of Elliot, racing home to her cheap little one-bedroom apartment, in her cheap little apartment complex, not that far from mine, and smile.
And hope I never, ever have to interview anyone, ever again!
A knock sounds at the door to the beer color and I turn, smiling, thinking, hoping, it might be Elliot come to give me a quick “goodnight” or even a “thank you” kiss.
Wrong; completely wrong.
“I forgot to tell you,” Eva says, wearing a satisfied grin as her glittery red stars bobble overtime above her curly hair. “Dishwasher quit tonight, so I need you here at seven tomorrow to interview a few new guys for me.”
“What? But I’ve got to close tonight!”
She winks, patting me on the butt. “You’re a manager now, remember? And you did such a good job interviewing the new girl, I figured you’d want to jump right back on the horse…”
* * * * *
Story # 2:
A Brief Intermission
She thinks I don’t know her, but I do. She comes in every Thursday to see last week’s new release. Gets the same thing every time: small popcorn, no butter, red licorice – never black – small diet soda. Three napkins from the little dispenser next to my cash register – never four, never two – one straw, rip her ticket and she’s gone… until the next week.
She loves scary movies, thrillers, foreign movies, even the ones with subtitles, anything but chick flicks and comedies. Always slips the same skinny, beige sweater over her purse because she knows she’ll get cold halfway through the movie.
I’m always pleasant to her, nice, jovial, you name it, but she’s pretty stiff and unresponsive except for a polite, measured smile. Not in a mean way, just… not interested in the chit-chat.
It used to hurt my feelings a little, but she’s even like that with Tucker, the resident Flickers Cinema hunk, so now I figure it’s just her way.
Her name is Tara. I know not because she told me, but because she works at the Copy Cabana across from the mall and was running late one night a few weeks back and still had her nametag pinned to her sensible blue blouse.
“Happy 4th of July,” I greet her as she sidles up to my counter. It’s the 7:45 show, her favorite, and she’s wearing soft white jeans and a red tank top with a blue scarf around her neck.
She smiles that shy, measured smile and puts her purse on the counter, little tan sweater slung over the top. “You too,” she says, avoiding my eyes and studying the concessions board above my head as if she hasn’t seen it every Thursday night for the last five months.
“What can I do for you tonight?” I ask her and, before she can answer, I hurry rush and say, “We’re running a few holiday specials tonight, if you’re interested. We’ve got white raspberry Freezy Slush mixed with cherry and a blue sour straw?”
“Sounds a little sweet,” she hems, straightening her rectangular black glasses on her pert little nose.
“Totally sweet,” I say, flashing my best theater manager grin. “But probably no sweeter than a bag of red licorice.”
She starts a little, then frowns quietly. “What?” she asks, curling a lock of auburn hair behind a soft pink ear. She’s a few years older than me, in her early thirties maybe, hot in that sexy librarian way.
“For example,” I blurt, not wanting to creep her out too much like I’ve been memorizing her concessions order every week. “Or a box of chocolate covered raisins or pretty much any of our candies.”
She shakes her head and says, “I think I’ll just grab a small diet soda, thanks.”
A Summer Fling: Three Romantic 4th of July Stories Page 2
