The Art of My Life

by Ann Lee Miller

  She’d framed and gallery-positioned some old sketches he’d tossed. That had to count for something. She loves me, she loves me not sing-songed in his head.

  Oh yeah, he was going to find out whether she still loved him. No more waiting his turn because she had a boyfriend. But he wouldn’t go after Aly until he had a driver’s license and money in his pockets. Aly’s father was a doctor. Her college diploma hung on the wall of her cubicle at the bank. He had to win at business before he had a prayer of winning Aly.

  His grandmother’s nineteen ninety-one Toyota Corolla rattled through the boatyard gates and coasted to a stop in front of the Escape.

  He grinned and waved. His chest expanded, warmed. How like Henna to show up to admire his boat repairs when he’d seen her dozens of times since he got out. His kindergarten art still hung in her bathroom, encased in clear contact paper. He pictured her oohing and aahing over a mud sculpture he constructed in her back yard as a kid.

  The car coughed and sputtered as Henna scooted her muumuu-clad bulk from the driver’s seat and submitted to Van Gogh’s epileptic greeting.

  Cal climbed down the ladder and bent to hug her. The patchouli scent of her skin recalled a lifetime of hugs she gave him no matter how sweaty or dirty he’d gotten—a skill his mother never mastered.

  She squinted up at Cal’s work. “Love is in the paint,” she trilled.

  Cal’s gaze skimmed from the sloppy white bun on top of Henna’s head to the face taking shape on the bow. Well, it was too late to disguise Aly now. Maybe no one else would notice the resemblance. “Let’s keep it our secret.”

  Henna beamed at him, both chins smiling. “Ready to float your barge?”

  “Yeah, tomorrow.”

  “She’s looking peachy cream.”

  Cal shook his head at her fractured clichés and turned back to the figurehead. Did Henna think them up intentionally or did they just come out that way? Missy would shake her head, say, “Silly Grandma,” and kiss her cheek. Jesse would never admit it, but Cal swore Henna had always embarrassed his brother, even more so now. He shrugged. She might be slipping a little mentally, but she was still so deeply Henna, his Henna.

  “I bet it cost a pretty nickel.” Henna hobbled toward the stern, taking her positivity with her.

  With the rebuilt engine, the repairs had come in just under forty thousand dollars, twice what he’d anticipated and leaving nothing for startup costs.

  Twenty minutes later, after Henna’s Corolla putted away, he brushed the last strokes on the figurehead. There was nothing to do but wait for tomorrow when the boatyard Travel Lift would hoist the Escape off her wooden blocks and jack stands and deposit her back into the inlet.

  He surfed all afternoon as though mastering the waves would conquer his worries about advertising money and whether Aly was seeing someone. And maybe it would have—if Fish had been with him. A thousand problems had shrunk to a manageable size while floating on his board beside Fish.

  Stashing the joints in Fish’s locker had been monumental stupidity. He should have flushed the stuff. He needed a do-over. And epic grudge-holder Fish was unlikely to make it easy. He’d never imagined a life without Fish. He was more of a brother than Jesse had been. Salt stung the edges of a scab on his elbow, and he headed for shore.

  Cal propped his board in the sand against Leaf’s hot dog stand and poked his head through the window.

  Missy! He hadn’t seen his sister in months. Man, did it feel good to run into her. She wore yellow rubber gloves and scrubbed the counter to some country tune about a guy wanting to check a girl for ticks.

  He laughed. “Sissy Missy! You seriously need to upgrade your music choices.”

  She looked at him and stilled. Her face paled.

  He grinned at her. “What are you doing here? Where’s Leaf?”

  She crossed her arms and looked down at him through the window. “Working. Leaf didn’t say what he was doing today.” She shrugged, her tone chilling him like the wind hitting his wet skin.

  What was her deal? “It’s not safe. What if one of his customers gets PO’d because you won’t sell him weed? I’ll stay with you till closing time.”

  “I’ve been running the store whenever Leaf doesn’t feel like working for months. I’ve got pepper spray,” she said through wooden lips.

  “So much for protecting the baby from the family dirt,” he said.

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before you got yourself arrested.”

  It would hurt less if she’d slapped him. “What are you pissed about? I’m the one who got locked up for three months.”

  She planted her palms on the counter and looked him in the eye. “Think about anybody but yourself much?”

  “Excuse me for being self-centered during the shittiest time in my life. If anybody should be pissed, I should. You could have visited me.”

  “Forget it.” She turned her back on him.

  He watched her Brillo the hot plate, movements jerky, shoulders stiff. His stomach growled. “How about a dog and an A&W?”

  Missy slipped off the gloves, fished a hot dog out of the crock pot, slapped it into a bun, ran two stripes of mustard and one of catsup down the middle just the way he liked it, and handed it to him. She snagged an icy root beer from the cooler, slid it across the counter, and turned back to the hot plate.

  His gut churned. He stared at the hot dog in his hand and inhaled the salty-sweet scent. No way could he chew and swallow. “Mis, look, don’t be this way.”

  She spun around. “I don’t know why you care. I hardly saw you for months before you went to jail. Did you even remember I existed?”

  “That’s not fair. I walked up here expecting Leaf, and I was glad to see you.”

  Tears sprung to her eyes. “It’s almost September. You’ve been out a month and a half. Did it cross your mind, like, ‘Hey, I miss my sister, I think I’ll text her and hang out.’?”

  “You couldn’t have texted me?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Why are you being such a drama queen about this? It’s not your life that was totally screwed.”

  “When you got arrested, I cried buckets. I’ve never known anybody who went to jail. Locked in there with evil men. I imagined you getting beat up. Worse.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t face seeing you behind bars. I was terrified you were suicidal.”

  He didn’t want to think about how his going to jail affected Missy. Maybe he actually had been avoiding her on a subconscious level. “Don’t worry. I don’t have the balls to kill myself.”

  Missy stared over his shoulder. “When I got my hair cut, your ‘cool’ made me feel like the prettiest girl in third grade. Jesse was always off doing big kid stuff. But you let me tag along to the playground with you and Fish, patted my back when I cried over a skinned knee, made sure I didn’t watch inappropriate TV shows on Henna’s watch. In middle school and high school you were my hot big brother who reduced my friends to stuttering idiots.” Her eyes returned to him. “You were my hero.”

  The sun warmed his shoulders. He really did love Missy, but how could she expect him to worry about her when his life went into nuclear meltdown. He took a bite of his hot dog.

  “Now, I worry that you’re going to get murdered in some drug deal gone wrong. What if you’re doing coke or meth or fill-in-the-blank?”

  The food turned to sand in his mouth. “I’m clean.”

  “Save your words. They don’t mean anything. The only way I’ll know if you’re telling the truth is if you don’t turn up dead or in prison.”

  The fear in her eyes and in her voice soccer-cleated him in the stomach.

  “I thought I knew you. But you’ve turned into a stranger. I wish I could climb inside your head and know how you think. But I can’t.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I never dealt. I’m clean.”

  She stared at him. “Next time you’re going to do something stupid, stop and think about how it will slam me—and everyone who loves
you.”

  Her anger finally sparked his, but he clamped down on it. “I care about you, Mis. A lot. None of this has anything to do with you. Try not to take everything so personally.”

  Missy leaned through the window on her elbows and got in his face. “Trust me, Cal, if it were possible to quit loving you, I would have done it already. Now, I’m just begging you not to screw up my life along with yours.”

  He slammed the hot dog and soda into the trash can, grabbed his board, and stalked into the sea.

  Chapter 4

  September 14

  I love the rush I feel when I look at an exciting work, the quiver in my chest. I think I have to buy the thing, frame it, hang it in my living room forever. But there’s no guarantee the thrill will sustain long enough to justify the cost. So, I vote for modest expense, no real sacrifice, a painting that matches the décor of my life and evokes mild appreciation. Stability.

  Aly at The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  Cal inched the ship’s wheel starboard and watched the wrinkle iron from the mainsail. Sun warmed his skin while it peppered the Atlantic with diamonds of light and bleached the water teal. Wind blew stiff fingers through his hair, and his gaze fell on the white-haired couple sitting on the fore cabin grinning at the day. For these two hours, he’d do the same.

  How many people got to do what they loved for a career? He could sail all day, everyday without regret. Gratitude welled up in his chest. He almost wanted to thank God, but his mind banked away from the impulse.

  Church was the family business. Dad had pastored their church since before Jesse was born. If church lady were listed in the dictionary, Mom’s picture would be stamped beside it—her own little rebellion against Henna and Leaf. Jesse had started a church almost by accident—a bunch of his friends playing guitars on the beach one night. He doubted a Sunday service had gone by without Missy showing up, from birth on.

  But he had chafed to move out since his mid-teens. He didn’t want his life remote controlled by a God who didn’t think he needed Aly. Control was something he wouldn’t give up to anyone.

  Gus, a meteorologist from Wichita, circled a protective arm around his wife’s waist as they bounced on the bow in the slight chop. This was their forty-second anniversary. Sea spray misted his face and he licked the salt from his lips. It tasted like hope.

  These last couple of months since Aly’s birthday, he’d been working on the boat in dry dock. The days had crawled by, but he couldn’t see her until he had some success under his belt. Maybe today. Ninety dollars was hardly success.

  But it was a start.

  Cal looked up as Starr marched down the dock toward The Escape in response to his text, Come get your stoned parents. She’d be mortified. Everything was all about appearances with Mom. He didn’t have the energy to care. He hosed down the deck, his shoulders slumped.

  Leaf held court with the THC girls—Theodosia’s bony frame bookended between Henna’s cushy body and the nymph and fairy tattoos cavorting up and down Chrissy’s ham-hock arm. The women met fifty years ago when they all worked at Winn-Dixie. Sparklers of female laughter shot from the cockpit in the center of the boat.

  Cal’s gaze collided with his mother’s. “They were two hours late. I almost called the Coast Guard, which would have landed them in jail—Boating Under the Influence.” He jerked his head toward the bow. “They dive-bombed the dock coming in.” He said it like it was Mom’s fault even though he knew Henna and Leaf had always done whatever they pleased.

  Starr frowned, and he followed her gaze to the deep gash in the bow, the misshapen metal, rigging sagging like collapsed tightropes.

  “I don’t have any more control over them than I have over you,” she said.

  “They’re your parents.”

  “They’re your suppliers.” Her expression was pained, as though she wished she could call the words back.

  Cal’s eyes widened as he stared her down. He wondered if she’d ever acknowledged this fact, even to herself.

  She pointed at her parents as though she hadn’t surprised herself as much as him. “Think about this next time you light up. Do you want to end up like them?”

  He turned away, willing her harsh tone to run off his back.

  He heard her sigh behind him, then she said in a weary voice, “Henna, Leaf, girls, let’s go.”

  Leaf unspooled his wiry frame from the cockpit and met Mom on the finger pier. “You sure no cops followed you?”

  “As long as you’re not disorderly, they can’t arrest you. Calm down.” She herded tittering Theodosia, Chrissy, and her mother down the pier.

  Cal folded his arms and watched their progression down the dock.

  Henna’s white hair and muumuu-draped breasts hung loose nearly to her waist. “Thanks for the lift, Starry, Starry bright! What goes around comes calling.”

  The THC girls shouted their agreement. Leaf slunk along the dock, eyes searching for New Smyrna Beach’s finest.

  Cal could feel Starr’s embarrassment radiating back to him. The whole procession would be funny if he couldn’t hear water lapping against the maimed bow behind him.

  Henna and Chrissy veered toward the edge of the pier. Evie materialized, leapt off her boat, and latched onto the women. “Need some help?” she said over her shoulder to Mom. “Dealing with stoned people is one of my primo life skills.”

  “Please.” Mom grabbed Theodosia’s bony elbow and kept her eyes riveted to Leaf’s stealth survey of the marina perimeter.

  Cal should be the one helping his mother, not Evie. But he’d spent hours pacing the dock worrying about his grandparents, beating himself up for not going out on the boat with them, and he was exhausted.

  He watched Mom and Evie cajole and heft the seniors into the minivan, then crouched on the bow to unscrew the crumpled rail his grandparents had plowed into the dock.

  Dock light spilled onto the deck around him. A warm breeze ruffled the hair on his arms, and he shivered as though he were cold. Overhead, pale clouds piled up in plum-colored sky.

  Van Gogh’s eyes followed him from atop the dock box as though he commiserated.

  He should have taken business courses in college. And passed them. Then, maybe he wouldn’t have chosen to think optimistic when he couldn’t afford boat owner’s insurance.

  On the weathered boards below Van Gogh, stood the sandwich sign he’d painted. The Escape, 2-hour sails $45 per person. (386) 689-8400 or SailingEscape@hotmail.com. Fish had laid the sign down—who else could it have been?—every time Cal left the dock. What a two-year-old.

  In the three weeks the Escape had been back in the water, he’d sailed twice and earned enough to pay a fourth of the marina slip rental. There had been no money for loan payments. He should buy some more time from the bank, but he couldn’t suck it up enough to grovel to Aly.

  He’d put out flyers at every condo and hotel in New Smyrna Beach, designed a brochure for the Chamber of Commerce, and opened an account with Trip Advisor. What more could he do to jump-start the business without an IV of capital?

  He craved a joint with the urgency of oxygen. Watching his stoned grandparents plow into the piling should have made him scatter his weed on the water. But his stash, compliments of Henna’s garden, was still duck taped inside of the stabilizing keel where it jutted below water level. He could almost smell the sweetness.

  If he smoked now, it would take a miracle to get the marijuana out of his system in the eleven days till he had to report to his probation officer.

  Fish churned Zeke’s Ambition into his slip and dumped a boatload of fishermen. Van Gogh bounded off the dock box and nosed Fish while he cleated the mooring line to the dock. Fish squatted and rubbed the dog’s ears. His gaze panned down the dock, halting on the Escape and her damaged bow.

  Fish grimaced, and in Cal’s head, he heard Fish say. “Sucks, man. We’ll fix it. No worries.”

  But Fish turned away, crossed his gangplank and disappeared into his boat.

  C
al stepped onto the dock with the misshapen rail in his hands. He turned to stare at the Escape. Aly’s mangled figurehead stared back at him like an omen things were wrecked with Aly before they’d even launched. He could repaint it someday, but the boat wouldn’t need dry dock for another three years.

  His mother’s words clanged in his ears. No, he didn’t want to end up like his grandparents. This was the first time he hadn’t appreciated his similarity to Henna and Leaf.

  If he was genetically wired to live their life, he’d fight it for all he was worth.

  Chapter 5

  October 14

  Have you ever known exactly what someone else should do to fix their opus or life, but you can’t do anything about it because it’s their art, their existence? You stomp your foot and fume, but they don’t rescue themselves—not even if you spell out how in three easy steps. But turn to the canvas on your own easel, the face in your mirror—and all of a sudden you’re as clueless as your friend.

  Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  Cal didn’t shower and shave—pointless, facing October fourteenth without this month’s slip rent, much less a loan payment. He coiled the anchor line on the bow.

  Van Gogh’s tail drummed against the cabin, and Cal looked up at Fish crossing the space between their boats in long strides. “Stay,” Cal commanded his dog.

  Fish stopped on the finger pier. “What? No charters today?”

  Van Gogh whined, his tail swishing across the deck.

  Like Van Gogh, Cal strained toward Fish. He eyed Fish’s smirk. “Don’t gloat too much, I’m taking off before I get evicted by the dock master.”

  “Here, let me help.” Fish bent to loosen the mooring line. “Excuse me for being short on sympathy. Not everybody’s grandma signs over a boat.”

  Cal absorbed the blow. “You always were a grudge-holder. I said I was sorry. What do you want? Title to the boat?”