The Art of My Life

by Ann Lee Miller

  Or it could be hypothermia and the mental confusion hadn’t set in yet.

  Her one regret was never gathering the courage to trust Cal. He was imperfect—addicted to weed for starters—but she’d probably loved him since she was fifteen if she were honest with herself.

  It wasn’t like her life was in perfect order. She had herpes—something only death would resolve. And mega daddy issues.

  If she didn’t die, she’d live differently. She’d trust Cal. She’d love him if he’d let her.

  A cloud moved and sun warmed her cheek. Her gaze drifted to the Escape’s mainsail. What she saw took a second to register in her brain.

  There, a speck lighter than the ocean, illumined by the sun freshly unveiled from cloud cover. He steered the boat in that direction, not taking his eyes off the color variation. It could be seaweed, driftwood, a dead fish.

  He clamped down on his breath, adjusted the Escape’s bearing, and opened up the throttle.

  Aly came into focus through the lenses of the field glasses.

  She waved her arms.

  His breath whooshed out. His knees felt like someone kicked them from behind, and his body shook.

  Hang on, Al. Just hang on. He set the binoculars on the bench. Keep her safe. Just a few more minutes.

  He came alongside Aly and killed the engine. Van Gogh leapt from the deck and crashed into the water beside Aly as if he wanted to rescue her himself. He swam circles around Aly as she paddled for the transom ladder.

  Cal fought the weight of her sodden jeans and sweatshirt and hauled her onboard. He crouched over her where she landed on the deck and crushed her against his chest. “Thank God you’re safe.” Inside he felt the wonder, the reality of the words he’d spoken.

  His heart hammered against her reed-like body, and her teeth chattered near his ear.

  Van Gogh’s distressed yips sounded from the base of the ladder.

  He released Aly, scooped up the flailing dog and deposited him on the deck.

  Shivering, Aly kicked off the sock she hadn’t lost in the ocean and twisted seawater out of the front of her sweatshirt.

  Cal clamped a hand to her armpit and hustled her through the spray of water droplets flinging from Van Gogh’s coat, down the companionway, and wrenched on the shower. “You need a warm shower. I’ll keep the engine running to keep the water hot until you’re done.”

  He stripped Aly’s sodden hoodie and T-shirt over her head.

  She fumbled with the button on her jeans with shaking fingers.

  “Here, I’ll do it.” He unbuttoned her jeans, pulled the zipper down, slid them over the gooseflesh of her hips, and helped her peel off the soggy denim.

  He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the pale curves, the blue slips of material painted to the minutest ridges and crevices of her body, He looked out the porthole. “Do you need more help?” His breath held.

  “Sail while we’ve got daylight.” She rubbed her arms waiting for him to leave.

  “I’m so sorry I left you topside alone.”

  “Get out of here. I’m freezing.”

  Cal flicked his eyes over her body one last time, memorizing the peaks and valleys of her ribs and hip bones, the cerulean shade of material melded to small, taut breasts, the sweep of leg she bent to keep his eyes from feasting on the rest of her. He stepped out and shut the door.

  The chill of his wet sweatshirt seeped through to his skin—along with the knowledge he’d just seen more of Aly than ever before. He’d marry her, touch all that beauty, make love to her. His fingers flexed at his sides.

  The next thought that whiplashed through his head was the meeting with his probation officer he’d missed the day after Thanksgiving. Not that he would have gone with weed in his system and tested dirty.

  He tore off the damp shirt, balled it, and fired it across the cabin.

  Twenty minutes later Aly emerged from the companionway in a pair of his sweats and one of his hoodies.

  At the sight of her, gratitude crashed over him, washing away his own mess. Aly was alive. That was all that mattered. His problems weren’t life and death.

  He killed the motor and cleated the sheet. “Come here.” He folded her against him and hung on, his cheek mashed to hers. “Thank God you’re safe. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we reach land.”

  Aly turned and nestled under his arm. “It was stupid for me to chase my hat.”

  He pulled her tighter against his side, not wanting to break contact with her for a long time. “It was an accident.”

  “I thought I was going to freeze to death.”

  “You were in the Gulf Stream. The coldest the water could’ve been is seventy-two.”

  Aly frowned. “Well, I don’t get into the pool till the water’s ninety. How do you know all this stuff?”

  Cal shrugged. “I know trivia, just not what’s important.”

  The day spun out under a colorless winter sun, their argument buried under the joy and relief of Aly’s rescue. They took turns sailing and napping. At last, West Palm Beach, backlit by the sunset, poked from the horizon.

  Cal dropped anchor with only enough energy left to murmur, “Good night,” to a bleary-eyed Aly as she headed to the fore bunk.

  He shut the door to the master suite, stripped down, and fell into his bunk expecting the sweet blackness of sleep to swallow him whole.

  Instead, the thin cerulean of Aly’s bra and panties burned against the insides of his eyelids. He groaned and rolled over, burying his head in his pillow.

  Aly let her shoulders slump. Finally, they were safely tied up in their slip at the marina. She glanced at Cal who coiled line across the cockpit from her. Since she’d gone overboard, Cal had barely let go of her, except to sleep. It must have really shaken him. But he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. And he’d seen her nearly naked. Equal parts wanting Cal to desire her and wanting to retreat to protecting her heart tug-of-warred inside her.

  She’d been right—the whole herpes thing grossed him out.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Thankfully, it had been stowed below deck during the trip. She glanced at the unfamiliar number. “Hello.”

  “Aly?” The voice was foreign and familiar at the same time.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s your father.”

  She froze, her mouth half open. She felt the blood drain from her face. “H-hi, Dad.”

  Cal’s head jerked up. He dropped the line and stepped behind her. She felt the gentle grip of his hands steadying her shoulders.

  “You spent the money?” Her father’s voice went granite hard.

  “I’m starting a business with a friend.” Her voice sounded strangled in her own ears.

  “I got your e-mail at my office. So, this is what you do with my hard-earned money? Sink it into a boat? Are you crazy? In this economy, you’d have to be a moron to start a cruising business. Do you even read the business pages? At least your sister had the sense to invest my money in a house.”

  “I own a con—”

  “If you have a brain in your head you’ll cut your losses and get out. That’s all I have to say.” The phone went dead in her ear.

  She turned into Cal’s chest, tears she hadn’t realized she cried dripped onto his sweatshirt. “He said—”

  “I heard the whole thing.”

  “The last time I spoke to him I was seven years old. Seven. Now he rants at me.” She sunk to the cockpit bench. “What have I done? What was I thinking sending him that e-mail advertisement about the business? Now I’ve ruined everything. He hates me.”

  “He’s pissed. He doesn’t hate you. He’s pissed because your mom took him to court and got the child support money you deserved.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “This is not your fault. Your parents’ divorce is not your fault. Your father’s non-communication all these years is not your fault.” Cal waited for her to meet his gaze. “It’s his loss. You are beautiful, intelligent, worth knowing
and loving.” He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her cheek and wrapped her in his arms.

  She hugged him back. The words poured balm onto her wounded spirit.

  “It says in the Bible that God is a father to the fatherless.”

  The words rumbled in his chest against her ear. Words that helped.

  She sniffled and tried to back away, but Cal held her fast, his embrace catching her into a deeper comfort.

  Cal sent Aly home after her dad’s call and told her to take a couple of days comp time off to rest. He replenished his weed supply at Henna’s and returned to the Escape to take his own brand of comp time. He’d smoked yesterday. One more day wouldn’t make any difference. He’d go in to his probation officer thirty days from now, say he forgot, didn’t have phone service on the water, something. He doubted he’d get picked up for missing one meeting.

  The good doctor’s words paraded through his head like ugly Día de los Muertos skulls in crazy hats and dead flowers.

  In this economy, you’d have to be a moron to start a cruising business.

  If you have a brain in your head you’ll cut your losses and get out.

  Aly had been blinded by their friendship and made a stupid business decision. The business had done nothing but fail. Aly’s money was as good as gone. Aly should take her dad’s advice and get out.

  He should go get a telemarketing job. He lit another joint and inhaled its sweet anesthetic.

  The hatch clattered open and he cupped the joint and held it under the table.

  Aly climbed down the steps and coughed. She waved her arms through the smoke in the cabin. “This is your answer to making this business go?” She leaned across the table and peered at him. “Your eyes look like charts drawn in red ink.”

  Anger marred her face, but the words swirled in the smoky air and deadened before they reached his ears. Cal brought the joint out from under the table and put it to his lips, his eyes never leaving hers. He filled his lungs.

  She climbed two steps toward the hatch. “Somebody’s got to figure out a way for us to make money. And it’s obviously not you.” She paused in the companionway. “I’m going to talk to Fish about the feasibility of refitting the Escape for fishing charters.”

  Fish? She was going to talk to Fish? Something boiled in his chest eating up the hazy tranquility.

  Aly turned back and speared him with her eyes. “The only cash crop we’ve got is your art. But you can’t paint stoned. I bet you haven’t even started the Clancy’s Cantina commission.”

  Actually, he’d worked on it daily during the four days between the farmer’s market and Thanksgiving. They’d only returned yesterday from Grand Bahama. But he couldn’t get the words in his head to exit his mouth.

  “Weed’s not going to get your picture on People magazine. You could be producing art all day every day we don’t have a charter. When you sober up you might think about sketching every business in town.” She looked at Van Gogh. “I’m taking the dog. It’s got to be pet abuse to make your dog breathe your smoke.”

  She boosted Van Gogh up, and he clattered through the hatchway.

  “Evie’s looking for you,” Aly muttered before the hatch slammed shut.

  I don’t want Evie. I want…. Shit.

  Chapter 17

  December 23

  Ever lose your temper because somebody let you down? But after you cool off, you think about all the times you’ve made hideously bad choices?

  How do I repair my slash marks from a soul-deep friendship-in-progress on the canvas of my life?

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

  Cal jerked his Jeep into a spot outside the church. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d come. Mom had given up texting him on Sunday mornings years ago.

  Thad Mack unfolded his suit-clad bulk from a beach baked Subaru. A suit. Really, Thad? Suits covered up things people wanted to hide—like the fact that Cal hadn’t seen Thad sober since they graduated from high school. Suits strained to impress. They pasted a smile on your life that said you had achieved success, and now you belonged. Even Dad quit wearing suits when Cal was still a little kid.

  The gunmetal gray material strained across Thad’s broad back. He slipped his keys into his pocket, flashing the too-snug seat of his beltless pants. Spineless, colorless Thad, a jellyfish really, no doubt showed up because his mother had commanded him.

  Not so different from Cal, sitting in the silence of the darkened Jeep because, like an idiot, he kept trying to please Mom—a mother duck who marshaled her offspring into formation behind her to church on Christmas Eve.

  He shoved open the car door and breathed in the scent from someone’s chimney as he headed for the building. And he was proving to Aly he could change. The fifteen renderings of New Smyrna businesses he’d knocked out this month helped. He’d been so obsessed with painting he’d barely seen her in December.

  He swung the door open and stepped into the bright lights of the lobby. Familiarity wrapped around him with the hugs and handshakes from people he knew as well as the divots in his favorite board—Myra Johnson who taught fourth grade at Coronado Elementary for as long as he could remember and slipped him a twenty when he got fired from the camp; Daryl Crites, mechanic at Stuart’s Car Care who taught him how to change his brakes; leathered Kelly Lantana, beach lifeguard who told him to call her if he ever needed a designated driver, flooring salesman Chuck Jessup who wrote him a reference to get a job at Stoney’s. And they knew him a damn sight deeper than the flaws published in the Hometown News.

  They’d caught him and Fish “swimming” in the baptistery in their Spiderman undershorts, crawling on their bellies under the pews playing army, concocting a witches’ brew of cider, hot chocolate, and Cremora at the fall festival. Peppered between the Bible verses and prayers, they marched their own embarrassments out to comfort him in notes to jail or when they saw him around New Smyrna Beach.

  He inhaled the scent of evergreen from the Christmas wreaths hung on the walls and wondered why he stayed away from a place where he belonged, not in Thad’s poser-suit way, but for real.

  Starr sailed toward him. “Merry Christmas, Cal. Thanks for coming.” She wrapped wiry arms around him.

  Odd.

  She released him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  He couldn’t read the emotion in her gaze or the whitening of her scar. She was communicating something deeper than the statement her words framed. “Of course.”

  “Sit beside me?”

  He smiled. “Sure, Mom. I’ll save you a seat.”

  She stared at him another second as though there were something else she wanted to say, then she smiled and turned away.

  A Christmas cookie sweetness settled into him, the kind that made you want to take a swig of milk. But he wanted to savor the sugar his mother had left behind.

  His gaze smacked into Fish who stood across the foyer transfixed, looking up the stairs leading to the sound booth.

  Cal’s gaze lifted to the stairs where his sister and Aly jogged upward. Aly wore slacks, and Missy’s forest green skirt flounced against her thighs, showing more leg than Fish had any right to see.

  Fish held his hands out like, Hey, it’s not my fault they ran up the stairs in front of me.

  Anyone carrying a man card knew exactly what Fish was thinking. Whatever. Cal turned and pushed through the swinging doors into the sanctuary.

  He made his way to the pew where his family always sat, three quarters of the way back on the right side. His mother had always reasoned that if the kids acted up during church, only a fourth of the congregation would see it.

  He slid onto the shiny wood, like he had a thousand times before. The hymnal scent mingled with furniture polish and candle wax. His father talked to Hellen Ruffner at the piano. The rest of the room was empty. But Cal felt something there. Something that embraced him like his mother had, but certain, rather than awkward. It had been a long time since he’d felt this—whatever it was.

>   His mind skipped back to the day he sat on his surfboard at seventeen basking in the Presence, capital P. Sun warmed his back, wind caressed him, waves lapped at his knees. He’d asked for Aly’s heart.

  Then, he’d waited.

  Aly had one boyfriend after another and never considered Cal an option. Somewhere along the way, he couldn’t remember which guy she was seeing, he’d given up. On Aly. On the Presence.

  Aly slipped into the pew and searched his eyes, tentatively, almost like they were strangers.

  He smiled at her, reached for her hand, and squeezed it. Maybe it was time for him to grow up. You didn’t always get what you wanted. He wasn’t a two year old who could stomp his foot and demand his own way. He released Aly’s hand and smiled at her. She was alive, and that was enough. It would have to be enough.

  Missy said, hey, and took a seat next to Aly. She leaned back in the pew, lips curving upward. Her lashes fluttered on her cheek as though she were communicating with the Presence. She hadn’t gotten Fish or a husband like she wanted, but she didn’t give up on faith.

  Mom came down the opposite aisle and slid in beside him. She smiled—like cocoa and milk warmed in a saucepan on the stove. And he realized she hadn’t said anything about his coming to church in jeans. Maybe for once, just showing up was enough.

  Fish’s eyes tracked Missy across the front of the sanctuary. His hand felt for the jewelry box in his pocket. After the service she’d flitted up to say something to her father, then over to old Mrs. Ruffner at the piano. She’d barely said two words to him all evening. He needed five minutes alone with her before the bedlam of gift opening at her folks’.

  Aly nudged his shoulder and he realized everyone had left the pew but them.

  Aly quirked a brow at him. “Missy thinks no one’s noticed she’s grown up.”

  “Yeah, and I didn’t notice the last hurricane that rolled through.”

  “Maybe you should mention it to her.”

  “Maybe I have.”

  “Maybe she’s not convinced.”