“Um. A decent human being?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Doesn’t exist.”
“I saw someone in need and tried to do the right thing.”
“I’m not your charity case or a direction to point your moral compass,” he snapped.
“You were already saltastic AF before Eli’s, but is that what you’re extra salty about? Because I helped you? Well, persecute me for being nice.”
“Nothing in this world is—”
Someone interrupted us.
“You’re McCullough, right?” a familiar male sounded before turning to me. “Hi, Jade.”
My massage client, Kenneth Anderson, approached our table. He wore a checkered polo shirt and a matching visor with khakis. That night, he held three backscratchers in his left hand— red, yellow, and blue.
Miles’s head dropped a few inches. He closed his eyes before bracing his hands on the table and slowly stood up. “Look, man. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Trouble?” Kenneth appeared confused and took a step back. “Maybe I have the wrong guy. You look like someone I saw in a YourTube video. A skydiver in Nepal.”
Miles let the tension out of his shoulders and sat down again. He was void of enthusiasm, a stark contrast from when he’d fixated on the kite surfers in my Jeep. The difference? The focus was on him. “That’s me.”
“Your video was incredible.” Kenneth switched the backscratchers to his right hand and then to his left again. “It inspired me to book my first plunge, up in Snohomish next week. Have you jumped there?”
“Twice. The views of Rainier and The Puget Sound are amazing.” Miles glanced at the long pieces of red, yellow, and blue plastic in Kenneth’s grip. “13,000 feet with sixty seconds of freefalling.”
Kenneth fidgeted. “I’m wigging out.”
“Don’t. Tandem skydives have strong safety markers. You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than splat. Last I checked, the fatality rate is ridiculously low, like thirteen deaths out of three-point-three million jumps in a year.”
Kenneth seemed relieved while my stomach turned at the thought.
“Soak up the sensory overload. The fear. The adrenaline. The risk. It’s intense. My advice? Take in the entire experience— before, during, and after.” A beep sounded from the table. “That kind of rush is the only time I can feel.” Miles glanced down at his phone. “Sorry. I gotta deal with this.”
“No problem. Thanks for the talk,” Kenneth replied.
Miles busily typed on his cell.
Kenneth turned toward me. “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“They ID’d the body that washed up down at the cove.”
I sat up straight. “They did? Who was it?”
A wave of sadness splashed over Kenneth’s face. “Joyce. My co-worker down at the center.”
“Kingsly?” I whispered.
Kenneth nodded.
Invisible weight crushed my chest like an empty soda can and my hands raced to cover my mouth. “No! What happened?”
He shook his head. “No one’s said yet.”
The key clicking across the table paused for a few seconds. Miles’s eyes flicked up at me, and then he pecked at the buttons again.
Kenneth’s brow wrinkled. “Word hasn’t gotten out everywhere, and I still can’t believe it. Thought you should know since she was one of your clients.”
My mind trailed back to Tuesday when Joyce no-showed. I was so happy to have one less appointment, but I withdrew my joy. That bright moment in my workday became overshadowed by shame. Much like that night I stood on the edge of the cliff while throwing up cheesecake, I felt like I should’ve somehow helped or questioned her absence. But I didn’t. An aching lump grew in my throat.
“I should get going.” Kenneth gave my shoulder a squeeze at the same time his phone rang the punchy tune of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence through his cell as he viewed the screen. “My wife’s calling. When I hear details about the funeral, I’ll let you know.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
A few seconds later, Miles and I were alone at the table again.
I tried to hold back the tears, but the news about Joyce tipped my emotional bucket. It didn’t matter who saw me cry.
Miles glimpsed me and then focused on his cell screen. “You two close?”
“No. Not really.” I blinked.
“Pretty upset over someone you barely knew. Death happens.”
Death happens?
If I could take back the massage, I would’ve. If I could take back the favor from Eddie and the ride to Ocean Shores, I would’ve. If I could take back picking up his tux, the waiting for thirty minutes, and telling Miles my favorite color, I would’ve, but I couldn’t undo any of it.
“Eat a bag of dicks,” I seethed. “She was a human being, which is more than I can say for you.” I swiped for the handles on my tote bag, stood up, and stormed off.
A snotty mess, I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. Forget all of them. Annelies. Bo. Eli. Sienna, Miles, and Paige. Forget Iris, Teddy, Cranston, and Barry. I couldn’t deal and needed escape. Sobs blurred my vision, causing people to stare with concern as I shoved my way through crowds, looking for somewhere to hide. Anywhere. All I wanted was to dive under the crest of incoming waves and disappear.
Halfway across the grounds, I stopped behind a stack of hay bales and sat on the cement. Joyce Kingsly. As much as I complained about my regular clients and their weird quirks, I had a bond with each one of them. No more slippery stories about slug breeding. No more bragging tales about fitted sheet folding contests. I shielded my face from the world with my palms and focused on breathing until the hiccups stopped. Roxy! Roxy could always slow my head from spinning. My vision blurred through another curtain of hot tears while I dialed with shaky hands.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
Voicemail.
“C’mon, Rox. I need you.” I threw my phone on my lap with force. Tipping my head back against the hay block behind me, I closed my eyes and listened to the surroundings. Screams. Laughter. Chatter. Everyone remained unaware someone nearby mourned. Minutes passed. Maybe an hour. No clue. I didn’t pay attention to time and only allowed numbness to course through me while I processed the latest trauma.
The temperature dipped and goosebumps crawled across my skin. I needed to go home. As I started the long walk back to the Jeep, I realized I had to pee. The portable toilets were on the other side of the fairgrounds, and they grossed me out. The nearby gym doors were open, their lit windows blips in the dim setting. From district sports meets in high school, I remembered a bathroom inside the entrance on the left. I opted for a quick pit stop and then I’d make a run for it before Paige found me with her magnifying glass. Game plan engaged.
The left side of the double doors was propped open about six inches with a brick. I hesitated in pulling, my hand resting on the cold metal. Nothing had changed over the years. The flaking paint was still a hideous blue showing flecks of red beneath. One of the signs on the right advertised my high school mascot with rounded cartoon edges. But one element was different— the scene through the doorway. I froze. A man picked up a basketball off a rack and lobbed it from half court, missing his shot by inches.
Miles McCullough.
Miles swore once, the sound echoing against the walls of the gymnasium. He picked up another ball, hurling it at the hoop. A second miss. And then a third. He paced. “What’s wrong with me?”
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. The sound of tennis shoes at an even pace on waxed gymnasium flooring kept my feet firmly planted.
“I’m gonna need you to leave, son,” a calm voice said with a southern drawl.
Miles turned aro
und and quickly wiped his eyes. “Sorry, Coach. Didn’t know the gym was off limits.”
Vance Zimmer, the local high school phys ed teacher, closed in on the distance between them. “It’s not off limits. You’re just not welcome here.”
Wow.
“Coach?” Disbelief spanned Miles’s face and he took a step backward.
Coach Zimmer’s expression remained a solid constancy of indifference.
“They got to you, too?”
“No one got to me.” Coach Zimmer shook his head. “Don’t make this out to be some conspiracy. You know what you did.”
“What I did,” Miles repeated before grabbing another basketball. The joints in his fingers curved and shook, his fingertips trying to dig into the firm orange leather. It didn’t work. He bounced it hard three times. The sound punctuated with each syllable and made me wince. “You. Weren’t. There. No one was!” he yelled as he launched it across the room, the ball bouncing off the chin-up bar before he snatched the last one from the rack. “You know me. I spent two years showing you Seth McCullough matters. The history on that wall,” he pointed, “proves it.”
My eyes trailed to where Miles gestured, seeing the district’s sports record banners hanging above the aluminum bleachers.
Track.
Swimming.
Basketball.
Lacrosse.
All four read Miles’s last name in red felt letters on cream background with many other student’s names underneath. He’d topped the lists with records no one else shattered in years.
“All that wall shows me is someone who added to the scoreboard, not someone who added to their character.”
“Back after… when… You said you believed in me.” Miles’s eyes shimmered with tears, but his voice radiated with hot coals when he jabbed his own chest with his thumb. “Me!”
“That’s right. I did say I believed in you.” Coach Zimmer waited for a few moments. “Now, I plain don’t believe you.”
Each of Coach’s words were a spray of bullets, delivering the fatal blow. Miles’s head dropped forward until he stared at the floor. The latest basketball fell from his hands to the ground and it rolled toward the doorway.
I took a step back and realized I’d held my breath, afraid they’d notice me.
The coach turned and walked away with the same high-pitched shoe squeaks mimicking the ones from his entrance. “You have five minutes to get gone, McCullough.”
The door on the far side of the gymnasium slammed.
I dared to peek again and couldn’t stop watching. Miles’s shoulders heaved as he stood there for a while. Alone. From stillness, he thundered across the gym and stomped his way up the bleachers. One by one, he ripped down the four record boards bearing his name and threw them to the ground.
A tap on the arm made me squeal and spin around. “Warn a girl, Bo.”
“I’ve looked all over for you. Fireworks are about to start and Annelies will lose her mind if everyone isn’t there to tell her how great they are. What are you doing down here?”
“Uh. Nothing.” I casually moved a few feet away from the door, hoping Bo would take the bait and follow. “Just had to use the bathroom. Let’s go.”
He fell for it.
Seconds after we arrived at the two picnic tables, a series of booms sounded overhead, brilliant flashes of oranges, yellows, and white exploding against the backdrop of darkness. Everyone sat in their same spots from the champagne toast… except for Miles.
* * *
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I felt full. My ears rang from loud carnival rides and fireworks. My stomach hurt from the oversized caramel apple. My chest ached from the news about Joyce. My mind spun from dissecting every event that’d happened.
I reflected on when I watched Joyce’s body get pulled from the water. Throughout every thought, regardless the topic, the sound of a bouncing basketball wouldn’t vacate my head.
Bottling emotions was ingrained in me from a young age— especially sadness. But in the dark, loneliness accepted my friendship without judgment. As much as I didn’t want to give in, I relied on my usual fallbacks. Step one: expel just enough numbness overflowing in my chest so I could feel. Step two: relive a sliver of the past through the tears streaming down my cheeks. I’d save the rest for later, imprisoning myself by rationing the pain. After all, I deserved every bit for what I’d done.
At three o’clock in the morning, I shoved back the covers and slipped into my swimsuit, creeping into the dark for a swim to clear my head.
I knew my secret.
The more pressing question? What was Miles’s secret?
I stretched and cuddled into the down comforter. Peaceful quiet. No fireworks. No Annelies barking orders. No kitten finger needles to the face. No worries. Even the pain in my shoulder let up a fraction with a high dose of ibuprofen, allowing me a few hours of uninterrupted sleep after my swim.
Chirp.
I opened one eye and squinted at the alarm clock. 8:01 a.m. “Leave me alone, Rox.”
Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirp.
“Enough textual harassment.” I pulled the pillow over my head. “No means no.”
Chirp.
I fumbled for the phone on the nightstand. “This better be important.” I saw two missed calls from Iris. She could wait. A string of text messages appeared underneath from an undisclosed number.
RESTRICTED
Hey, Jade. This is Zoe down at The DA.
Annelies asked me to clear my schedule on Saturday, but I have an appointment in the morning and plans in the evening. Hoping 1:00 p.m. works for your lesson.
Oh! And if you could forward this to Seth, that’d help me tons. I don’t have his number.
Trying not to bother Annelies. She’s getting her hair colored for the wedding.
Thanks!
That makes two of us not having his number. I groaned. The dance lesson. I’d forgotten about it again, or maybe I tried to will the event into nonexistence. The torch was passed, making it my responsibility to relay the appointment information to Miles. Shitballs.
I sifted through the chart of emoticons and tapped once. Nothing says “fuck you” like a giant thumbs up. How else could I reply? I’d sound like a bitch to Annelies if I told Zoe “no,” especially after what’d happened with my champagne toast the night before.
Who else would have Miles’s number? Bo wouldn’t. I didn’t have Sienna’s digits. Or Lissy’s. Texting Paige would only happen at gunpoint. Reaching out to Annelies or Eli directly? No, thanks. Thinking back to my Internet search, it wasn’t online, either.
Then, I remembered my trip to Seamless and Miles’s wallet lying on Sabina’s counter. His address remained vivid in my mind— 3529 Beach Boulevard in Steele Falls. With burning passion, I hated that town, but I’d been forced into a corner. Again. I convinced myself I could make a quick trip to leave a note on the door and boomerang to Cannon Cove. Crisis averted. If he didn’t get the message, not my problem. At least it’d be off my conscience.
Jade Nash had a mission.
I pulled a sticky notepad from the drawer and a black pen, scribbling.
Hey, Shit Stick!
Your lame ass needs to be at The DA on Saturday at 1 p.m.
-Jade
P.S. Coach Zimmer had it right. I don’t believe you either.
Bad idea. Letting him know I’d overheard their conversation would be a mistake. Plus, I didn’t know what they’d argued about. I crumpled it up and jotted round two.
Sulking Explosive Trash Hole (S.E.T.H.)
Be at The DA on July 6th at 1 p.m.
-Just A Disappointing Existence (J.A.D.E.)
I thought using his preferred name with negative connotations would make me feel justi
fied. It didn’t. With a growl, I wadded it and penned a third try.
Miles,
Dance lesson.
Saturday, July 6th. 1 p.m.
DA. Cannon Cove.
-Jade
It didn’t have flair, but it’d get the point across.
I showered, got dressed, and pinned my hair up in a bun. A once-over in the mirror convinced me sunglasses and a baseball cap would do enough to disguise my identity. I tossed a handful of cat treats on the floor for Charlotte and locked the door behind me.
Less than an hour later, I found myself crossing the city limits into Steele Falls, a small town harboring a big ghost of my past. Sweaty palms, a nervous stomach, and sketchy cell reception all had me second-guessing my trip and believing the address didn’t exist. But when I was about to give up, I saw a sign pointing toward the ocean that read “Beach Boulevard.”
Near the end of the long road I found 3529, a quaint house with shake siding, separated from the shore by the street and a sandy boardwalk. A newish, black hatchback was parallel parked out front.
Limited parking left me finding a spot three doors down near the public access point for the beach. After drumming the steering wheel with sweaty fingertips for far too long and contemplating my next step, I grabbed the note and coaxed myself out of the Jeep. My pulse hammered while I walked down a retired floating dock that’d been converted into a makeshift sidewalk. Hinged ramps were flush with the sand underneath and offered a solid foundation, but my knees disagreed and voiced their own skeptical opinion by wobbling with each step.
When I crossed the street, a seagull flapped its wings overhead and landed on a rusty trash can with a squawk, assessing my moves with judgmental eyes. I didn’t let its critical stare deter me. “Don’t look at me like that, surf chicken,” I said. “You don’t know the situation.” A second gull landed next to the first. “P.S., I’m not impressed with what your friend did to my windshield a few days ago.”
Jade Page 19