Heart Bones

by Hoover, Colleen

  “She’s an only child. A little older than you, a freshman in college, home for the summer. You’ll love her.”

  We’ll see. I’ve read Cinderella.

  He reaches toward the vent. “Is it hot in here? Too cold?”

  “It’s fine.”

  I wish he’d play some music. I don’t know how to have a comfortable conversation with him yet.

  “How’s your mother?”

  I stiffen when he asks that question. “She’s…” I pause. I don’t even know how to say it. I feel like I’ve waited so long to bring it up, that now it would seem strange or worrisome that I didn’t tell him on the phone last night. Or when I first saw him in the airport. And then there’s the lie I told the ticket agent—that my mother was the one who dropped me off at the airport.

  “She’s better than she’s been in a long time.” I reach down to the side of my seat to find the lever to lean it back. Instead of a lever, I find a bunch of buttons. I push them until my seat finally starts to recline. “Wake me when we get there?” I see him nod, and I feel kind of bad, but I don’t know how long of a drive this is going to be and I really just want to close my eyes and try to sleep and avoid questions I don’t know that I can answer.

  THREE

  My head is knocked around by a violent shake. My eyes flick open and my whole body jerks awake.

  “It’s a ferry,” my father says. “Sorry, it’s always bumpy on the ramp.”

  I glance over at my father, a little discombobulated. But then everything comes back to me.

  My mother died last night.

  My father still has no idea.

  I have a stepsister and a stepmother.

  I look out my window, but there are rows of cars blocking my view in every direction. “Why are we on a ferry?”

  “GPS said there was a two-hour traffic backup on highway 87. Probably a wreck. I figured the ferry to Bolivar Peninsula would be faster this time of day.”

  “Ferry to where?”

  “It’s where Alana’s summer house is. You’ll love it.”

  “Summer house?” I cock an eyebrow. “You married someone who has seasonal homes?”

  My father chuckles lightly, but it wasn’t a joke.

  When I last stayed with him, he lived in a cheap one-bedroom apartment in Washington and I slept on the couch. Now he has a wife with more than one home?

  I stare at him a moment, realizing why he seems different. It isn’t the age. It’s the money.

  He’s never been a rich man. Not even close. He made enough to pay his child support and afford a one-bedroom apartment, but he was the type of dad who used to save money by cutting his own hair and reusing plastic cups.

  But looking at him now, it’s apparent that the small changes in him are because he has money. A haircut he paid for. Name brand clothes. A car that has buttons rather than levers.

  I look at his steering wheel and see a shiny silver leaping cat in the center of it.

  My father drives a Jaguar.

  I can feel my face contorting into a grimace, so I look out the window before he can see the repugnance radiating from me. “Are you rich now?”

  He chuckles again. I hate it. I hate hearing people chuckle; it’s the most condescending of all laughs. “I did get a promotion a couple of years ago, but not the kind of promotion that would afford me seasonal houses. Alana’s divorce left her with a few assets, but she’s also a dentist, so she does okay for herself.”

  A dentist.

  This is so bad.

  I grew up in a trailer house with a drug addict for a mother, and now I’m about to spend the summer in a beach house with a stepmother who holds a doctorate, which means her offspring is more than likely a spoiled rich girl I’ll have nothing in common with.

  I should have stayed in Kentucky.

  I don’t people well as it is, but I’m even worse at peopling with people who have money.

  I need out of this car. I need a moment to myself.

  I lift in my seat, trying to get a better look out the window to see if other people are out of their cars. I’ve never been to the ocean before, nor have I been on a ferry. My father lived in Spokane most of my life and it isn’t near the water, so Kentucky and Washington are the only two states I’ve been to until now.

  “Am I allowed to get out of the car?”

  “Yep,” he says. “There’s an observation deck upstairs. We have about fifteen minutes.”

  “Are you getting out?”

  He shakes his head and grabs his cell phone. “I’ve got some calls to make.”

  I get out of his car and look toward the back of the ferry, but there are families tossing pieces of bread at hovering seagulls. There’s also a crowd at the front of the ferry, and at the observation deck above me, so I walk until I’m out of my father’s sight. There’s no one on the other side of the boat, so I make my way between the cars.

  When I reach the railing, I grip it and lean forward, staring out over the ocean for the first time in my life.

  If clear had a smell, this would be it.

  I’m convinced I’ve never inhaled purer breaths than the ones I’m inhaling now. I close my eyes and breathe in as much of it as I can. There’s something about the saltiness of the air that feels forgiving as it mixes with the stale Kentucky air still clinging to the walls of my lungs.

  The breeze whips my hair around, so I grab it in my hands and twist it, then secure it with the rubber band I’ve had on my wrist all day.

  I look to the west. The sun is about to set and the whole sky is swirls of pink and orange and red. I’ve seen the sunset countless times, but I’ve never seen the sun when it’s separated from me by nothing more than ocean and a small sliver of land. It looks like it’s dangling above the earth like a floating flame.

  It’s the first sunset I’ve ever felt this deep in my chest. I feel my eyes begin to tear up at the sheer beauty of it.

  What does that say about me? I’ve yet to shed a tear for my mother, but I can somehow spare one for a repetitive act of nature?

  I can’t help but be a little moved by this, though. The sky is swirled with so many colors, it’s as if the earth has written a poem using clouds, communicating her appreciation to those of us who take care of her.

  I inhale another deep breath, wanting to remember this feeling and this smell and the sound of the seagulls forever. I’m scared the power of it all will fade the more I experience it. I’ve always been curious about that—if people who live on the beach appreciate it less than people whose only view is the back porch of their shitty landlord’s house.

  I look around, wondering if the people on this ferry are taking this view for granted. Some of them are looking at the sunset. A lot of them remain in their cars.

  If I’m about to spend the summer with views like this, will I start to take it for granted?

  Someone from the back of the ferry yells that there are dolphins, and while I would love to see a dolphin, I like the idea of going in the opposite direction of the crowd even more. Everyone at the front of the ferry are like June bugs to a porch light as they flock to the back.

  I take the opportunity to move to the front of the ferry. It’s empty and more secluded from the cars now.

  I notice a half-empty loaf of Sunbeam bread lying on the deck of the ferry near my feet. It’s what the kids have been using to feed the seagulls. Someone must have dropped it in their rush to go look at the dolphins.

  My stomach rumbles as soon as I see the bread, reminding me that I’ve hardly eaten in the last twenty-four hours. Besides a bag of pretzels on the plane, I haven’t had anything to eat since my lunch break at work yesterday, and even then, all I ate was a small order of fries.

  I look around to make sure there are no people lingering, then I pick up the loaf of bread. I reach my hand inside and pull out a slice, then put the loaf back where it was discarded.

  I lean against the railing and tear the bread off in pieces, slowly wadding them up and puttin
g them in my mouth.

  I’ve always eaten bread this way. Slowly.

  It’s a misconception, at least in my case, that people who live in poverty scarf down food when they do get it. I’ve always savored it because I never knew when it would come again. Growing up, when I’d get to the heel of a loaf of bread, I’d make that slice last all day long.

  That’s something I’ll have to get used to this summer, especially if my father’s new wife cooks. They probably have family dinners together.

  This is going to be so strange.

  It’s sad that it’s strange that I’ll have regular access to food.

  I pop another piece of bread into my mouth and then turn around to get a look at the ferry. Robert H. Dedman is written on the side of the upper deck in big white letters.

  A ferry named Dedman? That’s not comforting at all.

  Several people have returned to the front of the upper deck now. The dolphins must have disappeared.

  My eyes are pulled to a guy on the upper deck who is holding a camera like it means nothing to him. The strap isn’t even wrapped around his wrist. It’s just dangling, like he has replacement cameras at home if he were to drop his.

  The camera is pointed right at me. At least it seems that way.

  I glance behind me, but there’s nothing there, so I’m not sure what else he’d be taking a picture of.

  When I look back at him, he’s still staring at me. Even with him being a level higher than me on this ferry, my defense mechanisms kick in immediately. They always do when I find someone attractive.

  In a way, he reminds me of the guys back in Kentucky who come back to school after being out on the farm all summer in the assailing sun. Their skin is kissed with a tan, their hair full of light blond streaks from the sun’s rays.

  I wonder what color his eyes are.

  No. I don’t wonder. I don’t care. Attraction leads to trust leads to love, and those are things I want no part of. I’ve trained myself to turn off faster than I can be turned on. Like a switch, I find him unappealing as instantly as I found him appealing.

  I can’t decipher what the look on his face means from down here. I don’t know how to read people my age very well because I’ve honestly never had many friends, but I definitely don’t know how to read the expressions of rich people my age.

  I look down at my clothes. My wrinkled, faded sundress. My flip-flops that I’ve managed to keep intact for two years. The half slice of bread remaining in my hand.

  I look back up at the guy with the camera that’s still pointed in my direction and suddenly feel embarrassed.

  How long has he been taking pictures of me?

  Did he take a picture of me stealing the slice of discarded bread? Did he photograph me eating it?

  Is he planning on posting the pictures online in hopes they go viral like those heartless People of Walmart posts?

  Trust and love and attraction and disappointment are just many of the things I’ve learned to protect myself from, but embarrassment is still one I’m working on, apparently. It envelops me in a wave of heat from head to toe.

  I glance nervously around me, recognizing the mixture of people on this ferry. The vacationers in their Jeeps, wearing flip-flops and sunscreen. The business people still sitting in their cars in their business suits.

  And then there’s me. The girl who can’t afford a car or a vacation.

  I don’t belong on this ferry, transporting these fancy cars full of fancy people who hold cameras like they’re as cheap as a MoonPie.

  I look back up at the guy with the camera and he’s still staring at me, probably wondering what I’m doing on this ferry with all his people while I wear my faded clothes and sport my split ends and dirty fingernails and nasty secrets.

  I look in front of me and see a door that leads to an enclosed area of the ferry. I dart for the door and duck inside. There’s a bathroom to my immediate right, so I retreat into it and lock the door behind me.

  I stare at myself in the mirror. My face is flushed and I don’t know if it’s from the embarrassment or from this intense Texas heat.

  I pull the rubber band out of my hair and try to comb through the messy strands with my fingers.

  I can’t believe I look like this and I’m about to meet my father’s new family for the first time. They’re probably the type of women who go to salons to get their hair and nails done, and to doctors to smooth out their imperfections. They’re probably well-spoken and smell like gardenia.

  I’m pasty and sweaty and smell like a mixture of mildew and grease from a McDonald’s deep fryer.

  I toss the rest of my bread in the bathroom trash can.

  I stare back at the mirror, but all I see is the saddest version of myself. Maybe losing my mother last night is affecting me more than I want to admit. Maybe my decision to call my father was made in haste, because I don’t want to be here.

  But I don’t want to be there, either.

  Right now, it’s just hard to be.

  Period.

  I pull my hair back up, sigh, and push open the door to the bathroom. It’s a heavy door made of thick steel, so it slams when it shuts behind me. I’m not even two steps from the bathroom when I pause because someone pushes off the wall of the tiny corridor and blocks my way to the exit.

  I find myself looking into the impenetrable eyes of the guy with the camera. He’s looking back at me like he knew I was in the bathroom and he’s here with a purpose.

  Now that I’m much closer to him, I think I was wrong about him being my age. He may be a few years older than me. Or maybe being rich just makes you seem older. There’s an air of confidence that surrounds him, and I swear it smells like money.

  I don’t even know this guy, but I already know I dislike him.

  I dislike him as much as I dislike the rest of them. This guy thinks it’s okay to take pictures of a poor girl during a slightly vulnerable and embarrassing moment, all the while holding his camera like a careless douchebag.

  I try to take a step around him to get to the exit door, but he sidesteps and remains in front of me.

  His eyes (they’re light blue and striking, sadly) scroll over my face and I hate that he’s this close to me. He glances over his shoulder as if to ensure our privacy, then he discreetly slips something into the palm of my hand. I look down and see a folded up twenty-dollar bill.

  I look from the money, back up to him, realizing what he’s offering. We’re near a bathroom. He knows I’m poor.

  He assumes I’m desperate enough to hopefully drag him into the bathroom and earn the twenty bucks he just slipped into my hand.

  What is it about me that makes guys think this? What vibe am I putting off?

  It infuriates me so much, I wad up the money and throw it toward him. I was aiming for his face, but he’s graceful and leans out of the way.

  I grab his camera out of his hand. I flip it over until I find the slot for the memory card. I open it and pull out the card, then toss the camera back at him. He doesn’t catch it. It falls to the floor with a crash and a piece of it breaks off and flies at my feet.

  “What the hell?” he says, bending to pick it up.

  I turn around, prepared to rush away from him, but I bump into someone else. As if being trapped in a tiny corridor with a guy who just offered me twenty bucks for a blow job wasn’t bad enough, now I’m trapped by two guys. This new guy isn’t quite as tall as the guy with the camera, but they smell the same. Like golf. Is golf a smell? It should be. I could bottle it up and sell it to pricks like these.

  This second guy is wearing a black shirt with the word Hispanic on it, but his and panic are in two separate fonts. I take a moment to respect the shirt because it really is clever, but then I attempt to step out of the way.

  “Sorry, Marcos,” the guy with the camera says as he tries to piece it back together.

  “What happened?” the guy named Marcos asks.

  For a fleeting moment, I thought maybe this Marcos guy m
ight have seen our interaction and came to my rescue, but he looks more concerned about the camera than me. I feel a little bad about tossing the camera now that I know it didn’t belong to the guy who was using it.

  I press my back against the wall, hoping to squeeze past them unnoticed.

  The guy holding the camera waves a flippant hand in my direction. “I accidentally bumped into her and dropped it.”

  Marcos looks at me and then back at Douchebag Blue Eyes. There’s something in the way they look at each other—something unspoken. It’s as if they’re communicating in a silent language I don’t understand.

  Marcos squeezes past us and opens the bathroom door. “I’ll meet you in the car, we’re about to dock.”

  I find myself alone with camera guy again, but all I want to do is escape and go back to my father’s car. The guy is focusing on Marcos’s camera, attempting to piece it back together when he says, “I wasn’t propositioning you. I saw you take the bread and thought you could use the help.”

  I tilt my head when he makes eye contact with me, studying his expression as I search for the telling lie. I don’t know what’s worse—him propositioning me, or him feeling sorry for me.

  I want to respond with something clever, or anything at all really, but I just stand frozen as we stare at each other. Something about this guy is digging into me, like his aura has claws.

  There’s a heaviness behind his reflective eyes that I assumed only people like me were familiar with. What could possibly be so terrible about this guy’s life that would lead me to believe he’s damaged?

  But I can tell he is. Damaged people recognize other damaged people. It’s like a club you don’t want a membership to.

  “Can I have my memory card back?” he asks, holding out his hand.

  I’m not returning every picture he just took of me without my permission. I bend down and retrieve the twenty from the floor. I put it in his hand. “Here’s twenty bucks. Buy yourself a new one.”

  With that, I spin and escape out the door. I grip the memory card in my hand while I make my way back through the rows of cars, toward my father’s.