Road-Tripped

by Nicole Archer

  She’d also bought Skip a David Hasselhoff towel.

  Next to the towels, she placed her most fabulous find—a pink ukulele—wood, not plastic, and with real strings too—and the songbook that came with it.

  The pitcher of drinks and ham and pineapple apps were already on the table. She gave up trying to light the shell-shaped candles in the wind. And for the final pièce de résistance, she hung a spiky blowfish over the door.

  When everything was ready, she went back inside and handed one of the bags to Walker.

  He blinked. “What’s this?”

  “Put it on and meet me outside.”

  He peeked inside and flicked her an annoyed look.

  That’s it! She grabbed his tit and twisted. “Put on the shirt and meet me outside.” Halfway expecting him to fight, she put up her dukes and tossed him a Murphy-Don’t-Test-Me Look.™

  Rubbing his chest, he raised a stupid sexy brow and watched her come unglued.

  Oh, he found her amusing did he? That son-of-a-chode. “Do it,” she ordered and marched to the door. “Or else.”

  A few minutes later, he started down the camper steps and ran headfirst into the blowfish. “What in the fu —?” He clutched his face. “What the hell is that?”

  It took everything she had not to laugh. “Oops, sorry! Guess, I didn’t hang it high enough.” Hopefully, he’d noticed the lack of sincerity in her apology.

  Still rubbing his face, he glanced around the site. “What’s all this?”

  “A celebration. We hit 200,000 followers today.” She handed him a drink with a paper umbrella. “Cheers!”

  He stared at the naked male body then gingerly sat on the towel. She didn’t really think he’d do it, but he was probably afraid he’d lose a nipple. He took a hearty chug of his drink then spit it back out, gagging and pulling at his tongue. “Ugh! What’d you give me?”

  She tested the cocktail. A rummy lump slid down her throat. “Ack.” She threw the rest on the sand. “It’s supposed to be a Piña Colada, but we didn’t have everything, so I made it with half-and-half and rum.”

  “Was the half-and-half expired? It tasted like it was curdled.”

  She shrugged. Who cares? Get over it, dude. One lumpy drink wasn’t going to kill him, but she would if he didn’t lighten up.

  “You’re wearing it!” She clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “Yay! It looks great.” The shirt was a teensy bit tight, but it worked.

  “Yeah, later, I’m gonna hit the gay bars with Bruce. What size is this? Extra gay?”

  “You don’t look gay.” Not in the slightest. “It’s just a little snug.”

  “Yeah, it’s snug all right.” He lifted his arms, exposing a foot of ripped abs. “Not to mention, there’s a big dick on it. A big, pink dick, no less.”

  “It’s peach. And that’s the state of Florida.”

  “It says America’s wang underneath. This is a gay man’s shirt, Callie.”

  She put her fists on her hips. “Well, my vagina knows for a fact you’re not.”

  The comment made him grimace and shrink away. Yep, she disgusted him all right.

  Almost defeated, but not quite, she grabbed the other pink instrument he was bound to complain about and plucked the strings.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  But it wasn’t the ukulele he was staring at—it was her chest. He reached over and tugged down her shirt. “I heart gators?” He mumbled to the wind, “Nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake.”

  “Ah, good. At least you’re back to insulting me again. That’s better than the silent treatment.”

  “That wasn’t an insult. It’s the truth.”

  “Whatever.” She slapped through the pages of the Smooth Sounds of the Seventies’ songbook with unbridled aggression

  Once she found the right page, she strummed a few chords, closed her eyes and belted out the “Piña Colada Song.”

  During the chorus, she stopped playing and sang á cappella. “Do you like Piña Coladas? And getting caught in the rain—” She pointed to Walker. He shrugged, so she finished the rest.

  “Where’d you learn how to sing and play like that?” he asked at the end.

  “Lessons,” she said. “Years and years and years of lessons. At gunpoint.”

  “Gunpoint?”

  “Pretty much. My mother forced me to practice music six hours a day. No TV. No movies. No boyfriends. No surfing. I was only allowed to practice music. I used to hide books under my mattress, so she wouldn’t take them away. This is the first time I’ve played anything since I left home.”

  “Did you want to play music?”

  “God, no. But my sister was a child prodigy. At age ten, she played violin better than Perlman. Since we share the same genes, my mother assumed I just didn’t practice hard enough. When I played violin like crap, she made me play piano. Then it was guitar. I was a mediocre musician at best, so she forced me to take voice lessons. My senior year of high school, she finally gave up on me.”

  “How’d your sister get into drugs?”

  The conversation was the exact opposite of fun, but since it was the first time he’d spoken to her in days, she answered the question. “She took Adderall and pain pills to get through the rigors of practice. Moved onto street drugs when the doctors refused to refill her prescriptions.”

  She remembered the exact day she’d caught Effie smoking crack. After years of putting up with her shit, Callie finally threatened to lock her up. The next morning, Effie drained her life savings and disappeared.

  For two years, she’d thought Effie was dead. Then one day, Skip found her under the Manhattan Beach Pier with a bunch of junkies. Since her parents refused, he sent Effie to rehab on his dime. Another reason she loved and owed him Skip so much.

  She popped her sore jaw. “Let’s move on to a lighter topic, shall we?”

  “What’s the deal with your mother?”

  He listened about as well as she made Piña Coladas. “She was a concert pianist when she met my father. A couple months later, he knocked her up with twins and ruined her life.” She put finger quotes around ruined, because that’s exactly what her mother said—having children “ruined her life.”

  “My mother heaped all her crushed dreams and resentment on my father’s back. When he couldn’t stand it and left, she focused her rage on stealing our childhoods.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She moved back to Germany. That’s where she’s from. Effie hates her. I pretend she doesn’t exist.”

  He shook his head. “It’s incredible the way people screw up their kids.”

  “Hey now—”

  “If you don’t want to throw away your dreams then use some damn birth control.”

  Why did that feel more like a jab than a general comment? “No one forced my mother to throw away her dreams.”

  “Kids change everything,” he said. “Matt and Patty don’t even have sex anymore.”

  “You don’t want children?” she asked.

  He stretched his arms overhead. “Kids are great, as long as they’re not mine.”

  The answer disappointed her, and she was at a complete loss as to why. While the waves crashed in the distance, her mood crashed ashore. The Happy Callie show was coming to an end.

  Walker stood and brushed the sand off his legs. “I’m gonna finish some work and call it a night.”

  “Already?” It wasn’t even nine o’clock. “But you didn’t try the appetizers.”

  “Not hungry.”

  Why did she even bother to try? She hugged her knees to her chest.

  “Callie?”

  She turned.

  “Thanks. For tonight. I wish we—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Never mind. Goodnight.”

  Southern Alabama Coast

  “I was always sweet, at first. Oh it’s so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”—Dorothy Parker.

 
; Soundtrack: Jack Garratt, “Water”

  Deep in the Alabama piney woods, they spied a giant lady in the lake, four dinosaurs, and Stone Henge all at once.

  Well, a fake fiberglass Stone Henge.

  “But it’s the same size as the real one,” she said. “Faces the same direction and everything.”

  He leaned against a pillar and sighed. It was hotter than two foxes fucking in a forest fire, and he was overcooked, exhausted, and tired of Callie’s cheer. “This is stupid,” he said. “A total waste of time, money, and green space.”

  “I think it’s rather amusing,” she said. “Rich guy rolling in dough, can’t figure out how to spend it, so he builds this.” She spread her arms wide. “If I had money to burn, I’d use it to fight poverty or disease. After I bought a yacht and gold toe rings, of course.”

  Every time she said something cute, his irritability swelled. “I can’t take pictures of this crap. There’s no meaning here.”

  “How about these?”—she stabbed two middle fingers at him—“Any meaning in these?”

  “Real mature,” he said. “No wonder the client thought you were in high school.”

  Her body shook like a popcorn kernel about to explode. “Asshole,” she snarled and stormed back to the camper.

  “That’s right! Take off again. That’s what you do! When things get heated, you run.”

  Another bird flew in the air, and not the kind with wings.

  He chucked a stick at the pillar, and it bounced off and hit his head. Why did it seem like he was living out a real-life Tennessee Williams play?

  Back on the RV, he mumbled an apology, but she just walked away and went up to her loft.

  On the way to the next place, he kept thinking about the playwright. It gave him an idea. That afternoon, he set up camp early and took candids of Callie all day. Afterwards, he colorized them like an old movie. The pictures were stunning. She was stunning. His camera was having the love affair with her that he couldn’t.

  A while later, he went for a swim, and when he came back, she was gone and hadn’t left a note. A storm of worry crashed down on his shoulders and blew away his semi-decent mood. All afternoon, he fretted for her safety.

  At sundown, she returned—sunburned and glowing—and held up a paper sack. “I brought dinner,” she said with a happy-go-lucky tone that made him want to stomp on baby chicks and kick puppies.

  “I’m not fucking hungry,” he said. That’s right, he cursed, because goddammit she kept leaving.

  Half an hour later, she dared to join him. On her head was a plastic beer hat with two cans on each side. She sat next to the fire, sucking beer through both straws.

  “Where were you?” he barked. Jesus, he sounded like her dad.

  “Surfing. Actually it was more like floating. The Gulf’s waves aren’t quite like the Pacific’s. Oh, by the way, I bought you a hat too. It’s on the table.”

  Unbelievable. Surfing. Beer hats. Dinner. So easy breezy, not a care in the world. Damn her for having fun all afternoon. He stomped off, grabbed a bottle of Beam, and stomped back.

  For a good twenty minutes, he drank from the bottle and kept his eyes on the flames, not saying a damn thing.

  A tiny belch interrupted his maudlin thoughts. “Excuse me,” she said.

  He looked up and couldn’t help but chuckle. Wearing that ridiculous hat, she was cuter than a bug’s ear. “You’re nuttier than a port-a-potty at a peanut festival.”

  She wrestled with a smile. “Truth or dare?”

  Ah, what the hell. “Dare.”

  “I dare you to go skinny dipping with me.”

  Now that he wouldn’t do. Couldn’t do. Not with her. No way. He leaned back and stared up at the stars. “Not a good idea, Callie.”

  “Why? It’s a full moon?”

  Because he didn’t particularly feel like being tortured by her naked body after a long day of worrying she was dead. He turned his attention back to the fire.

  “Pussy,” she hissed.

  He snapped up his head. “What did you just call me?”

  “You heard me. You can’t get out of dare.”

  “The only pussy around here is the one you’re gonna be dunking in the ocean. Get up. Let’s go.”

  They dashed over the dunes. The moon—nearly as bright as the sun—lit up the beach. A few feet from the tide, she peeled off her shirt and tossed it on the sand. In the breeze, her nipples puckered to hard peaks.

  A creative hunger took over his sense. He wanted to paint her body with his tongue and mold her breasts in his hands like clay.

  She shucked off the rest of her clothes and ran to the ocean, moonlight dancing on the globes of her ass. A wave hit her and musical laughter rang out. Then she lured him to the ocean like a siren.

  He shed everything—his reluctance, his clothes, his worries—he got rid of them all, and ran to the ocean—hard dick slapping against his abs—and dove in.

  Out past the break, she gave him a come-hither sign. But he stayed put. Eight feet. That’s as close as he’d get. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

  But she swam to him. Her pale arms slid gracefully across the current. “Hi,” she said. Drops of water dribbled down her lips. “Feels like bathwater doesn’t it?”

  No, it felt like a cold abyss to him. In fact, he was drowning.

  She blasted him with salt water, burning his eyes and throat. He sucked back a mouthful of ocean, and suddenly, he really was drowning.

  Callie didn’t seem to notice he was dying. She just kept attacking him. Arms flailing like a madwoman, she flapped and slapped and didn’t stop.

  He ducked under the water and swam off. Several yards away, he hollered, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  She stabbed her arms in the air. “I’m sick of you treating me like this!”

  “Like what?” he shot back.

  “It’s like I don’t exist. You won’t talk to me. You won’t work with me. You’re mean. And I hate it. It’s awful. I can’t live like this anymore!”

  What was he supposed to say? He didn’t want to live like that either.

  “I miss you,” she said, her soft voice barely audible over the crashing waves.

  Three words. Only three words and she’d punched him in the heart, kicked him in the balls, and fucked him in the head all at the same time. Just a cunt-hair shy of seething, he laid it all out there. “That’s awful hard to believe, considering four days ago you claimed I was nothing more than a rebound who treats women like garbage.”

  Shocked, wounded, confused—she looked like a bird that had crashed against glass window. “I never said that,” she said.

  “No, I think the term you used was manwhore. Yeah, that’s it.”

  Her lips trembled. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?” he shouted. “Being mean? Taking off every night? Treating me like you don’t care? Acting like I don’t exist? Dammit!” He growled at the moon. “I’m tired of this mind fuck. You want me to be nice? Then stop prancing around, shaking your ass, and asking me to go skinny-dipping. If you’re gonna act like a cock-tease, don’t expect me to jump for joy—”

  Before he was finished railing on her, she slipped under the ocean and swam away.

  “Argue with me, dammit! Quit running away!” He smacked the water. “And quit swimming away, too!”

  A silvery wave caught her and carried her ashore. She rose from the sea—incandescent and glimmering—and drifted over the dunes like vapor.

  He didn’t let out his breath until she was out of sight.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Agein’

  Soundtrack: Kate Nash, “Dickhead”

  Before Walker woke up, Callie threw herself an early morning pity party on the beach. Twenty-eight years old, with a bullshit job, no place to live, no relationship—and to top it all off, she was stuck in a moving prison with a man who hated her.

  Her phone rang. “Happy birthday!” Effie cried.

  “Ha
ppy birthday to you, too,” she said. “It’s four in the morning there. What are you doing up?” She prayed her sister wasn’t high. Why else would she be up so early?

  “Surfing,” she said.

  “Thought you hated surfing?”

  “I’m filling up every single minute of the day so I don’t get high.”

  Rather than put her mind at ease, the statement rolled a ball of worry around in her stomach. Effie was still struggling so much. Would it be like that for the rest of her life? “Then what are you going to do?” Callie asked, skipping over the depressing subject.

  “Not much. Just gonna eat a cake with my sponsor later on. What about you? Any special plans?”

  “Nope.” She watched the pink bubbly sun rise over the ocean.

  “You work things out with the non-manwhore yet?”

  “He still hates me. Thinks I’m a cock tease.”

  Her sister gasped with mock horror. “You made fun of his cock?”

  In any other circumstance, she’d have laughed at her sister’s dumb joke. But frankly, the situation wasn’t funny. At all. “I asked him to go skinny dipping last night.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty cock-teasy.”

  “It was a full moon. I wanted to live it up the last night before I turned into an old woman.” Also, she’d wanted to break down the walls between her and Walker. Instead, she’d made them higher.

  “Hey, I’m not arguing. If the Pacific weren’t cold as balls, I’d do it too.”

  Callie carried on with her rant. “He claims I called him a rebound, or trash, or something. I don’t know. He was screaming at me so I left.” She dusted herself off and shuffled back to the Silver Dildo.

  “Did you say that?”

  “Who knows? I was so upset that night.” And a little drunk, but she left out for her sister’s benefit.

  A car door closed in the background, and the wind howled into the phone. “Why don’t you take a drama break,” Effie said. “Go get yourself a real manwhore and have birthday sex.”