Calico

by Callie Hart

  Friday pauses in her violent kneading of dough and places on hand on her hips, shooting me a much-displeased look. “Child, you can’t be with a man that don’t eat spicy food. Must mean he’s terrible in bed. No passion. No fire in his belly.”

  I laugh. Friday and I have never talked about my sex life. It’s incredibly weird that she’s referring to it now. “We do just fine, thanks.”

  “Just fine ain’t good enough, Coralie. You’re a fiery woman now. Fully grown. You have needs that must be met. A fancy Los Angeles boy that don’t eat no spicy food ain’t gonna be meeting those needs, sure as eggs is eggs.”

  The truth is, Ben’s never made me come. Not properly. He’s managed it with his fingers a couple of times, and once with his mouth, but I don’t want to share that information with the elderly woman standing on the other side of the kitchen. It would only be fuel for the fire. “I’m happy, Friday. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t see you doin’ no cartwheels.”

  “I’m too old for cartwheels.”

  Friday thumps the bread dough with her fist, making a horrified sound. “Bullshit! You’re never too old for cartwheels. Hell, my older sister’s doing jumpin’ jacks and head stands right now. It’s her seventieth birthday next month, and she found a man to blow steam outta her ears.”

  “Tuesday? Tuesday’s dating?” Friday’s mother was a pragmatic woman. She named her daughters after the days of the week they were born on: Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday died of pneumonia a year before I was born, but I know Tuesday just fine.

  Friday nods with a certain gravity. “Yes, ma’am. She met her beau at a bridge night over in Pickens County. He’s a retired fire fighter, if you can believe that.”

  Friday always assumes I will have trouble believing the things she tells me. It’s a turn of phrase, of course, but I feel warm every time I hear her say it. It reminds me of listening to her gossip for hours when I was younger, as we cooked or read or watched television together during the brief stints of time when my father would allow me to come over here.

  She sets off humming after a while, and we fall into an easy silence. It’s hard to believe it’s been twelve years since we’ve done this. I’ve kept in touch with her, though, through letters (infrequent) and telephone calls (at least once a month). I begin to feel calm wash over me as I stir and she hums.

  A loud knock eventually disturbs the silence. Friday casts a look over her shoulder. “Get that for me, will you, child? I ain’t never gonna get this into the oven otherwise.”

  “Sure.” I go and open the front door, clutching the spatula the same way she did when she answered the door to me. I come very close to using it as a weapon when I see the man standing on the other side of the door. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Callan Cross holds up a bottle of wine, his lips forming a tight smile. He looks fucking incredible. He’s wearing a deep maroon colored button down shirt with a black paisley pattern printed on it. The cuffs, which he has rolled up to his elbows, are a slightly darker shade, close to purple. Black skinny jeans and a pair of Chucks give him an effortless New York hipster vibe. He’s put some sort of product in his hair, taming his curls. Basically, he looks edible.

  “I know,” he says, wincing. “They were out of Malbec at the liquor store. I had to get a blend.”

  “Why are you here, Callan?”

  “Because Friday invited me earlier. And because I knew you’d be here.”

  “I didn’t even know I was going to be here.”

  “Of course you did,” he says, pushing past me. “Where else would you be on a Tuesday night?”

  That’s right, of course. Tuesday nights were always dinner night at Beauchamp household. Back in high school, I was here every Tuesday night for years. Tuesdays were always tricky for Callan: he had basketball and then football, depending on the season, but he would come here and pick me up after every game, sweaty and disheveled, making me feel things I didn’t know how to handle at the time. I’m surprised Callan remembered my Tuesday night ritual from so long ago, when it had entirely slipped my mind.

  “Callan.” I’m stern, almost to the point of rudeness. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

  Callan Cross, my beautiful Cal, the guy I’ve dreamed about for so long, shrugs his shoulders. “Too bad. I haven’t had proper gumbo in years. If you want to leave, you’re more than welcome, though.” He grins in the most infuriating way, sidling past me and sauntering down the hallway, hollering as he goes. “Friday! Friday, where are you, you sexy woman. I can contain myself no longer.” I watch his back vanish through the doorway to the kitchen, and it feels so normal to follow after him. So normal that he’s here, and he’s acting like all of this was just meant to be.

  I want to walk straight out of Friday’s house, down her porch steps, get back into my car and drive away, but I can’t. My car keys are in my purse, which is sitting on Friday’s dining table. If I had the very first clue about hot-wiring a car, and I wasn’t worried about paying for damages to the rental company, I would totally jimmy the damn Porsche open and just leave my stuff here. Sadly, grand theft auto wasn’t an adolescent pastime of mine.

  I just stand there, listening to the dip and swell of Callan’s voice as he talks with Friday in the kitchen. He says something, his voice a low, familiar rumble, and Friday screeches with laughter; he always did know how to get a reaction out of the old girl. Suddenly, this whole situation is just too much. I can’t do it. God knows how Callan can. Just being in the same town as him, breathing the same air, seeing the same sunrise and the same sunset, reliving the same memories as him, is far too difficult. I want to be back in California, back in my safe little bubble. I don’t want to have to face this—the ghost of my father, and the bitter sweet memories of a man who I loved so much once upon a time that I would have died for him.

  Now, I just feel like I’m dying in general, and I don’t know what to do.

  “Coralie?”

  I spin around, and a woman climbing out of the passenger seat of a red sedan is staring at me like she’s the one who’s seen a ghost. I’d know her pump-water straight, dark hair anywhere. The high register of her voice isn’t one I’d ever be likely to forget, either. Tina Fulsom.

  Tina was a cheerleader back in high school. Not the kind who terrorized the lower echelons of the high school caste system, or lorded her popularity over the other, less popular kids. No, Port Royal High never even had cheerleaders like that. Tina was a curvy kid, had huge boobs even before the rest of us had training bras, and she always seemed to be on some sort of crusade: a crusade to save the rainforest/starving kids in Africa/homeless people of New York/the public library/Port Royal’s declining yacht club. In her hand, she would always be carrying a clipboard complete with a pen on a piece of string, and she had the most annoying way of roping you into pacing the school grounds, encouraging people to sign what seemed like an endless, incredibly pointless petition.

  Tina’s problem was that she was too empathetic. She felt everyone else’s pain to such a degree that her parents made her stop watching the news in her senior year after her mother found her pulled over at the side of the road, bawling her eyes out following a particularly heart wrenching piece about the stray dog situation in Charleston.

  Right now, Tina’s already welling up as she slowly approaches Friday’s house. “Oh my lord, I can’t believe you’re here,” she says. Her voice warbles, clearly on the brink of breaking. “I’m so sorry you ever had to step foot back in Port Royal.”

  Behind her, another face I recognize climbs out of the sedan: Shane Flood. The tall, reedy guy from high school, always struggling to find pants that would accommodate his ridiculously long legs, appears to be growing out more than up these days. Kids used to give him hell over the three or four inch gap between his ankles and the bottoms of his jeans. The first time I ever saw Callan hit anyone was when he handed out a right hook to a smart-ass basketball player who dared to mock Shan
e Flood. Shane doesn’t say anything. He climbs up the steps toward me, and by the time he reaches the third step he’s already high enough that he can embrace me and wrap me up in his arms. When I look down, his pants are so long, he’s had to roll them up a couple of times.

  “You should have said goodbye,” he tells me softly. “Twelve years is too long to go without seeing your face, Taylor. Just cruel, in fact.”

  I’m numb as I reach up and return his hug. “Sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind, right?”

  “Kind to yourself, maybe. We’ve all been hurtin’ pretty bad over not knowing what happened to you. One minute you were here, and then the next…”

  I let go of Shane, casting my eyes down at the ground. “I’m sorry. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, enough is just enough, y’know? I had to go. If I’d stayed, something awful would have happened.”

  “I’ve tried to find you on Facebook,” Tina says. Tears streak down her cheeks, chasing over the constellation of freckles she always hoped would disappear as she got older. I’m kind of relieved to see that they haven’t, though. She would somehow be a different person without them. So much time has passed that she’s undoubtedly a different person anyway, I’m sure, but seeing the spattering of brown flecks across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks is reassuring in a way.

  “I know. I never really bothered with the whole social media thing,” I say. “Not my style.” Unless I’m looking up ex boyfriends, of course. Tina nods like she understands, opening her arms to pull me into a hug too. She’s wearing a loose fitting shirt, so I haven’t noticed a bump until now, when I feel it pressing against my own belly. I lean back, surprised.

  “Oh, wow! You’re pregnant?”

  Tina nods. She looks happy enough that she could burst right here and now. “Twenty-two weeks. Very unexpected, but very welcome at the same time.”

  I stare down at Tina’s stomach, amazed and slightly horrified. How strange. Tina takes hold of my hand and guides it to the swell of her stomach, pressing my palm against the small, hard roundness of her, and blood rushes to my face. It would be incredibly rude to yank my hand away, but I’m suddenly gripped by fear. I don’t want to be touching her like this. I really don’t want to.

  Tina makes an apologetic looking face. “Sorry, Coralie. I think he’s actually asleep right now. He usually wakes up after I eat, though. Very annoying. We can always try again later.”

  “You can…you can tell when he’s sleeping?”

  Tina laughs, bright and loud. “Of course. You get to notice when they stop kicking and squirming around. At first it’s kind of scary. Having them do back flips twenty-four seven is frustrating but calming at the same time. You know they’re alive at least. When they stop for longer and longer periods of time, you begin to worry something’s not right. Turns out they just sleep in longer bouts as they grow, though.”

  I grimace before I can stop myself. I’m usually a master of hiding my thoughts, but this one slips by me before I can rein it in. Tina notices, naturally. She smiles the smile of a woman blissed out on baby hormones. “It’s not as weird as it sounds. You get used to it very quickly. Most women love being pregnant. It’s such a gratifying experience. I take it you don’t have kids yet, Coralie?”

  “No. No, I just…I haven’t had time.” I am a hollowed out husk of a person.

  “She just ain’t had the right guy with her yet, s’all.” Behind me, Friday has snuck up on us. The crazy, wiry hair that’s too short to go back in her ponytail is standing on end, pointing every which way. It used to be that that hair was jet black once upon a time, but now it’s pure white. She’s changed out of her housecoat and into a pretty floral shirt and a long, swaying skirt down to her knees. “You people better get on inside now. Calllan’s opened that bottle of wine, and I swear he’s gunning on drinkin’ the whole thing before the food’s even ready.”

  “Jesus.” Shane hurries up the remaining steps and into the kitchen, presumably to put a stop to Callan’s drinking before he really does polish off the bottle. Tina follows after him, giving Friday a quick hug before disappearing inside.

  “Thought you might be thinking about this,” Friday says, placing my purse down on the porch swing. “Thought maybe you were considering running out on me.”

  “I was.” Relief floods through me. I can leave. I can go without having to see Callan again this evening, which makes me feel light headed. For a second I’m so happy I could kiss Friday for giving me such a beautiful out, but then I see the look on her face and my happiness fades. She doesn’t want me to go.

  “And how long will it take for you to forgive me if I leave?” I ask.

  “I’ll be right with you by the morning, girl. You know me. But you’re better than that. Running away ain’t gonna do nobody no favors. Not you. Not that boy in there. Not your friends. Not me. Nobody.”

  I think about this for a second. “He’s not going to leave it alone, Friday. It’s not as though we’re gonna be able to get through this meal without him doing or saying something that’s going to upset me. And he’s already done that once today.”

  “So let him upset you. Let it wash over you. If that’s the worst thing you think will happen, then you have to stay. You’re both grown now. You’re both adults. You can discuss your issues and move past them, no matter what they are. And if you’re not meant to be friends or lovers, or even acquaintances, then you can at least say you done everything you could to mend fences. That’s something, surely?”

  Mending fences? Mending fences would take more time and effort than I have right now. It would take a miracle. Friday is looking like a kicked puppy, though. I’ve never seen her look this way. She’s always been more likely to bully or coerce me into doing something she considers good for me, but at this particular moment in time, she looks sad.

  “Ugh. All right. Okay. But please…don’t sit me next to him. I can’t…”

  Friday beams, flashing brilliant white teeth at me. “Don’t worry, child. I’ll sit myself right next to you. And if that boy even thinks about giving you trouble, I ain’t past putting my foot up his ass, believe me.”

  ******

  CALLAN

  I’m more of a scotch drinker than a wine drinker, but bringing a bottle of whiskey over to Friday’s would have been a terrible idea. She would have confiscated it pretty much as soon as I walked through the door anyway. Beyond a tiny glass of crème de menthe every once in a blue moon, I’ve never seen the old girl drink.

  I’m in dire need of a stiff drink when Coralie comes back into the kitchen, though. And speaking of stiff… a certain part of my body is headed that way at a worrying clip and I don’t think there’s anything I’m gonna be able to do about it. Coralie is so fucking beautiful. She was always so strange looking when we were younger. I remember Darren Weathers being completely and utterly confused when I’d told him I was taking Coralie to the seniors’ dance. He’d asked me why her above all the other girls I could take, and I’d told him the truth. I’d told him she was the most fascinating person I’d ever been lucky enough to lay eyes on. He’d frowned, squinting at her, one eye closed, head tilted to one side, and said that he’d supposed so, and each to their own. She had this draw to her that was impossible to deny. Now, all these years later, she’s grown into herself a little but she’s still remarkable to look at.

  Her green eyes are still as haunted as they always were. The dark spot in her iris, the one I told her looked like the storm raging on Jupiter, is still there. Her bottom lip is still a fraction fuller on one side than it is on the other, though it’s nowhere near as noticeable as it was when she was fifteen.

  I can’t stop staring at her goddamn collarbones as she carries the huge pot of gumbo from the stove for Friday and sets it down on the table in the middle of the place settings. I always loved her collarbones. They were pronounced and so fucking sensitive. I used to graze my teeth along them, fighting to stop myself from coming like a little punk whenever she moaned or w
rithed against me.

  I look up, and Coralie is scowling at me, obviously knowing exactly what I’m thinking about as she busts me staring at the graceful column of her throat.

  “So. Coralie. You’re living out in LA? What are you doing for work?” Shane asks.

  “I’m still a painter,” she says, her voice clipped.

  “Of course! I can’t believe I forgot about that. You were always so talented. Do you have your work in galleries then?” Tina hasn’t looked at me twice since she entered the building—definitely still pissed about the whole best man thing—but she seems all too interested in focusing her attention on Coralie. Coralie sits herself down in the only remaining seat left at the table—the one opposite me. She looks mighty pissed off as she shoots Friday a none-too-friendly sideways glance. The old woman grins back, apparently pretending not to feel the arctic chill blow across her skin.

  “Yes, sometimes,” she says. “Usually I sell my work on commission, though. Things are generally bought and paid for before I even start them.”

  Tina looks amazed. “Wow. That’s incredible. You must be highly sought after.”

  Coralie shrugs awkwardly. She always found it hard to accept compliments about her work. Looks like that hasn’t changed.

  “Do you meet lots of famous people?” Tina gushes. I know Shane loves the woman, but I’ve always had this day dream that he’ll wake up one morning and decide that falling in love with and marrying Tina was the biggest mistake of his life. Shitty, I know. But then I’m a shitty person.

  Coralie spoons some gumbo out onto her plate, eyes fixed on her food. “No. Almost never. I work from home. I have a garden studio at the back of my house. It’s…peaceful. I prefer it that way.”

  Tina looks deflated. “That’s a pity.”

  “I don’t have to meet anyone most of the time, actually,” Coralie says softly. “It’s quite nice.”