Outside

by Michelle Mankin

  “I’ve gotta go.” I spun around and pushed back through the crowd I’d just expended so much effort pressing though before. Every single person seemed intent on hindering my progress. Anguish clenched my stomach making me feel like I might hurl. Tears blurred my eyes. I stumbled and my sandals skidded on an empty paper plate someone had discarded on the grass.

  I righted myself on the gate poised to flee when I heard someone call my name. Ash. He caught up to me studying me with a steady assessing gaze. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Yeah.” I snorted my disbelief. “Sure. Look, it doesn’t really matter, alright?” I turned to leave but he grabbed my arm. I looked down at his fingers on my skin then back up to his face. There was something in his eyes that I didn’t understand, something that said he was well familiar with the pain I was feeling in that moment, but it wasn’t something I would begin to understand until I reflected on it years later.

  “Let me walk you home,” he offered softly.

  The pressure of unshed tears behind my eyes, it was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, but it was late. I was dressed in a way that invited attention that I didn’t want anymore. It would be safer to have an escort and I didn’t know where Karen was. There was no way in hell I was going back into the party to find her.

  “Thank you, Ash.” I curled my fingers around his corded bicep, leaning heavily on him accepting the offer of his strength and protection but sadly still pining for another’s.

  “You’re a fuckin’ prick, Lincoln Savage,” Karen spit the words at me, her hazel eyes flashing her ire. “Simone’s too sweet to tell you to your face, but I’m so the hell not. I can’t believe you! Why did you even invite her here tonight if you had plans to be with someone else?” My gut became a heavy lodestone as I felt Kit scooting into me. I quickly pieced the puzzle together realizing Simone must have been at the party, seen me with Kit and reached the wrong conclusion.

  “Simone Bianchi?” Kit hissed. “You and Simone.” Her brows rose. “But she’s just a girl.”

  I nodded sheepishly. I thought it probably wouldn’t help to point out that Simone was only a year younger than me. “Kit,” I said low when I realized Karen wasn’t going anywhere. Ramon had joined us with a ‘what the hell is going on’ look on his face. He apparently thought Karen needed backup. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea about us.”

  “If she’s with you,” her face twisted into something ugly, “then why’d she leave with your cousin?”

  Simone and Ash. I didn’t want to believe it. Not for a minute. Just the thought of her with someone else made me insane. “Is that true?” I managed to ask Karen.

  She shrugged. She wasn’t going to comfort me. She was sticking to the role of Simone’s protector. If I wasn’t so freaked about the situation, I would’ve been glad that Simone had someone looking out for her in that way.

  “Patch,” I called grabbing his arm as he drifted past. Looking addled, he stumbled a bit as he rounded to face me, a chick with him, overfilled cups slopping beer from their unsteady hands. Karen’s eyes narrowed as she watched him sway. “Where’s Ash?”

  “He left a minute ago. With your girl.” He grinned stupidly. “She looked hot as shit. Short dress with those legs of hers. Hard to miss.”

  Only I had. Because of Kit. Fuck. I slid out my cell. I couldn’t call her since her dad had taken hers away. I hit Ash’s number instead, my heart slamming with irrational jealousy.

  “Your phone’s ringing,” I told Ash. We had both been quiet as he escorted me home, each lost in our own thoughts. Still I’d been grateful for his company. There had been more than a few leering looks from the drunks downtown before we turned down the suburban side street into my neighborhood.

  “Oh yeah.” Slowing his pace, his eyes met mine as he slid his cell out of his front jeans pocket. I got the idea he’d been deliberately ignoring the call. “Hello.” He frowned and I could feel his eyes on me as he listened. We were getting close to my house and the closer we got the more frayed my control over my emotions was becoming with Ash watching me so intently. “Yes she is. I didn’t want her walking home alone…She’s pretty upset. Maybe you should talk to her yourself.” Ash offered me the phone. “It’s Linc.”

  “No.” I backed away from the cell as if it were a poisonous viper.

  Lips pressed together, Ash withdrew his outstretched arm. “She doesn’t want to talk, dude. Do you wanna…No, not yet.” An extremely long pause as Ash listened. “I don’t know. I’ll ask her.”

  “Mona,” he spoke so softly I had to lean in to hear him. He seemed afraid I would bolt. I was seriously considering it. I just wanted to go to my room to be alone. “Linc wants you to know he’s not with Kit. That he didn’t know she was going to be at the party, and that he hasn’t been with her since the morning you two met. He also wants to know if you’ll let me walk you back to where he is so he can explain in person.”

  My heart wanted to latch onto those words, to go to him and let him explain away what had happened. My brain told me facts were facts. I’d seen him with her. He hadn’t tried to avoid the kiss. I should never have let him charm me in the first place. Better to put an end to it now. Why delay the inevitable?

  I shook my head. “Tell him no explanations are necessary.” Thinking about him just made my chest ache. “I need to go home.” I pointed to the two story house with the porch light blazing. “That’s it right there. Thanks for walking me. You don’t have to come any further.”

  I spun around ignoring Ash’s attempts to call me back. My hurried strides made his voice quickly fade into the background. If only my attachment to Lincoln could be as easy to sever.

  The tears I’d held off flooded my eyes. Blindly, I jogged up the porch steps, unlocked the door with my key and entered the foyer.

  “Simone.” My father awaited wearing an ominous expression. My mother was behind him concern in her eyes. My father put his cell back to his ear while motioning me into the living room. I complied sitting on the edge of the couch. “Yes she just came in. Thank for calling.”

  Dread knitted my muscles into knots.

  “That was Kit.” My eyes grew wide.

  “She was concerned about you. Says you’ve been hanging around an older boy with a bad reputation. One of our busboys. A surfer.”

  Each of his words ratcheted the tension within me higher. All true facts that I couldn’t deny.

  “Simone, I can’t begin to express how disappointed I am in you.”

  I nodded, dropping my gaze. I had left the house with such high hopes but returned deflated. I knew my father. He wasn’t going to let this go. I was going to lose more than just my cell after this perceived infraction. I was about to lose my freedom.

  “Yeah that was her father,” I confirmed to Ash. “Asshole just shit canned me.” Predictably, though I doubted Simone had told him anything. I was pretty sure the breadcrumb trail of blame led straight to Kit. She hadn’t tried very hard to hide her jealousy and I hadn’t reacted very well to her second attempt to try to reconcile with me at the party.

  By that point I wasn’t in the mood to sugar coat. Separated from her abusive husband or not, I wasn’t interest in Kit anymore.

  I just wanted Simone.

  And I needed to see her.

  I knew I could make her understand and it was eating me up inside that she refused to speak to me. At the restaurant I could have found a way to make her listen but now that I’d been fired that was no longer an option.

  “I don’t know what to do.” I eyed my cousin across the small space that separated our twin beds.

  Expression sympathetic, he leaned forward and patted my shoulder. “Maybe you could appeal to her through Karen.”

  “No.” I shook my head toeing out of my Vans and scooting backward in my bed, resting my shoulders against the wall. “She’s made up her mind about me. I don’t think she was a big fan of how I treated Kit, either. I don’t think there’s much chance at all of her being my advoca
te.” I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. “Do you think that she’d listen to you?”

  “I doubt it. When two girlfriends close ranks that usually puts us guys on the outside.”

  “This sucks.” I sighed. Silence descended. It was nearly two in the morning. My aunt and uncle had been asleep when we came in. Their bedroom just across the hall was quiet, their home in a peaceful neighborhood far from the noisy main drag of town. The only sound at the moment besides my heavy defeated breathing was the swish of Ash’s jeans and the jingle of his belt and buckle hitting the floor on his side of the room.

  “I’m sorry, Linc.” He switched off his lamp. I opened my eyes to almost complete darkness. His mattress springs squeaked as he settled underneath his covers. “I realize now she means a lot to you. We’ll put our heads together in the morning and figure something out. It’s not like she lives in another country. Her house is just a couple of blocks over.” His shadow moved as he punched his pillow and flopped back down. “Have you and she…”

  “Nah, man. It’s not like that. I mean sure I want to go there.” It was all I thought about, but there was something much more to it than just that. I knew how I felt and I was more and more certain every day. But that was something I wanted her to be the first to know and it panicked the hell out of me that I might not get the chance to tell her now. “I’ve never felt like this before,” I admitted low not sure if Ash heard me. There was no response on his side of the room. “It’s almost like I can’t breathe right when we’re apart.”

  I didn’t fall asleep until the morning. When I woke up Ash was gone and my way forward with Simone wasn’t any clearer with the birds chirping than it had in the dead of the night.

  Ditching the clothes I’d slept in, I slid on a pair of Hurley’s, grabbed a package of chocolate Pop Tarts and my board and wet suit from the hooks in the garage before heading to the beach. I thought better on the water and since she seemed to be a lot like me in that regard I hoped maybe she might find her way there, too.

  She wasn’t there but the rest of the gang was zipping up and fastening their ankle tethers.

  “Where’s Ash?” I asked donning my own wetsuit.

  “Dunno,” Dominic replied. “Haven’t seen him since last night.” He straightened and moaned. “My head hurts.”

  “Told you not to mix beer and hard liquor,” Ramon told him before scooping his board off the sand and heading into the surf.

  “You work things out with Simone?” Dominic asked me as we followed Ramon out.

  I shook my head. “She won’t talk to me.”

  “Bummer,” he accented the second syllable.

  I nodded. It was that for sure.

  Once beyond the break point, we separated each waiting for our wave. We were out early as we were most days and had the ocean to ourselves. I popped into my stance when I spotted a wave with good height. I got some real good air on a full round house, linked the flat to another wave and milked that till it disappeared. I heard the guys cheering and I acknowledged them with a wave, going back out to wait for another one, but my heart wasn’t in it and that wasn’t a good thing. I had Fiji coming up. I needed the points. Half the qualifying year was gone already. If I didn’t place in the next event it was going to be hard to make the championship cutoff.

  I forced myself through the motions riding wave after wave until I was exhausted. When I finally waded out, Ash had shown up and he was pacing the shore.

  “Where have you been?” I raised a curious brow wondering why his hair was slicked back and he was wearing a button down and khakis instead of swim trunks.

  “At a job interview.” He grinned. “I heard a position just opened up at Napoli’s. So I got it.”

  I discovered it was harder to face the morning knowing Lincoln Savage’s smile wasn’t going to be on the other side of the night. Infinitely harder knowing that it might never be. Oh and the fact that my life was on complete lockdown.

  No phones.

  No friends.

  No free time.

  No beach.

  Resigned I went to work earlier than usual with my dad. We took inventory and went to the discount warehouse to purchase supplies to restock the kitchen after the busy weekend. On the way back to Napoli’s we drove past the ocean. Unable to stop myself I scanned the shoreline for his familiar form.

  I saw a lone surfer on his board in the water.

  My heart wanted to believe it was Lincoln but logic said that it was unlikely. He was always with his friends.

  “I really don’t understand what the fascination is.” My dad’s voice rattled the fragile silence between us. He’d been watching me. His gaze returned to the front windshield, his fingers wrapping tighter around the steering wheel as we turned into the alley behind the restaurant. “They’re bums. Marijuana smokers. Street people with suntans. Why you would want to waste your time on one I’ll never understand. I always thought you were the steady practical one. The one with ambition and drive. I’d hate to find out that you have your head as high in the clouds as your mother.”

  I kept silent, gaze straight ahead, hands clasped together in my lap, the dutiful daughter.

  “Am I making myself clear, Simone?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” Dutiful, reprimanded daughter.

  “Good. It’s about time you showed some sense.” He turned off the ignition and removed the keys. “Grab a couple of the bread bags, run in and tell Edgar to send some of the guys to help me unload.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” I unlatched my belt and popped open my door.

  “Oh and Simone.” I turned to look back at him. “I hired a new busboy this morning to replace your surfer.” My throat closed as my mind flashed with a memory of Lincoln, his black Napoli’s work shirt snug around his toned torso, his biceps flexing and his eyes twinkling as he cleared a table and caught me watching him.

  “I want you to cross train him,” he continued. “He seems like a good kid. His mom’s on the city council. His dad works as an adjuster. He has experience waiting tables at the Deck Bar. I’ll start him in the kitchen, but my plan is to move him into service.”

  “Sure, Daddy.” Plastic bread bag handles threaded three deep on each arm, flip flops slapping against the concrete, I pulled open the heavy steel door and entered the building. The short hallway was still dark and the only activity in the restaurant this early was in the kitchen.

  I threw my shoulder into the two way door and pushed it open. The blast of warmer air was pleasantly layered with garlic and basil. The trays of hand rolled meatballs lined the counters awaiting their turn inside the large commercial oven that dominated one side of the kitchen.

  I almost didn’t notice him at first, a cloud of steam semi-concealing him, his toned arms up to the elbows in suds and a teetering skyscraper of dirty dishes from the night before waiting to be washed beside him.

  I went completely dormant. Feet rooted to the floor. Edgar said something to me but he had to call my name twice and repeat his request for it to register. The busboy, his platinum hair tucked into a backwards Napoli’s ball cap, turned his head toward me. Eyes a darker blue than Lincoln’s locked with mine for a moment before he looked away.

  Ashland Keys was the new hire?

  I blinked, my brain coming back into focus as Edgar removed the bread bags from my arm. “My dad’s in the alley. He says to send the guys back to unload.”

  Edgar barked instructions in both English and Spanish and the prep chefs moved past me on their way to the Suburban. Ash turned off the water and dried his hands before following. His eyes slid to me again as he casually bumped into me. I felt him press something into my hands. “Sorry, Miss Bianchi,” he apologized. “I slipped on the mopped floor.”

  “It’s ok,” I managed casting my gaze furtively toward Edgar to make sure he hadn’t noticed anything to report to my dad. He hadn’t. He was busy loading meatballs into the oven.

  I had no idea what was going on but I knew I didn’t want to give my father any more
reasons to sanction me.

  I backed out of the kitchen glancing down at my hand once I was in the dark hallway. It held a greeting card sized envelope with Mona scrawled on the front.

  Nerves on edge, I jumped and tucked the contraband behind my back as the rear door reopened, light streaming inside like an interrogator’s spotlight. The crew marched back inside their arms laden with groceries. My dad led, followed by the two prep chefs, then Ash. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Read it. Don’t throw it away.”

  Numbly I watched him catch up to the others. When I was alone again, I stared down at the envelope.

  Reason clamored loudly. The plan. Remember the plan. There’s no place for Lincoln and the heartache that comes with him.

  But my fingers seemed to be governed by my heart. They slid open the lightly glued seam. There were several photographs and a note inside. Linc’s face was on the first photograph only he wasn’t smiling. My chest got so tight I couldn’t breathe. I staggered backward ducking into the storage room.

  What would it hurt to take a peek at the rest?

  I could return it. Who would know if I looked?

  My secret. My choice.

  I suddenly felt less trapped inside my life. Linc had that effect on me even when he wasn’t physically present. Breathing a little easier, I went through the contents. The next picture was the pier and the final one was of Linc on his board. I wondered if Ash had taken it. Tears pricked my eyes. I could almost hear the familiar soothing roar of the ocean and feel the warmth of the sun that was sparkling on it.

  Good morning, Mona, Linc wrote and I could hear his perfect voice in my mind. The beach is not the same without you here to share it with me.

  “Tell me everything she said. Everything she did,” I grilled Ash the minute he got off work. Dude looked exhausted. First the early morning interview after the late night talking. Then being on your feet all day, not even a minute to breathe. I knew what it was like working for Alberto Bianchi. But it had been worth it to me just to be near her. Knowing Ash had taken the job for my benefit meant the world. I told him so. Repeatedly.