She finishes her milk. She sits up with her legs drawn to her chest. “I don’t know what happened. It’s something inside of me that sometimes just snaps. I met this guy at the beach the other night and he wanted to party. So I did. He took me to the back room behind Smitty’s.”
“Were you there all night when we found you?”
She nods. “I wanted to leave, but then I got a really great hand. And I just kept getting better and better until I lost it all. I was up ten grand. Ten grand, Sky. Do you know what I could do with that?”
I nod. She’d get a new car. She’d stop waitressing. She’d do something with her life. It’s the same old River song.
“River,” Leti says. “Can you just for a second stop and think what would have happened if we hadn’t been there?”
She shakes her head. River always gets close to the edge of situations. So close that I think she wants to feel what it might be like to go all the way. I’ve been in the car when she’d step on the gas until she was at top speed, just to see what it would feel like. When we were in Ireland, she stood on the edge of a cliff with her arms and face tilted to the open sky. I was afraid she’d jump. But that’s River. She likes living on the edge. My worry is that even if she doesn’t want to, one day she’ll get so close that there might not be a coming back.
She digs into her pockets but can’t find what she’s looking for.
“It’s not there,” I tell her. “It’s gone.”
“Sky! I owe Will money.”
“Turn in the chips. I’ll spot you the rest.”
“I can’t keep taking money from you.”
“Yeah well,” I say, turning angry. “You have to. You won’t always have to but you have to for right now. I’d rather lose a buck than lose you, okay?”
She leans back. With the last smudges of her makeup, her pouty swollen lips, and her unwashed hair, she looks like a little kid trying to be a grown up. I feel for her. We’re twenty-three, but even though high school and college are long gone, we’re not finished becoming who we’re supposed to be. I know I’m not.
“I’ll get help,” she says. “Just—after the wedding. I want to enjoy the summer with you guys. I’ll be good.”
That’s the thing with River, I can’t be mad at her. I can’t say no to her. All I want is to wrap my arms around her and make the world better for her, but that’s enabling.
“Okay, bitch,” Leti says good-naturedly. “But you can’t come to the tasting tomorrow.”
River rolls her eyes. “Alcohol isn’t the problem. It’s everything else. Once the chips are down, I don’t know how to quit.”
“River…”
“You can’t just leave me alone in this house. Everyone gives me dirty looks. Why can’t it just be us?”
I rub her leg. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she says, feeling as if she’s won.
“Listen,” Leti says. “If you aren’t going to take care of yourself for you, then do it for us. You know we love you no matter what, but that’s what we’re here for. For you.”
River nods, but she doesn’t look at either of us. She shuts her eyes. She squeezes both of our hands, and eventually, we all fall asleep. Still, I know what a false promise looks like, and River doesn’t mean to keep hers.
Chapter 26
I leave before anyone in the house can notice I’m gone.
I roll down the windows of River’s car to try to get the cigarette stench out, then finally stop at the gas station to pick up an air freshener. Someone honks behind me, but I ignore it and keep driving into town where I’m going to knock on the door of La Vie est Belle until they say yes to cooking for me.
My phone rings and I send it to voicemail. I park and grab a coffee. The restaurant isn’t going to open for another hour so I’ve got time to kill.
My phone starts going off with a series of chimes, which tells me my family knows I’m not home.
Pepe: Nena… please come home.
Maria: You’re being selfish.
Mom: No me hables.
Yunior: Can you pick me up a large iced latte and a bagel?
Tony: Sky, whatever happened, we can talk about it. We should never have put this burden on you.
That’s the message that breaks my heart. It’s not a burden. It’s something I wanted. I start to type back, but my phone rings with a name I wasn’t expecting.
“Lucky?” I answer.
“Holy crap are you hard to pin down,” she says. “I texted you a few days ago to let you know I was in town. Are you freezing me out because of my mom and Bradley? I thought we were starting to be besties.”
“I never got it, I swear!” I take a sip of my coffee. It’s better than telling her I completely forgot about her text. “Wait, was that you honking at me this morning?”
She answers with a laugh. “Are you busy? I kind of have to talk to you.”
There is only one thing—or person—that Lucky and I have in common. I swallow the dryness on my tongue. “What’s going on?”
“It’s about Bradley.”
• • •
My mom used to tell me that no matter what I was afraid of in life, I had to confront it. Back then she was talking about Heaven Moreno, a girl with a piggish nose who believed her parents when they told her she was the most beautiful girl in the entire world. Heaven was the fifth grade mean girl before mean girls wore pink on Wednesdays, and for some reason she hated me. She pulled my hair when the teachers weren’t looking. She spilled her chocolate milk on my white shirt. She started a rumor that I didn’t wear a training bra (not so much a rumor as the truth).
I tried my best to avoid her, but she found me. When I asked my mom to change my class, she refused. “You have to confront her,” my mom told me. And on the day she put glue on my chair (our uniform pants were navy blue), I snapped.
“What’s your problem?” I asked. Not so much asked, but whispered to the floor.
She sucked her teeth, fueled by the confidence of having every girl in class stand behind her. “You’re my problem.”
I didn’t know what to say to that and everyone just snickered.
“You think you’re hot shit.” For a ten year-old, cursing in school made you a badass. She was a princess, but she wanted to be a badass. I was quiet and wanted to be left alone. “Well, you’re not.”
“Neither are you.”
That was it. That was the first time I’m sure anyone had told her that. Tears brimmed to her eyes and as soon as the teacher walked in, she let loose with the waterworks.
Suddenly, I wasn’t the mean girl, just a mean girl. I made the princess cry. My mom still had to come to school because I was accused of picking on another student. Meanwhile, I was still wearing pants with the ass covered in glue, and that was when I realized that the world wasn’t fair. Sometimes confronting problems wasn’t the best solution, but at least Heaven left me alone for the rest of the year.
Now that I’ve got River’s car stalled in front of a house that belongs to a woman who ended my relationship, I remind myself that as you get older, you have different kinds of fears and problems to confront. This fear is that I’ll never be able to get over Bradley. That I’m not strong enough to move on. That my little bit of steel is diminishing with every second the past is in neutral, and I’ll end up being the kind of person I hate.
My knuckles are white around the steering wheel. I swallow a deep breath and release it slowly. It’s just a house, I tell myself.
“Don’t be an idiot,” River had told me.
Maybe the advice I’m searching for isn’t “face your fear.” Instead it’s “don’t be an idiot.”
Maybe life would be a lot simpler if everyone collectively stopped being idiots. Wouldn’t that be grand?
I turn off the engine and dig into my purse. I find the blue seashell Hayden found for me at the beach. I trace the sea-polished surface, like it’s a talisman of good luck. In a way it is. Just looking at it brings a smile to my face. I set it on th
e dashboard and walk up the driveway.
It’s not the biggest house in the Hamptons, but it’s pretty damn nice. Miniature palms line the front path to a house with the kind of modern designs that make it look more like it belongs in Mars circa 3199. I don’t know why, but that gives me a little bit of pleasure knowing that the owner of the house and I are polar opposites.
“I was wondering how long you were going to stay in the car,” Lucky says. Lucky stands a bit shorter than me. Her long dark hair is tied up in a messy bun. Her cool gray eyes are hidden behind a pair of shades. Her shoulders are red where her skin rebels against the summer sun.
“That obvious?” I ask.
She pulls me into a hug. Her black bikini is warm, like she just got up from her lounge chair. If you had told me a few months ago that I’d be hugging Lucky Pierce and actually be happy to see her, I’d have called you crazy.
“You look good,” I tell her.
“Yeah, all the restaurant stress leaves me with zero time to eat.” She leads me around back, past a gate that takes us to the giant kidney-shaped pool. There’s a giant hot tub and, of course, more than one grill—a propane one and a brick oven with a slab on it. Hedges block the view from the neighbors on either side. I wonder if Bradley ever stayed here.
I torture myself with that train of thought, then force myself to let it go when James Hughes, chef extraordinaire, finishes swimming his lap. The man who surfaces from the water occupies my entire brain. From the strong muscles that glisten with water, to the abs that ripple as he pushes himself out of the pool. He rakes his black hair back, and even from a distance I can see how green his eyes are.
I glance at Lucky, who stares at him. I recognize the look of love in her eyes. Lucky looks at James with complete and total adoration. When she sees me staring at her with a grin on my face she tries to cover it with a scowl. Why are people so eager to hide how happy love makes them?
“Shut up.”
I hold my hands up innocently. “I didn’t say anything.”
But she doesn’t stop that look from returning to her face. James brings his wet body over to us. He takes Lucky by her face and pulls her into a wet kiss. She doesn’t complain as his hands wrap around her petite frame and grab her sizable derrière. When they pull apart, they take a minute to smile at each other. Something inside of me aches.
“You guys are gross,” I tell them.
James goes off to dig in the beer cooler and Lucky gives me the finger. I grab her hand.
“Is he converting you to the tattoo-side of life?” I rub my finger across the skin of her hand, over a bright four-leaf clover that’s inked just under her thumb.
She pulls her hand back and takes the beer James offers her. I take one, too.
“I was trying to convince her to get, ‘yes, chef’ on her forehead, but it didn’t go over so well.”
Lucky makes a face. “I don’t think forehead was the original place you suggested.”
I twist off the beer—a Boston Lager, of course—and follow them to a plush lounge area beside the pool. A large palm creates the perfect amount of shade. The water ripples a perfect shade of blue, and for a moment I think of the sand dollar on my dashboard and the boy whose number is written on it.
“What’s new, Sky?” Lucky says politely. I can sense she wants to get to the core of why she asked me here, but she seems nervous about it. “You up and left me when I finally had a friend in Boston.”
“Hey,” James says, taking umbrage to that.
“You’re my boyfriend,” she says. “It’s different. I can’t talk to you about the stupid shit you say.”
“Why not?” He pinches her thigh. “How else am I supposed to know not to say it again?”
“The man has a point.” I say, allowing myself to relax into the high comfy back of the wicker couch. There’s a spread of cheeses, toast points, and homemade spreads.
“How’s the wedding stuff going?” Lucky asks.
I do a shit job at hiding my stress. “It pretty much sucks.”
“Why?” Lucky leans forward and James looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to stay or run.
“It’s kind of the small things that started going wrong. The roof caved in on one of the guest rooms.”
“What the fuck?” James says.
“Everyone was okay,” I tell them. I can feel my cheeks warm up. My head is thinking HaydenHaydenHayden, but I stop myself from going further in the story.
Mostly.
“One of the roofers fell through.”
“Oh my God,” Lucky says. “Was he okay?”
“Mostly. I patched up one of his cuts. He’s, um, interesting.” I chug my beer and shove some spicy hummus into my mouth to give myself a reprieve. “Anyway, the DJ bailed, and the caterer forgot to tell us that they’re going out of business.”
Lucky places her hand over her mouth. “Get the fuck out. It’s—”
“Less than two weeks away?” I press my hand on my stomach and set down the toast point I’m about to eat. I really dropped the ball. “The worst part is that I tried to keep it secret because I didn’t want anyone to worry. Only, I haven’t been able to find anyone. Oh…Oh, I think I’m going to be sick. It’s my own fault, not your food, James. I’m so sorry.”
James and Lucky exchange a worried look.
“What?”
“If you don’t tell her,” James says. “I will.”
“Tell me what?” I say.
Lucky looks at me with her big gray eyes. “Bradley’s in town.”
The queasiness in my stomach comes to a peak. I run into the house and I can hear Lucky shout, “Make a left!” I push through the first door I see and thank the gods that there’s a sink. I throw up my morning coffee. My stomach heaves painfully. I almost forgot how much I drank last night.
I sit in the cool porcelain bathroom and replay what Lucky said. It shouldn’t be a surprise. I knew that was his silver Mercedes I saw the other day. I can hear Lucky and James arguing in the kitchen. Well, technically even their regular conversations sound like arguing, so it’s good to know that they’re still going strong.
When I decide I’m ready to compose myself, I rinse my mouth out, clean up my mess, and head back outside.
“Sorry about that,” I say, joining Lucky back outside.
We sit in silence, enjoying the bright sun and the warm breeze.
“I thought you should know,” Lucky tells me. “Bradley is a total wreck. I haven’t actually seen him, and he hasn’t come near my family since James knocked him out, but he leaves crazed messages asking me to help win you back. He told me he was going to come here.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know. You also need to know that there’s no way in hell I’d ever help that. That’s a one-and-done kind of betrayal.”
“Agreed.” I think of my mom and every time she took my dad back. “Thanks Lucky.”
She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I feel shitty about the way it all went down, but at least you and I got to be friends.”
James returns with a bottle of seltzer and some ice. He nods at Lucky once. It’s amazing the way they communicate. He’s not much of a talker, but with a single look, Lucky seems to know just what he means to say. I think I’ll add them to my list of favorite couples after Pepe and Tony.
“While you were puking,” Lucky says.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“We were talking about how instead of going back to Boston we could stay here in the Hamptons for a little while.”
James leans forward. It’s hard not to look at his biceps, but it’s even harder to hold the fierce green of his stare. “We were only going to stay for the weekend after the Foodie TV filming.”
“But now!” Lucky says, impatient with the leisurely way in which James speaks. “We want to cater the wedding.”
“What?” I almost spill seltzer all over myself. “Are you serious?”
“It won’t be too comp
licated a menu,” James says. He runs his hand through his hair and I can see him trying to do some sort of math. “But I guarantee it’ll get done and done well.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“James and I have been there,” Lucky says. “Everything was falling apart around us. It’s our karmic duty to help.”
“How many guests?” James asks.
“Two hundred.”
“Give me a second,” he says. “I’m trying to think.”
Lucky turns to me. “This’ll take a while.”
He pinches her again and she squeals. I’ve never seen Lucky this relaxed and playful with someone. It’s like the dark cloud over her head is long gone.
My stomach twists into knots as we wait for James to do this thinking. Lucky stretches her feet out and lands them across his thighs. He massages a foot with one hand and scrolls through his phone with the other.
“I’m not gonna lie, Sky,” he says, “I’m going to need to bring in some friends. Can I see the original menu you had planned?”
I pull it up on my phone and let him read it. His face ranges from a frown to a pleasant head nod, to a surprising, “That sounds good, actually.” When he’s done, he gives the menu to Lucky.
“Okay so here’s the deal,” he says. “I would 100% do this, give or take a few things. It’ll be more pared down. There are too many pasta dishes.”
“This wedding’s half Italian,” I say.
“That’s the biggest issue since I won’t have my kitchen. I have a buddy who has a restaurant, but it’s in the city. They’re not equipped for such a huge transport.”
“I’ll rent a van,” I say. Tony and Pepe have done so much for me over the years. They paid for my braces. They paid for nursing school. They sent me on a summer backpacking trip with River and Leti all over Europe. The least I can do is put some of that back into this wedding.
Lucky squeezes his hand, and he looks at her, really looks at her. James doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall. He’s doing this for Lucky, because he doesn’t want to see her upset. If someone had told me Lucky Pierce would be saving my skin right about now, I wouldn’t have believed them. But she’s full of surprises and I wish I’d given her more of a chance from the beginning.
Love on the Ledge Page 14