When Life Gets in the Way

by Ines Vieira

  Before we know it, we have reached the pier and the sun is already setting, saying its farewell to both of us. We sit down at the end of the pier with our feet dangling below and our arms and heads resting on one of its rails. We sit silently as we look to the ocean and are in awe of all the colors the sky is able to produce with one simple sunset. We see streaks of red, orange, and gold all over that jaw-dropping blue sky. Grey puffy clouds seem to hide the pink rays that threaten to break through. It is simply breathtaking.

  “Are sunsets this pretty in Arizona?” I ask while staring at the show we are both admiring.

  “They might be. I guess I never noticed,” he whispers. My face is still on my arms over the rail but I turn to face him.

  “You never saw one sunset in all the time you were there?” I ask him. He sees that my tone is more of genuine curiosity than it is of judgment.

  “I guess I’m a glass half-empty kinda of guy. My grandmother was dying, so looking at sunsets was really not a priority for me.” Isaac’s tone is more bereaved, than sarcastic. I slowly scoot in closer to him and this time, I lean my head next to his so we are both looking at the exact same thing; that gorgeous explosion of color that looks like it’s about to fall all over the vast dark water in front of us.

  “Well, I’m glad that you’re able to see it now.” And it’s the truth. A small choked sound comes out of his throat and then he’s silent again. Everything that he has gone through these past years, with being away from his family, to watching a person that he loves disintegrate in front of him, must have been one of the most difficult things that anyone should have to go through. Much less a kid. So I am in fact happy that Isaac is here now, and that he has been able to overcome all that pain and grief.

  I feel my chest warm a bit too, as I realize that I am also elated that he’s able to share this moment with me. I wonder if when we are old and gray, if we will ever remember these small moments and who we shared them with. Somehow I know that this one will be engraved in my memory for years to come.

  He’s still very silent and I know that he’s thinking about his grandmother. He probably wishes that she could see this same sky with him one more time. It breaks my heart. It also scares me that I’m starting to be able to read him so well after only a month.

  “Do you believe in God?” he asks in a hushed tone. His voice is so small that it surprises me more than his question.

  “I guess I believe that everyone needs to feel as if they belong. Maybe to someone or to something, but that primal need is in all of us, I think. Everyone needs to feel that it's okay to hope.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I do. How can I not? I mean just look?” I point out to the amazing scenery that has caught our full attention. “Not only do I believe in him, but I think he’s one of the greatest artists I’ll ever have the privilege to see his work up close.”

  “I had never pegged you for a romantic, Cassandra.” His voice is soft and sweet as honey. Issac plants a kiss on the top of my head and then leans his head against mine again. I thank my lucky stars, that he’s returned to staring at our surroundings and ignorant to the effect his harmless kiss has on me. I then feel his arms on my shoulder, and my whole body shivers with the intimacy of it. He pulls me closer to him, probably thinking that I’m shivering from being cold. I pretend that that’s the reason and lean in closer to him.

  Once the sky has started to look as dark as the ocean ahead, I straighten up and start to get back on my feet. Isaac offers me his hands to help me up, and again my face betrays me with a blush. His eyes are fixed on mine, and I can't help but stare back at him. He looks as he’s about to say something but then thinks twice about it. For some ungodly reason, I am relieved that he doesn’t say a word and that we start making our way back to his car. We don’t say much the whole drive back to my house, but as I’m about to leave, he lightly grabs my arm.

  “Thanks for today,” he says sullenly. I try to smile back in the hopes that it will comfort him.

  “Cass?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t lose my number, okay? I mean, call me anytime you want. Not only when you’re bored and I’m your last resort. Okay?” I see a little bit of Isaac coming back to his usual self.

  “As you wish,” I tease back and it works like a charm. His eyes light up and he’s back wholeheartedly.

  ISAAC

  “Damn that man is brutal! I swear to god, I think he has it in for me. Did you see how he put all my ideas down this morning? C’mon Cass even you have to admit that Mr. Wilson was freaking obvious in his disdain for me today. What the fuck did I ever do to him?” I say frustrated as both of us walk to our table in the school cafeteria. I see her smile from the corner of my eye as I place my tray on the table. “You think this is funny don’t you darling? I tease her back.

  “See that right there, that’s why Mr. Wilson hates your guts so much.” She says as she points her spoon at me.

  “What did I do?” I ask surprised that she’s siding with our English Lit teacher.

  “You and your darling attitude. You really think that you can charm anyone don’t you, well there’s your answer. You can’t charm everyone. Mr. Wilson is just proof of that.” I hear her smirk loud and clear, so does everyone else at our table.

  “What are you too fuming about now?” Ronnie asks with her head leaning on Decker’s shoulder. “I swear to god, you two bicker more than I do with my little sister. You two aren’t even related for crying out loud!” she teases. I see the small grin creep up on my cousin Jess’s face and I know what she’s thinking. I have to squash this fast.

  “Cassandra here thinks that Mr. Wilson has it in for me because I’m just too fucking charming.”

  “That is not what I said! I said that he doesn’t like you because you think you’re charming.” She laughs. “And since you got here, you’ve been trying to charm your way around this place with your darling this and darling that. Don’t you know by now that only Mathew McConaughey can pull that off?” She sticks her tongue out at me. It’s so sexy that I almost want to bite it, especially when she’s full guns blazing at me.

  “It really gets under your skin, doesn’t it? Well don’t worry darling, Mr. Wilson is the last person I want to waste my charm on anyway. There are plenty of girls at Riverside that I would rather waste it on.” I say and take an exaggerated bite of my hamburger.

  “Really?” asks Ronnie and I swear that all the lights in her head went on full blast. “If that’s so, I have a few girls that have been in my ear relentlessly every day since you arrived. Think I can pass them your number?”

  On impulse, I look over at Cass and I see her stare down at her plate. I know that I should crush my little cousin’s smirking because I know she suspects that the reason I really haven’t invested my so-called charm on anyone was because of the girl sitting next to me. But I can’t bring myself to do it.

  “Ronnie, didn’t you hear Cass? I’m not as charming as I think. Wouldn’t want to burden your friends with my dullness. I forgot to grab a coke. Be right back with my charmless self in a minute.” I stroll back to the vending machine and take a quick glance back at my table. I think I catch Cass checking out my backside and when I catch her eye all of her blushes red. Charmless my ass. Literally!

  As I put my hand in my pocket searching for loose change, a small brunette comes over and leans on the machine. She starts making small talk, but this routine is so not new to me. I grab my coke feeling someone’s eyes dig way into my back. I don’t even have to look back at my table to know who can’t keep her eyes away from this particular scene. I know it’s a shitty thing to do but I keep up with the small talk a little more than intended. Never getting this girl’s hopes up, but enough that it will take that smirk off Jess’s face and make my point with Cass. Two minutes later I walk back to our table satisfied.

  “Guess I’m just as charming as I thought I was after all. Thanks Ronnie for the offer anyway, but I
think I can handle it on my own.” Tony and Alex start to ask me more about the brunette and I see Cass roll her eyes. I look over at Jess and her smile is long gone. No knowing smirk is visible at all.

  Lunch period is coming to an end and everyone starts to make their way out to their next class, but before Cass has time to leave, I grab her elbow lightly to get her attention. I am instantly greeted with a raised eyebrow.

  “Cass, I need to ask a favor.” I try to give her a crooked smile even though I know that no smile and definitely no darling will charm this girl. But honesty will.

  “Go on,” she says, getting up anyway and making her way out of the cafeteria with me trailing behind.

  “I was serious about Mr. Wilson. I can’t fail the assignment he gave us for this weekend. I know I come across as a cocky know it all, but I also know when I need help. Cass, I need your help with this.” This time, my smile is humble and sincere and I pray that she sees it for what it is and not one of my moves to get what I want.

  She puts on her glasses, the ones she only uses for class and that make her eyes look even bigger than they are, and for a second I forget who is suppose to be the charming one among us. I see her studying me, mouldering over my request, but after a few seconds, I see that she’s in. But not before giving me a hard time, it wouldn’t be Cass if she didn’t put up a fight first.

  “You mean to tell me your new friend doesn’t take AP English Lit too?” She smirks, but I know this is just her teasing me.

  “I doubt it and even if she did, not a lot of people could use Jungian Archetypes and link them to characters in Hamlet. You however could probably do it in your sleep, so how about cutting me some slack and help me out on this one? Promise that I’ll make it up to you. If I get a good grade, promise to take you see any movie you want.”

  “Any movie I want? Even a girlie 80´s movie like Sixteen Candles? They’re gonna have a double feature of John Hughes films next weekend.” She’s amused at the thought of making me sit through an old chick flick, but I got her beat. She probably thinks that I don’t even know who John Hughes is for that matter.

  “I know, I know and I’ll gladly see that if we stay for the next session and see The Breakfast Club too.” The look of absolute shock on her face is priceless. She wasn’t expecting me to know that, but after our last “movie date”, there was no way in hell that I wasn’t going to do my homework on all things retro in cinema. If going to see those types of movies made her happy, then I needed to learn what movies I thought she liked played and when so that I could take her again. After the initial shock faded, her eyes were beaming with delight.

  “Ok, you got a deal. I’ll meet you at Jess’s tomorrow morning

  “I’m working this Saturday at my uncle’s store.”

  “Ok, what about in the afternoon?”

  “Still at my uncle’s store. I’ll be there all day.

  “Well, I’m sure that your uncle won't mind if you take an hour off to study for a class that you so desperately need to excel at.” She winks. “I’ll come over after lunch and I’ll ask if its okay to use Mr. S. office at the store for a quick study session.” She gives me one of those sweet smiles and gently knocks into my shoulder.

  I doubt my uncle would deny her anything when she smiles like this. Hell, I doubt anyone would deny her anything ever when she’s like this. Being at the receiving end of these smiles was a privilege that I wanted all for myself, though.

  Saturdays’ had fallen into a blissful routine for me. I would wake up earlier than I would on a school day, but it didn’t really bother me. I spend it mostly with my mother and it relaxes me when we are both out of the house. Even if it is to work.

  That Saturday morning, my uncle Carlos came around 10 before it got busier and time just flew by. After lunch Uncle Carlos went to do some errands and since it was quiet, I took out my English Lit assignment to be better prepared for when Cass arrived.

  I’m behind the counter with my mother as she is tidying up the back shelves. When the store is in full motion, it gets pretty disorganized. By the way mom is stacking up cans of soup in neat rows, it kind of looks like she has a bit of OCD, even though I know it’s not the mess that gets to her. It’s the ugliness of not having everything in its proper place.

  I’m debating to myself if Ophelia should be characterized as the innocent one, the orphan or even the lover based on Jung’s theories when I see from the corner of my eye, my mother tense up on the step ladder. With her head held low, she makes her way down to the floor. There is a weak smile on her face as she gently squeezes my shoulder and passes behind me to head for the back of the store, towards the storage room. It doesn’t take me long to understand why she tensed up like this suddenly.

  Outside, right in front of our display window, I see my father with one hand on the wall and smiling down at someone. I walk a little bit to the side to where my mother was just a couple of minutes before and see the slender figure of a woman leaning on the wall in front of him. He’s all grins and I see him stroke her face lovingly. If she only knew that those same hands were capable of imprinting their long fingers on my mother’s cheek or on my neck, that woman wouldn’t be smiling so sweetly back at him.

  She looks young, probably a couple of years older than me. I see her shyly smile back at him and then kiss my father’s palm as he strokes her hair. They probably have an age difference of twenty years between them, but that doesn’t seem to be a turn off for her. Even in his forties, I couldn’t deny that my father was better looking than most men half his age. The poor girl probably has some serious daddy issues. That’s the only think I can think of as an excuse for the way she’s looking at him like she has just found prince fucking charming right here in Plymouth.

  I can't say that this little scene is surprising. My father has had girlfriends on the side since forever. He would even go so far as shacking up with one or two for a couple of weeks. Not that we minded. Anytime he was away was a blessing, but the asshole always came back and our peace was short lived.

  No, this scene wasn’t surprising to me one bit. The only thing that I hated about it was that he had the audacity to actually flaunt this shit in front of my mother. I knew that it wasn’t the betrayal that hurt her. This was just another twisted way that he found to humiliate her. That’s what he liked about it most of all. Sure having his ego stroked by a twenty-year-old was good for him, but I knew the special joy he felt when he saw the defeat and shame in my mother’s eyes when he would decide to advertise his new conquest. I saw him lean into the girl’s face so I decided to move away before I had the opportunity to see the make-out session first hand. I went back to my assignment on the counter feeling the anger in me grow with every second he spent outside the store’s walls. When he finally entered my animosity towards him was extremely visible.

  “Where’s your mother?” his voice was drab as he walked into my peripheral vision.

  “What do you care?” I answered annoyed, head still low.

  “Don’t give me your lip, boy. Where is she?” He pushes my notes aside, commanding that I make full eye contact with him.

  “She’s out back. Don’t worry she saw enough of your little show just like you intended.” I spit back. His lopsided grin is revolting, but the gleam in his eyes tells me that is exactly what he wanted to hear. My first instinct is to grab the pencil that I have in my hand and pierce it through one of those black eyes of his so that it never looks this happy again. I clench it instead on my side until I feel it break in two against my leg. I know I should probably find out who this poor girl is and warn her but I doubt that he takes this much pleasure out of hurting anyone else as much as he relishes in hurting his own wife and kid. Because that’s just how much of a sick fuck the man before me really is. The worst part about all of this is knowing that his blood runs through my veins. Even though I hate him, there are too many similarities between us to deny.

  I don’t know what scares me more, this psychopath that is staring me d
own, or that one day I might turn out like him.

  CHAPTER 7

  CASS

  When I arrived at Mr. S store, I felt like I had somehow interrupted a very tense and unpleasant discussion. At least, it was tense from the look on Isaac’s face as his eyes seemed to want to pop out of its sockets staring at the man in front of him. At first, I thought maybe it was just a rowdy customer but as the man turned to face the counter from his side profile there was no question in my mind that this was Isaac’s father.

  As I saw the two next to each other it looked like they were the reverse of the same coin. One was the ray of light on an early morning just trying to break its way through the clouds to illuminate the sky with promises of how bright and glorious the day would be. The other was the pitch black night. The kind of night that you feel safe being indoors in the warmth of your bed than venture out and face it. Yet the day was always followed by night, and night by day. They were the faces of the same coin, alright. Isaac’s father had the same olive tone skin that his clan was known for, but he had pitch black silk hair and eyes to match. He was tall and built like a truck, intimidating enough to not want to run into him in a dark alley, but when he turned my way and his lips started to grow from a thin line to a crooked grin, the resemblance was uncanny. I had seen a similar grin on Isaac’s face. That grin I found endearing and sometimes too hot to handle. His father’s grin, however, made my flesh crawl. His eyes not so discretely taking all of me in, caused a shiver to run through my spine. And not the good kind like I had been given by his son in the past. This one made me feel wary of the man that was in front of me.