Sandcastles

by Suzie Carr

  I opened my eyes and stared up at the picture of the blue sky and wispy clouds. I was back in the acupuncture room.

  I inhaled the soothing scent of honeysuckle, and a tingle coursed through my entire being. A sense of extreme comfort swam in me. I viewed the buttercream-colored walls with a whole new set of eyes.

  I stretched lightly, and a peace overcame me.

  Then, Yvonne knocked and entered, walking over to me with a smile. “How do you feel?”

  I inhaled the honeysuckle deeper into my lungs. “I feel like I ate some pretty awesome mushrooms.”

  She laughed, and began removing the needles. “Talk to me. What happened?”

  “Let’s just say, you’ve turned me into a believer.”

  She walked over to the receptacle and dumped the used needles in there. “Well, then, let me be the first to welcome you to the land of open chakras, harmony, and balance.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Willow

  The first time I commanded a yoga session, I walked into that room full of yoga enthusiasts and wanted to serve them an experience that would have their mouths watering for more. I wanted their cells to come alive, bursting with a new awareness of energy they never knew existed until that moment when I helped them find their inner healer. I wanted them to devour the good vibes the way I did when I first dove into a downward dog pose. Unfortunately, that first time as a yoga instructor singed me with a hurtful disappointment because I screwed up royally. I didn’t know my toe from my pinky because nerves took hold. Talk about a wild mess; a yoga instructor who couldn’t take a long deep breath. I couldn’t remember the moves. I had blanked out.

  But, I kept seeing my future self as someone who taught yoga. So, I turned to my Aunt Lola. She helped center me by reminding me that I didn’t have to be an expert to be effective. I just had to be humble. So, humble me stood before my second yoga class and confessed my nerves to a group of people who looked back at me with a connective love that carried me through the first breath to the final relaxed and grateful one. I was open to their feedback, and thus received their welcome.

  I wanted Lia to jump right over that newbie hurdle and enjoy her first acupuncture session. I didn’t want her to have to deal with the similar apprehensions most people suffer when their fearful minds are blocked off from something new and mysterious. I didn’t want her to close herself off from its possibilities the way I sensed she did with a lot of things in her life. I wanted her to love it, and for that experience to serve as the first of many on her travels down new paths that would open her mind to things beyond most people’s comprehension.

  So, when Lia walked out to the reception area after her treatment with Yvonne and she was glowing, it took all the reserve power I had to control my joy.

  I sat innocently on the couch next to Dean, showing him a yoga app for his cell phone, when she strolled up to us, walking with a new air of peace. In the moments between handing Dean his phone back and performing the basic function of breathing, my heart ascended too fast, leaving me disoriented. Within ten seconds, I was that person clinging to the hope that the emotions of that moment would not drop out from under my feet and stop the ride I just mounted.

  When she got closer, my face flushed. Within minutes, we’d be alone in my yoga room stretching our long torsos in front of each other, lying on the ground in sensual poses that would set my mind on a giddy strike against any thought professional in nature.

  Her eyes bore into mine, causing the room to spin.

  “You’ve got to see how easy this is,” Dean said to her.

  Lia broke her gaze as Dean handed his phone to her. “Check out this app. Every morning, it guides you through fifteen minutes of morning yoga to get the day started off on the right foot.”

  Lia turned back to me, ignoring Dean now. “The kiddos are safe with your aunt.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  She looked at me with that same sexy smile from earlier when I left her alone with my kids.

  “Are you ready for your yoga lesson?” I asked, reluctant to flirt back out of fear I might somehow be misreading her signals. Then, her eyes flickered with an intensity that sped up my heart again. Compelled to keep up with its tantric beat, I reciprocated her sexy smile and reached out for her hand; my subtle approach to a playful invitation.

  My hand relaxed in hers. Her face shined with pure tranquility, along with the smooth contours of her jaw and cheeks beneath the soft glow of the center’s light. At that moment, a raw beauty stirred in me, a beauty I’d only ever enjoyed once before, the day she leaned in to kiss me in the mist of the pool room.

  Just then, my cell phone rang. It was my aunt. I reluctantly let go of Lia’s hand to answer. “Hey Aunt Lola.”

  “Don’t freak out,” she said. “It’s not a big deal. My car has two flat tires.”

  “Where are you?”

  Lia arched her eyebrow.

  “We’re at the Providence Place Mall. I bought the kids an ice cream cone when it happened. Sure enough, someone got upset with me because I took up an extra spot. I only did that because the spaces are too small. I can’t fit in them.”

  “You’ve got a Prius. It’ll fit.”

  “Anyway, I’m waiting on the tow truck. Unless you want your little ones being trucked away in some smelly cab of a tow truck, you may want to come and get us.”

  “Of course. I’ll be right there.”

  “We’re near Dave and Buster’s.”

  “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes. I’m leaving now.”

  I hung up.

  “Trouble?” Yvonne asked, walking out from the treatment room.

  “Your wife has no idea how to drive, let alone park,” I joked. “I don’t know why I trust my children with her.” I turned to Lia. “I’m sorry, but I have to run and pick them up. Can we reschedule your yoga?”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said without hesitation.

  My heart leaped. We’d spend an afternoon intimately confined together in the front seat of my car. “Really?”

  “Of course,” she said without question.

  “Does your aunt live near here or closer to the mall?” Dean asked.

  “We live about ten miles from the mall,” Yvonne said.

  “Why don’t you go there, and I’ll pick you up later, after I’m done with my acupuncture?” Dean asked.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him.

  “He’s sure,” Lia said.

  “Great. Let me just grab my keys.” I skipped off to the desk and grabbed them. As I passed by Lia en route to the front door, she placed her hand on the small of my back, guiding me.

  I felt safe, and happy; two emotions I’d been craving for a long time.

  # #

  On the drive to get my aunt and kids, Lia and I talked about Dean and how he coped so great with his health scare. I told Lia that my gut told me he’d be just fine.

  “He believes he can magically erase the mass before surgery,” she said.

  I refused to rock that boat and tell her I did see him getting the surgery. I wasn’t always right. “Even if he needs surgery, I get the good sense that he’s going to have it removed and get on with is life, tucking that whole ordeal behind him for the rest of his healthy life.”

  Lia settled into that news like I’d just flung her a life jacket in the middle of a raging ocean.

  An hour later, with my aunt and two wired kids in the car, we drove to her house, listening to the entertainment of Charlotte and Anthony recalling every last detail of those two flat tires.

  Fifteen minutes later, we arrived.

  I welcomed Lia into the house, and her jaw dropped just like everyone else’s always did when they stepped foot inside what looked like a home for the rich and famous. As soon as we entered, Brandy bolted at us, yelping and sliding on the hardwood floors as she always did. She bypassed me altogether and charged straight at Lia with all four paws in the air.

  “That’s Brandy,” Charlotte ye
lled. “She’ll bite you, but it won’t hurt. She pinches like a little mosquito bite.”

  Lia smiled. “So this is Brandy.”

  “Yup. She’s my aunt’s dog.”

  Charlotte bent down and pulled at Brandy’s curls as the dog sought out Lia’s ankles and began her discovery phase. I picked her up.

  “She’s like this at first, then she’ll calm down,” I talked over the yelping, squirming, and biting. Brandy bit the air, spraying drool all over my arms.

  Aunt Lola pointed a squirt bottle at her. “That’s enough now, Little Bugger.”

  “That’s an adorable name, Little Bugger,” Lia said, attempting to lean in and pet her again. Brandy barked like she was a two hundred pound Mastiff. “Much more appropriate than Brandy.”

  My aunt moved in closer with the squirt bottle, and Brandy quieted, staring at her with big, brown, nervous eyes. “Willow, sweetest person on the planet, rescued this little bugger from a client who couldn’t handle her. Thirty minutes later, she presented this little ball of trouble as a birthday present to me.” Aunt Lola put down the squirt bottle. “I told her, I’m not living with a dog.”

  “I told her, I’m not letting her get killed at an animal shelter. She had the nerve to say no still,” I said.

  “Yeah, but tell her why.”

  I looked to Lia and smirked.

  “They would have killed her at the shelter because she had a ‘history’.” I lifted Brandy to exaggerate an air quote.

  “A history?” Lia asked, chuckling and trying once again to pet her.

  Brandy barked at her again, growling lowly.

  “Exactly,” Aunt Lola screamed out. “She bit a hole through her client’s wall. Look at the walls in this place. I didn’t want some creature to come in and turn them into Swiss cheese.”

  “Only because my client’s husband kept her boxed in all day and night.” I rubbed the space between her eyes, and she blinked rapidly. “Look at this face. Is this the face of a dog who deserved to live in a cold, lonely cage waiting on a family to call her own?” I asked.

  Lia stared at her with adoration. Brandy’s tongue hung out of her mouth all crooked as she panted and dripped onto the patio floor. “She’s a mess, and Dean’s going to pull no stops on his dramatic defense when he comes to pick me up. He’s terrified of dogs.”

  “We’ll get her calmed down by the time he comes in.”

  Brandy fidgeted and squirmed. So, I lowered her to the floor and tossed her favorite toy toward the other end of the foyer. She ran after it, slipping and sliding until she gripped it in between her teeth and barreled her way back toward us. She ran straight for Lia, and instead of dropping it as we taught her to do, she pounced right up Lia’s calves, spitting the toy out and caring only about her legs.

  Lia jumped backward and a panic took over her face.

  “Isn’t she adorable?” A huge smile erupted on Charlotte’s face as she giggled at Brandy who was now biting on Lia’s legs. Brandy began to run in circles around Lia’s ankles. Charlotte began chasing her and screaming. Then, Anthony joined in, laughing hysterically. And poor Lia, she looked at me with horror in her eyes.

  “No,” she said, hopping away from Brandy’s stakeout on her bare ankles. She ran toward the living room and jumped on the coach, squealing as she looked down and found Brandy staring up at her with her crazed eyes. “Off, Little Bugger. Off,” she said, now mounting the back of the couch to get away from Brandy’s sharp snapping teeth.

  I grabbed for Brandy, but she wouldn’t let me catch her. “Get her collar,” I yelled to Aunt Lola. “I can’t grab her.” I broke out in a sweat at that point, embarrassed and afraid for Lia. I’d never seen Brandy get that fired up over a new face before. I kept trying to land on top of her, but each time, she scurried away.

  We looked like a three ring circus act. Me, belly flopping all over Lia’s ankles, then Brandy throwing herself at her, and the kids hopping all over the couch in a fit of laughter. Meanwhile, Aunt Lola took her sweet time gathering up the collar as she hoarded the only defense, that squirt bottle, under her armpit, strolling around the kitchen counter.

  “Kids, relax.” I climbed to Lia’s side and plucked up Brandy from the front and scooped her up and off the couch and into my arms again. She squirmed out of my grip again and headed back to Lia’s ankles. Brandy jumped up and down, scratching her shins as she whined and her eyes grew large and bulgy.

  Lia leaped off the couch and ran to the slider door. She opened it, slid through a crack just wide enough to fit through, and slammed it shut. Brandy acted like a little bugger for sure, panting, exposing her teeth, circling her big, scary eyes around Lia’s face as if taunting her like a school yard bully.

  I walked around the outside of the house to get to her. Lia sat on one of the pub style chairs near the pool bar, wiping her forehead and texting.

  “I am so sorry.” I sat down on the chair next to her. “I’m mortified. I’ve never seen her act like that before.”

  She put down her phone. “I texted Dean to warn him. He’d die. He would literally fall to the ground and keel over. The two of us would be doing chest compressions on him until we turned blue. It’d be something right out of a comedy show. Even more so than that scene probably already looked to you in there.”

  “You were adorable.” I raised my face up to the sun, banking on its power to continue elevating me.

  Her gaze tickled me from my head down to my toes.

  “Have you ever seen such a lavish setup before?”

  Lia glanced around the pool area, at the cabana with its lattice design in the far corner, at the kidney shaped water, at the stone pavers with its intricate patterns lining the pool’s curves, and at the carefully selected plant life adorning the entire view. “I never knew flea markets could be such cash cows.”

  “Puts a whole new spin on psychics now, doesn’t it?”

  She circled back to face me. “That spin already happened for me long before I stepped onto this little piece of heaven on Earth.”

  My head twirled.

  We sat for a while in the sun, sharing sweet smiles and flirty gazes, joking about Brandy, a.k.a. Little Bugger, and life as a psychic in a flea market booth. Then, Anthony knocked on the slider. We both turned to see the three of them staring back at us. My aunt, Charlotte and Anthony pressed their noses and lips up against the window and made faces at us as we sat in the rays of a setting sun. And “Little Bugger” continued to pant.

  “Clearly, I screwed up that first impression.” Lia grabbed a mini straw from the canister and placed it between her lips.

  “Clearly.” I matched her move, sticking one in between my lips too.

  We playfully stared into each other’s eyes. “I am a dog person despite what I looked like in there.”

  “I believe you.” I tapped the tip of her nose and let my finger fall gracefully down her face, neck, and arm.

  “They’re all still staring at us.” Lia’s eyes twinkled. “Even Little Bugger is.”

  “Well, Little Bugger is going to have to learn some manners or else no doggy park for her.”

  Lia reached out for my hand, cradling my fingers with hers.

  “You just have to come armed next time.”

  “Armed?” Lia released a soft laugh, as she circled my fingers in a slow, seductive dance.

  “With a squirt bottle of course,” I whispered, floating and giddy.

  “Yes,” she whispered back, leaning in closer. “Of course.”

  Everyone stared at us. I wanted her to kiss me. I traveled my gaze down to her lips and admired them before ascending to her hungry eyes.

  She closed them, then brushed her lips against mine.

  I sank into the comfort of her.

  “They’re still staring,” she said, washing me over in her sweet breath. “We should make funny faces at them.”

  “Oh, I like the way you think.”

  “On the count of three?” Her eyes took on a wild, crazed look just like B
randy.

  “One,” we whispered. I loved how her breath warmed my face.

  “Two.” My insides warmed at the outdoorsy smell of her.

  “Two and a half,” she whispered, closing her eyes and brushing her lips against mine again.

  “Two and three-quarters.” I didn’t want to break away from her.

  We opened our eyes, latched on, smiled wickedly, and screamed, “Three.” At which time we both jumped off the stools and began making funny faces at them. Lia pressed her face up against the slider, and Charlotte screamed out a laugh at a decibel I’d yet to hear come out of her little lungs.

  Then, Lia cupped her hands to the glass. “Dean?”

  I peeked in, cupping my hands too. Brandy snuggled in Dean’s arms. She loved him, kissing his nose and his neck while he laughed and totally missed our funny faces.

  “You told me that we’d need to revive him,” I said.

  “Total shocker to me too.” She opened up the slider and walked into the kitchen with her confidence back in tow.

  Brandy continued to pine over Dean, showering him in kiss after kiss.

  Dean scratched behind her ears, and she cocked her head to the side as if in ecstasy. She snorted and leaned her head even further back, exposing her belly and neck to him.

  “How did you get in here without being attacked?” Lia asked, walking up to him.

  “Yoga afterglow, I would presume,” he stated.

  Lia reached out without reservation and petted Brandy in that spot between her eyes. Brandy stopped kissing and grunting, closing her eyes at Lia’s touch.

  Lia looked at me with a twinkle in her eye. “Little Bugger likes me.”

  My heart melted. I cupped my hands to my face and almost squealed.

  Aunt Lola placed the squirt bottle back in its rightful spot near the microwave. “I love happily ever after moments.”

  I walked up to the trio, and kissed my little bugger’s head. “I’m so proud of you.”