Build Me Up

by Grouse, Lili

  “This is Greenport, Dad. Nothing ever happens in Greenport.”

  “And how many horror movies have you seen where people said just that before they got cut down by an ax murderer?”

  “Dad! Gross!”

  “Tom and Hallie are throwing a party at the Sea Shack. Everyone’s going to be there.”

  “Not Donny.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase – everyone who’s worth your time in this town is going to be there.”

  “You mean all the old folks? No, thanks.”

  “Hallie’s like eight years older than you.”

  “You seriously think she’s going to hang out at the Sea Shack instead of going to Donny’s party?” Annabelle rolled her eyes at him.

  “Hallie’s going to Donny’s party?” Ford questioned.

  “Probably.”

  “Well, how ‘bout this – you come with me to the Sea Shack and we’ll talk to Hallie. If she agrees, you can go to Donny’s party with her as chaperone.”

  “Chaperone? Dad! It’s New Year’s! There’s no way Hallie’s going to agree to babysit me – and I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “That’s what’s on offer. Take it or leave it,” Ford said, happy with having her right where he wanted her. Until she agreed, which made him question if he’d been so clever after all.

  Kristen walked into the Sea Shack, where the party was already in full swing. She had meant to stay in tonight, maybe read a book, but Hallie had gotten a hold of her and insisted she come out. So, here she was, wearing jeans and a sparkly top to a New Year’s party. If her friends back home could see her now…

  “Hey! Kristen, you’re here!” Hallie weaved her way through the crowd to greet Kristen, a silvery party tiara in her hands. “Here. It’s mandatory,” she said and placed the crown on Kristen’s head. “You look awesome. Love the hair,” Hallie complimented her and Kristen smiled. She’d put Annabelle’s present to good use before driving over.

  “Thanks. So… how does this work?” Kristen asked, looking around and wondering who she was supposed to talk to. She recognized most of them, of course, but she didn’t really have any deep connections with anyone. Except for Ford. Who wasn’t here. Which she was just fine with – happy, even. She could count her blessings that the locals hadn’t chased her out of Greenport with pitchforks yet. After all, she’d been prepared for some sort of battle. Having them all act perfectly normal – if a bit reserved – towards her was… well, frankly a little anticlimactic.

  Hallie laughed. “It’s a party. What, they don’t have them in L.A.?” She looped her arm with Kristen’s and led her through the throng and over to the bar. “You’ve met my brother, right?”

  Ford walked into the Sea Shack right behind Annabelle. First order of business – talking to Hallie about this supposed ‘cool’ party Donny Preston was throwing. Annabelle was all dressed up in her new clothes, carrying her new wallet as a clutch to show off the brand to anyone around.

  He’d considered pointing out to her that the people of Greenport weren’t impressed with designer wear, but that they’d sooner think she was a spoiled, snooty rich kid, but figured she’d have to learn that lesson all on her own. He didn’t want to see her get hurt, but maybe a reality check was in order. Not everyone could be like Kris-

  “Hey, there’s Kristen!” Annabelle exclaimed and before he could stop her, she was weaving her way over to where Kristen indeed was sitting, perched on a bar stool and talking to Tom. He followed her, but only because Hallie was sure to be around the bar area, and that’s who he needed to talk to tonight.

  He approached as Kristen hugged Annabelle and his daughter hopped up on the chair next to Kristen, relaying some kind of order to Tom, who was looking at Kristen just a little too attentively.

  “Hey, Tom!” Ford called out, stepping up to stand next to Annabelle.

  “Oh, hey, Ford,” Tom replied, greeting him with a high-five kind of handshake. “What can I get you?”

  “Just a beer. I hope you’re checking ID’s tonight,” he said, gesturing to both Annabelle and Kristen, who was now focusing entirely on her drink. She looked up to shoot him a look, then shifted her attention over to Annabelle.

  “Hey, is Hallie around?” he asked next, looking around. He thought he caught Kristen staring at him for a split second, but when he looked again she wasn’t.

  “Uh…” Tom did a similar sweep of the room. “She was here a minute ago, but I don’t see her. Why?”

  “Just need to talk to her about something,” Ford shrugged.

  “Dad thinks I need a babysitter,” he heard Annabelle say to Kristen. He could practically feel the eye roll. Kristen looked up at him, uncertainty in her eyes. She wanted to know what to say – what was the right thing to say – but he couldn’t help her with that.

  “For what?” she asked Annabelle, who then went on to tell Kristen in great detail of the party she wanted to go to.

  Kristen listened attentively, and then leaned in to talk to Annabelle in such a low voice that Ford had no chance of eavesdropping unless he wanted to stick his head right in there. He could watch them, though. Kristen was giving some sort of advice, or at least asking important questions, and Annabelle was listening, nodding at times and shaking her head at others. Then Annabelle took out her cell phone and handed it over to Kristen, who tapped the screen repeatedly until she seemed satisfied with whatever she’d set out to accomplish and handed it back.

  “I’m going to go find Hallie,” Annabelle said to Ford and jumped off the stool, disappearing into the crowd before he could object.

  “What did you say to her?” he questioned Kristen, who had turned back to her drink.

  “Just girl talk,” she shrugged.

  “Since when do you and my daughter do ‘girl talk’?”

  “Since she needed someone to talk to that would understand what it’s like to be a teenage girl in California. It’s not that long ago since I was one myself, you know?”

  Ford gritted his teeth. “You didn’t lie about your age, did you?”

  “Relax,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m on the wrong side of 30. Or the right side, depending on whom you’re asking. Nowhere near jailbait,” she added in a stage whisper making Ford wonder how many drinks she’d had.

  Ford sat down on the vacated chair with a sigh, taking a swig of the beer Tom had produced. “How’ve you been?” he asked Kristen, who was tapping her foot along with the music, her shapely denim-encased legs crossed at the knees.

  “Fine. You?”

  “Good. Busy.”

  “How soon do you think the crew will be ready to start up construction again?”

  “In a few days.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you want to dance?”

  “No.”

  Ford sighed, polished off the rest of his beer and rose. “Come on,” he said, grabbing Kristen’s free hand, which up until now had been tapping a beat on her knee. She looked about to protest, then seemed to notice Tom was watching them curiously and either didn’t want to make a big fuss about a friendly dance or wanted to make him jealous. Ford seriously hoped it was the former.

  Just as they hit the part of the restaurant that had been cleared of tables to create a dance floor, the music changed into a slow song and he could practically feel Kristen’s sigh as it passed through her body. He didn’t let her reluctance stop him, though, and pulled her close. She fitted into his arms as easily as she had over the past months they’d been sharing a bed, and he felt the rightness of it like a force field colliding with his body and mind. She belonged there.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “Ford, don’t.”

  “I’m not allowed to miss you when you’re not around, or I’m not allowed to tell you about it?”

  “Both. There’s just no point to it. We’re better off just working together.”

  “Because you’re going back to L.A.?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if you weren’t?”

>   “Don’t. That’s not… I’m not giving up my life for… for what? I don’t even know what we could have in common in the long run. We’re two very different people, Ford. We may connect physically, but once that gets old, then what? I’m not the long-lasting relationship type. And even if I was… I would go crazy out here. I can’t do small town life. I’m just not built that way.”

  “I’m not asking you to give up your life, Kristen. I’m asking you to give a new way of life a chance. You’re already travelling all the time, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I work on different sites, on different projects. Why couldn’t we give the long-distance thing a go?”

  “That’s what you want?”

  “No. I want to be with you as much as possible, but I’m willing to negotiate. Just having a small piece of you is better than nothing.”

  “I don’t know, Ford… I just… don’t know.”

  “Then don’t give me an answer yet. Think about it. We have eight months left before the lighthouse project is supposed to be finished. There’s time to decide.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime… I’d like you to move back in.”

  “As a boarder?”

  “As my girlfriend. I want you in my bed every night of the week.”

  “What about on the weekends?”

  “Then, too. Unless we find a nice hotel somewhere,” he grinned.

  “Can I have some time to think about it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Are we going to tell Annabelle?”

  “I think we might need to say something, yeah.”

  “Do you mind if I do it? I mean, I know she’s your daughter and all, but I feel like she should hear it from me first. There’s a chance she might start to hate me.”

  “Why would she hate you?”

  “If I made a friend who turned out to be my father’s girlfriend, I’d feel duped. I don’t want her to feel that way. And I don’t want her to feel ganged up on with both of us there.”

  “You know, for a non-parent, you have pretty good instincts,” Ford mused. As Kristen rested her cheek against his chest, he looked around the restaurant. No sign of Annabelle anywhere. “Hey, did she tell you where she was going?”

  “To the party? Yeah, with Hallie, right?” Kristen said, looking up at him.

  “Right. Do you see either of them?”

  Kristen turned around to scope out the restaurant. “No. Maybe they left already.”

  “She was supposed to have Hallie talk to me first,” Ford said, reaching for his cell phone. Kristen stopped him.

  “Hey. Don’t call her. She won’t pick up and you’ll only get more worried.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do, huh?”

  “Text her. Say you don’t see her at the Sea Shack and you assume she’s gone with Hallie to the party. Tell her to confirm, and to call you if she needs you to pick her up.”

  “And she will?”

  “No. If she’s calling anyone tonight, it’s me,” Kristen said, holding up her own phone.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I put my number in her phone and told her to call if she needed anything, and that I wouldn’t tell on her. Which I won’t. If she does need me to pick her up, you can’t come, and I won’t be your mole. Got it?”

  “She’s my daughter, Kristen.”

  “Yes, she is. And you want what’s best for her. So do I.”

  “And you think what’s best for her is keeping things from me? Maybe I was wrong about your instincts.”

  “Newsflash, Ford – teenagers keep secrets from their parents all the time. Not all are bad or big ones. If you start demanding to know every single thing, you’re going to push her so far away she’ll never come to you if there’s something truly bad happening that she needs your help with.”

  “Is that what happened with your parents?”

  “Mine? No, they didn’t really show an interest. They never said that they’d be there if I needed them, so I just counted them out.”

  “So you’re not speaking from experience, then.”

  “I’ve had plenty of friends with nosy parents. They often stayed at my house.”

  “So...”

  “Just relax. Wait to see if she texts you back, and try to enjoy your night,” Kristen said and walked back over to the bar.

  “So… you and Ford, huh?” Tom the bartender slash owner said as Kristen resumed her seat at the bar.

  “What?”

  “You’re seeing each other?”

  “Oh. Uh…”

  “I mean, from the way you two were dancing, it looked like…”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “He’s a good guy.”

  “I know.”

  “It broke his heart when Suzy left with the kid,” Tom said, pouring her a drink. Non-alcoholic, just in case Annabelle did call.

  “I can imagine…”

  “You know, he’s been talking about moving out to California to be close to her for years now, but… well, construction doesn’t pay too well, does it?”

  “But if he had the opportunity, he would?” Kristen frowned, anxious to glean information from the talkative bartender.

  “I mean, you’d have to ask him about that, but I reckon he would. Now that the old lighthouse property is gone… well, there’s not much keeping him here, is there?”

  “Except for his friends.”

  “His very chatty friends,” Ford’s voice broke in and Kristen felt him right behind her.

  “Sorry, man,” Tom cringed a little.

  “You can make it up to me by calling your sister and asking her if she’s keeping an eye on Annabelle.”

  “Hallie? She’s in the back. There’s no way she’s ducking out on me tonight, we’re swamped.”

  “What?”

  “Hang on…” Tom said, opening a door behind the bar, “Hallie! Ford wants you.”

  Hallie came out with a big smile on her face and Kristen felt a surge of jealousy tug at her, but tamped it down. Ford had made it perfectly clear that Hallie was too young for him. That didn’t seem to stop the 23-year old from getting her hopes up, though…

  “I’m here, what is it that you wanted?” she asked, wiping her hands on her tiny apron.

  “Did you talk to Annabelle tonight?” Ford asked urgently.

  “No,” she frowned. “Why?”

  “Never mind. Thanks,” he dismissed her and Hallie returned to the back, her shoulders hanging in defeat. “She lied to me,” he turned to Kristen. “She flat out lied.”

  “Calm down, Ford. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Where’s the party?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”

  “I have to go look for her.”

  “Ford, stop,” Kristen put her hand on his arm. “You’ll only make it worse. This is Greenport, not downtown L.A.”

  Ford looked like he wanted to say something, but he clamped his jaw shut and simply got a hard look in his eyes before turning away from her and heading for the door. With a deep sigh, Kristen sank back down on her stool.

  It wasn’t long before her phone buzzed and the display flashed a number she didn’t recognize. She grabbed her purse off the bar and headed for the exit as she clicked to accept.

  “Hello?”

  “Kristen? It’s me.” Me, meaning Annabelle. Kristen felt her heart twinge. The girl sounded scared, or guilty, or maybe both.

  “Where are you?”

  “At the lighthouse. I didn’t know…”

  “Okay, I’m on my way,” Kristen said, pulling on her jacket and pushing through the door. “Where are you exactly?”

  “In the old cottage. Donny and his friends picked the lock.”

  “They’ve been drinking?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Whatever you do, don’t get in a car with anyone, got it? I don’t care what they tell you, if they’ve had so much as a drop
of alcohol, you’re staying put until I get there.”

  “Don’t tell Dad,” Annabelle whimpered and Kristen took a deep breath.

  “I won’t. I’ll be right there.”

  Kristen got in her rental and drove as fast as she dared in the sleet. It was windy and cold, and it would be freezing up at the lighthouse. If any of the kids got it into their heads to try walking on the rocks and tripped… she didn’t even want to think about it.

  FIFTEEN

  After what seemed like an eternity, she pulled up at the building site. The foundation for the main house was covered in snow, but there were lights on in the old lighthouse keeper cottage. To her knowledge, electricity hadn’t been installed properly there, so odds were the kids had lit candles – meaning they risked torching the place just from being careless.

  Kristen put the car in park and got out her cell phone to call the sheriff’s office. Those kids were going to have a lot of explaining to do once the sheriff got here. After telling the operator that she’d driven past the old lighthouse and noticed something was going on there, she hung up and called Annabelle back. There was no reply.

  Letting out a string of curse words, Kristen got out of her car and jogged over to the house, pounding at the door. The racket inside quickly subsided, like cockroaches skittering across the floor when the lights came on, and she pushed the door open.

  “Elle!” she called out, earning a lot of strange looks from the teenagers in the cottage. “Don’t mind me, I’m just here to pick up my friend. Elle? Come on, we’re going to be late!”

  Kristen maintained her cool long enough for Annabelle to appear from what she guessed was the bathroom. “Hey, you,” she smiled, cocking her hip and waving Annabelle over. “Dylan and Brandon are waiting for us at the airport. We have to hurry if we wanna catch that flight. Come on, grab your stuff and let’s go.”

  Annabelle looked dumbstruck, then seemed to catch on, and grabbed a jacket thrown across a nearby chair.

  “Sorry, I completely spaced,” Annabelle said, hurrying over. “See you, Donny,” she called out without looking back and Kristen gave the group of kids a little wave and closed the door behind them.