The Vows We Make (The Six Series Book 4)

by Sonya Loveday

  I’D MET BOYS LIKE HIM before.

  Rich. Bored. Always wearing a silver-spooned smile.

  But there was something different about him that piqued my curiosity. The way he looked down at me, like he was staring through the bars of a gilded cage he’d never left. Like he was one breath from suffocating beneath a mound of responsibilities. He was different from the rest because he didn’t wear his money, his money wore him.

  I just wasn’t sure he knew it yet.

  “Do you like them?” I asked, looking down at my roller skates.

  His eyes went blank and his mouth froze shut. He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking mildly uncomfortable. It took him a full twenty seconds to answer me. I knew because I counted. It was almost as if he had to process the words. Latch on to the fact that I just asked for his opinion.

  “They’re nice,” he finally said, but he didn’t sound like he meant it. Just that it was the right thing to say. The proper thing.

  I was going to have fun with this one.

  “Just nice?” I repeated back to him in mock-offense. “They’re custom-vintage Chicago roller skates with Betty Lytle white leather boots, a fresh set of wheels, and rainbow-themed strings. I’d say nice is an understatement.”

  His full lips pulled down into a sliver of a frown as he shifted on his feet. “Very… vintage? Eclectic?” he drawled out in an unsure manner, looking to me for some sign of what to say.

  His parents must really have their hooks in him.

  “I traded my bicycle for them,” I said, moving the conversation forward. I tilted my head to the side in thought, clicking my toes together. “I definitely think it was an even trade.”

  His mouth sort of dropped open. “You traded your bicycle for those?”

  I wasn’t sure he believed me.

  I blinked for a second, and then giggled a little to myself. “Yeah. Why not?” I said with a small shrug. “I’m the one who came away with the steal. Eight wheels for the price of two. Besides, bicycles, in my opinion, hold you back from seeing what’s around you. I mean, once you get going, everything just kind of blurs away, and who wants that when you can skate to and from and enjoy the scenery?”

  He stared at me as if I had just landed in a shiny, round object with flashing lights and asked him for directions to Venus. Which would be kind of cool.

  “But we’re surrounded by grass,” he stated, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared down at me.

  I couldn’t help but notice that it was a cute look on him—confusion.

  “I know,” I replied with a crooked smile. “Thank God for sidewalks.” I stuck my hand in his direction. “Help me up?”

  Wiping his hands quickly against his pant legs, he took my hand and pulled me to my feet, waiting a moment to ensure I found my balance. When I did, he let me go and took a step back, his hands falling neatly back to his sides.

  I could never stand so perfect… so still.

  “Are you residing here?” he asked, watching me intently as I began to skate around him.

  “You could say that,” I said, smiling as he turned around to watch me skate. I liked the way he looked at me with every pass I made around him—with a blended mix of intrigue and bewilderment.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked, turning again as I circled around him. He looked like a ball of yarn unraveling, and I couldn’t help but be amused.

  “I stay on the grounds as hired help,” I said, knowing this admittance would surely cork up his inquisitive demeanor. Yuppies never spoke to the help. Never even looked our way.

  But he didn’t leave. Didn’t even backtrack.

  “What do you do here then?” he asked, finally giving up on following me as I continued to skate circles around him. “I haven’t seen you around yet.”

  A small bubble of laughter rose up and escaped past my lips. I eyed him over. He wouldn’t have seen me around. He didn’t look the type to be over sixty and into disco music, costume parties, and a very rich version of bingo.

  His lips twitched a little. It was a very small, almost unperceivable twitch that most probably wouldn’t notice. He wanted to ask me to stop. To stand still and answer him in a good-mannered way. To not laugh without sharing the joke.

  And I almost wished he would, just to see him step out from that cage, but he refrained from doing it, probably because it would be impolite.

  “Well,” I said, “aside from running the nightly senior citizen entertainment, I do everything and anything. I’m a servant of life.”

  “Servant of life?”

  “Yes,” I replied simply. “We’re born to live, and that’s what I intend to do. Let the universe surprise me with all she has to offer. Let my angel watching over me guide me in the right direction.”

  My circle grew wider around him as he scratched at his head. Tilted it to the side. “I don’t—I don’t think I’m following you.”

  I almost felt sorry for him. “Most can’t,” I said, spreading my circle farther and farther, noticing the distant, dark clouds rolling in from the sea. My father would be home soon, lugging in the sea’s offerings for the day.

  If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell the fishy tang when the catch was ported in and dumped out for the local markets to take their pick from. Could almost feel the salty grime that would rub against my skin when rinsing off under the small, outdoor shower.

  “Well, in my defense, you haven’t given a fair enough explanation for me to understand,” he said, finally with a little irritation in his tone. “If you would… If you would just stop for a moment and speak to me like a normal person.”

  I stopped in front of him. Suppressed my laughter when he moved back another step, seeming startled from my hasty halt. Even more so by my sudden closeness.

  “Look,” I said plainly, noticing for the first time that he had nice, brown eyes. Easy eyes. “The human condition is delusion, and this whole place—” I moved my arms to showcase the country club, “is swimming in it. I refuse to be a victim of it. I refuse to become normal. I refuse to subject myself to a future that deep down I want no part of. That’s what I mean by servant of life.” I looked him over. “You should try it some time.”

  He actually flinched from my words, but it didn’t take him long to recover and speak from his years of formal breeding. “That has a definition—irresponsibility,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he even meant what he said.

  “Irresponsible?” I repeated, smiling at him, intrigued by his disciplined way of thinking.

  He looked hesitant.

  “Phillip!” a girl called out from the pathway. “Are you coming?”

  I peered over his shoulder and inwardly winced. Sophia Kennedy—the world’s biggest bitch and daughter of the man who signed my paychecks.

  Time to go.

  “Look, Phillip,” I dragged out, my smile growing. “It was a pleasure meeting you, and I wish you luck in life. I’m sure you’ll be great at whatever you’re told to do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Whatever you want it to mean,” I said. “See ya around.”

  “I SWEAR WE SHOULD TAKE stock in Depends,” Hannah said as we entered the side door to the building where we worked every night, five nights a week.

  I snorted out in laughter, not able to help myself. I knew it was wrong of her to say, but we both knew good and well that tonight would be packed just like every other night with the elderly who, for some odd reason, enjoyed our nightly shenanigans.

  “I’m serious,” she said, her laughter matching my own. “We’d be freaking rich.”

  Hannah was one of the rare few who saw the world through the same lens as I did. She snuck into bars with me, shopped at the same hand-me-down stores, handed strangers random notes with compliments, laughed way too much, cried just as much, and she chose to let the wind push her as hard as it pushed me without a worry or a second thought.

  “No. What we should do is be grateful they even show up,” I reminded her
, grabbing a bag filled with the last of the decorations for the Rockin’ Retro Dance Party.

  “Please. They love us. We’re the only real thing happening around here,” she said, grabbing the ladder and heading out into the main hall.

  I skated behind her, watching the on-site maintenance crew changing a few of the bulbs in the ceiling to colored lights.

  It was customary that we had an appropriately-themed dance every Friday night. Samantha—the activities director—thought it would keep the blood youthful for the elderly who paid ridiculous amounts of money to spend their summers with us, rather than the plethora of other high-end vacation spots New England had to offer.

  And honestly, I agreed with her. For once. They looked forward to those nostalgic nights where they could relive pieces of their past. It was obvious in the way they swayed to and fro to the music, pressing their bodies close together with eyes squeezed shut. The way their faces lit up when music long lost pumped through the speakers, compelling their feet to move.

  That was my favorite part of this current job of mine. The beauty in the frailty. The stolen moments where age drifted away and our inner child came out to play. Because the truth was, we were all carved out of time. We were all constantly shedding pieces of our present, changing into our futures with every ticking second.

  I was going to live every one of those seconds as if they were my last.

  “Can you give me a hand with these streamers?” I asked Ricardo, one of the maintenance men who had been there from the beginning.

  “Sure thing, Miss Fairchild,” he replied with a smile, grabbing the end I handed him and climbing up the ladder to tape it to the wall.

  “Who do you think Mr. Codwell will hit on tonight?” Hannah asked as she pulled the black-and-white checkered cloth out and spread it across one of the tables designated for snacks and beverages.

  I smiled to myself, thinking of last week’s disco-themed party and Mr. Codwell’s wandering hands.

  “Mrs. Peterson didn’t seem to mind,” I said, handing Ricardo the other end of the streamer.

  Hannah snorted to herself, smoothing out the last of the tablecloths. “Yeah, because it’s probably the only action she’s had in a loooooong time.”

  “Too bad you can’t say the same for yourself,” I said, laughing when her mouth opened in shock.

  “You bitch!” she said on the edge of laughter, chucking a vinyl record table-topper at me. My knee hitched up, and I nearly lost my balance as I blocked the record with my hand. “You’re just jealous ‘cause you haven’t gotten any in like forever.”

  “By choice,” I reminded her, steadying myself on my skates.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, handing the bag of decorations over to one of the employees assigned to help us. “Don’t hate just because I choose to enjoy my youth.”

  I leaned in, lowering my voice. “Fooling around with the guests is a big no-no. And he wasn’t even that good looking.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “The lights were off and he kissed like he knew what he was doing.”

  I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “I suppose that justifies it then.”

  “You girls need anything else?” Ricardo asked as he climbed back down the ladder.

  “She needs a stick removed from her ass,” Hannah said with a large, very direct grin.

  It took a moment for Ricardo to put together the fact that she had really just said that. And when he did, shades of red darkened his cinnamon-colored skin.

  “It’s okay, Ricardo. We’re good here,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.

  “Okay,” he said, immediately turning and heading out.

  “You’re bad,” I said when I turned back to Hannah.

  She grabbed the last of the bags and headed back toward the kitchen. I followed after. “I’m just being honest,” she said, flipping the switch to the lights. The room changed drastically as red and white lights spilled over the dance floor.

  “We did it again,” I said, crossing my arms and taking in the entire room. It was like stepping into the past. The guests were going to love it.

  “Four down and two more to go,” she said, moving toward the locker room.

  We were three weeks away from being out of a job again. There were a little over three weeks until I started the next chapter in my life.

  “You still planning on heading out to Cali when the summer’s over?” she asked, grabbing a poodle skirt hanging up in the wardrobe closet to hand to me.

  I took it from her. “Yeah.”

  Reaching around her, I grabbed the lilac-colored cashmere sweater and sat on the bench, unlacing my skates. “I’ll be working a small dive shop for a guy my dad used to fish with. Mike. He said the tips are great if I work the charters they take out for diving trips, which is great because the more I save, the sooner I’ll be out on the water.”

  She didn’t answer right away as she sat next to me, pulling her shoes off.

  “The offer is still there for you to come,” I said, leaning into her.

  “I know,” she replied, standing so she could pull her pants off. “I’m just not sure I’ll have the funds. Plus, my mom still insists that I need to go to college.”

  “You should,” I said, sliding the skirt up my legs and zipping the side. I didn’t want to make her feel bad. Separating was one of the only things that bothered me about moving across the country. We had been friends for so long. It was hard to imagine her not being around and easily available.

  “Yeah, because I’m rolling in the dough.”

  I bit my lip. To me, the most expensive part of college wasn’t the loans or the scholarships… it was the exchange of your precious time in return for an education that really wasn’t going to benefit your career. Years of repression in exchange for education.

  There just had to be another way.

  “Ask your yuppie boyfriend you’ve been fooling around with. His Rolex alone could probably fund you.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me. She hated anything conventional just as much as I did, but she had the potential to be great. School just wasn’t my thing. Not because I didn’t want to learn, but because of how I would learn.

  Textbooks. Lectures. My brain crammed full of information that would more than likely never come in handy.

  I wanted to use my senses. Be hands on. Travel, meet new people, learn different jobs, languages, and cultures. I wanted my degree to be in life experiences. Wanted to taste the seasons in every part of this great, big world, watching the way the sun rose and set from as many different towns as possible.

  You couldn’t experience that stuck behind four walls. You couldn’t feel life when your nose was in a textbook.

  “Anyway,” she said, putting her clothes in her locker. “You want to head out to the lake after this?” she asked, changing the subject. “Charlie’s having a bonfire. There will be boys, music, and beer. Maybe even a little moonlit skinny dipping.” Her voice hitched up in excitement on those last two words.

  “Sure,” I said, giggling as I tucked in my sweater.

  “Okay, cool.” She moved to the mirror, working bobby pins into her hair. When we were both finished and looking like girls plucked straight from a 1950’s Sears catalogue, we poked our heads out of the room, watching as the guests started filing in through the main doors.

  “It’s showtime,” she said, and then we headed out, pinning smiles on our faces.

  “I WANT EVERYONE TO SPREAD out into a line,” Hannah said into the mic.

  The usual guests did as she said, nervously laughing and looking to Hannah and me for guidance.

  “We’re going to play a quick game of heads or tails and, whoever wins, gets to dance with the lovely Maggie,” Hannah said, using her free hand to showcase me.

  I did a small twirl and bowed as some of the guests clapped. Tried to ignore the few who waved us off and headed back to their tables in the back of the room. This was one of our many ways at getting the guests to dance. They’d been s
itting or standing along the walls chatting for the last hour, rather than filling up the dance floor.

  “Okay, this is how it works,” Hannah said, holding up a quarter. “I’m going to toss this and, before it lands, you pick heads or tails. Heads,” she said, touching her head, “or tails.” She touched her backside.

  A few of the guests chuckled, including Mr. Codwell.

  “Here we go,” she said, tossing the quarter. Eight tosses later and somehow, Mr. Codwell ended up by my side, his arm draped around my back.

  “Cue the music,” Hannah said to the DJ as she moved out of the way.

  Mr. Codwell spun me around and then pulled me in as we swayed to the rhythmic hum of music. He was a tall man with grey, bushy eyebrows and neatly slicked-back silver hair. His skin was wrinkled at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He was a smiler, and he wore an air of pride that touched on older days when appearance and reputation were more valuable than belongings.

  Hannah told me that he was in the oil business. Owned one of the major companies that struck rich back in the seventies. He recently decided to vacation here since his wife just divorced him. And so he spent his nights with us, and his days on the golf course.

  “You’re a lovely girl, Maggie,” Mr. Codwell said as he held my hand and moved me around the floor. Little by little, couples filtered in around us.

  “Thank you, Mr. Codwell. You’re quite dapper, yourself.”

  He chuckled to himself. “You remind me of this girl I knew back in the sixties. Loretta. She had a spirit like yours. Wild. Free. And her hair was the color of strawberries. I used to love watching her dance. The way her long hair would sway under the sunlight.”

  His smile was distant. I could almost see the girl dancing in his eyes as he thought of her.

  “Strawberries are flattering,” I said, smiling up at him. “I’ve recently been told I looked like a basketball.”

  We both laughed.

  “I never did ask Loretta for her hand,” he said distantly, his smile disappearing.

  “Why not?”

  His eyebrows dipped. “Fear, I suppose.”