“Oh dear child.” She played with the strings of pearls dangling around her neck. “You’re both just kids. Do you really think he doesn’t know? Believe me, he knows all about your…situation” She looked me up and down and gave me a distasteful scowl. “He doesn’t care.”
My voice caught in my throat. “I don’t believe you. John would never abandon me.”
“Look around you! Where has he been for the past few months? He has already abandoned you!” Even as she yelled, her entire face remained emotionless.
“Here.” She walked over to her pocketbook and pulled out a couple of bills. “Take this for your troubles. Do us all a favor and take care of your problem. Make it disappear.” She stuffed the money in my hand and walked over to the front door. “Don’t come back here again.”
Speechless, I walked out the front door, too embarrassed to turn around and too scared to fight back.
Chapter Four
“Wait, wait. You mean to tell me that you didn’t put up a fight? That old hag was obviously lying!” Jenna stood up and slammed her hands down on the counter. A little off put by her animosity, I stood up as well.
“What did you expect me to do? I was fifteen!”
“Fight a little harder for the man you love? I’m twelve, and I have more guts than you do.”
She stood next to me, her spit hitting me as she spoke, and stared back at me. Her nostrils flared as she bit her bottom lip.
“You’re right. I left and did the most selfless thing in the world. I took her money and ran away. I had you, and gave you a chance at a real life. I let you have a mother and father who would care for you and give you everything I couldn’t. I mean look around.” I pointed to my thirteen-inch ancient TV and my floral hand me down couch. “Most of this stuff came from the Goodwill. Can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me want this?”
Just as I’d expected, she didn’t answer. She was right though. I hadn’t fought hard enough for John. It was easier to hear someone else tell me that he didn’t love me. It would have been much worse coming from his mouth. If I’d wanted to, I could have demanded. I could have stuck around.
“I have another question.” Jenna plopped back down in her chair and stole a banana out of the fruit bowl.
“Yeah?” I asked, tired of her questions and not in the mood to take any more trips down memory lane.
“Have you seen my father since then?”
“Oh…um. Once. Yeah, I saw him once.”
“Well?” She pounded on the table as her eyes lit up. “Tell me what happened.”
I needed something to do with my hands, something to ease the shaking and calm my nerves.
“I need something to eat. You want something to eat? How about some cookies?” I began pulling things out of the cupboard. Oatmeal, chocolate chips, peanut butter. The usual. No bake cookies were my specialty.
“Ugh, you’re doing it again! Stop avoiding the questions and just tell me already.”
I dropped a stick of butter in the pot and raised an eyebrow at her. “A little impatient are we?”
She threw her hands in the air. “Life’s too short. Now tell me!”
“Fine. Fine.” And while whipping up some cookies, I talked.
“ It was about three years ago. I’d been working at this booth down by the beach selling clothes. I sold those cheesy tourist shirts, you know, with the airbrush. Anyway, he walked by, and our eyes met. It took a moment for him to recognize me, I think because my hair was shorter and I time hadn’t been good to me, but I knew him instantly…..”
**************
“Maria?”
I instantly regretted every decision I’d made that morning. From my subtle make-up, to my old clothes. Why couldn’t I of seen him under better circumstances?
“John. Hi.” I suddenly had nothing to say to him even though I’d imagined it in my head dozens of times. Slap him. I always imagined I would slap him and yell at him for abandoning me. He’d told me he loved me hundreds of times, only to leave me high and dry.
“You look good.” His friendly eyes trailed down my body. He looked almost the same, but a little bigger. He wore a five o’clock shadow and I could see the effects of his surfboarding under his tight shirt. I gained the courage to go about my business folding shirts. His hair was longer, almost to his shoulders and it fell around his face in waves. My body reacted to him, the same burning passion that had been there when we were teenagers.
“What do you want, John?”
“Well that’s no way to speak to me. What’s it been…ten years? You really grew into your nose there.” He reached out to touch my nose, but I smacked him away. Not exactly on the face, but the hand would do for revenge.
“Don’t—don’t you touch me! I lowered my voice as a few tourists turned to stare. “I swear on everything holy, stay away from me!” What he didn’t know was that I’d kept up with him over the years. I watched his show though it was torture to my soul. Now with him right here in front of me, I was about to lose my lunch.
“What’s wrong, Maria? Afraid to take a little trip down memory lane?”
An older lady in a sunhat started flipping through the clothes. “Let me know if you need anything!” I called out to her. I faced John again and scowled.
“Are you gonna buy anything, if not, you need to leave.”
Confusion washed over his face, but he pushed his long hair back away from his face and grabbed the closest shirt from the table. “I’ll take this.”
My lips pursed up, not in amusement, I might add, and I grabbed the shirt from his hands.
“That’ll be thirty-five dollars.”
He pulled a wad of cash out from his pocket and threw a few twenties on the table. I stuffed the money in the register and handed him his change.
“Have a nice day.”
“I take it you’re mad at me?”
Frustrated, I ran my hands down my face. “Of course! I haven’t seen you in almost a decade, what did you expect? A warm welcome? No way, not after what you did to me.”
My heart sped up as he moved closer, and I let my lungs fill with his essence. He smelled like the sea, like the sun, the same as before. It was Giorgio acqua di gio.
“Maria, can we get some coffee, dinner perhaps? I’d like to talk. Explain a few things.”
Everything inside me screamed. I wanted to know what excuses he felt worthy of my time, but I wouldn’t go through that again.
“No.”
“Please, there are things you need to know. I have to make you understand.”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“Come on. We were kids—“
“I saw you on TV the other day,” I commented, attempting to change the subject.
A smug look washed over his face. “So you’ve been watching me, huh?”
My jaw dropped, and all I wanted to do was wipe that look off his face.
That’s it, I decided. I will never watch his shows again.
“You’re dating some barely legal actress as well?
“You’d like her. She’s young, innocent, and still sees the good in me. She reminds me of you.”
I scoffed. I’d like her? I don’t want anything to do with him or her!
I gathered the hatred that had burned up inside me over the years. “Let’s just get one thing straight here, John. We dated one summer when we were 15. It was nice, yes, I give you that, but you vanished into thin air so let’s not dredge up any old memories. Let’s say goodbye and remember what we always had….a perfect and wonderful summer.”
John opened his mouth as if he wanted to protest.
Please don’t fight this. Please just walk away. I held his gaze.
“Fine, Maria. If that’s the way you want it. We’ll always have that summer.”
He grabbed his shirt and gave me a charming smile, a smile that made my body weaken.
“Well, nice seeing you again, Maria. I hope life turned out good for you.”
He was mocki
ng me. My life had turned out exactly how his parents had predicted. I was barely getting by, unable to hold a steady job, and constantly searching for something or someone to fill the empty void in my heart.
Chapter Five
“And we went our separate ways,” I told Jenna.
“That’s it? You just went on with your lives. No undying confessions of love?”
“Life isn’t a fairytale. Sometimes you just gotta know when to give up.”
She wiped a few stray tears from her face. “Sometimes you gotta know when to take chances.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I had a better story to tell you. The truth is, it just wasn’t meant to be for me and your father. We were different people.”
“No! No! No!” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed loudly. “I don’t believe this.”
My hands itched to comfort her, to tell her it would all be okay, but I was too afraid to touch her. It was hard enough letting her go the first time, this time it would be even worse. It was inevitable, she would go home. So I went on with my baking and let her cry for another minute, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I turned back around to face her.
“Please don’t cry.”
She looked up and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Then tell me something real. Tell me something good. Tell me something happy.”
“Like what?”
“You’ve done nothing but tell me how horrible my father was. How he disappeared, abandoned you to his mother, and let you walk away. I wanna know the good things. I wanna know how you two fell in love. Tell me what you first saw in him.”
By this time, I had the cookies all divided out on the cookie sheet. I grabbed the chocolaty spoon and held it out to her. It was something I’d always wanted to do. Something I’d seen in the commercials but never got to experience myself. She smiled and took the spoon. Using my finger, I stole some of the leftover dough from the mixing bowl and popped it into my mouth. I didn’t think about the good things when it came to John. It was easier to remember the end, not the beginning.
“That summer, my mom’s new boyfriend had invited us to spend the summer at his beach house. We lived up the coast in Northern California so even though we had beaches, they weren’t any fun. It was kind of exciting, because my mom had taken off work for most of the summer, and I’d never stayed at such a nice house. Her boyfriend wasn’t even going to be there but a few days. He was a pilot and worked a lot. Our first day there, John was out in the ocean surfing. I didn’t know who he was or who his parents were, but I was drawn to him. He was a strong presence, even from far away. I waited on the beach as we came in from the water and pretended to be taking in the view. Our eyes met as he passed by…”
“Hey there.” I gave him a flirty smile as I attempted to look cute in my red bikini.
“Hey.” He used his hands to wipe the water from his face, and gave me a perfect smile. Yeah, he looked like one of those kids who got everything he wanted. Rich kids, they had the world handed to them on a silver platter.
“You’re really good.”
“Thanks, I love surfing. You surf?”
I laughed. “Uh, no. I can’t even swim.”
He set his board down in the sand, and as he stood up, my eyes trailed his perfectly chiseled abs and large arms. Most of the guys at my school her scrawny and hadn’t begun to fill out like he had.
“What do you mean you can’t swim? This is California; everyone should know how to swim.”
I shrugged. “I never really care for it. I don’t live near here, just visiting.” I pointed behind me at the large white house with red shutters. “Staying there for the summer.”
He pointed to a much larger home a few houses down. “I’m there; it’s one of my parent’s beach houses. The waves are nice here, but the tourists can be a bit much.”
My face reddened. I was one of those tourists. He must have noticed my discomfort because he immediately stepped forward and put a hand on the arm.
“I didn’t mean you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I looked down at where his fingers grazed my skin. The heat from them traveled down my arm and engulfed my entire body. “I’m Maria by the way.”
“John, nice to meet you. So you’re not from around here?”
“No, I’m from up north, my mom and I are staying here with her boyfriend for the summer.
“Sounds…fun, he says. He motions for me to follow him down the beach. We walk side by side for a few moments.
“It’s fun. We don’t get to do much or spend much time together these days.”
John looks out at the waves that keep crashing into the beach. “Yeah, I don’t see my parents much either. They work constantly, but I turn sixteen at the end of the summer so they’ve agreed to let me start working.
“Working?” Why would he need to work, from the looks of their summer home, his parents have all the money would need.
“Yeah. I’ve wanted to get into the theater for a few years now. Until now, my parents have wanted me to focus on school. My older brother just got into law school, you see, but school is boring. I want to follow in their footsteps. I want to be an actor.
My lips drew up in excitement. “I love movies!”
John took a step in front of me so that he was walking backwards towards me. “My dad is a famous screen writer, my mom was an actress in the 80s, and they met on set. My dad still works, but my mom is content spending his money. I don’t want to be on film though, I’d prefer acting on Broadway, stage work, and live audiences…you know.”
It sounded exciting, and hearing him talk about it made my palms sweat.
“Have you been in anything yet?”
He shook his head and stopped walking. Because I hadn’t been paying attention, I walked right into him.
“Whoa!” He put his hands out to keep me from falling backwards on my butt.
I pulled myself out of his grip and giggled, unfortunately it came out sounding a little too high pitched.
“Um, what about school? Where will you be going to school?”
“I graduated early in May. I’m gonna take some private acting classes for now.”
I cocked my head to the side. “People can actually do that?”
“Take private acting classes?
“No, graduate that early.”
“Yeah, I mean, I did. School has always come easy to me.”
“So you’re like a genius?”
He shrugged. “ I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Coolio.” We stood there for a few moments just staring at each other’s eyes. I liked other boys back at school, but they’d all been boring and immature. John had his whole life already planned out and he knew exactly what he wanted.
“What about you?” he asked. “What do you like to do?”
I looked up at the sky and tried to think of something. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had no idea what I wanted to do tomorrow.
“I don’t like to think that far ahead. I like to worry about things more pressing….like what I’m gonna do tomorrow.” I flipped my hair behind my shoulder and nudged him with my shoulder. If this worked correctly, like my mom had done a few times, he would ask me out.
“I can help you out with that. How about I show you around the boardwalk tomorrow?”
“Sure. Come over anytime.”
We walked back and forth along the beach for hours, talking about everything until the sun began to set in the horizon. We was so focused and determined and we loved all the same things. Music, Movies, and books. It was strange, I never felt like we were strangers walking along the beach. It felt like we were old souls, different in so many ways, but compatible in the ways that really mattered.
After a while, my mom began calling from the back porch. “Maria! Time to come in!”
Mortified, I rolled my eyes and pointed to my mom.
“Gotta run. Mom wants us to start having these family dinners.”
“Sounds nice. I wis
h my parents had those.”
“Family dinners?”
“Yeah, I normally eat alone or with our housekeeper. Her name is Valentina, she’s here with us. You’ll like her. I’ll introduce you sometime.”
“That’ll be nice.” I was a bit confused on why he was offering to introduce me to his maid, but not his parents, but I pushed the thought away and let my feet carry me through the sand.
My eyes stayed trained on his, and our gaze didn’t part until I made it to the porch stairs. Reluctantly, I broke our gaze to climb them. My stomach twisted in knots and there was a feeling in it. Something I’d never felt before. Every time I thought about him, that feeling surged through my body. As I skipped the porch, my mom watched John grab his surfboard and walk home.
“Mom,” I hissed, “Did you have to embarrass me like that?”
“What? He’s cute. And it looks like his parents are loaded. You better hold on to that! Imagine, you’d never have to work.” She nudged me with her elbow.
I took my shoes off on the porch and sighed. “Everything isn’t about money.”
“No, but it sure makes it easier.”
We went inside and had a nice family dinner. My mom had cooked an extravagant five-course meal to impress her boyfriend. Afterwards, they went for a walk on the beach while I sat on the deck sipping a cup of tea while reading a book.
“Hey, Maria.” I looked over to see John walking up the stairs to my chair. I sat up and set my cup down on the table.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
“My parents went out with friends and I saw your mom and her old man leaving so I thought I would come back and say hi.”
“Hi,” I said nervously.
He sat down beside me, and we watched the waves in silence. Every few seconds I would sneak a peek at him, and a few times, he caught my eye, making me blush and quickly look away.
“I came here to see if you wanted me to teach you how to swim,” he said.
“Really? We’ve been sitting here for ten minutes.”
Maria (Hollywoood Timelines #3) Page 2