by Yvonne Prinz
The parking lot at the beach was empty except for Fin’s beat-up red truck. It really was too cold for most people to be at the beach.
“That’s his truck, by the way,” I said.
“Fin’s?”
“Yeah.”
Sonia looked annoyed and shook her head. I unclipped Rocket’s leash and he took off for the beach.
I fell into step with Sonia and the cold wind yanked at our hair as we stepped over the rocks and down across the packed sand to the water where Rocket was already halfway down the beach, chasing gulls. A speck of a person was walking toward us. Fin, I assumed, though he was too far away to know for sure. Rocket had spied him too and though he generally prefers seagull chasing to human interaction, he loped down the beach toward the figure. Sonia and I both watched, but we said nothing. As the figure and Rocket approached, Fin came into focus. An onlooker would probably think that Rocket belonged to him. Guys like Fin always own dogs like Rocket. Fin waved when he saw that it was us. The cold air had cleared my head and the details of my afternoon with Fin seemed less romantic now. But then he was standing in front of us and I was smiling at him and watching the way he pulled his tangled hair out of his face and how perfectly imperfect his front teeth were. He was looking at Sonia the same way he’d looked at me an hour ago. I felt a pang of jealousy.
“This must be Rocket,” he said, bending over and ruffling the fur on the dog’s head.
Rocket was making a ridiculous display of jumping all over him.
“Rocket! Down!” I scolded.
“Oh, don’t worry. He’s great. Anyway, I feel like I know him. Lucky talked about him all the time.”
Lucky talked about his dog all the time but he never talked about me?
“Are you looking for waves?”
He looked down the beach. “Yeah, not much happening here today. Guess I have to drive down the coast a ways.”
Sonia was hugging herself, shivering.
“Hi, Sonia,” he said.
“Hi,” she said softly and looked off at the water. She seemed reluctant to make eye contact.
“You look cold,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said.
We stood there, awkwardly. It seemed like Fin wanted to say something to Sonia and then thought better of it. Sonia looked everywhere but at him.
“We should go,” I finally said. “We need to move or we’ll freeze.” I didn’t mean that, though. Part of me wanted to ask Fin to come with us. Part of me wanted to ask if I could go with him wherever he was headed.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you later.” He gave Rocket a quick rub. “Nice to meet ya, Buddy.”
Rocket was reluctant to follow us. He stood there, watching Fin walk away. “Rocket!” I called.
When he caught up with us he circled around a couple of times, watching Fin disappear up the beach. I looked back too. Sonia didn’t seem to notice.
“He’s nice, isn’t he?” I said, but Sonia looked lost in her own thoughts as we carried on walking.
“Sonia!”
She snapped out of it. “Sorry, what?”
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing.”
Eight
“These . . . are . . . fabulous,” said Jeff, with a mouth full of lavender shortbread. “You’re a genius. Did Miles tell you we’re going to sell them in the gift shop?”
“No.” The gift shop is actually an antique bookcase next to the check-in desk.
“Well, we are, in pretty cellophane bags with a raffia tie, right next to the granola. You’re not going to leave us for the big city and start a baking company, are you?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Well, don’t even consider it. Miles and I had a hand in raising you. We’re not about to lose you to those jaded pastry eaters in the city.”
“Don’t worry about it. You could pay me more, though.”
Marc, who’d just strolled into the kitchen, snorted.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Jeff licked his fingers. “Maybe in the summer when things pick up around here.”
“It is summer.”
“Almost,” he said.
It was midmorning on Thursday, one of my baking days at the Inn. I generally bake Sundays or Mondays and always on Thursdays when I’m out of school and the Inn is full. Today I was making apple frangipani tarts. The pastry dough was cooling in the walk-in and I was peeling apples. The order of things, the pastry, the fruit, the assembling of desserts, it all appealed to me. I was happiest when I was working in this kitchen with all its activity and smells and sounds. I could disappear into my music or I could stay in my corner and eavesdrop on the goingson.
Marc surveyed the small mountain of apple peels. “Tarte aux pommes?” he asked.
“Yes, with frangipani.”
“Bon.” He scratched his head. “I think we serve just a nice whipped cream with that, maybe almond scented, alors?”
“Sure, fine.”
“Good morning, Marc,” said Jeff, lifting the lid off a big pot of something simmering on the stove. Marc slapped his hand. Jeff retreated back over to me.
“Hey, did that new guy start yet?” I asked, casual as possible, eyes on my paring knife. I already knew that he had.
Jeff grabbed a slice of apple and popped it into his mouth. “Fin?”
“Yeah.”
“He worked last night. Excellent waiter . . . and so attractive.”
I glanced over at Marc. He never had anything good to say about the waitstaff, particularly new waitstaff. Everyone was an idiot until he decided otherwise.
“Marc, you like him?”
Marc looked up from expertly chopping shallots. He would rather I address him as “Chef Marc” and he likes to pretend that idle kitchen chitchat is beneath him, but he was quick to respond.
“He picks up the plates immediately when I set them down. Not like some of these idiots smoking outside while the food sits and sits. I could keeeees him, this Fin.”
Jeff beamed. “And he’s a Sagittarius. You know what that means,” he said, all singsongy.
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Sagittarians are very compatible with Aries and Leos. And, as you know, I’m an Aries and Miles is a Leo.”
Marc looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. I smiled. Jeff saw me.
“Well,” he said indignantly, “when I first met Miles, I wouldn’t even consider dating him until I had my astrologist’s blessing.”
The couple had not considered my astrological sign when they hired me. They tasted my pecan tarts at a fundraiser and hired me on the spot to “make a few desserts.” Somehow, the job had morphed into full-blown pastry chef.
Jeff popped another apple slice into his mouth and glanced at his slim wristwatch. “I better go finish the wine order. I promised Fin I’d help him move in this afternoon.”
“Move in?”
“He’s moving into the redwood cottage. He’s going to do some work on it for us and he’s got some fabulous ideas for the landscaping too.”
And he was gone. I stood there with a long tail of apple peel dangling from my knife, watching the swinging door, wondering if I’d heard him right. Only the most important friends of Jeff and Miles were invited to stay in the redwood cottage, and that was usually just for a weekend.
After I got the tarts into the oven and I’d cleaned up my corner of the kitchen, I wandered out to the porch and sat on the vintage porch swing flanked on both sides by distressed terra-cotta pots planted out with rosemary and oregano and placed just so by Jeff. I pushed myself back and forth on the swing with one foot. A light breeze carried the low-tide smell of rotting seaweed in from the shore.
I started thinking about last night. I’d washed and dried my hair, pulled on my favorite jeans and a T-shirt, walked down the hill, and waited for Fin outside after the dining room closed. I hadn’t seen him since Sonia and I ran into him at the beach, days before. When he emer
ged from the back door of the Inn, I was leaning against his truck smiling. He looked surprised. He said nothing to me for a few seconds. He seemed to be considering what he should do. Then he suggested a drive. We drove in the dark, not saying much at all. Fin pulled into the parking lot above the trail we’d hiked down several days ago. I felt reckless, like I had the last time we were there. I’d never been this forward with a guy. Fin switched off the engine and watched the dark horizon. I watched Fin. This time I smelled nice. I’d prepared myself. I’d planned it carefully.
Fin inhaled abruptly and turned to me and grinned. “How about a drink.”
“I’m not supposed to drink. My meds.”
He frowned. “Right. Okay, well you don’t mind if I do, do you?”
I shook my head. “ ’Course not.”
“Wait right there.”
He got out of the truck and I watched through the back window as he pulled a bottle of champagne out of a plastic cooler in the bed. I recognized it as the brand featured on the Inn’s wine list. He got back in the truck holding the bottle.
“Ta-da!” he presented the label to me and then he pulled off the foil and the wire cage like an expert and tossed it on the floor. I wondered if he’d intended to share it with someone else.
“Miles will kill you if he notices. He does rigorous inventory, you know.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll replace it tomorrow. He won’t even know it’s gone.”
I smiled.
“Hey, wanna see a cool trick?”
“Sure.”
He leaned over me, so close that I could smell his hair. He popped open the glove box and pulled out a bone-handled hunting knife. He extended the blade carefully.
“This won’t hurt a bit.” He pulled a knob on his dash. His high beams came on, eerily lighting the fog swirling up from below the cliff. He jumped out of the truck.
“Watch.” He stood in front of the truck like a magician on a stage with the bottle in one hand and the knife in the other. He held the champagne by the bottom and with his other hand he ran the knife quickly up the side of the bottle. There was a loud pop and the entire top of the bottle and the cork shot off into the darkness. Champagne foamed up over the freshly cut glass rim. I squealed and clapped my hands. He bowed dramatically and got back in the truck.
“That was so cool!”
“Here, hold this,” he handed me the bottle and pulled a thermos out from under the seat. He unscrewed the metal cup. I looked at the bottle. The top was sliced off cleanly as though he’d used a glass cutter. He took the bottle from me and filled the cup. He handed it to me. “Madame?”
I hesitated, and then took a small sip. It was ice cold and delicious. Warmth spread through my belly.
“Where did you learn that?” I asked.
“My dad.”
I handed him the cup and he took a thirsty swig. He refilled it. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“I’m not as interesting as you think I am” he said, like he was reading my mind.
“Are you kidding? Paris, New York, Bulgaria?”
“It wasn’t like you think. A lot of my life has been hard times. After my uncle and I moved to New York he got deported back to Bulgaria and I should have been too but there was no way I was going. My family left Bulgaria for Paris when I was three. I couldn’t even speak the language. I couldn’t go back there. After my uncle left I took off. I became a street kid for a while. I even spent some time in Crossroads.”
“What’s Crossroads?”
“It’s a place for juvenile delinquents in New York. I got caught stealing stuff, just small stuff: electronics, CDs, things I could sell so I could eat. They put me in a foster home but I took off again. I lived like an animal.”
“That sounds terrible,” I said. I pictured him darting furtively around the streets of New York City, staying one step ahead of the law.
He offered me the cup again and I shook my head. “Better not.”
“How long have you been on your meds?”
“Forever, seems like.” I stared out the windshield. “They make me feel like I’m not here,” I said, turning to face him. “Do you know that I haven’t even cried since Lucky died? Not one single tear.”
“It’s okay,” he said. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him. He felt warm and strong and I didn’t want him to let me go. He pulled away first.
Fin dropped me at home. I kissed him on the cheek and he said he would call me soon. I lay awake all night thinking about him: the way he looked at me, the way he smelled, the way he knew how I felt. When I finally fell asleep I dreamt of Lucky, but this dream was different from the others. In this dream something was pulling him down through the dark water, away from me. I tried to swim after him but I was pathetically slow. I woke up exhausted. All day at work I’d been replaying my night with Fin.
I was about to go back to the kitchen to check on my tarts when I heard a car approaching from the other direction and turned my head out of small-town habit to see who was coming up the road. I recognized Fin’s red truck and my heart leapt. He turned into the lane just before the Inn. Jeff and Miles live on that lane. His window was rolled down and I could see that he was having an animated conversation with his passenger. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t even glance over at the Inn or the porch where I was sitting in plain view. Then I recognized the person in the passenger seat. It was Sonia. She was listening to something Fin was saying and though she was far away, I thought she looked upset. I wondered how they came to be driving down the road together. Had she climbed right in beside him just like I had? I pulled my cell phone out of my apron and dialed her cell number. Her voice came on the line: Hi, you’ve reached Sonia. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.
I clicked my phone off.
Nine
I rode shotgun in Sonia’s mom’s car as we made our way along the winding Coast Highway to a café in Bodega. Sonia called earlier and asked me to come along with her. The band playing at the café were Lucky’s friends. I’d met them weeks ago at the party, though I hardly remembered. Sonia told me I’d like the music and that it was time we got out and did something. She was right. The open wound of Lucky’s death had started to heal around the edges and I was glad to get out. I also wanted to know what she was doing in Fin’s truck on Thursday. I wanted to know if he’d touched her like he’d touched me. And had he pulled away from her too or was she the reason I got taken home early? I looked over at Sonia as she navigated a curve in the road. Some of the color had come back into her face and she seemed almost excited to be going somewhere on a Saturday night. She’d even managed to throw together some clean clothes that showed off her figure; nothing special: a long-sleeved black sweater and jeans, but for weeks now she’d been wearing clothes that said I don’t care. I smelled perfume on her too. That was new. I never knew her to wear perfume. Maybe it was her mom’s. I desperately wanted to question her but I also wanted her to want to tell me what had happened. I mean, why wouldn’t she?
“So, I called you Thursday but you didn’t pick up. I saw you in Fin’s truck, though.”
Sonia looked over at me. Her eyes narrowed a bit like she was trying to figure out what I already knew. “We drove down to Jenner.”
“Yeah? What did you do there?”
She looked back at the road. “Not much, had a glass of wine. Then we went for a walk on Goat Rock Beach.”
“Guy likes to walk on the beach a lot, doesn’t he?”
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds and then she turned to me.
“It’s not like you’re thinking. I needed to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“About Lucky.”
“You can talk to me about Lucky.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “I know,” she said, and then she seemed to remember that I’d lost Lucky too. “I know I can. I’m sorry. You’ve been great.”
We drove along in silence for a minute.
When I thought
about Fin with Sonia, I was envious. Were my trips to the beach with Fin about getting to Sonia? I’d made it very clear that I was interested in him, but not much had happened. Why had he been so tender with me? And what about the champagne trick? Wasn’t that just for me? Plus, he’d shared so much about himself with me. I’d thought about little else but him since that night.
The day before, there had been an e-mail in my inbox from another friend of Lucky’s, a guy named Jesse, back in Australia. I remembered Lucky mentioning him. In the e-mail, Jesse said that he and Lucky had been “the best of mates” even though Lucky hadn’t been in “Oz” long. He said he couldn’t afford to fly out for the party but that they had their own Aussie-style memorial on the beach for Lucky with a bonfire and lots of singing and playing Lucky’s favorite songs. He wanted to tell me and my mom and dad how sorry he was and that Lucky was a hell of a nice guy. He said Lucky could “carve” like no other surfer out there and that was a tough thing for an Aussie to admit, being that Lucky was American. He also said that it still “boggles the mind” that Lucky, of all the surfers he knew, could die like that. There was no one who knew water better than Lucky, he said. I wrote back and thanked him. And though I’m not sure why, I asked him if he knew a friend of Lucky’s named Fin. I already knew the answer to that question but I couldn’t resist finding out more about him.
Sonia slowed the car down and steered it inland toward Bodega and now we were driving along redwood-lined roads. The light was quickly disappearing behind us. The fields on either side of the road turned to forest and the approaching twilight swallowed us up. Sonya slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head. It was a rare fogless evening. Normally by this hour, an inky-gray mist would be unfurling itself like a fist slowly opening, creeping further and further inland, but not tonight.
I looked up at the sky through the windshield and broke the silence. “There’s going to be a billion stars out tonight.”
Sonia looked up too. “At least a billion.” She smiled at me. She wanted us to be okay. I did too.