by Jenn Bennett
The entrance of Coast Life magazine’s offices.
I’m breathing heavily when I push through the old brass doors and stride into a silent lobby with vaulted ceilings and marble floors. A lone receptionist sits behind a glass desk, guarding a glass door: The actual offices are beyond it.
All is quiet except the sound of my flats on the marble. When I reach the desk, the young woman with short hair holds up a finger until she’s finished talking in a low, metered voice on a wireless headset. Then she lifts her head and smiles.
A smile is good. A smile means she doesn’t associate me with the police station. Or the broken window at Summers & Co. Or the nude photo of my mother that’s circulating around town …
“Josie Saint-Martin to see Nina Cox,” I say, a little breathless and nervous.
She looks confused. “Did you have an appointment?”
“Not, uh, exactly, but she was considering me for the photography internship—”
Before Levi Summers yanked my application.
“I’m sorry,” she says, making a pained face while holding up a hand to stop me, “but Ms. Cox canceled all her appointments this week. Her daughter is in the hospital.”
“Oh no,” I say.
“Do you have her email address?”
“I think I had her card”—I did not—“but if you could give it to me again … ?”
She thumbs through something on her desk and hands me a business card. “There you are. You can just email her and ask her when she wants to reschedule. Give her a bit to respond. She’ll be catching up for a while. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” I say.
The receptionist nods once and smiles. “Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon,” I say, feeling weirdly dismissed.
Once I’m outside the building, I feel a little disappointed yet also hopeful. I have a business card and an email address. I’ll just wait a few respectable days for this poor woman’s child to get out of the hospital, then boom. Email her and request a meeting to talk about reconsidering me for the internship that I’m definitely not too young to get.
No one got anything by not asking for it. Right?
Unless this Nina Cox woman has seen the nude photo. Or heard that I was taken to the police station, ugh … Feeling 50 percent less confident, I pocket the business card and head around the corner of the Coast Life offices.
I could go back home. That’s what I tell myself … another lie. I feel my nerves get a little twitchy, and I slow my gait in an attempt to calm myself as I pass by a pair of tourists on a park bench, spooning frozen lemonade into their mouths.
Right now? I’m just a narrow private parking lot away from the scene of my crime.
Summers & Co.
There it is, all boarded up with plywood. My stomach plunges several stories and churns sickeningly.
The side parking lot has been taped off and closed to the public. I think it’s normally where the store valet-parks cars, but right now a lone person in jeans and a tight black T-shirt crouches over freshly painted white parking-space lines, paintbrush in hand. I’d recognize that dark, messy hair and aura of unapproachability anywhere.
Churn. Churn. Churn …
Clutching my portfolio, I pick my sick stomach off the ground and drag my feet over to the taped-off parking lot, then I stand there for a moment and watch Lucky. He’s swearing to himself—or to the paintbrush. Saying really foul, blasphemous things. I only catch half of what he’s mumbling, but wow. It’s remarkably profane—a skill I always admired about him, but right now, I’m intimidated. He’s not in a good mood. I should go. Like, now.
Midbrushstroke, his arm stills. He stops swearing, and before I can take my portfolio and run for the hills, his head slowly lifts.
I raise one hand. “Hi.”
“You know,” he says, sticking the paintbrush into a can and pushing to his feet. “I thought to myself, hey Lucky? What could make this worse? And the answer is, an audience. But not just any audience. Josie Saint-Martin, looking all fancy. Did you dress up for me?”
“I should leave,” I say, pointing vaguely the way I came.
“Don’t go. You’ll miss the best part of the show. Any minute now, the store manager will walk out here to judge my work and find me wanting.” He approaches me and stops in front of the line of yellow tape, brushing dirty hands on his jeans. His black T-shirt is splattered with white paint and even tighter up close. I didn’t realize he was so muscular these days. I mean, good God. Is that from working in the boatyard? I’m not sure why that bothers me so much … why I’m even noticing it. I wish I wouldn’t.
“Never mind,” I tell him, a little agitated. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Oh no. Stay. The loss of my dignity in a public space is so very special,” he says, kissing his fingers like a cartoon chef. “Must-see. You’ll love it. Which is, I assume, why you’re here, to wallow in my misery.”
Anger heats my chest. “You know what?” I say, pointing a finger at him. “You’re kind of a jackass.”
He’s surprised by my outburst. Then his mouth turns upward, dimpling at both corners. “You’re just figuring that out now?”
Huh. Hold on. He’s smiling? Like, not sarcastic-smiling. Okay, maybe a little sarcastic, because he’s definitely smirking at me. But it’s more playful than mean. And there’s something else there … something different that I haven’t really seen since I’ve been back in town.
I think he’s … happy.
Like, the tiniest sliver of happiness. It fades quickly, but I know I saw it. Like a sighting of Bigfoot in the woods, or a UFO in the skies at night. It’s exciting … and a little bit sexy.
“I should’ve brought a camera and taken photos,” I say, pushing my luck a little.
“Definitely should have,” he says. “Could post those online and get all the likes and hearts and re-likes and re-hearts.”
“True. You’re famous now. Working-class hero, smashing a town elder’s window as a symbolic protest against privilege and colonial pedigree? Well done. I think all of Beauty High’s going to rise up and stage a march for you.”
“Very funny.”
“Shepard Fairey will create poster art with your face on it. People will wear it on T-shirts and paint murals of it on sides of buildings.”
“And you’d rather it be your face?” he says. “You want all the fame and attention?”
“Attention, no. The cold, hard cash that comes with fame? Maybe. Film is expensive, and as you’ve pointed out, the Nook isn’t a high-paying gig.”
He laughs. “All right, respect. Seeing as I’m all out of cash these days myself …”
Yeah, that. I glance at the boarded-up window that he’s working to pay off.
He glances at my portfolio.
We look at each other.
“Actually, I’m glad I saw you,” I say, as if it was pure accident that I came over here and not like I was scoping out the scene of my crime, hoping he would be here. “I had an idea I wanted to run by you, if you were interested in hearing it. It’s not perfect, but it’s something.”
He throws a look over his shoulder. “I’m done here in half an hour, and I can spare a little time before I head back to the boatyard for the rest of the afternoon. You want to meet me someplace?”
* * *
The Quarterdeck is a coffeehouse off the Harborwalk between my family’s neighborhood in the South Harbor and the heart of the historic district. But it’s not just any old coffeehouse: It’s a docked replica of a French ship from 1778’s Battle of Rhode Island. Patrons cross a plank-like bridge and board the main deck of the ship, where tables sit under masts and rigging, flags fluttering in the harbor breeze.
To order, you head down into the belly of the ship—there are tables and small booths down here, too—and Lucky has given me a very specific, very irritating drink order: Fill the cup exactly one-quarter-full of cream, then add plain cold brew coffee to the brim, no ic
e. The barista gives me an apathetic look when I repeat this but doesn’t question it, so I tip her extra.
Nearly spilling Lucky’s stupid extra-full drink, which threatens to slosh out of the straw like a whale spewing water from a blowhole, I climb back up to the upper deck and find an empty table between two cannons that overlooks the harbor. When I’m halfway finished drinking my normally filled but not-so-great latte, Lucky slides into the seat across from me. He’s wearing his leather jacket over the paint-splattered tight T-shirt, so at least I don’t have to stare at the pornographic outline of his chest.
He inspects the cup sitting on his side of the table. “You got it right.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I can order a drink in a coffee shop … even ridiculous ones. You forget that my mom’s managed half the bookstores in New England and a good chunk of them had coffee shops inside. I’ve done most of my homework in below-average coffee shops.”
“Don’t drink coffee in bookstores? That’s what you’re saying?”
“Oh-ho-ho, the health code violations I’ve seen.”
“Well, you left town before the Quarterdeck opened, so I should’ve warned you that the only thing good here is the cold brew. Because I’ll take coffee in a bookstore over coffee in a tourist ship any day of the week,” he says, peeling off the top of his plastic cup to drink without a straw, like he can’t even be bothered. He downs half of it in three swallows. “What’s that?” he says, nodding toward my portfolio. “Is this the big idea you wanted to talk about?”
“This is nothing.” I cover it up.
“Weird, because it looks like a portfolio. And you look dressed up.”
“So?”
“Come on, Saint-Martin,” he says, stretching out long legs under the table. “Thought we already agreed you’re still a terrible liar.”
“Don’t think we agreed.”
“You said you were going to try to weasel your way into a magazine internship.” His eyes crinkle at the corners; he’s teasing me and clearly enjoying himself.
“Hustle my way in. Not weasel.”
“Because when people tell you no, you can’t have something, that’s when Josie Saint-Martin digs in her heels and tries harder. You haven’t changed one bit.”
“I resent that. But okay, yes …” I glance around to make sure no one is listening to us and briefly explain what happened at Coast Life. “… and that’s when I saw you.”
“Now that, I believe.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You never used to lie to me, you know.”
I nod, a little heat creeping up my chest, both embarrassed and pleased. “I remember.”
“I like it when you are teeth-gratingly honest. That’s part of your charm. When you’re honest, then I can be honest, and it feels like … I don’t know. It feels like there’s this invisible wall that comes down between us? The wall is kind of electric, or lasers, or something—”
“An electric, invisible wall.”
“And you’re the only one with the key to switch it off. When you’re honest, whoosh! It comes down, and we both can cross over freely and talk.” He squints, smiling with his eyes. “Does that make any sense?”
I’m not sure how to respond to this divulgement. It feels like tasting a wedge of lemon on a dare: unexpectedly bracing, too much all at once. But … I quickly get accustomed to the foreignness of it and am surprised to find myself craving more.
“I think so,” I finally admit, still a little uncomfortable but fighting it. “In a weird way?”
“Just don’t hold back with me, okay? Otherwise, we’ve got this wall between us and it’s hard to communicate.” He gestures toward my photography case. “Can I?”
“My portfolio?”
“Yeah. Unless it’s private or something.”
Something inside me shrivels up, and all the good will we’ve been kindling nearly dies.
“A joke,” he amends. “I wasn’t—”
“Oh, sure. It’s been all of a week since I’ve heard that one,” I say. “How does it go again? The one about me selling nudes online because my mother modeled in college, so I’m easy prey?”
“Whoa,” he says, brow lowering. “Hold on a minute—”
“If you think just because I told you personal stuff about me in a moment of weakness at the police station, you can just fly into my life like some kind of superhero and rescue me, and I’ll be so grateful that I’ll do anything to thank you, well—you can think again, buddy.”
He holds up both hands. “Hey, I made a dumb joke. I wasn’t thinking about what Adrian said that night at the party. My bad. But thanks for assuming I’m a dirtbag who ‘rescued’ you just for a chance to get in your pants.” His shoulders are rigid, eyes tight with insult. “I know you’ve been going through a tough time, but maybe have a little faith in me?”
“W-well,” I stammer, caught off guard and scrambling for a defense. “I have heard stuff about you.”
He snorts. “I’ll bet you have.”
“Never mind.”
“Oh no. Go on. What have you heard, pray tell?”
I can feel my cheeks warming to the same color as the basket of geraniums that hangs off the side of the ship near our table. “You and that Bunny Perera girl from Golden Academy. That you …” I can’t make myself finish: That you knocked her up. “And maybe some other girls?”
His laugh is dry and humorless as he leans back in his chair and shakes his head slowly. “Of course. Why am I even surprised? You realize you just did exactly the same thing, right? Only I was joking, and you’re not. You’re repeating gossip that you actually believe.”
“I didn’t say I believed it!”
“Don’t you, though?”
“Is it true?” I ask.
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Well, then … ?”
“Well?” I repeat.
“Well, what?” he asks, a flare of anger behind his eyes. Or maybe a challenge.
“Truce,” I suggest. “I’ll ignore gossip about you if you ignore it about me. And if you promise not to tell other people what I told you about me.”
“Your Los Angeles plans?”
“And the other thing I told you in the police station.”
“What other thing?”
Oh no. I’m not saying I’M A VIRGIN out loud on a coffeehouse ship. Absolutely not.
A couple of teen boys murmur as they walk past our table, and I hear Lucky’s name. Then the taller one looks at me and elbows his buddy, who makes a puckered-up kissy face at me.
Oh no.
“Do that one more time,” Lucky challenges, standing up from the table and pointing in their direction, his face lined with anger.
The two boys look back at him, surprised, but keep walking.
Lucky sits down, and after a few moments, the anger drains from his features.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him in a quiet voice. “But thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” He stares across the harbor, watching a sailboat. “And as to what we were discussing before we were interrupted by the scum of the earth … I agree to your truce. And don’t worry about the other thing. It’s already forgotten. It also didn’t have anything to do with my decision at the police station that night.”
Okay. I don’t know what to say to that.
“Now,” he says, holding out a hand, “can I please see your work? It’s the least you can do, since I’m painting parking spaces at Summers & Co. You pretty much owe me forever, and I will milk that favor.”
“Thought you weren’t a dirtbag.”
And there’s the smile again. Barely, but there. It flicks on a switch inside my chest and makes me feel like I’m glowing from the inside out.
“But I am a jackass, remember?” he says.
I pass him my portfolio. “How can I forget, when you keep reminding me?”
He chuckles briefly and unzips the le
ather binder to browse the pages of photographs. It’s obviously only a selection of my work, and I’ve included a smattering of things outside my wheelhouse to show range—a black-and-white portrait of my mom, a cityscape at night, a bookstore cat, and an action shot of traffic. But the bulk of the prints are photos of my signs. Two years’ worth. And watching Lucky pore over them, his paint-flecked fingers gingerly holding the page corners, the black cat tattoo staring back at me from his hand … It makes me feel self-conscious and expectant. Exposed. As if he’s stripping off layers of my clothes with each turn of the page.
I want him to say something. I want him to give it back to me. I want him to like what I’ve done. I don’t know what I want.
“Wow. These are …” He nods silently. “Really, really good.”
Oh. I exhale, relieved and spinning like a top. “Yeah?”
“These are all shot on film? Like, real film? Is that why they look this way?”
I’m so happy he asked. I wasn’t doing any of this work when we knew each other. I was barely interested in photography back then. All of this is new stuff to share with him, and suddenly it feels like I’ve only been away on a long trip, and we’re just catching up.
“No. Some of them are digital.” I wipe nervous palm sweat on my jeans and flip pages to show him which ones. “Digital is easier, but the best cameras cost thousands. Film has more character, and I like the control of developing it. I like knowing I did it from beginning to end. No auto settings. No fake filters. My eye, my vision, my hands … I guess that sounds arrogant or artsy, or whatever, I don’t know.”
I’m a little self-conscious now.
But he just nods. “Respect. Absolutely understand that. Doing something with your own hands is satisfying. It’s a skill. And at the rate this world’s going, one day we’re going to wake up to find our electrical grid down and all our technology’s been hacked. What are we going to do when we can’t just ask a computer what the answer is? You know who’ll survive? The people who can think, and the people with skills. I’m not a great thinker, but I intend on surviving.”