A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga)

by Grotepas, Nicole

  She never aspired to be a princess.

  Kate got out of the car. “Let’s go, I’ll be on my best behavior. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll always have you, right?”

  “Of course! But only until I get married. And then you’re on your own. That’s just the way these things work,” Audra said, talking to her over the roof of the Subaru. They slammed their doors, grabbed their chalk-bags and climbing shoes out of the back and headed into the gym. Kate took a breath and thanked the heavens that she had a chalk-bag—her hands had sprouted oceans at the thought of seeing Ty again.

  Though there were huge industrial size fans blowing loudly inside and though the room was the length of a football field with a climbing wall stretching from one end to the other, chalk dust still hung in the air like they’d just walked into a flour mill or cotton textile factory.

  Ty had staked out a spot near the middle of the gym. When he saw Audra, who stood in front of Kate leading the way, he waved them over, smiling but maintaining a casual demeanor. His shirt was off and his muscles bulged in his chest, forearms, and back, like he’d been climbing for a while already. Kate wanted to stare. Instead she looked away, acting casual about things herself. Just because he was totally ripped and beautiful, didn’t mean he was some amazing, nice guy. She’d probably find out he was an ass. Right? She exhaled through her partially closed lips and talked herself into not giving a crap about handsome guys with climber physiques.

  They waltzed over to his spot and set their chalk bags down on the thick crash pad.

  “Hey, Audra, Kate,” Ty greeted them. “This is my buddy Malcolm. Call him Mal.”

  Malcolm—Kate couldn’t bring herself to shorten it—looked familiar. He wasn’t as bulky or pumped as Ty. He had that lean, toned build of the classic rock climber, she though as she sat down on the edge of the crash pad and slipped her flip-flops off and put on her climbing shoes.

  “Oh right, Malcolm, you own the place, don’t you,” Audra said, shaking his hand and beaming a smile at him.

  Malcolm jerked his head to the side, a half smile crawling up one cheek. He thumbed his nose like a boxer, leaving a chalk mark there, but didn’t seem to realize it. “Yeah. I just got back from a month-long climbing trip in Japan,” he said. Kate held her breath, waiting for him to launch into a litany of stories detailing how cool he was for traveling to world-class bouldering spots and owning a climbing gym. But before he could, he went cross-eyed, noticing the chalk on the side of his nose. He walked over to where his shirt was on the bouldering pad, picked it up, and wiped the smudge away.

  Audra and Kate exchanged a glance, muffling their laughter.

  ***

  Ty was phenomenal on the wall. Kate relaxed on the crash pad and watched him for a while. He was like a ballet dancer the way he scaled the routes, setting up some of the hardest ones Kate had ever seen. Along with Malcolm and one other guy, they taped out problems—specific climbing routes—for the gym and gave them ratings when they were done mapping one. Ty and Kate exchanged a few words here and there, but mostly he acted like she didn’t matter—reserving his friendliest chatter for Audra.

  Kate puzzled over it, pulling her knees to her chest, wishing she could forget that she’d ever had even a smidgeon of hope about him. The only answer for it was that Audra must have been imagining all those sultry looks Ty had supposedly been flashing Kate at Salt and Sugar. Kate cleared her throat quietly, went to the drinking fountain for a sip of water, and ended up finding a spot on her own, close to the entrance where the wall was the least steep for her warm up. She concentrated on getting more comfortable with the tiny crimper holds that she could barely pinch her fingers onto. She did a few really easy routes at first to warm-up. Soon Malcolm came over and casually began conversing with her.

  “I’ve seen you around here,” he mentioned nonchalantly.

  “I come when it’s two for one, usually,” she told him, shaking out her arms to loosen up her knotting muscles. She rolled her shoulder and still felt a small, dull ache from her fall a few days ago—but it wasn’t bad enough to stop her from training. “Usually I go up the canyon with my friend rather than pay.” She remembered that he owned the place, and peered at him, flushing. “Sorry. No offense. I’m just poor.”

  “Right on,” Malcolm says. “No problem. I get it, I get it.”

  Kate caught Ty’s eyes flicking toward her before darting away again. Audra was climbing with him. Kate hid it well, but she felt that she was better than Audra on the rock. Of course it seemed that Audra felt otherwise, even if she made jokes to the contrary. Every route her friend did, Kate noticed that a bunch of guys gathered around under her, spotting her, and cheering her on. She’d taken her shirt off and was just wearing her sports bra, which was a big hit with the guys.

  “Your friend is popular,” Malcolm observed with a glance at the bevy of guys flocking to watch Audra. He looked back at Kate and grinned.

  “She’s pretty awesome. I’m not surprised,” Kate answered, not even considering taking her own shirt off. She crouched down to begin a route, and placed her toe on a foothold at the bottom of the wall. Once she fixed the tips of her fingers to a tiny ledge, she balanced all her weight on the toe already on the wall long enough to slip her other toe on and begin her route.

  “She’s not the only impressive chick climber in the room,” Malcolm said, from behind Kate. He’d begun to spot her.

  Kate laughed awkwardly and blushed as she scaled the artificial wall. She didn’t follow a route, just moved to the next hardest hold she could see, breathing slowly, in a meditative manner.

  Malcolm was good-looking. But with a quick glance around the gym, Kate realized spotting an ugly one would have been like finding sand in the desert. The gym was one of the places the beautiful people spent their downtime and it made her feel like an outsider. Instead of being flattered or even intimidated by Malcolm, she found herself buying into the idea that she had nothing to lose. He wasn’t interested in her that way, she decided. Most likely he was using her to get to Audra—his eyes had stuck to her until he’d noticed the chalk mark on his nose.

  Kate got to the top of the wall after a slow, deliberate climb that pushed her muscles and forced her form into sharpness. Sweat broke out on her brow, her forearms screamed, and her calves knotted. She began a quick descent down the easiest holds possible—ledges, arches, and scoops—and then jumped onto the crash pad when she was about two-thirds of the way down.

  Malcolm was waiting for her with his arm over his head to give her a high five. She laughed and blushed, but gave him the slap he was waiting for.

  From the corner of her eye, Kate saw Ty spot the exchange and make his way over to them.

  “Nice finish,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Kate said gratefully.

  “We should go up the canyon sometime.” It was out of nowhere and Kate blinked a few times, wondering if she heard him right. Oh that’s what his game is, shy at first and then full throttle, Kate thought.

  “Cool, uh, that’d be great,” she heard herself answer.

  Malcolm was shaking his head, his mouth gaping open. “You’re unbelievable,” he said to Ty.

  “What?” Ty asked, holding his chalk-covered hands out innocently. A network of bulging veins spidered through his forearms like cracks over a parched desert floor. He smiled when Malcolm simply stalked away, shaking his head and muttering about back-stabbing friends.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Kate asked.

  “I never know. He can be real moody,” Ty said.

  Kate found that she couldn’t safely look at Ty without staring at his body. So she turned to the wall and began thinking about another route. She could smell that familiar Old Spice Sport fragrance hovering in a nimbus around him. It was dizzying, so she quickly moved to the wall and began a route without even thinking about it. She followed her gut, which led her from one crimpy hold to another. She heard Ty shuffling below her, following her crooked, vertical line along the w
all with his hands outstretched in the typical spotting method.

  “Nice. Come on Kate,” he coached. His urgings were confidence builders, and they fueled Kate on as her muscles began to scream in protest. “You’ve got this! Looking good, looking good.”

  She heard herself grunting at the final moves as she lunged in a dynamic move for a fat hook at the top of the wall. She thought she would miss it, or that her hand wouldn’t be able to hold on if she actually hit it. A triumphant and somewhat embarrassing whoop escaped her when her hand closed around it and didn’t let go. Her legs swung toward the wall, and she placed them on some edges and then began her descent.

  When she jumped down, Ty was right there, patting her on the butt and telling her how awesome she did. “You’re pretty good, Kate. That was a sweet route you just made up. Maybe you should be one of our route-setters.” His eyes studied her admiringly and Kate laughed, feeling her cheeks blaze.

  Soon he was hammering out the details for a climbing jaunt up the canyon, and Kate found herself going along with it. Why not? she thought to herself. Twenty feet away, Audra caught Kate’s eye though she was surrounded by a group of guys, including Malcolm. Kate could almost hear her friend saying, “I told you so!”

  ***

  “Darryl’s going to close the store,” Ferg told Kate first thing Monday morning without any sort of warning. She gasped and dropped the cappuccino she got at Salt and Sugar on her way in. Only some of it spilled before she grabbed the container and turned it upright.

  “What the hell, Ferg? Couldn’t you say hello first and let me put my drink down before you dropped that bomb?” She slid out of her messenger bag, leaving it on the counter, ran to the back and grabbed a pile of paper towels out of the employee bathroom and began sopping up as much of the caramel colored liquid as possible.

  “Not my style, Kate,” he said, sliding the door shut on the glass case that contained all the used handheld gaming cartridges.

  Kate muttered under her breath about having to clean up the mess Ferg helped her make. “What did you say? I’m not quite sure I’ve absorbed it. Something about the store closing. You’re messing with me, right?” She straightened and dropped the soaked paper towels into the trash can next to the counter.

  “Not exactly,” Ferg answered. She snatched her bag off the counter and walked into the back room and put it on top of the desk. It was covered with cellophane wrapped CDs and vinyl, label-making tape, catalogs, and posters.

  When she came out, Ferg was perched on a stool behind the counter, studying something on a clipboard. They weren’t supposed to have stools, but they did, and Ferg was the only one he let sit on it. He absently adjusted a lock of hair that fell into his eyes. “Why? Why’s he closing us down?”

  “Why else? Money?” Ferg was clearly not happy about it. He pursed his lips and avoided eye contact with her. Every move he made had a snap to it.

  “But—but—our sales have been good. Well, better than average,” she said, trying to remember the last report Ferg went over with her. She rubbed her temple and squinted her eyes. “At least, we aren’t in the hole. Are we?”

  “This is why we’re going under,” Ferg said, looking ticked.

  “Oh, so you don’t think it has something to do with treating paying customers like trash because they ask about our trade policy?” she asked, referencing Ferg’s most recent offense. He dropped the clipboard onto the glass countertop. It made a bone-jarring slapping noise. Kate jumped in her skin a little, but tried to hide it.

  “No, look, that’s not why. It’s something bigger.” His face softened but he avoided her gaze. “I didn’t mean to blame you, Kate. I was joking, sort of.”

  “Bigger, like what? The economy? Nine-Eleven? Can we still blame bad things in the country on that?” She stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the video game shelves by the door. After a hesitation—concerned about getting in his space when he was irritated—she dropped her arms and strolled to the counter and took a cautious sip of her cappuccino. The warm drink soothed her.

  “Yes and no. Bigger like out of our control, but not one specific event like Nine-Eleven. The internet. Torrents. Skyrocketing gas prices. It’s just stupid to have a storefront now. The only reason people come here is for the personal touch or for vinyl, not because they have to come here to get their music, which is how it used to be.” He sighed and looked around the room. “Remember when you had to go somewhere to buy something? Man, those were the good old days. Stupid Amazon.” He ran his hands through his styled, sand-colored hair and shook his head like maybe he’d be able to dispel the horrible hallucination. “Dammit. I messed up my hair. Why do I do that?” He muttered to himself, grabbing a scratched CD and using it as a mirror to adjust his hair.

  “Darryl can’t just close us down. We’re a national treasure. At least a city treasure. We’re historical. We’re part of the personality of the city,” she said, frustrated. She didn’t even know why, in a way, since she was planning on finding a better paying job in the next year.

  Ferg just laughed. “He can do whatever he wants. He’s the boss.”

  “So you’re just going to sit there and let him do it?” she asked, unable to hide her shock.

  “Maybe. I’ll try to come up with something, but he’s looked at the numbers already and the store is becoming a drain on his bottom line. He called it a gangrenous limb that has to be chopped off. I almost told him to shove it. I took personal offense at that, kind of. I manage the place for him, you know?”

  “Yeah,” she said, biting her lip, trying to think of something to do to change things.

  Ferg stood up and stretched his arms above his head. “My back is killing me. Didn’t sleep much this weekend,” he said with a groan.

  Kate’s eyes narrowed. “When did you find out about the store closing?”

  He smiled but didn’t say anything.

  “Ferg?”

  “Last week,” he said, finally.

  “What? You know, that’s completely sucky. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me till now.”

  “So you wanted your weekend ruined too? I didn’t think that’d be fair to you guys.” He shook his head, and went into the back. When he returned, he handed the label-maker to her. “Make some new labels.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “I have a plan,” he said. “It just hit me, like lightning. First of all, we need to make our genres narrower. Not quite as narrow as All Music Guide, but more specific. Like, we need a Dirty Beach Rock section. And a section for Vintage Chamber Pop. Stuff like that, where we can file more indie stuff.”

  Kate stood there, looking first at Ferg, then at the label-maker. There’s no way this will help, she thought.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I just don’t think it’ll work. Finding stuff in our store isn’t the problem,” she pointed out, beginning to fidget with the label-maker. Maybe she’d make something funny and stick it where Audra would find it, randomly.

  “Oh yeah, is that what you think?” Ferg snapped.

  “What we need is to approach selling differently. You said yourself, people come to the store for the personal touch. How can we make it more personal? And how can we widen our clientele?”

  “So what are you picturing?” he asked, thoughtfully, leaning against the stool again, one arm crossed, the other stroking his chin. “Like, maybe band signings or something?”

  “Yeah, and maybe turning the store into a venue some nights. Having little intimate shows with the indie bands and local artists. But to broaden whom we sell to, we need to sell online. EBay, Amazon, stuff like that, and ship to people.” As the idea blossomed, her voice became more animated, excited about the prospect of saving something she cared about.

  “I agree. I’ve tried to get Darryl to OK that before, but he says it’ll cost too much upfront—to get everything uploaded and catalogued.”

  “Stupid Darryl, if he had a better system, a transition like that would be
so much swifter.”

  “Swifter? Like, the broom company?” Ferg teased.

  “Shut up.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Let’s brainstorm more. Take notes.” He handed her the clipboard.

  “OK, I don’t see why you can’t take notes.” She took it from him reluctantly, eyeing the chewed on pen.

  “I’m the thinker. You’re the writer.” Ferg stood up and began to pace as though he’d been the mastermind behind the plan. Kate shrugged, not minding. If it saved the store, why did it matter who came up with the concept?

  “If I’m going to write, I’m taking the stool,” Kate said, walking around behind the counter.

  “Fine. Just this once,” Ferg conceded, moving out from behind the counter into the blues vinyl section opposite the entrance.

  They began to draft their plan to save the store. It was best to strike while the iron was hot, they decided, and Kate couldn’t have agreed more. The blow to her security that Ferg’s announcement made let in new light and the ideas began to flow like spring run off, or like knocking out an old decrepit wall to begin a renovation.

  When a customer came in, Kate and Ferg paused and gave that person their full attention, trying to up-sell and make them feel comfortable, rather than driving customers away with elitist attitudes (that wasn’t easy). It was funny how it worked, Kate noticed—when the employees of Suga’s thought they had it made, they’d treated customers like crap. When Ferg, Kate, and the others realized how much they needed the customers, said customers—no matter how doltish—were suddenly royalty.

  By the time Luke came in at two, Kate and Ferg had a good list going. Ferg gave Luke the news, which he absorbed without fainting. And then he pitched in. The three of them decided they’d need to invest some of their free time and money into opening a virtual storefront, and do it bit by bit. Instead of spending so much in-store time alphabetizing and pricing used albums, one of them would always be uploading product and quantities to the storefront. Ferg decided he’d go to Darryl with their plan and ask for an integrated system that would keep track of store sales and quantities and also update online information at the same time.