"Didn't there used to be a roller coaster here?" Roman asks, frowning at the expanse of weeds and dirt that takes up an entire block.
"Yeah," I reply, shrugging. "They tore it down. Owners couldn't afford to keep it open...but I think the roller coaster moved to another amusement park down the street."
"The really small one with the weird kid rides?" He makes a face.
"I know, right? Ghastly."
"I hate that everything changes." He shoves his hands into his pockets, looking across the hills of grass and dirt that used to the The Pavilion. "Sort of unfair, you know? Everything changes and suddenly you feel like one of those bent puzzle pieces."
"Yeah," I reply, surprised because we feel the same way, and set my eyes down the Strip of colored lights and people, "unfair."
At night, the strip turns into a whirling, twisting stream of lights and colors. Carnival bulbs and neon lights illuminate everything as the pops and hisses and boings and whirs of games and cooking grease and children playing skeet ball crash together in idiosyncratic harmony. When was the last time I came to the Strand? I can't remember.
Maybe it was when the magic of deep-fried Oreos wore off, or maybe it was when I realized that the carnival games were rigged, and the moving statues that line the boardwalk are really people.
Everything is achingly familiar, as if I can just turn around and Dad will be right behind me, asking to shag at the bandstand or share a corndog. It was on this boardwalk that he taught me how to dance, my feet atop his, as we shimmied to "Good Rockin’ Tonight" and "Brown Eyed Girl." Do they even play shag music on the Strand at night anymore?
I rub the ache in my chest, hoping Roman doesn't notice, and lean against the railing. Waves knock against the boardwalk, trash mixed with the flotsam and jetsam. A flock of seagulls swoops overhead, picking abandoned French fries and corndogs off the ground.
He leans against the railing next to me, and spits over the edge. Like a kid, I swear.
I turn around and gather my hair over my shoulder. “What’s it like singing in front of a crowd?”
"Odd question. What brought this up?"
I shrug. "My family owns a bar—the Silver Lining. Bands play there sometimes, and I've just wondered. I'm a shitty singer, and I can't play an instrument worth my life, so I'll never know."
"That's an odd name for a bar," he comments.
"So is Roman Holiday for a band."
He tips further over the edge of the railing, giving in. “Imagine being blinded by stage lights. Not knowing where anyone is, but you can feel a million eyes on you, staring at you, like you are the middle of the universe. And the noise...it roars." He pulls himself straight again, closing his eyes, as if he's there, imagining the sound. "It drowns out everything—absolutely everything. This sound...it's transient and consuming. I feel alive when I'm up there, Junebug, like my blood is on fire and every note just consumes me. It’s crazy.”
I cock my head. "Then why don't you go back? You and Boaz? Start over? The Madison Square gig, I'm sure you could still play."
He finally opens his eyes, and his eyebrows furrow. For a moment, I don't think he'll answer me, but then his shoulder slump a little and he shakes his head softly, as if even entertaining the idea makes him tired. "We can't always get what we want."
Timidly, I set my hand on top of his on the railing. His hand is warm and soft, as I curl my fingers into his palm. "There's a silver lining to everything," I say.
He looks down at my hand and smiles, bringing it up to his lips, and kisses my knuckles. A thank you. Warmth blooms in my belly, and flushes against my cheeks. "How about some pizza?" he asks instead. "Agreeable enough?"
Chapter Eleven
Roman stops in mid-step in front of an airbrush parlor, and I run smack into the back of him. “Oof! Hey, at least gimme a head’s up when you stop—”
A man with inky black hair surfaces from the surf shop next door. The man from the stop-n-shop a few nights ago. The eagle feather is pinned into the ribbon on his gray fedora tonight. He picks into his bag of cotton candy for a blue puff and eats it.
Roman grabs my forearm. My eyebrows scrunch. "Do you know him?"
"Nope"—and suddenly he shoves me into the airbrush parlor, leading me behind a clothes turnstile, and grabs a dorky Myrtle Beach hat from the top of it. He holds it over the side of our faces toward the street, our faces so close his hot breath warms my lips, too close for comfort but too far for anything real to happen.
Maybe he'll...
His eyes nervously watch the reflective mirror that shows the street, and it deflates me just a little, disheartened, that he doesn't even notice. The man passes slowly, searching over the racks of clothes. Roman jerks me down below the clothes rack until the man finally passes. After a minute, he pulls away and returns the hat to its proper place as if nothing happened. I turn to the cashier to make sure she’s giving us a funny look, and sure enough, she is.
Okay, so that actually happened.
"Roman?" I go to grab his shirt but my hand comes up empty. I pale. "Roman?" The orange of his hair hangs a right out of the store. "ROMAN!" I run out of the store after him and catch up a few feet down. “What was that for?”
“What was what for?”
“Please, don’t do that.”
“Do what? I’m starving. Where's this pizza place again?"
"You're impossible."
"Impossibly possible," he corrects. "Ah-hah! I knew it was over here somewhere."
I scowl and follow him into the nearby pizza joint. It's a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant with cheap beer and free smells. Locals scatter across the dry-rotted booths, watching some soccer team at the World Series on the small TV in the corner. We order two sodas and a large olive and mushroom pizza, and sit down at one of the cracked vinyl booths. The lighting is low, and terrible, and the walls are this horrendous eggshell white with kitschy Italian pictures and signs strung up with duct tape. The pizza is the sort you can fold in half, and watch the grease trickle down onto your plate like water.
Roman takes another slice, popping a fallen mushroom into his mouth. "How the hell do you like mushroom and olives?" he asks between chews.
"I should be asking you the same thing. Weirdo," I tease.
"Oh, yeah we are." He lifts his soda and we clink glasses. "It's a wonder you're single—you are single, aren't you?" he adds, more curious than nervous.
I shrug, eating another olive. "I dunno. I've been too busy for a relationship. I mean...there's a guy, but it's nothing serious. He's about to go off to college, and I'm about to stay put. When we started seeing each other I was...in a bad place. Then he came, acting like my broken was nothing, like he knew he could shake me once and listen to all the broken bits of me rattle around, and everything would be fine—that I am broken, but still loved and still wanted. Not beautiful, but enough."
"Enough...I like that. The whole notion of it. My manager told us to be perfect, to be examples. We weren't good enough. We had to be better. What a different world I'd live in if he just wanted Holly, Boaz, and me to be enough."
I look down at my uneaten crust of pizza. "Too bad it's a faulty notion. Because being enough is never good enough."
"I think your hair is pink enough," he offers.
"And I think your hair is orange enough. But it's not good enough, right? You can't honestly say you were aiming for that color."
His nose scrunches. "You're right. I wasn't. Were you aiming for that pink?"
"I wasn't really aiming for anything," I reply, picking another olive off my next slice. I can only eat half of it while he devours the rest of the pizza. "Must be nice, not having to watch your weight."
"Are you kidding?" he downs the last bite with a gulp of soda. "I ate nothing but salads for three years straight. I had to buy new jeans four months ago. Living on Ramen noodles is killing my figure."
"Isn't that a shame. You had such nice abs too," I joke, but he just gives me this pained look. "Mag's has th
at poster, yeah," I clarify, "then one where you're all, you know...ripped."
"That really doesn't surprise me. Ready to go?"
"Whenever you are."
He takes my hand, fingers lacing into mine, and pulls me out of the booth. We blend into the swelling evening crowd, and follow them across the boardwalk. A sign pointing toward the beach access is lit up by a flood of lights, and we follow the arrow onto the sand. The beach at night reminds me of those old grainy black and white movies, the moon painting everything in monochromatic colors. The stars shimmer as if they're fireflies stuck in a vat of molasses.
He flunks down on the sand, spreading his legs wide. “I always thought I'd retire to the beach. What do you think, this a good enough spot to start?”
I sink down beside him and dig my toes into the sand. “My dad used to say the same thing." It feels so strange to bring Dad into conversation, but in the good sort of way. Like when you can't hold a sneeze in any longer.
“Yeah? My dad did too." He shakes his head, running the thick white sand through his hands. "He said that the fast times are never as fun as you think they are."
“You've had a few of those, I guess."
He exhales slowly. “Yeah, I have." His orange hair glows like frozen fire from the light pollution on the Strand. After a moment, he tilts his head to the side, as if something flicked his ear. “Do you hear that?”
"The...waves?"
He rolls his eyes. "No, listen."
I cock my head, but all I can hear is the roar of the ocean. “I don’t hear anything."
"Yeah, you do." Then he begins to hum. I recognize the tune immediately, and my ears prickle at the sound of faint, but real, music. A band, somewhere, is playing a song. The bandstand does play shag music at night after all.
I grin. "Van Morrison. 'Into the Mystic.'"
He leans into me, his shoulder knocking against mine, and begins to murmur the lyrics in a soft and warm baritone, as sweet as honey. Caspian was never this romantic—this is romance, isn't it? The way he looks at no one but me, his eyes filled with more than what his mouth can ever say. But I feel myself inexplicably drawn into him, like the opposite side of a magnet. We are so close, the heat from our skin hovers between us like a force the chilling beach breeze can't sweep away, electrified a thousand times over. The smell of the sea mingles with his scent, so intoxicating it feels like a dream. Cinnamon and merlot. All I want to do is sink into him, into the mystic—my heart so full of sound and sea and sky it could burst.
I've never felt like this before, not with Caspian, not with anyone. With Caspian it was always give and take, but then after a while I gave so much it began to feel like I was supposed to and Caspian always took, always expected it. I don't feel like Roman expects anything at all, or if he does it isn't obvious to me, and I think I like this sort of friendship, the type that isn't based on merits and gifts, but moments and memories and songs.
His voice grows softer as the song finally winds to a close and my stomach dips because I don't want it to end. I am in big, big trouble.
"Roman?" My voice is timid and foreign to my ears. His fingers brush lightly against my cheek as he pulls a stray strand of pink hair behind my ear. My face turns toward his hand to feel his warm fingertips against my cheek again. Caspian is ten thousand leagues out of my mind.
"Yeah, Junebug?"
"I'm glad I met you."
Down the beach, a group of college kids from Coastal Carolina light a squadron of roman candles into the night sky, sparks of white that, from a distance, look like shooting stars. They howl as the sparks fade into the darkness. I almost jump out of my skin, startled by the sound. Roman blinks and shakes his head as if snapping out of a daydream.
“It’s getting late,” he mutters suddenly, and jumps to his feet. “Aren’t your parents worried?”
Anger flushes over my cheeks. "No. I'm not a kid!"
"How old are you?" he calls over his shoulder as he begins to leave. "Sixteen?"
I fist my hands, marching after him. "Almost nineteen! Fuck you very much!"
"Same differe—" His foot catches a sinkhole and he faceplants into the sand. I squat down beside him. He props himself up on his elbows and gives a long, tired sigh. "Karma's a bitch."
"Apology accepted," I reply, and jut out my hand to help him up.
Chapter Twelve
You'd think Roman would drive a Bentley or a BMW, a sleek car with way too much money spent on the rims. Nope. He drives a crappy-ass Mentos green VW Rabbit. And when I say crappy, I mean that very modestly. This car looks like it runs on duct tape and prayers. Mid-90s. Rusted hubcaps. Tan pleather seats—the works. I glance into the backseat to make sure there aren't any serial killers waiting under the massive amounts of fast food wrappers and dirty clothes.
"Are you sure there aren't any...murderers? Rapists? Homeless people back there?"
He doesn't even glance back as we get inside, and he pulls the seatbelt over his shoulder. "Nah. Just empty Taco Hell wrappers and my moldy socks."
Because that makes me any less frightened.
"Charming," I reply.
"Boaz contributed. I think he left some underwear back there, if you're interested."
"That's gross."
"And knowing my face is on your..." he flicks his gaze down to my lap, then back up again quickly, "is awkward."
I calmly put my hands in my lap, my cheeks prickling with embarrassment. "Touché."
He inserts the key and the engine whines as it tries to turn over. "C'mon baby..." he begs until, after a squealing noise akin to the death of Wilbur, the engine roars to life. He kicks it into drive and we pull out of the parking lot. "So, taking you back to the condo?"
"Yeah," I reply, like there's any other place I could go. Back to his place, maybe. But wouldn't that be super sketch? Or an invasion of privacy? "Where do you stay, anyway?"
He gives a stiff shrug. "A motel off the interstate."
"Not your parent's—" I stop myself before I finish, but I've already let too much slip. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry..."
"No, it's fine," but I can tell by the tightness in his voice he'd really rather talk about something else. "My dad lives in Myrtle. So does Holly's family, but let's just say I'm not welcome within a hundred yards of their house and leave it at that."
"And your dad?" As I ask it, his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel.
"He disowned me when Hols and I moved to Nashville. To him, trying to make a career in music was like joining the circus. It wasn't respectable enough. You ask him, I abandoned my family. You ask me..." He trails off. The lights of Ocean Boulevard flicker shades of blue and red over his face like a kaleidoscope. I wait for his answer, but he just presses his lips together and flicks on the radio.
His own song, "Deep End" blares through the speakers and he quickly turns it back off.
He clears his throat. "Silence is good, yeah? We don't need music."
"I can hum something?"
"Can you sing?"
"I'm so good I can shatter windows."
He chuckles, and for the first time since the beach, he cracks a ghost of a smile. "Then let's play The Shitty Song Showdown."
"Sounds awesome." I roll my eyes.
"We take turns humming a song and see if the other can guess it."
"Are you challenging my radio heart?" I press my hand to my chest, aghast. "How dare you!"
"I want to see if you're the real deal."
"You're on."
The traffic on Ocean Boulevard is slow and steady. Tourists pass in front of us to street vendors and souvenir shops. Ice cream shops dot the streets like confetti. It's easy to think how Myrtle Beach is fun and exciting, especially in the throng of lights and laughter, but in the winter when the tourists clear out and the vendors move down to Florida, Myrtle Beach becomes a ghost town. Roman grew up here, so he must be used to people passing through like sand through his fingers. Fame can't be much different. Am I just another grain of sand?
Is he just another boy of summer?
I almost don't catch the beginning notes to my dad's favorite song tumbling from Roman's lips. "'Born to Run,'" I immediately quip. "Bruce Springsteen."
"That was an easy one," he relinquishes and waits for me to think of a song. I warble the first few notes of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones, and instead of guessing the song, he begins singing with me. Show-off.
We coast to a stop at a light, the windows rolled down. The tourists hustling across the crosswalk give us a curious look as we howl the chorus. A laugh bubbles up in my throat, and I successfully hold it in....until he does a terrible Mick Jagger impersonation, and I lose it in a fit of giggles.
He slides me a cheshire grin. "So? Did I win? Huh?"
"That was decent," I reply, wiping the tears out of my eyes. "Your turn."
Thinking, he taps his finger on the steering wheel until it evolves into a beat. He ducks his head down and begins rapping.
"Oh my God, that's so 90s. You're showing your sublime age, Roman. 'What I Got.'"
"How the hell do you know that one? How old were you, ten?"
I frown. "Do I really look sixteen?" I flop down the visor and inspect myself in the mirror. Even at night, my pink hair glows. "Jesus, you can see me from space."
"Just means I'll never lose you, and no. I was just being an asshole."
I slam the visor up again. "Surprising," I reply, but all I can think about is the phrase Just means I'll never lose you.
"But I have seen sixteen-year-olds who look thirty. Now, that's scary. Ever been about to go down on a girl and realize she's not even legal yet?"
"Is this your way of saying you make poor life choices?"
"Fuck youuuuuu."
I punch him in the arm playfully and flick the radio back on, quickly turning it to the classic rock station. A sweet, slow power ballad drifts through the stereo. Almost instantly, my throat seizes. I want to turn it off, but Roman knocks my hand away from the knob before I can.
Roman Holiday Page 6