Moment of Impact

by Lisa Mondello

  “Gus,” Drake says.

  And then the moment is gone as hot guy suddenly stood at attention in front of his boss. Or he may as well have because I was suddenly invisible again.

  But what I first thought might be a reprimand by his boss, turned out to be nothing more than a scheduling change.

  “We’re getting through this quicker than I planned, thanks to the both of you,” Drake said to the small crew. “If we can get through this job before lunch, we should be able to finish work early this afternoon at the Windjammer and then maybe we can all knock off early.”

  “Sounds great,” Penny said.

  I turn my back on the four of them and head back into the restaurant to get the bucket of soapy water and a sponge to wash down the tables. I look at the tables I’d been waiting on and see the food has already been served. It’s normal for all of us to pitch in for each other.

  Melinda is now filling salt and pepper shakers, getting ready for the lunch crowd. I know I need to go outside and set up the patio. But it suddenly feels strange outside with Penny and her co-workers when I’m the odd one out. A swell of envy consumed me as I grabbed a bucket from under the sink, tucked it under the faucet and watched the hot water pour into it. I squirt a couple of tablespoons of dishwater into the bucket and watch the spray turn it to suds.

  When the bucket is full, I grab a fresh white terry cloth rag by the sink and drop it in the bucket. As I head to the side door again, I see Penny laughing at something either Drake or Gus has said and that swell of envy fills me again.

  There is only one way to cure a case of envy. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the afternoon go by without dealing with it.

  #

  Chapter Two

  Gus

  She’d disappeared again. And so had I. It was like a game. She knew me and I knew her and yet, we’ve never met.

  This could go on all fucking summer.

  Work at the Windjammer is going fast. We’ll get out of here before three, which means I get some beach time in. The grounds hadn’t been brutalized by the winter like many of the properties they worked on along the coast. I don’t care how much work there is. It’s a paycheck, and it’s brownie points I need if I want to get Edmond out of my everyday life.

  “Break’s over, Gus.” I glance over at Drake who’s sporting a shit-eatin’ grin that pisses me off. “She had a nice ass. I’ll give you that,” he says quietly so Penny, who is hacking away at a hydrangea bush not far from them, can’t hear. “But if we want to get out of here by three, we need to get this done. I think we’re ready for some mulch. Bring the truck over?”

  My cheeks are flaming as hard as if the two of them can actually see the hard-on that I’m getting just from thinking about Lily. I walk over to the truck and climb inside, firing up the engine and then backing up into a space that had been filled earlier when the restaurant was in full swing. I get as close as I can to the areas we’re working on so that we don’t have to haul the mulch through the parking lot and risk spilling it all over the place. Then I climb out and grab a shovel and a garbage can we usually use to fill with mulch and carry to wherever we need it.

  I start to shovel mulch into the barrel when Penny comes over and deposits her clippers in the toolbox on the side of the truck.

  “You’ve ogled over her enough, Gus. Why don’t you just say hi?”

  “No interest, Pen.” I lied.

  “Yeah, and I have a dick.” She chuckles and I can’t keep my own laugh from coming up my throat.

  I shake my head and grab a shovel. “She’s eye candy.”

  “Eye candy?” Penny says, straightening her back and gives me a lethal glare. I’m suddenly glad she’s already stashed away the clippers she’d been using earlier. “She’s a whole hell of a lot more than that.”

  “Yeah, she is. She is a rich bitch earning some play money to buy five-dollar coffees at some Boston college café this fall. Mommy and Daddy are probably footing the bill.”

  Penny shifts uncomfortably and I know I hit the mark. But Lily is her roommate and there is a code there. You don’t talk trash about a chick’s roommate.

  But I can’t help myself. “You know what I’m talking about, Penny. They work in the trenches for a few months out of the year and sample life on the wild side. Girls like that are sent into a panic if they break a nail. I haven’t got the time.”

  “Yeah? You’ve got enough time to watch her.”

  I clear my throat, tired of the attention. “Can you start loading the rest of the tools in the truck so we can get out of here quicker? I’ll finish up with the mulch.”

  Penny stares at me for a moment and then laughs wryly. “Yeah, sure.”

  Twenty minutes later, Drake drops me off at my place and then heads out with Penny to drop her off at her beach house. The house was owned by Beverly Pickam, a woman I’d heard Mrs. B gossip about while she was on the phone upstairs. Apparently, according to Mrs. B., Beverly thought she owned the island now that her rich husband had died.

  Well, maybe Mrs. P’s houses didn’t have tiles that popped off the wall every time you took a shower or windows that had been painted shut in the kitchen so the whole room heats up like an oven even without the stove on. They probably had nice new furniture that doesn’t smell of vomit, although I had managed to get the smell out of the sofa in this place. Now it has a sickly stench of flowers and bleach.

  I jump in the shower and scrub off a days’ worth of hot sweat, dirt and peeling skin on my shoulders from being in the sun too long without protection. It’s not too bad. By the time I’m done scrubbing, I can barely see it.

  I step out of the shower and dry off quickly. I can probably get an hour or two of paddleboard time in before it gets too windy on the beach.

  Twenty minutes later, I have my paddleboard under one arm and the paddle in the other and I’m running down the beach toward the surf. Everyone has a place where life makes sense. This one is mine. It’s the only reason I pushed to come to Nantucket. All the other choices Edmond gave me were lame. What the hell was I going to do way out in the country during the summer? Sure, working as a landscaper gave me the physical outlet I need and I can do that just about anywhere, but nothing beats a front row seat to the magnificence of the Atlantic Ocean.

  No, this is the best. If it means I have to live in Mrs. Beachman’s apartment to get this perk, I’ll put up with her crankiness about my smoking.

  My board is afloat in the water and my paddle is by my side. I kneel on the board and paddle out with my hands until I’m deep enough to get passed the surf. Once I’m beyond the break, I put one foot up and then the other until I’m standing. It’s just me and the paddle for the next hour. Can’t get into any trouble out here.

  * * *

  Lily

  “What’s he like?” I ask Penny. Her hair is still wrapped up tight with a towel from her shower, but she’s changed into army green cargo shorts and a blue tank top.

  “Why do you ask?”

  I make a face. “You don’t think he’s hot?”

  Penny looked at me, her eyes narrow. “I think he’s fine.”

  “That’s it? Fine? Fine, how? Gorgeous fine? Or just…fine?”

  Penny goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a can of soda. She pops the top of the can before she turns around. When she does, I see her amused look.

  “The first day you saw him you thought he was a pervert. Now you’re crushing on Gus Jennings?”

  My cheeks flame. What is this? High school? “I’m just curious.”

  She takes a sip of her soda. “Yeah, he was curious about you, too.”

  “Really?”

  Penny puts her soda on the counter and turns back to the fridge. “Do you want to make something for supper or do you want to go out?”

  “What?”

  “Jenna is out with Bobby and Heather is working so it’s just you and me.”

  Jenna had already hooked herself up with a military man. I know the two are a hot it
em even if Jenna hasn’t said anything to me about it. Heather is probably still down at the bar trying to get with her ex, a lost cause she refuses to give up on.

  “I’m talking about Gus Jennings and you’re talking about food?”

  Her face is serious when she looks at me. “You don’t eat much, Lily.”

  Her scrutiny has my stomach burning with the excess acid that always seems to be there, but I’ve gotten used to. “I don’t want to gain weight. They cut you from the dance company if you have too much flab.”

  “Is that why you’re always exercising?”

  I roll my eyes. “What’s with the inquisition?”

  Penny sighed. “Nothing. It’s your body. But I’m hungry. I’ve just spent the day getting dirty with three men who had nothing interesting to say except pass the rake.”

  I make a face. “That’s it?”

  She thought a second. “They may have said thank you once or twice.”

  I eyed Penny. “You mean to tell me that Gus watches me on the beach every morning and he didn’t say anything about me at all after I left?”

  She closed the refrigerator. “Watch yourself with him. He seems like a decent guy. But they all seem decent at first. I’m getting a burger. Want to come?”

  * * *

  Lily

  It was my first day off in a week and I wanted to use it to work out. But after I’d showered and shaved my legs, the idea of being stuck in the house wasn’t all that appealing. I mean, I’m living at the freakin’ beach!

  Jenna has disappeared in her room again with Bobby. Penny has her bathing suit on and is now lounging out in the back with a book. Heather…I can’t recall the last time I saw Heather, and suddenly that has me worried.

  I change into my bathing suit and then wrap a light oriental patterned sarong around my waist, tying it so that my upper thigh is exposed as I walk. I skip down the stairs and hear the radio on outside. As I pass by Heather’s door, I knock.

  Silence.

  I knock again.

  “Heather?”

  “What?” I barely hear Heather’s voice over the music playing outside.

  “Want to go for a swim?”

  Silence.

  Raising my knuckle to the white painted door, I knock again. “Heather?”

  “I just want to sleep. I got in late.”

  Letting out a slow breath, I take a step back from the door. I don’t remember Heather coming home. At least she’s alive.

  It’s funny how I’d already gotten used to living with my roommates and knew their habits. More surprising to me is that I worry about them. Growing up an only child, I’d never had to think about anyone else but myself and my parents. As much as I love my parents, I mostly tried to hide from them. Or from the fact that they wanted to choreograph my every waking moment. They’d succeeded up until now. This was the first time in my life that I could be on my own without having my mother chattering in my ear about where I needed to be next.

  Right now, I didn’t need to be anywhere. I grab the sandals I’d left by the back door, but I don’t put them on. I want to walk the beach. As I step out onto the back porch, I see Penny stretched out in a lawn chair on the sand below.

  “You know the sun is going to give you wrinkles,” I say as I skip down the steps.

  “Me and the sun have an understanding,” she says, calling out to me without opening her eyes or moving. “I put on my sunscreen. The sun won’t give me skin cancer.”

  I chuckle. “I wouldn’t count on the sun holding up her end of the bargain.”

  I can hear Penny chuckle as I sprint down to the water and dip my feet in the rushing surf. The breeze is stronger than it’s been in days, whipping my hair around my face and making it hard to see where I’m walking without holding my hair back. I quickly tie my hair into a loose knot in the back of my head and continue to walk down the beach. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the smell of salt air and the feel of the warm sand between my toes.

  I don’t know why I’m lying to myself about where I’m going. I know. I knew the moment I put on the sarong. But I hadn’t been prepared for what I’d see.

  I was focused on that little room where I’d always see the curtain rise as I danced by in the early morning when most everyone else on the island was still asleep that I hadn’t been paying attention to the noise on the beach. A woman screamed a few hundred yards down the beach. I turn my head just enough to see a man picking her up and carrying her into the surf.

  My stomach drops because I realize I know the man. Well, I don’t know him really. I just recognize him. I stare long enough to convince myself that it’s really who I think it is. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. Poor Heather. Why did she follow a bum like Jerry Cannon to Nantucket when she knew he was a snake? Jerry ran into the surf until he was knee deep in the water and then tossed the girl in. Then he turned and ran up the beach.

  That’s when I see Gus making his way out of the water with a paddleboard tucked under his arm. He’s headed straight out of the water. But then he sees the girl stumble in the surf. He heads in that direction and offers her his hand, which she takes. Jerry stands in the sand looking at the two of them. I hear a voice raised and Gus raise his hand as if he’s telling Jerry he’s keeping his hands off. Then Gus runs past him to his apartment on the beach.

  I keep walking down the beach and watch as the girl walks across the sand past Jerry. He yells something at her and then flips her the finger. I can’t make out what she screams at him, but he follows her up a path to the main road leading to a bunch of cottages for rent.

  When I turn my attention back to the beach, I realize Gus has disappeared. Squinting my eyes and shielding them from the sun with my fingers, I search the beach. Then the water. But Gus is gone.

  #

  Chapter Three

  Lily

  I walk the same path I do each morning, and then make a right turn up to the place where I see Gus in the small lower level window of his apartment building. As I approach, I glance up to the porch above and see the sliding door is wide open. I can hear the sound of an old game show playing on the television. Looking around, I don’t see anyone. My heart is in my throat and I don’t know why. I’ve already met the guy, sort of. He’s harmless. I think. Well, he has to be harmless for Penny to work alongside him every day.

  Lifting my hand to the door, I knock on the windowpane and then take a step back as if something will fly out at me when the door opens, which I know is ridiculous. I wipe my palms on the cotton sarong and listen, but I only hear the applause of the game show filtering outside from upstairs. My eyes follow the sound of the applause until the door in front of me bursts open.

  I jump back a step and stare at Gus filling up the space in the doorway. He’s still wearing his wet bathing suit, but he’s wrapped a colorful towel around his neck.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  I open my mouth and push confidence up my throat. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Okay. How about you step outside?” I say.

  I see his lips lift just a fraction as if he wants to smile, but he pulls himself together and the almost smile is gone.

  “Why are you here?”

  “You don’t like to beat around the bush, do you?”

  “I like getting to the point. I don’t like to waste time.”

  “I want you to teach me how to paddleboard,” I blurt out. Honestly, I hadn’t thought beyond saying hello when he answered the door.

  As I stand there with my feet digging into the sand coated patio with concrete that was cracked and uneven, I realize I had no plan, no idea what I was going to do when Gus opened the door. For the first time in my life I didn’t do something that had been pre-organized by my mother, a teacher or my boss.

  Gus lowers her gaze to my feet and then his eyes slowly move up, stopping just for a fraction of a second longer on my breasts before he finally makes eye
contact with me again. He didn’t touch me. He never even extended his hand as if he wanted to. But suddenly my body feels warm and tingly as if his fingers had been the very thing to make that slow journey across my body.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I asked nicely.”

  His lips lift to a slow smile then. It amazes me that I never noticed how incredibly sexy this man was. But I’d only seen him from afar and yesterday I’d only seen him for a few moments outside the restaurant. Standing mere feet from him now, I can feel the energy inside him as if it’s about to burst free and touch me. Stroke me.

  My breath hitches in my throat as he looks at me.

  “Are you smoking again, Gus?”

  A woman upstairs is now bending over the upstairs porch railing to look at me.

  “No, Mrs. B.”

  “I thought I smelled cigarettes.” The middle-aged woman with bad hair and a pot belly bigger than my grandfather’s purses her lips at me as her eyes slice into a tiny slit. “That goes for your lady friend, too.”

  “It wasn’t me. I don’t smoke,” I say.

  “Just so long as there’s no smoking in my unit.”

  The sound of the woman hitting the boards above me trailed to the house and then stopped. A few seconds later, the sliding door shut with a hard bang and then locked.

  “Your landlord?” I ask.

  “My pain in the ass, but yes, she owns the place, such as it is.” His lips lift on one side. “So are you just going to stand there or are you going to come in?”

  Gus steps away from the door so I can walk inside. My nose is immediately assaulted with what smells like disinfectant. I walk into the middle of the room and look around.

  “Sorry about the smell,” he says, shrugging. “Seems the only think Mrs. Beachman thinks she smells is cigarettes. Vomit and whatever food that merged with that sofa is off her radar. By the way, I wouldn’t sit there.”