Hard Rock Improv

by Ava Lore

  My god. He’s...so beautiful...

  ...No, down girl. You’re taken. Don’t look at him too much. Try not to drool. Remember you want to make a good impression. Hope Carter’s not still mad at me for that contract I drew up for him to sign. He wasn’t too happy about it at the time...oh, well, now he’s chugging his beer. Guess he’ll be in a good mood soon enough...

  Smile, nod. Laugh. Try to be fun, for once in your life. Oh god, is Manny Reyes looking at me? Are his eyes...are they gold? Jesus, I thought that only happened in vampire books! Argh, ignore. Study the menu. Blackened catfish? Good enough. Why is he staring at me like that...?

  Carter just told a joke. Laugh, smile. Flash teeth. Try to think of something witty to say. What is he doing over there? Writing on a napkin? His hands...those fingers are so long, so elegant. They don’t look like a drummer’s hands at all. Or like I would imagine a drummer’s hands would look...

  "Oooh," Rebecca says next to me, leaning into my shoulder. "What are you drawing, Manny?"

  I squint at the napkin and see that no, he's not writing on it, he is, in fact, making quick deft strokes with a pen, and I raise my eyebrows. "I didn't know you could draw," I say, and immediately I want to kick myself. "Not that I know...you know, anything at all about you..."

  "Wikipedia holds much wisdom," Reyes says, smiling at me. "But not this particular tidbit. Don't worry, it will be a masterpiece. When I am a famous painter, I will pay for bar tabs with sketches, just like Picasso used to do."

  "Are sketches legal tender?" I ask before I can stop myself, and inwardly I sigh. Of course. Pick on the most boring part of that little factoid, you square.

  It was no use. Rebecca belonged here with these people, these creative, vibrant, interesting people, while I was just her drab sister. Like the ugly friend that every clique has. I wasn't interesting enough to date rock stars. Not like my sister. And I wasn't jealous. Just...wistful.

  Reyes is grinning at me. "Sketches are definitely legal tender if you are Pablo Picasso. I'm not quite there yet, but you can at least use drawings for social currency."

  "Social currency?" Carter said. "Sounds like nerd talk."

  "It sounds interesting," I blurt. I had to defend my nerd honor after all.

  Emmanuel is still grinning. "I think it's very interesting," he says. He is still striking his pen against the napkin, this way and that, occasionally tilting his head and twisting his lips. "It's also fun to do sketches in ink on bad paper. If you make a mistake you have to work with it instead of erasing it."

  I give a little shudder. "I could never do that."

  "What, work with your mistakes?"

  "Rose is Miss Perfect and Most Likely To Succeed," Rebecca interjects. "She's always planned things out to the letter so that she won't make mistakes."

  "I do not!" I lie.

  "Do too," she says, smirking at me. "Remember the time when you were fifteen and you had a crush on Ayden Walsh?"

  My face heats. "No." Another lie.

  Rebecca laughs and turns to the two men I’m trying to make a good impression on. "There was this guy in her algebra class that was really good at algebra, and her plan was to get just as good at algebra as him, then ask him if he wanted to work on homework together. Then they would kiss."

  "Sounds like a legit plan to me," Carter says, and I love him for it.

  "Yeah," Rebecca says, "but what she did was memorize math jokes from the internet because she thought that she could seduce him by making filthy algebra puns."

  "Hey!" I say. "It was legit. Get him thinking about sex and dirty things, and then the atmosphere in the room changes, and the next thing you know we're kissing..."

  “Except math jokes aren’t sexy,” Rebecca says.

  “I think any kind of joke can be sexy coming from the right person,” Emmanuel Reyes pipes up. “I bet Rose could pull it off.”

  My face, already hot, gets even hotter. Any more of this and I’m going to be able to fry my own coconut shrimp on my forehead. “Thanks,” I manage to mutter.

  And then Emmanuel Reyes looks up at me and gives me the most dazzling smile I have ever been privileged to receive. Then he picks up his napkin and holds it out to me. It takes a moment before I recognize the sketch, but when I do I gasp.

  It’s a sketch of me. Not quite of me, of my physical characteristics, but of who I want to be. There’s a glint in my eye, a shy smile that seems, nevertheless, to promise more. My hair falls over my bare shoulders in lush waves, my nose is striking and strong, and I look...

  I look beautiful.

  My eyes start to sting.

  “Do you like it, Rose?” Manny Reyes asks me, but I can’t even respond. I can only sit rooted to the booth, thinking of all the things that have suddenly become wrong in my life—my million hour weeks, my overbearing boss, my impossible clients who refuse to tell me critical information, and of course him, the one that should be bringing me flowers or...or drawing my picture on napkins, but who instead just wants me to suck him off in the janitorial closet...

  “Rose?”

  Warmth fell on my shoulder. Someone was shaking me gently. The restaurant dissolved. Stale air rushed in. Sunlight flooded my eyes.

  “What?” I said. Or tried to say. It was more like, “Whuvvll?” I was still being touched. Confusion reigned.

  Frowning, I turned to see Emmanuel Reyes sitting next to me, his golden eyes dancing with amusement as he gently shook my shoulder. We were together on an airplane.

  The previous night came rushing back to me, and I realized that my subconscious mind was utterly and completely convinced that I had dreamed everything that had happened and was now certain that I should be waking up in the back of my car. Or under a bridge, as per my new heroin-addict lifestyle.

  Holy shit, I thought. Holy shit. That...no way...no fucking way...I’m actually doing this, aren’t I?

  “Are you back among the land of the living?” he asked me.

  I blinked at him. “Maybe?”

  “What’s your name?”

  That woke me up. “It’s Rose, you ass,” I said. “Don’t invite a girl to Hawaii and then forget her name.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t forget your name,” he told me, “I was wondering if you had.”

  Okay. Maybe this is still a dream. What a weirdo. A hot, sexy weirdo. With golden eyes and a pierced tongue.

  “I was just having a weird dream,” I said.

  His eyebrows rise. “Oh? Tell me about it.”

  I put my hand to my forehead, and though the dream is fading I remember the feelings that had welled up in me back then, the feelings that I had pushed down and ignored because I was involved. Ha! Involved.

  I shook my head. “I dreamed about the day we first met. In that Cajun restaurant.”

  Manny’s smile spread wide. “Oh!” he said. “When I drew that picture of you.”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, I still have that picture.”

  Perplexed, I blinked at him. “What? Why?”

  He laughed. “Because it’s one of my favorite pieces. To destroy such beauty would be a crime.” Then he stood up and held his hand out, indicating that I should join him. “Let’s go,” he said kindly. “There’s no reason to sit on a plane that’s just going to take us back to the mainland.”

  I was not doing well with the pace of our subject changes, and I frowned and tried to remember where we were and why I was here and what was going on...

  Mainland. That was right. I never wanted to go back there. Fuck that place. Fuck it in the ear. I had better things to do, like sleep on the beach and eat coconuts that had fallen from the palms and get screwed six ways from Sunday. Obviously.

  I put my hand in Manny’s and let his strength pull me up to my feet. Then he reached over his head and brought my backpack down from the overhead compartment. Handing it to me he gave me a grin and said, “Ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I managed.

  “Good deal,” he replied, then tu
rned and led me off the airplane.

  I had never been to Hawaii, so I had no idea what to expect, but really, the first thing that I had expected I didn’t find, and that was walls in the airport.

  Just outside the Jetway I found I had to stop, dumbfounded, and look around me.

  It was...quaint. And beautiful. A low stone building, missing huge swathes of concrete where windows would normally be. The soft island breeze wafted through the building while the warmth of the day wrapped around me, washing away the cold, recycled air of the jet cabin. The building seemed cool and dark, but outside the sun shone, and the beautiful day called to me, sweetly and seductively.

  “Oh,” I said.

  I’d stopped just outside the Jetway as the delicious smells of Paradise invaded my head, turning me insensate to all other things, but after what seemed like a lost moment of time I felt a heavy weight around my shoulders—warm and gentle—pulling me off to the side, and I realized with embarrassment that I was blocking the tunnel. Ducking my head, I scurried out of the way and out from beneath Manny’s fingers.

  I continued to stare around myself as the rest of the passengers and crew disembarked from the cabin and tried to remember how I got here.

  The champagne, my brain whispered.

  Oh. That was right. And now I felt a bit soiled, body and soul. I felt more soiled in body, though, since falling asleep on an airplane is a sure way to wake up feeling crunchy. My tongue rolled around in my sticky mouth.

  “This way.”

  I turned to see Manny smiling at me as he strolled off, and, hefting my purse over my shoulder, I stumbled after him.

  God, I felt like a mess, and not even the sweet flowery breeze could fix the holes in my brain. In fact, I could almost feel the breeze flowing through the holes in my brain. I managed to drag my carcass over to where Manny was studying a vending machine full of drinks. “I think that champagne may have been a bad move,” I said.

  “I don’t,” Manny said. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to convince you to come to Hawaii with me.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but then closed it again. He was right, dammit. I would never do anything irresponsible if I hadn’t been compromised. I’d even been thinking about taking heroin last night, just because another handsome guy had suggested it.

  And you let that handsome guy go down on you in a parking lot, my brain reminded me.

  Oh. Right.

  Oh. God.

  My cheeks blazed red as Manny fed a dollar into the machine, punched a button, then fished the can out of the bottom receptacle. “I guess that’s true,” I said as he turned toward me, but I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes, so I let my gaze fall to the can in his hand, which was just as bright pink as my face.

  I pointed at the can, hoping to distract myself from the memories of Manny’s head between my thighs, his tongue lapping at my clit, Jesus, stop thinking about it! “Uh. What, uh, is that?” I managed to stutter.

  He held it out to me. “Strawberry-guava nectar,” he said. “This’ll fix you up a bit.”

  I rolled my sticky tongue around inside my mouth. At that moment almost anything sounded good as long as it was properly chilled. “Thank you.” I took the can, popped the tab, and gulped half of it in one swallow.

  I could almost feel my body reviving as the sweet juice hit my stomach, and when I finally took the can away from my face I was part way back to my old self again. Manny was smiling. “Good, right?” he said. “I love Hawaii. Let’s go grab the car.”

  “You’ve been here before?” I asked him, following as he led the way down the terminal. I tried not to stare at the people who were staring at us. You’re with someone famous, I thought to myself. Don’t get all freaked out. But even as I told myself this, I couldn’t help but notice one or two people who seemed particularly interested. Young men, about Manny’s age, wearing airport uniforms and sweeping the floors. They zeroed in on us, and I had to forcibly turn my attention away, focusing on Manny and our conversation.

  Ahead of me, Manny was nodding. “I know all the ins and outs of the islands. My pidgin isn’t so good any more, but whatever.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Did you live here?”

  The look he slanted me was sharp and strange, and I had the sudden sense that I’d stepped onto dangerous ground. But the look was gone almost immediately. “Can’t hide anything from you,” he said, laughing. “No wonder you went to law school. Yeah, I was born here.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I’ve never known anyone who was born in Hawaii. Well, I guess the president, but I don’t actually know him. I just grew up in Oklahoma. Do you have any family still here?”

  Manny shrugged, but I saw his shoulders stiffen and then I forgot about that line of questioning because we were stepping outside.

  Paradise met me. The perfume of flowers, the brilliant blue of the sky, the lush greens of the mountains, and, somewhere just beyond what I could see, the surf crashing against the shore. The sun hit me and warmed my skin in a softer, gentler way than I was used to. In LA, so close to the deserts, the sun is beautiful, but can sometimes be punishing. Here, I felt caressed, coddled, cared for by the warming rays.

  My body seemed to unwind as I stood there, staring stupidly at the beauty around me, the warmth worming its way into my bones, melting the marrow there that had spent the last six months frozen in fear and dread. How could anyone dread anything here? Well, aside from the volcanoes spewing two thousand degree molten rock all willy-nilly over the place...

  Okay. Yeah. I was dweebing up the place. Like always. It took a strong amount of dweeb to dweeb up a place like Hawaii, but somehow, depressingly, I knew I was up for the job.

  “Rose!”

  Rebecca’s voice finally cut through my reverie, and I looked over to see her next to a dark gray van, waving at me. Shaking my head, I trotted over. “Hey there,” I said when I reached her.

  “What the fuck did you have to drink last night?” she said by way of greeting. “You were out cold the whole flight! I wanted to talk to you.”

  Sudden fear lanced across my brain. Had Manny told her about my joblessness? My homelessness? “Me?” I said. “Why would you want to talk to me?”

  A glare crossed her features. “Uh, maybe because we’re sisters and we haven’t seen each other in almost three months?” she said. “Because I was on the road, and then you didn’t even sit with me at the party last night, and now I find you’re on the plane to Hawaii with me this morning except you’re too damn drunk to even stay conscious!”

  I took a step back. “Shit,” I said. “I didn’t know you felt that way. I’m...I’m sorry...”

  She sighed and threw her hands in the air, conveniently dumping her suitcase—one of many—next to her for the chauffeur to pick up. “It’s fine,” she said. “I just wanted to spend some time with you. I haven’t really talked to you in almost a year.”

  I hunched my shoulders guiltily. “Well. I’ve been busy...”

  “Yes, yes, with work, I know.” She waved away my excuses. “Anyway, you’d better go get in Manny’s car.”

  I blinked and looked at the van. “Uh,” I said. “I thought this was the car.”

  Rebecca raised an eyebrow at me. “This is the band’s car. You get to ride with Manny.”

  “Manny has his own car here?”

  Rebecca gave me a strange look that I couldn’t decipher. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “He does. Didn’t you know he grew up here?”

  “I kind of just found that out five minutes ago.”

  Rebecca whistled. “Wow. You did not do your due diligence for this trip. I’m proud of you!”

  I scowled and changed the subject. “So where are we going?”

  “To the beach house,” she said, as if this was some sort of common knowledge. At my blank stare she sighed. “It’s around the north of the island. We gotta take the highway to get there. It’ll take about an hour. Now go find Manny and get in his car and see if you can’t get him to ma
ke out with you some more.”

  My face heated. That wasn’t what I wanted, and after the full extent of our drunken antics last night had completely sunk in I was not looking forward to an awkward hour-long car ride with a guy I barely knew who had nevertheless given me the best head of my life.

  At least, that wasn’t what my brain wanted. My body seemed to like the idea, or at least think it wasn’t so bad judging by the sudden picking up of the pace of my heart. I turned, glancing around. “But I don’t see—”

  Except I did see. Or rather, I heard. My voice died in my throat as the roar of a motor usually reserved for a closed track gunned around the corner, and then in a flash a tiny car swung into view.

  My mouth dropped. I had never seen anything like it in my life. The car hunkered down, hugging the road like a speed demon, but it was a pretty powder blue color, the headlights on the front were round and set close together like a pair of bugged-out eyes, and the grill was...

  I frowned and tilted my head. It was smiling at me.

  Still dreaming, I decided. It just seemed like the best way to deal with things.

  There was no roof on the car, so when Manny pulled up alongside me grinning like a loon, I couldn’t help but ask.

  “What the hell is this thing?” I said.

  Manny patted the dashboard. “A nineteen sixty Austin Healey Sprite,” he said proudly. The best little car made in the past...” He frowned and appeared to be counting in his head. “Fifty-five years?”

  “This is not a car,” I told him. “This is a go-kart.”

  “Yeah!” he said, nodding. “It sure handles like one.”

  Gingerly I reached out and touched it. Solid. But small. And no roll bars. “What’s the safety rating on this thing?” I asked.

  “Abysmal, I’m sure,” Manny said. “But it’s perfect for winding island roads. You don’t get much better than this when you’re stuck behind a logging truck and going fifteen miles an hour through the jungle.”

  “Uh-huh.” I looked back at the van longingly, then turned back to Manny. “How did you get your hands on this?” I asked him.

  “Bought it off e-Bay last night.”