Oceanside

by Michelle Mankin

  I turned to fully focus on the man I loved like a brother and desired like a lover, though I knew now that his heart would always belong to Simone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if you’re not busy chasing some poor little homeless girl around you’re pouring every waking hour into Outside.”

  “What’s your point?” I felt a crease form between my brows.

  “My point is.” He blew out a breath. “You need to get a life, man. A real one, stop drifting around on the periphery of everyone else’s.”

  “I’m not,” I huffed the denial though his criticism struck home.

  “You are. And you’ve been doing it for too fucking long. Especially since your diagnosis.”

  “I’m sick, Linc.”

  “So what, asshole? I mean alright it sucks. But it’s under control. Your t-count is stable and as long as you take your meds like you should, it’s not a death sentence. I went with you to those sessions with the doctor and all of the follow-ups with the psychologist. We went through the steps of rehab and rebuilding our lives side by side. You. Me. We’ve been through hell and back. Kicked addiction. Levelled with each other about our feelings. There aren’t any secrets between us anymore. There shouldn’t be any bullshit, either.” He studied me a long moment. “You haven’t moved on, Ash. You’re stuck in place. The same place, for almost two years now. It’s time. Take a chance and try for something real.”

  “HIV is my reality, cousin. Day to day I do what I need to. But relationships? The kind of happiness you and Simone have found, that kind of romantic shit? It isn’t in my future.”

  “Ash…” he protested. “It could be if you want it to be. People aren’t facts and figures. Relationships aren’t equations. It’s not always about A plus B.”

  “I’m fine. No need to psychoanalyze me.” I ignored my attraction to him and the appeal in his light blue eyes. “Stop trying to get up in my headspace.”

  “You’ve got a big heart. It’s the motivation behind nearly everything you do. There’s a lot of love inside of you. Sacrificial love. I’ve been the fortunate recipient of it over the years. We all have. I wouldn’t be with Simone now if it hadn’t been for your encouragement.” His expression softened. “Don’t be defensive. I just want the best for you. I believe there’s someone out there for you, someone that likely needs you as much as you need them. But you have to be willing to look to find them. Willing to let that person in when they come along. And willing to really get on with your life in order to live it.”

  ~ ~ ~

  I tossed my keys on the desk and turned to stare out my window at the view of the water. I’d been trying to clear my head of Linc’s well intended advice, but I wasn’t having much luck. Wasn’t having much success getting the girl with the purple hat out of there, either.

  My cell buzzed in my pocket. I withdrew it, saw who it was and took the call.

  “Hey, Ramon.”

  “Dude. Seriously. No. Just no. You practically mixed the guitar out completely. I can barely hear anything but my voice.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. I mean to emphasize it.” I spun my chair around and sat down, leaning back and putting my feet up on my desk. My studio. My office. My rules. If I wanted to drag in at noon in my exercise clothes that’s what I did. If I wanted to shake up my artists a little, well so be it. And I might as well get comfortable. Ramon was stubborn. This would likely take a while.

  “I’m not Linc, hermano.”

  “No. He has his gifts as a frontman. You have your own.”

  “I’m a guitarist. I’m just messing around on vocals.”

  “Whatever. We’ve had this conversation before. Your woman told you, and she’s right. You’ve got that raspy singing voice chicks love.”

  “But the chord progression is dope, and it’ll get lost with the lyrics cranked up that high.”

  “The chords are still there. It’s about balance.” In music and life it took the right composition for harmony. So why couldn’t I follow my own advice? “Put the headphones on. The good ones I got you. Not those shitty ear buds you favor. Listen to it, the entire arrangement a few times with an open mind, then sleep on it. In the morning if you still don’t like it, we’ll bring you back into the studio and redo everything. Alright?”

  “Alright.” He let out a breath. “Hey, speaking of my woman, she ran into the Lakers Girl at the church recycling center today.”

  “Oh, really.” I feigned a casual interest, but I put my feet on the floor and sat up straight.

  “Yeah, so you don’t need to chase her anymore. Karen thanked her, even talked to her a bit. She offered her a job.”

  “Did she take it?”

  “No. She mentioned being in trouble and was really skittish about being cornered. Karen thinks maybe she’s a runaway.”

  “She’s no kid.” I might be living my life on the periphery, but I had definitely been close enough to the Laker Girl’s to see that she had some serious curves.

  “Not like that. On the run from an abusive situation. A boyfriend or a spouse.”

  My fingers clenched into fists. The thought of that twisted my guts. No wonder my pursuit had frightened her.

  “So about the second item on the agenda from my woman. You gonna finally take her up on the invite to come over to the house and share a meal with us?”

  Fuck. That was the last thing I needed, though I loved them both. But I didn’t relish the thought of sitting down at a table with all their romantic bliss front and center given the complete lack of anything like it in my own life. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ve got a lot going on right now.” I still wanted to finish up early so I could swing by Stump’s Family Marketplace. I’d heard there had been a girl with a guitar over there doing a compelling cover of ‘Lonely Island’, an old Dirt Dogs’ number. Talented female performers were hard to come by. If she was decent I might bring her into the studio. “Can I take a raincheck?”

  “Ok, hermano,” he agreed as my other line bleeped. “But you’re going to have to answer to Karen if you keep making excuses.”

  “Hey, I’ve got another call.”

  “I get it. You’re busy, but Ash. Listen. Being busy doesn’t mean your life is full. No matter how many new artists you sign or how high they go on the charts, at the end of every day and the beginning of the next what really makes our lives meaningful is who we got beside us to share it. Right?”

  “I hear ya.”

  “Good. So don’t wait too long to come over here and share some time with your friends.”

  “I said I gotcha.”

  “Yeah, I know you do. You’ve always had my back. I’m here alive and kicking today with beauty in my life in large part because of you. What you too often forget is that I’m here for you, as well. Right beside you for the long haul, bro.”

  He hung up and I switched to the other line.

  “Ash. You there, my boy?”

  “Yeah. Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, son. Haven’t talked to you in a while. Saw more of you when you were still touring.”

  Yeah, because I had stayed at the house when I was in town back then. He and my mom had been surprisingly disappointed about me finding new digs. Nearing the midpoint of my thirties, yet they still thought of me as their little boy.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “Not getting any work done,” I grumbled, putting my cell on speaker mode so I could shuffle through the daunting pile of mail on my desk.

  “You sound like your mom.”

  A compliment. “She doing ok?

  “Yeah, it’s just the busy time of the year for her. Lots of new zoning applications for the city council to comb over. And her birthday’s next week.”

  Fuck. I had forgotten.

  “I thought we might take her to El Prado for lunch. You know how she loves their pisco sour.”

  I did. “Count me in Dad.”

  “Can you get Linc and Simone to come?”

  “I’ll see what
I can do.”

  “You’re a good son.”

  “You’re a great father.” My parents were the good guys, loving and supportive. My dad would never turn down anyone who needed help, and my mom had an empathetic streak to match his. That was why she used her law degree to serve in the public sector instead of taking a higher paying job with a private firm. And that empathy wasn’t just reflected in her career. After growing up in foster care she had vowed that our house would always be a safe haven for anyone who needed one. We’d had Simone over for family meals when her old man had kicked her out. For years Linc slept in the twin bed beside me, more adopted brother than cousin after his mom had died and his father had physically abused him.

  “I’m proud of you and all you’ve accomplished. Just…” He hesitated. He wasn’t one to talk just to fill in the silence. His words might be few, but they were considered and meaningful when he spoke them. “Just don’t get consumed by all those multimillion dollar music deals. Remember why you started Outside in the first place.”

  “To give other SoCal artists a chance to create music that made a difference.”

  “You told me you can change the world with a simple song.”

  I’d been waxing philosophical after rehab. Both Linc and I had. Outside was a new phase for both of us. We’d done enough raging against the wrongs in the world as a band. That was exhausting and didn’t leave you with much of anything to hold onto in the end. We wanted to be about building something positive and lasting.

  “Motivations matter. The reasons why we do the things we do can be as important if not more so than the accomplishments themselves. You know what I always say. Motivations reveal our hearts.”

  “I know, dad. I remember.”

  “Good.”

  Our conversation turned briefly to the prospects of his favorite baseball team, the Red Sox, before we ended the call the way we usually did with back and forth I love yous.

  I got back to work. Mail first. Most of it junk. More than a few inquiries for follow up interviews about my appearance on the Rock Fuck Club. I hadn’t wanted to do it, but Linc had been right, being on the show had been great for the label. Giving us visibility with the entertainment industry and the music crowd. We had signed a couple of promising bands on the heels of it. A plus professionally. A minus personally. Ever since my booty call, Renee had paired up on screen with the RFC star, she had been acting weird with me.

  Once I cleared the mail, I moved onto the budget. No worries there. We were kicking ass across the board, and despite just starting out, Linc and I had several artists on the hook. Other labels like Black Cat Records and Zenith Productions had to be watching us. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one or both tried to buy us out.

  Next, I tucked into the current concert schedule and the studio calendar. Logistics focused tasks. Things that came easy to me. Things I enjoyed. A plus B stuff. Back in the early days of the band on our mini-tour up the SoCal coast, I had been the one setting up the gigs, negotiating with the club owners. Dominic had been in charge of keeping my dad’s VW bus running. Ramon had been our PR guy tacking up fliers. Mona with the camera I had given her had served as our historian. Linc, well, he had been just holding on, a mere shadow of his former self trying to recover physically and mentally from the injury that had cost him his dream of being the world’s best professional surfer.

  Nostalgic thoughts weighing me down put me in the mood for some musical therapy. I logged out of my computer, stood, stretched and headed out of my office and down the hall. Studio three was free. It had a decent kit. I was going to work on some of the drum fills for Ramon’s album.

  I was on the second to the last track when our receptionist and accountant shuffled out the front door, done for the day, heading home to their families. I’d completely lost track of time. I clicked off the recording equipment with the remote, set my sticks on my knees and grabbed the bottle of water beside me. The liquid was room temperature now but still refreshing. I drank it all and tossed the empty into the recycling bin. Grabbing a towel from the table beside me, I wiped the sweat from my brow. That’s when I noticed my cell all lit up and dancing, still on vibrate mode.

  “Hey Mona,” I said, sliding open the call without hesitation after seeing her pretty face on the screen.

  “Hey, Ash.” Her sultry speaking voice was nearly as sexy as her singing one.

  “You ok?” I asked. “Where are you? There’s a lot of noise in the background.”

  “It’s the ocean. You do remember the ocean, don’t you? Look out the window, you old plow horse.”

  “Who you calling old? I wasn’t the one wheezing like a geezer on the stairs this morning, darlin’.” I stood and took in the view from the huge picture window that overlooked the beach. Simone and her cute little black and white Havanese waited on the sand just a couple of feet below the studio. She was wearing a shortie wetsuit with the Offshore logo, her long brown hair tied back. She must have walked over from giving surf lessons to the little ones. Smiling, she waved at me, and I waved back returning her smile with a grin.

  “You coming out to join us or what?” she asked into her cell. Of course I was coming. How could I say no to her? I’d only managed it that one time in the shower and only then because I had known if I had slept with her I would have lost both of them, her and Linc.

  Chapter Four

  Fanny

  “I’m better.” Eyes nearly the same pewter shade as my own were no longer glazed with fever, and her pretty features firmly reflected her resolve. “You don’t need to go back out at night.”

  “It’s dusk not night, Hollie.”

  She raised one strawberry blond brow.

  “Ok. It’ll be night by the time I get all the way there.” And later, dangerously later, for me all alone on the way back. “But don’t try your signature eyebrow thingy on me. It doesn’t turn my brain to mush like it does all those hormonal teenage boys who stalk you on social media. And anyway, my mind’s made up. We need the money, Hols or we’re never going to get out of here.”

  “We’ll find another way.”

  “There is no other way. I earned enough cash the first time to pay for another set of clothes for each of us.”

  “Yeah, I know, but you’ve also had those gang bangers tailing you ever since looking for their cut.”

  “It’s a risk.” I nodded, conceding her point.

  “A big one, Fanny.”

  “But worth it.” If I did it a couple of times and made as much as before, we could get new fake passports. We could get across the border. Money would stretch further in Mexico. He’d have a harder time finding us there. We could lay low until Hollie’s eighteenth birthday, then tap into her sizeable accounts. Get a high-powered lawyer willing to take on our stepfather. Turn the tables on Samuel Lesowski once and for all.

  Hopefully.

  Leaving Hollie behind, I hurried through the parking lot but then froze beneath the shadows of the cliffs when I heard his deep booming voice and Simone’s laughter. The cute fluffy white and black dog I’d seen around the surf shop was bounding around her ankles on the sand. Ashland was standing across from her. They were both wearing wetsuits. The way his fit him left little to the imagination. Wide shoulders, strong arms, powerful legs, tight ass. When I brought my gaze back up to a safer zone, I realized Linc had joined them, his darker blond hair dripping wet and slicked back like Ash’s. He draped his arms around Simone, pulling her into himself and looking like a man who had everything he most needed in the world. Ashland, well. He looked the opposite. Alone. Isolated. A one-man island though he was standing on the shore among his friends.

  I shouldn’t have been lurking in the shadows staring at them—him—like a stalker. I needed to get moving, retrieve my guitar and earn some cash. But yet here I lingered, watching and wondering about Ashland Keys as I had done far too many times in the past and way too often lately.

  Who is Renee? I wondered. The woman Linc mentioned Ashland had an arrangeme
nt with. What kind of arrangement did they have? Whatever it was it sounded like it had been going on for a while. Why didn’t he want anything more with her? Was it the same reason he had never shown up to meet me?

  Her.

  Simone Bianchi.

  The woman he was staring at so intently, so longingly.

  The beautiful brunette with the golden eyes who belonged to his cousin.

  My heart belongs to you and Simone, Ashland had told Linc while I had been listening.

  She was the one. The one he could never have. The one who apparently ruined everything for the rest of us. The reason no other could ever measure up.

  He had come to terms with it. I could see it in his eyes. He would never cross the line and betray his cousin’s trust. But he watched her the way I watched him, even now unable to look away from the truth though the sharp pain of finally knowing it gripped my heart.

  "There is a tide in the affairs of men

  Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

  Omitted, all the voyage of their life

  Is bound in shallows and in miseries".

  Shakespeare had it right. I needed to get on with my voyage, on with my life. I had more important pressing issues to deal with than wallowing in my misery. I had my stepfather to worry about and gang members on the lookout for me. I didn’t have the luxury of wasting any more time on Ashland Keys.

  Slipping back into the shadows, I skimmed the cliff walls along the water until I reached the concrete stairs at Narragansett. I took them two at a time, a steep ascent. I was huffing when I reached the street level several stories above the sea. Sprinting past the green roofed rental cottages, I hooked a sharp left at the alley that backed the downtown shops. I stopped when I reached Bacon Street and looked both ways before crossing.

  As the alley narrowed, I slowed my steps and started scanning more cautiously. I’d almost gotten caught by thugs from the street gang once while running away from Ramon back on this side of town.

  Tonight, there was no one here, nothing but the dumpsters and walls of colorful graffiti for company.