by Hendin, KK
I reached over and grabbed a big Sudoku book. I loved Sudoku, and had missed doing them. “Yeah, that’s all.”
“Oh, you’re the new waitress at Evelyn’s,” she said, beaming. “I keep on missing you when I go there.”
Apparently, I didn’t even have to introduce myself to people anymore—my accent gave me away. Which I was okay with—it saved me from any awkward introductions. That part of small town life suited me just fine—they knew who I was, and were more than happy to let me know who they were.
“I was actually going to come on over tomorrow to ask you something,” she said, ringing up the books. “My husband’s a newspaper purist—he won’t read them online, says they’re not the same. We get the New York Times, and I was wondering if you’d want to read them after he’s done. But he does the crossword.”
The New York Times. I hadn’t read the paper in months. “I’d love that, actually.”
“And I even have today’s here with me. I brought it in so I wouldn’t forget to come and talk to you tomorrow.”
She tucked it into the bag with the rest of the books. “Happy reading.”
Wallet a lot lighter, I made my way back to the café and headed upstairs to my apartment.
Searching for a pen, I brushed into the wall, and hearing it creak, I turned, startled.
It was a sliding door—one that hadn’t looked like it had been used in years. Pushing it slowly, I opened the door to find a little porch, looking out onto the back of the café, with a view of the beach.
Picking up the phone that she had installed there, I dialed Grandma. “Is this porch safe?” I asked, looking at it through the open doors.
“The porch? Of course, honey. Why would you think it wasn’t?”
“The door was painted shut. I don’t know, maybe it got damaged during the last hurricane.”
“No, nothing’s wrong, it just sticks when you don’t use it in a while.”
I walked gingerly onto the porch, still a little nervous. The porch was solid and sturdy, and full of sand. After sweeping all the collected sand off the edge of the porch, I went back in to grab my Sudoku book, pen, and newspaper. The wicker chair was worn and comfortable. Propping my feet up against the little footstool, I watched the waves roll off in the distance. The weather was warm, and the smell of ocean danced around me.
Sudoku or the newspaper? I hadn’t picked up a newspaper since I left New York—for that matter, I hadn’t turned on a radio, checked my email, or had any urge whatsoever to find out what was going on in the world. Running away meant running away from everything, not just from the people. Working in the café, I heard random bits of national news, but for the most part, people in the café talked about the things going on here in Eno.
I was in North Carolina, sitting on a porch watching the ocean. But after years of reading the newspaper every day, I itched to unfold the New York Times, the same way I used to do every morning, and let myself read about what was going on in the world.
Decision made, I picked up the newspaper and folded it unconsciously, and started to scan the headlines. There was something familiar about reading the Times—familiar without being too stifling. I read through the sections slowly—more carefully than I normally had. But this was a part of me that I had left behind, only because I needed to get as far away from anything that reminded me of home as I could. But I was miles and miles away from New York and the people I left there. Nothing in the business section would make a difference to me here. And then I got to the society pages.
Why I hadn’t burnt them before coming back to the apartment, I didn’t know.
But there it was. Nestled in the corner, big enough to scream important but not big enough to be tacky. Because God forbid would they do anything tacky.
Mr. and Mrs. Russell Darlington-Gray are proud to announce the engagement of their daughter, Jennifer Anne, to Crawford Francis Duport III.
I dropped the newspaper, my fingers numb.
It figured, didn’t it?
She had to.
A knock on the front door startled me.
Walking toward the door, I looked through the peephole. Gabe.
I wrenched open the door. “What are you doing here?” I snapped.
“Whoa, you okay?”
“I’m fine, okay? I’m fine. Everyone needs to stop fucking asking me if I’m fine!”
“Sorry,” he said, putting his hands up. “I didn’t see you at the café this morning, and I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”
I was tired of lying.
I was tired of pretending.
“Everything’s just shitty, thanks for asking. Shouldn’t you be with your kid, or something?”
“Okay, that was uncalled for.”
I sagged against the doorway. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t do this now.” I swallowed hard. “You should go. I’m not the best company right now.”
He looked down at my face, his eyes worried. “Everyone’s shitty company sometimes,” he said. “Usually when they need other people the most.”
“I just can’t right now.” I turned away, feeling the tears start to form.
Shit.
I wasn’t going to cry in front of him.
“Why do you think pushing it off is going to make it easier to deal with?”
“I never said it would!” I turned away from the door and walked toward my couch. My tears had to stop before they leaked all over my face.
Gabe didn’t say anything, just leaned at the doorway to the room.
“You know when you think your life is about as shitty as it’s ever going to get, and everything has to go up from here because you can’t even think about something that could happen that’s worse than what already did? And then something else happens?”
There was silence.
“Yeah, so that.” I stared down at the floor, tired of all these stupid feelings. Why couldn’t I just not feel anything anymore? Why did everything have to keep hurting like this?
“Is everybody okay?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess it depends on who you mean when you say everybody.”
“The people you care about.”
“I don’t know… I just…” I sighed. “Why is it always the people we love who hurt us the most, Gabe?”
“They know how,” he said simply.
“Is Noie okay?” I asked, seeing the worried look on his face.
“She’s fine. No need to worry about her.” He looked at me, his eyes searching. “Are you okay?”
“Not really.”
Why was I being so honest with him? I didn’t know. But there was something about him that made me think that he understood. That to him, I wasn’t some emo-rambling psycho from New York, running away from everything to serve coffee near the beach. To him, I was just Maddie.
God, I had missed being Maddie. It had been so long, I almost didn’t remember what that meant.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked gently.
I was silent for a while, as I tried to process everything. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I hope so.”
“You made it!” Sam called as I walked toward the little party of towels that had been set up already.
“I told you I would, didn’t I?” I asked, toeing off my flip-flops and unrolling my towel.
“You did,” Gabe sat down next to me. “Hey, Maddie.”
I nearly swallowed my tongue. Fathers of little girls were not supposed to look that magnificent with their shirts off. “Hey,” I managed.
“You gonna introduce us or what?” a tall blond guy said, coming over and sitting down next to Sam. Practically on top of Sam.
She giggled and batted at his chest. “Chris, this is Maddie—she works in the café for Grandma Evelyn. Maddie, this is my boyfriend, Chris.”
“You’re the new café girl?” he asked, pulling Sam against his chest
. “I keep on hearing about you, but haven’t been in the café in weeks.”
“Chris works for the fire department,” Sam explained. “His shifts are crazy.”
“I am the café girl,” I admitted, amused with the title. “I’m kind of nervous what you’re hearing about me, though.”
“That you’re magic,” he deadpanned as Noie came running over.
“Maddie!” she yelled, jumping into my lap. “Pink bathing suit and pink nails!”
“You’re all matching!” I agreed, giving her a hug.
“Magic?” I asked, turning back to Chris.
He pointed at Noie, who was currently snuggled on my lap, playing with the ring on my hand. “Magic,” he repeated.
I laughed uncomfortably and shrugged. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Does she really freak out that much about everyone else?”
Gabe nodded.
“Freaking out is putting it mildly,” Chris said. “No offense, dude.”
“None taken,” Gabe answered, running his hand through his hair again.
I shrugged. “I think y’all are over exaggerating a bit.”
“Y’all? Oh my gawd, you said y’all!” Sam said, bouncing. “We’re turning you all Southern now!”
“Not that Southern,” I protested. “It’s just y’all.”
“It’s just y’all,” she mimicked. “You say that again and we’re going to have to shove your little white Northern ass back up to where it came from. That’s practically sacrilege to say that.”
“Well, I am sorry,” I said, trying to drawl like them, watching them all burst into laughter.
“Don’t hurt yourself there, girl,” Chris said, standing up and grabbing Sam. Swinging her over his shoulder, he looked down at us. “Sorry to interrupt this conversation, but someone has to stay hydrated.”
“You don’t get hydrated by being tossed in the ocean!” Sam shrieked, laughing as Chris jogged toward the surf, carrying her over his shoulders as if she weighed nothing.
“I’m going to make a sandcastle with Grandma and Abuelo!” Noie announced, wiggling off my lap and heading to Gabe’s mom and who I assumed was her husband.
“Grandma and Abuelo?” I asked, puzzled.
He nodded. “Dad is Cuban,” he said.
“He’s Dad and not Padre?”
Gabe shrugged. “Yup.” He said.
Well, that explained the pastelitos he had made for dinner. And the glorious brown of his skin. Maybe not the muscles I was trying my hardest not to stare at, or the arms I was trying not to think about, but the skin… on his neck.
Which I wanted to bite.
Okay, not the skin on his neck then.
Had I ever been this attracted to Crawford?
The thought of Crawford and Jen was an ice bath of unpleasantness that shook me out of my drooling over shirtless Gabe. “So, you don’t work on Saturdays?” I asked, trying to think of something to talk about that wouldn’t involve shirtless men, or engaged sisters.
“Honey, nobody works on Saturday,” he said, the word honey causing tingles to race down my spine. “It’s the weekend.”
“I don’t know, you seem to be working really hard,” I said, running my fingers through the sand. “Maybe you work overtime or something.”
He sighed. “God, work one day is going to kill me,” he muttered. “No, we’re just in the middle of a huge project. I’m not normally this busy.”
“We?” I asked, still not sure exactly what he did. All I knew was that it involved a suit and a briefcase.
“I work in an architecture firm, and go to school for it at night,” he explained.
“Cool,” I said, not really sure. My mother had something redone or remodeled at least once a season for as long as I could remember, and there always was an architect involved. But I didn’t know much about the profession except for it involved blueprints, and that Mother probably didn’t need to hire one to repaint the bathroom. “Do you like it?”
He shrugged. “Most days,” he said. “And then we get a client from hell who wants to change the design five minutes before the meetings with the contractor. Every damn time.”
I winced, knowing exactly what kind of people he was talking about. I grew up with those people. Hell, I was raised by those people.
He shook his head. “Okay, no more work talk today. We’re at the beach. Work does not belong on beaches,” he intoned, making me smile.
Excellent.
Because I wasn’t ready to talk about what I had been doing before I got here, which would inevitably be where the conversation would head.
Sometimes, I thought it would be easier to just tell people I was an escaped convict.
At least you don’t get any annoying fake sympathy for that.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of sunshine and meeting one friend of Gabe and Sam’s after the other. For people who didn’t grow up here, the two of them had made friends with nearly everyone in the neighborhood.
“Gabe!” a voice shrieked. A girl in a very skimpy bikini dropped onto Gabe’s lap and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Hey!”
Every alarm I had turned on. He had a girlfriend? Why hadn’t he said anything?
“Hey, Tiffany,” he said, lifting her off his lap and putting her down next to him.
“I haven’t seen you in so long!” she squealed. “How ARE you?”
I couldn’t sit there anymore. Watching Tiffany fawn over Gabe was a replay of every conversation Jen ever had without our parents hovering over us.
“I’m going to the water,” I said, not sure if he heard me over Tiffany’s chattering. Standing up, I walked toward the surf, wanting to just get knocked over by a wave and carried away somewhere else. Somewhere far away from stupid vapid girls in too small bikinis, away from golden brown boys with brilliant green eyes and a daughter I could love far too easily, away from the damn New York Times that was still scattered all over my balcony.
I waded into the water, letting the waves try their best to knock me over.
“Hey, miss!” a voice yelled.
I turned around to see the lifeguard. “Try to stay close—the tide is getting high.”
“Sorry,” I yelled back, not sorry at all.
“You keep on leaving.” It was Gabe.
“I’m not leaving,” I lied.
“Really? Because I’m under this impression you are,” he said, reaching down to tuck a strand of hair back behind my ear.
“Really,” I lied again. “I think you’re imagining things.”
“I think you’re lying,” he responded.
“You do?” I scoffed. “Sorry. Don’t know what to tell you.”
“The truth would be nice,” he said, his face suddenly serious. “Maddie, I thought we were going to be friends.”
Yeah, that had been a brilliant idea.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore,” I said.
“Don’t I have a say in the decision?” he asked, coming closer. I backed up, inching my way toward the sand.
“Not anymore,” I said. “It’s for your own good, okay? You don’t want to be friends with someone like me.”
“Then why have I been talking to you on a fairly regular basis since you moved here? And why did I invite you to my house for dinner? And why am I okay with you hanging out with my daughter? Am I not capable of making my own damn decisions?”
“You don’t know really know me!”
He scowled in frustration. “Dammit, Maddie, because you don’t let me!”
His chest heaved, his frustration apparent. “Maddie, everyone fucks up at some point in their life. Everyone, okay? But if you’re the only one who’s left blaming yourself for something that happened before and you can’t go back and change it, the only person you have to blame about being miserable is yourself.”
I stared at him, shocked.
“And I’m not trying to trivialize whatever happened to you, I’m not, but maybe, just once, you can think about the fact that you aren’
t the only one with regrets.”
With that, he walked back to the beach, leaving me stunned.
Chapter · Eleven
“Gabe’s pissed at you,” Sam said to me Monday morning.
I shrugged. It was better this way.
“What happened on Saturday?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Really?” Her eyebrows went up. “Somehow, I don’t really believe you.”
“Basically, I can’t be friends with him,” I said in a rush.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t right now, Sam, okay?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“It’s not no you just can’t, it’s you just don’t want to,” she said, too smart for her own good.
“Listen. I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, feeling like a broken record. “I’m not in a place where I can have a romantic relationship. I’m barely in a place to have a platonic one, regardless of gender.”
“I just think you’re making excuses,” she said, picking up her coffee.
“I swear, Sam, I’m not.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “Honey, you have to remember other people have feelings, too,” she said before turning and walking out of the café.
“How do I keep doing this?” I muttered to myself.
“Doing what?” It was Grandma Evelyn.
“Jesus, Grandma!” I gasped. “Stop sneaking up on me like that!”
“Then stop having such fascinating conversations with yourself,” she replied. “Now, how do you keep on doing what?”
“Pushing people away,” I said, looking down at the floor.
“Because you’ve been hurt and you’re so scared it’s going to happen again that you push people away before they get the chance to get close to you,” she said, sounding like a female Dr. Phil.
“Is that such a bad thing?” I asked.
She looked me straight in the eye. “Yes.”
“I’m back,” I whispered as I walked toward the cluster of flowers at the edge of the field.
Nothing.
“So, they got engaged,” I said, playing with a strand of grass. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Or why it hurts so much. But it does.”