“Um, you know,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just the same old.”
“Are you still taking those crazy classes of yours?” she asked, a flitter of amusement on her face. Not the good kind of amusement, but the patronizing kind.
“No, I kind of gave up on that.” I laughed, hoping it sounded breezy.
“Thank goodness! People were starting to get afraid of you.”
I gave her a quizzical look but she continued, not noticing.
“I saw that you work at Allingham and Associates! You know, I almost got hired there to be an account coordinator, but I got a better offer at Mindtrap. What do you do there?”
I felt my face getting hotter. My eyes automatically dropped to the ground. I didn’t want to look at her, nor did I want to look at Dex, and I could tell both of them were watching me expectantly.
“I’m the front desk coordinator,” I mumbled.
“Oh,” she said sounding surprised. “You mean reception?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, well,” she said, baring her toothpaste commercial teeth, and patted me on the shoulder, “I’m sure you’ll find something one day. It’s a tough economy right now, right?”
I nodded and tried to think of something witty to say but all I came up with was just a brain fart.
“Do you still talk to anyone from school?” she asked, fidgeting with her top as if the banality of talking to me was starting to bore her already.
“No, no one,” I answered truthfully. I felt lamer by the second.
“Really? You know, Adele, Steve, Ashley—actually a whole bunch of us are living downtown now right here in Portland. I would have thought you talked to at least some of the old group.”
I shook my head, wanting the conversation to be over. If she was friends with them, wouldn’t she know that? Oh, but of course, she was proving a point. The truth was I had lost touch with a lot of people after college. It wasn’t on purpose. I just gradually became more of a loner at the end of the final year. The people Debbie mentioned were all fine to party with at the beginning, but I got that awkward feeling whenever I was around them, like they were letting me hang out with them out of pity or something. After a while, it was just easier to hole up in my dorm room by myself and spend my nights listening to tunes and making weird clay sculptures. As you do.
I must have been mulling that over for longer than I thought because Debbie looked over at Dex. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Debbie. I went to college with Perry in Eugene.”
She extended her slender hand, which Dex shook politely.
“Dex,” he said.
When he took his hand back he looked down and grimaced.
“Sorry, I think I got coffee all over your hand.”
She glanced at it and quickly wiped her hand on her jeans, trying not to look disgusted and failing at it.
“So, how long have you two been together?” she asked.
Before either Dex or I could correct her—not that I really wanted to, as I felt that having someone as handsome as Dex by my side was at least doing me some favors, even if he had bad handshaking habits—someone else caught Debbie’s attention.
A tall, meaty-looking fellow came out of the gas station with a case of beer under his wide bicep and stopped beside her with an expectant look on his face. He looked familiar but it took me a few seconds to place him. I thought maybe it was someone I went to college with, as he was apparently there with Debbie, but the moment our eyes locked, I knew who it was.
Patrick Morrison. I went to high school with him. We weren’t friends, but we had mutual friends. He wasn’t the most popular guy in school, but he had wavy dark hair, brilliant hazel eyes and the same taste in music as me. In high school, music was the divider of friends, the sorter of groups, and the way we defined each other. The fact that this cute guy went to the same concerts as I did was like a Godsend, and I was absolutely smitten with him. He was usually nice enough to me, but like all guys back then, he wouldn’t have given me the time of day if he didn’t have to. I remember when he finally signed my senior yearbook; it was the happiest damn day of my life. Pretty pathetic when you think about it.
And yet here he was, five years later, standing beside Debbie Birmingham at a gas station outside of Portland.
“Holy shit!” he said pointing at me. “I know you!”
I quickly looked at Dex. His brows were raised at me, a hint of a smile on his lips. I could tell he was enjoying this little reunion.
“Yeah, hey,” I said shyly at Patrick.
He looked at Debbie. “How do you guys know each other?”
She gestured at me with less enthusiasm than before. “Oh, Perry and I went to college together. I should have realized you went to the same high school.”
He nodded, still smiling at me. For a minute there I felt kind of lost in his eyes, eyes that held that same sparkle as they did back in the day. Sometimes I think all the dramatics of high school were exaggerated, all the crushes completely unjustified. But seeing him again, I knew this one wasn’t quite buried yet.
I even started to think that perhaps his smile was a lot more generous than any I had gotten before. The thought that he was actually happy to see me crossed my mind, as well as the pride in the fact that he recognized me.
But that all ended when he opened his mouth again.
“You used to be so fat!” he said, and broke out into laughter.
I stiffened at the comment and felt the blood rushing back to my apple cheeks. There went that. In an instant my self-esteem nosedived (and it was never even high to begin with).
I tried to laugh it off. “Well, I lost a bit of weight since then.”
Patrick kept laughing. “I mean, you look better now, but wow. Good job, Perry. No longer that little chubby girl who used to stare at me all day.”
Oh my God, kill me now. Seriously, who says that to someone?
I watched him laugh and was even more appalled when Debbie joined in too. Not that she knew me back then, but I could see how she’d find that funny. That bitch always hated me.
“You learn something new every day!” Debbie smirked. “But seriously, you look great, Perry.”
Patrick wiped the smile off of his face and gave Dex a quick glance. “So, where are you headed?”
“The coast,” I said quickly before Dex actually filled them in. Not that he was saying much but if he did start to explain what we were really doing, I would have looked even more stupid.
“Us too.” Debbie smiled mischievously. “One-year anniversary celebration at Cannon Beach. Are you guys on a little romantic rendezvous?”
I opened my mouth to say something (what, I wasn’t sure, but it probably wasn’t the truth) but Dex beat me to it.
“Nothing says romance like storm watching,” he winked at them. OK, I was not expecting him to say that. I was suddenly warm with gratefulness. It was a simple thing—he didn’t lie; he just didn’t correct them—but it made me feel like at least one good façade was still intact.
Debbie gave us an approving look. “Oh, very true. Well, good to see you, Perry. Don’t be a stranger.”
Patrick said roughly the same thing and they both waved at us in unison.
As soon as we got in Dex’s SUV, I let out the biggest sigh of relief and thunked my head down on the dash.
Dex patted me lightly on the back.
“You survived,” he said with a chuckle. I looked up at him, feeling both embarrassed and relieved.
“Thank you so much for…well, not telling them the truth. About us. I mean, there is no us, but you know,” I rambled.
He shrugged and started the car. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo. You’ll just owe me.”
I straightened up and fastened my seatbelt as Dex brought the car back on the highway.
“Owe you?” I asked with caution.
He thumbed at the backseat. “Those are for you.”
I turned in the seat and looked. There was a stack of books beh
ind me that weren’t there before.
I brought them onto my lap and looked them over. They were from the Seattle Public Library.
“What are these?” I said.
“Books, Perry, books! The backbone of civilization. And our homework.”
I eyed them curiously. Famous Oregon Shipwrecks, Mysteries of the Oregon Coast, Folklore and Myth in 20th Century Oregon, Shanghai City: The True Portland, Lighthouses of the West Coast, Charles Berlitz’s World of Strange Phenomena. It was a veritable treasure trove of local supernatural history.
“This is your homework?” I asked and started flipping through them.
He laughed. “No, it’s your homework. I’ve already read them.”
“Why do I need to read these?”
“Because,” he said sternly. I caught a slight blaze in his eye as his brows swooped down.
“Ohhh, because,” I mocked him. “That’s my favorite reason of all!”
The seriousness behind his eyes faded and he grinned. He had such a lovely smile when he was using it for good and not evil.
“You can’t just head into a situation blind. You have to know the background, the history of a place if you want to exploit it. If we head into that lighthouse and see a bunch of weird whatnots and such and such, it’s not going to make any sense unless we know the how, the why, and the when. Following?”
“Yes,” I lied.
He knew it too. He spoke slower, “If this lighthouse is truly haunted, we won’t be able to make any sense of it until we know why it’s haunted. Things don’t happen without reason. There is a story to be told at this place, and you’ll only recognize it if you’ve read it. Hence, the books. That lighthouse isn’t just a random tower of wood and concrete. It had a birth, it had a death and many comings-of-age in between.”
“Well, you already seem to know so much about it, like Old Roddy and whatever that nonsense was, so why don’t you tell me about it?”
He sighed. “I’m not the host here. You are. And you don’t seem to believe a single word I say.”
“That’s not true,” I said. Of course, he was right.
“Just read them.”
“All of them?”
He reached over and flipped open a page with a Post-It note stuck to it. “I’ve marked and highlighted everything you need to know. We have two hours before we hit your uncle’s place. Now go!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The car chugged along for the next hour or so, past dreary pockets of farmland that normally sparkled under the sunshine but now had the heavy feeling of impeding death. I’m not trying to be dramatic; I swear, it just looked like the scenery had gone from healthy to sick in the course of one week. Some trees didn’t even have their leaves anymore, though I could have sworn they did last Saturday.
The wind that shot over the coastal hills and shook our car probably helped in the removal process. I was cuddled up in my seat absently flipping through the books that Dex had instructed me to read. It wasn’t going too well. Not only did I get carsick when I read in a moving vehicle, but I was too aware of being in a car with a guy I didn’t know at all.
I tried not to stare at him. It was tough, though. The longer I was in that car, the more I was mesmerized by his face. Sometimes it looked at peace. His soft eyelids would sort of half droop, the corners of his wide mouth would twitch intermittently like he was on the cusp of a telling a ridiculous joke. Sometimes he looked like he was consumed by some internal fire. His eyes became darker, harder, framed by deep chasmy shadows created by the brooding brow. His mouth would set in a hard, firm line and his smart-ass smirk would vanish.
I found this face appeared every time I asked him a question. I wanted to know where in Seattle he lived, what he did for fun and did he always want to be a filmmaker.
The answers? “Queen Anne,” “this and that,” and “no.” Followed by, “that thing won’t read itself,” and a quick tap on the books. I felt like I was a teenager, my father ordering me to do my homework instead of going out. I didn’t listen to my father, but I listened to Dex. He was more intimidating somehow.
Needless to say, I was relieved when we finally saw the ocean and headed down toward Rocky Point and Al’s place.
The weather on the coast was a monster. Huge surf crashed against the sandy beaches, twisted, bent trees continued to defy physics in the windy battering, and the town of Cannon Beach looked like it was on lockdown. The winding, narrow route of 101 was especially thrilling.
We pulled up to Uncle Al’s just after noon. The boys were out at their jobs, robbing people, probably, but Uncle Al was there to greet us. Well, me at least.
“Perry,” he said with outstretched arms. “Back so soon?”
I laughed and gave him a quick hug. I was glad he was happy to see me. I felt like I might be a burden to him this weekend.
“And this is the filmmaker?” Al looked over at Dex, who was standing a few feet behind me.
Dex nodded and came forward. He wiped his hand on his pants before giving Al what looked to be a very strong handshake. Al raised his eyebrows and took back his hand.
“Excellent handshake,” Dex told him seriously. “Firm. Not at all like a jellyfish.” He gave an extra nod for impact.
“Oh, well that’s good.” Al shot me an odd look. I smiled nervously.
“Yes, Uncle Al, this is Dex, the filmmaker for Shownet.”
“Uncle Al,” Dex acknowledged gravely.
Al paused at that before asking, “You two are both staying over, correct?”
Dex shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, sir, but I booked a motel in Tillamook.”
Al laughed. “The ‘Mook? Oh, you don’t want to stay there. Good for cheese and that’s about it. I insist you stay with us tonight.”
I looked at Dex. There was no denying it—I totally hoped he would say yes.
Dex smiled politely but stayed firm. “And I insist that I don’t. I’ve got a worried girlfriend back in Seattle, and she’s already none too happy that I’m spending the weekend down here with your barely legal niece.”
I felt like someone stabbed me in the gut and I was just leaking disappointment everywhere. Girlfriend? I hadn’t heard him mention a girlfriend yet. And his Facebook didn’t say anything about it either. Then I remembered the pictures of him with his arm around Jennifer Rodriguez. Could that be her?
I looked over at Dex, with his eyebrow ring, dark clothes, long sideburns, shaggy black hair, the end of a tattoo that sometimes peeked out beneath his shirt sleeve, alternative music tastes and overall zany personality. He couldn’t possibly be interested in a girl like that, could he?
But then again, what was I expecting? The guy was a filmmaker and, apparently, a composer and one-time singer. He certainly could be charming when he wanted to be, and he was blessed with some very good genes. It made sense that he would have a hot babe as a girlfriend.
I felt foolish. I don’t even know why, I didn’t even really like the guy, but I still felt stupid, nonetheless. As if my subconscious was on the prowl hoping to make a meal of him one day. And how ridiculous was that anyway, like I could even get a guy like him, let alone a guy who is ten years older than me. Didn’t he just say I was barely legal?
I took a deep breath and tried to brush it off. It shouldn’t bother me, but of course it did. Most things that wouldn’t bother anyone else bothered me.
While my mind and heart were having a minor scuffle with each other, Dex and Al were chatting away.
“So, is there a key we could use to get in? We would like to minimize any damage to the lighthouse,” Dex asked Al. “Not that anything would get damaged, but you probably don’t want Mr. Miyagi over here kicking down any doors.” He jettisoned a thumb in my direction.
I smiled brightly, hoping he hadn’t spotted my momentary weakness.
“Yes, there is a skeleton key you can use,” said Al. “Now, come inside for some coffee. I’ll put on a pot.”
Oooh, coffee. That would be welcome, warm
and distracting.
“Appreciate it,” said Dex, “but we’ve got do some set-up shots before it gets dark.”
Damn.
He turned to me and gestured to the trunk of the SUV. “Perry. I’m going to need your help getting the equipment out.”
Al sighed and shuffled inside, disappointed at losing coffee company. “I’ll get you the key.”
I felt bad for him. Last weekend aside, I had a feeling he didn’t get company too often. My parents often said most of his friends were actually his ex-wife’s friends. I made a note of actually talking to Uncle Al later and asking about him instead of running off as I would normally do.
He came back out and pressed the key into my hand, his gentle, worried eyes looking deep into mine. “Don’t stay out too long. I’m ordering Chinese food for us all tonight.”
I nodded and hoped Dex would at least take him up on that offer. Dex gave him a quick wave. “Sounds good.”
Dex headed for the car and I followed, watching his slim hips saunter and his thick, dark hair get whipped up by the breeze.
He opened the trunk and handed me a tall cardboard box.
“What’s this?” I peered down the shaft.
“Just a white bounce board. For light.”
I pulled it out and it flapped out into a round circle that rippled in the wind. I aimed the board at his face, lighting up the shadows under his eyes. He batted his eyes at me, that smirk ever-present.
“Think that’ll make me good-looking?” he asked, untangling some cords.
I desperately thought of something smart to say. All I could think of was how damn good-looking he was. I was screwed.
He looked up from the cords with interest, goading me to say something.
“No,” I blurted out lamely.
He laughed and shook his head, turning his attention back to the cords. “I’m disappointed in you. Surely I thought you’d have come up with some grand insult.”
“I was trying,” I said. “And don’t call me Shirley.”
That smile again. It made my chest feel funny. Funny in a good way, which made it funny in a bad way. My brain rerouted to thoughts of his girlfriend. Damn her. Damn her and damn me for caring.
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