Spilled Coffee

by J. B. Chicoine

  My mind drifted as the cleanup crew disassembled the party tent, tables, and chairs, until all that remained was trampled grass. During the time that I rowed around the perimeter of the cove, Amelia didn’t come out of the house once. Did she have a hangover? Did she remember the things we had talked about and that she had said I had kissable lips? Just thinking about the way she had touched me under the water … I shivered, quickly remembering where I was and making myself fake interest in Skippy’s turtle. I sighed. Maybe Amelia remembered all of last night. Maybe she was too mortified to leave her room.

  Reeling me back in, Skip asked, “Did you bring any bread crumbs, Frankie?”

  “Oh, yeah.” My little brother excitedly shoved his hand in his pocket. “I almost forgot.”

  As he yanked out a baggie full of torn-up bread heels, a pocketknife clunked onto the bottom of the boat. A tightly folded greenback stuck out from one of the knife’s crevices. I snatched the bill as Skip grabbed the knife.

  Fondling it, he frowned, “Hey, this is my knife.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Frankie cut in, “I found it for you—I had it in my pocket to give to you.”

  “Boss. I thought I’d lost it for good.”

  Frankie looked at me as I held up a crisp ten-dollar bill and raised my brow.

  “What!” He stared me straight in the eye without flinching. “I found it floating to shore this morning. Someone from the party must have lost it.”

  Did he think I was that stupid? I would have to check my new hiding place on top of the rafters in the unfinished room to make sure he hadn’t rooked the ten bucks Doc had given me.

  “Yeah, well, we should return it.” I stuck the bill in my pocket. “Ten bucks is a lot of money, and if someone lost it at the party, Doc will know. I’ll give it to Mom, so she can hold on to it.”

  “Yeah, sure. I was going to do that anyway.”

  Just then, Mom called the boys for lunch. It was just as well. I had lost interest in rowing my klepto brother around the cove. Besides, I was hungry.

  I made a Spam sandwich in the kitchen, and when Mom started to stress about Penny being gone so long, I scarfed down my lunch about as fast as she gulped her lemonade. After lunch, I hung around the cove, keeping an eye out for Amelia.

  A couple hours later, Mom’s lilting voice carried to the float. “Ben, would you please go find your sister. I’d like some help getting supper started.”

  “Sure, Mom.” That would at least give me an excuse to ride my bike past Whispering Narrows.

  Five minutes later, I coasted down the hill. The old Rambler wasn’t parked in Doc’s driveway and neither was Karen and Dick’s Mercedes. Just the Jaguar. If only Sunshine had been outside. A chance to talk to her would have been almost as good as seeing Amelia.

  Each push of my pedal weighed more than the last as I passed on by. Just beyond Whispering Narrows, I veered to the side of the road and slowed at the sound of a car behind me. A dusty black Cadillac Eldorado rode alongside my bike. Its window rolled down.

  The driver smoothed his greased hair. “Hey, kid, nice bike you got there.”

  I eyed him with suspicion. What was he going to do next—offer me candy or something?

  He cocked his head. “Hey, you must be the Hughes boy. Frank Hughes’ kid, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, that’s one slick paintjob you’ve got on your ride.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you do that yourself?”

  “Yeah.” If he knew my dad, I guessed it was okay to talk to him even if he was technically a stranger. “I really like your car.”

  He stroked his steering wheel. “Oh, yeah—she’s a cherry.”

  “Automatic transmission?”

  “You bet.” He gave me a two-finger salute. “Well kid, you have a nice afternoon.”

  “Okay.”

  His car inched forward, and then the brake lights flashed as he called out, “Oh hey, you be sure to tell your dad, Irving said ‘Hi.’”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye-bye, now.” He stuck his hand out the window, his big, gold ring sparkling in the sun.

  As he drove away, I took note of the Massachusetts plates. Lots of people from Massachusetts had camps on Rockette Lake, including us. Was Irving someone Dad knew from work? I didn’t give it a second thought except to attach a rhyme that would help me remember his name. Swerving Irving.

  When I pedaled into the public lot, I spotted Penny not too far from Percy’s lifeguard stand. I skidded my bike up to the rack in front of the split-rail fence that separated the beach from the lot. The shooting gravel drew Penny’s attention. I stayed put as she scrambled to her feet and met me at the bike rack. Catching a whiff of that same cigarette smoke I had smelled at the wedding, I glanced around, looking for the Rambler.

  “Have Lenny and Christopher been around?” I asked.

  “Yeah. They just left. They said to tell you ‘hello’.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, and Christopher asked when the three of us are going for a boat ride. I hope you haven’t been giving him any ideas about me.”

  “You’re the one who called him Hot Wheels.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Besides, you know I like Percy.”

  I huffed. “Percy isn’t into you. He likes Candace. Besides, Christopher is more your type.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about who’s my type,” her eyes rolled, “and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk to him about me behind my back.”

  “And you don’t know the first thing about what I say behind your back,” I retorted with the same snotty tone.

  She pursed her lips. “So why’d you come down here, anyway?”

  “Mom wants you home to help with supper.”

  She gave me the same annoyed look as she always gave Mom. “Fine.”

  I sneered, more frustrated at having missed Christopher than at my sister’s surprisingly witchy attitude.

  “Well, go on Ben. I can find my own way back.”

  Without a word, I spun out on the road. Somewhere between passing Whispering Narrows’ first stone pillar and approaching number two, I made a split-second decision to pull into the driveway. In less time than it took to decide that, I stood on the front stoop and grabbed the lion-head knocker. Two raps later, Sunshine opened the door wide.

  “C’mon in, Ben.”

  “I can’t stay,” I said as I stepped inside. “I just wanted to check on Amelia.”

  “That’s so sweet of you.” She closed the door and glanced up at the balcony. “She’s not feeling so good today.”

  “That’s too bad.” I scanned the foyer and peered into the open great room doorway. “Is Ricky still around?”

  “No. He took their car back down to New York. He won’t be here for a few weeks, not until Karen and Dick come back from Rio.” She cocked her head sympathetically. “Lenny told me you had a run-in with Ricky down at the water.”

  My gaze shifted. “Kind of.”

  “You know, Ben,” she stroked my arm, “violence isn’t the way.”

  “I know. But sometimes I wish I were bigger. Like Lenny. Then everyone would leave me alone.”

  She shook her head. “Lenny would never hurt anyone. He just talks like he’s tough. You know, love is more than just words on a bumper sticker.”

  “I know,” I said, but I had seen the anger in Lenny’s eyes—even if he wasn’t inclined to beat the snot out of Ricky, he could have. That was the confidence I wanted.

  “Of course you know that, Ben. You’re a gentle soul, too.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. “Yeah, well, I gotta go.”

  “I’ll tell Amy you stopped by.”

  “Okay.”

  As I stepped outside, a green Chevy Malibu pulled into the driveway and came to a stop in front of the stoop. A man, with eyes like Sunshine’s, opened the car door and climbed out as I mounted my bike. He looked at me and smiled with reservation.r />
  I said, “Hi.”

  He nodded politely and then glanced at Sunshine, still standing on the steps. Half of his mouth fell with an awkward twitch.

  “Daddy,” Sunshine said.

  As I pedaled out to the road, I looked back. The man stood on the step for a moment, saying something, and then Sunshine embraced him.

  Chapter 23

  Back when I was a kid, I considered myself a gentle soul, even if at times I felt compelled to use my fists. I hated violence and I still do, but ever since that summer, I’ve had reason to second-guess the person deep within me—my core self. Do all of us have some primal monster just waiting for the right—or wrong—circumstance to propel us into an out-of-control madman?

  Sunshine was the gentlest soul I have ever met. She meant well with her admonitions against violence, but she didn’t understand what it was like to be a guy, to have one’s courage and sense of right and wrong challenged—what it’s like to have to fight, to so completely lose control that it goes beyond violence and becomes a sublime vindication of righteousness.

  Maybe she sensed something in me—not only the good, but also something seething and waiting for that combination of circumstance and motivation. Maybe she hoped to alert me to my own weakness, to nurture my better self before it was too late.

  I like to think Sunshine saw the goodness in me—my gentler side. Yet it was Amelia who drew out the tenderness from my deepest insides, from a place I didn’t then know existed in the male psyche. She stirred that tenderness out on the water as we swam the night of the wedding and as she lay in the grass beside me on the lawn, but that was only the first tug. Those feelings surged through me the following day and night. Fed by my imagination and uncertainty, I ached—literally ached—not knowing what she was thinking and feeling.

  Over the years, I have felt a twinge of that every time Amelia came to mind. Even as I sit on the launch pad, I think of her and wonder where she is, at this very moment. I ache not knowing. It’s just as well we never connected after that summer, though Doc said she did ask about me. Not that I hadn’t asked about her too, but I figured it would never work out. In spite of the potential complications, I finally did scrounge enough courage to ask Doc for her phone number. I was also testing whether he would allow me to pursue his granddaughter—his blood relation. Would he discourage it and offer a confession, answering my suspicions?

  It was around three years ago when I decided to ask Doc how I might contact Amelia. I wasn’t sure if I should write first or show up on her doorstep unannounced. Either way, it was a huge leap. Even as I dialed Doc’s number, my heart sped as fast as if I had been calling Amelia. After an uncomfortable silence, Doc told me she had just eloped; I still don’t know if the pause on the telephone was Doc’s relief or regret. To twist the knife, she had run off with someone he scarcely knew. The news left me chilled, like the evening air rolling in through the Narrows. It raises goose bumps, like so many unresolved questions.

  Is Amelia happy? Has she come to terms with her history? Did she think about me after that summer? I’m sure she must have, but I’m probably the only one still stuck in the past, still thinking about us and wishing things had been different.

  The day after I stopped in at Whispering Narrows to see how Amelia was feeling, she finally came out of the house. I had been hanging around our float all morning on the chance she might make a showing. As soon as I spotted her walking across the lawn toward her dock, I got a fix on Mom snoozing, and I dove into the water.

  I swam around the end of Amelia’s dock to where she sat on the side hidden from camp. Lifting my torso, I rested my elbows on the planks, inches away from her thighs. She offered a weak smile when I said, “Hi.”

  She hugged her knees.

  “You must be feeling better,” I said, eyes traveling from her oversized T-shirt to the loose ponytail atop her head.

  “Sort of.” She shrugged. “Mostly embarrassed.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t feel that way, though I can see why you might.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “No, I don’t mean it in a bad way, I just meant, well, it was kind of a crummy night all the way around,” I said, “except for hanging out with you.”

  “Yeah, I bet I was a real hoot.”

  I cocked my head. “C’mon, you have to admit swimming was fun.”

  “I guess.” She blushed and her cheek dimpled. That was the first time I noticed she had a dimple on her left cheek.

  “And the night could have turned out a whole lot worse. You could’ve barfed.”

  Her dimple deepened as she sighed. “Listen, I’m going to be away for ten days. My grandpa’s got some business out west, and Sunshine’s taking me with her to an artists’ colony on Monhegan Island.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Off the coast of Maine.”

  “Are you looking forward to it?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah. I like hanging out with Sunshine.”

  “Are the other hippies going?”

  She chuckled. “Hippies?”

  I guessed that wasn’t what she called them. I hoped she didn’t think I meant it in a negative way. “Yeah, you know, Lenny and Candace and Percy.”

  “No. Just me and Sunshine.”

  “Oh. So, um, what’s up with their cigarettes, anyway?”

  Both her eyebrows rose. “You mean joints? Weed?”

  I shrugged and swiped at a mosquito in midair. “I guess.”

  “It’s pot—you know, marijuana. Kind of like alcohol, only you inhale it instead.”

  “Have you smoked it?”

  She shook her head. “Sunshine says I’m too young—like too young to drink. And after the drink I had the other night, I have no interest in alcohol or weed. I didn’t like how it felt, not one bit.”

  “I’ve never had alcohol, and if it tastes like it smells, I don’t care if I ever have it.”

  “Grandpa says some people just don’t know how to handle their liquor, like Uncle Brad.”

  “So, the guy that came yesterday—was that Brad, Sunshine’s father?”

  “Yeah. He came to apologize.”

  “So, are things between him and Doc better? I mean, I know it’s none of my business. You don’t have to say.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. They talked privately for a long time. I think it had something to do with the reason for Uncle Brad’s divorce. He left right afterward, looking like he had been crying. Grandpa’s been really quiet ever since.”

  “Why don’t they get along?”

  “They’re just really different. Sunshine says Uncle Brad’s artistic—too much like his mother—and Grandpa is more practical. But that’s not really it. That’s just what they tell me.”

  I didn’t mean to question it, but when I said, “Oh,” it might have sounded like I was fishing for more.

  She continued, whispering, “Uncle Brad has a boyfriend, but they think I don’t know it.”

  Now when I said, “Oh,” I’m sure the gravity of my tone conveyed my befuddlement, if not discomfort. I had heard about stuff like that but had a hard time comprehending two men—together.

  She half-rolled her eyes. “Told you I had a weird family.”

  “I guess every family is a little weird,” I said, wanting to change the subject. “So when do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” she said as she came to her feet. “I’ve gotta go pack.”

  “Okay.”

  Up close and in daylight, Amelia had even prettier legs with the most delicate freckles all the way down to her slender, now-unpainted toes. I looked back up at her face. The sun was mostly behind her, giving her hair a pinkish halo.

  She gazed down at me. “I just wanted to say thanks for rescuing me the other night.”

  “You already thanked me.”

  “I know. I remember everything I said.”

  “Everything?”

  She blushed. “Yes, everything. And everything you said, too.”
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br />   “Good. Because I meant all of it.”

  Her big toe nudged my forearm. “Me too.”

  As she turned to walk away, a crazy idea came into my head. “Hey, Amelia.”

  She turned to me. “What?”

  “You want to go for a boat ride later? I mean after dark, when everyone’s gone to bed.”

  “You mean sneak out?”

  I nodded.

  Her gaze wandered and then she grinned. “Okay.”

  “I’ll be right here at ten o’clock.”

  She walked away and then glanced back with a wave.

  I could hardly lift my tingling hand to respond and pushed off the dock, falling backward into the water, kicking my legs and shaking blood into my numb arms. My whole body rushed with expectation. I had just asked Amelia on some kind of a date—and she said yes.

  The image of candlelight and wine on a checkered tablecloth flashed before me. No, that wouldn’t work. Maybe I could take her out to the island and spread a blanket over pine needles under a pine-tree canopy. No, that seemed too much like something Ricky would do. I traded that idea for maybe a small campfire in the clearing. Should I gather a little kindling and a split log or two and bring them out beforehand, or bring them along when I picked her up in the rowboat? Even though I was, in fact, calculating everything, I didn’t want it to appear that way, like it was all some kind of set up.

  Was this how dating was going to be for the rest of my life? Trying to anticipate the outcome? How I should act, what I should talk about? Hoping I wouldn’t say something stupid? How clever could I be without embarrassing myself? Just the thought of whether or not I should try and kiss her hiked my anxiety beyond discomfort. It had been easier when it all happened spontaneously, but now there was so much to consider. So much preparation. My excitement turned to angst. My stomach didn’t feel right for the rest of the afternoon.

  “Are you okay?” Mom had asked when we sat down to eat, and I only picked at my Spaghetti-Os.

  “I’m fine.” I forced myself to stuff a forkful in my mouth, chewing for a long time as Mom brought her empty plate to the sink.

  “I’m going to the market tomorrow morning,” Mom said, rummaging through her purse. “If there’s anything you’re in the mood for, add it to the list.” She pulled out a pen and went back in, I assumed for paper. Had she come across that ten I had tucked in her purse yesterday? I didn’t wonder for long.