Claiming Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 2)

by Nikki Wild

  “Nightmares, or night terrors, and this kind of work being borne from someone as sweet and innocent as you just doesn’t make much sense, Lucy, y’know?” I think she’s onto me for a minute but then she gives me a hearty giggle and a toss of her over-bleached hair.

  I tilt my head to examine the woman in the painting…

  She was birthed in a dream of mine. She’s naked, half-bent over and reaching for a single fibre sprouting from the charcoal earth. The colors of mustard, storm grays and crimson swirl psychedelically around her disfigured body. While I stare at her, I suddenly feel she’s too revealing. There’s this lingering itch that if I let Billie analyze her too long she’ll soon know the truth— That I’m not who she thinks I am.

  “We should go,” I say and push her out the door.

  “Alright, alright. I can’t hold it in any longer,” Billie says. We finish our walk to The Baddock Tavern and General Store— One of only twenty businesses spread across the town. “I have a little bitty confession to make.”

  “Spill.”

  “Weeell,” she says, “you know that new guy at the post office?”

  “Oh. With the…”

  “Yes, yes. The one with the lazy eye who I made fun of the other day. Yes.”

  She turns the key in the front door and we walk inside. The entire building is made of wood and slate stones which leaves the room freezing in the mornings.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, over-the-hill Billie here might have herself a date on Friday night.” My mouth falls open and my eyes widen.

  “Aw, Billie. That’s adorable!”

  “Yep, a real date where we’re getting dressed up and heading to a restaurant out of town.”

  “Ooh, very continental,” I reply, doing my best to be in high spirits. My excitement for my best friend should show more than it is but the happiness is seeming harder to produce today.

  “Come on.” Billie’s eyes catch mine and she lets her whole body sigh and her lower lip pout forward. “Are you actually sick? Because I’m sending you home if you’re sick!”

  “No, I’m fine. Tell me all about him. I wanna hear.”

  Billie continues despite reading the signs that my mind is elsewhere today. She rants on about their cute dealings with each other the past few days, how they keep bumping into each other, how he’s also twice divorced.

  “Oh! And he’s got this bucket list item of traveling across the country on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He even said I should go along with him when he’s saved up the money, Luce. Can you imagine how romantic and sexy that would be? We’d be like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “That’d be…a dream come true, Billie.” My mind clouds with Landon as soon as that dream — that all too familiar dream— is mentioned. He had a map with a line in red marker for the roads we’d take, and a magazine page of the exact bike he wanted— The 2002 Harley Davidson V-Rod, if I remember correctly. Our silly little escape plan that never came to be… He’d already half filled a mason jar with odd coins and dollar bills to go towards the goal. I don’t know where that jar is now.

  “You’re coming with me,” Landon had told me as we cuddled up on his single bed.

  “Can Mom come too?”

  Instead of answering me, he took the red pen and drew on the magazine page. I took it from him to see he’d drawn a side-car just for Mom.

  “Lucy?” Billie’s voice brings me back to reality.

  “I’m sorry. That’s…That’s so great! Billie, he sounds perfect for you. Truly.”

  “Hmm, I do recall you referring to him as dull and homely so I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment.”

  “Hey now. That isn’t what I meant. You know that,” I plead with a creased brow. “Come on.”

  Billie raises both her eyebrows as she folds up some dish cloths. “It’s OK. I know I’m no Grace Kelly.”

  “Billie, you’re beautiful.” And I mean it, despite her choice of attire and Botox showing quite clearly that she’s having a hard time embracing her late thirties.

  “Quit making me blush. Always such a sweetheart to me aren’t you? I’m too lucky to have you around here.”

  “Why?” I laugh.

  “You have it all going for you, baby girl. You’re young, gorgeous, talented and kind. Why would you choose to end up in this place? You should be running around the world right now with some Italian hottie. Heck, you should be running the world. You were born with potential, Lucy. People like you have purpose for this lifetime. You shouldn’t squander it here.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I tease.

  “Yeah, make fun of me but you are squandering your gifts. You and Todd should go on a trip somewhere, perhaps.” Todd. I hadn’t even thought about him today. “I think you should take a couple weeks off to explore. You said you’d never been to another state before, right?”

  “I think it’s a bit soon for a trip. You know we’re not exactly together yet.”

  Billie’s right though. I haven’t been outside California and have no plans to now that Baddock offers me the sanctuary — or, rather, purgatory — I sought when I ran away. The idea of leaving this place gives me chills.

  The bell on the door twinkles brightly and in walks Todd. He’s wearing his navy NYC baseball cap that he wears everyday, a tight gray tee that shows off his figure, and is already smiling at me by the time I see him. I forget to smile back.

  “Ladies, how are we today?”

  He meets me behind the bar, holds his hand to my hip, and gives me a friendly peck on the cheek. Over his shoulder, I can see Billie making an excited face and trying to coax me to hug him.

  “Morning,” I say. “How are you?”

  “I’m great. Crazy night last night, dude. Super busy, Billie. Looks like you might be able to give us those raises after all.”

  “Todd, my darling,” Billie yells from the door of the general store at other side of the tavern, “those raises only come when you all actually do your jobs properly. You forgot to put the mop away in here last night. I’ve told you enough times that it makes the place smell like absolute shit. Come and smell this.”

  Todd and I laugh to one another. I’m still not sure where he and I stand relationship-wise. He seems into this, more than I am… I’m not looking for anything serious…For now, it’s all very fresh and I appreciate having him around.

  When we reach the door, a small breeze of the mop smell that Billie mentioned hits my face. I recoil off of Todd and gag loudly, shoving my mouth and nose into my elbow. That smell. The smell.

  “Y’alright there?” Todd says as I try fan away the nightmare again.

  “I’m fine.”

  We continue on our day of serving customers consisting of both Baddock locals and outside campers coming to find the solitude we in this town pride ourselves on. Pints of beer, plates of pub grub, loud conversations, and giggling children all make up the ambience of the place that I love. It’s loud, boisterous, friendly and distracting.

  “How was your day off? I tried visiting after my shifts but you weren’t home.” Todd rejoins me at the bar. He took over serving in the general store. I knew I couldn’t bear even a waft of that smell again so made up a lie that Billie said I had to stay at the bar.

  “Really? Sorry. I was out all day hiking and swimming. Maybe you missed me on the way back.”

  “Todd, my boy. How’s the Chevvy coming along?”

  “Not bad, Ralphy. Got a few more parts to save for but she should be ready soon.” Todd serves Ralph Clinton, the only cop in town. “But, that’s dope, babe. Did you manage to do any more work on that naked chick painting?”

  I squint at his referring to the piece in such a vulgar way. The woman in the painting has become somewhat of a living creature in my world. There’s an urge to protect her, to keep her safe from the opinions and judgements of others.

  “Um…Yeah. The naked chick— That I’ve poured my soul into by the way.” I smile to ease the tension but hope I got my point across. Though I
wish to call Todd out more, it’s not worth the argument.

  “It looks really good so far,” he says, sidling in behind me. “I can’t wait to see it finished.”

  “That is if I actually do finish it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s my baby. I don’t know if she’ll ever be done.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I wake up every day and know I need to improve her somehow or make sure I’ve expressed correctly. It’s like she evolves with me. But at the same time, I do feel a little uninspired in working on her right now for the same reason.”

  “You’re uninspired?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean? I just…Don’t have the motivation to work on her.”

  “You poor, poor thing. I mean, yeah, your life is definitely super uninspiring.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Living off the grid, in perfect weather, under redwoods with no sign of urban life to be found for miles. Life is just sooo hard for poor Lucy.”

  “Um, yes?” I say accidentally until I realize my life might seem perfect to an outsider.

  I knock him playfully in his arm to regain some composure. Most of the time, his sarcasm’s fine but, as with Billie, I don’t have the patience for much today.

  “Inspiration doesn’t just come from nature and calm.”

  “So, where do you think you’d find it?”

  I take a beat to ponder the question. I haven’t thought about where I’d seek it lately. My nightly hikes of late have revolved around me debating my existence rather than my art. I used to return from the trails, my hair damp from a swim in the waterfall, and I would immediately be at my easel lost in my work. Now, though, I return home and collapse on the sofa. There, I fall into a depressing nap before the sound of the nocturnal creatures or Babeen wake me up again only to toss and turn until sunrise.

  “So?” he asks again.

  “In time,” I decide to say.

  “In time?” Todd laughs at my response and slides a pint to the next customer. “You’re adorable.”

  “Right.”

  “Hey,” he says when he realizes my mood’s shifted. “I’m just playing around, Lucy. Hopefully you’ll find that time soon. You’re talented. You’ll find it again.”

  Chapter 2

  I look up in my frenzy of a work shift to see the clock reads eight in the evening— The post-sunset crew. Figures why the place is crescendoing with patrons barely able to squeeze beside each other to approach the bar. The other staff weave through with customers’ food orders, Billie is run off her feet sorting deliveries, Todd is filling pint after pint, and all I want to do is hide in a dark corner for five minutes and take a breather. Instead, I continue to hold my smile and try to hear the orders above the thunderous harmony of conversations.

  I rack up a tray of beers for a rowdy group of Australians at the front and put my waitressing skills to good use, making sure not to spill too much.

  “Hiya, beautiful,” one of them says.

  “Hey, fellas,” I reply. “We have five pints of IPA and a Corona.”

  “Just set ‘em down, love. We’ll sort ‘em.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, course.”

  “And while you’re at it, how ‘bout you take a break and have one on me?” says another. I reveal a reluctant polite smirk. I guess he’s cute but not my taste at all with his hipster beard and loud Hawaiian shirt.

  “Super flattered, guys but I gotta stay at the bar. We’re way too rammed right now.”

  “You enjoy it when it’s rammed, love?” His mates snicker.

  “Scotty, show some fuckin’ decorum, mate. Anyway, love, come on. One drink.”

  “No, really. I can’t. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re gonna make our Marco cry,” another one laughs. “Your man at the bar can handle himself. Look, he’s onto it.”

  I start to panic slightly as Marco has taken his hand and is now squeezing on my forearm so I can’t just walk away. It brings back bad memories I don’t want to spend the day thinking about. Sadly, this kind of situation has occurred more than once at this bar. I know to stay calm.

  “Well, gentlemen, perhaps if you wait around I’ll be free when it’s a bit—”

  “—Bit frigid, aren’t ya, babe?”

  My frustration peaks. I snatch my arm back, accidentally knocking two of the pints all over the table and the floor. The Aussies creak their stools back and look down at their dampened clothing.

  “Crap! Sorry! Lemme get some stuff to clean it up.”

  “Fuck’s sake. Careful there, babe. You stain this, you’re buying me another one.”

  I stutter in place as my anxiety tightens in my chest.

  “Well?” they press.

  I sidle through the customers to find the mop hidden in a closet…

  Whoosh! A small gust causes that musty, sickly smell to waft into my nostrils. My anxiety climbs higher. The water in the bucket is grey and muddied…

  My father’s white face appears behind my eyelids…

  His pale face…

  The sunken cheeks…

  The feel of the night’s humidity…

  The sharp ting! the shovel made as it hit rocks buried deep beneath the soil…

  The memories are too real.

  I trip backwards and leave through the back door into the dark, crisp night air. I wipe my brow onto my sleeve, not realizing how much I was sweating.

  Bang!

  I leap again as the door slams shut behind me. I cry out in fright. “It’s just the wind. Just the wind.”

  “Shit,” I whisper to the night, knowing I have to make my way through the tavern again and walk beside the Aussie’s with no mop and no cloth.

  I focus on putting one foot in front of the other. That’s when I realize I’m a good thirty feet down the street with no intention of turning back. I reason with myself I just need a break to stop my panic attack then I’ll head inside eventually. But I need five minutes… And five minutes turn to fifteen, then twenty.

  The further away the low hum of the tavern gets, the more I regain some composure and calm. I hit the railway crossing and finally feel comfortable enough to stop and take a deep inhale.

  Then a car approaches from afar with its headlights pointing directly at me. I stand further away from the road just in case they haven’t seen me. But instead of driving on, the car screeches to a stall. A young woman climbs from the driver’s side without turning off the ignition. She approaches me quickly. I consider removing my Swiss Army knife just in case.

  “Excuse me!” She squeals before I have time to act. “Excuse me! I need your help, please. Please!”

  I look over my shoulder to see if she may be talking to someone else also wandering in the dark.

  “Hey, please help me!”

  “What’s…What’s wrong?” I say and step out beneath a streetlight so we can see one another.

  “Th—There’s been an accident. Someone’s been run off the road. I…I was just going to the store to get firewood and I drove by them just lying there. I don’t have a phone to use so I was just going to the store to call an ambulance. We need to call an ambulance.”

  I make out the look of panic on her face and rest a hand on her shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay. Where are they?”

  “Uh, they’re like…back there, like, two miles, I guess…I think. I don’t know. I rushed to find help and I went as quick as I could. I don’t know this area very well.”

  “Is someone still with them?”

  “No. No! Shit! I panicked and figured calling an ambulance was the best way I could help.”

  “Nearest ambulance is an hour away and the hospital is even further. If somebody’s hurt, it’ll be faster if we bring them in…”

  “But… Do you have a cellphone or something?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and shuddered at the thought of going back for my purse. />
  “No… Just bring me to the accident, if it’s bad, you can go back to get help.”

  We speed toward Old Road.

  Around a sharp bend, the black remnants of skid marks stain the road and a motorcycle is lying haplessly on its side just barely visible in the grass alongside the road, its metal components twisted into uselessness and the rider nowhere to be seen.

  Before Jules has even completely stopped her car, I leap out and ran towards the bike.

  “Are you okay?!” I yell, hoping for an answer.

  I ease my way down the six-foot-steep grass hill, spotting the leather clad rider laying prone on the ground. He’s saying something but I can’t hear it over the beating of my own heart.

  “Should I go back and try to find more help?” the woman who drove me here shouts.

  “Just a second,” I replied loudly. Bending a knee, I crouch beside the biker. He’s lying on his back with his face turned away.

  “Sir, what’s your name?” I say bluntly and clearly while my hands pat his jeans to try and find a wallet or phone. I come up short.

  “Ughhhh,” he groans in pain. “Fuuuck. It hurts.”

  “Sir, what’s your name?”

  He turns his head toward me. I angle my own and squint to try and see the man’s face but it’s shadowed beneath his helmet. He groans again a little more clearly this time.

  “Don’t worry, just relax… We’re going to get you help.”

  “Nooo,” the biker slurs and touches a hand to my arm. “No cops. No ambulance. No hospital.”

  Had he been drinking? I wondered to myself. He wasn’t making any sense.

  “Sir, you need help. You’ve just tumbled off your bike, okay? You could be seriously hurt.”

  “No. Goddamn. Help.”

  “You don’t have any say in this. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  I stand back up, but the biker’s leather glove latches firmly around my ankle.

  “You call…anybody,” his gravely voice tells me, “I’m…a fucking dead man anyway, sweetheart. You wanna send me back there, huh? You wanna put an innocent man in jail?”