by Grace, Pella
“How do you know where I live?”
“Last week when your poor attempt to sneak by me failed, I heard you tell Heath your zip code at the checkout. Either you have taken cucumber freshness to new heights or you love talking to me.”
I try to wiggle my way out of this. Try being the key word.
“Or the grocery store in Blossom closed down. And Adam likes the store brand ice cream.”
Fail. Cash laughs. “So Adam shits on your dreams and the reward is driving to another county to buy him ice cream? What kind of favors do you run for those whom are kind to you, Lilla?”
“I would need someone to be kind in order to answer that.”
“I invited you to the park on that premise,” he says, before tucking the music back into his ear. I’m not looked at or acknowledged again as he goes back to work, lining up all the herb plants for display.
Chapter Six
Cash is laying on one of the picnic tables, looking up at the orange swipes painting across the fading sky, as I approach. I sit on the bench, watching the sun gradually sink. It’s quiet between us. He has a cigarette lit and smokes slowly. I listen to the soft songs of crickets and the awakening owls, until the light fades deeper behind tall pine trees.
“Why do you come here?”
“Do you honestly need to ask that, Lilla?”
I glance over my shoulder. His face is staring at my back. I feel my hair move. He plays with a section of it. The tips. Slowly winding it around his long finger, then letting go to repeat again and again.
“I know it’s beautiful,” I reply, “but I mean, is there any other reason? You said a guy would bring someone out here so he could make out, or cop a feel. Is that why you really come out here? To make little girls swoon over pretty sunsets and then strike when the time is right?”
“Is it working?” he croons. I make a face. “Truth?”
“Truth,” I nod.
“Yes and no.”
“What is the no part?”
He keeps toying with my hair, glancing to me every so often as he replies, “I like to come out here and think. Find something that strikes a chord. Something that makes my brain work.”
“What usually makes that happen?”
“I see things others don’t. Like, to some people, that is just a sky,” he motions with the cigarette. “They never think twice about it. It just exists. You ask someone what color is the sky and what do they say?” He looks to me.
“Blue?”
He nods, taking a drag before he looks forward again, blowing out the smoke.
“Fucking blue. But look, it’s not. If you take time to study it, to search, you see all kinds of colors. And not just purple or yellow. Fuck that. It’s violet and gold. There’s burnt orange and pink that looks just like cotton candy.”
Cash sits up, sitting Indian-style, facing me. The ash of his cigarette flicks before he inhales again.
“That’s one of the things I hate about working in that store. It’s lifeless. Same shit every day. Every single damn day. The same customers, same problems, same routine. It’s like being a lion trapped in a cage at the zoo. A man could die there while his heart is still pumping fervently in his chest, Lilla. Did you know that?”
“I think I can relate to that feeling. Sure.”
He keeps eye contact with me, nodding. “There is nothing worse than having a routine. Being in a box. Shit will suck the life right out of you.”
“So … what would you rather be doing? If you could do anything, what would you want your life to be?”
Cash reaches out with his free hand, toying with my hair again.
“You know how when you drive along the highway, you see billboards? I want to put my art on billboards. I want to put everyone’s art there. Could you imagine? Instead of useless advertisements, you saw the inside, the true inside thoughts of someone’s mind. Think of how beautiful the fucking world would be if art was everywhere.”
I purse my lips, eyeing him sourly. “Hey there, I happen to be fond and in need of those billboards. Advertising is sort of my shtick. Well, it used to be anyhow, before the economy took a dive.”
He smoothes his hand over my hair. “I didn’t mean it like that.” One last drag from his cigarette before he crinkles it into the wooden table. “Your thoughts are beautiful too, Lilla.”
“I dubbed a hamburger a bimbo, for a ‘Mom & Pop’ diner in Blossom. That is not exactly a Mona Lisa.”
He smiles. “Maybe not, but it’s still your creation.”
“One of few.”
He shrugs. “Whatever. You can’t just fucking create art on demand. If so, it wouldn’t be special.”
“Try explaining that to my bill collectors,” I laugh.
“You could get a job at the store,” he says, “I happen to have excellent connections.”
I playfully hold my hands over my chest, recalling his words from earlier.
“Just trying to get your hands on my melons. I’m on to you, Cash Valentine.”
He smiles, but the smolder of his eyes doesn’t match the light-heartedness of my joke. “Maybe I just want to see more of you.”
“You want my heart to be caged and die?”
His eyes remain serious, slowly twisting my insides into a tight spring.
“I’m pretty sure it’s already there, Lilla.” I look away, anywhere but at him. “Come on.” He slides from the table and I follow, catching up to his extended hand.
Cash walks us over to the edge of the lake. The water is perfectly still, a mirror to the sky above. He tugs on his shirt, pulling it over his head. It’s cast aside, to the grass. One shoe. Two shoes. I swallow as his fingers unfasten the button of his pants. He strips down to his underwear and I look towards the lake.
The sound of something hitting the water hard captures my attention. His head pops up, hands waving for me to join him. I shake my head. He disappears under the water again, only to emerge closer, a few feet in front of me.
“Don’t be scared of what you don’t know, Lilla.”
I’m scared as crap, I admit it … but … this is what I wanted, wasn’t it? To do crazy things? To be a different person? No strings?
Quickly I begin removing my clothes, before my rationality can stop this behavior. Just my underwear and bra remain. Wincing from the slight chill of the water at first, I keep going, until I am submerged and at Cash’s side, kicking my feet to stay afloat.
“Scared?” he asks.
“A little,” I admit.
“Good, it means you’re doing something wrong the right way.” He pulls me towards him, his hands on my waist. Arms winding around me, holding me against him. I hold onto his shoulders instinctively. There’s more black ink along his skin there. A collection of roses. He pulls me onto his hips, keeping his hands on my thighs. I can feel all of him against all of me.
“I wonder how long it will take your husband to miss you, while I have you here, all alone.”
“He’s probably just pissed off because I haven’t brought him back his stupid ice cream.”
“Ice cream,” he muses, smoothing his hands over my skin, up my spine and back down to my legs. “All of this and he cares about ice cream?”
I shrug, looking away from his eyes.
His hold tightens. “What would you want to be if you could be anything, Lilla? Same thing you asked me, your turn to answer. And—if you say Mariah Carey, I’m fucking drowning you.”
I laugh, just like in the store earlier. That good, needed break of tension. My fingers begin to become copycats to Cash’s, playing with the damp hair at the nape of his neck.
“Some days I want to be a ballerina. Others, a famous chef. Yesterday, I think I wanted to be a gypsy, just traveling around the world, completely no direction, but just going, you know?”
He smiles appreciatively. “We should. We could. Tonight, we could drive anywhere, no problem.”
My heart quickens. “Where would I say I was?”
“Does it
fucking matter?”
“W-well what if he calls the cops or something? Thinks I’ve been abducted?”
“You have been.”
I laugh. “And what about your job? They’ll wonder where you are.”
“I told you I don’t care.”
“You must care on some level, or else, you wouldn’t be working there.”
“I care about my parents, true. The job? I don’t think twice about it. Besides, my father would never fire me. He’ll be pissed off for a week or two, but he’ll get over it. He knows it’s not in my heart.”
“Where would we go?”
“Stop thinking. Thinking always fucks things up.” He releases me, swimming back towards the grass. I follow, feeling flushed as he watches me walk to my clothes, picking them up, not even attempting to hide his ogling.
“Come here, Lil.”
I walk to him. His hands turn me around. I feel the clasp of my bra toyed with and I close my eyes, trying to obey and not think. Just go with whatever is happening. As crazy as it seems.
He pulls the wet straps down and discards the bra on the grass.
“Arms up.”
I raise my hands to the sky and soft cotton that smells like him is pulled over my head. His fingers slide slowly down my spine, then under the shirt, tugging at my underwear, sliding them down my legs. I step out of them, one foot at a time. My heart beating in rhythm to the pulsing I feel further south. His fingers grip the fabric of my shirt tightly in the back.
His mouth moves to my ear, whispering, “You feel alive, now, don’t you?”
“Almost,” I rasp, leaning back into him, wanting to find a girl who acts upon her needs. He grips my hips tightly as I press against his wet underwear, feeling his erection against me.
“The groundskeeper is probably watching us,” he comments, but it doesn’t sound like a warning. “Is that what you like, Lilla? Someone watching as you get fucked?”
It’s been too long to know what I like. All I know is what I need.
He holds me against him, tipping my chin up, making eye contact. “I won’t judge. Tell me, Lil.” I can’t speak. Just swallow. A soft kiss dots my nose. “I didn’t think so.” Cash steps in front of me, scooping my pants from the ground. He kneels in front of me, lifting my foot to slide on one pant-leg, then the other, pulling them up.
Cash tugs down his underwear unabashedly, placing his own pants back on.
A hand is offered to me, but then a grin creeps over his mouth. He steps around me, bending at his knees, tugging my own as he lifts me on his back. I hold on tightly as he starts walking.
“Where to, Lilla?” he asks, exiting the park.
I cling to him, burying my face into his warm shoulder, against the shading of the roses tattooed on him.
“Wherever you take me, Cash.”
Chapter Seven
Soft, soft tone with a warm, warm body, “Beautiful, right, Lil?”
Light-hearted and so, so free and far away, “Perfect.”
I have no idea where we are, but above us: black sky partnered with small twinkles. A full moon. Cool breeze.
Cash doesn’t care that we are lying on the hood of his car. He doesn’t waste time talking to me about how my shoes will leave marks in the paint. He just rests at my side, staring to the sky, smoking slowly, enjoying all that is of greater importance than some meaningless materialism.
Cash rolls to his side, looking down to me.
“Cold?”
I shake my head.
“Don’t lie, Lilla,” he scoffs. “I asked because I want to know.”
“Alright, maybe a little. But I’m okay. The view is worth it.”
“Shit, girl.” He places the cigarette between his lips, climbing from the hood to retrieve a sweater from the car. He holds out the sleeves for my arms. Once I’m wrapped in it, he takes the cigarette away from his lips. “You need to speak up for yourself. Your needs matter, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I lie.
“Good, so when you’re cold say, ‘Cash, I’m cold, fix it’. Or, if you’re hungry or need to pee or whatever, tell me. When we’re road companions, we’re in this together. We’re experiencing this together.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“You like dancing, right?”
“I’m not very good at it.”
He groans. “That’s not what I asked.”
“I would like it if I was good at it?”
“Are you asking me or telling me, Lilla?”
“If I knew how, I would love to dance.”
“Not like a ballerina, right? Like two people just dancing—you’d like that?”
“Depends on the other person,” I grin.
He returns the same expression, pressing the pad of his thumb against my chin.
“That’s what I’m talking about, Lilla.” Cash walks back to the car, turning over the ignition to allow the radio on, raising the volume and switching stations.
He surprises me when he walks around the car, climbing on the hood. The metal protests under his weight. He reaches for my hands, lifting me up.
Looking to my feet, cringing, “I don’t want to ruin your car.”
“It’s just a car. Not even a special one. One out of every three people owns this model. Did you know that?”
“I still don’t want to ruin it.”
“We’re not. We’re making a memory,” he sways me to the music. “Those dents will always make me think of you. Tonight. Dancing here. I like that idea. I like that only we’ll know what those dents mean. Other people will think I’m a shitty driver—car owner. You? You’ll just think I’m a great dancer.”
A secret.
Soft sigh escapes as I lean closer to him.
“Where did you come from, Cash?”
“I think her name is Poppy,” he teases.
“That’s a pretty name.”
“A face to match. I look just like her.” He spins me, slowly, making sure I don’t fall.
“I bet she’s kind. Your mom.”
He twirls me, again, and then reclaims my hips in his hands. Swaying side-to-side as the song changes. A semi-truck passes by; blowing the loud horn three times in what I’d like to believe is encouragement. Agreement.
“She’s the best person I know. The only one who doesn’t give me a hard time. Just lets me be me.”
“I do too,” I point out. “I let you be you.”
“That’s because we just met. I haven’t driven you crazy. Yet.”
Oh contraire. “Is that your intention?” I poke.
He slides his arms around my waist, holding me securely. His hands palming areas that haven’t been palmed since The Sky Wizard knows when.
“Only in the very best way.”
For some reason, I believe him.
***
The car door shutting wakes me.
“Sorry,” Cash apologizes, sliding a Styrofoam cup my way. “Coffee?”
I blink, looking around. The sun has come up. It’s early morning. We’re parked in front of a small café. He has a white paper bag in his lap. His own coffee. He takes a small sip and then rests it in the cup-holder.
“The lady inside said there’s an art fair down the road. Wanna go?”
“Sure,” I nod.
Cash smiles and starts the car. Cool air from the air-conditioning vent blows across my face. I rest my cup beside his and lay my face to the warmth of the leather seat, watching his face as he drives. The way the early morning sun dances across his well-defined features. The squint of his green eyes. His concentration as he figures out where to go.
“What did you dream?” He asks, pulling his cup, taking a sip.
“I think it was about the stars.”
His lips smile, swallowing his coffee.
“You?” I ask.
“I dreamed about when my grandfather died. I was talking to him, just before. He told me a story about how he met my grandmother.”
I smile. “Can I hear it?”
He shifts gears, slowing down, pulling into our destination.
“No, I don’t want you to go back to sleep.”
Once we park, Cash takes the white bag and his coffee, exiting the car. I walk at his side, sipping slowly at my own cup. I’m still wearing his sweater and have no desire or intention of taking it off anytime soon. It’s too big for me and probably looks odd, but at the same time, I like that it does. I like that perhaps someone will think he has given it to me. That perhaps we are a couple.
“I wasn’t sure what you would like, but the lady said these were a best-seller. Looked pretty damn tasty to me.” He passes me a pastry wrapped in white tissue. I take it from him, smiling appreciatively that he thought enough to do so.
That he thought of me at all.
Those little things—if ever there was something named incorrectly.
“You’re very thoughtful.” I take a bite from the edge, humming instantly as warm blueberry and vanilla icing hit my mouth. “Perfect.”
He holds out his cup to mine. “To our first trip.”
I touch my cup to his. “And breakfast.”
Cash smiles, taking a bite of his pastry. “And breakfast.”
The art fair is calm, not too many people around, with the exception of some eager older ladies. He pauses at one of the displays, admiring a canvas that has bright colors splattered across it. I mostly watch him, not really into the design. I’d be a liar to even attempt faking that I understood what abstract art or … whatever … I have no idea what is what.
I only know what is pretty and what is not. I’m not an interpreter.
“Do you like that one?” I ask.
He looks over to me and smiles. “Did I tell you that you’re crazy beautiful in the morning?” His face dips toward my face, nuzzling into my neck. Softly he whispers, “You don’t ask questions until we walk away.” He kisses my cheek. “It’s rude to the artist.” Another kiss to cover up that he is correcting me, before he pulls away.
I nod in understanding, thankful that he used such discretion.
We continue walking, stopping whenever he sees something that catches his eye. He kneels down to appreciate a canvas at another booth. I feel a little odd, almost like I might be bothering him or something. Not really able to fully enjoy this experience due to my lack of knowledge.