Summer on Main Street

by Crista McHugh

  That’s why I have to be careful, keep my distance. I can’t let him find out who I am. I can’t let anyone.

  She let her hand drop away from his door. He’d probably gone to work, anyway. She hadn’t heard him leave, but to her surprise she’d slept well, a long eight hours without waking once. Stepping onto the porch, she glanced down at the classified ads. She’d found three possibilities this morning and circled them in red ink, a declaration of her decision to stay in Paradise, at least for now. She’d figure out how to explain that to her parents when the time came.

  “Waitress needed immediately for busy jazz club. Experience helpful but not necessary. Apply at Blues and Booze, 53 Main Street.”

  Paradise had a jazz club? A busy one? Ash smiled. She’d spent a couple of years sloshing coffee at the campus java joint; did that count as experience? She left her car at the curb and decided to walk. Three blocks later, the numbers on Main Street crept from forty-one, Lana’s Plus Palace, to forty-five, a used bookstore, to forty-nine, Lou’s Sub Shop. Oh, right. Eddie mentioned this place last night.

  Ash slowed and peered into Lou’s front window. A solitary cook in a stained white apron stood behind the counter, rolling dough. In front of him, a display case showed row upon row of deli meats, cheeses, and colorful salads. Her mouth watered, and she decided she’d stop by on her way back and pick up some lunch.

  The sandwich shop sat on the corner of Adams Street, an alley barely wide enough for one car. Still, accustomed to busy Boston avenues, she glanced both ways before crossing it. On the other side, she found herself in front of a tall, narrow-fronted building with smoky windows. “Blues and Booze” read the neon sign above the door. She shaded her eyes. “Eleven to midnight,” announced a paper sign in the window. Someone had scrawled “Help wanted” beside the hours.

  She checked her watch and reached for the doorknob.

  “Hello?” The word echoed in the space and fell away. To her right, a long bar stretched halfway across the room, ending at a curved doorway. Beyond the arch of the doorway opened another, larger room, draped in shadows. Chairs sat upside down on tabletops, skeletons in the darkness. At the far end of the restaurant she spied a thin strip of yellow underneath yet another door.

  “Hello?” she called again and took a few more steps inside. This time the door in the dining room swung open, and a thin figure emerged.

  “We’re not open yet.” A male voice, hoarse and curt, broke the stillness.

  “Oh.” She looked at her watch again. “I thought you opened at eleven.”

  The man walked toward her. Narrow-faced, with a chapped nose and black eyes, he peered at Ash and coughed. A navy blue apron was tied over wrinkled khaki pants and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Yellow teeth crowded into a crooked row behind thin lips. Ash’s stomach crawled into her throat, and she took a step backwards.

  This was a mistake. Definitely a mistake. She wasn’t cut out for a job in a place like this, a pampered girl from Boston’s west side, and she knew it. Who was she kidding? She’d call home this afternoon and ask for money, deal with her parents’ anger and disappointment somehow.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll come back later.”

  “No, wait,” he said, and this time his voice was kinder. “You here for the job?”

  She hesitated.

  “Listen, you got any experience at all, you’re hired. Hell, you don’t got any experience, I’ll probably hire you. Got no luck finding help in the summer when the college kids go home.” He untied his apron and tossed it onto the bar. “So?” He pulled himself onto a barstool, lit a cigarette and waited.

  Ash took one more look around and swallowed what little pride still hid in her heart. “Yes, I’m here about the job.” She hoped he wouldn’t try to shake her hand in hello. She could only imagine where his had been. Thankfully, he only nodded and blew a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling.

  “Great. You ever work in a restaurant before?”

  “Sort of. I worked behind the counter at a coffee shop for a couple of years.”

  The man took a long draw on his cigarette and considered. “Okay. What’s your name?”

  “Ashley Kirtland.” It became a little easier, every day, to say the made-up name. “Ash.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask her for a reference. She could only ask Jen to lie for her so many times this week.

  “Marty Evers. You want the job, come back at five tonight. I got another sorta-new girl, been here about two months. She’ll show you the ropes.” He sucked at the cigarette until it was a reddened stump between his fingers. “You available full time?”

  Ash hadn’t thought about that. Did she really want to spend forty hours a week in this place? “Days or nights?”

  “Some of both. Course, you make more money at night. Tips ain’t so good during the day.”

  “That’s okay. Yeah, I’m available full time.” What the hell. It would keep her mind off the messiness of the rest of her life.

  “Good.” Marty grabbed his apron and retreated back toward the kitchen. “Five o’clock,” he repeated.

  “Five o’clock,” Ash agreed. She ran one finger along the dark wood of the bar. She needed a job. She needed to pay rent without asking her father for help or dipping into her trust fund. What difference did it make where she worked? It was only for a couple of months, anyway.

  Your parents are going to kill you. Jen’s words, as clear as if her best friend had walked into the bar and stood beside her, echoed inside Ash’s conscience. It was true. A Kirk daughter, hauling trays of food around a seedy jazz club? She’d be the disgrace of the neighborhood if anyone found out back home. Well, maybe not. Her father had been filling that role the last few months. Not sure she could top his fiasco unless she started working the red light district.

  Ash shook her head. That thought hurt, so she stopped it. Instead, she stepped into the sunshine and let the day cheer her.

  ***

  A stop at Lou’s for pasta salad and tomato soup, and Ash returned home. Home. The word sounded funny inside her head. She stood in the middle of her living room and looked around. Last night, after Eddie left, she’d laid out her faded but beloved Oriental rug and hung two Monet prints on the wall above the couch. Already the place looked better. Warmer. Another throw rug in the hallway, and it might actually feel like her own space.

  She ventured into the kitchen and gazed out the window. Should she? The roof beckoned her, sun-dappled and secret. Jen had been right. The bird’s eye porch was the best part of the apartment. Out there, she could escape. She could think. She could watch the world from above without it staring back at her. Ash grabbed a napkin along with her lunch and hauled herself across the sill.

  The day was quiet, breathless in the heat. She watched the street for a while as she chewed, but nothing moved. Even Helen remained inside. Content for the first time in what seemed like forever, she allowed herself to relax.

  God, she’d fallen apart when the news about her father broke. He’d tried to claim a set-up, a political framing, but how did you argue with the facts? A gram of cocaine in the glove box of his private Benz. A point-oh-nine on the breathalyzer test. Worst of all, a nineteen-year-old prostitute in the seat beside him, made up to look twenty-five but playing the lost little girl as soon as the first news camera appeared.

  Her mother had defended him, as always. Ash finished her lunch and crumpled her napkin into a tiny ball. The space in the center of her chest ached. Was that what it meant to be a politician’s wife? Smiling for the camera and denying any wrongdoing? Ash had no intention of letting that happen to her. Ever. She’d be the politician, but never the passive wife, never standing at home while her husband ran around behind her back.

  Hell, now she didn’t even want to be a politician. She’d spent her entire life watching how everyone, the people of Massachusetts, and the reporters themselves, had at first loved her father and then lambasted him. They worshipped him, put him into office with the biggest major
ity the state had seen in fifty years. And then they were the first ones to parade his mug shot across every television channel and newspaper in the city the moment he slipped up. Did she want a life like that for herself? No way.

  Ash made her way back into the kitchen. She couldn’t think about it anymore. The sorrow and frustration would give her a migraine and land her in bed for two days. With a couple of hours until she had to return to Blues and Booze, maybe she’d attack the mold growing behind her toilet. That chore might be disgusting enough to take her mind off all the problems back home.

  Someone knocked on her door, and Ash froze. Oh, God. They found me. The media followed me to Paradise and now they want a statement. With a hearing scheduled for later this summer, the story would be building again, after the relative calm of the last few weeks. She eyed the door. She’d thought New Hampshire was far enough away, but who knew what those vultures were capable of? They’d camped outside her apartment in Cambridge until Colin called the police. Of course, that was when he’d still lived there. When he still cared. She hugged her elbows. All she wanted was to be left alone. Was that too much to ask?

  She tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole. Eddie. Thank God. She pulled open the door in relief.

  “Hi.”

  Today her downstairs neighbor wore jeans and a faded red T-shirt with the words “Frank’s Imports” across the pocket. His feet were bare. He lifted the edge of his shirt to wipe his forehead, and Ash caught a glimpse of a six-pack hiding underneath. Damn, he looked good. Even preoccupied with thoughts of her father, she couldn’t deny that.

  “Hi yourself. Everything okay?”

  “Fine. Come on in.”

  “Thanks.” A wide smile brightened his eyes, revealing a dimple.

  God, he’s even better-looking when he really smiles.

  “How’s the job search going?” He pointed to the paper, lying on the floor beside the loveseat.

  “Ah, I found one.” A vision of the darkened Blues and Booze flew into her mind, and Ash grimaced.

  “Yeah? But that’s not a good face.”

  “No, it’s okay.” She willed away the image of the manager's yellow teeth. “It’s waiting tables in a restaurant downtown. Blues and Booze. You know it?”

  “Sure. Great little place.”

  “Really?” She leaned in the kitchen doorway. “Seemed a little...I don’t know. Strange.”

  He chuckled. “You probably talked to Marty, the manager.”

  She nodded.

  “Marty’s dad left him that place ‘cause no one else in the family wanted it. He’s got a sister who works in real estate down in Boston, and a brother out in California. Marty just made it through high school and didn’t have the gumption to do much of anything. Actually, he’s done all right for himself. That place always does a good business. Decent clientele. Any place on Main Street is safe enough, anyway. You don't need to worry about that.”

  Ash listened to him talk. She liked the way his mouth moved and the way his strong fingers rubbed a soft spot under his chin. “That makes me feel about a hundred times better. Thanks.”

  “When do you start?”

  “Tonight. Five o’clock.” A thought, brave enough to scare her, came from nowhere. “You should stop by.”

  He smiled but shook his head. “I’d like to, but I have to work the odd shift at the garage tonight. Three to ten. Frank stays open late one night a week.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get going. Just wanted to see how you made out.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “But let me know how it goes. I'll stop by another time. Promise.”

  She nodded. “Sure. Have fun at work.”

  “Fun? Don’t know about that.” For a moment he stood in the doorway, and though neither one spoke, something bounced between them. Eyes met, then dropped, and Ash felt an orchestra of butterflies begin a symphony in her stomach. Eddie winked and headed out the door.

  Ash sank to the floor and leaned against the loveseat. What was going on here? Somehow in the last twenty-four hours, Eddie West had slid into her life, smooth and easy as water winding its way down rocks on a lazy spring afternoon. She tried to decipher it, to understand the feeling of familiarity that emerged when they were together. It wasn’t just attraction, though some of that hung over them too. It was almost as though they’d known each other a long time ago and were now trying to make up for all the years they’d been apart. She’d never sensed anything like it, and she wasn’t sure how it made her feel.

  She scratched her nose and wondered if it were possible to have a soul mate.

  Chapter Five

  A little after six the following night, Eddie eased his truck into an open spot on Main Street. He didn’t bother to lock the doors. In Paradise, the last time anyone had something stolen in the daylight hours had been more than ten years ago. He ambled across the street to Blues and Booze. It had been a slow day at work, though he hadn’t really minded. Some days he liked losing himself in the diagnostics, like figuring out why someone’s alternator didn’t work or why the idiot light on the panel kept blinking on and off.

  But today, he’d appreciated the few oil changes and timing belts he’d had to take care of. Simple stuff. Nothing too complex. Because even though he’d done his best to concentrate, his mind kept going back to her. To Ash and to the few hours they spent having dinner the night before last.

  Eddie pulled open the restaurant door and let his eyes adjust to the dimness for a moment before looking around. He’d been in here a few times as a teenager, maybe once or twice in the last couple of years. It used to be one of the only places in town you could drink without showing an ID. Not since Marty had taken over, though. Though not too bright in the business department, that guy only let himself get caught once for serving minors. Today the place catered more to the thirty-something and up crowd, though on any given day, schoolteachers, cabdrivers, and retired highway workers sat together at the bar watching a ball game.

  “Jesus, that pitcher stinks,” one of them said as he walked in. Eddie recognized Harold Triumph, former owner of Triumph Dry Cleaners, and pulled up a stool beside him.

  “Draft, tall one,” he said to the bartender.

  “Hey! Eddie West!” The bartender grinned as he pulled on the tap. “Nick Scoles. Few years ahead of you back at Paradise High.”

  Eddie dropped a five on the bar. “Sure. How’s it going?”

  “Not bad. Got a couple-a new girls working here, so I’m enjoying the view.”

  A sharp sting of jealousy stiffened Eddie’s spine. “I know. One of ‘em’s my housemate.”

  Nick started washing glasses. “Yeah? Which one?”

  “Ash.”

  Nick nodded. “She’s cute.”

  “Yeah she is.” Eddie paused. “How’s she doing, anyway?”

  “Learning the ropes, I guess. Today’s only her second day, so she hasn’t screwed up too bad.” He grinned around the toothpick in his mouth.

  Eddie glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the dining room. Low-hanging lights cast shadows and made it hard for him to make out much of anything. A few tables were occupied, and a few more were covered with dishes and crumpled-up napkins. Near the door that led into the kitchen, two figures stood, filling water glasses and talking.

  “Bathroom still in the same place?” Eddie asked.

  Nick jerked one thumb toward the dining room. “All the way in the back.”

  Eddie ran one hand over his damp hair, smoothing it down. He was glad he’d stopped at the house to take a quick shower after finishing up at Frank’s. He didn’t want Ash to think he walked around smelling like diesel fumes all day. He headed into the dining room, taking his time. He passed one table with a young family he didn’t recognize and another with a single man bent over a laptop, and slowed at a third when he recognized the two women having cocktails.

  “Hey, Simra.”

  The bleach-blonde with the heavy eye makeup looked up. “Eddie?” S
he practically leapt out of her chair, dragging her napkin and menu with her. Flinging her arms around his neck, she leaned in for the squeeze.

  Heavy perfume nearly choked him, and he pulled back after a minute. Probably should’ve skipped the hello. “How’ve you been?”

  She leaned against the table, posing the way she used to back in high school. One hand on a hip and chin cocked up at him. Trouble was, her hair had grayed and her hips had broadened quite a bit in the last ten years, and the pose looked less come-hither and more tired-single-mother-aching-back. He wondered how many kids Simra was up to by now.

  “How’s Carl?”

  She made a face. “Please. The loser left me last winter for a waitress over at the truck stop. Surprised you didn’t hear about it.”

  Eddie was surprised too. News like that usually traveled through Paradise pretty quickly. Still, he’d been so wrapped up inside his own head the last few years that a train might have derailed and gone careening down Main Street without his noticing.

  “Sorry to hear that.” He cut a glance toward the kitchen door, where he thought he’d seen Ash a few minutes earlier.

  “Oh, don’t be.” Simra reached over and tugged at Eddie’s shirt. “That means you still have a chance.”

  His cheeks heated up. He’d gone on exactly one date with Simra Hall, five or six years ago, and the way she’d thrown herself at him in the back of his Camaro had turned him off fast. “I like women, but not when they don’t let you do any of the catching,” he told his buddies later on. “Shooting fish in a barrel isn’t my style.”

  “This is Denise Reynolds. Lives over in Silver Creek.” Simra turned to her friend, a redhead with graying roots, who gave Eddie a shy smile.

  “Hi.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Eddie nodded. “Listen, I’ll catch up with you later. Nice seeing you.”

  “You, too.” Simra leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek before he could react. “Call me sometime. I’m staying with my parents over by the trailer park.”