Summer on Main Street

by Crista McHugh

  What the hell is going on down there?

  Now it sounded like he was running in circles around his apartment. Is he working out? Doing laps instead of going to the gym? Ash made her way to the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. She knew the guy kept himself in shape, but in his own apartment? On a Sunday morning?

  His date. He’s with his date from last night, that woman from Silver Creek. Cheri something. Ash’s cheeks warmed. Of course. They were probably playing some kind of silly morning-after game, running half naked around his apartment while she winked and squealed and played hard to get. Before Ash could stop herself, the vision slipped inside her mind’s eye: Eddie, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, catching the girl with those strong hands. Pulling her close and rubbing gentle thumbs along bare shoulders before leaning in for a kiss. A long kiss. A kiss that began in the hallway and ended somewhere in a tangle of sheets.

  Ash pinched the skin on one arm to make herself stop. Don’t think about Eddie that way. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and poured herself a steaming mug of coffee. She doused it with cream and took a long sip, not caring that it burned her tongue. You’re just friends, remember? Just neighbors, two people who share a house. It doesn’t matter who he spend his nights with. Or his mornings.

  So why did the thought make her so damned uncomfortable?

  Another crash. Ash jumped in her chair. Damn. So the guy had company last night. He didn't have to rub it in. She finished her coffee and shoved the mug away. Well, she might as well shower and find something to do with her day. No use sitting here, listening to Mr. Hotshot Lover chase his latest conquest around the bed.

  She wrapped her robe around her and was heading into the bathroom when a knock landed on her door.

  “Ash?”

  She froze. You’ve got to be kidding me. What, did her want her to play referee?

  He knocked again, louder and longer. “Ash? You in there?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake. She was in no mood. She marched to the door and yanked it open. “What do you want?”

  Eddie stood in the hallway, a hangdog look on his face. By himself. Ash peered over his shoulder. No model-thin woman hovered behind him. No scent of leftover perfume hung in the air, either. Ash narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Eddie raked his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. Barefoot, he wore a pair of frayed sweats, cut off at the knees, and an old Patriots jersey with the sleeves torn off. A fuzz of pillowcase was stuck to his chin, and Ash had to pin her arms to her sides to keep from reaching up to brush it away.

  “Can you help me?”

  “With what? Sounds like you’re starting up a circus down there.”

  “No, it’s…” He glanced over his shoulder, and worry wrinkled his face. When he looked back at her again, she thought she might fall right inside those eyes, those pools of blue, and not come up for a week.

  “I found a kitten.” He ducked his chin. “Outside.”

  “A what?”

  “A kitten. A really small one. It was hanging around last night, and then when I went out to get the paper this morning it was still there, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. Soaking wet.”

  “So you brought it inside?” Ash began to smile. Not a woman after all down there. Just a scared fluff of fur that her strapping, six-foot neighbor had decided to bring in out of the storm. Oh, hell. She was already halfway to falling for this guy. Now he had to turn into a total softy on her?

  Eddie shrugged. “Well, it was sort of…limping around. And crying. And I thought if I left it out there I’d be about the worst person in the entire world, so…”

  Ash took one step into the hallway. “And now you can’t catch it.”

  “Yeah. Thought I’d keep it in the bathroom, but it got out.”

  “Come on.” She pushed past Eddie and made her way down the stairs barefoot. She was standing in front of his door before she considered if she should have changed into something more substantial than a cotton robe that barely came to her knees.

  “I think he’s under the chair,” Eddie said. As they walked inside, he pointed to a leather recliner in the corner.

  Ash tiptoed over and kneeled down, wondering if the breeze on the backs of her thighs meant her robe wasn’t covering much. She readjusted. “I don't see anything.”

  “Well…” Eddie turned in a slow circle. “I closed the door. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

  Ash pushed herself back up and leaned over a blue corduroy sofa with its tags still attached. A dust ball danced across the hardwood, but no cat. She looked under the end table, and behind Eddie’s entertainment center, which took up half the living room with its enormous television.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe in the bedroom?” She felt funny looking in there.

  “Maybe.” Eddie strode past her down the hall. He whistled under his breath, a meek little coaxing tune that made her smile.

  Ash hung back and watched as he looked in the corners of his sparsely furnished bedroom. This place could definitely use a woman’s touch. Someone had hung navy blue curtains on the windows, but otherwise the walls remained bare. A desk and matching chair were the only other pieces of furniture she could see, besides the box spring and mattress lying on the floor. A queen size, she noticed, not too big and not too narrow. Really, just the perfect size for two people to curl up in.

  “Ash?” Eddie waved a hand in front of her face. “You still there? Thought you were gonna help me look.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She glanced around at a faint meow. Eddie cocked his head. The meow came again. “Bathroom.” In an instant, he had darted past Ash, and a moment later he emerged holding a soggy ball of black and white. “Got him.”

  “Wow. It is small.”

  A rumble started up in the kitten's throat.

  “I told you.” Eddie peered down at it.

  Ash took hold of one of the kitten’s legs and pushed aside damp fur. “There's a cut here. A bad one. No wonder it’s limping.” She lifted a towel off the rack inside the bathroom door and wrapped it around the animal. “Here.” In a moment she had clutched it to her chest, nuzzling it and blotting off the worst of the water. “Might want to get it to a vet. Know anyone who’s open on Sundays?”

  “Maybe.” Eddie loped off into the kitchen and re-emerged a moment later, cell phone in hand.

  Ash returned to the living room and sat on the couch, kitten in her lap. Bright green eyes looked up at her, and a weak mew escaped its pink mouth. A tiny paw batted at the finger she reached out to it. She grinned. The only pet she and Colin ever had was Buster, the oversized goldfish. She used to watch him swim circles in his stupid glass bowl and wish for just a day that her boyfriend wasn’t deathly allergic to all things furry.

  “Now I don’t have to worry about that, do I?” she murmured into the cat’s head.

  “Ash?” Eddie appeared in the doorway. “Friend of mine in Tompkins Heights’ll take a look at it this afternoon.”

  “Really?” Ash looked up, suddenly aware of the way her robe fell apart at the neck and her bare legs stretched down to the hardwood floor. As she watched, he dropped a glance to her toenails—newly painted red, as of last night in front of the TV—before turning a shade of crimson himself.

  “Anyway, thanks for the help.”

  “No problem.” She paused. “You know, I wasn’t sure what was going on down here. Thought maybe you were still entertaining your date from last night.”

  “Cheri?” He chuckled. “Nah.”

  “Things didn’t work out?”

  “We had a good time. But she wanted to come in, stay a while, and…” He shrugged.

  “You didn’t?”

  “Woman stays the night, things get complicated.”

  Ash nodded, fingers stroking the kitten’s fur as its purr regulated into a steady rhythm. “And you don’t like things to be complicated.”

  “Do you?”

  Ash shook her head. No, she answered silentl
y. They’re complicated enough already.

  Chapter Eight

  “Ash!” Marty stuck his head into the kitchen of Blues and Booze.

  She pulled her tips from her pocket and started to count. “What's up?” It had been a long week, and she couldn’t wait for the night to be over. Thank God the clock read ten minutes to twelve.

  “Some guy out here says he knows you.” The manager wheezed. One arm snaked up to scratch an itch between his shoulder blades. He peered into the coffee pot, pulled some brown strands of lettuce from the salad bin, and straightened the cocktail napkins.

  Ash’s shoulders hunched up, and she didn’t answer for a minute. The media? No. Not at almost midnight. But she knew better than anyone that the paparazzi didn't watch the clock.

  “You hear me?”

  “I heard you. Who is he?”

  “Dunno. He’s got a couple of tattoos. Says his name’s Eddie something.”

  Coins slipped through her fingers like water. “Oh. Yeah, he knows me. Tell him I’ll be right out.” She bent to retrieve quarters from the sticky floor and waited for Marty to leave.She’d only seen Eddie twice in passing, the last couple of days. Both times he’d paused, placed a hand on her shoulder, and smiled down at her like there was nowhere else he wanted to be. The gesture made her uncomfortable as hell. It made her look forward to walking down the stairs each morning. It made her wonder who had taken over her body and replaced her with a woman who grew warm and slippery every time she saw this guy. A guy she barely knew.

  Watch it, Ash, she warned herself for the tenth time since moving to Paradise. Falling for this guy is trouble. Wrapping her apron into a ball, she admitted that as much as she wanted to avoid complications, she was still glad Eddie had come to see her tonight. She wanted to ask him how the kitten was making out. She wanted to tell him about the idiot who’d grabbed at her earlier and laugh with him about the woman who’d sent her meal back three times before ordering something else altogether. Mostly, Ash wanted Eddie to drop an arm across her shoulders or rub a hand across the top of her head and tell her she was doing okay.

  He sat alone in the bar, on the stool closest to the door. An empty beer mug stood in front of him, with a few crumpled dollar bills beside it. Ash paused for a minute in the dining room and peered through the chair legs, now perched upside down on their tables.

  J.T., one of the night bartenders, leaned on his elbows and told a joke out of one side of his mouth. Ash watched Eddie listen, watched the scars in his cheek dip and crease when he laughed, and she wondered again where the scars had come from, and why he hadn’t erased them. The one along his jawline, especially, cut so deep that surely plastic surgery could have softened it. Had he tried it? Had the surgery failed? She wiped her palms on her shorts. She knew nothing about Eddie and his scars, not really. Maybe he’d been born with them. Maybe they reminded him of something he didn’t want to forget. Maybe he didn’t want softening.

  She crossed the floor and snuck up beside him. “Hi there.”

  Eddie smiled and gave her a soft punch on the arm. “Hi, yourself. Done for the night?”

  “Yeah. Finally.”

  “You getting used to it?”

  “I guess. Honestly, it’s harder than I thought.” That, at least, was true. Ash had no idea her feet could ache so, or that her legs could turn wobbly after a night of running trays back and forth. In just a couple of weeks, she’d discovered a newfound appreciation for the people who did it day in and out, year after year. She knew she could never be one of them, dependent upon tips to pay a mortgage, cover car insurance, or put food on the table.

  J.T. flipped on the television as he wiped down the bar. Ash tensed. Not the news, please. She eyed the clock. Just about midnight. Good. Maybe the highlights would be through. She didn’t need any news from Boston discussing the senator’s latest statement or the opposing attorney’s trial preparations. She fidgeted on the stool beside Eddie and sipped a glass of water.

  “I should get going,” she said. She watched the screen and prayed no political report would appear. “I’m beat.”

  “You drive tonight?” Eddie didn’t look at her, just asked the question sideways as he watched a preview for some new reality show.

  “Um, yeah.” She always drove when she worked the night shift. Didn’t matter that everyone she’d met told her she could walk down Main Street at two in the morning and not see a soul. City habits didn’t die that quickly. She’d keep on driving herself, for a while anyway. Until Paradise seeped into her veins a little more.

  “Okay if I catch a ride back with you?” he asked. “I walked.”

  This time he did turn toward her, and his gaze landed on her with such intensity that she felt as though he’d burned right through the fabric of her shirt.

  “Ah, sure.” Stop doing that to me. Stop setting me on fire every time I get too close to you. “How’s the cat?” she asked, to change the subject.

  “Better. Vet gave it some antibiotics.”

  “You keeping it?”

  He shrugged. “Haven't decided yet.”

  J.T. adjusted the volume, turning it up as the final highlights from the eleven o’clock news flashed across the screen.

  “Tomorrow at six,” the chipper blonde anchor announced, “tune in for the latest chapter in the Senator Kirk arrest.”

  Ash’s throat closed.

  “We’ll hear from the woman who used to work as the Kirks’ personal housekeeper, as well as tell you what’s in store for this sullied senator from Boston…”

  Ash set her glass down on the bar, too hard. A crack splintered all the way up one side.

  J.T. frowned. “Geez, take it easy. You okay?”

  “Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention, I guess.”

  He swept it into the trash. “No biggie. It happens.”

  Ash buried her hands between her legs so Eddie wouldn’t see them tremble.

  “Can you believe that guy?” he said, still staring at the TV. “You’d think we could find one honest politician somewhere in the whole damn country. But no. Even the ones who come across as Mr. Family Man, who tell us they’re gonna change things for the better—”

  “Yep,” J.T. agreed, cutting him off. “Even they wind up bein’ like all the rest. Making decisions from between their legs. Kirk’s no better. Another John fuckin’ Kennedy.” He pulled on the tap and poured Eddie another beer.

  Ash cleared her throat. “You know, some people say maybe he’s innocent. That he was set up by someone who didn’t want him to get the vice-presidential nomination.”

  Eddie chuckled. “Yeah, sure. They’re all innocent. Like JFK. And Jefferson, sleeping with his slaves.”

  “Don’t forget Bill Clinton,” J.T. added.

  Eddie laughed out loud. “Oh, yeah. Especially Clinton. He was the most innocent of all. He and Kirk are probably buddies. Probably sit around over stogies and talk about the best blow jobs they ever got.”

  Ash stiffened. “It could be true,” she said. “The setup, I mean.”

  Eddie turned. “Kirk was busted DUI. Caught with coke and a hooker. How the hell does someone set that up?”

  She didn’t know. She’d been asking herself the same question every night since the arrest. But if her father said he was framed, then part of her, the little-girl part that still remembered the way he’d sung her to sleep every night as a child, had to hold out hope.

  “Maybe the Republicans held him down and poured whiskey down his throat,” J.T. offered and snorted as he laughed at his own joke.

  “Yeah, and maybe they forced him into the car at gunpoint with that hot little piece of tail,” Eddie continued. He tipped his head back and took a long drink.

  “Did they ever say whether his zipper was up or down when the cops pulled him over?”

  Ash slid off her stool. “You ready to go?”

  “Hang on. Let me finish my beer.”

  “I’m ready now.”

  Eddie’s jaw twitched. “Can’t you give me
five minutes? What’s wrong with you?”

  She crossed her arms and shifted from foot to foot. “I’m tired, okay? That’s what’s wrong with me. My feet feel like they’re going to fall off, I smell like ketchup, and I’m about sick to death of listening to the two of you rip apart some guy you don’t even know. Half of what the media reports isn’t even true. More than half.”

  She stopped to draw a breath, and silence echoed through the bar. J.T. whistled, long and low. Eddie frowned, and something dark slid across his face.

  “You know, I think I’ll walk after all,” he said after a long minute of staring at her. “Could use some fresh air.” He shoved some bills across the bar, scraped his stool out of the way, and headed for the door. “Thanks, J.T.,” he said. The door slammed shut behind him.

  Ash watched Eddie’s shadow disappear down the block. Well, fine. She hadn’t wanted to drive home with him, anyway. She tried to believe her own lie as she walked to her car in silence a few minutes later. One flickering motion light clicked on as she crossed the back parking lot. Her VW started up with a hesitation, a little cough before catching, and she crossed her fingers that it would turn over.

  Probably should get it looked at. She dropped her forehead onto the steering wheel. But where? By who? The only repair shop she knew of in Paradise was the place Eddie worked, and now she couldn’t take it there. Suddenly, she felt lonelier than the day Colin had left her.

  Ash sighed. She hadn’t meant to say those things, hadn’t meant to lose her temper. She just couldn’t help it sometimes. Not for the first time, she thought she’d probably make a lousy courtroom lawyer. Holding her tongue wasn’t her strong suit. She bumped her way out of the parking lot and turned onto Spruce Street, taking the long way home.

  She was better off anyway, keeping her distance from Eddie. Keeping her distance from all of them. She didn’t need to listen to him or anyone else say things like that about her father. Randolph Kirk had screwed up, but he was still Ash’s blood. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as she passed the silent town square and eased through the intersection in the center of town. A lonely yellow eye blinked down at her.